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PROPERTY OD
The
University of
Michigan
Libraries
༨༡
1817
ARTES SCIENTIA
VERITAT
PUBLIC WELFARE
ADMINISTRATION IN
THE UNITED STATES
SELECT DOCUMENTS
By
SOPHONISBA P. BRECKINRIDGE
Professor of Social Economy in the
University of Chicago
Vita
exco
Latur
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO PRESS
CHICAGO, ILLINOIS
Social Work
Library
HV
95
.883
+
COPYRIGHT 1927 BY
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
All Rights Reserved
Published May 1927
Composed and Printed By
The University of Chicago Press
Chicago, Illinois, U.S.A.
Sociday
Wall C
31-27
16099
THE UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO SOCIAL
SERVICE SERIES
PREFATORY NOTE
The present volume is one of a series of source books in the social
service field. The series has been planned primarily to provide ade-
quate scientific material heretofore not available for the use of stu-
dents in the Graduate School of Social Service Administration of the
University of Chicago and other institutions of the same kind. In a
report on the work of such schools (James H. Tufts, Education and
Training for Social Work, 1923), attention was called to the "general
complaint of the lack of sufficient source material in form which is
most desirable for critical teaching and which can be placed in the
hands of all students." The report went farther and expressed confi-
dence that ultimately the schools themselves would meet this need,
and added: "Publication of such material is an illustration of what
has been previously referred to as one of the two great functions of the
professional school, namely, raising the standard of the profession
through research and publication."
This volume, with those that have preceded it and the others that
are nearing completion and are to follow it, represents an attempt on
the part of the members of the Faculty of one of these schools to help
to meet this need. It is believed, however, that the different volumes.
in the series will be useful, not only to those interested in social service,
but to those whose interests lie in other departments of the wide field
of the social sciences.
vii
PREFACE
The documents in this volume have been collected in an attempt to
set out and to illustrate the problems presenting themselves in con-
nection with the undertaking on the part of the community to secure
through public organization certain services now generally character-
ized as welfare or social services. The custody, care, and treatment of
individuals and groups of individuals who labor under some special
disadvantage, in whose behalf recognized principles of relief have been
developed, and for whose benefit continuous and comprehensive pro-
vision should be made, are to a greater or less degree embodied in the
governmental organization of all civilized states. It is generally recog-
nized that these services present peculiar difficulties, largely because
they are put forth in behalf of individuals unfit to assert themselves and
to secure a quality of service equal to that maintained in the great
mass of governmental activities.
One reason for this difference between these social and other public
services is that in addition to the principles of efficient economical ad-
ministration that should characterize all public organization, in the
case of each of these groups there is a body of professional practice to be
acquired and applied. At the same time that this is true, it must also
be recognized that the nature of the service-institutional care; relief
in the home; care and treatment of children, of the aged, and of the
mentally deficient-offers a great number and variety of opportunities
for dishonest and corrupt practices. These questions are then difficult
as well as important under all systems of government; in the United
States there is the additional difficulty resulting from the assignment to
the states rather than to the federal government of responsibility for
these services.
Brief reference should be made to the subject of terminology. The
term "public welfare" is a relatively modern term in the vocabulary
of the student or worker in this field. It was first used to describe a
department of state government, when, in 1917, the Illinois Civil Ad-
ministrative Code was adopted. Since that time thirteen states have
more or less departmentalized their state governments, and most of
them have applied the name "public welfare" to the department deal-
ix
X
PREFACE
ing with some or all of the aspects of service included in the department
bearing that name in the Illinois scheme.
In the period before 1917 the term "charities and correction" was
commonly in use, and the services generally designated by those words
were the relief of the destitute; the care and treatment of the mentally
defective and insane; the education and care of the physically handi-
capped, that is, the blind, deaf, and crippled; the treatment of the sick
poor; the care of dependent and delinquent children; and certain di-
visions of law enforcement, especially the penal and correctional sys-
tem.
In collecting the documents, an attempt has been made to set out
the general course of development so far as it can be observed; the
principles of treatment that should be applied; and the difficulties and
special problems that retard progress. It will be noted that the docu-
ments are almost exclusively (1) reports of legislative committees or of
special commissions of investigation, pointing out the kind and volume
of the need for which provision is to be made; (2) statutes by which the
establishment of a public-welfare agency is authorized; (3) reports of
the authorities set up under such statutes; and (4) discussions in na-
tional conferences or similar gatherings evaluating these agencies and
proposing their development or alteration.
With reference to the scope of the volume, it should be explained
that limited space is given to problems of public provision for child
care, because the public organization for child welfare constitutes now
so important an aspect of governmental activity as to require a volume
devoted entirely to that subject. Such a volume is in preparation, and
it is hoped will follow shortly after this one. In the meantime, the
documents given here, it is believed, will enable the interested student
to attack that problem for himself. Through the publications of the
United States Children's Bureau and of certain state departments,
that field is made more easily accessible than any of the other divisions
of the subject. It is because of the relative accessibility of the material
bearing on the problems of public child care and because they must be
regarded as special aspects of the larger public-welfare organization
that it has seemed best to put out this other more general collection
of material first.
A brief word may also be said with reference to the method of
presentation. The documents are given in illustration of a principle of
rather elementary character and can generally speak for themselves.
However, in order sometimes to supply a summary view of the situa-
PREFACE
xi
tion so that the student may judge of the extent to which the situation
set out in the document is widely representative, on the one hand, or
peculiar and exceptional, on the other, certain facts, summaries of
legislation, or other supplementary material are supplied in the notes.
The question may also be asked, Why compile a volume of docu-
ments instead of preparing a treatise on the subject of public welfare
in the United States? A study of the intricacies and difficulties il-
lustrated by the following documents, and these can serve only as
an introduction to the field, will convince the reader that there is an
enormous volume of work to be done before a really comprehensive
treatise can be prepared. The development in the various states is alike
in many respects, because the modern community everywhere finds
itself confronted with these problems of distress; all situations are alike
in some respects; no two are alike, however, in all respects; and these
diversities constitute the interest and the difficulty of the narrative. A
further reason for publishing these documents is the hope that they may
arouse interest and lead to wider study of this phase of governmental
organization and to the increased use of governmental agencies and
authorities to provide for the relief of distress and to develop such pre-
ventive action as will reduce distress to a minimum.
Something should be said with reference to the methods of class-
room instruction applicable to such documents as these. It is obvi-
ously not possible to use this volume without other "supporting"
literature. A certain familiarity with our governmental organization
must be assumed, and in addition to that, some historical material
should also be supplied; it is believed that the references in the foot-
notes give adequate suggestion on this point. Access to the Census
and to the reports of state charitable authorities is of course highly
desirable; and as many of these public documents can be secured
on request, often without charge, it is possible to provide such supple-
mentary facts as give to the documents a comprehensive character. It
is also hoped that through the cross-references and the Index the doc-
uments may be related to one another and their use facilitated. What
will be extracted from the documents will, however, naturally relate
itself closely to what of political theory, economic interpretation, and
social sympathy and understanding is put into their study.
These materials have been used now for the past five years in
mimeographed form with small classes of graduate students in the
Graduate School of Social Service Administration of the University of
Chicago, and have seemed to serve reasonably well as a useful intro-
xii
PREFACE
duction to one important group of problems confronting the profes-
sional social worker in the United States at the present time. The or-
ganization of the state's attorney's office, the general machinery of
bringing the accused person to trial, the probation services, are treated
as part of the judicial organization and will be dealt with in another
volume on Social Work and the Courts.
In conclusion, I wish to express my renewed indebtedness to Miss
Maud E. Lavery, research assistant in the Graduate School of Social
Service Administration, for invaluable help in assembling these docu-
ments and preparing them for publication, for proofreading, and for
preparation of the Index. I am also under obligation for clerical assist-
ance to the Local Community Research Committee of the University
of Chicago. Finally, it is a pleasure again to acknowledge the generous
gift of Mr. Julius Rosenwald toward the publication of the "Social
Service Series," without which the publication of the present volume
would not have been possible.
SOPHONISBA P. BRECKINRIDGE
UNIVERSITY OF CHICAGO
March 15, 1927
INTRODUCTION
TABLE OF CONTENTS
PART ONE: PRIOR TO 1863
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
SECTION I. The LOCAL CHARACTER OF EARLY WELFARE ORGANIZA-
TIONS AND OF LAW-ENFORCING AGENCIES
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. The Poor Law before and after 1601. Royal Commission on
the Poor Laws, 1909
2. Josiah Quincy Report of 1821 on the Pauper Laws of Massa-
chusetts. Massachusetts General Court
3. The Relief and Settlement of the Poor. New York Legislature,
1824.
4. The Legacy of the Poor Law, 1870. Theodore W. Dwight
5. The Creation of a City Department. Laws of New York, 1849
6. A Charge to a Grand Jury, 1822. Josiah Quincy
7. The Regulation of Houses of Correction and Jails. Laws of
Massachusetts, 1834
•
8. The Department of Public Charities and Correction of New
York City. Laws of New York, 1860
SECTION II. THE ESTABLISHMENT OF STATE INSTITUTIONS
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. The "Province Poor." Acts of the Province of Massachusetts
Bay, 1767
2. A Colonial Institution for the Insane. Laws of Virginia, 1769
3. The Philadelphia Jail as a Convict Prison. Laws of Pennsyl-
vania, 1790.
4. The Reform of the Criminal Law in Kentucky. Statute Law
of Kentucky, 1798 .
5. The Kentucky Institution for the Deaf and Dumb. Acts of
Kentucky
A. "An Act to Endow an Asylum for the Tuition of the Deaf
and Dumb," 1822 .
B. "An Act to Increase the Allowance to Indigent Pupils,"
1824.
•
I
13
16
18
30
39
54
55
57
60
62
68
71
73
76
90
98
100
xiii
xiv
TABLE OF CONTENTS
6. The Kentucky Lunatic Asylum. Acts of Kentucky
A. "An Act to Establish a Lunatic Asylum," 1822
B. Supplementary Act, 1822 .
C. "An Act to Carry into Operation the Lunatic Asylum,
1824.
7. The Deaf and Dumb Children of Massachusetts. Governor's
Message, 1829
8. The Massachusetts State Prison. Governor's Message, 1831
9. Early Prison Reform in Massachusetts. Governor's Message,
1832.
10. The Massachusetts Hospital for the Insane. Laws of Massa-
chusetts, 1834
•
""
•
II. The First Public Institution for Delinquent Boys, Massa-
chusetts. Acts and Resolves of Massachusetts
A. Resolves for the Erection of a State Manual Labor
School, 1846
B. Resolves for Erecting the State Reform School Buildings,
1847.
C. "An Act to Establish the State Reform School," 1847
12. Supervision of State Prisons in New York, 1847. Laws of New
York ..
13. A General View of Massachusetts Public Charities, 1850.
Massachusetts Senate Documents, 1850
·
•
14. Alien Passengers in Massachusetts. Acts of Massachusetts,
1851.
15. The State Poor in Massachusetts and Their Care. Acts of
Massachusetts, 1852
16. An Inquiry as to Possible Public Economies. Massachusetts
Senate Documents, 1858
17. The Lack of a Supervisory Authority. Massachusetts Senate
Documents, 1859
18. A General View of the Charitable Organization in New York,
1857. Select Senate Committee, New York State
SECTION III. EARLY FEDERAL AID AND DOROTHEA DIX'S EFFORT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. Federal Aid for the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and
Dumb. Annals of Congress
A. February 22, 1819.
B. March 1, 1819 .
2. The New York Deaf and Dumb Asylum, January 7, 1820.
Annals of Congress
3. The Kentucky Deaf and Dumb Asylum
A. May 4, 1824. Annals of Congress
•
IOI
102
103
104
105
107
IIO
113
113
114
119
123
129
131
134
142
149
170
172
173
174
184
TABLE OF CONTENTS
XV
B. March 10, 1826. Congressional Debates
C. March 11, 1826. Congressional Debates
D. March 28, 1826. Congressional Debates
4. Memorial of Dorothea L. Dix. U.S. Senate Miscellaneous
Documents, 1848
5. President Pierce's Veto of Miss Dix's Bill. Congressional Globe
6. The Senate Debate on the Veto. Congressional Globe .
PART TWO: THE PERIOD 1863-1917
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
SECTION I. THE CREATION OF STATE BOARDS OF STATE CHARITIES
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. The Massachusetts Board of State Charities. Acts of Massa-
chusetts, 1863
2. Health, Lunacy, and Charity. Acts of Massachusetts, 1879
3. A Prison Commission. Acts of Massachusetts, 1879
4. Health Separated from Lunacy and Charity. Acts of Massa-
chusetts, 1886
•
·
•
ཟ
•
5. The Ohio Board. General and Local Laws of Ohio, 1867
6. The New York Board of Commissioners of Public Charities.
Laws of New York
A. A Supervisory State Authority, 1867
B. Power Given the Board to Appoint County Boards of
Visitors, 1873
·
7. Illinois Board of Commissioners of Public Charities. Public
Laws of Illinois, 1869 .
8. The North Carolina Board. Public Laws of North Carolina,
1869.
9. The Pennsylvania Board. Laws of Pennsylvania
A. 1869.
B. 1883.
10. The Rhode Island Board. Acts of Rhode Island, 1869
11. The Wisconsin Board. General Laws of Wisconsin, 1871
12. The Michigan Board. General Acts of Michigan, 1871
13. The Kansas Board. Laws of Kansas, 1873 ·
14. The Connecticut Board. Public Acts of Connecticut, 1873
SECTION II. THE SITUATION AS THE NEW BOARDS FOUND IT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. Classification of Massachusetts Charities. Massachusetts
Board of State Charities, January, 1865
2. Organization and Cost of the Board. Massachusetts Board of
State Charities, 1878
•
→
187
192
193
195
221
231
237
245
247
249
252
258
259
261
264
264
268
• 270
273
275
279
285
288
290
292
299
300
xvi
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. The Volume of Work. Massachusetts Board of State Charities,
1866.
4. Principles of Treatment. Massachusetts Board of State Chari-
ties, 1866
5. New York Classification of Charities. New York State Board of
Public Charities, 1868 .
6. Efficiency in Public Charity. New York State Board of Public
Charities, 1868 .
7. Declaration of Principles, National Prison Congress, 1870
8. The Needless Cost of Public Buildings. Theodore W. Dwight,
Journal of Social Science, 1870
9. Review by the Rhode Island Governor. Report on the State
Beneficiaries, 1871.
10. Pauper and Destitute Children. New York State Board of
Charities, 1874 ·
11. Power of the Pennsylvania State Board to Obtain Reports.
Pennsylvania Board of Public Charities, 1870.
12. The Attitude of the Trustees of Institutions to the State
•
1901.
18. The Reformatory Prison for Women. Prison Commissioners of
Massachusetts, 1901
19. The Cost of Care of the Insane. State Charities Aid Association
of New York to the State Commission in Lunacy, 1902
20. Co-operation between the Public Authority and the Private
Organization
A. The Work of the State Charities Aid Association. Con-
ference of Charities, 1875
B. Public Powers Given to the State Charities Aid Associa-
•
302
tion. Laws of New York, 1881
21. Suggestions for Visitors to State Hospitals for the Insane.
State Charities Aid Association of New York to the State Com-
mission in Lunacy, 1906 .
22. The Constitutional Rights of Visitation. The People v. F. Park
Lewis, 1922, N.Y. App. Division Reports
305
309
310
313
319
320
Boards. Conference of Charities, 1878
328
13. Benefits of Centralization. Board of Control of Wisconsin, 1894 335
14. The Kansas Authority. Board of Trustees of the State Chari-
table Institutions of Kansas, 1896.
15. The Organization of Kansas Authority. Board of Trustees of
the State Charitable Institutions of Kansas, 1898
336
16. Orders Issued by the Wisconsin State Board of Control.
Board of Control of Wisconsin, 1900 .
338
17. The State Prison. Prison Commissioners of Massachusetts,
324
327
339
347
349
350
354
358
359
362
TABLE OF CONTENTS
xvii
SECTION III. THE MOVEMENT FROM "SUPERVISION" TO "CONTROL"
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
365
1. The Proper Functions of Boards of State Charities. George I.
Chace, National Conference of Charities, 1882
2. State Boards Tend to Become Administrative. F. B. San-
born, National Conference of Charities, 1887
3. State Control and Supervision. F. H. Wines, National Con-
ference of Charities, 1902
4. State Supervision and Administration of Charities and Cor-
rection. George F. Canfield, National Conference of Charities,
1903.
5. Reasons Which Favor a State Board of Control. A. W. Clark,
National Conference of Charities, 1904
6. Centralization and the Use of the Expert. Mary Vida Clark,
•
•
New York State Conference of Charities, 1907
7. The Illinois Board Suggests Its Own Abolition. Illinois Board
of Public Charities
A. 1900.
tion Commission
C. The Work of a State Board. New York State Board of
Charities, 1919 .
SECTION IV. SPECIAL PROBLEMS: PARTISAN INTERFERENCE WITH THE
CIVIL SERVICE
•
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. Governor Butler's Controversy with the Massachusetts
Board. State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity of Massa-
chusetts, 1884
368
373
374
378
B. 1909.
8. Summary of Report of an Investigation of the Methods of
Fiscal Control, 1911. Henry C. Wright.
386
9. Centralization and the Problem of Divided Responsibility.
Board of Managers of Letchworth Village, 1911 .
10. Illinois Committee on Efficiency and Economy, 1915
II. Confusion in Attempted Control. Board of Managers of Letch-
worth Village, 1915.
12. The Massachusetts Board Resists the Attack of the "Effi-
ciency Expert." Robert W. Kelso (Massachusetts Senate Docu-
ments, 1914)
379
381
383
385
13. Proposals for Reorganization in New York
A. Commissioner Strong in 1915. Report of Charles H. Strong 419
B. Proposed Reorganization in 1919. New York Reconstruc-
392
394
392
401
423
425
427
430
xviii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
2. Politics in Charitable and Penal Institutions. National Confer-
ence of Charities, 1898 .
3. Civil Service Reform. National Conference of Charities, 1898
4. Work of the Illinois Civil Service Commission. Illinois Board
of Public Charities, 1908
5. Four Years of Civil Service in Illinois. Illinois Board of Public
Charities, 1909.
•
SECTION V. SPECIAL PROBLEMS: CLASSIFICATION IN THE PUBLIC
SERVICE
6. The Merit System in Illinois. W. B. Moulton
7. Civil Service in Illinois. Board of Administration of Illinois,
1910-12.
8. The Need of Civil Service Reform. A. C. Hanford, Illinois
Efficiency and Economy Committee, 1915
9. A Comparison of Civil Service Procedure with Business Meth-
I ods. Great Britain Royal Commission on the Civil Service, 1914 455
10. Boards of Managers and Civil Service Appointments. Board of
Managers of Letchworth Village, 1915
11. Problems Peculiar to Institutional Service. New York Senate
Committee on Civil Service, 1916 .
12. The Probationary Period, Service, Records, Transfers. New
York Senate Committee on Civil Service, 1916
13. Special Conditions Affecting Rates of Pay. New York Senate
Committee on Civil Service, 1916 .
14. The Merit System and Child Welfare. Grace Abbott, National
Conference of Social Work, 1924 .
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. Classification a Function of the Civil Service Commission.
Governmental Research Conference, 1922.
2. The Civil Service Commission and Reclassification. New York
•
439
443
446
447
450
453
455
457
459
460
461
462
465
467
City Municipal Civil Service Commission, 1915
3. The Argument for Classification. New York Senate Committee
on Civil Service, 1916 .
4. Classification within the Civil Service Organization. New York
Senate Committee on Civil Service, 1916 .
5. Employment Problems, with Particular Reference to General
Standardization Proposals. New York Senate Committee on
Civil Service, 1916 .
476
6. Manner and Methods of Recruiting and Controlling Em-
ployees. New York Senate Committee on Civil Service, 1916 . 477
7. Sample Definitions Framed by Classification Authority. New
York Senate Committee on Civil Service, 1916
470
472
475
TABLE OF CONTENTS
xix
8. In the Absence of True Classification. New York Senate Com-
mittee on Civil Service, 1917 .
9. The Importance of Central Control. New York Senate Com-
mittee on Civil Service, 1917 .
10. Basic Principles of Classification. Massachusetts Council, 1918
11. Classification and the Federal Civil Service. U.S. Congression-
al Joint Commission on Reclassification of Salaries, 1920 .
SECTION VI. SPECIAL PROBLEMS: SOUND ECONOMY AND CENTRALIZED
PURCHASING
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. Model Management. General R. Brinkerhoff, Conference of
Charities, 1879
2. Non-Political Administration. General R. Brinkerhoff, Con-
ference of Charities, 1880.
3. Standards of Care and Management. New York State Commis-
sion in Lunacy, 1898–99
4. True Economy v. Retrenchment. New York State Board of
Charities, 1902
5. Institutional Service. Department of Correction of New York
City, 1914.
6. The Nature of True Economy. Kansas Board of Administra-
tion, 1920
7. The Illinois Organization for the Purchase of Supplies.
Illinois Board of Administration, 1910-12
8. The State Auditor of Colorado Urges a Purchasing Depart-
ment. Report of 1922-24 .
9. A State Purchasing Department Reports Progress. Utah De-
partment of Finance and Purchase, 1923–24
·
SECTION VII. INTERSTATE RELATIONS OF PUBLIC WELFARE OFFICIALS
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
·
•
•
t
482
485
486
493
502
508
509
511
514
514
517
522
526
527
A. The Relation between the State Board of One State and the
State Board of Another
1. The Prelude. New York State Board of Charities, 1880 .
2. The Charge. New York State Board of Charities, 1880.
3. Conference on the Subject of Non-Resident Alien Paupers.
New York State Board of Charities, 1880 .
4. The Massachusetts Point of View. Massachusetts State
Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity, 1880
546
5. The Effect of the Conference. New York State Board of
Charities, 1887
548
529
532
534
534
XX
TABLE OF CONTENTS
B. Regional Organization of States for the Use of the Products of
Prison Industry
6. A National View of the Problem of Prison Industry. Ameri-
can Prison Association, 1924
7. Resolutions Adopted by Regional Conferences, 1924
8. The Interstate Marketing of Prison Goods Authorized.
Laws of Pennsylvania, 1925
PART THREE: 1917 TO THE PRESENT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
SECTION I. DEPARTMENTALIZATION OF STATE GOVERNMENT INCLUD-
ING PUBLIC WELFARE ACTIVITIES
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. Illinois Civil Administrative Code. Laws of Illinois, 1917
2. Public Welfare Problems. Message of Governor of Illinois, 1919
3. One-Man Control, 1922. Henry C. Wright .
4. The New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies.
Acts of New Jersey, 1918
•
•
5. The New Jersey Plan of Reorganization. New Jersey State
Board of Control, 1922.
•
6. The Departmentalization of the Massachusetts Government.
Acts of Massachusetts, 1919
7. Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare. Laws of Massa-
chusetts, 1921
8. The Massachusetts Department of Mental Diseases. Massa-
chusetts Commissioner of Mental Diseases, 1920
9. Further Consolidation Recommended. Massachusetts Com-
mission on State Administration and Expenditures, 1922
•
•
• 555
•
IO. A Legislature Pretends to Departmentalize
A. A Secretary Replaces a Board and a Staff. Laws of Colo-
rado, 1923
B. The Governor Recommends Support. Address of Governor
of Colorado to General Assembly, 1925
C. The Governor Attempts to Find a Substitute. Department
of Charities and Corrections of Colorado, 1923-24
II. The Peril of the New Plan. J. E. Hagerty, National Conference
of Social Work, 1922
12. The Head of a Department Reviews the Situation. Ohio De-
·
partment of Public Welfare, 1923 .
13. Social Service and the Care of the Insane
A. Massachusetts Commissioner of Mental Diseases, 1924.
B. Division for the Examination of Prisoners, ibid.
•
549
550
551✓
557
562
570
573
582
590
595
598
600
бол
604
605
605
606
610
615
616
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TABLE OF CONTENTS
xxi
14. Co-operation between Correction, Mental Diseases, and Local
Authorities after the Methods of Social Service. Massachusetts
Commissioner of Correction, 1924
15. The Prison Authorities Co-operate with the State Highway
Authorities. General Laws of California, 1923 .
16. The Pennsylvania Department's View of the Field. Pennsyl-
vania Secretary of Welfare, 1924 .
SECTION II. LATTER-DAY PROBLEMS OF COUNTY WELFARE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. County Institutions in Michigan. Michigan Board of Chari-
table, Penal, Pauper, and Reformatory Institutions
A. Conditions Prevailing in the Almshouses, 1871-72
B. The Need of Records, 1871-72
C. Recommendations, 1873-74 .
2. County Care of Insane Paupers under State Supervision. Na-
tional Conference of Charities, 1882
3. Illinois "County Farms." Illinois Board of Public Charities
•
·
A. The Delapidated County Home, 1882
B. The Sources of Pauperism, 1884 .
4. Poor Relief in Minnesota. Minnesota State Board of Correc-
tions and Charities, 1884
5. Pauperism in Wisconsin. Wisconsin State Board of Charities
and Reform.
6. A Plea for the Abolition of the County Jail. F. H. Wines, Na-
tional Conference of Charities, 1911.
7. Indiana Jail Rules. Indiana Bulletin of Charities, 1913
8. Classification of the Judicial and County Service. New York
Senate Committee on Civil Service, 1917 .
9. Attempts at Securing Records and Reports from Local Au-
thorities. Indiana Bulletin of Charities, 1918
10. Proposed Department of County Public Welfare. New York
Legislature Special Joint Committee on Taxation and Retrench-
ment, 1923 .
11. The Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare. Laws of Illinois,
1925.
SECTION III. THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY AND THE CITY
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. The Early History of the New York City Department. De-
partment of Public Charities of the City of New York, 1903
2. The Proper Division of Functions in a City. Mrs. C. R. Lowell,
National Conference of Charities, 1881
•
619
623
626
628
630
634
634
635
640
641
642
644
645
650
652
656
657
659
662
665
666
xxii
TABLE OF CONTENTS
3. Department of Public Charities and Correction of the City of
New York. New York State Board of Charities, 1887
A. Mrs. Lowell's Report to State Board
B. The State Charities Aid Reports on the City Department
4. The State Civil Service Commission Investigates the City
Commissioner's Lenient Treatment of the City Department
of Welfare. New York Senate Documents, 1915.
5. The City Department and the State Board. Department of
Public Charities of the City of New York, 1914 .
6. Volunteer Assistance to the Civil Service Commission. New
York City Municipal Civil Service Commission
A. 1914.
•
SECTION IV. THE STATE BOARD AND THE PRIVATE CHARITABLE
INSTITUTION OR AGENCY
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. The New York Policy of Institutional Care for Dependent
Children. W. P. Letchworth, New York State Board of Chari-
ties, 1893
2. Need of Co-ordination of State Supervision. California State
Board of Charities, 1914-16
3. The Constitutional Right to Lay Down Rules. New York
Juvenile Asylum v. John W. Keller, 1902
4. When Is a "Charity" a "Charity"? People v. New York Society
for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children, 1900
5. Grants to Sectarian Institutions under the Illinois Constitu-
tion. William H. Dunn v. The Chicago Industrial School for
Girls, 1917.
•
6. Subsidized Institutions in Pennsylvania and the Constitution.
Collins v. Kephart, 1921
7. Principles Applicable to the Granting of Subsidies by the State
to Private Organizations and Agencies, Pennsylvania, 1922.
Kenneth L. M. Pray
8. Institutional Resistance to Supervision. New York State Board
of Charities, 1925 .
•
B. 1915.
7. The City Department and the Subsidized Institution. Depart-
ment of Public Charities of the City of New York, 1915
8. The Development of Social Service in the Department of Pub-
lic Charities. Edward T. Devine, New York City Conference of
Charities, 1915
692
9. Standards of Placing Out Developed after the Controversy
with the State Authority. Homer Folks, New York State Con-
ference of Charities, 1915.
673
678
•
681
686
687
688
689
694
708
7II
713
713
719
725
729
735
737
TABLE OF CONTENTS
xxiii
SECTION V. A NATIONAL PROGRAM AND PROPOSALS FOR A FEDERAL
DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
1. Historical Sketch of Social Science. Henry Villard, Journal of
Social Science, 1869
2. The Origin of the National Conference of Social Work.
Journal of Social Science, 1874
3. The Constitutionality of the Maternity and Infancy Act.
Massachusetts v. Mellon, 1923, U.S. Reports
4. The Need for Uniform Juvenile Court Statistics. Annual Re-
port of the Chief of the Children's Bureau, 1925.
5. The Prospect of Better Statistics of Children under İnstitu-
tional Care. U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1927
6. The Federal Authority Stimulates State Activity. U.S. Chil-
dren's Bureau
INDEX.
A. First Federal Child-Labor Law. 1921
B. Promotion of the Welfare and Hygiene of Maternity and
Infancy. 1925
7. One Proposal for a Federal Department of Public Welfare.
Senate Bill, U.S. Congress, 1921 .
8. President Harding's Plan for the Reorganization of the Execu-
tive Departments. U.S. Senate Documents, 1923
9. A National Conference Committee Proposes a Federal Bureau.
National Conference of Charities, 1901
•
•
•
739
743
747
749
749
750
752
757
758
763
766
773
INTRODUCTION
Public welfare administration is a subject of profound interest both
to students of political science and to social workers. It is interesting
to the student of political organization because of the important effect
of the assumption by the state of the care of the so-called "dependent,
defective, and delinquent" classes on the development of central or
state institutions, as distinguished from local, that is, county and city
agencies and institutions.
The subject is important to social workers because the development
of honest, competent, skilful public agencies, adequately financed, and
staffed with a personnel sufficient both in number and in professional
equipment, is basic to sound social work. In all those situations in
which the compulsory power of the state must be exercised for the ap-
prehension, detention, care, and treatment of the individual, public
welfare work has long been considered necessary, for example, in the
care of the insane, the feeble-minded, the delinquent groups. In all
those situations, too, in which the cost of comprehensive work is too
great for private agencies to carry, such as the maintenance of free
hospitals and medical service; in those in which the relatively sparse
population brings it about that government is substantially the only
agency available for social work, such as the relief of the destitute in
rural areas—in all these instances, either there is lacking a private
substitute for the public authority or the efforts put forth by the
private agency are inadequate unless supplemented by public co-
operation.
Most modern civilized states have assumed certain humanitarian
tasks. Some of these, as, for example, the care of the insane and feeble-
minded, were greatly neglected at an earlier date. Some of them, for
example, the care of the orphan child, were largely within the province
of the church. Some, as, for example, the enforcement of the criminal
law, when public punishment was substituted for private vengeance,
were not so much neglected as done with a widely different purpose
and often with a different method. Whatever their origin, they have
come to be almost universally recognized as appropriate subjects of
state action, and provision for them is assumed to be a function for
state agencies. Because state provision in these cases is taken for
A
1.
I
2
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
granted, it is possible to overlook the unsettled questions still awaiting
solution; and to ignore the necessity for readjusting older agencies
and older methods to new standards and to new conditions of life
and work.
In many jurisdictions, it is indeed apparent that the older methods
are inadequate and that certain changes should be brought about. To
many observers it is becoming clear that, whichever the group under
consideration, this work must be based on an adequate knowledge of
the need of the individual to whom service is rendered, on the basis of
“social diagnosis," followed by an adequate treatment of the special
pathological conditions revealed in his situation. That is, the prin-
ciples of social service and the technique of "case work" are command-
ing wider acceptance in the public welfare field. As a result, there is
developing a body of social practice corresponding to the body of
medical, legal, and educational practice, which can be imparted by
instruction, shared by conference, and accepted as the possession
of a group calling themselves members of a "profession." This pro-
fession is gradually securing recognition under the name of "sociaľ
work” or “social service" or "welfare work," and these terms are being
widely applied in the United States and in European countries to the
public organization as well as to the private agencies.
In Great Britain, for example, since 1921, the government has an-
nually published a "white paper" giving the cost of the "social serv-
ices" administered by the public authorities. In this document is made.
available annually the total expenditure under the insurance acts
(health and unemployment), the pensions acts (old age, "war," and
other pensions), education acts, industrial and reformatory school acts,
inebriates, certain public-health acts (i.e., so far as they relate to
hospitals, treatment of disease, maternity, and child welfare), the acts
dealing with unemployment, the housing of the working classes, and
the relief of the poor, and the lunacy and mental-deficiency acts.
In the United States the situation is much more difficult and com-
plicated than in many other countries, because of the division of
powers between the states and the federal government. The develop-
ment in the different states is varied and uneven and without the
stimulus that may be received from a national authority possessing
administrative powers in this field. However, uniform standards in
some fields are being slowly developed through the influence of certain
¹ Public Social Services (Total Expenditures under Certain Acts of Parliament)
(205, 1926).
•
INTRODUCTION
3
official agencies such as the federal Children's Bureau and the United
States Public Health Service, on the one hand, and certain national
voluntary and unofficial agencies, on the other hand. This develop-
ment merits the close attention of the student of public welfare, for
out of it is coming a realization of the concern of the entire community
in each of these problems which is, perhaps, the soundest basis for
continuous and adequate governmental action.
Theoretically, the preference of the social worker would probably
be for public rather than private service, wherever there is a well-
recognized need and a reasonably widely accepted method of meeting
that need. For the social worker can be satisfied with nothing less than
a universal provision for a continuous service. And only the state can be
both universal and continuous. However, the administration of much
of the public social work, especially the Poor Law and the prison
system both in England and in the United States, has been so unsatis-
factory that many social workers question the wisdom of laying on
public authorities any responsibilities other than those which private
agencies are unable to carry. These would be the custodial care of
those whose liberty of action must be restrained, or the assumption of
those tasks clearly too costly for private enterprise.
Since 1854, when President Pierce vetoed Dorothea Dix's bill
authorizing grants of public land by the United States to the several
states in order that more adequate provision might be made for the
care and treatment of the insane,' it has been understood that the field
of welfare belonged exclusively to the states. Diversity of practice was
therefore inevitable, and voluntary agencies for securing agreement
and increasingly wide unanimity, while difficult to establish and main-
tain, were found to be correspondingly important.
However, with the increased intricacy of social life, with its result-
ing intimacy of association and growing consciousness of the com-
munity of interest, it is important that there be a widening apprecia-
tion of the true bases for the constitutional limitations under which
the government operates. There is needed also a sufficiently exact
knowledge of the situation and a clear purpose when the governmental
structure proves unsuited to the purposes of a modern, humane,
civilized community so to alter it as to adapt it to those ends.
The limitation on federal services in the field of treatment,
when the sources of distress are often national or at any rate nation
* See Part I, Sec. III, Documents 5 and 6. See also Part III, Sec. V, Documents
6 and 7.
4
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
wide in character, places the whole development at a great disadvan-
tage; and it becomes the more important that the discrepancy between
the effectiveness of those conditions giving rise to these various forms
of need and the effectiveness of the agencies developed in response to
the need should be understood both in order that preventive measures
may be undertaken and curative treatment provided on an increasingly
effective scale and that as rapidly as possible agencies for national
service may be developed in ways left open by the Constitution.
Attention should also be called to the lack of public reports under
the present system of multiple authorities and to the dearth of in-
formation that should be available at regular intervals in such com-
parable form as to supply the basis for a well-rounded and carefully
thought-out policy.
It is needless to point out that a situation very much like that in
which the states and the federal government find themselves also exists
in the relationship between the various local jurisdictions, the town,
the county, sometimes the city, and the state government. This, too,
is to be explained by reference to the constitutional limitations under
which the legislatures of the states act. The point here is that the
structure of the state governments and the distribution of powers as
between the local unit, as, for example, the county and the central or
state authority, are generally laid down in detail in the state constitu-
tions. The result is that the legislature may find it necessary to create
new agencies when it is unable to modify or abolish old offices or to
regulate their administration. In the public-welfare field, too, as in
other fields it is often of the greatest importance that local initiative
be stimulated, and if possible, local administration be relied on. It
may, however, be quite impossible for the legislature to secure in any
compulsory manner the co-operation of the local authorities either
among themselves or with a state authority.
1
It will appear, then, from these documents that in the field of
service in which the state institution or the state agency is the appro-
priate authority, reasonable progress has been made in efficiency and
in adequacy of service; whereas in those fields in which reliance is
still placed on the local unit, retardation, archaic methods, and great
unevenness in service still prevail. The almshouse, outdoor relief, and
the county jail remain with few exceptions the despair of the social
worker and of the public-welfare official.
No student of these subjects can, therefore, remain long unaware
of the question as to the proper balanced relationship between the
INTRODUCTION
5
local and the central agency. In the United States there is a twofold
struggle: one for a national minimum; another for forty-eight state
minima and for a consequent reduction in the cost and the waste
growing out of the multiplicity of jurisdictions responsible first for the
legislation and second for the administration of these important tasks.
Another question to be considered is that of the proper assignment
of duties as between public and private undertakings. In that connec-
tion, a word should be said as to the meaning of "public" as used in the
following discussion, and as to the distinction between "welfare," or
its older form "charities and correction," and the legal conception of a
charity. By "public" in the following discussion is meant action or
structure authorized by law and supported by taxation.
The law to which appeal for authority may be made may be the
common law, as, for example, in the use of the Grand Jury for purposes
of visitation and reporting on institutions and agencies.¹ Frequently,
provision² is made in the constitution, but most often it is to a statute
that reference for authority must be made.3 The subject of public
charity in the sense in which the lawyer uses that term is not presented
in this volume.4
¹ Part I, Sec. I, Document 6, "Josiah Quincy's Charge to a Grand Jury." The
general doctrine of public nuisance would suffice to explain the use of the grand jury.
Part I, Sec. II, Document 12, “Prison Inspection"; also Part II, Sec. II, Docu-
ment 22, "People v. Lewis."
3 There are the occasional agencies established by the city, as, for example, the
Chicago Department of Public Welfare. See Chicago Municipal Code of 1922,
chap. 64.
4 The following definition indicates the scope of the field of public charity from
the strictly legal standpoint:
"A gift is a 'public' charity when there is a benefit to be conferred on the public
at large, or some portion thereof, or upon an indefinite class of persons. Even if its
benefits are confined to specified classes, as decrepit seamen, laborers, farmers, etc.,
of a particular town, it is well settled that it is a public charity. The essential ele-
ments of a public charity are that it is not confined to privileged individuals, but
is open to the indefinite public. It is this indefinite, unrestricted quality that gives
it its public character. Without undertaking to be technically accurate, a 'purely
public' charity may be defined as one which discharges, in whole or in part, a duty
which the commonwealth owes to its indigent and helpless citizens. Undoubtedly,
it is the duty of the state to educate its poor children, and thus fit them for discharg-
ing the duties of citizenship; to care for the indigent insane, its helpless orphans,
and its poor who are sick and afflicted; and therefore any institution which, serving
no selfish interest, discharges, in whole or in part, any such duty, is a purely public
charity. Thus, if an institution is one of the benefits of which the public generally
are entitled to enjoy, it is then a purely public charity-public, because although
6
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
A third question of importance is that of the relative efficiency of
the part-time volunteer service of a number of persons as compared
with the full-time compensated service of a much smaller number.
This is the question of the boards of trustees of institutions as com-
pared with the single board of control or the board of administration.
This problem presents itself especially in the period from 1890 to
1915. After 1917, when Illinois departmentalized its administration,
the question arose as to the relative efficiency of the board form of
authority and the single-headed department form of organization.²
Another problem to which attention is directed is that of the as-
signment of tasks as among the different divisions of the government:
that is, the question of the scope and meaning of "welfare." In that
connection, attention may be briefly directed to a principle of ad-
ministration which called forth within the past decade a considerable
amount of discussion. This is a principle laid down by a British Com-
mittee on the Machinery of Government which together with a Report
not owned by the public, its uses and objects are wholly public, and for the benefit
of the public generally, and in no sense private as being limited to particular indi-
viduals. Notwithstanding these general rules it is usually held that a charity is none
the less public because it is limited in its operation to the members of a particular
sect or society, so long as it is wholly altruistic in the end to be attained and no
private or selfish interest is fostered under the guise thereof; though there are cases
which lay it down that none is a public charity which the state is not under obliga-
tion in the first instance to endow for the use of the very class to be benefited. Under
this latter view the fact that a charity is limited in its operation to the members of a
particular organization or association has been held to deprive it of its purely public
character, for it is said that the word 'public' relates to or affects the whole people
of a nation or state. A charity may restrict its admissions to a class of humanity,
and still be public; it may be for the blind, the mute, those suffering under special
diseases, for the aged, for infants, for women, for men, for different callings or trades
by which humanity earns its bread, and as long as the classification is determined
by some distinction which involuntarily affects or may affect any of the whole
people, although only a small number may be directly benefited, it is public; but
when the right to admission depends on the fact of voluntary association with some
particular society, then a distinction is made which concerns not the public at large.
The public is interested in the relief of its members, because they are men, women,
and children, not because they are members of some social organization. A home,
without charge, exclusively for Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics, or Method-
ists, would not be a purely public charity."-5 Ruling Case Law, p. 293.
See Part III, Sec. IV, Document 4.
▪ Illinois Revised Statutes (Smith-Hurd, 1925), chap. 127.
2 Part III, Sec. I, is devoted largely to this question.
1
INTRODUCTION
7
of another Committee on the Transfer of Powers is looked upon as the
basis for the reorganization of the British administrative machinery.¹
The first of these committees dealt with the relative effectiveness
of different principles determining the allocation of functions to de-
partments of government, and in particular with the question whether
those functions should be determined on the basis of (a) persons or class-
es served or (b) on the basis of the kind of services to be rendered. It is
significant that this committee adopted squarely the principle that
functions should be assigned on the basis of the service to be performed,
and the argument is so persuasive and the principle so attractive that
the statement is given here at some length:
In addition to the two problems of the constitution and procedure of
the Cabinet, and the organization of enquiry and research, there is another
which it is essential to solve for the smooth working of the executive as a
whole. Upon what principle are the functions of Departments to be deter-
mined and allocated? There appear to be only two alternatives, which may
be briefly described as distribution according to the persons or classes to be
dealt with, and distribution according to the services to be performed.
Under the former method each Minister who presides over a Department
would be responsible to Parliament for those activities of the Government
which affect the sectional interests of particular classes of persons, and there
might be, for example, a Ministry for Paupers, a Ministry for Children, a
Ministry for Insured Persons, or a Ministry for the Unemployed. Now the
inevitable outcome of this method of organization is a tendency to Lilliputian
administration. It is impossible that the specialised service which each De-
partment has to render to the community can be of as high a standard when
its work is at the same time limited to a particular class of persons and ex-
tended to every variety of provision for them, as when the Department
concentrates itself on the provision of one particular service only, by whom-
soever required, and looks beyond the interests of comparatively small
classes.
The other method, and the one which we recommend for adoption, is
that of defining the field of activity in the case of each Department accord-
ing to the particular service which it renders to the community as a whole.
Thus a Ministry of Education would be concerned predominantly with the
provision of education wherever, and by whomever, needed. Such a Ministry
would have to deal with persons in so far only as they were to be educated,
and not with particular classes of persons defined on other principles. This
¹ Great Britain Ministry of Reconstruction, Report of the Machinery of Govern-
ment Committee (Cd. 9230, 1918): see also Cd. 8917, Local Government Com-
mittee, Transfer of Powers; see also Cd. 9211, Memorandum on Ministry of Health
Bill.
1
8
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
method cannot, of course, be applied with absolute rigidity. The work of the
Education Department, for example, may incidentally trench on the sphere
of Health, as in the arrangements of school houses and care for the health of
scholars. Such incidental overlapping is inevitable, and any difficulties to
which it may give rise must in our opinion be met by systematic arrange-
ments for the collaboration of Departments jointly interested in particular
spheres of work. But notwithstanding such necessary qualifications, we think
that much would be gained if the distribution of departmental duties were
guided by a general principle, and we have come to the conclusion that dis-
tribution according to the nature of the service to be rendered to the com-
munity as a whole is the principle which is likely to lead to the minimum
amount of confusion and overlapping. In this way such divisions of the busi-
ness of Government as Health, Education, Finance, Research, Foreign
Affairs, and Defence would each be under separate administration, the
Cabinet being in a position of supreme executive direction, and Parliament
holding the various Ministers directly responsible to it for the efficiency of
the service with which they were respectively charged.¹
The following documents will, however, bring out the impossibility
of giving wide application to any such principle as is set forth in these
paragraphs, and will suggest the necessity of keeping attention focused
on the need presented by the different groups of persons in distress and
on the response by the individuals to the kinds of treatment under-
taken, until an adequate body of experience is at hand on which to
base a general policy. Public authority is administered through human
agents in relation to human need, and far larger bodies of fact with
reference to the response of individuals to different kinds of treatment
than are yet available are required before many of the questions pre-
sented by these various efforts to deal with distress can be given con-
clusive answers.
The unsettled state of opinion on these points is indicated by the
frequent changes in the nature of the agencies set up in the field of
public welfare and the variety of scope as among the different juris-
dictions. The documents in Part II, Section I, and in Part III, Section
I, and the lack of any definite, recognizable principle in the proposals
during President Harding's administration to create a federal depart-
ment of public welfare (Part III, Section V) bring out this point.
Still another subject claiming attention is that of the relative in-
effectiveness of the ordinary agencies of government for successful ad-
ministration of public welfare activities and the consequent apparent
¹ Extract from Great Britain Ministry of Reconstruction, Report of the Machin-
ery of Government Committee (Cd. 9230, 1918), pp. 7–8.
INTRODUCTION
necessity of supplying not only the special agencies to do the tasks but
additional agencies to supervise and report upon the work done.
The documents in Part II, Section III, especially emphasize this
question.
The situation here may be described somewhat as follows: A mem-
ber of a modern civilized community desires the public revenues to be
applied to the performance of certain services in behalf of persons who
are often helpless and inarticulate. Those persons are unable to make
known the fact that the services are not such as are desired and intend-
ed by the great body of taxpayers. It is therefore argued that a
special agency should be created to make sure that the proper stand-
ards are maintained and that any departure from those standards is
reported. The question is one on which there are still wide differences
of opinion, perhaps especially between those who devote their atten-
tion to questions of efficiency and social workers who emphasize the
importance of further knowledge of the human factors involved in so-
cial treatment.
Five main questions, then, may be said to emerge from an examina-
tion of the development in this field of governmental organization: (1)
the relative adjustment as between local and central authority in the
states and the possible expansion of national, i.e., federal influence; (2)
the relative value of the services of volunteer part-time officials as com-
pared with those of a much smaller number of full-time salaried offi-
cials; (3) the relative efficiency of the single-headed as compared with
the board form of authority; (4) the scope and range of duties intrusted
to the welfare authority and the relation of welfare activities and
agencies to the other divisions of the administrative organization; and
(5) the question of the peculiar necessity of supervision in this field as
a function independent of the provision for reasonable uniformity and
comprehensiveness in the service.
In the following sections, an attempt has been made to present
certain important documents dealing with each of these questions. At-
tention is directed especially to the two questions: first, the degree to
which centralization is to be desired as against local administration,
second, the extent to which principles of concentration of control are
effective as against supervisory direction of decentralized administra-
tion. However, it is also important to ask two additional questions: (a)
the degree to which the varied aspects of institutional administration
have been professionalized and can therefore be intrusted to officials.
selected by civil-service methods; and (b) the degree to which methods
ΙΟ
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of business organization are applicable to institutions and agencies
caring for the wards of the states. There is also the question of the
standard of care that should be given these wards of the state as com-
pared with the standard of life of the great mass of the population.
What, for example, can the state afford to do? What are the costs of
leaving these tasks undone?
The main thread of development that has been followed is, there-
fore, that of the structural growth of nation-wide, though not national,
provision for the relief and treatment of certain forms of distress, and
especially the development of state-wide agencies. The institutions
and agencies to which attention must be given are in some cases ancient
institutions such as the almshouse, the outdoor-relief system, and the
jail. In some cases, as in the care of the insane, of the feeble-minded,
of dependent or delinquent children, organization has in some jurisdic-
tions taken on a more modern and efficient aspect, and advances in
knowledge are reflected in improved service to the group under care.¹
In others, belated attitudes and forms of treatment survive. It is of
great interest to social workers that improved standards anywhere
should be reflected in the widest and swiftest adoption of those im-
proved methods everywhere, and the question of ways and means of
speeding up such a process is therefore of paramount concern.
¹ Note, for example, the recent use in Massachusetts of the Department of
Mental Diseases in connection with the treatment of persons accused of certain
offenses (see Part III, Sec. I, Document 13, B).
PART I
PRIOR TO 1863
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART I
A view of public charitable organization in the United States sug-
gests the division of the subject on a chronological basis into three
periods: (1) that prior to 1863, when the first state board or central
state authority was created in Massachusetts; (2) from 1863 to 1917,
when the first department of public welfare was established in Illinois;
and (3) from 1917 to the present time.
During the first period, three main subjects suggest themselves as
indicating and forecasting the later development. First, the local char-
acter of the early Poor Law administration¹ and the combination in that
administration of tasks that were at once relief and police measures,
such as enforcing support of the destitute by their relatives and such
as those having to do with the apprehension of vagabonds. The doc-
trine of venue brought the administration of the criminal law dealing
with felons into the hands of local authorities for purposes of detention
until trial, and all dealings with the petty misdemeanant were in the
hands of local authorities. Section I of this part is devoted to docu-
ments illustrating these points.
The second development to which attention should be directed,
and to which Section II especially calls attention, is the establishment
of state institutions for certain groups of persons. The sources of pover-
ty, vagrancy, and mendicancy were national in England; and, in the
United States, they were by no means exclusively local; the machinery
for relief, aid, conviction, and punishment were, however, largely, if
not exclusively, local.
I
* ["In each commonwealth the fabric of the public charitable institutions rests
upon the quicksands of the poor-law, which few study and probably none under-
stands. It was said of the English poor-law, by the commission appointed to investi-
gate its workings, that there was scarcely one statute connected with the administra-
tion of poor-relief which had produced the effect designed by the legislature, and
that the majority of them had created new evils and aggravated those which they
were intended to prevent. The same is substantially true in many of our own States,
and especially in the older commonwealths, such as New York and Pennsylvania,
where the legislatures have not been careful to repeal existing legislation when enact-
ing new laws. The result is a tangle of statutes which cannot be rationally inter-
preted because they have no rational basis. The courts construe them from time to
time, because they must, and not because they know how" (Amos G Warner,
American Charities: A Study in Philanthropy and Economics, p. 311).]
13
14
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The waste of the law of settlement and the inadequacy of the local
administrative unit for the larger undertakings such as the erection and
maintenance of almshouses and jails, and other institutions of treat-
ment or detention, are now obvious. The gradual discovery of those
features of the early administration is one pathway toward the realiza-
tion of the need of a central agency in this field of authority. In addi-
tion to this, however, it became evident that certain groups must be
given specialized treatment. Sometimes the proposal was for a re-
grouping of local units; but, in general, the state was looked to as a
more efficient substitute for local units.
For example, at an early date, some of the Colonies took action,
looking toward the functioning of the central authority in the care or
detention of certain groups of persons now recognized as in need of
special treatment. King Philip's War brought out in Massachusetts the
responsibility of the province for certain "unsettled poor"; in 1769,
Virginia established a state institution for the care of the insane, an
example followed by Kentucky in 1822, when the Lexington Asylum
was authorized. State provision for the detention of persons convicted
of felony was made in Pennsylvania in 1790, in New York in 1797,
and in Kentucky in 1798. Kentucky in 1822 provided for a state in-
stitution for the deaf, while in other localities the problem of their
instruction was being attacked by private benevolence; and Ohio in
1837 took the same action with regard to the blind. In 1847 a state
institution for delinquent boys was established by Massachusetts, and
in 1851 idiots were in New York added to the list of the "wards of the
state."
.
In other words, in different sections of the country these state
institutions were being established. The form of the organization was
that of an unsalaried board of trustees, appointed usually by the
governor and senate, who were asked to assume the responsibility for
selecting the site of the institution, overseeing the erection of a build-
ing for which they determined the plans, and appointing the re-
sponsible executives of the institution. The members of the staff thus
organized were supposed to provide decent, comfortable, suitable living
accommodations, with proper diet and with suitable arrangements for
the use of the time and labor power of the patients, as well as to furnish
that degree of expert care or treatment recognized at the time as nec-
essary or desirable.
The most superficial examination of their duties reveals the
fact that the services to be secured involved both such professional skill
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART I
15
as that of the medical, nursing, educational, disciplinary expert, and
technical ability in engineering, dietetics, agriculture, and purchasing,
as well as the unspecialized services characteristic of all establishments
in which human beings live together.
These boards of trustees reported to the governor or legislature,
and the recurring appropriation or the grant of enlarged resources de-
pended on the presentation of their annual statements. There was,
possibly, a standing committee of each branch of the legislature, and
from time to time a special committee of one house or the other was
set up to investigate a particular institution. Or a special committee
might be called on to survey the entire situation and to make recom-
mendations. There was, too, always the Grand Jury who might report
on the conditions existing in an institution in the county in which the
jury was sitting, and the governor was, of course, theoretically keeping
his eye on the entire administration for which he was responsible. But
the lack of an efficient, specialized, continuous, unifying influence be-
came apparent, the creation of such an authority was recommended,
and in 1863 the first central board was set up in Massachusetts.
In the third place, two lines of experience suggested at an early
date an appeal for aid to the federal government. The first of these was
the interstate service rendered by certain institutions, notably those
for the deaf, and an appeal based on this service met with a favorable
response in the case of the Connecticut and the Kentucky schools for
the deaf. The second was the universality of the need and the inade-
quacy
of the state resources to meet that need in the care of the insane.
An appeal based on this argument, magnificently framed, was ap-
proved by Congress in 1854 but finally denied when President Pierce
vetoed, on constitutional grounds, Dorothea Dix's statute assign-
ing 10,000,000 acres of the public land to the states for the support
and treatment of their insane, and 2,500,000 for the education of the
deaf. Neither the earlier grants to the schools for the deaf nor Miss
Dix's later statute provided for such federal supervision, inspection,
and reporting as would have assured what might be called a "national
standard” in treatment. They recognized, however, a national respon-
sibility; and, as in the later development in the educational field, would
undoubtedly have brought proposals for the creation of federal ad-
ministrative agencies.
SECTION I
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The influence of the English Poor Law has been of constant and
of great importance in the development of American public-welfare
administration. In this section, the student is asked to review the
methods used under the Poor Law in England, and attention is called
to certain administrative principles made clear by English experience.
Among the problems presented are the questions of the size of the
administrative unit; the methods employed to secure income; the rela-
tion between the statutory officials designated to carry out its provi-
sions under the act and the magistrates; and, finally, the methods of
treating destitute individuals.
The result of the experience tended to create pressure toward a
larger unit of administration, toward clearer distinction between execu-
tive and judicial functions, toward the substitution of ideals of ade-
quacy for those of "less eligibility," and toward a recognition of the
relation between the disorganization and dislocation of industry and
the phenomena of misery.
In some of the commonwealths in the United States the English
Poor Law was copied faithfully so that its very terminology was taken
over; and the same results followed that had been experienced in the
parent administration. The principle of local administration, resulting
in England in friction between parishes and "unions," gave rise in the
United States to controversies between towns or between counties.
The energy absorbed by these controversies was so great as seriously to
impede the development of sound principles of treatment. The result
has been that in communities where outdoor relief was a method of
helping the destitute, improvement and reform have been sought by
substituting almshouse care; and, when a policy of indoor care is
adopted, its failure leads would-be reformers to propose outdoor relief
as the way out. Whether the scene be in England, in the eastern states,
or the middle western or western commonwealths, whatever the loca-
tion, the small unit of administration and the inadequate understand-
ing of the relation between destitution and social or industrial dis-
I See Documents 2 and 3.
16
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
17
organization give rise to the same cruelties and the same failures. The
problem assumes special interest when the local jurisdiction becomes
densely populated and takes on urban features.
It will appear, then, that there are, questions of county, town, and
city organization. In the following section these questions are very
briefly set out, indicating the hopeless character of any undertaking
which leaves untouched the administrative relationships referred to.
After the extract from the British Royal Commission of 1909 on the
administration of the Poor Law follow two reports, one from Massa-
chusetts, one from New York, showing the early recognition in the
United States of evils like those with which England was attempting
to deal. These are followed by documents illustrating the development
under urban conditions of agencies to deal with the same questions.
The documents selected for this purpose are taken from those which
trace the development of the Department in New York City,' where
the growth of numbers of persons in distress and requiring assistance,
called for the creation of elaborate administrative machinery. There
are likewise documents illustrating the uses to which the Grand Jury
may be put and the local character of jail and Bridewell administra-
tion. It will appear from later sections³ that the establishment of state
supervision has had little effect on the methods and standards of those
institutions and agencies remaining under local jurisdiction, so that the
almshouse, public-outdoor relief, and the jail remain almost as uni-
versal a source of despair as at any earlier time.4
2
I See Documents 5 and 8.
2 See Documents 6 and 7.
3 See below, Secs. II and III in Part III.
4 See, for example, Estelle M. Stewart, The Cost of American Almshouses, “U.S.
Bureau of Labor Statistics Bull. 386" (Washington, D.C., 1925); Emil Frankel,
Poor Relief in Pennsylvania, "Pennsylvania Department of Public Welfare Bull.
21" (1925); Harry C. Evans, The American Poor Farm and Its Inmates (Des Moines,
1926); Chicago Community Trust, Reports Comprising the Survey of the Cook County
Jail (Chicago, 1922); Alexander Johnson, The Almshouse "Russell Sage Foundation
Publications." See below, Part III, Secs. II and III.
THE LOCAL CHARACTER OF EARLY WELFARE
ORGANIZATIONS AND OF LAW-ENFORCING
AGENCIES
I. The Poor Law before and after 1601¹
5. Origin and antiquity of the Poor Law.-In order that its true
place and value may be assigned to the Poor Relief Act 1601 (43
Elizabeth, c. 2), it is necessary to take cognisance of the working of the
Poor Law before and after that date. The Act of 1601 was a temporary
measure. It was according to Lord Coke "a probationer." Its details
were largely a reproduction of an earlier Act-39 Elizabeth, c. 3. The
chief purposes of the Act of 160r were, in the words of the statute:
a) For setting to work the Children of all such whose Parents shall not by
the said Churchwardens and Overseers, or the greater Part of them, be
thought able to keep and maintain their children;
b) And also for setting to work all such persons, married or unmarried (as)
having no Means to maintain them, use no ordinary or daily Trade of
Life to get their Living by;
c) And also to raise weekly or otherwise (by taxation of every Inhabitant,
Parson, Vicar and other, and of every Occupier of Lands, Houses, Tithes
Impropriate, Propriations of Tithes, Coal Mines or saleable Underwoods
in the said parish, in such competent Sum and Sums of Money as they
shall think fit) a convenient Stock of Flax, Hemp, Wool, Thread, Iron, and
other Ware and Stuff, to set the Poor on Work;
d) And also competent Sums of Money for and towards the necessary Relief
of the Lame, Impotent, Old, Blind, and such other among them being
Poor and not able to Work;
e) And also for the putting out of such Children to be Apprentices, to be
gathered out of the same Parish, according to the Ability of the same
Parish;
f) And to do and execute all other Things, as well for the disposing of the
said Stock, as otherwise concerning the Premises, as to them shall seem
convenient.
6. The Act indeed closed a series of experimental legislation which
throughout the Tudor period was concerned with those whom at one
time it was usual to class as the impotent poor.
¹ Extract from Great Britain, Report of the Royal Commission on the Poor Laws
and Relief of Distress (reprinted from the Parliamentary Paper Cd. 4499 of Session
1909), Vol. I (being Parts I-VI of the Majority Report), Part III, pp. 80–98.
18
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
19
7. The Tudor Acts which thus culminated in the Statute of 1601, as
well as those preceding them, had largely in view the prevention and
regulation of begging. The well-known authority, Dr. Burn, in his
History of Poor Law, writes:
Regulation and restriction of begging.—First, the poor were restrained
from begging at large, and were confined to beg within certain districts
(11 Henry VII, c. 2; 19 Henry VII, c. 12; 22 Henry VIII, c. 12). Next the
several hundreds, towns corporate, parishes, hamlets, or other like divisions
were required to sustain them with such charitable and voluntary alms, as
that none of them of necessity might be compelled to go openly in begging,
and the churchwardens or other substantial inhabitants were to make col-
lections for them, with boxes on Sundays, and otherwise by their discretions.
And the minister was to take all opportunities to exhort and stir up the people
to be liberal and bountiful (27 Henry VIII, c. 25). Next, houses were to be
provided for them by the devotion of good people, and materials to set them
on such work as they were able to perform. Then the minister after the
Gospel every Sunday was specially to exhort the parishioners to a liberal
contribution (1 Edward VI, c. 3). Next the collectors for the poor on a cer-
tain Sunday in every year, immediately after Divine Service, were to take
down in writing what every person was willing to give weekly for the ensuing
year; and if any should be obstinate and refuse to give, the minister was
gently to exhort him. If he still refused, the minister was to certify such
refusal to the bishop of the diocese, and the bishop was to send for and exhort
him in like manner. If he stood out against the bishop's exhortation, then
the bishop was to certify the same to the justices in session and bind him
over to appear there; and the justices at the said sessions were again gently
to move and persuade him; and finally if he would not be persuaded, then
they were to assess him what they thought reasonable towards the relief of
the poor. And this brought on the general assessment in the 14th year of
Queen Elizabeth (5 and 6 Edward VI, c. 2; 5 Elizabeth, c. 3).
8. In 1567 Thomas Harman published a book, A Caveat or Waren-
ing for Common Cursetors, and, according to the statements it con-
tained, the beggar's trade was at that time thriving. Twenty years
later, Harrison, in his Description of England, published in 1586, esti-
mated that, though not quite sixty years had passed since the trade
began, the beggars numbered about 10,000.
9. The last Statute in Dr. Burn's Summary-the 14 Eliz., c. 5—
aimed at the suppression of the roaming beggar by a measure also
designed for the local care of the aged, decayed, and impotent. The
Justices by Sec. 16 were empowered to appoint meet and convenient
places for the habitations and abidings of the latter class. Those who
20
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
refused to be bestowed in the appointed abiding places or left them to
beg were to be punished as rogues or vagabonds (Sec. 18). The Act
may also deserve mention as recognising the principle of non-resident
relief. It seems that Bath and Buxton were the resorts of a great num-
ber of the poor, who repaired "to the baths there for ease of their
grief." These persons were to be not only licensed by Justices, but
also "provided for by the inhabitants of such hundreds, parishes or
places from whence they shall so be licensed to travel."
10. It should be added that the 14 Eliz., c. 5, was shortly after-
wards amended by the 18 Eliz., c. 3, and that the later Act required
provision to be made of a competent stock of wool, hemp, flax, iron,
or other stuff to be delivered to the poor, who might work the stock
into yarn or other matter, and receive payment according to the desert
of the work. For those who refused or spoilt work or went abroad
begging or lived idly, houses of correction were to be provided.
11. The Act of 1601 was, as we have said, passed for a limited
period. It was, with other Acts, renewed at the beginning of the reigns
of James I and Charles I. In the reign of Charles I (1641) it was made
perpetual. Each occasion saw a new development. Thus on the first
renewal an amendment to facilitate apprenticeship was introduced;
while on the second renewal this amendment was coupled with the
provision that the churchwardens and the overseers of the poor in the
said Act made in the three and fortieth year (of Queen Elizabeth) may,
"with the consent of justices," set up, use, and occupy any trade
mystery or occupation, only for the setting on work and better relief
of the poor of the parish, town or place, of or within which they shall
be churchwardens or overseers, any former statute to the contrary
notwithstanding. Even after 1641 there is ground for the belief that
the operation of the Statute of Elizabeth was for many years partial.
12. These extracts seem to show that:
1. Parochial chargeability;
2. Repression of begging, except where authorized;
3. The provision of employment as a means of assistance;
4. The care of the lame, the impotent, the old and blind who are poor, and
are unable to work;
5. The setting to work and apprenticeship of children; and
6. The free use of the house of correction for the idle and the petty offender;
were the principles dominating the Acts passed for the relief of the
poor. It may be noted that the appointment to the office of Overseer
under the Act was compulsory, and that the office was unpaid.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
21
LEGISLATION IN THE EIGHTEENTH CENTURY
13. As regards Poor Law, the eighteenth century was one of
experiment and criticism. Everyone is familiar with Adam Smith's
exposure of the effects of the Law of Settlement in obstructing the
mobility of labour, and with his denunciation of the law as "an evident
violation of natural liberty and justice." An Act of 1795 removed the
principal hardship by forbidding the removal of persons from any
parish until they became actually chargeable to the rates. But, apart
from this, two marked and opposite policies emerged during the cen-
tury.
14. The 9 Geo. I, c. 7 (1722), had two notable effects. First, it
limited the power of the Justices, who appear to have formed the habit
of ordering relief to any applicants who came to them, without the
knowledge of the parish officers, by enacting that no one should re-
ceive relief from the Justices until oath were made before such Justice
of some matter that he should judge to be a reasonable cause, and until
the person had applied to a Vestry or to two of the Overseers and had
been refused relief. Second, it went far to establish a workhouse test.
Parishes, either singly or in combination, were empowered to provide
houses and contract with any persons "for the lodging, keeping and
maintaining, and employing" of poor persons, and "to take the benefit
of their work, labour and service." And "no poor who refused to be
lodged and kept in such houses should be entitled to parochial relief.”
15. The immediate result of this was a diminution of expenditure.
But returns to Parliament, some fifty years later, in 1776, and again in
1786, showed that, judging from the state of several parishes, the
charge of maintaining their poor had advanced very rapidly, notwith-
standing the aid of workhouses, and perhaps as rapidly as in those
parishes which have continued to relieve the poor by occasional pen-
sions at their own habitations. According to the data available at the
time, it was estimated that poor relief expenditure, which in 1701
amounted to about £900,000 for the year, had increased to £1,250,000
in 1760.
16. The 22 Geo. III, c. 83 (1782), known as Gilbert's Act, insisted
on the failure of the previous Act, both as regards the increase of
expenditure and the increased sufferings of the poor. Power was now
given to adjacent parishes to unite by voluntary arrangement into a
Union or Incorporation and build a workhouse for the combined
parishes. And the 29th section provided that no persons should be
sent to such poor house except such as were become indigent by old
22
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
age, sickness, or infirmities, and were unable to acquire a maintenance
by their labour . . . . and orphan children. For the able-bodied, the
Guardians were ordered to find suitable employment near their own
homes. Under this Act, power was again handed back to the Justices;
they were to appoint and control visitors and paid Guardians; and by
these visitors and Guardians poor relief was to be administered.
OUTDOOR RELIEF OF THE ABLE-BODIED IN KIND
25. The "most usual form" of this relief was that of "relieving the
applicants, either wholly or partially, from the expense of obtaining
house room."
26. One form of this was the exemption from rates given, "almost
always" in the case of parishioners, "frequently," in the case of non-
parishioners. One evil effect of this was, in some places, a speculation
in building small tenements-yielding the owner a rent heightened by
the exemption-and these of the worst and most unhealthy kind. "In
order to make out a case for the non-payment of rates, it is necessary
to have inconveniences and defects."
27. But in many places the rent of the parish paupers was paid
out of the parish fund.
•
OUTDOOR RELIEF OF THE ABLE-BODIED IN MONEY
28. When the outdoor relief of the able-bodied was afforded in
money—the more prevalent system—this was generally effected by one
of five expedients.
I. RELIEF WITHOUT LABOUR
29. In many districts this was so common as to have acquired
the technical name of "relief in lieu of labour," and was favoured as
saving trouble and expense.
30. The sums were sometimes small-"insufficient for complete
subsistence" and given under the condition that the applicant should
shift for himself and give the parish no further trouble.
But it is more usual to give a rather larger weekly sum, and to force the
applicants to give up a certain portion of their time by confining them in a
gravel-pit or in some other enclosure, or directing them to sit at a certain
spot and do nothing, or obliging them to attend a roll-call several times in the
day, or by any contrivance which shall prevent their leisure from becoming a
means either of profit or of amusement.
2. ALLOWANCE
31. This form of relief, known in Berkshire as "make-up" or
"bread-money," was the parochial relief which a person employed by
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
23
individuals at the average wages of the district obtained on account of
his children; sometimes a sum to meet occasional wants, sometimes a
certain weekly sum or, more frequently, the value of a certain quantity
of flour or bread, to each member of the family. In some places this
had matured into a system, forming the law of a whole district, sanc-
tioned and enforced by the Magistrates, and promulgated in the form
of local statutes under the name of "scales." By the use of these scales
the amount of relief was increased or reduced according to the price
of bread. . . . .
32. To use a modern term, the weekly sum thus calculated was
considered the "living wage" which each household, according to its
constitution and numbers, should earn, and, when wages came short
of this, they were supplemented according to the scale.
33. There were two ways, however, of calculating the "make-up.”
In perhaps a majority of the parishes in which the allowance system
prevails, the earnings of the applicant, and, in a few, the earnings of his
wife and children, are ascertained, or at least professed or attempted to be
ascertained, and only the difference between them and the sum allotted to
him by the scale is paid to him by the parish.
This system existed in the southern counties, and was extending itself
in Yorkshire, Durham, and the north of England generally. But in
other parishes the labourer was not supposed to be earning more than
a given sum, and if that were less than the size of the family entitled
him to, the parish made up the difference.
34. No consideration was given to the amount of wages earned
over the year-only to those earned in the current or the previous week
or fortnight. Thus: "Many of those who at particular periods of the
year receive wages far exceeding the average amount of the earnings
of the most industrious labourer, receive also large allowances from
the parish."
35. The effect of placing married and unmarried on a different foot-
ing as to relief was, of course, to encourage early and improvident
marriages. A child very soon came to be considered as an independent
claimant for relief, and entitled to it, though residing with his parents,
and though the parents might be in full work at high wages.
3. THE ROUNDSMAN SYSTEM
36. Under this system the parish sold pauper labour to the occu-
piers of property at a certain low price, and made up the difference
24
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
between that and the scale allowance. Sometimes the paupers were
sold to the farmers at auction. .
4. PARISH EMPLOYMENT
37. Although the 43rd of Elizabeth did not authorise relief to be
afforded to any but the impotent except in return for work, payment
for work appeared to be "the most unusual form" in which relief was
administered. Out of over £7,000,000 expended in the year ending
March 26th, 1832, for the relief of the poor, less than £354,000, or
scarcely more than one-twentieth part, was paid for work, including
work on the roads and in the workhouses.
38. This was easily accounted for:
1. When work was paid for, superintendence had to be provided, and this
was costly and inefficacious.
2. Collecting the paupers in gangs for the performance of parish work was
found to be more immediately injurious to their conduct than even al-
lowance or relief without requiring work.
3. Parish employment did not afford direct profit to any individual.
39. The “work” provided was generally on the roads-sometimes
for part of the week, or part of the day, with the intention of inducing
and enabling the paupers to find work for themselves. In some of
the agricultural districts, the prevalent mismanagement in this respect
was found to have created in the minds of the paupers a notion that it
was their right to be exempted from the same degree of labour as inde-
pendent labourers. Hence the adoption in some parishes of eight till
four as the hours of work, with one hour off for dinner. "It was a thing
unknown before," said the paupers of Great Farringdon, "in this parish
or any other, that parish labourers should work as long or as hard as
the other classes of labourers.'
دو
40. In many places, while the labour exacted was trifling, the
parish pay equalled or exceeded the average wage of the district, and
wives of the independent labourers were heard regretting that their
husbands were not paupers. "If a man did not like his work he would
say: I can have 12s. a week by going on the roads, and doing as little
as I like." Without adequate supervision, of course, this work turned
into a farce; men who bestirred themselves a little were laughed at by
their companions.
5. THE LABOUR-RATE SYSTEM
41. This was the sharing out of the labourers who had settlements
in the parish by agreement among the ratepayers, each ratepayer em-
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
25
ploying a certain number, and paying them, not according to the real
demand for labour, but according to rental, or acreage, or number of
horses kept for tillage or contribution to rates, or some other scale.
In default of employment, the ratepayer paid a corresponding sum to
the overseer.
42. There were considerable differences of method and distribu-
tion, varying almost with each parish adopting this system. But, gen-
erally the practice seemed to be, "not a sharing in fair proportions of
the burthen amongst all, but a shifting of the burthen from one class
to some other"; sometimes from the farmers to those in trade, and
sometimes from large occupiers of land to small, or from arable to
grass farmers; while in some cases a strong desire was shown to place
it upon the tithes. Hence the peculiar injustice of tradesmen and
small farmers being saddled with labourers whom they had no means
of employing "working out the labour rate" as it was called-and
having to pay in default. The small occupier, who, by himself or with
his children, was able to perform all the labour necessary for his little
farm, was, in the great majority of cases, the severest sufferer.
43. The "indirect and unrecorded loss" sustained by the ratepayers
in this way was illustrated by the case of a farmer of 500 acres, paying
a poor rate of IOS. per acre, and who had constantly to employ four or
five more labourers than he required-costing him another £100--to
say nothing of the damage done by worthless labour.
OUTDOOR RELIEF OF THE IMPOTENT
44. This―as no profit could be made out of it by individuals---was
subject to less abuse: "Even in places distinguished in general by the
most wanton parochial profusion, the allowances to the aged and infirm
are moderate."
45. Outdoor relief of the sick was usually effected by contract with
a surgeon, but the contract generally included only those who were
parishioners. On the whole, medical attendance seemed to be ade-
quately supplied, and economically, if only the price and the amount
of attendance were considered.
INDOOR RELIEF
49. Workhouse relief also was found to be subject to great mal-
administration. . . . . The chief evils were absence of classification,
discipline, and employment, and the extravagance of allowances. Chil-
dren were herded with older people, and soon acquired their bad habits
26
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
particularly was this the case with young girls obliged to associate
with the many prostitutes among the inmates; paupers were allowed to
leave the workhouse one day a week, and return intoxicated without
punishment; prostitutes came in to recruit their health, and returned to
their trade, etc., etc.
•
ADMINISTRATIVE MACHINERY
Without going in detail into all the charges made against the vari-
ous classes, the conclusions may be summed up as follows:
I. OVERSEERS
70. The Overseers generally farmers in the rural districts, shop-
keepers or manufacturers in towns were empowered by law to make,
assess, collect, and distribute the fund for the relief of the poor. Serving
compulsorily for three, four, six, or twelve months, they might be
indicted or fined if they refused or neglected to serve, but they received
no remuneration for serving. On the other hand, if they refused relief,
or granted less than the applicant thought himself entitled to, they
might be summoned before the justices-if, indeed, recourse was not
had to more summary forms of remedy, viz., personal violence and
arson. As a fact, in many districts, the principal obstacle to improve-
ment was the well-founded dread of these atrocities..
6. MAGISTRATES
81. But there was another local authority which had powers as
regards poor relief. The 3 and 4 Will. and Mary, c. 11, after reciting
that many inconvenciences did daily arise by reason of the unlimited
powers of the Overseers who did frequently, upon frivolous pretences,
but chiefly for their own private ends, give relief to what persons and
numbers they thought fit, prescribed that the poor in each parish
should be registered, with date of first receiving relief, and of the oc-
casion which brought the applicants under that necessity; that the
register should be produced to the Vestry yearly in Easter-week, when
there should be a call over of the persons receiving collections, and a
new list made of such persons as the Vestry should think fit to allow
to receive collection; and that no other person should receive collection,
but by authority under the hand of one Justice of the Peace residing
within such parish, or, if none were there dwelling, in the parts near
or next adjoining, or by order of the Justices in Quarter Sessions, except
in cases of pestilential disease.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
27
82. But owing to loose drafting of subsequent amending Acts, a
Justice was enabled, on the pauper's statement of some matter which
the Justice should consider to be a reasonable cause or ground for relief,
to summon the Overseers to show cause why relief should not be given,
and to order such relief as he should think fit. And against this order
there was no appeal. . . .
85. The very mode in which their jurisdiction was enforced seemed
intended to destroy all vigilance and economy on the part of those who
administered relief, and all sense of degradation or shame on the part
of those who received it. The Overseer was summoned, perhaps, six or
seven miles from his business, or his farm, to defend himself before the
tribunal of his immediate superiors against a charge of avarice or
cruelty. He seldom had any opportunity to support his defence by
evidence; the pleadings generally consisted of the pauper's assertions
on the one side, and the Overseer's on the other. The Magistrate might
admit or reject the evidence of either party at his pleasure; might
humiliate the Overseer in the pauper's presence, with whatever reproof
he might think that the Overseer's frugality deserved, and finally pro-
nounce a decree, against which, however unsupported by the facts of
the case or mischievous in principle, there was no appeal. It must be
remembered, too, that the pauper had often the choice of his tribunal.
All the Overseers of a district were, therefore, at the mercy of any two
Magistrates, and it might be, even at the mercy of any one. The pauper
might select those Magistrates whom misdirected benevolences or de-
sire of popularity, or timidity led to be profuse distributors of other
people's property, and bring forward his charges against the Over-
seer, secure of obtaining a verdict. He appeared in the character of
an injured man dragging his oppressor to justice. If he failed he lost
nothing, if he succeeded he obtained triumph and reward. And yet
persons were found expressing grave regret that the parochial fund was
wasted, that relief was claimed as a right, and that pauperism had
ceased to be disgraceful.
86. Supposing that such a power to "enforce charity and liberality
by summons and fine" ought to exist, there were strong grounds for
thinking, that the existing Magistrates were not the best persons to be
entrusted with it. In the first place, they were men of fortune, un-
acquainted with the domestic economy of the applicants for relief, and
as unfit, from their own associations, "to settle what ought to be the
weekly incomes of the industrious poor" as the industrious poor would
be to regulate the weekly expenditure of the Magistrates.
28
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
87. And, secondly, the Magistrate, even if he had a general knowl-
edge of the subject, seldom had and seldom could acquire a knowledge
of the individual facts on which he had to decide. A pauper claimed
35. on the ground that his family consisted of five persons, and that he
had earned during the last week only 75. The Overseers believed that
he had, in fact, earned more, or that he might have earned more if he
thought fit to exert himself, or that the lowness of his acknowledged
earnings was the result of a collusion between him and his employer,
in order to throw part of his wages on the parish. The Vestry agreed
in opinion with the Overseer and the pauper appealed to the Magis-
trate.
89. It was little wonder that the Overseers complained bitterly of
the obstruction given to their exertions by decisions of Magistrates.
As one said: "The greatest evil of which I am aware is the facility
with which every plan of the vestry or overseer is brought into ques-
tion on the complaint of the pauper, who selects a kind and often
inconsiderately liberal magistrate as his patron.'
""
90. In the towns, again, where investigation into cases was much
more necessary and much more difficult, the jurisdiction of the Magis-
trates was still more objectionable. Summonses were granted indis-
criminately, and relief ordered almost as indiscriminately. One ridicu-
lous case was quoted where fifty paupers in a body came to the Over-
seer and demanded immediate relief on a Magistrate's order, and where
the Overseer insisted on the whole fifty cases being gone into separately
before the Magistrate, only to receive the reply that: "To examine
into these cases of fifty paupers, at five minutes per case, would take
four hours and ten minutes, which is impossible to be done, and un-
necessary, inasmuch as it was the duty of the overseer to have en-
quired into the cases himself, and relieved the deserving, and rejected
the undeserving."
REMEDIAL MEASURES
1
92. Reviewing the evidence thus presented, one may well under-
stand the statement of the Commission' that the most pressing of the
evils described were those connected with the relief of the able-bodied,
and that these were the evils, therefore, for which they would first pro-
pose remedies.
That is, the Poor Law Commissioners' Report of 1834; reprinted [Cd. 2728]
1905.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
29
*
93. If evils such as these-or evils resembling or even approaching
them--were necessarily incidental to the compulsory relief of the able-
bodied, they would not, they said, have any hesitation in recommend-
ing its entire abolition.
Subscribed and sworn to before me this
day of
Notary Public.
3. The Board of Supervisors of any county charged with a portion
of the expense of maintaining any person or persons in the Insane
Asylum of some other county may at any time request the Trustees of
such asylum to furnish it with an itemized account of the articles and
cost of clothing furnished such person, and such Trustee when so re-
quested will be expected to promptly furnish the same. The Board
of Control will adjust any controversy as to the accuracy of such ac-
count.
V
If the County Asylum and the County Poor-House are under the
same management, the salaries and wages of all officers and employes
whose duties are common to both institutions should be apportioned to
such institutions on the basis of the average population of each. The
monthly report of wages and salaries should be made, and the per capita
cost of maintenance in the annual report should be computed on this
basis.
There shall also be kept an account of all the products of the asy-
lum farm used or consumed in the asylum, or disposed of and the pro-
ceeds so used. The fair market value thereof, or the money received
from the same and so used in each year, shall be deducted from the
annual interest at 4 per cent. of the cost of the asylum plant and equip-
ment, excluding cost of poor-house and equipment, if there be a poor-
house under the same management. The balance represents the net
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
347
annual interest on the investment at 4 per cent. This balance should
be included in the current expense account of the asylum upon which
the per capita cost of maintenance is computed.
VI
Section 601, R.S., provides that every female over ten years of age
committed to any hospital or asylum for the insane shall be accom-
panied by a competent female. This Board has been astonished to
learn that this most salutary law, demanded by common decency for
the protection of helpless insane women from possible outrage or neg-
lect, has recently been disregarded in two instances, in each of which
an insane woman was brought to the hospital, in one case by a sheriff
alone, and in the other by the sheriff and a male assistant only.
Failure to obey this law cannot be tolerated. Hence, superintend-
ents of hospital and asylums are directed to report any such failure to
this Board with the name of the delinquent officer, to the end, that a
representation of the facts may be made by this Board to the authority
having power to remove such officer.
The above directions were adopted and ordered printed and dis-
tributed April 14th, 1900.
17. The State Prison¹
The first Report on the State Prison was submitted by a supervising
board known as the Board of Visitors, and was published in 1806; the
title of the principal officer was then superintendent. A few years after
the establishment of the prison the name of the board was changed to
that of directors, and the office of superintendent was superseded by
that of warden. This board was succeeded in 1828 by a board of three
inspectors, who continued to supervise the affairs of the prison until
1879, when the Commissioners of Prisons, created by a statute of that
year, were given that authority. The Commissioners of Prisons are now
succeeded by a new Board of Prison Commissioners, established by
chapter 364 of the Acts of 1901. This new board, in addition to having
the general powers of supervision which have been exercised by all
the boards in turn, has the power of appointing the warden whenever
a vacancy shall occur in that office. Since the establishment of the
prison the warden has been appointed by the Governor.
The General Court of 1901 passed an act permitting the employ-
I Extract from First Annual Report of the Prison Commissioners of Massa-
chusetts for the Year Ending September 30, 1901, pp. 3–5.
1
348
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ment of convicts in the State Prison on any part of the premises of the
institution.
Another act removed the restriction as to the imprisonment therein
of United States prisoners. Formerly only such of these prisoners as
were convicted in the courts of the United States held within the dis-
trict of Massachusetts could be sentenced thereto; but now the prison
may receive such convicts from any district. This amendment is in
harmony with the statutes relating to all the other prisons in the
state.
The law relating to the custody of prisoners held to await the execu-
tion of the death sentence has also been amended. When this act was
passed the custody was restricted to one place, but it is now provided
that if the execution is respited, or otherwise delayed by process of law,
the warden may confine the convict in one of the cells of the separate
prison.
There has been no change in the principal officers of the prison dur-
ing the year ending Sept. 30, 1901. A full list of the present officers of
the prison will be found in an appendix to the warden's Report, which
also contains detailed financial statements. The maintenance account
shows a balance of $151,232.81, which should be reduced by the amount
of the net earnings $11,161.76, to obtain the actual cost of support,
which is $140,071.05. In the tables following the warden's report are
full particulars concerning other matters relating to the prison.
As compared with last year, the prison population is slightly di-
minished. On Oct. 1, 1900, there remained in custody 854 prisoners.
During the year 159 were received under sentence from the courts, 3
were returned by order of the Commissioners of Prisons, and I by order
of the Governor for violation of the permit to be at liberty. There were
discharged by commutation of term sentence for good behavior, 27;
and on expiration of term sentence, 4; by expiration of the minimum
term under the indeterminate sentence law, 97; and by expiration of
the maximum term, 4. One sentence was vacated by order of the
court, 6 prisoners died and 6 were pardoned. One habitual criminal was
released by the Governor and Council, 4 prisoners were released on
parole by the commissioners, 18 were removed to the insane asylum,
I to the Massachusetts Reformatory and 2 to the State Farm, leaving
846 in custody at the close of the year. The average number for the
year was 847.
The number of recommitments last year was 24, and of these, 4
were prisoners sentenced for the third time. A reference to the table of
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
349
details of these commitments shows that in three of the four cases pris-
oners were sentenced from the same county every time they went to
the State Prison; and it must have been known that they were ame-
nable to the penalty of the habitual criminal law. Attention is drawn
to this fact merely for the purpose of showing the continued inequality
in the administration of this law.
At the date of this Report 609 of the prisoners are engaged on the
productive industries and 206 on miscellaneous domestic work about
the prison. The remaining 31 are unemployed, being either confined
in the cells of the separate prison or in the hospital.
The State account industries consist of making boxes, brushes,
harness, shoes and trunks. About 100 prisoners are employed in mak-
ing clothing, for public use, of the cloth which is manufactured at Con-
cord; and the hand-made shoe industry also employs a considerable
number. The only other work done here for public institutions is that
of weaving cotton cloth.
The prison is now in good condition, the convicts are kept well em-
ployed, good discipline is maintained, and all parts of the prison show
the careful attention to details which has characterized the present
administration.
18. The Reformatory Prison for Women¹
The Reformatory Prison for Women was established in 1877, and
was then under the supervision of the Board of Commissioners of Pris-
ons that was created in 1870. A few years after the establishment of
the prison the old Board of Commissioners was abolished, and a new
board was created by an act of 1879; this new board continued to
supervise the affairs of the prison up to last May, when it was succeeded
by the Prison Commissioners, which, in addition to the authority here-
tofore exercised by the supervising board, will appoint the superin-
tendent whenever it shall be necessary to fill that office. No other
change in the law relating to this prison has been made during the
year ending Sept. 30, 1901, nor has there been any change in the
principal officers. A list of officers, with rank, date of appointment,
salary, etc., will be found in the appendix to the superintendent's Re-
port. In the appendix are also presented full details concerning the
prisoners committed to the prison, together with a statement of the
financial affairs.
* Extract from First Annual Report of the Prison Commissioners of Massa-
chusetts for the Year Ending September 30, 1901, pp. 43-44.
350
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The expenditures for maintenance in the year ending on September
30 amounted to $53,857.95, and the receipts from small sales of vege-
tables, etc., and for board of United States prisoners, amounted to $2,-
693.68, leaving a balance of $51,164.27. This balance should be reduced
by deducting the earnings from the industries, which were $9,710.55,
to obtain the actual net cost, $41,453.72.
At the beginning of the year covered by this Report there were in
custody 240 prisoners. During the year 220 were committed by the
courts, 6 were transferred from other prisons and I was returned from
the insane asylum, making the whole number in custody during the year
467. Fifty-nine prisoners were discharged by expiration of sentence, 77
were given permits under the law which commutes a sentence for good
behavior, 84 were released by the commissioners under the statute
which authorizes special permits, 1 prisoner was transferred to another
prison and 2 prisoners died, leaving 244 in custody on Sept. 30, 1901.
The average number in custody was 236, but as all the time some pris-
oners were absent on indenture, the average number in the prison was
only 223.
The principal industry here is that of making white shirts, which
are sold on the market by an agent appointed by the superintendent for
that purpose. Other work is provided in the laundry, in the dairy and
on the farm. In addition, some employment is found in the sewing
room in miscellaneous sewing for the institution and in making certain
articles for public use. In the last two years the superintendent has
made some progress in establishing a sewing class, and it is hoped that
this plan may be fully developed, as it furnishes valuable instruction.
The prison buildings are in good condition generally, but are in
need of repainting, as stated in the superintendent's Report. It is
recommended that a special appropriation of $2,500 be made for that
purpose. The addition of the store-house which is now under construc-
tion will add to the convenience and economical management of the
place. In every respect the prison has been kept up to the high stand-
ard that it has heretofore maintained.
19. The Cost of Care of the Insane¹
The cost of the insane to the State seems large because it can so
readily be estimated, being provided wholly by the State, and not, as
¹ Extract from Tenth Annual Report of the State Charities Aid Association of
New York to the State Commission in Lunacy, November 1, 1902, pp. 30-32, 38-39,
51-52.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
351
in other cases, from various sources. That it is not large in comparison
with the cost of the county, city and town almshouse institutions and
the private and semi-private charities in this State, will be seen by the
following statements.
The so-called almshouse institutions, as already stated, are divided
into two classes; first, county almshouses; second, city and town alms-
house institutions, including public hospitals. On September 30, 1901
there were, in all the institutions of these two classes, 12,879 inmates.
These institutions had spent for the maintenance of inmates during
the year which ended on that date, $2,369,678.30. On the same day
there were 22,654 patients in State Hospitals for the insane (excluding
the criminal insane), and the cost of their maintenance for the year had
been $3,766,615.49. With nearly twice as large a population as the
almshouse institutions, the State Hospitals had spent only one-half as
much again for maintenance as the almshouse institutions. The only
conclusion to be drawn from such a comparison is that the tax payers
of the State are paying a larger average rate through county and city
taxation for almshouse paupers and city hospital patients than through
State appropriations for the scientific and curative treatment of insane
patients in State Hospitals.
In the field of charity, the class which approximates most nearly to
the insane in the character of the treatment required, is hospital pa-
tients. There are more than eight thousand hospital patients in private
institutions in this State, and these institutions spend annually over
six millions of dollars, received from private and public sources. With
about a third of the population of the State Hospitals, they spend con-
siderably more than a third as much again for the care of their patients.
It should be remembered that while the total expense of the insane
for all purposes is ordinarily less than five millions of dollars a year, in
the field of private charity, assisted in some cases by public funds, over
six millions a year is spent for hospital patients; over six millions for
the support of institutions for children; and over two millions for homes
for the aged. When these facts are considered, it is possible to under-
stand how comparatively low is the per capita cost of caring for the
insane.
IMPROVEMENT OF HOSPITAL INDUSTRIES
The influence upon State Hospital patients of pleasing surround-
ings and congenial occupations is regarded as among the chief means of
securing their improvement and cure. It would seem possible to co-
352
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ordinate somewhat more perfectly these two methods of moral treat-
ment by providing for some of the patients agreeable occupations,
which would also directly contribute to the beauty and comfort of their
surroundings. Many of the patients in all State Hospitals show surpris-
ing proficiency in the making of baskets and mats, rag carpets and rugs,
in embroidery, fancy sewing, and lace making, but either they, or those
who direct them, seem to lack good judgment in the selection of mate-
rials and designs. The results of their work show great skill and indus-
try, but are seldom beautiful.
The remarkable development in recent years of the textile indus-
tries, and the increasing attention paid to the improvement of home
manufactures through the introduction of sound principles of art into
the crafts, should also make its influence felt in the industrial de-
partments of our State Hospitals. The now famous "Deerfield in-
dustries," similar to those mentioned above, are carried on to a
large extent by elderly women of little training in their own homes,
and are an example of what may be done if such work is properly
inspired and directed. Industries similar to those at Deerfield might
with great advantage be introduced in our State Hospitals. Sev-
eral of the hospitals have hand looms, and if proper methods were em-
ployed and the right materials selected, beautiful rag carpets and rugs
in artistic shades could be easily and inexpensively produced for the
wards and corridors, and would add greatly to the warmth and comfort
and homelike appearance of the interiors. The simple and beautiful
designs for table covers, curtains, cushions, and other furnishings,
which are now readily procurable and easily worked, could be employed
for the further beautifying of the wards. The making of straw hats
might be introduced in the basket department. The making of chairs,
tables, and other articles of furniture, according to the artistic and yet
simple designs which are now much used, would seem to provide a suit-
able industry for many of the more careful and intelligent men patients.
We would suggest that a teacher, well versed in the arts and crafts
suitable for introduction into our State Hospitals, be employed by the
State to visit the different institutions and instruct a selected number
of employees and patients in the manufacture of beautiful and useful
objects. Patients who were subsequently cured and returned to their
homes might find the pursuit of the crafts thus learned a means of self
support, as the supply of such products is not yet equal to the demand,
and the prices which they command are still very high. The introduc-
tion of such industries in the State Hospitals would certainly benefit
PAGE
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
353
the patients and improve the appearance of the institutions, and might
at the same time result in considerable financial saving to the State.
EMPLOYEES
And here we would quote the following taken from the (N.Y.)
Lunacy Commission's Twelfth Annual Report at page 24:
It is not generally understood why there should be such a disproportion
between institutions for the insane and other charitable institutions, in the
item of wage expenditure. It is frequently a matter for criticism by those
not fully informed, that such comparatively large numbers are employed.
An analysis of the wage account will show that 60.60 per cent. of the persons
employed are personal attendants upon the inmates. No feature of insane
hospital administration is more susceptible to change, or more easily dis-
turbed by reduction, than the ratio of attendants to patients; and no feature
has received more attention and study for its proper adjustment. The chief
element of success in the modern treatment is the personal one, taking the
place of and improving upon mechanical restraint, the camisole, the straight
jacket, the muff and the padded room. Violence and punishment have been
abolished only by the increase in the number of trained attendants and
nurses, and with a reduction they will again appear, whatever other methods
may be substituted. Nothing can take the place of the trained attendant,
and careful data have substantially fixed the proportions needed. Hence an
appreciation of these facts will explain what may seem undue employment.
It is sometimes thought that a large hospital, by permitting a more extended
classification, may reduce its ratio of attendants, but this is not true in any
appreciable degree, for in mixed wards the number of attendants is governed
by the average amount of personal care required by its patients. An average
of the symptoms or characteristics of all the patients in a given hospital,
which require personal attendance, will give the ratio of attendants needed,
as surely as a limit of nutrient value is needed for a given number of persons
of a certain energy.
The hospital economies have gradually led to an increase of employees,
either to avoid waste or to produce at a profit to the institution. Instances
might be multiplied where intelligence has been substituted for expenditure,
and more might be done in this direction. As an instance, the employment
of a skilled man to supervise the fires of a large battery of boilers, where
careless or unskilled firing would result in a great loss, saves in fuel several
times more than his salary. In like manner a skilled chef reduces food waste
far in excess of his wages; and a trained gardener gains a product for the
institution which is worth many times his cost. The need for a skilled
medical service adds to the wage account an item not required in the same
degree by other charitable institutions except hospitals, although the per
capita cost of medical service is but $11.73 a year. The large item is, as
354
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
first stated, for attendants and this cannot be safely reduced if the present
humane care of the insane is continued. It was formerly the custom to
seclude the insane in their room at night without attendants, and the result
can well be imagined. This has been replaced by night attendance and
supervision with provision for meeting all the personal wants of patients at
night, thus insuring cleanliness and sanitation as well as avoiding to a very
large degree the distressing casualties formerly so frequent.
20. Co-operation between the Public Authority and the
Private Organization
A. THE WORK OF THE STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION¹
As has often been the fact in regard to other social and political
reforms, Massachusetts took the lead in placing her institutions of
charity and benevolence, generally, under the supervision of officers
appointed by the State. The utility of that supervision was soon dem-
onstrated; and the State of New York very soon followed her example.
In 1867, a law of New York provided for the creation of State Com-
missioners of Charity, with limited powers, which have since been
greatly enlarged. There is now in New York a State Board of Charities.
The utility of such concentration of authority and general supervision
has not been less in New York than in Massachusetts. The investiga-
tions and reports of these Commissions have been salutary in many
ways. By pointing out defective and expensive methods of adminis-
tration, they have caused those more efficient and economical to be
substituted. By means of exposing abuses and rebuking their authors,
they have promoted great reforms. Among those abuses were allowing
old and young, males and females, the sane and the insane, the unfortu-
nate and the degraded, to be brought into demoralizing association.
But perhaps the greatest good of all, which has been accomplished
mainly through the publication of the annual reports, has been the
arousing of the intelligent and public spirited classes to a better appre-
ciation of the essential evils flowing from the demoralized poor, and of
the solemn duty and need of individual effort for the removal of these
evils.
It soon, also, became apparent that there were both abuses and
sufferings, for the relief or removal of which, no mere official action was
adequate. Beside, there was danger that official action might more and
more tend to become timid and perfunctory. The jealous and passive
¹ Remarks of Mr. D. B. Eaton, from his own "Notes and Recollections,"
Proceedings of the Conference of Charities (Detroit, May, 1875), pp. 105–7.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
355
resistance of organized institution of charity, as well as the great power
of partisan combinations, with which the action of the Board might
interfere, threatened to be serious obstacles to a complete reform.
An appreciation of these needs and perils led to the formation of
"The State Charities Aid Association,” in May, 1872. It has had, from
the beginning, among its leaders and workers, some of the most gifted,
patriotic and benevolent men and women in the State. Chief among
these women-and, from the first, the Association has been substan-
tially managed and its manifold work of beneficence has been mostly
done by women-is Miss Louisa Lee Schuyler. She had had ample
experience, in similar labors for the public good, in the sanitary com-
mission, during our late war, and she has, as a leader and President of
the Association, had the advantage of the advice and sympathy of
Florence Nightingale.
I can refer, only in the most general manner, to the abounding and
beneficent labors and influences of this unique Association.
In the first year of its work it fearlessly exposed and censured the
chronic and shameful abuses of the poor-law administration of the
county of Westchester-one of the leading counties of the State in
which Miss Schuyler and some of her leading associates resided. How
the young and the old, the sane and insane, the unfortunate and the
degraded, the drunkards and the temperate were herded together-
were demoralized and neglected-were poorly supported at a needless
expense and were tending to develop a hereditary-pauper class-was
set forth in able reports which created a sensation throughout the State.
These ladies, accustomed to cleanliness and elegance at home, visited
the roughest inmates and the most neglected quarters of the poor-
houses and institutions of charity.
As might have been expected, the officers, the physicians, the ma-
trons, the nurses, the keepers, the cooks, the chambermaids, such as
they were—and a partisan, ignorant, shabby set in the main they were
—of the county, were indignant, if not furious. The doors were soon
closed against the ladies, and all members of the Association. But the
press opened fire—the higher sentiment of the county and the State
was aroused. They were more than a match for the corrupt partisan
officers. It was not long before the bad officers were dropped and bet-
ter officers and employees were elected or appointed. The doors were
again opened to the Association, and those who had been rudely re-
pulsed were welcomed to the poor-houses and charity institutions of
Westchester county, and their advice was accepted. The poor-law ad-
356
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ministration of the county was made more worthy of a civilized and
Christian people.
The Association then directed its attention to the city of New York,
where there was not less need of its influence. Some of the best men
and women of the city joined those who had gained the victory in West-
chester county. But in New York, as in that county, the personal visi-
tations of poor-houses, asylums and hospitals were mostly made by
the women. The labor, sacrifices and devotion of some of them were
very great, and marked improvements in the administration quickly
followed. Officers who had gained their places by the victory of a great
party recognized a new and higher influence, which they dared not
disregard even if they wished to do so. It was a striking illustration of
the moral power of a few refined women, guided by a noble spirit. The
exertions of the Association were soon extended to the city of Brook-
lyn, and throughout the county of Kings, with very salutary results.
Nor did they stop there; for they have been extended throughout the
more populous portions of the State. There are now local organiza-
tions, in large measure under the management of women, having the
same aims as the parent organization, in, I think, about half the coun-
ties of the State. Some of them act independently; but at least sixteen
of them are in some measure under the advice of the parent association.
They are all, in a certain way, subordinate to the State Board of Chari-
ties; and yet, in a way, they are also independent and aggressive. They
everywhere develop and lead on that intelligent and patriotic spirit
which demands energy and courage in public affairs, and honesty and
economy in the administration. No one can study the history of these
associations without being impressed with these two facts: first, that
there is a great need of bringing private advice, consolation and co-
operation to bear upon the poor-law administration; secondly, that
there is in the community, and especially among the women, a vast
amount of unutilized capacity and readiness for labor and sacrifice in
this field of usefulness. If such organizations could be formed and
maintained, in courage and vigor, in every city, village and town in
the country where there are paupers, there is every reason to believe
that some of the most ominous features of the question of the poor-
law administration and the pauper class would speedily disappear. Nor
would this be the only gain; for those who stood for honesty, economy,
general intelligence and good morals, would be greatly cheered by more
decisive evidences of their numbers, their power, and their patriotic
courage and ability to do good.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
357
So strong for good had these associations already become, that in
1873, they procured the passage of a law which largely increased the
authority and duty of the State Board of Charities itself. Among the
provisions of this law was one authorizing the Board to appoint agents
throughout the State with authority to visit, inspect, and report, upon
the condition and management of poor-houses, asylums, hospitals, etc.
The representatives of the associations have been appointed to the
most responsible duties as such agents. It was the Association in New
York which founded in that city the first school in this country for
training and educating nurses. It has been fairly endowed by private
subscription, and is now aided by public authority. Some of its gradu-
ates are now rendering invaluable services in the hospitals; and schools
for educating nurses, formed upon the same model, having been already
founded in Boston and Philadelphia. Perhaps enlightened philanthro-
py
has never, in our country, taken a form which affords a higher guar-
anty of incalculable good, than as illustrated in these schools for edu-
cating nurses, who shall be competent for every duty of their responsi-
ble calling.
In the hospitals for the sick and in the asylums for the insane-or
more especially in the jails and poor-houses where the insane have been
so disgracefully allowed to remain--the power and beneficent influence
of these associations have been felt. But it is only in the reports of the
Association itself, which can be had at its office, (52 East 20th Street,
New York City), that any adequate idea of their usefulness and of the
grave abuses they have confronted and in part removed, can be ob-
tained. To these reports I invite the attention of the benevolent and
the patriotic throughout the country. The expense, the numbers, the
insolence and the perils of our dependent classes are on the increase;
and they are tending to become hereditary. The fact that most of our
paupers are of foreign, birth, in view of such facts, is but poor consola-
tion, and is no excuse for that neglect of them which threatens a prolific
home production and a fearful increase of the evils of partisan politics,
excessive taxation and political immorality.
•
358
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
B. PUBLIC POWERS GIVEN TO THE STATE CHARITIES
AID ASSOCIATION'
The People of the State of New York represented in Senate and Assembly,
do enact as follows:
SECTION I. Any justice of the supreme court of the judicial dis-
trict within whose boundaries any of the public charitable institutions
of the state hereinafter referred to is located, is hereby authorized to
grant on written application of the board of managers of the "State
Charities Aid Association" (a corporation organized under chapter
319 of the Laws of 1848, and amendatory acts), through its president
or other designated officer, to such persons as may be named in said
application, orders for the purpose of enabling them or any of them to
visit, inspect and examine in behalf of said association, in the county in
which the visitors so appointed shall reside, any of the county poor-
houses and town poorhouses and city almshouses within the state, and
located within such judicial district. Each of such orders shall specify
the institutions to be visited, inspected, and examined, and the names
of the persons by whom the visitation, inspection and examination are
to be made, and shall be in force for one year from the date on which it
shall have been granted, unless sooner revoked.
SECTION II. It shall be the duty of any and all persons in charge of
each and every poorhouse or almshouse embraced in the order specified
in the first section of this act, to admit any or all of the persons named
in the said order of the justice of the supreme court into every part of
such institution, and to render the said persons so named in said order
every facility within their power to enable them to make in a thorough
manner their visit, inspection and examination, which are hereby de-
clared to be for a public purpose, and to be made with a view to public
benefit. Obedience to the order herein authorized shall be enforced in
the same manner and with like effect as obedience is enforced to an
order or mandate made by a court of record.
SEC. III. It shall be the duty of the said corporation to make an
annual report to the state board of charities.
I "An Act to Confer upon the State Charities Aid Association the Power to
Visit, Inspect and Examine Any of the State Charitable Institutions, County Poor-
houses and Town Poorhouses and City Almshouses within the State," Laws of the
State of New York (1881), chap. 323.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
359
21. Suggestions for Visitors to State Hospitals for
the Insane¹
1. Buildings. Observe the general plan of the hospital, noting
the location, plan of construction, and arrangement of the different
buildings with reference to the purposes for which they are used. Give
the number and kinds of buildings erected and completed during the
year, or in course of construction, the extraordinary repairs to build-
ings, and other important improvements begun or completed during
the year.
2. Colonies. If there are agricultural or other colonies connected
with the hospital, study the operations of such colonies.
3. Farm and Garden.-State size and character of farm and gar-
den; amount and variety of farm and garden products; ratio of farm
and garden products to total consumed by hospital. State size of herd
and amount of milk raised; size of hennery and number of eggs and
fowls raised. State quantity of fruits and vegetables used for canning.
pay
4. Capacity and Census.--Ascertain the certified capacity of the in-
stitution and compare this with the actual census. Observe whether
there is over-crowding, and, if so, among what classes of patients it is
most noticeable.
5. Medical Service and Treatment.—-Observe the number and char-
acter of the physicians, the ratio of physicians to patients, the nature
of the medical work, the methods of examining and recording cases,
the frequency of staff meetings, the methods followed in assigning the
medical work to the physicians, the non-medical work required of phy-
sicians. Inquire into the facilities and equipment for medical work,
including surgery, electrotherapy, hydrotherapy, etc., and the extent
to which the patients receive treatment in these departments. Study the
methods of prescribing, dispensing and administering medicine, of arti-
ficial feeding or forced alimentation, of providing extra or special diet
for the sick, and the methods of insuring its reaching those for whom it
is ordered.
6. Nurses and Attendants.-Observe the nurses and attendants,
the amount and character of their work, the ratio of these employees
to patients, their compensation, their privileges, the extent to which
they are provided with lodgings apart from the wards. Study the oper-
ations of the training school, including the number of pupils in the
¹ From Fourteenth Annual Report of the State Charities Aid Association of New
York to the State Commission in Lunacy, November 1, 1906, pp. 64-67.
1
360
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
school, the number of graduates of the school in the employ of the hos-
pital, and the methods of instruction.
7. Instruction and Entertainment.-Observe the facilities provided
and the methods employed for the instruction and entertainment of
the patients, including school instruction, formal entertainments,
dances, bands of music, games, books and papers, drives, walks and
boat rides, gymnastics, the cultivation and enjoyment of flowers, the
celebration of holidays, etc.
8. Religious Worship, etc.—Inquire into the opportunities for re-
ligious worship, the provision made for the spiritual needs of the seri-
ously sick and dying, the arrangements for burial, etc.
9. Occupations. Note the method of employing patients, the num-
ber and kinds of industrial occupations, the number of patients regu-
larly employed in each, the number of working hours per day, the pro-
vision made for medical supervision of the patients employed, of the
selection of occupations for individual patients, and of the number of
hours each should be employed.
10. Restraint.—Observe the methods of restraining or secluding
excited patients and the number on the date of visitation under re-
straint of any kind. Examine the record of restraint.
S
11. Privileges.—Inquire into the extent of freedom allowed pa-
tients and the number and classes of patients who enjoy "open door,"
"parole," or other privileges. Ascertain the rules regarding visits from
friends and letter writing.
12. Outings for Patients.-Describe fully any facilities that the hos-
pital may have for giving patients a change of air and scene. Has the
hospital a cottage at a distance from the main buildings where patients
can be sent, or camping out parties organized, or other arrangements
made for vacations for patients.
13. Treatment of Pulmonary Tuberculosis.-How many cases of
pulmonary tuberculosis in the institution? Are patients of this class
kept apart from others? Are they accommodated in tents, or specially
constructed pavilions? If tents are used, state for how many months
in the year, style of tent used, method of heating and ventilation,
toilet facilities, etc. If pavilions are used, describe construction and
arrangement. What diet is prescribed for such patients? Are printed
rules and regulations regarding care of such patients issued to nurses
or posted in the wards? Results of treatment,-what proportion of pa-
tients treated recover, or show marked improvement; what proportion
die?
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
36I
14. Bathing and Toilet Facilities.-Note the arrangement for bath-
ing patients, the kinds of baths given, the frequency with which the
patients are regularly bathed, the extent to which the bathing is super-
vised by physicians and nurses. Examine the plumbing as to both
quality and extent, noting the number of fixtures in the toilet rooms,
and the ratio of fixtures to patients using these rooms.
15. Clothing.-Observe the general character and the amount of
the clothing furnished patients and the extent to which their clothing
varies with the season. Note the number of under and outer garments
provided for each patient, the extent to which there is individual
ownership and use of clothing, the character of the clothing worn at
night, the frequency with which underclothing is changed. Examine
individual patients to ascertain how they are clothed.
16. Beds and Dormitories.-Observe the general character of the
beds and bedding, the method of airing the beds and dormitories, the
size and arrangement of dormitories, the extent to which the wards.
are under the supervision of physicians and nurses at night, the ex-
tent to which and the classes of patients for which separate bedrooms
or congregate dormitories are used.
17. Food and Dining Room Service. Study the food and the dining
room service. Note the quantity, the quality and the variety of the
food, the extent to which differences are made for different classes of
patients, the character of the special diet, and the arrangements for
serving the food hot. Observe the table service, the size and shape of
the tables, the character of the tableware, and the method of serving
the patients. Is a dietitian employed, and what is the character of the
work done in this department?
18. Supplies.—Visit the storehouse and study the methods of re-
ceiving, caring for, and distributing all supplies, observing the quality
and quantity of supplies of all sorts furnished, and their adaptability
to the needs of the patients.
10
19. Fire Protection.-Observe the various methods of protecting
the patients and the buildings against danger from fire, noting features
of construction designed to prevent the spread of fire, the extent,
character and condition of the fire alarm system and of fire fighting
apparatus; the extent to which fire drills are carried on among
patients and employees, and the character and frequency of such
drills.
20. Admission and Care of Recent Cases.-Inquire into the usual
routine pursued on the admission of patients and study, the methods
362
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of housing, feeding, clothing, employing, amusing and otherwise caring
for supposedly recoverable cases.
21. Needed Improvements. Make a list of the most urgent needs
of the hospital, and mention any improvements that seem desirable
either in the accommodation or care of the patients.
M
22.
The Constitutional Rights of Visitation¹
APPEAL by the defendents, F. Park Lewis and others, from a per-
emptory mandamus order of the Supreme Court, made at the Albany
Special Term and entered in the office of the clerk of the county of Al-
bany on or about the 21st day of April, 1922, requiring the appellants
to submit to the powers of visitation and inspection conferred by the
State Constitution upon the State Board of Charities by making cer-
tain written reports.
•
HASBROUCK, J.: This is an appeal from an order of the Albany
Special Term granting a mandamus order directing appellants to make
report to the State Board of Charities.²
The New York State School for the Blind, against whose trustees
the above order was made, was organized as a corporation in accord-
ance with chapter 587 of the Laws of 1865. Its powers and duties were
originally granted and regulated by chapter 744 of the Laws of 1867,
and now by article 39 of the Education Law, being section 990 et seq.
of that statute, and by chapter 136 of the Laws of 1919 (adding to Edu-
cation Law, Section 94a).
The school as a charitable institution is also subject to the provi-
sions of section 11 of article 8 of the State Constitution, which provides:
"The Legislature shall provide for a State Board of Charities, which
shall visit and inspect all institutions, whether State, county, munici-
pal, incorporated or not incorporated, which are of a charitable, elee-
mosynary, correctional or reformatory character."
By section 970 of the Education Law the Commissioner of Educa-
tion has been also given visitorial power.
There is no question raised as to the right of visitation upon the
part of the State Board of Charities. The question at issue is whether
such Board can require the trustees of the School for the Blind to make
written reports of the visits and inspections of its own trustees and of
¹ Extract from The People v. F. Park Lewis and Others, Constituting the Board
of Trustees of the New York State School for the Blind, Appellants (1922), 203 N.Y.
App. Division 395, Affirmed 239 N.Y. 528.
2 See Matter of Newton v. Lewis, 118 Misc. Rep. 382.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
363
their attendance at regular and special meetings and to furnish copies
of the minutes of their regular and special meetings.
The boards of trustees, representing the appellant, claims that the
words "visit and inspect" in the Constitution confer no power to re-
quire written reports.
In order to ascertain what is meant by the word "visit" in the Con-
stitution, it must be recognized that the Constitution makers gave to
it its meaning in the law for they were dealing with the fundamental
law. Perhaps the most celebrated case involving visitorial power is
that of Philips v. Bury, in which Lord Holt, according to our own
Chancellor Kent, gave a most celebrated judgment which should be
examined.
In that case, Doctor Bury, rector of Exeter College in Oxford, was
for contumacy deprived of and amoted from his office by the visitor,
the Bishop of Exeter. In discussing the power of this visitor, the views
of Lord Holt, which were not concurred in by his brother judges, so
that judgment was given for the rector, were upon an appeal to the
House of Lords accepted as the law.
Among the views expressed by Lord Holt are the following:
Private and particular corporations for charity founded and endowed
by private persons are subject to the private government of those who
erect them. . . . . It is now admitted on all hands that the founder (of a
charity) is patron, and, as founder, is visitor. So that patronage and visita-
tion are necessary consequents one upon another; for this visitorial power
was not introduced by any canons or constitutions ecclesiastical . . . . it is
an appointment of law; it ariseth from the property which the founder had
in the lands assigned to support the charity; and as he is the author of the
charity, the law gives him and his heirs a visitorial power, that is, to inspect
the actions and regulate the behaviour of the members that partake of the
charity; for it is fit the members that are endowed and that have the charity
bestowed upon them should not be left to themselves. but pursue the
intent and design of him that bestowed it upon them to prevent all
perverting of the charity or to compose differences.
This industrial school for the blind, to use the nomenclature of
earlier days in the law, is the foundation of the State. The lands and
the property constituting the school are the State's. It should have
the power to manage and direct its own instrument, its own foundation.
Part of that power is vested in the State Board of Charities. The
Constitution names it the State's visitor. If to visit means as Lord
Holt declares "to inspect the actions and regulate the behaviour of the
*
?
364
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
members
[to] pursue the intent and design" of the founder or
as in the case at bar, the State then, the visitor, may require any act
done by the corporation that will promote the purposes of the institu-
tion. The powers of a visitor in the sense it must have been used by the
Constitution makers are of necessity so comprehensive and broad that
it is easy to infer that within them lies the power to require officials to
exhibit records and make reports.
•
That the visitor is possessed of such broad power is the opinion of
Lewin in his work on Trusts (I [8th ed.] 719): "The office of visitor is
to hear and determine all differences of members of the society among
themselves and generally to superintend the internal government of
the body." Also of Chancellor Kent (2 Kent Comm. 302). He says the
visitors "may amend and repeal the by-laws and ordinances of the cor-
poration, remove its officers, correct abuses and generally superintend
the management of the trust."
It seems unnecessary further to comment upon the meaning of the
word "visit" as used in the Constitution in connection with the State
Board of Charities. Indeed we might say with the Lord Chancellor
in Attorney-General v. The Archbishop of York: "Nor can any man
doubt what the powers of a visitor are.
We are of the opinion that the purpose of the Constitution was to
confer upon the State Board of Charities the power to superintend the
management of the appellants' school and that in such superintendence
it has the power to ask for and have delivered to it written informa-
tion or reports concerning the school. There is no power in the Legis-
lature to impair this constitutional right of the State Board of Chari-
ties. Neither is there any power granted to the Education Department
to interfere with the visitorial power exercised by the State Board of
Charities. The power of the Education Department is statutory, that
of the Charities Board constitutional. Both must be given effect where
they do not conflict. If there be conflict the constitutional power is
paramount.
The controversy at bar is one undoubtedly growing out of the an-
noyance of the board of trustees of the School for the Blind in having
to make so many reports and in having so many visitors.
The law, however, provides for them and requests for such reports
made in the administration of the duties of the Charities Board should
be complied with.
The order should be affirmed.
SECTION III
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The establishment of the state boards was inevitably followed by
an increase in administrative power in those boards in their relations
to the state institutions. It has appeared that the boards of trustees of
institutions did not always welcome the intervention of the central
authority,' and it will appear that as there was a multiplicity of institu-
tions to be supervised there might be created a multiplicity of agencies
to supervise.² There were two questions, one of which might be answered
by adequate comparable records, namely, that of the actual relative
cost under one system as compared with another; the other, the results
in spiritual, social, permanent gains that can be measured in dollars
and cents, if at all, only after years of experimentation. The compar-
able records have been and still are lacking. Attention may be called
now to the very great difficulty in comparing one system with another
because of faulty account-keeping, deficient record systems, paucity
and irregularity in the publication of reports, and above all in the lack
of agreement as to the true nature of the services undertaken and the
consequent lack of any service unit. The older Poor Law administra-
tion developed the principle of "less eligibility," namely, that the
condition of the person under care should be less desirable than that of
the independent workingman. It might be said that modern welfare
work in every field subscribes rather to the principle of “adequacy”;
and "adequacy" can, in the treatment of the family in distress, be
defined by the application of a standard budget as a measure at least of
relief. But when we pass beyond the question of relief in the family
group, the problem becomes enormously difficult. The general stand-
ard of life of the great mass of taxpayers may well be in many respects
below any level fixed by the ideal of adequacy when treatment is in-
volved. It is, therefore, of the greatest importance that there be care-
ful records accurately kept, honestly and intelligently analyzed and
compared, so that the relative efficiency and economy of different
¹ See above, Part II, Sec. II, Document 12, on the differences of opinion with
reference to the proper planning of hospitals for the insane. See also Document 22.
2 Documents 9 and 11 in this section, "Letchworth Village.”
365
366
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
methods may be compared. It is unnecessary to point out that such
records are not available. In the absence of such records, a priori argu-
ments and partisan effort have the stage, and attempts to secure com-
parative data are sporadic and incomplete.
In the absence of records such as these, arguments can be based
only on the general political, social, and economic doctrines held by
the participants in the discussion. In the National Conference of Chari-
ties and Correction there were repeated encounters between those who
on the one hand advocated either a great increase in the power of the
central authority without the abolition of the boards of trustees or the
abolition of the boards of trustees and the substitution of one central
board as was done in 1881 in Wisconsin, and those on the other who
believed in "supervision," which was understood to mean education,
persuasion, suggestion, co-operation, in brief, consent as against
power.¹
M
Over against these heated arguments based on the social philosophy
of the protagonists may be set the apparently dispassionate appeal to
principles of efficiency and public economy. Further reference will be
made to the movement in the states to set up special commissions on
economy and efficiency. The recommendations of these commissions
were generally characterized by a complete lack of knowledge and of
interest in the specialized principles of treatment² supposed to guide
those who cared for the different forms of distress. Their influence was,
however, very great because they spoke in behalf of principles which
should have their place in the determination of public arrangements.
Attention may, however, be called to the differences in the meaning
of these words in their application to public welfare and to domestic
I It is perhaps necessary to call attention again to two issues involved in this
controversy. One was that of the net relative value of the services of the boards of
trustees, i.e., the large number of persons who gave gratuitous service out of their
surplus time and strength, as compared with those of a small number of full-time
salaried officials. Another was the nature of the supervisory relationship, when the
purpose of the supervision was one of general oversight and representation of the
public interest rather than immediate direction of a subordinate by a superior in
the ordinary hierarchical arrangement of business or industry.
2 Document 12, Mr. Kelso's argument. A contrast is sometimes drawn between
the economy and efficiency exponents and the welfare officials as though the one
group were "administrative specialists” and the other "specialists in human rela-
tions." See E. E. McCombs, National Municipal Review, XIII (1924), 461. As a
matter of fact, these specialists in human relations were generally deeply concerned
with problems in administration. The difference between the two groups is a differ-
ence as to the ultimate test of efficiency and economy.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
367
welfare as contrasted with their significance in the field of industrial
or business organization. In the latter fields the profit-seeking impulse
makes the balance sheet the final criterion. In political and domestic
organization, human well-being under conditions of justice, freedom,
and equality, are the objects sought, and business administration can
never be the guide to truly successful organization. Only the working
out of units of well-being or of service which can be understood, com-
pared, and accepted, can ultimately serve as the basis of sound
judgment.
It will be noticed, then, that there were wide differences of opinion,
and, in the absence of convincing data, ugly charges were made as to
the influence of ulterior and selfish motives.
Special attention is called to the extract from Miss Clark's paper,'
in which she summarizes the experience of the State Charities Aid
Association; to the undertaking² of Mr. Henry C. Wright to make a
comparison from the point of view of economy among varying degrees
of control; and to the recommendations of the Illinois State Board that
it together with the institutional boards of trustees be abolished and
replaced by two boards, one replacing the institutional boards, the
other continuing the supervisory function.³
I Document 6.
2 Document 8. In this extremely interesting and valuable report, Mr. Wright
compared (1) the relative efficiency of the administration in New York State under
the State Charities Law, the Insanity Law, and the Prison Law, which differed each
from the other in the degree to which control was exercised by the governing body
as distinguished from supervision; (2) that of New York, with its three authorities,
and its varied organization from the point of view of control, with that of Iowa
where the administration was from 1898 centralized in the hands of a Board of
Control of three members, and with Indiana, where the institution trustees were
still relied on under the guidance of a supervisory board of five.
Attention might be called to the fact that between 1889, when the Indiana
Board was created, and 1923, there were only three secretaries: Alexander Johnson,
serving from 1889 to 1893; Ernest B. Bicknell, from 1893 to 1898; and Amos Butler,
from 1898 to 1923.
3 Document 7.
THE MOVEMENT FROM "SUPERVISION”
TO "CONTROL"
I. The Proper Functions of Boards of State Charities
and Corrections¹
I propose to speak very briefly of the proper functions of Boards of
State Charities and Corrections, and of some of the qualifications req-
uisite for the successful discharge of these functions. What I shall
say, will be understood to apply to such boards in their simplest form,
with only advisory powers, and dependent for influence, upon the ap-
parent wisdom and propriety of their recommendations.
Of the ordinary and well understood duty of these boards-the
duty of visiting from time to time the institutions with whose super-
vision they are charged, and of reporting annually to the legislatures
the result of their observations, it is not necessary to speak. This, if
faithfully and honestly done, can hardly fail to be productive of good.
If on the contrary, it be done in a careless and perfunctory manner, or
in an unkind and critical spirit, it will prove a positive evil. It were
better that the trustees of these institutions should be directly respon-
sible to the legislature, without any intervening body.
The highest service of Boards of State Charities and Corrections,
consists in bringing, on the one hand, to legislatures, and on the other,
to boards of trustees, the best knowledge-the fruit of the largest and
ripest experience, touching the care of the dependent, delinquent, and
criminal classes. Legislators, prison inspectors, trustees of reform
schools, and other similar boards of management, have neither the op-
portunity, nor the leisure for a thorough investigation of the deep and
dark problems of social science, and yet without the results of such in-
vestigation they are not prepared for the intelligent and proper dis-
charge of their several duties. It is the special function of Boards of
State Charities and Corrections to furnish this needed information
and guidance.
Another and kindred office of these boards is the diffusion through
the community of just notions in relation to the proper treatment of
I
Paper by George I. Chace, Proceedings of the Ninth Annual National Con-
ference of Charities and Corrections (Madison, 1882), pp. 19–24.
368
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
369
pauperism, vice and crime with a view to their reduction within the
narrowest possible limits. Public sentiment must be moulded into
forms favoring such treatment, and encouraging and supporting the
government in all wise measures looking to that end, although making
for a time additional demands upon the treasury. Under our demo-
cratic rule, no reform, however reasonable, or however much needed,
can be successfully carried forward without the approval and co-opera-
tion of the great body of the populace. In the absence of such support,
public institutions under the wisest and most efficient management lose
half their usefulness.
These conferences, besides their immediate effect, in enlarging the
views and strengthening the convictions of those who have part in
them, are the means through their widely reported discussions, of
spreading important knowledge, all over the land. Their published
Proceedings, everywhere welcome, as well as the annual reports of the
different boards to their respective legislatures, further assist in educat-
ing, on the subjects of which they treat, the general public.
From the proper work of Boards of Charities and Corrections, we
may infer some of the qualifications demanded of those who serve on
such boards. They should be men of large intelligence, of broad views,
and of generous sympathies-men in whose composition clearness of
perception, good judgment and moral insight are predominant ele-
ments-men of genius, Christian philanthropy as far removed from a
weak sentimentality on the one hand, as it is from a hard philistinism
on the other-men who are willing to spend and be spent in the service,
with no other reward than the good they may hope to accomplish-
men of standing and influence in the community, who are sought for
the service on account of their fitness for it, and not who seek it for
personal ends, or are appointed to it as a reward for political service
or through political favoritism.
Nor are these qualifications of character and standing alone suffi-
cient. It becomes those who accept positions on Boards of State Char-
ities and Corrections, whatever their social status, to make themselves
thoroughly acquainted with what has been done, and what is now doing
to minimize, or reduce to their smallest proportions, pauperism, vice
and crime, and to master as far as possible the principles underlying
such action. The function of these boards being simply advisory-
they having neither legislative nor administrative powers-their influ-
ence in both of these directions, will be proportional to the respect felt
for their recommendations. And this again will depend upon their
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
known attainments and character. Legislatures surrounded, as they
are, by all sorts of conflicting influences, are likely to pay little heed to
the suggestions of a body of well meaning men indeed, but with whose
ability and judgment they are not impressed. Boards of trustees, amid
their trying and difficult labors will gladly receive advice from men in
whose wisdom they confide, and whose experience, they know to be
greater than theirs. While the same advice thrust upon them by a
board failing to command their respect, would be resented as an inter-
ference in matters which belonged solely to them, and for which they
alone were responsible.
And further, as Boards of State Charities have no real authority-
no mandatory powers-it is important that their recommendations,
however wise and well considered, should be presented with proper def-
erence and courtesy to the legislative bodies whose action they invoke,
so as if possible to win a favorable hearing. They should at least see
that such recommendations do not fail to receive attention through any
infelicity in the manner or time of presenting them.
So also having no actual control over the trustees whose labors they
supervise, they should seek to establish and maintain with these boards
a personal influence so strong that there will remain to them only the
pleasant duty of guidance and inspiration.
Mere advisory boards sometimes complain of the want of author-
ity. Their advice, they say, is not heeded. However valuable in itself,
it is thrown away. This may be true in particular cases. But it is not
the rule. Advisory boards, whether composed of men or women, or of
both men and women, will in the long run, have all the influence to
which their wisdom, good sense and practical knowledge of affairs, en-
title them. Complaint of want of power, is under such circumstances,
confession of a lack of some of the means of influence.
Already much has been accomplished by our boards of charities,
in collecting and diffusing information, in shaping public opinion and in
promoting reforms in state legislation, and in the management of state
institutions; but still more important work remains to be done by them.
By their mastery of some of the most pressing social problems and by
the conspicuous wisdom of their recommendations, they should exert a
potent influence in determining the creation of similar boards in states
where such boards do not now exist. Originating in Massachusetts,
the acknowledged leader in reform of every kind, only nineteen years
ago, they have already spread through ten of the more influential of
the states, and should continue to spread until not a state in the union
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
371
•
is without them. A comparison between the prisons, alms-houses and
asylums for the insane, in the group of states where these boards are in
full operation, and the same institutions in states where such boards do
not exist would be interesting and instructive. It may be said these
boards are themselves the product of a larger intelligence and more ad-
vanced sentiment already existing in the states where they are found.
This is to a certain extent probably true. But there can be no doubt
that they have in time assisted in still further enlarging that intelli-
gence and developing and strengthening that sentiment of humanity.
The efforts of these boards must be put forth on a higher plane.
They must be directed to moral rather than material ends-the latter
being allowed to follow, as they assuredly will, in the train of the for-
mer. Pauperism, vice and crime must be met in their first budding. The
neglected and exposed children of the street, must be gathered into
homes and schools, where they may be properly instructed and trained,
where their own tendencies may be repressed, and all the good that is
in them through fostering influences, be brought out. Such homes and
schools, although requiring at the start a considerable outlay, would in
a single generation, as I believe, far more than repay their cost, in the
diminished expense for jails, prisons, and work-houses. When will our
legislatures be courageous enough, and have faith enough to take this
first step towards checking and bringing under control the great and
growing evils of our modern civilization?
There is need of higher aims, and the employment of more efficient
means in our reformatories and our houses of correction. Too great
reliance is placed upon mere physical appliances. All right moral, so-
cial and personal influences must be brought into more active play.
Encouragement must take the place of repression. Rewards must be
substituted for punishments. Hope is a stronger, as well as a more gen-
erous motive than fear. Obedience from love and respect is of more
value in the formation of character, than an enforced yielding to mere
authority. A spirit of kindness and contentment, of good will and trust,
must pervade these institutions, before they can accomplish these legi-
timate ends. As too commonly managed, not half the good of which
they are capable, is done by them. Their real success will not depend
so much on the system upon which they are conducted, whether close
or open, although I believe the latter in the right hands every way pref-
erable, as upon the character of the man at their head, and the spirit
breathed by him into his subordinates and employes. Rare gifts are
required-little short of moral genius--for the successful management
372
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of reformatory institutions on the open system. Any man may turn
keys, shove bolts and fasten bars. He may also enforce labor and con-
formity to rules by the deprivation of food, or the discipline of the
lash. Nothing but brute strength is needed for this; and only brutish
natures can receive benefit from it. All others are morally injured. A
juvenile reformatory conducted after the manner of a prison, becomes
a feeder to prisons. If there are any positions which it is important to
have well filled-filled with able and wise men-men of earnest, self-
denying and Christian tempers-it is the headships of our reform
schools and our houses of correction. When thus presided over and
directed, these institutions do untold good. In other and different
hands they may be a source of actual harm to the community. The
diffusion of right views on this subject, and the lifting to a higher plat-
form all reformatory work, is not the least of the tasks before us as
Boards of State Charities and Corrections. This, indeed, if I mistake
not, is the direction in which our efforts in the future will be mainly put
forth. Moral appliances will come to take the place more and more of
physical. It will be perceived that no form of evil can permanently
withstand the power of goodness-that Christian faith and love are the
greatest of all conquerors-that there are none so fallen or degraded as
to be beyond their reach—that the gospel of brotherly kindness and
good will promulgated two thousand years ago in Judea and Galilee
for the reformation of a world must be embodied and exemplified in all
our institutions, before they can fully accomplish their beneficent ends.
I am of the opinion that this advance in our reformatory aims and
methods, of which the need is so urgent, may be more easily and sooner
made, under single boards, with full administrative powers, than under
a system of double boards, one board having merely advisory, and the
other executive functions. A single board is most favorable to unity
and efficiency of action. The danger of petty jealousies on the one
hand, and of mischievous interference on the other, is precluded. Hon-
est differences of opinion are worn away by discussion, and the best
views, and wisest measures will generally prevail. The members of
such a board having an individual responsibility, feel more strongly its
pressure; while their larger powers confer additional dignity as well as
deepen their sense of obligation. Their experience in administrative
duties enables them to judge better as to what is practicable, and what
if attempted would be sure to result in failure. How many of the
schemes of philanthropists, when brought to this last test—the test of
practicability-have been found wanting? It is this fact that makes
•
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
373
legislatures so slow to heed the most earnest appeals of men and women
truly benevolent, but without sufficient acquaintance with affairs to
comprehend the difficulties that would be encountered, in carrying out
their proposed reforms. The mere sentiment of benevolence, however
genuine, must be enlightened, chastened and disciplined by the sober
teachings of experience before it can be a safe guide to action.
2. State Boards Tend to Become Administrative and
Not Simply Advisory¹
Of the twelve State Boards now in existence, only three or four re-
main simply advisory in their powers and duties, although originally
most of them were so established, at least in theory. The Boards of
New York, of Pennsylvania, of Illinois, Michigan, Wisconsin, and
doubtless of some other States, were created with duties of inspection
and supervision, and with powers of advice and recommendation, and
only these; but, in all these States, it has been found necessary or expe-
dient to add executive powers, and to make these Boards, in fact (what
those of Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Kansas, and Minnesota have
always been in name), a part of the State administration. In New
York, for example, executive powers in regard to the support of State
paupers and the removal of immigrants and vagrants have been con-
ferred; in Pennsylvania, these powers, and also the summary powers of
a Lunacy Commission; in Illinois, very extensive powers of audit; in
Wisconsin, the power of the purse over the maintenance of the insane
poor in county asylums; in Michigan, executive powers in regard to
children placed in families. The Rhode Island Board, which was at
first made partly executive and partly advisory, has now complete
control of all the State establishments. In Massachusetts, the executive
powers of the Board, which were from the first extensive, have been
enlarged until it is now one of the most important branches of the
State administration.
These changes in the function of the Boards are not the result of
chance, but indicate what we believe to be the fact, that such author-
ity, when once created in a State, will naturally increase; for occasions
arise when power must be lodged somewhere, and no more suitable
place can be found for it. No changes, so far as we know, have been
I Extract from F. B. Sanborn, "Work Accomplished by the State Boards.
Report of the Standing Committee on State Boards of Charities," Proceedings of
the National Conference of Charities and Correction (Omaha, 1887), p. 103.
374
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
1
made in the other direction, of limiting the duties of these Boards,-
except when special Boards have been created to relieve the Board of
Charities of some part of its increasing duties; and we believe there is
no State Board now in existence which possesses less power than when
it was first established. This indicates that the confidence originally
reposed in them has been justified by their activity.
3. State Control and Supervision¹
Control and supervision are distinct functions, and they require
to be sharply differentiated from each other. Control implies executive
power, the right to make appointments, to prescribe rules, and to pay
out money. It also implies direct responsibility for the administration
of the establishments committed to the care of an executive board.
Supervision implies absence of executive power. The powers of a su-
pervisory board are purely those of an inspector. Its function is criti-
cism and suggestion, not administration. Thus in the army an inspector
reports upon the condition of the troops, but is powerless to alter the
existing situation. That can be accomplished only by orders emanating
from the commander.
In states where the central board (commonly called a board of char-
ities), is a supervisory board, and the administration of the state in-
stitutions is confided to individual boards of trustees or managers, the
state which adopts this system secures the benefits both of responsi-
bility in the discharge of executive functions and also of independent
inspection, criticism, and suggestion. In states where the central board
is a board of control, the administration of the state institutions may be
equally good, or it may be worse or better; but there is no adequate
supervision of their methods and results. In other words, the loss is cer-
tain, but the gain is problematical.
A supervisory board cannot act as a board of control, neither can a
board of control act as a supervisory board.
The controversy over the question whether it is better to substitute
a central board of control having charge of all state institutions or of
some particular group of institutions for separate boards of trustees
having charge each of one institution relates, therefore, in fact to a de-
tail of executive management. It should not be confounded with the
question whether supervision is necessary or desirable. That, I think, is
I
¹ By F. H. Wines, Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Cor-
rection (Detroit, 1902), pp. 147–51.
·
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
375
generally conceded. But the need of supervision is apt to be overlooked
where a central supervisory board is converted into a central executive
board of control, or where such conversion is seriously proposed.
The arguments for and against the substitution of a central board
of control for separate local boards of management may be summar-
ized as follows:
It has been urged in favor of such substitution:
1. That it should be an economy, since it would enable the state to
purchase supplies for all of the state institutions in gross instead of in
detail, and therefore at lower average prices. But it is entirely possible
to organize a method of securing common bids for supplies for any num-
ber of institutions, and of making contracts for delivering the same in
quantities and at times and places specified, without resort to so radical
a departure from the established usage (in the majority of states) in the
matter of the organization of the state charities.
2. That it would result in increased efficiency of administration.
The reason commonly assigned for this belief is that the members of a
central board of control will give all their time to their official duties,
and will receive pecuniary compensation for the service rendered by
them, which will render them more responsible than are the unpaid
members of local boards.
3. That it would give unity of system in the management of the
institutions.
4. That it would facilitate the adoption of the merit system in the
appointment of employees. But a state which believes in the merit
system can and will have it, whether the executive power is in the hands
of a single board or of several independent boards; and a state which
does not believe in it will not have it under any circumstances or con-
ditions. There is no necessary or logical connection between the desire
for an improved civil service and the effort to consolidate the manage-
ment of a group of state institutions.
5. That local boards of trustees, composed of residents of the town
or county in which an institution is maintained by the state, too often
exploit it for the local benefit of the community. But a citizen of such
town or county, if on a central board, would enjoy additional facilities
for fostering the interests of his locality; and it is not necessary to ap-
point as trustee of a state institution any resident of the immediate
vicinity.
6. That it is in the line of the changes taking place in the business
methods of private corporations conducted for profit, in which con-
•
376
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
solidation, expansion, and increased power on the part of the general
management are brought about by the desire to cheapen production
and insure larger returns on invested capital.
On the other hand it has been said:
1. That the power which it is proposed to vest in a central board is
political power, and that it is unwise and unsafe to concentrate such
great and manifold powers in any single body of men. They would ap-
point the vast majority of any persons borne on the pay-rolls of the
state, would control the expenditure of more than half the general rev-
enues of the state; and the patronage thus placed at their disposal
would enable them to exercise an undue, if not a corrupting, influence
over the state legislature and the state executive. Witness, for instance,
the influence exerted in some of the Southern states by the lessees of
the state penitentiaries.
2. That membership in this central board of control would tend to
become the great political prize at the disposal of the governor. It
would be sought by men who would demand it as their reward for polit-
ical service; and their right to it would be recognized, thus placing the
control of the institutions in the hands of men not specially fitted for it
by experience, qualification, or inclination, but who are practical politi-
cians, and who would be tempted to use their power for the accomplish-
ment of political ends.
3. That the peril to the republic and to popular freedom lies in the
direction of centralization. The methods pursued by corporations con-
ducted for pecuniary gain are not necessarily a model for imitation by
a state government. The unity of system and method which centraliza-
tion implies would be quite as likely to be detrimental to the institu-
tions, especially to their inmates, as advantageous.
4. That a paid board, paid for administering, must administer, in
order to earn its money and to save its own self-respect. Its natural
tendency, therefore, is to assume and exercise functions which can bet-
ter be fulfilled by the superintendent of each institution as its execu-
tive head. This is not unlikely to result in the selection of inferior men
as superintendents, or in so hampering freedom of action on their part
as to diminish their efficiency and usefulness.
5. That the objects and methods of the different state institutions
are so dissimilar in detail, in spite of their general resemblance, that no
central board can feel an equal interest in all of them or administer all
of them equally well. On the whole, it is better that each should have
•
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
377
its own trustees, devoted to its individual welfare, who believe it to be
the most important and meritorious enterprise fostered by the state,
and who will plan and fight for it with that dominating conviction and
impulse.
6. That generally, if not universally, the establishment of a central
board of control cannot be effected without the abolition of the central
supervisory board, as well as of the local boards of trustees; and the in-
jury thus done to the system as a whole is greater than any advantage
which might accrue to the state in some other direction.
The proposal to establish a central board of control usually origi-
nates, I think, in the brain of some scheming politician, who wishes to
strengthen a political machine by the addition to it of the state chari-
table institutions, which can be effectively used by an adroit and un-
scrupulous political manager as an aid to the control of caucuses, pri-
maries, and conventions, and in the carrying of elections. They can of
course be far more effectively used for this purpose if they have a single
head, himself a member of the machine and in sympathy with its gen-
eral aims. The motive which prompts the suggestion is concealed, and
the ostensible motive put forth is the intention to secure better busi-
ness organization, improved business methods, which appeals to busi-
ness men not politicians, and who claim still less to be experts in benev-
olent work. Into the hands of these schemers those reformers play,
who are impatient because reforms grow slowly, with the gradual edu-
cation of public opinion, upon which they at last depend for moral
support, and who imagine that they can be effected by the concentra-
tion of authority in a board which can issue and enforce the necessary
orders. But does not this authority, this power, already exist? Why is
it not used? Why suppose that one set of men will accomplish what
several sets of men working in harmony cannot accomplish?
A central supervisory board is apt to be far more active and effi-
cient than a board of control in the matter of arousing public interest
in the benevolent work, both of the state and of private individuals or
associations, and of educating public opinion on social questions as re-
lated to public and private charity. It is natural, is it not, that an exec-
utive board which believes itself to be doing all that can or ought to be
done, with the means and facilities at its disposal should be indifferent
to public opinion or sensitive to criticism of its methods by the com-
munity? But a supervisory board, whose function is criticism, wel-
comes and stimulates the closest inspection of public and private chari-
378
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ties by the public at large, feeling that in such inspection it receives
moral support of inestimable value to the state.
Personally I dread the creation of centralized boards of control.
They are less objectionable if they have charge only of single groups of
institutions, as for instance, all the hospitals and asylums for the insane
or all the prisons. They are also less objectionable in small states than
in the larger ones. They would be very much less objectionable if they
did not mean the abolition of the supervisory boards but two central
boards cannot ordinarily be maintained in one state. If they could,
there would almost inevitably exist rivalry and conflict between them.
4. State Supervision and Administration of Charities
and Correction¹
According to this report you see that the question for discussion
this evening is a very broad one and covers the whole subject of the re-
lation of public authorities to charitable administration, whether that
administration is conducted by the public authorities exclusively or
whether it is conducted by private individuals. The primary question
is what should be the relation of the public authorities to the public ad-
ministration of charity or to what we call public charity. There have
been and there still are in operation many different systems.
In the first place there is the system of management by local boards
of unpaid trustees without any central supervision. By supervision
I mean any central authority having the power to visit and inspect, to
see whether there is anything wrong going on and to report upon it.
That is the first system, a system of local management by local boards
without central inspection.
Another system is that of management by local boards with cen-
tral supervision.
A third system is that of local management by unpaid boards with
central supervision and central financial control.
A fourth system is management and financial control by a central
authority.
Now there is a fifth possible system, one which has hitherto been
very little considered and, in fact, has not yet, so far as I know, been
put into operation anywhere. That would be a system of management
and control by a central authority supplemented by central supervi-
sion.
¹ Extract from Discussion by George F. Canfield, Proceedings of the National
Conference of Charities and Correction (Atlanta, 1903), pp. 494–95.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
379
5. Reasons Which Favor a State Board of Control¹
First.—A state board of control greatly decreases the cost of main-
tenance of all the state institutions and saves the taxpayers from $100,-
000 to $150,000 annually in each state where it has been fairly tried.
Second. A state board of control secures greater accuracy in ac-
counts and facilitates the transaction of business by furnishing uni-
form blanks and a uniform system of book-keeping for each state in-
stitution, and thus secures greater efficiency of administration.
Third.—A state board of control eliminates local controversy in
the communities where the state institutions are located, over the ques-
tion of dividing the state's bounty in purchasing supplies, etc., and
also prevents legislative combinations for that purpose.
Fourth.--A state board of control provides better food, better cloth-
ing and better care for the inmates of all state institutions, and thus
preserves and extends the purposes for which the institutions were
established.
Fifth.—A state board of control secures better discipline among the
employees and inmates of every state institution by means of the spe-
cial powers conferred upon each superintendent to select his own as-
sistants and employees, and to discharge them for cause. It secures in
this way the merit system with employees.
Sixth. A state board of control relieves the superintendents of
the state institutions from the burdens of financial details which en-
ables them to study, as never before, the real problems involved in
their work, and to preserve and extend the educational and reforma-
tory purposes for which the institutions were founded.
Seventh.-A board of control, constituted upon the plan of Iowa
and Minnesota, practically eliminates politics from the management
of state institutions. Civil service principles are adhered to from the
beginning.
Eighth.-A state board of control is an expression of the best
thought of the age in centralizing large business enterprises. It is in
harmony with the drift of events and meets the demands of the times.
The state institutions have grown to such large proportions, involving
the expenditure of such large sums of money and involving such intri-
cate and complicated problems affecting the interests of all the citizens,
that popular judgment favors a central state board of control.
¹ Extract from A. W. Clark, “Limits to State Control and Supervision,” Pro-
ceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction (Portland, 1904), pp.
180-82.
380
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Ninth.-A state board of control practically insures equitable ap-
propriations to the different state institutions and prevents the con-
stant lobbying of institutions against each other. It is well known that
under the old system of advisory boards, superintendents of state insti-
tutions and local trustees spend many days lobbying with each legis-
lature for appropriations. Those who are most skilled in such business
secure large appropriations, often more than actually needed, while
other institutions are left to suffer because of inadequate appro-
priations. No difficulties of this sort arise under a state board of
control.
Tenth.-A state board of control corrects abuses, makes needed
changes and enforces recommendations. An advisory board is power-
less to enforce recommendations. It can only investigate, advise and
report. Universal testimony in Wisconsin, Iowa and Minnesota is that
since their state boards of control were created, no complaints against
the management of public institutions have arisen making formal in-
vestigation necessary. The moral effect of the existence of these boards
is everywhere recognized.
GROUNDS UPON WHICH STATE CONTROL RESTS
As a living growing body the state has many members with many
functions. As illustrated by M. Fouillee:
In the highly organized machines used in the manufacture of cotton or
woolen stuffs, when a single thread breaks, the loom stops of its own motion,
as if the machine were notified of the accident which has happened to one of
its parts, and could not continue its work until this is repaired. This is a
sample of the solidarity which will more and more hold sway over human so-
ciety. In this web of social interests, wherein all individual destinies are in-
terwoven, not a thread, not an individual should be injured without the gen-
eral mechanism being warned of the accident, affected by it, and obliged to
repair the harm done as far as possible.
If one member suffers all the members suffer. Just as the brain is the
supreme center for the direction of the members of the body, so the
state constitutes the center for the control and supervision of charities
and correction. These problems are of vital importance to the whole
community, and are so complex and so interwoven into the life of the
people that state control is a necessity.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
381
6.
Centralization and the Use of the Expert¹
The kind of centralization that would be true economy for the
State would be the employment of competent specialists to assist the
institutions in making the most of themselves, and in more largely co-
operating with, and supplementing one another. For instance, I would
advocate the employment of a scientific farmer of the highest type pro-
curable who would study the institutions' farms, and the institutions'
needs for additional farming land, and advise as to the purchase of
new land, the treatment of the land, and the crops to be cultivated. A
trained dietitian should be employed to make a study of the various
needs of the different institutions in connection with the selection,
preparation and serving of the food. The employment of such an officer
has been of marked benefit in the Department of Public Charities in
New York City, which has in its jurisdiction almost as many institu-
tions as those included among the State charitable institutions. A di-
rector of industries would be of great value, especially in connection
with institutions which do not employ a complete and varied force of
industrial teachers. Some of the State institutions are not large enough
to employ the full time of all the teachers of industries that might be
desirable, and by the employment of a central traveling director of in-
dustries the needs of each institution might be met more fully and yet
economically. New lines of work could be devised, and started by such
a teacher with great advantage and could be carried on by assistants in
the interim between visits.
Such specialists would facilitate co-operation among the various
institutions, which is one of the greatest needs at the present time. The
institutions are still too isolated. They should be organized for mutual
assistance to a much greater extent. In the agricultural and industrial
departments especially their isolation is wasteful. The aim should be
to enable each institution to produce as large a proportion of its sup-
plies as is possible without interfering with its more fundamental pur-
poses, such as educational or reformatory work. What an institution.
cannot produce itself, it should look first to obtain from some other in-
stitution, and finally from the open market. Many institutions might
advantageously supply not only a considerably larger share of their
own needs, but also meet, in large measure, the needs of other institu-
¹ Extract from a paper by Mary Vida Clark, "The Needs of the State Chari-
table Institutions" (at the Eighth New York State Conference of Charities and Cor-
rection), Forty-first Annual Report of the New York State Board of Charities for the
Year 1907, I, 513–16.
382
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tions. Craig Colony, for instance, might furnish a much larger quan-
tity of bricks from its brickyard, if an arrangement could be made by
which bricks could be supplied for institutions where buildings were
being erected. With some additional land sufficient vegetables could be
produced and canned to supply thousands of the wards of the State
with a good quality of such articles. Other institutions could furnish
manufactured articles of many kinds for one another's use. The ex-
tent to which advantageous co-operation might be furthered by an
enlightened central administration, is doubtless greater than can be
estimated from a superficial survey of the field. Centralization, in a
word, should be constructive, not merely restrictive or destructive.
While we need greater uniformity in such ways as these, there are
other directions in which we should avoid uniformity. We should not
try to house and feed and clothe in a similar way at a similar cost the
inmates of the different institutions. We should especially resist the
temptation to compare and average the per capita cost of maintenance
of all the State charitable institutions, for to do this is to assume that
they are comparable and should be similar. It is an injustice to treat
the State charitable institutions in this way. Instead of being lumped,
compared and averaged, they should be divided into distinct classes.
with distinct and different standards recognized for each class. In a
general way they fall into three large divisions, as institutions which are
educational or remedial or custodial. The educational institutions are
the reformatories for men, women and children, the Syracuse State
Institution for Feeble-minded Children, the Thomas Indian School
and the State School for the Blind. These are all schools, which are
endeavoring to fit young people to become self-supporting and self-
respecting citizens, and the State should pay what it costs to accom-
plish this result, no matter what it costs. The remedial or curative in-
stitutions are the State Hospital for Incipient Pulmonary Tuberculosis,
the State Hospital for Crippled and Deformed Children, and the Craig
Colony for Epileptics in part. The patients in these institutions who
are curable and improvable should be cured and improved, no matter
what it costs. It is the worst waste to go only half way, to spend large
sums in establishing these institutions, and then not support them well
enough, so that they can accomplish what they were established for.
The custodial institutions are of two classes, those strictly custodial,
such as the Newark and Rome asylums, and a part of Craig Colony,
where a lower rate of expenditure than is possible with the other classes
could accomplish the results aimed at, and secondly, Homes, such as
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
383
those for soldiers and sailors and their families, which, for financial
purposes, can be classed with the custodial institutions, because they
need be only comfortable homes and infirmaries for an ordinary self
governing and well-behaved set of people. What is extravagance for
an institution of one class, may be economy for that of another and
vice versa. There should be a standard for each, but not for all; more
or less uniformity perhaps among institutions of the same class, with
the widest difference necessary between the different classes.
17.
The Illinois Board Suggests Its Own Abolition
Α'
We recommend the enactment of a law establishing a State Board
of Control, to have direct charge of all the State charitable institutions,
to succeed the present Board of State Commissioners of Public Chari-
ties and the Boards of Trustees of the several State charitable insti-
tutions.
The State of Illinois now has fifteen charitable institutions and we
have recommended the location of another, namely, the Illinois State
Colony for Epileptics, which was established by act of the Forty-first
General Assembly, approved April 19, 1899. In the law recommended
by us for the control and management of this latter institution we
have provided for a board of three trustees, our object in doing so being
that it might be under similar management as the existing charitable
institutions.
These fifteen charitable institutions have forty-nine trustees and
there are five members of the Board of State Commissioners of Public
Charities, making in all fifty-four persons who are charged with the
duty of seeing that these institutions of the State are properly man-
aged under the law. In addition, they have fifteen local treasurers.
All of the institutions are under the supervision of this board. Our
duties, however, are merely advisory, we having no real executive or
controlling power. Under the law we are required to visit each of them
at least twice a year to see that the moneys appropriated for their sup-
port are economically and judiciously expended, to see whether their
offices are accomplished and that the laws in relation to them are com-
plied with. It also requires us to inquire and examine into their meth-
ods of government and management, the conduct of their trustees,
¹ Extract from Sixteenth Biennial Report of the Board of State Commissioners
of Public Charities of the State of Illinois (1900), pp. 42–43.
384
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
officers and employes, the condition of the property, and into all mat-
ters pertaining to their usefulness and management. In addition to
this, the law requires us to approve their accounts. Notwithstanding
all these requirements this board as constituted has no such executive
power to enforce any of its recommendations as should be lodged in a
central governing body.
As above stated, the direct control of all these institutions is vested
in boards of trustees, one board for each institution, the members of
which serve without compensation, as also do the members of this
board. Each of the boards selects its own superintendent, looks after
and controls the making of contracts, the buying of supplies, the expen-
ditures of money and all the general workings of the institution.
We believe that with a State Board of Control, to have direct
charge of the making of contracts, the buying of supplies and all other
matters incident to the general management of these institutions, bet-
ter results could be obtained than at present with the moneys which are
appropriated for the care and maintenance of the unfortunate wards of
the State.
We do not wish to be understood as reflecting upon the present
management of these institutions, as we believe it cannot be excelled
in any State having a similar system. But is this system as sound, safe
and economical, depending as it does upon voluntary service on the
part of the boards of trustees, as any that can be inaugurated?
In our judgment the State Board of Control should consist of three
members, to be appointed by the Governor for long terms, and re-
quired to devote their entire time and attention to the work. For this
service they should receive adequate salaries. In this way the expenses
of administration can be lessened, greater uniformity secured, and the
way paved for more effective work along lines leading to the highest
and most advanced position. Again, the funds of the State which are
now disbursed by the fifteen local treasurers above referred to would,
under this system, be paid direct to the parties entitled thereto upon
the warrant of the State Auditor of Public Accounts. This, we think
far preferable to the present system, as it would place the disburse-
ment of the State's funds in the hands of the State officers elected for
that purpose.
Without commenting further upon the various details in connection
with this subject we commend it to the careful consideration of the
members of the Forty-second General Assembly.
We also deem it of the utmost importance that the merit system
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
385
3
should be introduced in all of the State charitable institutions, and we
strongly recommend that this be done.
BI
In looking back upon the work accomplished and the effort made
toward securing improvements in the service during the term of the
present board's tenure of office, the Commissioners of Public Charities
about to relinquish their appointments according to the provisions of
the new law, feel that in many regards, their predecessors had blazed
the way. Called into existence forty years ago, the board represented
the best knowledge on administration and organization of public State
care of the insane and defectives available at the time of its creation.
These forty years, however, have been exceedingly rich in new experi-
ence both in the State and throughout the world. The system devised
out of the best wisdom of four decades ago had justified itself fully by
the results obtainable under it. But the larger needs of a new situation
demanded greater administrative concentration and more direct re-
sponsibility. Our board welcomes the new order of things as an augury
of still greater achievements to be worked out in the future.
No scheme, however comprehensive and well considered, contrived
by man, will eliminate all danger or can foresee and forestall all contin-
gencies. As it is the man behind the gun upon whom the efficiency of
the new ordnance depends, so the system about to go into effect in
Illinois will realize or disappoint the expectations of its sponsors and
well wishers in measure as the men entrusted with the administration
rise to their opportunity and show loyalty to the trust imposed. Our
government being a government through political parties tends toward
dragging into politics and considering as political assets even those
parts of the executive and legislative spheres of action which in no
sense of the term are political and under other forms of government are
never affected or invaded by political considerations. The new law in
requiring that one of the Board of Administration shall be qualified by
education and experience as an expert in insanity recognizes a principle,
which if further developed, cannot but throw around the charity serv-
ice of the State strong safeguards against its being polluted by politi-
cal selfishness.
¹ Extract from Twenty-first Fractional Biennial Report of the Board of State Com-
missioners of Public Charities of the State of Illinois (1909), pp. 36–37.
This report is signed by Frank Billings, Emil G. Hirsch, John T. McAnally,
Julia C. Lathrop, Clara P. Bourland, and William C. Graves, Executive Secretary.
386
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Professional pride and loyalty will assert themselves in the physi-
cian chosen to advise his colleagues on the board on matters where ex-
pert knowledge is indispensable. It will keep him strong to resist all
temptation to utilize his office for the attainment of political ends. The
whole medical faculty of the State will watch him, feeling that in his
hands lies the honor of his profession. The qualifications prescribed
are therefore the strongest guarantee possible that the wards of the
State will not be cheated of that which humanity, morality and the law
jointly and solemnly ask be recognized to be their due.
The adoption of the principles underlying the Civil Service law is
another earnest that Illinois has planted her foot squarely and strongly
on the ladder of progress. Under its operation, what otherwise would
have been exposed to the danger of becoming a haphazard and make-
shift employment largely dependent upon political and petty influ-
ences, is bound to grow into a professional service of trained and com-
petent experts. The experience had in the few years under the Civil
Service law warrants the most hopeful prediction for the future.
The centralizing of the administration must also be hailed as the
dawn of a new era of greater efficiency in the State institutions. It
will make for better co-ordination and greater simplification, for econ-
omy and thoroughness throughout.
8. Summary of Report of an Investigation of the Methods
of Fiscal Control of State Institutions¹
The general conclusions drawn from the facts disclosed by the in-
vestigation may be briefly summarized as follows:
a) An institution with an inmate population of 400 or over can ordinarily
secure as low prices as can a central body with power to contract for large
quantities.
b) Superintendents and stewards and boards of managers exercise as dis-
criminating and reliable judgment in the selecting and contracting for
supplies as is now exercised by central bodies.
c) Institutions, whether operating independently without central control,
or up to the present time with central control, do not meet as efficiently
as seems desirable, some of the larger problems of institutional manage-
ment which require expert knowledge.
d) In those institutions which seem to do the best work and seem to care for
the inmates most satisfactorily, the superintendent is given, under the
¹ Made for the State Charities Aid Association in 1911 (Publication No. 122),
by Henry C. Wright, pp. 344–53.
a
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
387
general direction of the boards of managers, a large degree of liberty with
a corresponding responsibility.
To give these conclusions concrete form, an outline of a plan of central
supervision and partial control is presented below. Such an outline is
necessarily general and probably should be somewhat modified to adapt
it to local conditions in any particular state. This scheme of supervi-
sion is designed to secure the following results:
a) To eliminate, as far as possible, the likelihood of interference for political
purposes.
b) To retain on the part of a central department control over classes of ex-
penditures subdivided into reasonably small aggregates, without requir-
ing or permitting such a department to control purchases in detail.
c) To insure, as far as possible, a continuity of policy.
d) To provide for uniformity in accounting and reporting.
e) To secure expert advice and action thereon.
f) Through boards of managers to insure action based on knowledge of
local conditions and details; to furnish a check upon central control; to
furnish a direct point of contact between the institutions and the general
public, and to secure a means of co-operation between the institutions
and other social agencies.
SUGGESTED METHOD OF SUPERVISING STATE INSTITUTIONS
1. Central Supervising Board or Boards.-A board to be given the
function of supervision and partial control. The jurisdiction of such
board to extend to all institutions of the state except institutions fur-
nishing instruction only. A state having twenty or more institutions
could well consider the advisability of dividing these into three classes
-penal, hospitals for the insane, and charitable institutions, with a
separate board over each class.
2. Constitution of Supervising Board. Such a board to have from
five to seven members, appointed by the governor, each to serve for
a period of five to seven years, with the expirations so adjusted that the
term of but one member would expire each year; such members to
serve without compensation, but to be allowed traveling and other
expenses. The Board to meet not less frequently than once a month,
and each institution of the state to be visited by one or more members
of the Board, not less often than four times a year. A member to be
removed by the governor for cause, stated in writing, and after an op-
portunity to be heard. This Board to have the function of inspection,
recommendation and advice, combined with a partial power of con-
trol, as outlined in the following plan.
388
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
3. Staff.—
1. A secretary to be employed at a salary sufficiently large to secure a man
of marked ability and knowledge with relation to the management and
care of state institutions, selected without regard to residence. Clerical
assistance to be provided.
2. Experts to be employed, some regularly and some from time to time, com-
petent to give advice with regard to the following matters:
(a) Care, treatment, and education of different classes of inmates. (b)
Purchasing, handling and consumption of supplies. (c) Management of
farms. (d) Handling of steam plants. (e) Accounts. (f) Such other ex-
perts as might be deemed advisable.
4. Fiscal Powers of the Board.-
1. The Board to recommend to the Legislature the amount of funds needed
by each institution. The Legislature to be urged not to subdivide the ap-
propriations into classifications smaller than the following divisions:
A. Maintenance.
B. Current repairs.
C. New buildings and permanent improvements.
2. The Board, subsequent to the action of the Legislature, and after confer-
ence with the superintendents and with the advice of experts, to apportion
the appropriation for each institution, fixing the amount to be allotted
to each of the following expenditures:
A. Maintenance:
I. Salaries and wages.
The central Board to establish all salaries and wages, which shall be as
nearly uniform as possible, for like services in all institutions, taking
into consideration living expenses and local prevailing wages, with pro-
vision for a graduated increase based on the length of service.
a) Aggregate expenditure for salaries.
b) Aggregate expenditure for wages.
2. Farm and gardens.
(a) Live stock. (b) Feed. (c) Vehicles. (d) Machines, tools, utensils,
harnesses, etc. (e) Fertilizers and seeds. (ƒ) Drainage. (g) Fencing. (h)
Farm labor. (¿) Miscellaneous material. (j) Miscellaneous expenditures.
3. Provisions.
(a) Corn, oats and wheat products. (b) Rice, barley and tapioca. (c)
Beans and peas. (d) Potatoes. (e) Butter and butterine. (f) Cheese. (g)
Sugar. (h) Molasses and syrup. (i) Fresh meats. (j) Cured meats and
lard. (k) Fish. (1) Poultry. (m) Fresh fruits. (n) Fresh vegetables. (0)
Dried fruits. (p) Canned vegetables. (q) Canned fruits. (7) Coffee, tea,
cocoa and chocolate. (s) Eggs. (t) Milk. (u) Cooking accessories. (v)
Miscellaneous foods.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
389
4. Clothing.
(a) Boots and shoes. (b) Outer garments. (c) Under garments. (d) Mis-
cellaneous garments.
5. Tobacco.
6. Ice.
7. Fuel and light.
8. Water.
9. Household stores.
(a) Laundry supplies. (b) Cleaning utensils and supplies. (c) Miscella-
neous household supplies. (d) Miscellaneous toilet supplies.
10. Kitchen and dining-room supplies.
(a) Utensils and dishes for kitchens and dining-rooms. (b) Supplies for
preserving fruits and vegetables.
II. Mechanics' tools and utensils.
12. House furnishings.
(a) Furniture, fixtures, musical instruments and pictures. (b) Carpets,
and draperies. (c) Bedding, including mattresses. (d) Table linen and
towels. (e) Miscellaneous furnishings.
13. Books, stationery and office supplies.
(a) Books, newspapers and periodicals. (b) Stationery, printing and office
supplies. (c) School supplies.
14. Medical supplies and instruments.
15. Transportation and messages.
(a) Freight, express and cartage. (b) Traveling expenses of officers and
employees. (c) Transportation of patients. (d) Telephone, telegraph and
messengers. (e) Postage. (f) Expenses of board of managers. (g) Mis-
cellaneous.
16. Amusements.
17. Contingent fund.
18. Burial expenses.
19. Religious services.
20. Advertising.
21. Legal services.
22. Expenses of paroled and discharged inmates.
23. Expenses of purchasing committee.
B. Current repairs.
1. Repairs to each building.
2. Aggregate amount of miscellaneous repairs.
3. Repairs to heating, lighting and power plants.
C. New buildings and permanent improvements.
1. Cost of each building, with power also to designate the location of
such building, its plan and materials.
2. Furnishings for each building.
390
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
5. Additional Classifications.-The board to have the power to add
to the above classifications, provided a necessity arises for any expendi-
ture which cannot be classified properly under existing headings.
6. Method of Determining the Amounts of the Various Classes of
Expenditures. Two months previous to the beginning of the fiscal
year, the Board of Supervision to require each institution to submit
a budget or estimate of its proposed expenditures, grouped under the
above classifications. The aggregate amount of such budget to be the
total amount made available by the Legislature for each institution.
The Board to require that such budget, under each classification, be
submitted in detail, designating the number and character of each
article needed, with estimated unit cost. The Board, however, not
to have power to determine qualities or unit costs, but to use such in-
formation as a basis for determining the necessity for the aggregate
amount under each subdivision. The Board, previous to the beginning
of the fiscal year, to pass judgment as to the amounts inserted under
the various classifications and, in its judgment, to revise the aggregates.
The amounts under each heading so determined by the Board to be-
come the budget and basis of expenditure for the succeeding fiscal year,
and to be transmitted to the respective institutions. The institutions
not to be required to buy the specific articles listed in their estimates
submitted to the Board; to be required, however, to confine their aggre-
gate expenditures for any one class of supplies to the amount estab-
lished by the Board for that class.
At any time during the fiscal year the Board, by a majority vote
of those present, to make such further transfer of funds, from class to
class, and from institution to institution as it may deem advisable.
7. Accounting and Reporting.-The Board to have power to deter-
mine and establish all forms of accounting used in the institutions; also
to have power to determine the periods and forms in which reports
shall be made by the institutions to the Board.
8. Power of Inspection.-The Board to have full power of inspec-
tion and the right to examine into all methods of conducting and ad-
ministering the institutions.
9. The Board to Make Recommendations.-The Board to advise the
managers and the superintendents with regard to all administrative
policies, measures and methods touching at least the following matters:
1. Care, treatment and education of patients.
2. The purchasing of supplies, framing of specifications, forms of contracts,
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
391
selections of food, and methods of making comparisons of deliveries with
samples or specifications.
3. Dietaries.
4. Fuel qualities and consumption.
5. Operation of the farms, gardens, care of live stock, etc.
6. Manufacture or raising of supplies and methods of exchanging the same
between institutions.
10. Boards of Managers.—A board of managers to be appointed by
the governor for each institution, consisting of from four to seven mem-
bers; the boards of institutions with women inmates to have one or
more women members. Members of the boards to serve as many years
as there are members of the board. All necessary expenses to be paid.
The boards to have all powers of management of the institutions not
conferred upon the Boards of Supervision by the plan herein outlined.
The boards to meet not less frequently than once each month. The
boards to contract for all supplies, except as hereafter provided, on
the basis of competitive bids. The superintendent to be permitted to
purchase a certain amount of supplies in the open market from a con-
tingent fund, the amount of which to be subject to the regulation of
the Board of Supervision. Members of the boards to be subject to
removal by the governor, on written notice and after an opportunity
to be heard.
II. Appointment of Superintendent.-The superintendents of in-
stitutions to be appointed by the boards of managers of the respective
institutions. A superintendent to be removed by the board of manag-
ers only for cause, stated in writing. Each superintendent to appoint or
dismiss subordinates in his institution.
12. Conferences of Superintendents and Managers.-A quarterly
conference of superintendents and one manager from each board
to be provided for at which problems touching the care, treatment and
education of the inmates and administration of the institutions are to
be discussed. Such conferences to have power to provide for joint
purchasing as outlined in the following paragraph:
13. Joint Purchasing. The conference of superintendents to be
given power to enter into joint contracts for supplies; such conference
to decide what, if any, supplies are to be purchased by joint contract;
if joint purchases are to be made, the conference to appoint a commit-
tee and delegate to it the power to draw specifications and enter into
contracts for the supplies to be so purchased; the Board of Supervision
392
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
to furnish the committee such expert advice and clerical help as may
be necessary to perform the function of contracting for supplies; the
committee to be given power to have supplies, purchased under joint
contract, tested in a state or college laboratory; provision to be made
authorizing such laboratory to do the required work.
A decision as to the joint purchase of any particular supply to be
binding upon all the institutions of the state, except that any institu-
tion may be exempted from such requirement by a majority vote of
the conference, acting upon an appeal for such exemption, passed by a
unanimous vote of the board of managers of such institution.
The conference to pro rate the expenses of the purchasing com-
mittee among the institutions on the basis of the gross amount pur-
chased under joint contracts by each institution.
Ga
9. Centralization and the Problem of Divided Responsibility¹
Governor White, in a recent address before the Chamber of Com-
merce of the State of New York, called attention to a "serious division
of responsibility and power" as the cause of some of the State's activities
"progressing in a far from satisfactory way." That the government of
the State charitable institutions is open to Governor W's criticism
is shown by the following statement prepared by the Fiscal Supervisor:
The eighteen institutions in the group reporting to the Fiscal Supervisor
of State Charities are managed directly by the boards of managers or trus
tees, serving without pay, and receiving their actual and necessary traveling
expenses only when in the performance of their official duties. All of their
financial transactions are subject to the approval of the Fiscal Supervisor of
State Charities.
All the institutions are visited and inspected by the State Board of Char
ities, except the New York State Reformatory at Elmira and the Eastern
New York Reformatory at Napanoch which are visited and inspected by the
State Commission of Prisons.
The prices on all prison goods used in the institutions are fixed by the
State Board of Classification, which consists of a representative from each
of the following Departments: Prison Department, State Commission of
Prisons, State Commission in Lunacy, and Fiscal Supervisor of State Chari
ties.
The employees in all the institutions reporting to the Fiscal Supervisor,
except the New York House of Refuge at Randall's Island, are taken from
the eligible list of the State Civil Service Commission.
¹ Extract from Second Annual Report of the Board of Managers of Letchworth
Village ("New York Senate Document No. 8," 1911), pp. 14–16.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
393
The compensation of the employees in the institutions reporting to the
Fiscal Supervisor is fixed by the Salary Classification Commission, composed
of the president of the State Board of Charities and the Comptroller, whose
action to become effective must receive the approval of the Governor.
All plans for new buildings, improvements, and betterments in the insti-
tutions must be approved by the Building Improvement Commission, which
consists of the Governor, the President of the State Board of Charities, and
the Fiscal Supervisor.
Expenditures for new buildings, improvements, and betterments are
controlled jointly by the Fiscal Supervisor and the State Architect.
Food products used in the institutions and agricultural methods fol-
lowed on the institution farms, are subject to examination by the Commis-
sioner of Agriculture.
All weights, measures, and scales used in the institutions are examined
by the State Superintendent of Weights and Measures, who also designates
one or more employees in each institution to act as deputy superintendents
of Weights and Measures.
The water supply, sewerage, sewage disposal plants, and garbage dis-
posal plants are subject to the approval of the State Commissioner of Health,
who is required to analyze water supplies twice each year and report the re-
sults to the Fiscal Supervisor and to the presidents of the boards of managers
of the institutions. The superintendents are required to report to the Com-
missioner of Health any contagious diseases.
In addition, all of the institutions have to do business with the State
Comptroller, who is the officer of final audit, as do also all State officials and
all State departments.
Early in the year the Attorney-General decided that it is necessary
for Letchworth Village to comply with all the provisions of the State
Charities Law. As an adequate organization has not yet been created
nor the necessary machinery installed to cope with the large amount of
routine work required by the present elaborate system of control, the
rate of progress has been correspondingly retarded; but in spite of
methods sometimes complicated and often cumbersome, with the con-
stant and hearty co-operation of all the departments at Albany, prog-
ress has still been made. Moreover, a practical demonstration has
been given both of the excellent features of the present system and of
other features which undoubtedly should be modified if the most satis-
factory results are to be obtained.
In the State charitable institutions administrative efficiency is
not at the highest level, and the truest economy of operation is not
being practiced when a system of multiple control forces the depart-
ments at Albany, and the institutions as well; to lose a due sense of
394
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
proportion and to wander through mazes of minutiae which exhausts
patience, dulls enthusiasm, and leaves but little time and energy for
the fundamental problems which have called these institutions into
being.
The present system has some excellent features, many of its defects
being administrative. Improvements have recently been made, and
by slight changes in the law efficiency can be further increased and
sources of friction eliminated.
Wise, centralized control in fundamentals, conjoined with au-
thority to enforce strict accountability, giving, however, a larger meas-
ure of home rule in detail matters which each institution should work
out in its own way, will supply the incentive, now too often lacking, to
make the institutions aspiring rivals and will overcome an attitude of
dissatisfaction which, through no fault either of the State departments,
governing boards, or executive officers, has been artificially created.
IO.
Recommendations of the Illinois Committee on
Efficiency and Economy¹
A. THE CHARITABLE INSTITUTIONS
At present the charitable and penal institutions of Illinois are ad-
ministered according to two different systems, based upon opposite
principles of administrative organization, although fundamentally the
two classes of institutions are very similar, and no substantial reason
exists why they should not be managed and controlled by the same sort
of administrative machinery. A dual system of organization and ad-
ministration for a group of institutions which, for administrative pur-
poses, belong in the same class is anomalous. If reason and experience
have shown, as they seem to have, that the charitable institutions can
be more efficiently and economically administered by a single central
board than by a series of separate boards, one for each institution, it is
difficult to see why a similar system should not be adopted for the man-
agement and control of the penal and reformatory institutions. The
results of five years' experience with the system of centralized control
of the charitable institutions have undoubtedly demonstrated that it
is both more efficient and economical than the old system of control by
separate unpaid boards which gave only a small portion of their time
to the discharge of their official duties. Apparently the new system
¹ Extract from Report of the Efficiency and Economy Committee Created under
the Authority of the Forty-eighth General Assembly, State of Illinois (1915), pp. 396–
400.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
395
has worked out satisfactorily in practice and there is no desire to return
to the old system in force before 1910. The present system is certainly
in harmony with the best tendencies of modern administrative organi-
zation and it represents the ideal toward which charity experts have
been striving for some years. Finally the adoption of this system of
centralized control by so many states during the last few years indi-
cates that it is destined to become in the near future the prevailing
system of institutional administration in this country.
Under these circumstances it does not appear that any important
changes in the present law for the management and control of the char-
itable institutions are desirable. The system of administration by a
single board for all the charitable institutions should be retained sub-
stantially as it is. However, at least one minor change in the Act of
1909 is advisable, and there is another suggestion which perhaps de-
serves some consideration.
First of all it is worth considering whether the inspectional ma-
chinery which the Act of 1909 provides for the charitable institutions
is not more elaborate than considerations of efficiency require. As the
law now stands three different authorities or sets of authorities are re-
quired to inspect the charitable institutions: (1) the Board of Admin-
istration itself; (2) the Charities Commission and (3) local boards of
visitors, one for each institution. The provision of the Act of 1909
authorizing the appointment of local boards of visitors to inspect the
charitable institutions should be repealed. In practice the provision
has until now been a dead letter, since with a single exception no local
board of visitors has been appointed for any institution. The value of
the service performed by such boards if they were appointed would be
very questionable. In all probability they would be composed of per-
sons who would have no special qualifications, and unless they were
given an opportunity to visit other institutions for the purpose of com-
paring the conditions and standards prevailing in them, their judg-
ments of the standards of efficiency in the particular institution which
they are commissioned to visit would be of doubtful value. The Chari-
ties Commission with its inspectors, who are or should be experts in
the field of charity administration, is the proper authority for inspect-
ing the charitable institutions, for pointing out unsatisfactory condi-
tions and recommending legislative and administrative measures for
their improvement.
A change which the Board of Administration favors is the with-
drawal of the training school for girls at Geneva and the St. Charles
396
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
school for boys from the jurisdiction of the Board of Administration
and the placing of both institutions under the department of public
instruction. The argument in favor of the proposed change is that
both institutions are largely educational in purpose and that therefore
they do not properly fall within the class of charitable institutions.
But they are primarily correctional rather than educational institu-
tions and do not properly constitute a part of the educational system
of the State. In the other states where central boards of control for
the state institutions have been established all such institutions as in-
dustrial and training schools for delinquent boys and girls are under
the jurisdiction of such boards rather than under the educational
authorities.
B. THE PENAL AND REFORMATORY INSTITUTIONS
Turning to the penal and reformatory institutions, each of which is
under the management and control of a separate board, the system
would be improved by either of the following changes:
They might be placed under the existing Board of Administration
along with the charitable institutions, as is the case in the states of
Arizona, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Ohio,
South Dakota, Washington, West Virginia, Wisconsin and Wyoming.
The bill of 1909 as originally introduced so provided, and in this form
it was favorably reported by the.Senate committee to which it was re-
ferred. The inclusion of the penitentiaries and the reformatory under
the Board of Administration was urged by the State Conference of
Charities and Corrections and was advocated by many charity and
penological experts in and out of the State; but the provision was
stricken from the bill on the floor of the Senate, chiefly on the ground
that owing to the large number of institutions in the State the placing
of them all under the management of a single board would impose upon
it a task so large that it would be difficult if not impossible for the board
to give proper attention to all the institutions.
Since the board has now effected a permanent organization, de-
veloped the necessary administrative machinery, and its staff has ac-
quired more or less familiarity with the problems connected with the
administration of the institutions, the objection has less force than it
had in 1909. Members of the board have declared that the addition
of another member to the board or a slight increase in its clerical staff
would provide it with the necessary machinery for managing the other
three institutions.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
397
Undoubtedly the board could purchase supplies for twenty-two
institutions as easily as it can purchase for nineteen, and there are other
services which could be performed with equal ease and efficiency for
both classes of institutions as for the one class. Nevertheless, it is ob-
vious that the more the number of institutions under the jurisdiction
of the board is multiplied the less care and attention will it be able to
give to each particular institution. The addition of the two peniten-
tiaries and the reformatory to the institutions under the control of the
board will bring under its jurisdiction and control more than 300 addi-
tional employees and more than 3,000 inmates, to say nothing of the
increased business and financial operations, due to the operation of ex-
tensive industries by these institutions. Other states, it is true, have
consolidated the management of all their charitable and correctional
institutions in the hands of a single board and with good results. But
no one of these states has so large a number of institutions as has Illi-
nois. If we add to the number of institutions already under the man-
agement of the board, the three institutions that have been provided
for but which have not yet been constructed, and the penal and re-
formatory institutions we shall have a total of twenty-five, with an ag-
gregate population of more than 20,000 inmates.
In view of these facts the wiser plan would appear to be to create a
separate commission, composed of three members, for the management
and control of these three institutions. This was the solution proposed
in Senator Manny's bill in 1909 and it is the plan that has been adopted
in a number of states where there is more than one such institution.
Whether the penal and reformatory institutions are managed and
controlled by a single board or by separate boards, as they now are,
they should be subjected to the visitorial, inspectional and investiga-
tive jurisdiction of the State Charities Commission. The Hay, Manny
and McKenzie bills, of 1909, all provided for the inspection of these in-
stitutions by a board of charities and corrections. As has been said,
the charitable institutions are subject to the inspection of three differ-
ent bodies; but the penal and reformatory institutions are subject to no
supervision or inspection other than that of their own local boards.
That is, each board of managers and it alone, has power to inspect its
own work. This is an anomalous situation. These boards have under
their care more than 3,000 prisoners and they control the expenditure
and disposition of more than two million dollars annually, yet their
methods of dealing with prisoners and their financial operations are
398
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
not subject to the inspection or supervision of any authority. Before
1909 the reformatory was subject to inspection by the State Board of
Charities, but this power was not given to the present charities com-
mission.
II. Confusion in Attempted Control¹
The Board has repeatedly urged upon the Legislature the necessity
of a careful consideration of the system of control of the State chari-
table and reformatory institutions.
The present system of control is cumbersome, expensive and un-
business like. The Board is anxious to co-operate in securing a better
and simpler system. It has no desire to object to existing conditions
without helping to point the way to a remedy.
In October, 1913, the Board appointed a special committee to con-
sider this subject. The Committee, feeling that no recommendations
made by it could be of value without a knowledge of the facts, decided
that an investigation of the business administration of the Village
should be made, in order to determine the exact results of the present
system as affecting a single institution.
Through the liberality of the Chairman of the Committee, the
Bureau of Municipal Research of New York City made an exhaustive
examination and an illuminating report.
The Special Committee transmitted to the Board on October 14,
1914, its report and its recommendations with the report of the investi-
gation of the Bureau of Municipal Research. The conclusions of the
Special Committee deserve very careful consideration. They are as
follows:
As the conclusions reached by the Bureau of Municipal Research dem-
onstrate clearly that the difficulties which have been encountered and the
resulting delays in the development of Letchworth Village, are due primarily
to inherent defects in the system of control (that is to say, in the law govern-
ing the State charitable institutions), in our opinion it would be desirable to
have the Bureau of Municipal Research continue its investigations, so as to
include the entire group of institutions, if the necessary arrangements can
be made. Such a survey and report would lay the foundation for conclusions
with respect to both central control and institutional management, based on
a presentation of the facts covering all the institutions. A comprehensive
and constructive plan may then be presented which will have for its object
the elimination of red tape, duplication of work, and the overlapping of
authority. A simple and effective system of control may be substituted which
¹ Extract from Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of Letchworth
Village ("New York Senate Document No. 8," 1915), pp. 13-17.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
399
}
is in line with the best business practices and most modern and effective gov-
ernmental methods.
In the meantime this report is presented in order that the effect of the
present deplorable situation may be seen as affecting and retarding the de-
velopment of a single institution much needed and subject to unnecessary and
unjustifiable delays, as a result of situations created by laws intended to fa-
cilitate and safeguard the interests of the State, but so cumbersome and
illogical in their effects that, even with the best of intentions, well meaning
and zealous State officials often find themselves powerless to accomplish
results obviously necessary and within the spirit but all too often without
the letter of some statute.
To accomplish the most effective results a complete revision of the entire
statute law governing the State charitable and reformatory institutions is
necessary. After such a revision has taken place, a comprehensive plan for
the development of institutions to provide for the needs of the next decade
should be worked out in detail and with the greatest possible care by the
best experts obtainable. This having been done, the State will be in a posi-
tion to appropriate through a bond issue or large annual grants the sum nec-
essary to carry out a really effective program.
The address of Honorable Robert W. Hebberd, Secretary of the State
Board of Charities, at the State Conference of Charities and Corrections at
Syracuse on November 20, 1912, furnished the basis of such a long sighted
scheme. Until the above steps are taken appropriations should be confined
to the completion of institutions now in existence or being developed. No
further new institutions should be planned or started until this is done and a
large bond issue, if expended under the existing conditions, would be the
height of folly and would inevitably result in waste and scandal. So great,
however, is the need of prompt action that in the opinion of your Committee
the three steps above described should be carried out simultaneously, viz.:
1. A new system of control.
2. A plan for developing during the next decade.
3. A bond issue, or definite program of large annual appropriations.
The Board of Managers endorses heartily the above recommenda-
tions and believes that this matter is one of the most important sub-
jects to be considered by the Legislature.
Governor Hughes, in an address at Syracuse on September 14,
1910, said, "I strongly believe in concentration of administrative re-
sponsibility." This sentence was quoted by William Church Osborn
at a conference of the Democratic party held at Saratoga, August 26,
1914.
"The executive business of the State," said Mr. Osborn, "requires
revision and it is our wisest policy in my judgment, to reform the execu-
400
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tive and administrative functions of the State with a view to creating a
businesslike organization." In the same address, Mr. Osborn also said:
The other great activities of the State are now in the main developed,
with the exception of the curative and charitable departments, in which
large sums are asked for additional construction to care for additional in-
mates. This means an additional annual per capita expense. An addition
to our annual appropriations from this source of approximately $2,000,000
a year must be expected. It has been my fortune to come in somewhat close
contact with the executive work of the State of recent years, and to consider
with some care the preparation of appropriation bills. I do not consider from
my experience that the state can look for any great saving upon the cost of
its existing activities. I think, however, that, with due care and the estab-
lishment of a normal business system of administration, with the Governor
as the Chairman of the Board, and the heads of departments sitting as a
cabinet or a board of directors, we could reasonably expect that the existing
activities of the government might be managed at a saving of $2,000,000,
against which must be set a certain growth in our care of dependents of $2,-
000,000 a year and in the maintenance of our highways of $4,000,000 a year.
I look therefore for an increase in our expenditures in the next few years to a
total of forty-five or forty-eight millions of dollars for our general appropria-
tions and approximately ten or twelve millions of dollars a year for the pay-
ment to the sinking fund.
Harold J. Hinman, Republican leader of the Assembly, during a
debate in that body last winter said:
The above citations are made in order to show that the importance of
obtaining an efficient system of business control is not a party matter, that
it is recognized by the leaders, without respect to party affiliations, and that
for this reason there is great hope that the matter will, at the proper time,
receive the attention it deserves and be settled in such a way that the depend-
ent and defective wards of the State may receive the humane and enlight-
ened care which they deserve at the lowest possible cost to the taxpayer.
Herbert F. Prescott, formerly Deputy Fiscal Supervisor, in a re-
port made to the Assembly on May 6, 1914, on the conflict of authority
and laws concerning charitable institutions of the State said:
The organic laws of the institutions in the charities group give to the
boards of managers fairly extensive powers over their respective institutions,
placing in their hands the general superintendence, management and con-
trol of the institutions over which it is appointed and of the grounds and
buildings, officers and employees thereof, but today scarcely a vestige of that
power remains with them. . . . . Sane progress demands that the really im-
portant administrative functions now exercised by twenty-six departments
1
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
401
**
be sorted out and located in one central department that shall act as a general
clearing house for institution business, giving to the boards of managers of
the institutions in fact those powers which they have in law and leaving in
the hands of a separate board the power of visitation and inspection as a
proper check upon the institutions and upon the administrative board.
Governor White, in an address before the Chamber of Commerce
of the State of New York, called attention to a "serious division of
responsibility and power" as the cause of some of the State's activities
"progressing in a far from satisfactory way."
Governor Glynn in an article entitled "The Need and Scope of the
Constitutional Convention" said:
In the first place, the convention should make possible a revision, from
the bottom up, of the State's present method of government, so as to place
that government on an efficient business basis. Under the present lack of sys-
tem and tangle of needless duplication of officers and overlapping of effort, there
is a spendthrift failure to utilize opportunities and a lack of co-operation that
would not be tolerated for an instant in any private enterprise.
In many instances several departments do the work which should proper-
ly be done by one. Instead of purchasing supplies for the entire State at
wholesale, the State now buys its supplies practically at retail. Throughout,
the State's operations are bound up with red tape which, far from protecting it,
works to its hampering and disadvantage.
All money for new buildings and public improvements in the future must
be raised by direct taxation. The State is already overburdened with taxes.
It would be a hardship to ask New York's taxpayers to raise in two or three
years the money for improvements that are to last perhaps fifty. This sub-
ject, too, must be considered by the Constitutional Convention.
The abuses which have crept into the civil service system, and which are
admitted on all hands, should be remedied by constitutional provisions that
will bring the civil service law into consonance with its original purposes.
12. The Massachusetts Board Resists the Attack of the
"Efficiency" Expert¹
To the Legislative Joint Committee on Ways and Means and the Com-
mittee on Public Institutions sitting jointly:
Upon the issues involved in the report and recommendations of the
Commission on Economy and Efficiency, House 2137, involving the
I
¹ Arguments presented March 12, 1914, by the Massachusetts State Board of
Charity through its secretary, Robert W. Kelso, to the Legislative Committee
against Proposals of the Massachusetts Commission on Economy and Efficiency,
House 2137 ("Senate Document 440," General Court, 1914).
402
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
abolition of the supervisory system of conducting state institutions
and the substitution therefor of what would amount to a centralized
one-man system of control, the State Board of Charity feels a duty
to present to you certain facts and opinions omitted from or overlooked
in the Commission's report. It therefore submits for your considera-
tion the following statement in the form of an analysis of that report:
I. The Commission's bill proposes to abolish [the State Boards of
Charity, of Insanity, of Prison Commissioners, the Commission for the
Blind, the Probation Commission, the Boards of Parole, the Boards
of Trustees of the sixteen state hospitals, and other institutions over
which the State Board exercised supervision]. . . .
These boards are, with the exception of the Prison Commissioners
and the parole boards, unpaid, and taken together they constitute the
Massachusetts system of administering and supervising institutions
and other public and private enterprises in the field of charity and
correction. They stand in a group by themselves and are not to be con-
fused with the commissions created for special administrative tasks,
such as public service, harbor and land, parks, transportation, fish
and game, and the like. They deal with the great human problems
that confront this community; the question of their abolition conse-
quently is to be separated sharply and completely from that other
question at present under consideration, namely, the consolidation of
overlapping commissions of the sort just named.
II. Instead of the existing system, the Commission's bill substi-
tutes the following highly centralized system of administrative control
with no rational provision for supervision:---
A. A board of five trustees, salary $1,000 a year, to constitute a central board
of control, grouped about a
B. Director of public institutions, salary to be determined by the Board,
who shall have the duty of administering all the institutions of the state;
also the power to appoint
C. Four executive secretaries charged with the duty of carrying out the
director's orders. One of these is to have direct charge of 13 hospitals
for mental defectives.
Another, called the secretary for hospitals and sanatoria, has direct charge
of eight other institutions,--the Leper Hospital, the four State Tubercu-
losis Sanatoria, the Hospital School, the Norfolk State Hospital for
inebriates and drug habitues, and the State Infirmary at Tewksbury.
A third has eight institutions, which comprise the two industrial schools
for boys, the Industrial School for Girls, the State Prison, the Prison
Camp and Hospital, the State Reformatory, the Reformatory for Women
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
403
and the State Farm. He would carry out also the non-institutional duties
of the present Prison Commissioners.
The fourth executive secretary is entitled "for charity." His duties are
the performance of all the non-institutional functions of the present State
Board of Charity, and of the functions, institutional and otherwise, of
the present Commission for the Blind.
D. A business agent to carry out the director's orders and to appoint a
purchasing agent who shall do all the buying, not only for the department
but for the 27 State Institutions and the Institutions under the Commis-
sion for the Blind.
E. A board of three unpaid visitors (the system in use in 1855) who shall have
the power to listen to complaints from inmates; to report thereon; and "to
suggest for aid in the medical and correctional features of the administra-
tion."
III. Of the Executive Secretary for Charity, the Commission says:
The work under this official would be in a large part such as is now con-
ducted directly by the Board of Charity. This is of itself a large undertaking,
appropriation for which during 1913 was $966,187.00, and the estimates for
1914 are $1,201,982.00. It is probable that the work now performed by the
Blind Commission and the institutions under it could be assigned to this
official.
The Commission's report nowhere contains an indication of the
duties of this proposed executive secretary for charity other than the
general paragraph just quoted.
In March, 1913, an exhaustive questionnaire relating to the duties
of the State Board of Charity was submitted by the Commission to
that Board, which made answer in detail. Subsequently, in September
of the same year, a second questionnaire containing almost identically
the same questions, but arranged in a manner sufficiently different to
require preparation of the answers a second time was submitted and
answers again made in detail. The same information was sought and
obtained of other Boards and Commissions.
In considering therefore the analysis given in the report of the
Commission to the work of the Board of Charity, which they say con-
ducts one of the largest groups of the State's activities, it must be
remembered that there can be no excuse for ignorance, and this in
spite of the fact that the Commission has changed chairmen during the
time of this study and has during a large portion of the critical period
of its inquiry consisted for all practical purposes of a single member.
It is necessary therefore to supply this defect partially by a brief
statement of the principal duties and functions of this Board.
404
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SUPERVISION OF STATE INSTITUTIONS
The Board has general supervision of the State Infirmary, the State
Farm, the Norfolk State Hospital, the Lyman School for Boys, the
Industrial School for Boys, the Industrial School for Girls, the Massa-
chusetts Hospital School and the State Tuberculosis Sanatoria at Rut-
land, North Reading, Lakeville and Westfield.
This supervision involves visitation and inspection with recom-
mendation as to policies and methods; it requires careful study of insti-
tution methods and development; it demands analysis of payrolls, bills
for food, furnishings, repairs, etc., with the tabulation of data likely
to be of value to the institutions in the future. In carrying it out, the
State Board of Charity has expended much time and thought upon the
human side of institutional activity. Nor has it neglected the material
administration. All vouchers are analyzed each month and a schedule
of the comparisons sent to each superintendent, so that he may see how
his associates are buying and whether he is likely to better his econo-
mies by changing his specifications, by placing his orders earlier, by
seeking a different market, or may profit by any other facts which
comparative analysis may yield. Combined purchasing of coal has been
tried during the past year, resulting in very little reduction in price
and a slight reduction in the quality purchased. The principle is con-
sidered sound, however, and its application will be continued.
A reasonable system of waste accounting has been submitted to
the several institutions. It is partially in operation as to table waste
and will receive increasing favor as the institutions realize its great
value.
In like manner a system of dairy records has been urged and is
already yielding returns sufficient to show the fallacy in the Commis-
sion's figures on the cost of milk.
All plans and estimates for the construction of new buildings must
have the approval of the State Board. Likewise, the Board approves
estimates for maintenance.
All these activities would be done away with by the Commission's
plan, and the necessity for them met by entrusting their consummation
to new administrative authorities unsupervised.
THE CARE AND CUSTODY OF STATE MINOR WARDS
Under existing laws the State Board receives, has custody of and
must provide for 5,600 children. By a system begun in this Common-
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
405
wealth by this same State Board of Charity and now famous the world
over, these children are placed in foster homes where they may receive
home environment. This process constitutes one of the greatest institu-
tions now conducted by the State. Yet it involves no buildings, no
farm, stable and grounds, no heat, light and power, nor any of the
physical aspects of plant and maintenance. If these children were all
to be cared for in institutions, it would require 22 plants and equipment
equal in size to the Massachusetts Hospital School. The paid force now
organized under the State Board of Charity to carry on this work con-
sists of one superintendent, one deputy, 48 visitors and 29 other em-
ployees.
This large constructive task demands the constant attention of
Board members, not merely in the passing upon departmental recom-
mendations, but in personal service seeking to interest private indi-
viduals and agencies where their assistance would be of service to the
community.
Children thus placed in charge of the State Board may remain dur-
ing minority. Their normal annual increase is from six to seven per
cent. It is a great and growing institution. Yet the Commission has
nowhere in its report seen fit even to mention this branch of the Board's
duties, even though they recommend that the entire work of the State
Board of Charity, other than institution administration and supervi-
sion, be given over into the charge of an "executive secretary for
charity."
THE SUPERVISION OF PRIVATE CHARITIES
There are about eight hundred private charitable corporations in
active operation in Massachusetts. The State Board of Charity is re-
quired to visit and inspect each of these corporations annually.
It receives an annual return from each corporation and makes
printed report of the same.
It is required to investigate all petitions for charitable charters and
to give public hearing upon each petition. It is now a developing doctrine
in this state that a private charity is a public trust and as such should
be amenable to reasonable state supervision. The supervision exercised
by the State Board of Charity is resulting in the development of stand-
ards for proper organization of charitable agencies, and right standards
of relief. This is a work demanding all of the specialized knowledge of
that Board in the field of charity. It is a work watched with intense
interest by other states and other English speaking peoples. So far as
its report indicates this extensive activity is unknown to the Commis-
406
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
sion; yet it, too, under their recommendation would become the labor
of the "executive secretary for charity."
THE SUPERVISION OF PUBLIC POOR RELIEF
It is now an established policy in Massachusetts that public relief,
touching the welfare of the entire community so vitally, is the proper
subject of reasonable state oversight. To this end the State Board of
Charity receives returns from the Overseers of the Poor of the 353 cities
and towns of the Commonwealth covering numbers of persons relieved
and the cost of aid.
It visits each of the 180 almshouses annually, reports upon condi-
tions, advises local authorities as to methods of care and as to improve-
ment in conditions. It visits all places where state paupers are support-
ed, and ascertains from actual examination and inquiry whether the
laws relative to such paupers are properly observed. Hundreds of cases
are thus visited.
The Board supervises relief rendered by cities and towns to mothers
with dependent children under the act cited. A corps of visitors is thus
kept constantly in the field, following up cases of relief in charge of the
local overseers of the poor. This task also requires special skill of a
high order in the field of charitable relief. Unmentioned by the Com-
mission, it, too, would fall to the "executive secretary for charity.”
THE DETERMINATION OF SETTLEMENTS
The Board is required to ascertain the place of settlement of all
persons coming to State support. Under this law, about 11,000 cases
are examined each year. This, too, would become the duty of the
"Executive Secretary."
THE LICENSING OF BOARDING HOUSES FOR INFANTS
The Board licenses and inspects all boarding houses for infants.
Several hundred licenses are granted annually and the number of
visits required each year to ensure proper supervision is well over the
thousand mark.
THE LICENSING OF LYING-IN HOSPITALS
Lying-in hospitals are similarly licensed by the Board. No person
may lawfully conduct a lying-in hospital without first obtaining a
license from the State Board of Charity, and all such places are regular-
ly inspected by the Board's officers. Over 10,000 confinement cases are
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
407
cared for annually in these licensed hospitals. These latter duties are
not recognized by the Commission as worthy of mention in connection
with the proposed Secretary for Charity who would have the burden
of carrying them out.
In addition to the above duties the State Board of Charity is en-
gaged in numerous duties all involved in the performance of their
proper function as leader and developer of the policies of the State
in the field of charitable endeavor: After-care of unmarried mothers
discharged from the State Infirmary, the removal of public dependents
who belong outside the State, the prosecution of putative fathers of
illegitimate children whose mothers have been cast upon the state for
support. These and many additional functions must fall to the lot of
the said "Executive Secretary for Charity." Alone and out of his single-
mindedness he must carry on that work which now engages the best
thought and energy of a selected group of especially trained citizens
who yield their services for the good of the community and not for
pittance. Under him is a paid force not better than the present corps;
over him a director of public institutions so engrossed with the brick
and mortar, the farm, stable and grounds, the heat, light and power,
the contracts for beef, flour and a thousand articles of food, that the
more abstract, less tangible and less visible human aspects of the field
are removed from his grasp and beyond his understanding.
But the Commission is not willing to stop here with their secretary
for charity. He must likewise perform the functions of the Commission
for the Blind.
Here, also, he is confronted by large constructive tasks normally
requiring the greatest courage and the highest intellectual qualifica-
tions that the community can afford. The present Commission for the
Blind keeps track of every blind person resident in the Commonwealth.
It acts as a bureau of information and industrial aid. It is an employ-
ment agency to place blind workmen. It has established and equipped
and now maintains six industrial workshops for the blind in various
cities of the Commonwealth. It is constantly in process of creating
market for the sale of articles made by the blind, and is charged in
general with the devising of means and the suggestion of policies for
the amelioration of the condition of the blind. This is a work of
which Massachusetts is proud. It is well done. Yet it is a serious
question how valuable it would continue to be should it be cast into a
mental pigeon-hole along with the State's present conduct and future
policy in the care and custody of children, the supervision of public
408
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
and private relief, the development of standards of humane treatment
of the poor, and the sick-confined in the head of one "Executive Sec-
retary for Charity."
At page 21 of the report appears in large capitals the caption "De-
velopment of Present Methods." Fairly interpreted it means to imply
a statement of the development of the present methods of conducting
state enterprises beginning at the beginning and coming down to the
present. The "development" as presented in the report, however, is a
page and a half in length and contains two definite statements. The
first statement is this: "There is little question but that the original
purpose of the Creation of the Board of Insanity was to establish a
body who would have general control and oversight of all matters
affecting the insane wards of the state." The second statement is: "A
similar central control was supposed to be secured through the placing
of different institutions under the Board of Charity, but the result has
been a failure to control exactly as in the case of the Board of Insanity."
Both of these statements are directly contrary to the fact. This
passage in the report could have its source only in a dense and inexcusa-
ble ignorance of the entire development of state care in this Common-
wealth. Not only does it flatly misrepresent the State, but it appears
to find that the State Board of Insanity and the State Board of Charity,
out of which it sprang, have both failed of their purpose.
The State Board of Charity was created in 1863 as a result of
careful study into the condition of the nine State institutions then
existing and the best methods of securing higher efficiency in their
functions and greater economy in their operation.
This report¹ sets out in clear and unmistakable terms the reasoning
upon which they based their recommendations for a State Board of
Charities.
The Board created as a result of this study was by the first section
of the act directed and empowered to "investigate and supervise the
whole system of the charitable and correctional institutions of the
Commonwealth, and shall recommend such changes and additional
provisions as they may deem necessary for their economical and effi-
cient administration.'
""
•
It is apparent, therefore, that the unqualified statement of the
Commission on Economy and Efficiency that "a similar central con-
trol was supposed to be secured through the placing of different institu-
tions under the Board of Charity" is diametrically opposed to the truth
I
[See above Part I, Sec. II, Document 17.]
4
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
409
and that the truth was in no way concealed from even the most super-
ficial inquiry by this Commission. Reference to the report of a Special
Commission appointed by chapter 60 of the resolves of 1896 "to in-
vestigate the public charitable and reformatory interests and institu-
tions of the Commonwealth . . . ." and to the subsequent act creat-
ing the State Board of Insanity will further show that the statement of
the present commission declaring that the State Board of Insanity was
intended to exercise direct control of the institutions for the insane,
is equally foreign to the truth, and that the truth could have been
had for the asking. The purely supervisory and advisory nature of
these Boards is further emphasized by the last provision in Sec. 9 of
chapter 433 of 1898 and by chapter 446 of 1904, Sec. 12, and chapter
474, of 1907, Sec. 14, which provide in effect that these Boards may as-
sume the administration of certain state institutions upon the direction
of the Governor.
It is not to be forgotten that while the present report contains
much dissertation upon the saving of waste, it contains in support
thereof no valuable proof; and that the recommendation for a central-
ized administrative control must therefore come back in the last analy-
sis to the assertion that the existing Boards are not fulfilling the pur-
poses for which they were created. That assertion is the real basis for
the recommendation. Consequently its absolute falsity should not be
lost sight of in weighing the value of the recommendation.
IV. The report appears to register certain complaints against the
existing system, but it finds no fault that is in any way demonstrated
as a proper basis for change. By way of proof that there is no genuine
basis for the criticism, the several objections made by the Commission
åre here analyzed.
1. The first objection is that there is interference and overlapping
among the supervising boards. To show this alleged defect the Com-
mission cites the following instances:
a) The State Infirmary, the State's great almshouse at Tewksbury,
controlled by a Board of seven trustees, is supervised by the State
Board of Charity, but the care of the insane is subject to the supervi-
sion of the State Board of Insanity. This is claimed to be a detriment,
going to prove the worth of the Commission's recommendation.
Though the State Board of Charity has for years recommended the
removal of the insane from the State Infirmary, to the end that the
method of classification may be more thorough-going, there is never-
theless complete cooperation in the care and oversight of the insane
410
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
wards of the State Infirmary. The inter-relation of the two supervisory
Boards is conjunctive and cooperative, not destructive and conflicting.
The Commission points out no defect whatever in the care of the insane
at Tewksbury, and none can be pointed out.
b) The Commission cites also the State Farm, a composite institu-
tion, produced historically by combining the Bridgewater State Alms-
house with the State Farm and the Bridgewater State Hospital for the
criminal insane. The complaint is that the State Board of Charity and
the State Board of Insanity have coordinate supervisory power and
that the Prison Commission is also concerned by reason of the transfer
of insane criminals here for confinement and treatment. The answer
again is that the inter-relation of the three Boards is conjunctive and
cooperative, not disjunctive and conflicting. It is to be remembered
that the original condition out of which the supervisory system is
rescuing the state was that in which old and young, normal and defec-
tive, were cared for in a single place. The criminal insane are cared
for at the State Farm to effect economy by saving overhead charges.
No single Board could better the present care, and indeed the Commis-
sion has no complaint as to the value of this care or the economy with
which it is brought about.
c) The next case of overlapping cited is that of the three State
Training Schools for juvenile offenders. The Commission has here un-
wittingly noted one of the valuable proofs of excellence in the super-
visory system, namely, the cooperation that is constantly carried on
between the authorities in charge of prisons and the Board controlling
the Training Schools. The situation today is that the care and training
of juveniles is removed from the influence and the atmosphere of
prisons for felons. The struggle to bring about this result has gone on
for fifty years and is the direct accomplishment of the supervisory
State Board of Charity through its watchfulness of sound state policy
in the field of juvenile correction.
d) The fourth case of overlapping cited is that of the Norfolk
Hospital which as noted by the Commission is administered by The
Trustees of Foxborough State Hospital. This hospital was established
by chapter 530 of the Acts of 1912 (see also 635 of 1910 and 754 of 1911)
as a result of many years of study and experiment by one of the unpaid
Boards which the Commission seeks to abolish-a study which is re-
ceived and carefully considered in other states and by other nations
(see House Document No. 1390, of 1910). The Commission states that
"the State Board of Charity has presented a bill to the present session
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
411
of the Legislature for the creation of a separate Board of Trustees for
this Institution." This statement is entirely erroneous. The State
Board of Charity has not submitted such a bill and the subject has not
been considered by that Board at any of its meetings. The error is
noted here merely to emphasize the general untrustworthiness of the
Commission's report.
e) It is further complained that while the State Board of Insanity
has the supervision of the institutions for the insane, the epileptic and
the feebleminded, the State Board of Charity investigates the settle-
ments of paupers confined in these institutions. In brackets at the end
of this statement the Commission notes that "the enforcement of these
laws would apparently apply only to institutions for epileptics and
feebleminded."
It is a fair inference from this statement that the Commission on
Economy and Efficiency is still ignorant of the fact that the reason why
this law no longer applies to the insane is that it was repealed by chap-
ter 451 of the Acts of 1904, about ten years ago; and that as to the
epileptic and feebleminded, it was repealed in 1908. The result of those
statutes is that the State Board of Charity no longer investigates.
settlements of inmates of institutions for mental defectives for the
purpose of determining liability of cities and towns for their support.
The erroneous statement is emphasized here to show again the shallow
and untrustworthy character of the Commission's report.
These five points of so-called interference and overlapping therefore
prove upon examination to be made up of one completely false state-
ment and four instances of valuable cooperation illustrating the effec-
tiveness of the present system of conducting State institutions. In so
far as there is substance in this first group of objections, it argues
against the Commission's recommendations.
2. The subject of overlapping has apparently inspired the Com-
mission's second group of objections, namely "cross-purposes in func-
tions and activities." It is probable that no other portion of the Com-
mission's report betrays greater ignorance than this of the policies and
tendencies at work in this Commonwealth in the classification of de-
pendents, defectives and delinquents.
a) The first observation made by them under this head is that the
State Board of Charity is supervising the State Farm and the three
training schools for juveniles while the Prison Commissioners have
charge of the reformatories and the State's Prison. The reason, in the
opinion of the Commission, why this is a cross purpose in functions is
1T2
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
that the State Farm, the Lyman School for Boys, the Industrial School
for Boys, the Industrial School for Girls, the State Reformatory and the
State's Prison are all alike in institutional purpose and should therefore
be administered by a single undivided authority.
The dark ages of prison history show the child of tender years in
the same prison and often in the same cell with the felon whose crime
was infinitely worse than the taking or the destruction of property.
Prisons of the older days were the most completely equipped colleges
for crime and outlawry. One of the greatest inducing causes of the now
world famous National Conference of Charities and Correction was the
revolt of a thinking nation against the vicious and inhuman condition
of children and youth in America's prisons.
So great has been the effort in the development of sound public
opinion in the direction of separate and constructive care of juveniles
that the Massachusetts Commission on Economy and Efficiency, in its
demand that thrcc noteworthy industrial schools shall again be merged
into the prison system of this state, places itself alone in a position of
marked ignorance.
b) The same observations apply to the sccond objection of the
Commission under this second group of complaints, namely, the visita-
tion of county training schools by the State Board of Charity, even
though the Prison Commissioners supervise county jails and houses
of correction. The six county training schools in Massachusetts are
far from satisfactory. In the opinion of the State Board of Charity
they have no proper place in the community's plan of juvenile correc-
tion, but insofar as there is any proper basis to the county training
school, it is exactly analogous to that of the State Industrial Schools.
and is just as remote from the prison as they. The State Board of
Charity has the power to visit and to report upon thesc schools but
no other right or dutics with reference to them.
c) The third and final complaint in this group is that the care of
the insane, though the Commission recognizes it as "a specialized ac-
tivity," is "but a sub-activity of the broader function of caring for
dependents and defectives." The Commission, after stating this prem-
ise, oſſers figures on the numbers of insane persons supported from the
public treasury but gives no conclusion whatsoever. The reader is
left to imagine in general any dreadful conscquence his mind may pic-
ture and in particular to assume that if this charge is so there must as
a rcsult be something radically wrong with the present system The
truth is that the care and treatment of mental defectives is, as the Com-
mission admits, a "specialized activity"; so much so that all progres
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
413
sive states have so arranged their systems of institutional care that
specialists will be attracted to the service of the community in its
struggle with the problem.
In the earlier days, prior to 1898, the institutions for the insane
were supervised along with other charitable institutions by the State
Board of Charity. When the problems reached such magnitude in this
state as to constitute one great subject in itself, the whole group was
properly set off under a special Board charged with the duty of study-
ing methods in that field. Thus arose the State Board of Insanity. As
a result of these special studies, the antiquated system of local care for
the insane, opposed by the best students of the subject for many years,
was finally overturned, the State assuming the care and treatment.
The Commission, in so far as they make any statement on the point,
lay emphasis on the patients' ability to pay. The best systems in vogue
in civilized countries-identical with that in force in this state-lay
rather more emphasis upon the defect of mind than upon the state of
the patient's pocketbook.
This is all that can be found in the Commission's second group of
complaints-an exhibition merely of their own lack of knowledge-
affording no support whatever to their revolutionary recommen-
dation.
G
3. At the close of these general observations, the Commission calls
attention to certain alleged difficulties in details under the heading
"Work within the Institution." In summary, these defects are that
the superintendents do not delegate sufficient of the details of adminis-
tration to subordinate officers; that there is not sufficient uniformity
in departmental arrangement and minor offices; and that there is not
sufficient uniformity in the ratios at the several state institutions be-
tween employees and patients or inmates.
a) The Commission discovers that the business administration is
a heavy drain upon the Superintendent. It is left for inference either
that the business is inexpertly done or that the human side of the
institution suffers through inattention. No superintendent is found to
be incompetent and no criticism is offered of the results obtained by
any one of the institutions.
The remedy advocated is the centralization of all this business in
the hands of one director of institutions, a system found in New York
to result in a centralization of details instead of larger questions of
policy, hampering rather than helping the Superintendent. (See report
on an Investigation of the Methods of Fiscal Control of State Institu-
tions, 1911, New York, p. 227). As found by Mr. Henry C. Wright, the
1T1
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
expert on fiscal administration of institutions, who made that investiga-
tion, and as demonstrated in the experience of all of the more important
states of the Union, the right method of development is invariably the
decentralization of details and the centralization of plans and policies.
What the Superintendent nccds is expert advice upon the human side
of his task, not interference with the business details for which he is
responsible.
b) The Commission objects that the organization of institutions is
dissimilar and that employces who perform similar tasks are found at
different institutions to have different names. Thus the Commission
says that
Not all the employees in mind do all these things, but almost all of them
do similar work and would sccm to be likely to have similar titles. But in-
stead of having similar titles, they have very dissimilar ones, as in some places
they are known as porters, in other places as basement men, occasionally as
janitors, sometimes as general workers, while in one institution two em-
ployces doing this sort of work are known as a carman and a pickup.
Stress is laid by the report upon the difficulty, due to the variety of
titles, of determining the work of large numbers of employccs.
It is respectfully submitted here, by way of correction of this point
of view, that the institution should be judged by its results; is it work-
ing out its purposes with effectiveness and with reasonable economy?
As to the titles of employces, there is not much in a name, and the
hardships upon the Commission of looking beneath the name to ascer-
tain the duty is not of great importance to the Commonwealth
c) The varying ratios of employces to inmates or patients appeals
to the Commission as a startling fact indicating comparative inequali-
ties in institution effectiveness. In this criticism also they do not get
beneath the surface. For instance, after citing the high proportion at
the Rutland State Sanatorium, they remark that "Probably there are
some special conditions at Rutland which would perhaps tend to in-
crease the number of employces, but a smaller number would doubtless
do all necessary work." They say nothing of the many rods of covered
corridors in the buildings of this Sanatorium constructed before mod-
ern methods of treatment were developed cvery foot of which must
be dusted and cleaned morning and evening, and of the ill-arranged
kitchen facilities, greatly increasing the waiters' force; yet it would
sccm that the reader who is invited to swallow the high ratio as a basis
for a plan abolishing the present system should be given thesc plain
facts so that his judgment may be fair.
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
415
In general it should be understood that an able-bodied person re-
quires less care than a medical or surgical hospital case, and that differ-
ing needs give rise to differing ratios in the paid force necessary to meet
them. Variation of itself, without explanation, proves nothing. Thor-
ough analysis by the Commission of the existing payrolls showing the
nature of duties, the variances in rates of pay and other facts attend-
ing the paid force in our state institutions would be a distinct service
to the State and an assistance to the Boards now carrying on these
enterprises. But such superficial statements as those here made by
the Commission serve only to befog the question.
4. Beginning at page 29, the report, for three pages and a half,
notes gaps and inconsistencies in the methods of accounting at the
several institutions. After admitting that the general system of ac-
counting is under the direction of the State Auditor's department, the
report outlines the general method of accounting followed by the in-
stitutions. A fair and full report should have begun by re-stating
chapter 597 of the Acts of 1908. Section 4 of that statute is as follows:
SECTION 4. Under the direction of the auditor, the supervisor of accounts
shall direct and control all the accounts in all departments, and shall have
full authority to prescribe, regulate and make changes in the methods of
keeping and rendering accounts, and shall see that they are properly main-
tained, and that all items are correctly allocated between capital receipts
and disbursements and operating revenue. and expense. He shall establish
in each department a proper system of accounts, which shall be uniform so
far as is practicable. He shall establish a proper system of accounting for
stores, supplies and materials, and may provide, where he deems it necessary,
for a continuing inventory thereof. He may inquire into the methods of
purchasing and handling such stores, supplies and materials by the depart-
ments, reporting to the auditor such changes as may in his judgment be
deemed wise. He shall provide such safeguards and systems of checking as
will insure, so far as is possible, the proper collection of all revenue due the
commonwealth; and, where he deems it necessary, shall provide that forms
and receipts shall be numbered consecutively, making the departments re-
sponsible for their use or cancellation.
The truth about the accounting situation is that this State is in
process of developing a valuable system of audit, which shall include
the dictation and enforcement of accounting methods by a central
body, namely, the department of the State auditor.
When, therefore, the Commission finds flaws in the method of
storehouse accounting, of requisition and voucher, or of inventory, they
find fault only with the State Auditing Department, charged with the
1T6
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
duty of laying down methods and enforcing them. When they point
out that there is no distinct line of cleavage between maintenance ex-
penditures and social outlays, they quarrel merely with the State
Auditing Department, which has thus far failed to lay down a workable
rule.
The Auditor of the Commonwealth is by law a member of the
Commission. Ilis name is subscribed to the Commission's report. On
the score of efficiency and economy in the State's business, it would
sccm not to be an unfair criticism of this Commission that they should
at least within their own ranks, seek a fair trial for the laws that exist
rather than to swccp the entire system away as with a wave of the
hand.
The present system of centralizing methods, leaving details of ad-
ministration decentralized, is in accord with the best American experi-
ences. Much progress has been made in methods of audit and of ac-
count in Massachusetts. That the system is slow in consummation sug-
gests encouragement of the State Auditor rather than a sweeping
change which would throw the business details along with the direction
of methods and policies into the hands of a single man the director
of public institutions.
5. Much weight is given by the report to alleged under-develop-
ment of the farm and incompleteness of farm accounting. Insofar as
the criticism is just and there is much yet to be accomplished in ſarm
management at the institutions of this and other states it goes upon
administrative details only, and does not touch the value of the system
which the Commission sccks to overthrow. As to the accuracy of the
tabulated figures on the cost of producing milk, a single instance carc
fully analyzed is here appended with reference which make its full
verification an easy matter. [This lengthy comparison is omitted.]
If the foregoing data are correct, the fact that the figures tabulated
in the report of the Commission vary 100 per cent in the case of Lyman
School raises a serious question whether the remaining figures, pur-
porting as they do, to prove chaos in milk production can be trusted in
any other of the numerous instances they cite. It is submitted that the
Commission's report upon which they rely to prove the advisability of
their revolutionary plan of centralized administration, is superficial,
inaccurate, and untrustworthy, not only in its inferences from the facts
of administration at the scveral institutions but even in its statement
of the facts themselves.
6. Finally, the report severely arraigns present methods of building
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
417
construction and of plant development. Engineers employed by the
Commission report that from a purely engineering point of view there
is not enough large constructive planning in plant development-a
defect recognized and complained of by the supervisory boards. Not
knowing the human side of institutional administration the engineers
of course report no case of buildings inappropriate to the functions for
which they were designed. The fault, as found, and as adopted by the
Commission, is that buildings vary too greatly in style and capacity,
a condition making for waste in first cost and in upkeep. The remedy
proposed is the unit system applied to all buildings regardless of pur-
pose. A set of collapsible forms is to be constructed so that a standard
section constructed of poured concrete may be built; and this set of
forms is to be used by all state institutions for all buildings, the larger
structures to be multiple of the unit.
There can be no question that the unit system of construction
should be used for similar structures. The present boards have urged
uniformity in construction for identical purposes, but never has the
mere uniformity of construction been allowed to interfere with the
proper working out of the functions which the structure in question
must perform.
The point at which the engineers and the Commission who endorse
them fail is exactly this point as to function. They do not know what
purposes are similar. Their ignorance of the human side of the institu-
tion naturally drives them to throw emphasis upon the mechanical
side of the question. To them it appears to be merely a matter of
engineering, and the care and treatment of inmates and patients no
more than a question of storage.
The sum total of the Commission's complaints is found upon analy-
sis to be a recitation of shortcomings in administrative details, and for
the most part an argument against the sort of centralization which
they recommend. The statement that the present supervisory boards
were intended to exercise administrative control and have failed in that
purpose is found to be plainly false. The charges of interference and
overlapping turn out to be imaginary and completely groundless. The
cross purposes insisted upon in functions and activities are shown to
be errors in the Commission's definition of functions and a monument
to colossal ignorance of the purposes of the institutions maintained by
this Commonwealth. Their alleged inconsistencies in minor details of
bookkeeping and in the labels attached to occupations is found to arise
to a large degree out of the inability of their agents to grasp the situa-
418
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tion at a cursory glance; shortcomings in accounting are chargeable
directly to the Auditing Department conducted by a member of the
Commission itself; and the lack of uniformity in building construction
taken in connection with the concrete section recommended places the
present Commission not less than fifty years behind the stage now
attained by Massachusetts in the development of facilities for institu-
tional care and treatment. To the Commission the institution is an
end in itself, rather than the means to an end. In their eyes its business
management is the sum total of its purposes.
V. In the last analysis, however, even if it could be found that the
present condition of our state institutions demands correction, the
recommendation of the Commission that a highly centralized one-man-
power system of control be inaugurated is wholly inappropriate to the
purpose. It is a proposal discredited by reliable experience in many
jurisdictions whose problems have been similar to our own.
The axiom in the organization of public charities and correction,
derived and demonstrated by decades of experiment, not only in Mas-
sachusetts but also in New York, Ohio, Indiana, Michigan, Wisconsin,
Iowa, Nebraska, and a score of other states, is that the study and
promulgation of methods and policies must be centralized in a body
having no other authority over the institution; but that administrative
details shall be decentralized in the several administrative officers em-
ployed on the ground and conversant with the intimate everyday needs
of the institution. Such a system can be effected only through the
supervisory system, in which a Board administers the institution sub-
ject to the advice of a central body in matters of policy. . . .
There is no hint in the Commission's report that in their treatment
of this vital question they have ever investigated or even had knowl-
edge of the experiments of other states in seeking the best method of
institutional development. An examination of the per capita cost of
maintaining state institutions elsewhere together with the cost of build-
ings will show that the percentage of Massachusetts compare very
favorably, being in many cases lower than those of institutions con-
trolled by the system proposed. A little further inquiry (easily made
through the annual reports of the National Conference of Charities
and Correction), will show the significant fact that the epoch making
advances in classification, care and treatment of dependents, delin-
quents and defectives have come from states in which the supervisory
system and unpaid boards obtains, notably Massachusetts and
Indiana.
-
Categ
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
419
In addition to these sources of information, there still remain the
special investigations that have been carried on in this state and else-
where with the same purpose as that behind this present report. One
notable inquiry, already referred to, is the investigation of 1909-10
made into the methods of fiscal control of state institutions in New
York state under the direction of Mr. Henry C. Wright, a man of
international reputation as an expert upon the fiscal administration of
state departments. It is a thorough-going piece of work, supplying the
proof for each statement which it contains, and confining its con-
clusions strictly to the facts. The Massachusetts report seems childish
in comparison. . . . .
The Massachusetts report in so far as it attempts to set forth a
rational understanding of conditions in Massachusetts is a failure. It
was foredoomed in this respect both by the shortness of time and
meagreness of effort put into it and by the inexpertness and inexperi-
ence of the investigators employed by the Economy and Efficiency
Commission in this difficult subject of State Charities and Correction.
Without malice, and in a desire to further any reasonable analysis
of our institutional problems, the State Board of Charity respectfully
represents that the report and recommendation contained in House
Bill 2137 are wholly untrustworthy; are wretchedly composed; and
are altogether a discredit to this Commonwealth.
13. Proposals for Reorganization in New York
A. COMMISSIONER STRONG IN 1915¹
For the sake of convenience, I shall re-state here in summary form
the principal recommendations contained in this Report.
I recommend a reorganization of the State Board of Charities. In-
stead of an unpaid board of twelve, appointed by the governor from
districts, with eight year terms, the board selecting its own president
and without qualification specified in the law, the board should become
a board of nine, of whom at least one should be a woman, and of whom
three should be paid and six should not be paid, appointed by the gov-
ernor from the state at large, to serve during good behavior and re-
movable by the governor on notice for cause; special qualifications for
· Extract from Report of Charles H. Strong, Commissioner to Examine into the
Management and Affairs of the New York State Board of Charities, the Fiscal Super-
visor, and Certain Related Boards and Commissioners, to Governor Whitman, pp.
165-68.
T
420
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
membership to be described in the law, to the end that all the func-
tional activities of the board should be discharged by persons with
special training therefor; the three paid members to be the president
of the board and the chairman of the two new bureaus within the board,
namely, the Bureau for Mental Deficiency and the Bureau for Depend-
ent Children, these three members to be designated as president and
bureau chairmen, respectively, at time of appointment by the gover-
nor. The duties to be imposed upon these three members will require
that they give all their time to the service. I recommend specification
in the statute of specific qualifications for certain members of the State
Board of Charities, with special reference to the several classes of state
institutions supervised by the board, such as a penologist or one skilled
in the reformation of the delinquent; an educationist; a physician
with special knowledge of tubercular diseases; a physician who is a
general practitioner, with special reference to hospitals and dispensa-
ries; a lawyer; a physician with special training in psychiatry, to serve
as chairman of the new Bureau for Mental Deficiency; a specialist in
the care of children in private institutions and in foster homes, to serve
as chairman of the new Bureau for Dependent Children; and one gener-
ally conversant with dependency, and the several forms of poor relief.
I recommend that the board should be required to meet regularly
at least twice a month, as in Massachusetts. Under the present law,
there is no requirement as to the number of meetings.
I recommend that new administrative and executive functions
should be conferred, in order to convert an advisory board, weakened
by loss of power, into an authoritative supervisory board. This should
include the duties of the Fiscal Supervisor in fiscal affairs, surrendering
to the Comptroller such of said duties as relate solely to audit. Pro-
vision should be made for such institutional records as will exhibit
functional costs. Without surrender of central control by the board
over expenditures, provision should be made for modification of the
procedure of estimate and allotment so that the institutions may work
more smoothly and with greater initiative. Other new functions should
be the supervision of purchase under joint contract and the review of
building plans for the state institutions. These and other duties of an
administrative or executive character should be imposed upon the
president of the board in the belief that efficiency in matters adminis-
trative calls for a one man service. Upon him also would fall the re-
sponsibility for executing the plans of the board with respect to insti-
tutional development; for promoting new institutions after legislative
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
42I
•
authorization by the acquisition of sites and buildings within the appro-
priations that are provided; for developing institutional industries on
the farm and in the shop, to the end that the institutional service may
be the more economically administered; and to obtain adequate appro-
priations for extending and improving the inspection service over pub-
lic and private institutions, as contemplated in the constitution and
the laws.
Pending the adoption of such new constitutional provision as will
permit the establishment of an independent state department for the
supervision of the mentally defective, known generally as the feeble-
minded, I recommend the establishment of a new bureau in the State
Board of Charities, to be known as the Bureau for Mental Deficiency,
the chairman of which is to be one of the paid members of the board,
and who must be a physician with special training in psychiatry, and
associated with whom is to be a new unpaid advisory council, named by
the chairman and approved by the State Board.
In the State Hospital Commission, the state has made independent
provision for the supervision of the insane, who furnish no graver ¡
lem than do the mentally defective.
Lob-
I recommend the restoration to the State Board of Charities of the
power to review building plans for almshouses in New York City, this
power having been taken away by the legislature in 1913 and placed in
the Board of Estimate and Apportionment. I perceive no adequate
reason for the exception of New York City from the procedure obtain-
ing over the remainder of the state.
I recommend an express grant of power to the State Board of Char-
ities to adopt rules and regulations for the reception and retention of
inmates in state charitable institutions, subject to the laws of the state.
This power the board now possesses with respect to private institu-
tions.
I recommend continued executive approval of the Report of the
Senate Committee on Civil Service and writing into the law standards.
of compensation for institutional service.
I recommend prompt provision for a new institution for defective
delinquents.
I recommend for adult female delinquents care in public institu-
tions exclusively.
I recommend periodic conferences under statutory regulation
among the heads of the three great institutional groups, charities, hos-
pitals for the insane and prisons, for the purpose of securing uniformity
422
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
in salary schedules, as far as may be practicable, and for the purpose of
considering what, if anything, could advantageously be bought by joint
purchase for all institutions.
I recommend careful revision of the State Charities Law and the
Poor Law, and have indicated herein certain definite results that
would be accomplished thereby; but this revision should await the de-
termination by the executive and the legislature as to what, if any, new
form of state administration shall be adopted.
I recommend such extension as there may be under the existing
constitution of the visitational power of the State Board of Charities
over private charitable institutions.
I recommend the establishment of a new bureau in the State Board
of Charities, to be known as the Bureau for Dependent Children, the
chairman of which is to be one of the paid members of the board and
who must possess special training in the care of children in private in-
stitutions and in foster homes. This bureau will, subject to the approv-
al of the board, develop new and reasonable standards of child care in
the institutions; promote the placing-out of certain classes of children
in the family home; make uniform the institution methods of placing-
out; adopt measures to lessen the mortality rate in foundling asylums,
such as to reduce the number of surrenders of infants to the asylums
by mothers who could be aided to care for the children in their own
homes; create and advance new measures of outdoor relief, in order to
preserve for children their natural home; persistently stimulate, by
publicity and otherwise, an increase in financial support for the insti-
tutions, both from the public treasury and the private benefactor, to
enable the institutions to conform to reasonable standards of child
care; and the chairman of this bureau will aid the president of the board
in obtaining appropriations needed to meet the imperative demand
for enlargement of the inspectorial staff of the board.
I recommend that the State Board of Charities be compelled by
statute to issue, when warranted, its own affirmative certificates of
compliance by private institutions with its rules and regulations, said
certificates to be a prerequisite to payments to the institutions by the
local disbursing officers.
I recommend repeal of the charter provision requiring, as a condi-
tion of payment to the private institutions, a certificate by the De-
partment of Public Charities in the City of New York that the insti-
tutions have complied with the rules and regulations of the State
Board of Charities; to the end that inspection by this department shall
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
423
be permissible and not impliedly compulsory as it now is, and that com-
pulsory inspection shall continue to be imposed upon the State Board
and upon that board alone.
I recommend the abolition of the office of the Fiscal Supervisor of
State Charities, established under an article in the State Charities Law
entitled "Regulation of State Charitable Institutions.'
I recommend the abolition of the Salary, Classification Commission.
I recommend the abolition of the Building Improvement Commis-
sion.
I recommend the abolition of the Commission on Sites, Grounds
and Buildings.
I recommend the abolition of the Board of Examiners of Feeble
Minded, Criminals and Other Defectives.
""
B.
PROPOSED REORGANIZATION IN 1919¹
1. There will be a Department of Mental Hygiene which will be
under the direction and control of a Commission on Mental Hygiene
composed of a physician required to have ten years' experience in the
care and treatment of the insane in an institution for the insane, a
reputable attorney of ten years' standing and a reputable citizen, all
appointed by the Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate
to hold office during good behavior in the case of the physician and for
six years in the case of the other two members. The Commission will
be responsible for the formulation and administration of policies for
the care of the insane, feeble-minded and epileptic, will direct and be
responsible for the administration of all institutions for the insane,
feeble-minded and epileptic and will visit and inspect all homes, insti-
tutions or other places within the State where the insane, feeble-minded
and epileptic are detained. The physician will act as Chairman of the
Commission.
2. There will be a Department of Charities to be under the direc-
tion and control of a Board of Charities composed of twelve members,
one from each judicial district and three additional members from New
York City, appointed two each year for terms of six years, by the Gov-
ernor with the advice and consent of the Senate. This Board will visit
and inspect all institutions whether state, county, municipal or private,
incorporated or not incorporated, which are of a charitable character,
4
• Extract from Report of New York State Reconstruction Commission to Governor
Alfred E. Smith on Retrenchment and Reorganization in the State Government, October,
10, 1919, pp. 198-200.
1
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
irrespective of whether or not they receive public aid, excepting cor-
rectional institutions and institutions for the insane, fccble minded
and epileptics. The Board will not inspect State institutions.
3. There will be a Department of Correction which will be respon-
sible for developing and administering the State's policy with reference
to the care of juvenile and adult delinquents, and which will be under
the direction of a Commissioner appointed by the Governor with the
advice of the Senate and serving at his pleasure.
1 There will be a Council of Correction, consisting of five mem-
bers, of whom at least one shall be a woman, to be appointed for
overlapping terms of five years by the Governor with the consent of
the Senate which will advise and inspect state and local correctional
institutions and supervisc parole and probation
5. There will be also in the Department of Correction, a paid Board
on Parole and Probation appointed by the Council of Correction and
serving at its pleasure, to be composed of three paid members, one of
whom will be a woman. This Board will parole all state prisoners, in-
vestigate and report on local probation systems and hold preliminary
hearings on pardons at the request of the Governor.
6. For each institution under the Departments of Mental Hygiene
and Correction, including prisons, there will be a Board of Managers
consisting of seven members (of whom not less than two will be women)
appointed by the Governor with the consent of the Senate for overlap-
ping terms of scven years. Superintendents of institutions, including
prisons, will be appointed by the Commission on Mental Hygiene or
the Commissioner of Correction as the case may be, subject to
the approval of the local boards, as the result of civil service exami-
nations.
7. There will be a Council of Public Welfare to be composed of the
Chairman of the Commission on Mental Hygiene, the Commissioner
of Correction, Secretary of the Board of Charities, Commissioner of
Health and the Commissioner of Education This Council will act as
a clearing house of advice and investigation in the general field of
public welfare. It will collect statistics, make studies of the mainte
nance and construction of institutions, proper assignment and transfer
of inmates in the various groups of institutions; the best use of the
farms, industrics and other economic materials in connection with the
administration of all state institutions; the employment, compensa-
tion, and welfare of institutional employces; deportation of inmates
properly belonging to other states and countries; methods of purchas
SUPERVISION VERSUS CONTROL
425
ing and distributing supplies, materials and equipment, and of the
present administration of local institutions by counties.
8. The duties and responsibilities of the following commissions,
boards and departments:
State Hospital Commission
Hospital Development Commission
Board of Retirement
State Board of Charities
Fiscal Supervisor
Salary Classification Commission
Building Improvement Commission
Board of Examiners of Feeble-Minded Criminals and Other Defectives
Commission for the Care of Mental Defectives
Superintendent of Prisons.
State Commission on Prisons
Board of Parole
Probation Commission
Board of Classification
will be consolidated under the Departments of Mental Hygiene, Char-
ities and Correction.
9. The Thomas Indian School will be transferred to the Depart-
ment of Education.
10. The Institution for the Care and Treatment of Crippled and
Deformed Children and the Institution for the Care and Treatment
of Incipient Tuberculosis will be transferred to the Department of
Health.
II. The Soldiers' and Sailors' Home at Bath and the Woman's
Relief Corps Home at Oxford will be transferred to the Department of
Military and Naval affairs.
12. These recommendations require both constitutional amend-
ments and statutory revisions.
CI
THE WORK OF A STATE BOARD
A State department has, however, fixed limitations which define
its activities much more accurately than is the case with a private or-
ganization, the flexibility of which is not possible in a State depart-
ment, and this lack of flexibility should be taken into consideration
when the work of the Board is the subject of discussion. There are
¹ Extract from Fifty-third Annual Report of the New York State Board of Charities
for the year 1919, 1, 8–9.
426
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
many things which this Board desires to do but which by reason of
statutory and financial limitations it cannot attempt. There are also
many things which the public desires the Board should do, but which
for the same reasons must be left undone. The State Board of Char-
ities, in common with other departments, is limited in the number of
employees by the decisions of the finance committees of the Legislature
and this limitation extends also to the compensation to be paid. It
cannot as in the case of a private charitable society expand its forces
at will to meet new situations, nor can it hold out inducements to able
and capable members of the staff that their good work will be suitably
rewarded by increased financial compensation. All these matters are
determined by an outside group which is usually but slightly acquaint-
ed with the problem, the possibilities, the necessities, and the ambitions
of a particular department and which, in determining the financial limi-
tations, must constantly have in mind scores of other departments and
the necessity of keeping the State's budget within limits that will not
arouse the resentment of the taxpayer. This is quite a different situa-
tion from that of the private society with its interested board of mana-
.gers constantly planning for new work, increased funds, and more
efficient equipment and personnel. There is, therefore, a legitimate
place for the privately organized charitable society which may, through
its broader freedom and its more flexible organization, inaugurate and
carry on very important movements for social betterments until such
time as the public machinery may be developed to meet its full task.
SECTION IV
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In the presidential address at the National Conference of Social
Work in 1924 in Toronto¹ considerable space was devoted to the sub-
ject of civil service, and obviously in no division of the public service
is the domination of partisan spoils methods more to be deplored than
in the field of public welfare. From the beginning of the movement to
develop public charitable agencies, freedom from partisan interference
has been recognized as an essential of sound, efficient care and of skilful
professional treatment. The structure given the agencies, the amount
of direct authority, the requirement that there should be special
supervisory authorities established, were all the outgrowth of fear of
the spoilsman. Attention has already been given to the question of
supervision as over against control, of the use of the continuous board
form of organization. It remains to consider briefly the development
of the civil-service machinery having for its purpose the application of
the merit system to the selection of officials and employees in the wel-
fare fields. The selection of documents in this section, as in other sec-
tions, can be only illustrative of the points significant from the point
of view of public welfare.
Reference had been made to the general confusion resulting from
a change in administration in Illinois in 1893;2 the Massachusetts
episode set forth in the first document of this section pictures a situation
of somewhat the same character. The second illustrates the general rec-
ognition of the situation and the attempt to deal collectively with the
question. With the passage of the Federal Act³ came hope for the de-
I Document 14.
2 See above, Part II, Sec. II, Introductory Note, pp. 292-95.
3 The federal or Pendleton Act was passed January 16, 1883 (22 U.S. Statutes
at Large, 403, Forty-seventh Congress [2d sess.], chap. 27); the New York Act
followed May 4, 1883; Massachusetts, June 3, 1884; Wisconsin and Illinois in 1905;
Colorado in 1907; New Jersey, 1908; in 1911 the Illinois Act was extended; in 1912
the Colorado Act was extended; in 1913 Connecticut, California, and Ohio enacted
civil-service laws; in 1915 Kansas enacted a law, and the principle was recognized in
Louisiana. See John M. Mathews, American State Government (New York, 1924),
p. 272; and Report of the Efficiency and Economy Committee, Illinois (1915), p. 911.
427
428
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
velopment of special agencies through which the merit system might
be applied to the selection of officials and employees in this field, and
the enactment in Illinois of a law applying at first only to the charitable
institutions. Of course the enactment of civil-service laws and the set-
ting up of administrative machinery are no more effective against
widespread political corruption and indifference than the selection of
special forms of organization. In Illinois, for example, when in 1922
the governor vetoed the appropriation for the State Immigrants Com-
mission, a public agency authorized by an act of 1919, and organized
in full faith in accordance with the best civil-service methods, he was
probably influenced by the fact that changes in personnel could be
brought about only by bringing charges which could not be substan-
tiated and would not be believed. And in his message on January 9,
1923, to the Colorado Legislature, Governor Sweet said, "The Civil
Service Commission law as now administered is a farce. It is being
used to construct a bi-partisan political machine for the special benefit
and use of whichever party happens to be in power." He, therefore,
recommended the repeal of the law, and, failing to secure that, he
attempted to reorganize the Commission, meeting with failure in that
attempt as well.'
However, in those jurisdictions in which a reasonably genuine
attempt at applying the merit system is being made, there are difficul-
ties and questions of special interest from the point of view of the wel-
fare organization. One of these is the degree to which the principles of
business are applicable in the decisions, arrangements, and relation-
ships of the Civil Service,² and one is the question of widening the range
from which recruiting may be carried on. There are two other interest-
ing points to which it would have been desirable to devote space. The
first is the extent to which the recruiting field should be extended by
the provision in the welfare institutions of opportunities for education
and training. The establishment of training schools for nurses in con-
nection with the institutions for the insane finds its justification in the
very great dearth of persons professionally equipped to care skilfully for
the patients. The second is the question of the success with which the
ordinary competitive tests of fitness can be applied in this field. If, as
the Illinois Commission³ says, the purpose of the administration is not
so much to keep the rascals out as to secure really high-grade service,
there must be a wide appeal to representatives of the different profes-
I The Denver daily papers of January 5-10, 1925.
2 Document 9.
3 Document 8.
CIVIL SERVICE
429
sions for help and for actual service in the way of setting questions,
determining values in experience, holding interviews with applicants,
and in other ways supplementing the knowledge and experience of the
Commission. The interview is, for example, of very great importance
in selecting persons whose work involves delicate relationship with the
patients, children, or other groups under care.¹
Another question is the extent to which the non-assembled exami-
nations can be made use of, the extent to which either the statutory or
the political situation makes it possible to "waive residence," and the
methods by which experience for different periods of time with different
social or welfare agencies can be compared and used as the basis for
objective selection.
There are public officials who are devoting time and thought and
exercising great ingenuity to discover and try out devices by which the
work of the civil-service authorities may be made more exact and re-
sponsive to the needs of the service. Interested students will find useful
and suggestive material in the specifications set up by the civil-service
commissions in connection with examinations for the United States
Children's Bureau, the Women's Bureau, the Public Health Service,
and other authorities of that general character.
I
1 See, for example, Sir Stanley Leathes, K.C.B., "Qualification, Recruitment,
and Training of Public Servants,” Journal of Public Administration, I (1923), 355.
See also below, Part III, Sec. III, Document 6.
•
SPECIAL PROBLEMS: PARTISAN INTERFERENCE
WITH THE CIVIL SERVICE
I. Governor Butler's Controversy with the Massachusetts Board¹
A controversy arose between Governor Butler and the Board,
mainly concerning its jurisdiction and proceedings, and the authority
of the Executive in certain matters claimed by the Board to be solely
within their province under the law. This controversy was carried on
in written correspondence between the Governor and the Board, and
covered a period of several months. It can be only very briefly re-
ferred to here, as it was printed at length in the newspapers when the
communications appeared.
The first letter of importance in the correspondence was from Gov-
ernor Butler.² It was dated April 23, 1883, and directed the Board to
assume control of the State Almshouse. The Board sought an opinion
from the Attorney-General on the question of their own discretion in
the matter, April 25, 1883. His assistant, under date of April 26, re-
plied, in the absence of the Attorney-General, that the latter was not
required by law to give an official opinion to the Board, and he de-
clined to give any. The Assistant Attorney-General wrote also to the
same effect to Governor Butler, in reply to a communication dated
April 25, written by the Governor, objecting to the Attorney-General
advising the Board in the case. On the thirtieth of April the Board re-
plied to the Governor's letter of the twenty-fifth of the same month,
affirming their right, founded on long usage of the Boards of Charities
and Health, and of the existing Board, to obtain the Attorney-Gen-
eral's opinion. On the same date (April 30) Governor Butler replied to
the Board's communication of that day, denying the right of the Board
to seek the opinion of the Attorney-General, stating he would recom-
mend an appropriation for the Almshouse, and claiming that the offi-
¹ Extract from Fifth Annual Report of the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and
Charity of Massachusetts, January, 1884 (“Massachusetts Public Document No.
17," 1883), pp. cxcvii-ccviii.
2 [In connection with this controversy, attention may be called to Governor
Butler's appointment of Clara Barton to the position of superintendent of the
Woman's Reformatory Prison. See William E. Barton, The Life of Clara Barton,
the Founder of the Red Cross, II, 205].
430
CIVIL SERVICE
431
1
cers at the head of each department of the Board were illegally in office,
as he had not consented to their appointment, and the consent of pre-
vious governors or a former governor was insufficient in law. May 1,
1883, the Governor wrote to the Attorney-General inquiring whether
or not it appeared from the records of the Attorney-General's office
that the Board and its predecessors had frequently sought opinions of
the law officer of the government in the past, and that their requests
had been promptly and courteously complied with. May 2, 1883, in
the absence of the Attorney-General, his assistant, Mr. Shepard, re-
plied to the Governor, saying it was not the practice of the office to
furnish such opinions, but on the contrary that the records showed
several instances where Mr. Train, a former Attorney-General, an-
swered the Board, in reply to applications for his opinion, that it was
not his duty to give opinions to the Board. May 3, the Governor wrote
the Board, adverted to the communication of the Assistant Attorney-
General, and then said: "The fact is, your Board never has received
an opinion of the Attorney General or his assistant on questions of law
relating to the duties of the Board, ... and the fact now appears
on your records that you have been, by every Attorney-General for
ten years to whom you have applied, refused such opinions." Further,
Governor Butler said in the same letter, "I shall be bound to expose
the ignorance and untruthfulness shown in such communications [the
Board's letter of April 30], while I grieve to perform that duty.” On
May 5, the Governor wrote the Board saying he would decline to re-
ceive any communication from them which was signed by Mr. F. B.
Sanborn, their secretary, on the ground of alleged personal offence giv-
en him by Mr. Sanborn in certain correspondence, and on the further
grounds that Mr. Sanborn's appointment had not received his consent,
and he had not taken any oath of office for the faithful discharge of
his duties. May 5, the Board (in reply to the Governor's letter of May
3, charging the Board with misrepresentation, ignorance, untruthful-
ness and hypocrisy, in stating, in their letter to him of April 30, that it
was the custom of that body and its predecessors to receive opinions
from the Attorney-General), directed the attention of Governor But-
ler to the error in the reply (May 2) of Assistant Attorney-General
Shepard in saying he had examined the records and letter-books in his
office for ten years preceding, and found therein only five instances
where the Attorney-General had advised the Board (or the separate
boards previously); but, on the contrary, found that letters had been
sent by Mr. Train denying the right of the former boards to official
•
432
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
opinions from him. In their letter of May 5 to the Governor, the Board
said:
It is evident the records and letters of the attorney-general's office are
not a safe source of information to rely upon, since it appears from the files
of the Board a large number of opinions were given the former organizations
and the existing one by attorneys-general Allen, Train and Marston.
Thereupon (May 7) Gov. Butler wrote the Attorney General:
I did implicitly rely upon the statement of your office, and I believe in-
deed that the statement will be found substantially correct. . I desire
a very careful examination of all these supposed opinions.
May 8, the Attorney-General replied:
I cannot give the information you now ask without searching records
and memories outside.
May 11, Governor Butler wrote the Attorney-General (concerning
the controversy regarding opinions from the office of the latter) that
"the whole confusion has arisen because of officers asking attorneys-
general not for opinions, but advice."
June 1, the Board, in another communication (in reply to a letter
from Governor Butler of May 5, taking the ground that Mr. F. B.
Sanborn was not an officer of the Board because he, the Governor, had
not consented to his continuance in office, and because Mr. Sanborn
had not taken an oath of office), said that the consent of a preceding
governor was given, and held to be sufficient, and that there was no
legal requirement for an oath of office in such a case as that of Mr. San-
born's. The Board also cited an opinion given them (May 5) by Gover-
nor Gaston on the first point, and another opinion, from the same gen-
tleman, dated May 14, on the question concerning the oath; and the
Board further declined to remove any of the four department officers,
for the reason that the consent of Governor Butler was unnecessary to
their continuance in office, and that the constitution and laws did not
require them to take any oath of office. June 2, the Board wrote Gover-
nor Butler urging his attention to the fact that his action in declining
to approve of certain payments had deprived the employees under the
Board (some of whom were women, others men with wives and chil-
dren to support), as well as the four department officers of the Board,
of their properly earned salaries. June 9, Governor Butler, in reply to
this last communication of the Board, wrote a long communication,
making extended objections to the Board's attitude concerning the
CIVIL SERVICE
433
•
retention of the officers, the disbursement of moneys by them, the by-
laws and other matters.
Ju
June 12, the Board sent a communication to Governor Butler, in-
forming him that persons near him in public matters, and others en-
joying his confidence, had given currency to statements that there was
evidence in his possession which would establish charges of corrupt
practices against certain persons holding responsible positions under
the Board, and prove them unworthy of retaining their positions. The
Board said that, in justice to themselves and to the persons mentioned,
as well as to the public service, they considered it their duty to request
Governor Butler, if he had any evidence of such character, to afford
the Board an opportunity to investigate the charges; or, if he had not
any such evidence in his possession, that, as a matter or propriety,
they trusted His Excellency would say he had not, and thus silence the
calumny.
On July 7 the Board wrote Governor Butler, in reply to his letter
of June 9, stating they were compelled to seek the advice of other coun-
sel when his action had deprived them of the advice of the Attorney-
General; and that the advice of counsel had justified their interpreta-
tion of the law and their duties, and would satisfy the people of the
Commonwealth that the Board made no factious or partisan opposition
to the view of His Excellency. The language of the letter of Governor
Butler of June 9 (characterizing the inquiry of the Board for the rea-
sons why the pay warrants were not approved "as simply impertinent,
as the reason for it is none of your business,") is referred to, and the
Board say they must always consider it a most serious matter of busi-
ness to attend to the payment of salaries to those serving under that
body, and are well assured that not until the Governor's attention to
the failure of the employees of the Board to receive salaries, owing to
his declining to approve the warrants, had reached him through the
Board's letter, did he cause the necessary warrants to issue. The Board
then refers to its statutory (not by-law) authority to appoint such
officers as it may deem necessary, and to fix their compensation; and
says these officers are not elected by the people, nor appointed by the
Governor; they bear no written commission or warrant from the State,
nor does any statute prescribe their functions or duties, no more than
those of many appointees in the minor and clerical work of the State,
whose employment and continuance in office depend upon the will and
discretion of the officers authorized to give the employment, and not
upon taking or subscribing any oath whatever. Further, the Board (in
434
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
reply to the Governor's assertion that they are not disbursing officers
of the State) say: "A closer examination of the statutes will satisfy
your Excellency that the Board are disbursing officers, to the extent of
many thousands annually, by a long course of State legislation." In
reply to the assertion of the Governor that the Board is a supervising
body only, they say: "A careful examination of the statutes will con-
vince you they are much more,”—and, after a recital of the duties,
add: "Your Excellency, when these duties are recited to you, will per-
ceive that you have yet failed to comprehend the powers and functions
of the Board." Referring to the Governor's questioning their power to
delegate authority, they say: "You will find the statutes give them the
most ample authority to delegate their powers, and do not require
many of them to be personally exercised."
September 21, the Board wrote to the Governor concerning his de-
mand on the Superintendent of Out-Door Poor, for such records of
that department as the Superintendent had not already placed in his
hands; and requested the prompt return of the records, that had been
in the Governor's possession without the knowledge of the Board
(which was the only legal custodian of the records). They reminded
the Governor of their letter of June 12, still unanswered, calling for
charges against any officer, if he had proper evidence to sustain them,
and recited: (1) That the ten volumes of records held by him, must, by
law, remain in the Board's custody, and if in the possession of any
other person than an officer of the Board, they were wrongfully in such
possession. (2) That Governor Butler's demand for other records was
without authority of law, and could not be complied with by the Board,
—a body created and existing only by law. (3) That the retention of
the Board's records by the Executive or any person acting for him, is
in violation of law. (4) That any investigation should be preceded by
specific charges, and no officer be compelled to defend himself against
attacks made in the dark; the Board, at the same time, expressing a
readiness to examine the conduct of any officer, when specific charges
were made.
On September 29, Governor Butler acknowledged the receipt of
this communication, and wrote that the Superintendent of Out-Door
Poor (whom he recognized as only a de facto agent of the Board) had
promised him the remainder of the books; that he, as the "supreme
executive magistrate," was entitled to examine the books, to obtain
evidence on which he could properly frame the charges he desired to
prefer; finally, that the communication of September 21 was the indi-
·
CIVIL SERVICE
435
vidual act of the chairman, and he appealed from that act to the Board
itself. The same day, he also wrote the Board that the chairman had
assumed to withhold certain records, and asked for a yea and nay
vote whether or not he had the right to the books; so that if it became
necessary to apply for a writ of mandamus or other proper process, he
might know upon whom to serve it. October 6, the Board replied that
the Governor's demand had been considered, and, in the judgment of
the Board, no court would order the records of the Board from their
legal possession into the illegal possession of the Executive; they pro-
tested that the Governor had used gross and insulting language in his
last letter; and said such language was unworthy of any one claiming
the name of gentleman, much less of one who, by virtue of the high
office he held, should be the exemplar, to young and old alike, of the
utmost courtesy and deference to every citizen.
October 26, the Governor sent a communication to the Board (in-
closing a copy of one from the Attorney-General, dated October 3, in
relation to the appointment of a woman as a member of the Board),
which called the Board's attention to the inclosed letter, and indicated
that a member of the Board, Mrs. Clara T. Leonard, was not, in law,
entitled to membership.
November 3, the Board replied that Mrs. Leonard had been duly
appointed by the Governor's predecessor; that in 1879 the Legislature
intended (Acts of 1879 chap. 291), to authorize the appointment of
women on the State boards then created; and that the Board could not
follow the Governor's wishes by ungraciously declining to recognize
Mrs. Leonard as a member; but if they considered that Mrs. Leonard
held her office illegally, the Governor and Council could resort to the
Supreme Court for its answer to a question of such grave importance
to the people, and to those interested in the management of the public
institutions. This was the last letter in this long correspondence; for
the Supreme Judicial Court, when asked for an opinion on the question
of Mrs. Leonard's membership, held that she was duly appointed and
rightfully in office. This opinion was published in the newspapers, but
was not communicated by the Governor to the Board.
Concerning the withholding of salaries by the late Governor, in
the four departments of the Board, and his conflicting reasons for such
unprecedented action, a few observations may be made. Whatever
may have been the purpose of Governor Butler in requesting this Board
to take charge of the State Almshouse in place of the Trustees thereof,
it would appear that he then neither questioned the power of the Board
436
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
to appoint its own officers and agents, nor did he object to the perform-
ance of their regular duties by the officers of the Board who were then
in scrvice This is shown by the following passage from Governor But-
ler's letter of April 23, 1883:
I do further respectfully advise the Board to appoint some officer thereof
at once to take charge of said Almshouse, the appointment or designation
of such officer to be submitted to the Governor for his approval. And as I
dccm this a matter of urgency I also take leave to suggest that I should con-
sent to the designation of Frank B. Sanborn to that duty, and for the reason
that, so far as I am informed, he is the only officer who, in a long series of
years, has shown any special disposition to reform abuses therein
While thus specifying one of the four chief officers of the Board for the
performance of a highly responsible duty, the late Governor, in a sub-
sequent letter, explained the immediate reason for his action. This
letter was addressed to the Inspector of Charitics, above named, and
in course of it Governor Butler wrote to that officer:
It is the ordinary course of governmental action to put an inspector in
charge of an office when an officer has failed in his duty, as for example
where a special agent of the post-office department has detected a post-mas-
ter in a defalcation, he is generally ordered to take charge of his office until
a new postmaster is appointed That is the precise position I propose to
put you in.
This shows that he then regarded Mr. Sanborn as properly the In-
spector of Charities; and in the same letter he thus mentioned two of
the other thrcc chief officers of the Board:
Dr. Henry B. Wheelwright, who has all he can do looking after Out-
Door Poor, especially since England has been pouring out her paupers onto
our shores; S. C. Wrightington, who has like duties to perform in regard to
In-Door Poor,
The first indication of a change of mind in respect to these officers of
the Board, and its power to appoint them, appeared in the late Gover-
nor's letter of April 30, after he had so fully recognized them as officers,
and had for four months drawn warrants for the payment of their
salarics. This letter was written soon after the Inspector of Charities
had courteously declined the appointment which the late Governor
had assumed to tender him, and contained this passage:
I desire to call your attention to section 3 of chapter 79 of the Public
Statutes, wherein the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity are per-
mitted to appoint officers with the consent of the Governor only. I have as
CIVIL SERVICE
437
yet given my consent to none of the officers now acting for the Board, and,
until my consent is received, I do not think I am called upon to allow the
bills for their payment. . . . . My construction of the statute is that the
Governor for the time being must consent to the officers of the Board, on
whom are imposed certain executive duties; and that the consent of some
former governor in the early history of the government, or since, is not suffi-
cient.
This new construction of the statutes by Governor Butler was the
occasion of a legal opinion from Mr. Gaston, one of his predecessors in
office, which was given by that eminent counsel on the fifth of May.
This opinion came to the notice of the late Governor on the same day
that he had, in a written communication, refused to consent to the
further payment of the Inspector of Charities; and this refusal to recog-
nize him, because he had not taken the oath, was soon followed by a
like refusal to recognize the other three heads of departments. These
three officers, on the tenth and eleventh of May, followed the example
of the Inspector of Charities in taking and subscribing the usual oaths
of office, in the presence of the Secretary of the Commonwealth, on
whose records their subscriptions were entered. Whereupon the late
Governor, in a communication dated June 9, renewed his objection to
the well-established power of the Board to appoint its own officers.
In consequence of the refusal of the Governor to draw further war-
rants for the use of the departments of the Board, the salaries of all
officers and employees, and the other expenses in these departments for
the month of May remained unpaid on the second of June, which led
to a remonstrance from this Board at that date. Upon the receipt of
this communication the late Governor made haste to free himself from
the odium of withholding from so many deserving persons the com-
pensation to which they were legally entitled, and caused the usual
warrants for payment to be so altered that the four department officers,
and they alone, had their compensation withheld. This undeserved de-
lay in the payment of these officers continued for eight months, or so
long as the late Governor remained in office; but the four officers con-
tinued to perform their functions, and were tacitly or openly recognized
by the Governor as entitled to do so. One of them (the Superintendent
of In-Door Poor) was entrusted by him with an important service on
the day the State Workhouse was burned (July 7), and the others
went forward, each with his official work, embarrassed, but not thwart-
ed, by the unprecedented course of the Governor.
It has been, and did continue to be, the custom of the Attorney-
438
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
General's office to communicate legal opinions respecting questions
arising in the departments of Health, Lunacy, and Charity; and any
variation from this custom which took place during the past year is not
likely to become a precedent. It was always understood by the Board
and its predecessors, that the Attorney-General was not bound in
strict law to give opinions to this Board, for the reason that his office
was created, and its dutics defined, long before this Board came into
existence; but it was equally well understood that his sense of official
duty not only allowed, but required him to give advice to the Board
when it was sought. Upon this understanding the custom continued
Since the correspondence of the late Governor, in which he warned the
Board not to ask or receive opinions from the present Attorney-Gcn-
eral (as if both that officer and this Board were under his orders), the
law officer of the government ceased to advise the Board
The Board assumed the control of the State Almshouse in good
faith, under the "orders" of the Governor, and with the expectation
that the money necessary to pay the Almshousc expenscs would be
immediately furnished, and that the late Governor would throw no
obstacles in the way of an efficient, economical management of the
State Almshouse. But, on the contrary, we were met at every step by
the unreasonable opposition of the Governor, in the appropriation of
money, by attempted interference in the selection of officers, and the
deferred payment of bills. In conscquence of this, the Almshouse ex-
penses increased, and discipline suffered for lack of a responsible ofſi-
cial head to an institution, the largest in the State, and never so much
crowded with inmates as during the past year. This opposition con-
tinued until nearly the end of the year, when it ceased as suddenly as it
had begun. But its effects are still perceptible in the uncertainty at-
tending the tenure of office at the State Almshouse, which depends on
the administration of a regularly appointed Superintendent.
The right of this Board to control its own records was practically
infringed by the late Governor when he obtained irregularly the cus
tody of certain books belonging to the Out-Door Poor Department,
and not only refused to return thesc, when requested by the Chairman
of this Board, but demanded, in most offensive language, that other
records should be placed in his hands. The Board signified its readiness
to submit its records in its own offices to the inspection of the Gover-
nor, or any responsible person, for any length of time he might desire;
being perfectly conscious that they contained nothing which could
even be tortured into evidence in support of the vague and unfounded
charges which the late Governor so often made. But we could not con
CIVIL SERVICE
439
sent to interrupt the important business of the Board by sending away
its records, as the business of the State Almshouse was interrupted, for
months, by the absence of its volumes of daily record detained by the
Governor. There was no law, nor custom, nor vestige of law, by which
the Governor could support his claim, nor any useful purpose which his
possession of the books could serve. Those he improperly obtained were
held by him until a few days before his year of office expired, and were
then returned without explanation of acknowledgment, and without
the discovery of those extraordinary revelations which the Governor
professed to be deriving from them. His threat of taking possession of
the records, or obtaining them by a mandamus, was, of course, never
even attempted to be fulfilled. This threat appeared in a communica-
tion dated September 29, 1883; and the same communication contained
throughout suggestions of criminal misconduct, and expressions such
as that there was "something wrong which must be covered up," and
insinuations of a like character. In the latter part of the official year
these insinuations began to cease coming from the Governor, or those
under him, and the entire body of accusation, investigation and threat-
ening, which his official papers disclose during a period of ten months,
has resulted in nothing whatever beyond the sound of his words, and
the annoyance which their frequent repetition occasioned to faithful
officers, diligently engaged in the daily service of the State. The sala-
ries of these officers withheld for more than eight months, by the arbi-
trary act of the late Governor, have now been paid. The whole investi-
gation or inquiry instituted by the late Governor (carried on, as he al-
leged, by detectives and hired experts) in secrecy, and for the purpose
of assailing character, has so completely come to naught that no dis-
tinct charges have ever been preferred in writing, or even verbally.
The power of this Board-a power necessary to the good management
of
any board--to appoint its officers and agents in the manner author-
ized by the Law of 1879 (chap. 291) and as it has always been exercised
since that time, remains in its hands; and it is presumed that no one
will hereafter question it, so long as the law remains unrepealed.
2.
Politics in Charitable and Penal Institutions¹
There is no way to avoid the direct investigation of the conduct of
officials working under the law; and it was to this immense and delicate
and difficult task that your committee addressed itself. We were under
'Extract from "Report of Committee on Politics and Public Institutions,'
Proceedings of the National Conference of Charities and Correction at the Twenty-
fifth Annual Session (New York City, 1898), pp. 240–46.
">
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
no illusions about the difficulty of the inquiry. We were aware in the
beginning that we must encounter many obstacles. We did not seck
any sensational disclosures nor desire to reach extreme conclusions,
but only to see things as they are. It is true that previous study
had demonstrated to most members of this Conference the nccd
of modifications and amendments, but this did not excite prejudice
against the host of honest and capable officers, who are doing the best
possible under a benighted and obsolete system, already discarded in
cultured nations as fit only for feudalism and for corrupt and arbitrary
monarchy.
The schedule of questions asked the correspondents for information
relating to:
1
T. Institutions of public charity:
1. State institutions: (a) hospitals for the insane, (b) schools for the
blind, (c) schools for the deaf-mutes, (d) schools for the fccblc minded,
(e) schools for dependent children.
2. County, township (or town), and municipal charities: (a) outdoor
relief officers, (b) county or town poorhouscs, (c) hospitals or infirma-
ries, (d) homes and placing-out of dependent children.
11. Institutions for correction and restraint:
1. State: (a) penitentiaries and convict prisons, (b) reformatorics for
younger offenders, (c) reform schools for boys and girls.
2. County and municipal: (a) jails, (b) city bridewells, houses of cor-
rection, (c) lock-up stauons.
The kinds of information asked for were:
T. State laws under which appointment, removals, and promotions are
made.
II Rules of administration adopted by boards of directors, trustces, etc.
of State institutions.
III. Customs governing appointments, removals, and promotions in speci-
fied institutions, and the reasons for these customs, as influence of party
service and favor, personal merit, fitness for the place, examinations,
and tests in competition.
IV. Local sentiment on the subject, as definitely expressed by influential
party leaders, societies, clubs, conventions, etc.
A startling yet very natural revelation of the tendency of the
"spoils system" came out in our correspondence, and showed that
system to be what it is, a system of terrorism, under which the best
and bravest men quail In almost every instance we have been in honor
1
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441
obliged to omit the names of our informants, and even the States from
which our knowledge comes. Most of our inquiries have remained un-
answered, partly from indifference, partly from fear of the party lash.
If our investigation has accomplished nothing more, it has been the
means of stimulating thought about the "spoils system" in all parts of
our country. This system cannot bear the light, it does not improve
upon close acquaintance, and it courts quiet and solitude. A well-
known member of this Conference writes:
I have thought much of the substance of your request and of the good
that could be accomplished by a full record of what might be told, and there
is much that should not appear in print and knowledge of which should not
be extended. And the result of my thought is that I know very little that
should be published, and that little should not be read.
Other trustworthy and amiable correspondents have courteously an-
swered our inquiries on the principle that "it is better to write nothing
than not to write."
Conclusions in Relation to State Institutions for the Insane.—While
all generalizations are somewhat uncertain and subject to discount and
exception, the evidence of our correspondence seems to show that the
"merit system" is making progress in State institutions for, the insane.
Even where the law is still based on the ancient notion of rotation in
office, the folly of acting on this notion is here apparent to the least in-
structed mind. Popular intelligence has made it impossible to promote
prize fighters as attendants upon the insane. Usually, public opinion
requires at least a diploma from some sort of a medical college as a con-
dition of appointment as superintendent of a hospital. The medical
profession has considerable influence on the appointments, and every
year becomes more critical and observant. Further reforms be
may ex-
pected from this source. The numerous friends of the insane are jeal-
ously watchful of the treatment of their unfortunate relatives. The
very fact that members of influential families are frequently under the
same management as that which cares for the dependent insane is some
security for more humane treatment of the poor.
Grat
But our investigation reveals even here the deplorable and humili-
ating discovery that governors and directors occasionally sacrifice the
interests of science and humanity to their own political advantage;
and that campaign pledges are sometimes kept at the cost of the most
sacred claims of the helpless and suffering. Enlightened public opinion
is in such cases actually set at defiance by a powerful political ring.
In relation to State institutions for the blind and for deaf-mutes a
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
similar condition prevails Public opinion is directed upon these
schools. The children frequently come from families of social influence.
There is an obvious nccd of professional preparation for the teaching
task. The absurdity of rotation in office is palpable. The teaching pro-
fession becomes daily more critical and jealous of the admission to such
service of raw and undisciplined recruits from other callings
Yet your committee could give instances of flagrant and wicked
abuse of the power of appointment and discharge We could cite ex-
amples of governors avenging themselves in the hour of partisan vic-
tory, by the wholesale discharge of competent superintendents, sim-
ply on partisan grounds. A system which permits such outrages, which
leaves room for such scandals, must be fundamentally unsound and
ripe for reform.
Judgments Relating to State Punitive and Correctional Institutions.
In the case of prisons and penitentiarics the mitigating factors are not
so great. Society naturally does not have the same fcclings of compas
sion for thieves and burglars as for the unfortunate insane, blind, and
deaf-mutes.
Only too generally, almost as a matter of course, when a domi-
nant party falls into a minority, the warden of a penitentiary prepares
to pull down his party flag, box his household goods, and surrender the
keys to his successor, the appointcc of the victors, to whom belong, as
of right, the spoils
Happily, we have much evidence that a more intelligent public
opinion is gathering head against this monstrous doctrine. It becomes
more clear to the public, as it has long been clear to scientific men, that
the training and reformation of criminals is one of the most difficult
branches of pedagogic art, that the administration of prisons and rc
formatories calls for the highest order of business ability, that the com-
plications of interests, of trade-unions and manufacturers, involve
problems which only tactful men, carefully selected and thoroughly
trained, can even approximately solve
The literature essential for a prison director to know is considera-
ble, and the scientific methods of study of criminal characteristics can-
not be mastered quickly by men who have merely left another business
for a few years to enjoy the salary for a service whose very elements
they have never studied
We greet with hope the evidence that the more advanced States
have begun to embody in their laws the principle that men must be
chosen to these positions for their fitness, and retained upon prooſ of
CIVIL SERVICE
443
competency and devotion. If this Conference stands for anything, it is
for this principle.
The evidence before your committee points in the direction of radi-
cal changes in the relation of the commonwealth to town and county
administration. The merit system is gaining ground far more rapidly
in State institutions than in local institutions. How, under the present
conditions, can the merit system displace the spoils system in county
poor-houses and jails? It seems impossible.
The history of poor-relief and local prisons in England at this point
is extremely instructive. There was a time in the mother country when
local jails and almshouses were in as chaotic and disgraceful a condition
as that of which we are now ashamed. To-day England is in a very
hopeful situation. What is the cause of this transformation? It lies in
the transfer of regulation from the local authorities to the Home Office
of the kingdom. There is a central agency for supervision of local pris-
ons and poor-relief, although parishes and unions retain all necessary
local power.
I
•
3. Civil Service Reform²
We need in New York, above all things, enthusiasm for the moral
principles which make the "spoils" system an impossibility.
Civil service reform is not a device for getting fairly good public
officers; it is a means of salvation for our people; and we need, through-
out our State, faith in the moral qualities upon which it is based, in
justice, truth, honor, and duty. We need in public life the qualities
which it creates and fosters, the qualities upon which depend the na-
tional welfare; we need intelligence, honesty, industry, and energy.
For four generations in this State the character of the people has
been sapped at the root; and the inevitable consequence is to be seen in
the low moral tone in public matters which is to be found among us,
and which is the worst thing we have to contend against.
Mr. Eaton, in his report on "The Spoils System and Civil Service
Reform in the Custom-House and Post-Office in New York," made to
President Hayes in 1881, quotes from Parton's Life of Jackson the fol-
lowing condemnation of our State: "From the early days of its adhe-
I
¹ [In this connection, the student is referred to Sir Edmund Frederick Du Cane,
The Punishment and Prevention of Crime (London, 1885), and to Sir Evelyn John
Ruggles-Brise, The English Prison System (London, 1921).]
2 Extract from paper by Mrs. C. R. Lowell, in Proceedings of the National Con-
ference of Charities and Correction at the Twenty-fifth Annual Session (New York
City, 1898), pp. 256–58.
444
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
sion to the Union, its politics have been involved, imbittered, and, I
may add, ignoble to an unexampled degree." And Mr. Eaton adds:
Unfortunately for the politics of New York, one of her first great politi-
cians and officers was the most adroit and unscrupulous political manipulator
the country has produced. Aaron Burr was our first partisan despot.
The "Burrian Code," as Mr. Parton calls it, is declared by him to
contain, among others, these fundamental principles:
*
1. Politics is a game, the prizes of which are offices and contracts.
5. Fidelity to party is the sole virtue of the politician. . . . .
19. The end and aim of the professional politician is to keep great men
down and put little men up. Little men, owing all to the wire-puller, will be
governed by him. Great men, having ideas and convictions, are perilous
even as tools.
•
•
Seventy-six years ago Tammany Hall's influence began to be felt.
Mr. Eaton says: "In 1822 it began active interest in politics. In 1827
it dominated the primary elections."
Our people have thus been subject to the degrading influences of
political corruption for more than one hundred years; they have eaten
into our very souls, and we must expect the recovery to be long in pro-
portion. There are, however, some immediate practical steps that
should be taken in New York to protect the various institutions of
charity and correction; and I will briefly enumerate them:
1. The State institutions must be protected from the attacks of the
spoilsmen, for which the "Black Law" has opened the way. To show
the situation, I will read parts of a letter from one of the managers of
a State Insane Hospital. It is dated May 3, 1898:
The inquiries you make have, I presume, reference to what I may
be able to write about the spoils system as illustrated by the late attempt in
our legislature to capture, by means of a very innocent-appearing bill, the
managing boards of our State hospitals for the insane, that they may be
made to subserve the uses of degraded partisanship.
The party machines, both Democratic and Republican, in the counties
of the State, are, I am assured, as corrupt and as fully charged with the pur-
poses of rule or ruin as were ever the corresponding machines in New York
City. The demagogues in the rural districts are very apt and ready scholars,
and quickly fall in line with the plans and methods of the political bosses in
your city. There is the same method of packing conventions with delegates
chosen by a self-styled caucus of three or four men seated at a table in a
drinking saloon. The same sort of control is exercised over the organization
by the district or county chairman, who appoints the temporary chairman,
who appoints the committee on credentials, who name the members of con-
•
CIVIL SERVICE
445
vention, regardless of any regularity or irregularity in the choice made by
their constituents. So that a county or district boss controls the organiza-
tion of the party, and thus attains despotic power in the councils thereof.
In 1896, before the passage of the present insanity law, the Republican
machine in each of two counties which I will not name had already fixed
upon the managers for the insane hospital to be appointed by the Governor.
Governors always depend upon the senators and assemblymen of a district
to recommend to them persons for local appointments. The Republican
machine in one of these Counties named three Republicans of the seven in
the board of managers. The Republican machine in the other County
named one, myself; and they, in doing so, made an enormous blunder. With
four Republicans and three Democrats in the board, the Republican ma-
chines thought they had control, and laid down and openly announced their
programme. The treasurer was to be forced to resign, and in his place was
to be put a man who would by intimidation bulldoze about one hundred
employees at the hospital into voting the Republican ticket. The superin-
tendent of the hospital, by arts familiar to political heelers, was to be brow-
beaten, nagged, and worried and insulted until his sense of self-respect
should compel him to resign. With him would also go the steward, his ap-
pointee. The board would then put in as superintendent a country doctor
already selected, who had no more qualifications for the position than any
other cross-roads doctor. He would be merely a manikin. He would ap-
point a steward, also already selected, who would make purchases in those
mysterious ways unknown to outsiders, but perfectly familiar to political
thieves of every grade; and commissions small, but frequently recurring,
would be the order of the day, "tips" would be privately conveyed to dealers
in groceries, provisions, clothing, etc., and those too honest to take such
hints would find very soon that their goods were not wanted at any price.
Now all this I find to have been the subject of conversation among those
quiet men, silent listeners, but quick to learn, who in every party are always
keeping themselves well informed of the "true inwardness" of affairs.
Of course, such things could never be established by any evidence admis-
sible in a court at law; but it is none the less tangible and well founded.
In this particular case the machine itself was rather garrulous: it could
not, at least it did not, keep its secrets very well. All its well-laid plans have
come to naught, however, because I have played the "traitor," and refused
to do its bidding.
The three Democrats with myself intend to keep the hospital upon strict-
ly non-partisan methods.
•
I have thus given you in outline mostly the reply you desire touching
upon the points of your letter.
The local sentiment regarding all this sort of proceeding is, with the
better part of the community, wholly opposed to it at every stage; for these
machine men obtain their most numerous supporters among the corrupt
446
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
classes, the vicious and saloon element, and all others of the degraded sort,
with no conscience, and no sense of responsibility as citizens. . . . . I need
not say for you will readily infer it as true that the county bosses are
always in close affiliation with and in cordial co-operation with the two head
bosses in New York. . .
To save the State institutions, we need, as appears, public virtue in
high places, and the repeal of the "Black Law."I
4. Work of the Illinois Civil Service Commission²
The Civil Service law became effective November 1, 1905. To
December 1, 1908, the Civil Service Commission received 10,684 appli-
cations. Of those making application, 8,292 were notified to appear
for examination, 1,727 applications were withdrawn or rejected for
cause, the remainder being still on file in the office of the Civil Service
Commission awaiting future notification of examinations. One thou-
sand two hundred and nine examinations were held in forty-three dif-
ferent cities. In those tests, 4,965 applicants were examined and 3,394
passed. There have been 4,550 appointments under the law. Because
of the change in the method of appointment, it was necessary at first
to make a number of temporary appointments from applications, as is
provided for under the law. Many of these resigned before they could
be examined, particularly attendants, domestics and laborers.
Since November 1, 1905, there have been 918 discharges for cause,
on written statements specifying the charges made.
The Forty-fifth General Assembly amended the law giving the
Civil Service Commission the right to investigate removals and making
it mandatory to order an investigation when the commission was satis-
fied an injustice had been done the employe.
During the year 1908, 279 discharges occurred and four employes
were ordered reinstated after an investigation by the commission.
The Civil Service system, in our judgment, has demonstrated its
superiority over the old system of appointment. We recommend its ex-
tension to all employes in the charitable, penal and correctional serv-
ice including superintendents and wardens.
I See Laws of the State of New York (1898), I, chap. 186; and also Public
Papers of Frank S. Black, Governor, 1897-1898, "New Civil Service Rules and
Regulations," pp. 136–79.
2 Extract from Twentieth Biennial Report of the Board of State Commissioners
of Public Charities of the State of Illinois (1908), p. 79.
CIVIL SERVICE
447
5. Four Years of Civil Service in Illinois
The present condition of the seventeen State charitable institu-
tions of Illinois is the best evidence of what civil service will do. The
institutions are well supplied with employes. They are of good quality,
skillful, energetic and efficient. They are interested in their work, take
pride in the institutions, and are desirous of advancing the standard of
efficiency and effectiveness.
During the quadrennial period just closing the Illinois Civil Serv-
ice Commission has accomplished much. It desires to do more and
the coming year, under the new Charities Act, promises big improve-
ments. Some of the most important reforms in the service that may
be attributed to civil service are:
The enforcement of discipline.
The abolition of political assessments or appointments through political
influences.
The elimination of the hospital tramp.
The establishment of an adequate standard for the medical staff.
The employment of dentists and dental internes.
The development of a trained nursing force.
The establishment and encouragement of training schools for nurses.
The reorganization of the engineering plants of many of the institutions
and the employment of skilled engineers at their head.
The employment of competent men in the business departments of the
institutions.
The reorganizations of the teaching forces and the appointment of com-
petent teachers in the various institutions where teachers are employed.
The improvement of the attendant force, due to improved methods of
instruction and the enforcement of discipline.
The elimination of favored employes.
The establishment of a higher moral spirit and responsibility among em-
ployes, due to strict discipline.
The reduction of temporary employes for short periods. ›
Abolishment of sinecures and prevention of them.
It is difficult to say in which development or branch of the service
there has been the greatest improvement. For the medical staffs the
standard is high. Men between 25 and 40 years of age are required.
The possibility of retaining their positions and of making progress has
attracted a number of excellent young physicians to the service. Three
¹ Extract from Twenty-first Fractional Biennial Report of the Board of State
Commissioners of Public Charities of the State of Illinois (1909), pp. 233–36.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of them now are assistant superintendents and another soon will be pro-
moted. One board of trustees and superintendent objected to the ap-
pointment of a young man as assistant superintendent on the ground
that he lacked experience. The Civil Service Commission responded
that the young man was qualified and entitled to the place. Today
that young man ranks high in the estimation of the State authorities
and is under consideration for a superintendency. Others are in line
for promotion when changes occur and the spirit of progress is no better
demonstrated than by the competition in the medical staff. The Psy-
chopathic Institute at Kankakcc is the assembling point and there
members of the respective staffs tell each other of the advancement and
improvement of the service in the institutions to which they are as-
signed. This acquaintance and good natured rivalry is beneficial to the
service and is bound to have its influence upon the institutions in fu-
ture. The medical staffs in the insane branch have increased from
twenty-nine to forty-four assistant physicians, of whom five are
women.
When the Civil Service Law went into effect November 1, 1905,
there was one graduate nurse in the hospitals for the insane. There are
now seven chief nurses and forty-thrce graduate nurses. Training
schools for attendants and nurses are maintained in the Kankakcc,
Elgin, Anna, Peoria, Jacksonville and Watertown State Hospitals and
the Lincoln State School and Colony. The majority of these schools
already have been approved by the Illinois State Board of Examiners
for Registered Nurses. The number of graduate nurses in all of the in-
stitutions is improving as graduates of general hospitals recognize that
the charitable institutions offer them an excellent field for the pursuit
of their profession Their presence in the State hospitals has a good
effect upon the other employcs, particularly the attendants, who scck
to emulate them. Graduate nurses have been employed in the Geneva
Training School for Girls, the Soldiers' Orphans' Ilome, the Wilming-
ton Soldiers' Widows' Iome and the Illinois School for the Deaf
In the attendant force there has been an increase in male attend-
ants from 394 to 125 and of women from 125 to 630, the latter being
an indication of the high regard of women as attendants and a recogni-
tion by the superintendents that women are better fitted tempera-
mentally for the work than men. The increased demand for women has
made it harder for the commission, but it has encouraged the employ-
ment of women and sought energetically to supply all requisitions. The
heavy incrcasc in the number of attendants is not all to be ascribed to
C
CIVIL SERVICE
449
better attendance, although 10 per cent of it is. In 1905 there were
9,445 patients in the insane group, against 11,381 now.
Experienced and competent chief engineers have been placed at the
head of five of the large institutions, and the efficiency of the others
improved by the employment of electricians and experienced firemen.
In one institution the superintendent is authority for the statement
that the cost of coal alone was decreased $20,000.00 the first year by
the efficiency of his chief engineer, while it was impossible for him to
estimate the amount saved to the State by the use of waste supplies
and cast off boilers. Subsequently an adequate water supply for the
institution was developed with the assistance of one of the discarded
air compressors.
In the administrative branch of the service competent bookkeepers
have been employed, experienced storekeepers appointed, practical
clerks engaged and real stenographers put to work. Records now are
nearer what they should be, although there is still room for improve-
ment.
The farms are in better condition, men who understand farming
and gardening being engaged. Two of the largest farms are under the
management of men who have agricultural school training on top of an
excellent practical education in agriculture.
Teachers with special and technical training have been appointed
in the institutions. The principal at the Lincoln State School and Col-
ony is a graduate of the Chicago Art Institute, as also is the head of the
art department. There are experienced literary, kindergarten, domestic
science and physical culture teachers employed in all the schools.
When the principal of the Illinois School for the Deaf resigned, she
was succeeded by an experienced assistant who won her right to pro-
motion in a competitive promotional examination.
The institutions are rapidly growing in size and the problem of
government increases. When the Civil Service Law became effective
there were 2,201 employes and 12,553 patients, or wards, on June 30,
1905. December 31, 1909, there were 2,416 employes and 16,061 pa-
tients. The new year will bring new questions of policy and adminis-
tration. One of the most important, in the estimation of the Civil
Service Commission, will be the question of uniformity of salaries,
duties, hours and positions. There are 127 different kinds of positions
in the classified service. Of those 700 pay $30.00 a month or less. The
commission and the employes have a right to ask for uniformity, be-
cause uniformity will aid in promoting efficiency. It is hard to obtain
:
450
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
}
the best results from employes who know they are being paid less by
the same employer for the same work and they are required to work
longer hours than are employes in another institution.
From November 1, 1905, to December 31, 1909, the commission
received 13,364 applications. It conducted 1,316 examinations in 45
different cities. Of the 7,547 applicants examined 6,045 passed. There
were 6,128 appointments and 4,599 resignations. The number of em-
ployes discharged for cause or who quit without notice was 1,218.
Since the Civil Service Law became effective there have been no
political assessments. In fact, prior to each election, Governor Deneen
has addressed letters to all superintendents advising them that the as-
sessment of employes would not be tolerated. What is of equal impor-
tance is that political leaders have not sought to interfere with the em-
ployment, disciplining or discharge of employes. In two instances
where attempts at interference occurred, the commission was notified
of them by the superintendents. The attention of the offending indi-
viduals was called to the law. Since then there have been no evasions
reported or apparent desire on the part of outsiders to obtain favors
for friends from heads of institutions.
6. The Merit System in Illinois¹
The application of the merit system of appointment to public office
made its first appearance in the west in 1895. The demoralization of
the public service in Chicago, resulting from the abuses of the spoils
system led to an organization of citizens determined to apply the merit
system to the city service. The campaigns following culminated in the
passage of the so-called City of Chicago Act, applicable to cities adopt-
ing its provisions. It was adopted in the city of Chicago the same year
by a majority of 50,000. Other cities, such as Evanston, Springfield,
Danville and Waukegan, have subsequently come under its protection.
In these campaigns men like John H. Hamline, Merritt Starr and others
who took a leading part, later became identified with the movement to
place the State service on the same basis.
Up to 1892 the State charitable institutions of Illinois had remained
practically untouched by the blight of politics, and as a result they held
a deservedly high rank. Such men as Dewey at Kankakee, Hall at the
Blind and Gillett at the Deaf had been in the service many years.
There came a political change and a political flood, which swept the
I
¹ By W. B. Moulton, president, Illinois Civil Service Commission, in Twenty-
first Fractional Biennial Report of the Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities
of the State of Illinois (1999), pp. 230-32. See also above, pp. 292-93.
CIVIL SERVICE
451
institutions down into the mire of politics. A pamphlet published by
the Illinois Civil Service Association in its campaign for a State Law
depicts only too well the results of these changes which followed.
THE STORY OF A TYPICAL INSTITUTION
Let us look closely at a single typical institution, which since its creation
has been an object of special pride to the State. The Illinois Eastern Hospital
for the Insane at Kankakee is more than twenty years old. There are more
than two thousand patients and more than four hundred employes. It has
cost the tax payers, in construction, repairs and maintenance, between seven
and eight million dollars. It was planned with much courage and originality
in defiance of the prevailing modes of asylum architecture, and its cottage
plan became at once a model for imitation in other states. It was authorized
in 1877 and opened in 1879 (a significant fact, when compared with the
seven years lately required to open the Peoria asylum). Dr. Richard S.
Dewey was the first superintendent. Prior to his appointment he had seven
years' experience as a staff physician in a hospital for the insane and was an
eager student of advanced methods. The institution became at once a non-
restraint hospital; that is, intelligent medical and nursing care was bestowed
upon
sick people, instead of mechanical restraint, used in the average asylum.
The Training School for Nurses, the only one in Illinois, was opened, and in
many respects the administration was one of marked progress and of marked
superiority to that of other institutions for the insane in Illinois.
In the first seven years of the ten-year period of flux, beginning in 1892,
Kankakee had five superintendents and three and two-thirds sets of trustees.
In the ten years the medical staff has passed through several cycles of change,
and among the four hundred employes of all classes it was stated at the time
of the 1900 election that there were not more than a dozen who had been
there under Dr. Dewey. The skilled alienist has been replaced as superin-
tendent by a general practitioner; the chief of staff, instead of being a trained
man, as required by law in the state of New York, is now a village doctor;
the women physicians are all gone; medical internes (once chosen by severe
competitive examinations) are no more; the pathological laboratory has
fallen into neglect; the standard of nursing care has been sadly lowered.
Previous to the passage of the Civil Service Law the institutions
were used in every possible way to carry the districts in which they
were situated. Employes were assessed for the expenses of nearly every
local or general campaign. Kankakee and Lincoln were typical as in-
stitutions used for political purposes. At Kankakee during elections
the hospital hands and most of the employes likewise were engaged in
the political contest. Those who were in actual power used every force
available at these hospitals to accomplish but one end, namely: To
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
make the institutions the political powers in their respective districts.
It could hardly be expected that any institution could make much
advancement under such conditions. The appointments were generally
made, not with the idea that the man should fit the office so much as
that the office should be made to fit the man. Yet even here they often
failed. For instance, we find the landscape gardener at one place to be
a local butcher, who knew as much about landscape gardening as he
did about dressmaking. We also found the visitors' attendant at one
institution, who had valuable political connections, receiving a higher
salary than the chief nurse of the institution.
But worse than all the anomalies of this kind was the fact that in-
stance after instance was given us by the superintendents of subordi-
nates who defied them and ignored them in every particular, and whom
they could not discipline or remove because of the influence that held
them there.
The women, always interested in the great public charities, made
the first move towards a campaign for a State Civil Service Law. Fol-
lowing an investigation of Kankakee in 1900, by the Civil Service Re-
form Association of Chicago, in 1901, the Illinois Federation of Wom-
en's Clubs passed the following resolution:
Resolved, That the Federation of Women's Clubs urge that every effort
possible be made to arouse public attention to the vital necessity of the en-
tire separation of the public business of the State from the private interests
of political parties, by the enactment and enforcement of an effective merit
law, applicable, not only to the State charitable and correctional institutions,
but to all departments of the public service.
To Julia C. Lathrop should be given a large part of the credit for
the real pioneer work in this movement.
In order to secure the enactment of a State law, the Illinois Civil
Service Association was organized in the fall of 1902. Prominent clubs
and reform associations were invited to send representatives to a meet-
ing for this purpose. A prompt and enthusiastic response was made and
individuals from many parts of the State assembled with represen-
tatives from the following organizations:
Union League Club, Civil Service Reform Association of Chicago,
Hamilton Club, Iroquois Club, Merchants Club, Board of Trade, Civic
Federation, Citizens Association and the Illinois Grain Dealers' Asso-
ciation.
In response to the public sentiment Governor Yates meanwhile
had appointed a commission to study the State institutions and draft
CIVIL SERVICE
453
a bill for a law. This commission was composed of John H. Hamline,
Edgar Bancroft, Superintendent W. E. Taylor and Warden E. J. Mur-
phy. After some months of work this commission prepared an admira-
ble law that was introduced in the Legislature of 1903 and was sup-
ported by the Civil Service Association. After the fight was well on,
it became evident that the administration was opposed to any such
measure, and it was defeated in the House by hostile amendments.
The effect of the first battle was to unmask the enemies and develop
the friends of civil service. As civil service reform is largely a moral
question-not one of policy-one could almost tell friend or foe by the
personal character of the Representatives.
The platforms of both parties in the State election of 1904 declared
for a State wide civil service law. Governor Deneen, during his cam-
paign, pledged his administration to secure a law for the charitable
institutions. With such a momentum in its favor the present law, ap-
plicable to the charitable institutions, was passed to become effective
November 1, 1905. During the same year Wisconsin passed a state
wide law and Colorado subsequently followed with a law applicable to
the charitable institutions. Campaigns are now on in Michigan, Ohio
and other western states that bid fair to become successful.
C
The Passage of the Board of Administration Act brought under the
law the employes of two departments at Springfield-those of the
Board of Administration and the Charities Commission, as well as
other positions heretofore exempt. An effort was made at this time to
place the superintendents of the charitable institutions under the pro-
tection of the law (a most desirable result), but the exemption was not
removed. The next Legislature undoubtedly will include these officials
in the classified service, as well as the employes of the penal and cor-
rectional institutions.
7. Civil Service in Illinois¹
STATE HOSPITAL MEDICAL SERVICE
The assistant superintendent is at the head of the medical depart-
ment in hospital organization. All of the positions with the grade of
assistant superintendent, with the exception of that at the Chicago
State Hospital, have been filled by promotional examination, conduct-
ed by the Civil Service Commission, from the grade of physician. Also,
¹ Extract from Report of the Board of Administration of the State of Illinois
(1910-12), pp. 15–16, 43.
454
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
positions of the grade of physician in the service have been promoted
by Civil Service examination, from the grade of assistant physician.
All the assistant physicians now in the scrvice of the State hospitals,
except three holdovers, entered the service through Civil Service
examination
The Chicago State Hospital came under the jurisdiction of this
board July 1, 1912, and the medical members of the staff of this hospi-
tal have been subjected to Civil Service examinations in order that
they may be on equal rank and footing with the medical members of
the other State hospitals under the jurisdiction of this board.
The personnel of the medical staff of the State hospitals to-day
represents a high professional standard equal to that of any other state
in this country. This standard of efficiency is due to two powerful se-
lective agencies, Civil Service and the Psychopathic Institute; Civil
Service in selecting well trained men, and the Psychopathic Institute
in inculcating the spirit of emulation and of scientific inquiry, as neces
sary adjuncts to success in the practice of psychiatry.
Again this standard of medical service is uniform in all of the State
hospitals. There is a spirit of friendly rivalry as well as of emulation
between the hospitals. Each hospital has its own medical society where
frequent mcctings encourage observation and ability to record in the
form of papers, reports of cases, etc., the results of observations Real
constructive research work is part of these obscrvations, as the trans
actions of the various hospital medical societies reveal In addition to
the local hospital medical society there is "The Illinois Jospitals Medi-
cal Society," which meets three times a year. The membership of this
society is limited to members of the medical staffs of the State hospi-
tals. This organization has been very active during the past year. Its
work is comparable to that of any general or special metropolitan
medical society with which we are acquainted
We recite these facts to show that psychiatry in Illinois hospitals is
in active working order. Illinois has just reason to be proud of the med-
ical service organization as it now exists in the State hospitals.
MEDICAL SERVICE IN INSTITUTIONS OTHER THAN STATE HOSPITALS
During the past year the medical scrvice in institutions other than
State hospitals has been placed upon a more efficient basis of scrvice,
especially with reference to physical examinations on entrance and
proper legal records of the same; a legal casc record which places re
sponsibility and covers the cssentials of a bedside record that becomes
CIVIL SERVICE
455
a part of the permanent records of the institution. Also, a record which
shows the movement of attending physicians with a weekly report to
the Board of Administration.
The measure of any record is to be found in its value as an original
record-in its legal significance. Institutions should have in their ar-
chives original records covering these vital medico-legal questions and
also to contribute to the vital statistics records, which, sooner or later,
will be covered by appropriate legislation in Illinois.
The Board of Administration has also adopted the International
List of the causes of death in compiling statistical data of deaths. We
believe that registration of vital statistics is a necessity in studying
the great problems of prevention which today confront us on every
hand, where we deal with health, social and economic problems as
found in State charities and corrections.
8. The Need of Civil Service Reform¹
The above review of Civil Service legislation shows that the chief
tendency has been toward the development of devices to prevent ap-
pointments contrary to law, to secure the general enforcement of the
Act, and to eliminate political influence, and that little attention has
been paid to the working out of methods for securing high grade ex-
perts.
The chief need of Civil Service reform at the present time is the
embodiment of such features as the keeping of efficiency records, which
look toward greater efficiency in the public service. As a recent au-
thority has expressed it, "the watch dog type of civil service must give
way to constructive co-operation with officials to secure high grade
experts who are at once both efficient and responsive.”
9. A Comparison of Civil Service Procedure with
Business Methods²
84. The idea, we believe, has obtained some currency, that the
work of the Civil Service is not always conducted in a "business-like"
manner, and that the application of "business methods" to the con-
* Extract from A. C. Hanford, Report of the Efficiency and Economy Committee
Created under the Authority of the Forty-eighth General Assembly, State of Illinois
(1915) (Appendix on Civil Service Laws), p. 925.
2 Extract from Great Britain, Royal Commission on the Civil Service, Fourth
Report of the Commissioners (1914; Cd. 7338), pp. 82–83.
456
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
duct of public administration is both practicable and necessary. In-
deed, it is often assumed that when "business methods" are not ap-
plied, the reason is to be found in official ignorance, incapacity, apathy,
or prejudice.
In dealing with the organisation of the Civil Service, it is desirable
to enquire into, and measure the value of, this criticism, and to men-
tion the points on which the conduct of public administration differs
and must continue to differ from the conduct of a private business.
85. A private business is usually conducted for profit. Profit is its
object, and failure or success in earning a profit is not only a sure test
of the failure or success of its methods, but an indispensable condition
of its continued existence.
There are a half-dozen Government Departments to which the
commercial criteria of the successful conduct of business transactions
may to some extent be applied; but as a general rule the objects for
which public departments are maintained are wholly different from
those of private enterprise. Some advantage to the community as a
whole other than pecuniary profit is the object to which departmental
administration is directed. That advantage cannot be expressed in a
balance sheet; and as the departments are established in obedience to
law or public opinion and to meet the necessities of social conditions,
they must be administered whether the result be a money loss or gain.
Departments like the Board of Education or the War Office spend
large sums of money; but they can never, however ably administered,
declare a dividend on the capital sunk in their operations.
Again, the courts of justice earn fees, which are appropriated in aid
of the Parliamentary votes which maintain them. But no one would
seriously contend that the expenditure of the courts should be limited
to their fee-earning capacity; still less that they should be closed if they
failed to show a surplus, or that the success of our judicial system
should be judged by the amount of such a surplus.
86. There is another important point of difference. Ministers who
conduct the administration of public affairs have, as we have just seen,
no such means of justifying their administration as boards of directors
of companies have in their balance sheets and declarations of dividends.
But they are subjected to far more continuous and detailed criticism
than are the directors of commercial enterprises. In Parliament and
elsewhere they are required to give explanations of every kind of action
or inaction, to defend it if in accordance with precedent, to justify it it
it be a new departure. Such defense or justification is impossible with-
CIVIL SERVICE
457
out the use of elaborate records and a procedure which is usually slow
in comparison with that of a business manager.
Much of what is commonly described as "red tape" is due to the
exigencies of Parliamentary government; much of the delay and ex-
pense of public departments should in truth be regarded as part of the
price paid for the advantages of public discussion and criticism of pub-
lic affairs.¹
10.
Boards of Managers and Civil Service Appointments²
The Board of Managers believes firmly in the "merit system," but
is also of the opinion that improvements can be made in its practical
application.
Honorable John C. Birdseye, Secretary of the State Civil Service
Commission, stated in a letter written to the Fiscal Supervisor in 1912:
We concede that the present classification of positions at the charitable
institutions is the result of "precedent and custom." It should be borne in
mind, however, that the present classification is unbalanced, having had its
inception years ago when positions were not as numerous as at present, and
at a time when our facilities for handling examinations were not as advanced
as at present. It may be found, therefore, that certain positions now in the
non-competitive class may be properly transferred to the competitive class,
with the understanding, of course, that the present incumbents would con-
tinue without further examination.
Mr. Harold N. Saxton, Chief Examiner of the State Civil Service
Commission, in his Report for 1912 to the Commission said:
¹ [The following considered statement from a great public servant adds validity
to the comments of the commissioners:
“A department, in view of its answerability to Parliament, must keep a writ-
ten record of all stages of its transactions. These records must pass freely from
one officer of the department to another, and from one department to another if
need be. The business man in the nature of the case has a totally different tra-
dition. His transactions must often be kept from everyone else, even in his own
business, and always from rival businesses. He has to go ahead, taking the risk of
mistakes, putting speed before infallibility. His is the secretive individualistic
attitude; the civil service aims at complete co-operation and openness. It is open
to question whether the accuracy obtained by the Civil Service is worth the delay
and red tape. It is, however, inevitable so long as the public are taught by Par-
liament and the press to take such a totally wrong view of occasional mistakes,
and to attach such vast importance to them" (Sir William Beveridge, The Public
Service in War and Peace (London, 1920], p. 18).]
2 Extract from Sixth Annual Report of the Board of Managers of Letchworth Vil-
lage ("New York Senate Document No. 8," 1915), pp. 27–29.
458
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Then it has also occurred to me that the relation of public education to
the civil service system should be most carefully studied: Can there not be
a systematic co-ordination of our school system and the civil service system?
It has been said that the State of New York carries the examination idea to
the extreme. Through a system of examinations pupils are graduated from
the grammar schools and admitted to the high schools; upon passing success-
fully the required examinations they graduate from the high school. An
academic diploma is required for admission, for example, to the study of
medicine; at the end of the course the student is examined for graduation
and then, if he desires to practice medicine in this State, he must take an
examination for license, and on top of all this, if he desires to serve the State
in the capacity of physician he is usually required to compete in another
examination for the appointment to which he aspires. I have no suggestion
to make in this connection. I leave it for those more competent and with
more time at their command to study out a plan for the interrelation of pub-
lic education and public employment.
Honorable Dennis McCarthy, formerly Fiscal Supervisor, caused
an examination to be made by representatives of his department into
the application of the civil service rules as affecting the State charitable
institutions. The conclusions reached by his investigators were as
follows:
Without doubt, the Civil Service Commission desires to serve the pub-
lic fairly in administering the law. The institutions are fully cognizant of
this fact, but feel that the Commission is not in as close touch with them as
they believe desirable.
The appointing officers of the institutions have many more difficulties
with which they must cope in selecting their employees than have depart-
mental heads. Employees prefer departmental to institutional work. In se-
curing employees, the appointing officer is hampered by this condition, and
by the situation of the institution, the commercial activities in the vicinity,
the class of patients under treatment, and various other factors, which do
not appear in the departmental problem. Moreover, other departments are
depending on the institution for fairly accurate work. For this the superin-
tendent is responsible, and often, when there is not a full quota of officers, or
employees, is hard pressed in many departments of his institution.
Therefore it seems that it would be only reasonable to allow more lati-
tude to the appointing officer, and this can only be done by a re-classification
of all institutional positions: placing all not essentially clerical in character
in the non-competitive class, and nurses, teachers and the like (who possess a
state certificate or diploma), in the exempt class. This would act toward
raising the standard of efficiency of institutional employees, by placing the
burden of responsibility for securing competent employees on the superin-
tendents, or other appointing officers.
CIVIL SERVICE
459
The Board of Managers believes that, as a result of closer co-opera-
tion between the State Civil Service Commission, the Commissioner of
Education, the Salary Classification Commission and the Boards of
Managers, further improvements can be made in the practical applica-
tion of the civil service rules, which will result in increasing efficiency
in the conduct of the State charitable and reformatory institutions.
II. Analysis of Problems Peculiar to Institutional Service¹
The hospitals for the insane represent an important group of the
institutions of the State under distinct management and control. Im-
portant strides have been made during the last ten years, through the
action of the Hospital Commission and the hospital superintendents,
to standardize conditions of employment in this branch of the State
government. The Senate Committee has followed many suggestions
from the present rules and practice governing these institutions and
has incorporated them into the proposed schedules for the Institutional
Service.
The reason for specifying standard rates of pay, standard work re-
quirements, standard qualifications (in terms of ability, experience and
training), and standard titles for each line of employment has been set
forth, [and] is that the individual line of work possesses distinct em-
ployment conditions in these respects. It has been further pointed out
that from the viewpoint of conditions governing advancement and pro-
motion, hours of work, etc., the principal lines of employment of the
State service possess common characteristics which suggest the applica-
tion of general rules with respect to salary increases, promotion, and re-
lated conditions. One service, however, possesses characteristics which
so completely differentiate it from the other services of the State govern-
ment as to require special treatment, namely, the Institutional Service.
The State hospitals, prisons and other institutions of the State gov-
ernment, which comprise the Institutional Service, represent about
forty per cent of the State's personnel. This service presents several
problems and conditions of employment which do not exist in any
other division of the State government. These problems will be dis-
cussed under the following headings:
1. Maintenance
2. Commutation
• Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate Docu-
ment 40," Legislature 1916), pp. ciii-civ.
460
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
3. Special Conditions Affecting Rates of Pay
4. Problems of Special or Extraneous Duties
5. Problem of "Special Attendant"
6. Problem of "Chief Supervisor"
7. New Positions and Titles
8. Probationary Period and Service Records in Relation to Advancement
I. MAINTENANCE
In accordance with the standard specifications, the employes at
the several institutions should be granted full maintenance consisting
of meals, lodging and laundry. Arrangements should be made so that
the employes can be accommodated at meals in appropriate dining-
rooms and lodging provided in nurses' homes, attendants' homes or
other available dormitories, the assignment of rooms and distribution
of employes being left to the several superintendents subject to the
approval of the governing departmental agency. Each employe should
be granted the number of pieces of laundry provided in the laundry
schedule adopted by the governing departmental agencies for all the
institutions after considering the recommendations of the superin-
tendents of the several institutions.
Stewards should be granted maintenance for their families. Where
quarters are available junior stewards and assistant stewards should
also be granted maintenance for their families after an appraisal of the
service and upon approval of the departmental agency in recognition
of efficient service.
2. COMMUTATION
There are two fundamental reasons for granting commutation or
a money allowance for meals and lodging. First, in some institutions
there is a lack of accommodations both for lodging and meals for em-
ployes. Second, it often happens that married people are able to work
for the State only on condition that commutation is granted. In order
not to deprive the State of the service of these, commutation should be
granted in lieu of maintenance.
12. The Probationary Period, Service Records, Transfers¹
In order that the fitness and ability may be ascertained, there
should be a probationary period of not less than four months for all
· Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State (“Senate Docu-
ment 40" Legislature 1916), pp. cxvi-cxvii.
CIVIL SERVICE
461
employes in the institutional service. The compensation for this pro-
bationary service should be at the minimum rate established for the
several grades of the service. Increases should be granted in accordance
with the schedules outlined in the specifications and the date of em-
ployment should be construed as beginning on the first day of the calen-
dar month following the date of actual employment unless such em-
ployment shall have actually begun on the first day of the month.
This proposed regulation, however, is not to be construed as depriving
an employe of compensation for the days of actual service rendered
prior to the first day of such month.
Service records and ratings should be installed in order that the
relative efficiency of all employes in the institutional service may be
used in advancements and promotions. Such records form the basis of
salary increases and are an important element in promotions.
Transfers from one institution to another should be made possible
only upon the written consent of the superintendents of the institution,
from which and to which the transfer is proposed. In such case the serv-
ice should be regarded as continuous. Employes leaving the service
and subsequently obtaining employment therein should be regarded
and classified as new employes. No employe who has been discharged
from a State institution should be employed in another hospital with-
out the approval in writing of the superintendent of the institution
from which such employe was discharged.
13. Special Conditions Affecting Rates of Pay¹
In the State hospitals for insane criminals and insane convicts
there are several problems of hospital management which are peculiar
to the institutions and have a direct bearing upon the salary and wage
rates of employes. (1) In the first place it should be noted that the
criminal insane, particularly insane felons, are a more dangerous, vio-
lent, and cunning class of patients than those in the other institutions,
and consequently are more difficult to handle. (2) The surroundings in
a civil institution are more congenial and the social conditions are
somewhat better than those in hospitals for insane criminals and insane
convicts. (3) In other states, the salary rates in institutions or parts of
institutions assigned to insane criminals and insane convicts are gen-
¹ Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate Docu-
ment 40," Legislature 1916), pp. cviii-cix.
462
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
erally higher than in other institutions or parts of institutions where
insane patients are not of these classes. In institutions where both
criminal insane and civil insane are committed, attendants selected
from the better grade of employes are assigned to the former class. (4)
In institutions for insane criminals and insane convicts the work of the
attendants is somewhat similar to the work of a prison guard in State
prisons. There is an apparent disparity in the rates of pay for the em-
ployes in the two kinds of institutions. (5) In this connection it should
be pointed out also that it is more difficult to attract and retain em-
ployes for these hospitals than for the other State institutions.
14. The Merit System and Child Welfare¹
I cannot leave the question of public protection of children without
saying something about the factor on which the success of any program
depends a properly qualified personnel. At the meeting of the Con-
ference here in Toronto in 1897 in what was perhaps the most signifi-
cant paper of all those presented, Mary Richmond discussed the need
of a training school of applied philanthropy. In it she set forth the im-
perative need of more and better training for the tasks which the social
worker was undertaking to perform in the community and outlined
with convincing concreteness the possible curriculum and the field of
work, as well as the relationship which such a school might sustain to
the university or college as well as to social agencies. Although Miss
Richmond's conclusions were challenged by some, it was only a short
time before a beginning was made in meeting this new educational
need. Today we have graduate and undergraduate schools giving gen-
eral and specialized training. We have also, as I am sure all of you
know, an organization of social workers which is trying to develop a
professional attitude among ourselves and toward ourselves. There is,
however, only one way by which these advancing standards can find
permanent place in the public service, and that is through a recognition
of the merit principle in appointment. The universal experience is that
the merit principle is made certain in the public service by civil service
and by civil service only.
I am led to speak of this for several reasons. In the first place, in
spite of years of agitation, the need is still not met. In a recent article
in the Annals of the American Academy, the executive secretary of the
¹ Extract from Grace Abbott, "Presidential Address,” Proceedings of the Na-
tional Conference of Social Work at the Fifty-first Annual Session (Toronto, 1924),
pp. 11-12.
CIVIL SERVICE
463
American Association of Social Workers states that "only four of the
twenty-five states reporting have all or any part of the social work
classified under civil service." A scientific classification of employees
is the basis of an efficient working of the merit principle. Federal em-
ployees found their prophecies fulfilled when that important function
was not given to the Federal Civil Service Commission which for nearly
half a century with increasing effectiveness has protected the service
from the politician and co-operated in raising the standards of admis-
sion to the service. At last year's conference it was said that one could
no more choose a social worker by means of a civil-service examination
than a man could choose his wife by that method. That this conclusion
involved a fundamental misconception of the task of the social worker
and also of the progress that has been made in the administration of
civil service, I do not need to point out to you.
Some good public officials, it is true, prefer the dangers of politics
to what they think are the uncertain means of determining real fitness
which a civil-service examination offers.
In many states and local communities, the civil-service laws are
badly drawn or poorly administered. This cannot be accepted as a rea-
son for regarding civil service as a failure any more than we would ad-
vocate a return to employers' liability because a workmen's compensa-
tion law was badly drawn or administered. In the federal service we
use now very commonly what is known as the non-assembled examina-
tion in which the applicant's education and experience are rated and
an oral examination determines those qualities which only a personal
interview can determine. I know of no better basis of choosing a prop-
erly qualified person than education, experience, and personal adapta-
tion for the work. Under civil service all of the requirements for differ-
ent types of service can be worked out as carefully as in the best or-
ganized personnel bureaus; the only restriction on the civil service is
that these standards once set up cannot be changed while the examina-
tion is in progress.
What is the alternative to this method of selection? Every year
some state or local community in which the tradition of the merit sys-
tem has seemed to put the public service on a sure foundation has seen
the work for children sacrificed to selfish ambitions—sometimes of one
party and sometimes of another.
At the meeting held in Toronto in 1897 a committee was appointed
to investigate and report upon the subject of "Politics and Public In-
stitutions." At the next meeting in New York in 1898, Dr. Henderson,
464
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
who was chairman of the committee, reported on the results of a ques-
tionnaire sent out to all the states. Information was obtained which
he describes as "in no case exhaustive." To quote Dr. Henderson's
words:
A startling yet very natural revelation of the tendency of the "spoils
system" came out in our correspondence and showed that system to be what
it is—a system of terrorism, under which the best and bravest men quail. In
almost every instance we have been in honor obliged to omit the names of
our informants and even the states from which our knowledge comes.¹
Conditions have improved since that time. But we ought to have
no false sense of security. Responsible executives in most places are
not appointed through civil service, and the work is not secure when it
is only the subordinate positions in which the merit system prevails.
I do not mean to say that we have not had excellent political appointees
who have done much to advance the programs in which we are all in-
terested. But these advantages we could secure on a more dignified
basis through the civil service. Whether or not we extend the field of
public service, it is already so important that one of the tasks that we
have always with us is to protect and at the same time to raise our
standard of public administration. This is especially important in the
case of public child-caring agencies because of the peculiar helplessness
of all children and especially of the groups of children so frequently in-
trusted to the care of the state. Moreover, the problems of child wel-
fare are so varied and so fundamental that only when our ideal of pub-
lic administration becomes a reality can we hope to do for children
what we should.
I See above, Document 2, p. 439.
SECTION V
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The relation of the civil-service reform movement to the develop-
ment in the field of charities and correction has been indicated; the
problem of the classification of the civil service is somewhat more diffi-
cult to state. There is, first of all, the consideration of the great variety
of forms of service, some of which are highly professionalized, such as
the medical, legal, or strictly educational, while others are in the techni-
cal group, such as institution engineers, etc., and others are in process
of professionalization. Institutional management, nutritional supervi-
sion, the organization of the labor of the patients from the point of view
of the therapeutic value of work and of possible economy, the care of
young children-these are fields of work in which a technique has been
in process of development. So long as responsibility for employing and
dismissing members of the staff of an institution rests with the head of
the institution there will be great variety in the arrangement of work
and the members of the staff will be very much at the mercy of the
appointing official, who may be a person of good will and public spirit
but without the capacity or opportunity for thorough job analysis.
Moreover, such an arrangement makes very difficult, if not impossible,
a comprehensive view of the service; and great inequalities in rank,
pay, recognition for work done, will characterize the employment
policy of the government. Especially will the results of any general
prejudice under which an individual may suffer by virtue of sex, race,
or general social and economic disadvantage manifest themselves in im-
paired morale, a sense of grievance, and reduced efficiency of the
service.
Classification becomes then an item in an intelligent employment
problem for the entire service, in behalf of justice and fair play and of
efficient organization. This is especially important in complicated in-
stitutional arrangements, where at best there are great differences and
many varieties of employment opportunity, and in connection with
the selection of the so-called social workers who are being called on in
increasing numbers as the treatment of the various groups of wards
of the state is becoming more effectively individualized.
465
466
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
There had until recently been no generally accepted standard for
admission to the field of social work. With the development of higher
standards of work in certain private agencies, especially those dealing
with problems of family welfare, with the multiplication of schools of
social work in which professional education can be obtained, and es-
pecially with the setting of high standards for the admission to the
staff of certain federal agencies, notably the United States Children's
Bureau, many forms of social work are being more widely recognized
as having the features that characterize the professions.¹ Such posi-
tions can be defined and classified.
In the following section, there are given a few documents pre-
senting the argument for classification² and answering certain obvious
questions. The first of these is, What agency should be held responsible
for the classification of the public service.3 And the better opinion
places the duty on the Civil Service Commission. Another very inter-
esting question is that of the position of the different groups of persons
concerned with welfare administration in the general scheme,4 the
definition of those particular classes and the specifications defining their
duties, laying down their qualifications, and indicating the opportuni-
ties for advancement and promotion. As has been said the selection
is necessarily fragmentary. The reader will be able however to formu-
late the problem and to examine more intelligently the situation in his
own state. It is perhaps especially important for those states in which
as yet no civil service machinery has been set up. Document 7 is given
in illustration of the treatment of these positions by the classification
authority.
I
James H. Tufts, Education and Training for Social Work; Jesse F. Steiner,
Education for Social Work; Publications of the American Association of Social
Workers.
2 Document 3.
3 Documents 1, 2, 4.
4 Document 7.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS: CLASSIFICATION IN THE
PUBLIC SERVICE
1. Classification a Function of the Civil Service Commission¹
STANDARDS FOR APPRAISING CIVIL SERVICE COMMISSIONS
In any effort to appraise our civil service commissions we need to
be guided by certain reasonable standards upon which the appraisers
can agree. These standards may well be divided into two groups: one
group consisting of those which may fairly be applied to the conduct
of civil service commissions in the past; and the other group including
the additional standards to which these commissions ought to conform
in the future but which should be applied with considerable leniency
in appraising their past performance.
1. The first group, in the opinion of the committee, should include
the following standards:
a) That civil service commissions should be non-political in character.
-This would seem an obvious requirement. If political considerations
are to be excluded from appointments, promotions and dismissals in
the public service, the commission itself must do its work without
political bias.
b) That civil service commissions should faithfully enforce merit prin-
ciples.-The very essence of proper civil service administration con-
sists of the enforcement of merit principles. To the extent that com-
missions fail in this, they fall short of fulfilling their most important
mission.
c) That civil service commissions should maintain continuity of em-
ployment policy.-Frequent change or reversal of policy, occasioned by
changes in the personnel of the commission or otherwise, is nearly al-
ways fatal to the orderly building up of an employment program. In
the long run, even mediocre methods consistently adhered to will pro-
duce better results than superior methods half-heartedly and spasmodi-
cally applied.
2. There is a second group of standards to which civil service com-
• Extract from Governmental Research Conference of the United States and
Canada, Committee on Civil Service, The Character and Functioning of Municipal
Civil Service Commissions in the United States (1922), pp. 10-12, 14-15, 36–37.
467
468
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
missions have not always been expected to conform in the past but to
which they will have to conform more and more in the future. The
standards in this group are as follows:
a) That civil service commissions should be under professional guid-
ance. The public service is becoming so complex and its requirements
so varied and technical that merit principles can no longer be applied
by rule-of-thumb methods. From this it follows that the agency
charged with the administration of these principles must be under pro-
fessional guidance.
b) That civil service commissions should perform adequately all the
employment functions of government.-In this statement the emphasis
is to be placed on the words "adequately" and "all." Civil service com-
missions ought to perform not only those functions that are expressly
assigned to them in existing laws but also the other functions that
properly belong to the personnel agency of government. Unless we are
disposed to neglect some of these functions, we must either centralize
them in a single administrative agency, the civil service commission;
or we must permit each department to have its own personnel agent,
thus decentralizing responsibility; or we must create a second central
agency to perform the functions neglected by the civil service commis-
sion.
c) That civil service commissions should make possible democratic ad-
ministration of the employment affairs of government. It is coming more
and more to be recognized that employes should have a voice in deter-
mining their conditions of employment. As we have already pointed
out, this is true particularly in private industry where the movement of
workers' representation in management has made remarkable strides
during the last five years. In promoting morale and efficiency, few fac-
tors are so important as a reasonable degree of participation by em-
ployes in the administration of employment affairs.
FINDINGS AND RECOMMENDATIONS
Summary of the committee's findings.-The committee's findings
may be summarized briefly, as follows:
I. In the main, our civil service commissions have been under polit-
ical domination rather than under professional guidance, the individ-
ual members of commissions usually being appointed more largely on
account of political considerations than because of their understanding
of employment problems.
2. Although some of our commissions have shown commendable
CLASSIFICATION
469
courage and devotion in carrying out the spirit of our civil service laws,
yet generally speaking we have not secured a faithful enforcement of
merit principles.
3. Owing to the high rate of turn-over in the membership of our
civil service commissions and the subservience of our commissions to
the will of the chief executive, we have not had that continuity of em-
ployment policy which is so important to effective administration of the
civil service.
4. Most commissions have performed only a small portion of the
functions now coming to be recognized as belonging to the personnel
agency of government.
5. Our civil service commissions as now constituted represent only
the management and no effort has been made to give adequate partici-
pation to the workers in determining conditions of employment.
6. In order to correct these shortcomings in the administration of
civil service, it is essential first of all to reconstitute our commissions
along different lines.
Recommendations of the committee.-The committee recommends:
1. The expansion of the civil service commission to a personnel
agency composed as follows:
A civil service commissioner chosen by competitive test, who is to
be chairman and executive officer, to serve during good behavior and
efficient service at a salary approximately equal to that of other depart-
ment heads with comparable responsibilities; and two associate com-
missioners—one appointed by the executive head of the municipality
from his administrative staff and one elected by the employes in the
classified service. The two associates are to share equally with the
commissioner the responsibilities of the legislative and judicial func-
tions, but to act in an advisory capacity only in administrative matters
and to serve without additional compensation.
2. The appropriation of sufficient funds to carry on all of the func-
tions contemplated for the personnel agency.
•
CIVIL SERVICE CONTROL ABROAD
In one of those illuminating opinions prepared for the Supreme
Court by Justice Holmes, he is reported to have written that "historical
continuity with the past is not a duty, it is only a necessity." This
holds for students and observers of most of the older and many of the
newer institutions in the United States. These institutions cannot well
be understood nor explained without reference to what used to be called
470
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the "mother country." Particularly is this opinion applicable to public
administration, including, as it happens, those methods of civil service
control that are now current with us. Our federal civil service law of
1883, which has been more or less faithfully copied by a number of
governmental units in this country, is, for instance, to be traced to
England with peculiar directness. Beginning in 1877, Dorman B.
Eaton undertook, at the request of President Hayes, a careful investi-
gation of the civil service in England. In 1880 his work on the British
civil service appeared. It served as the basis of the successful propa-
ganda for civil service control in the United States that finally culmi-
nated in the Act of 1883. This legislation was drawn up by Mr. Eaton.
After its enactment he was appointed to serve on the first commission
of the federal government and thus became jointly responsible for the
administrative procedure originally adopted by the commission. Thus
it would appear that there has been "historical continuity" in the de-
velopment of civil service control in the United States.
It is the primary purpose of this chapter to provide the background
that will indicate that our civil service administration is not a sporadic
and isolated phenomenon, but rather part and parcel of an orderly and
a developing process. This applies to the initial stage of civil service
control, namely that of selection on the basis of competitive examina-
tion. But we may also assume that other phases of employment ad-
ministration that have recently been incorporated into civil service
policy abroad will serve as the basis for predicting similar developments
in this country.
The following discussion will be divided into three parts: the first
dealing with the competitive examination as the bed rock of civil serv-
ice control, past and present; the second dealing with the expansion
of the functions of the civil service commission by centralizing employ-
ment control under it; and the third considering the increasing recogni-
tion of the point of view of the employes in matters of compensation,
conditions of work, and similar problems.
2. The Civil Service Commission and Reclassification¹
The Commission feels very strongly that the new classification
should be adopted and followed as soon as possible by heads of depart-
ments, the Board of Estimate and Apportionment and the Bureau of
· Extract from Thirty-second Annual Report of the Municipal Civil Service Com-
mission of the City of New York (1915), PP. 32–33.
CLASSIFICATION
471
Standards. It would like to see a general reorganization of the service
go into effect at the earliest practicable date so that the Commission
may be able to discard the present complicated and antique classifica-
tion and adopt the proposed new classification without confusion.
The Commission's study and work on the proposals of the Bureau
of Standards, its understanding of the purposes of the work of the Bu-
reau, and its view of the proper place and functions of the Civil Service
Commission in the city government, have led the Commission to the
conclusion that the most effective organization of such work would
place some, at least, of the present functions of the Bureau of Standards
under the jurisdiction of the Civil Service Commission. This observa-
tion is in no wise a reflection upon the work of the Bureau, but is rather
a recognition of the importance of the Bureau's work and of its many
ramifications into all the varied branches of city administration. As far
as rates of pay are concerned, the ultimate responsibility of course, lies
with the Board of Estimate and Apportionment and the Board of Al-
dermen. As the employment agent of the city, however, no department
is more concerned in having exact information as to the duties and
functions of departments in the city government and of the work of the
city employes than the Civil Service Commission. It is through the
Commission that appointing officers receive most of their employes.
In providing departments with qualified employes, the commission is
required to conduct a large number of examinations of varying types
according to the needs of the service.
A classification and organization of the service, based upon duties
with appropriate titles, is, therefore, of vital concern to the Commis-
sion. If there is no centralization of responsibility or power in these
functions, there will be, as there is today, a wide duplication of titles
involving infinite confusion and trouble, not only for the Commission,
but for the heads of other departments as well. The Commission sub-
mits, therefore, the proposition that there should be closer co-operation
between the heads of departments, the Board of Estimate and Appor-
tionment, the Board of Aldermen, and the Commission in the matter
of the establishment of positions and the grading of city employes.
Whether any other functions now performed by the Bureau of
Standards should be taken over by the Commission, is another matter.
If the proposed new classification is adopted, however, as the Commis-
sion hopes it will be, it becomes vitally important that the matter of
recommending the establishment of positions under certain titles
should be centralized in the Commission. The Commission would,
472
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
1
therefore, recommend amendments to the Charter which would pro-
vide, in the first place, that when the Board of Estimate and Appor-
tionment recommends the establishment of positions to the Board of
Aldermen it shall accompany such recommendation with a certificate
that the titles proposed have been approved by the Civil Service Com-
mission, and that the Board of Aldermen shall be prohibited from
changing the title of any position unless the Civil Service Commission
shall have previously consented thereto.
3. The Argument for Classification¹
CHARACTERIZATION OF PRESENT EMPLOYMENT CONDITIONS
WITH SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The investigations and findings of the Senate Committee on Civil
Service furnish convincing evidence that the business of the State is
transacted with a considerable amount of waste. The Committee esti-
mated in its preliminary report of April 9th, 1915, that the payroll cost
could be reduced by at least two million dollars through proper reor-
ganization of methods and simplification of work, of which five hun-
dred thousand dollars could be immediately effected. The Committee,
after exhaustive investigation, finds that this estimate was conserva-
tive.
Many factors contribute to the waste or inefficiency in the State
government today. One of the most important factors is the present
system of civil service control and the deadening spirit which underlies
it. In no department of the State government do employment condi-
tions approach the standards adopted by private practice, although
there are many instances of highly competent and thoroughly trained
officials and employes rendering much more service to the State than
could be required of them.
The most important results of or defects in the present system of
civil service control revealed by the Committee's investigation may be
summarized under the following headings:
1. Irregularity in Rates of Pay-With Large Amount of Overpayment
2. Multiplicity of Fictitious and Unnecessary Titles-With Resultant Con-
fusion of Work, Friction between Employes, and Administrative Diffi-
culties in Assigning and Controlling the Personnel
3. Inadequate and Inequitable System of Advancement and Promotion
¹ Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate Docu-
ment 40," Legislature 1916), pp. xiii-xix.
CLASSIFICATION
473
4. Unnecessary Duplication of Work-Prevalence of Useless Positions
5. Lack of Proper Qualifications and Preliminary Training of Employes.
6. Exempt Positions-Need for More Permanence of Tenure in Important
Posts
7. Lack of Standards to Control Output of Employes
8. Lack of Esprit de Corps--Deadening Influence of Service under Present
Conditions
9. Present System of Civil Service Control
I. IRREGULARITY IN RATES OF PAY-WITH LARGE
AMOUNT OF OVERPAYMENT
The extent of overpayment, by which is meant the amount of ex-
cess of the present rates over maximum rates recommended for the
standards of work involved, aggregates $380,082, which may be dis-
tributed, by services, as follows:
Inspectional...
Investigational and examining.
Clerical.....
Professional and scientific..
Inspectional. ...
Investigational and examining.
Other services.
The amount of underpayment, by which is meant the difference
between present rates and minimum rates recommended for the stand-
ard of work involved, aggregates $83,050, which may be distributed, by
services, as follows:
Clerical...
Professional and scientific.
$195,535
81,184
34,654
36,456
32,243
•
$19,976
40,687
5,620
5,226
I1,541
Other services..
This irregularity of compensation, which in itself would tend to dis-
rupt any private or public enterprise, is the result of many years of
comparative indifference to principles of sound business and fair deal-
ing, particularly in the two following respects:
First.—Practice of making appointments to the same line and
grade of work at widely different rates (the appointees being recruited
generally from the same eligible lists, where the positions are com-
petitive).
Second.-Practice of advancing and promoting employes without
proper reference to relative merit, seniority of service or change of du-
ties.
The effect of the second practice in producing not only irregularities
474
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
in rates of pay but also a general condition of overpayment, is particu-
larly marked.
The average salary of all State employes in the administrative de-
partments (all offices and functions represented) on January 1, 1911,
was $1,473.
The average salary of all State employes in these departments on
January 1, 1915, was $1,848.
This represents an increase in the average salary of all employes of
$375, or 25 per cent of the original cost.
In this connection the experience of the city of Chicago, somewhat
similar in the size of its organization and in the variety of its functions,
is significant. From 1911 to 1915 the average salary rate of all employes
in its departments has fluctuated but little, the net average rate re-
maining about the same. In two large services-Clerical and Super-
vising the average rate decreased $38 and $72 respectively; in three
services Medical, Engineering and Inspectional-the average rate in-
creased $43, $38 and $72 respectively. In one service-the Library
Service-which is very small-the rate increased $228 (from $678 to
$906 per annum).
During this period Chicago was administered under a definite plan
of salary control. However, the marked and abnormal increase in the
average payroll cost of New York State employes during this period of
four years will find few, if any, parallels in public or private practice.
2. MULTIPLICITY OF FICTITIOUS AND UNNECESSARY TITLES-WITH RESULT-
ANT CONFUSION OF WORK, FRICTION BETWEEN EMPLOYES, AND ADMIN-
ISTRATIVE DIFFICULTIES IN ASSIGNING AND CONTROLLING THE PERSONNEL
According to standards developed after investigation and submit-
ted as part of this Report, there are approximately 943 fictitious or un-
necessary titles in the State service today. .
Titles are now used to designate employments for the purpose of
civil service and budget control. A title, as construed by law, indi-
cates not only the relative rank and importance of an employe's status,
but also the scope of his employment and constitutes the restrictions or
limitations beyond which he may refuse to work. An improper title,
because of its legal as well as its institutional significance, almost in-
variably spells waste.
3. INADEQUATE AND INEQUITABLE SYSTEM OF
ADVANCEMENT AND PROMOTION
The failure of the State government to establish a sound and equi-
table system of advancements and promotions has produced condi-
CLASSIFICATION
475
tions unjust to the employe and extremely costly to the State. Ad-
vancement of employes has been influenced in no small degree by acci-
dent or considerations of personal preference. Too little premium is
placed upon demonstrated merit, efficiency or length of service. Up to
a comparatively recent date the Civil Service Commission has not ex-
ercised any control over service records or ratings and the departments,
with one or two exceptions, have done nothing to introduce this im-
portant factor in the regulation of the personnel. This is largely due to
the fact that the present law does not require the keeping of such rec-
ords or permit the Civil Service Commission to compel it.
The weaknesses of the promotional system as applied to positions
under civil service control are exhibited in the following:
First.-Promotion is permitted under the present civil service law
from one salary grade to another salary grade without change of duties.
Employes in specific posts have, with little or no increase in responsi-
bility, been indiscriminately advanced again and again.
Second.-Increases in salaries have been given without reference to
relative merit or length of service.
Third.-Promotions have been administered within restricted and
narrow limits, largely owing to the restrictions of the present law. This
has resulted in undesirable discrimination against the employes of de-
partments where the routine and low salaried positions are concen-
trated. For example, the average rapidity of advancements for em-
ployes recruited from the same or similar eligible lists, with similar
qualifications, and performing the same kind of work, differs so widely
in the several departments that, whereas the employes of some depart-
ments are advanced with undue rapidity and without adequate pre-
liminary training, those of other departments receive wholly inade-
quate recognition.
4.
Classification within the Civil Service Organization¹
ESTABLISHMENT OF DIVISION OF SERVICE RECORDS
AND STANDARDS
No administrative agency now exists, under the law, to enforce the
basic standards governing rates of pay. Eventually, these functions
should be delegated to the Civil Service Commission in order that
responsibility therefor may be concentrated in a single agency so con-
¹ Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate Docu-
ment 40,” Legislature 1916), p. xXXV.
476
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
stituted as properly to represent the managerial interests of the State
government on the one hand, and the welfare of the employes on the
other. The Civil Service Commission should, therefore, be equipped to
take over these additional functions under proper regulations; and it is
recommended that a Division of Service Records and Standards be cre-
ated within the Commission charged with the following functions:
First. Grouping and assignment of positions according to stand-
ards adopted by the Legislature.
Second. The installation of service records and the enforcement
of rules and regulations of the Civil Service Commission governing
same.
Third.-Formulation and submission to the Civil Service Commis-
sion of suggested rules and regulations, consistent with the adopted
standards, governing appointments, promotions, transfers, reinstate-
ments, and other related problems.
Fourth. Investigation of requests for new positions for the pur-
pose of report by the Commission to the Legislature.
5. Analysis of Employment Problems, with Particular
Reference to General Standardization Proposals¹
C
The proposed standardization program has primary reference to
two distinct though related questions of employment control as follows:
First. Those questions which relate to the establishment of posi-
tions, fixing rates of pay and other conditions governing same.
Second.―Those questions which relate to the manner and method
of recruiting employes for such positions and regulating their conduct
while in the service.
It will therefore be desirable to consider the present and proposed
practice in regard to the manner and methods of establishing positions
and of recruiting and controlling employes.
I. MANNER AND METHODS OF ESTABLISHING POSITIONS
Up to the present time no formalized procedure has obtained in
the establishment of new positions. Requests upon the Legislature as
the appropriating and finance controlling body, may originate in any
number of sources and be cleared through various channels.
¹ Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate Docu-
ment 40," Legislature 1916), pp. xci-xcii.
CLASSIFICATION
477
The State government is at the present time organized into ap-
proximately one hundred and fifty departments or independent estab-
lishments. Under the present practice responsible officials in each of
these departments reach independent judgment as to functions or work
which shall be initiated or further developed, and make requests upon
the Legislature for necessary appropriations to cover the other posi-
tions thought to be necessary. The administrative branch of the gov-
ernment maintains no staff or centralized agency with which to pass
upon the reasonableness of the requests.
The Legislature, in taking final action, is advised by the finance
committees of the Senate and the Assembly, but these committees have
not in the past been equipped with staff assistance which has enabled
them to review adequately the considerations which supported the re-
quests, or to investigate the conditions which should govern the estab-
lishment of the positions, if necessary.
This briefly characterizes the fundamental weakness in the present
control over the development and growth of the State's highly decen-
tralized administrative agencies.
Pressure has been continuously exerted upon the Legislature to
expand and to make more costly the organization and work of each of
the one hundred and fifty units of the State government, but no pro-
vision has been made adequately to check this pressure and prevent
hasty or ill advised action. The State government lacks a centralized
investigative and advisory agency which would initially pass upon the
need for new positions and defer action by the Legislature until all
the pertinent facts had been developed and interpreted.
The effect of this lack of control has been evidenced in four ways,
as follows:
a) Establishment of Unnecessary Positions
b) Irregularity in Compensation for Work of Similar Grade and Character
c) Irregularity and Rapidity of Salary Increases and Promotions
d) Irregularity of Titles for Work of Similar Grade and Character
6. Manner and Methods of Recruiting and Controlling
Employees¹
The Civil Service Law divides the civil service of the State into two
divisions—the unclassified service and the classified service, which now
• Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate
Document 40," Legislature 1916), pp. c-cii.
478
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
aggregate 16,941 positions. The unclassified service, which includes
994 positions, comprises the following:
a) All elective offices
b) All offices filled by election or appointment by the Legislature on joint
ballot
c) All persons appointed by name in any statute
d) All legislative officers and employes
e) All offices filled by appointment by the Governor either upon or without
recommendation by the Senate, except officers and employes in the execu-
tive offices
f) All election offices or heads of any department of the government
g) Persons employed in or who are seeking to enter the public service as
superintendents, principals or teachers in a public school or academy or
in a State normal school or college
The classified service includes all other positions.
The unclassified service under the law is not subject to any con-
ditions governing appointment except those which are specifically re-
ferred to therein. The classified service, which now includes 15,947
positions, is, under the law, subject to such rules as the State Civil
Service Commission shall make in relation to the classification, ap-
pointment, promotion and other phases of civil service control.
The classification of the employments of the so-called classified
service and the recruiting and controlling of employes placed in the
competitive classes represent the primary object of the State Civil
Service Commission. The Commission, operating under the existing
laws, would be charged with the execution of those functions embraced
within the proposed standardization program which relate to
First.—The regulation and control of conditions governing appointment to
the service.
Second. The regulation and control of conditions governing advancement
and promotion within the service.
The constructive idea underlying the first function is to recruit
employes for the State service who have demonstrated the highest
degree of fitness for the tasks they are to assume; the constructive idea
of the second is to secure to those employes an opportunity to work out
their careers on the basis of merit and fitness.
An investigation of the content, standard and procedure of the ex-
aminations and other practices of the Civil Service Commission has
been undertaken by the Committee in order to determine the extent
to which adequate and uniform factors of ability, training and experi-
CLASSIFICATION
479
ence have been prescribed by the Civil Service Commission as a basis
for entrance into the State civil service.
This investigation is still in progress. The results developed show
concretely wherein much of the practice of Civil Service Commissions
in the past should be revised in order to install and enforce the stand-
ards proposed by the Senate Committee. This investigation will be
concluded within the next two weeks and will be the subject of a second
report to the Legislature.
This report will be essentially constructive in character, intended
to indicate the changes in law and practice necessary to a proper de-
velopment of civil service control. The findings and recommendations
of the Senate Committee will be presented with particular reference
to the following and related subjects:
1. Duties and activities of the Civil Service Commission sitting as a board
of control
2. Legal classification of State employments and employes
3. System of making appointments to the service
(a) Limitations of law
(b) Limitations of practice
4. System of making promotions
(a) Limitations of law
(b) Limitations of practice
5. Preparation and installation of service and efficiency records
7. Sample Definitions Framed by Classification Authority¹
SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR GROUP (F15)
INVESTIGATIONAL AND EXAMINING SERVICE
SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR GROUP
Definition. The term Social Investigator Group is used to iden-
tify those authorized employments of the Investigational and Examin-
ing Service, the incumbents of which are required to inspect and in-
vestigate public or semi-public, charitable and correctional institu-
tions or agencies, for the purpose of observing and reporting upon the
methods of administration and efficiency of service as a basis for ad-
ministrative control in correcting irregularities in the care, treatment
and instruction of inmates and patients, defective conditions of plant
and equipment, and related conditions or practices; to assemble, ana-
¹ Extract from First Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate Docu-
ment 40," Legislature 1916), pp. 357-61, 364–65.
180
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
1
lyze, interpret and report upon data relating to social problems with
special reference to the causes and effect of dependency, defectiveness
and delinquency; to investigate conditions affecting the welfare and
labor of immigrants and to perform other work for the aid or protec-
tion of immigrants in accordance with statutory or departmental regu-
lation
GRADE I (F15 I)
Titles of Positions
SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR (INSTITUTION)
SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR (IMMIGRANT LABOR)
Duties
SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR (INSTITUTION)
Definition. The duties of incumbents of these positions are to
make, under direction, routine inspections or special investigations of
State, county and municipal charitable or correctional institutions,
and other institutions or agencies of similar character receiving public
moneys and private homes where dependent child on have been placed,
for the purpose of observing, reporting and correcting irregularities in
the care and treatment of inmates or patients, methods of instruction,
facilities for admission and retention, conditions of plant and equip-
ment and other practices or conditions affecting the health, comfort
and training of inmates or patients; to institute, supervise and inter-
pret or to make special psychological and other studies of dependent
mental defectives and referred cascs; to prepare or assist in the prepa-
ration of literature on the causes and effect of dependency and delin-
quency; and to perform other serviccs of equivalent character and
standard
Qualifications
SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR (INSTITUTION)
Persons holding these positions shall have:
1. Such education as is evidenced by a degrcc, diploma or certif-
icate granted upon completion of a standard course of instruction in a
college of recognized standing, including not less than two years of in-
struction in sociology and allied subjects; or
2. Not less than two years of experience in investigative or insti-
tutional work of a character and standard recognized by the State
Civil Service Commission as the equivalent of the first qualification
3. Such additional qualifications as may be required by the State
Civil Service Commission.
CLASSIFICATION
481
Compensation. The range of annual compensation of this Grade
for full time service is from $1,080 to $1,800, inclusive, with standard
salary rates as follows: $1,080, $1,200, $1,320, $1,440, $1,560, $1,680,
$1,800.
Special regulation governing the last two salary rates.-The last two
salary rates, $1,680 and $1,800, shall be assigned only to positions in-
volving supervisory or independent responsibility. Such rates shall be
designated after individual appraisal, under the rules of the State Civil
Service Commission, indicating that the rate so determined does not
exceed the value of the work to be performed.
GRADE II (F15 II)
Titles of Positions—
SUPERVISING SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR (INSTITUTION)
CHIEF IMMIGRATION INVESTIGATOR
Duties-
SUPERVISING SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR (INSTITUTION)
Definition.—The duties of the incumbent of this position, which re-
quire specialized knowledge of institutional management and procedure
and a high degree of executive ability, are to direct and supervise Social
Investigators (Institution) of Grade I, to institute and enforce proper
methods of inspection, to prepare reports on results of field investiga-
tions and other prescribed reports and records, to examine and report
on plans for the construction of buildings of charitable institutions
and to perform other related duties involved in the supervision of a
force of such investigators.
GRADE III (F15 III)
Title of Positions—
CHIEF SOCIAL INVESTIGATOR (STATE AND ALIEN POOR)
Duties-
Definition. The duties of the incumbent of this position, which re-
quire a high degree of administrative ability and a knowledge of in-
vestigational procedure and of the several laws governing charities,
correction, immigration and poor persons, are to direct the activities
of those units charged with the enforcement of statutory or depart-
mental regulations relative to the above which come within his juris-
diction, to take charge of assigned social investigators and other em-
ployes, to collate data from public institutions relative to dependency,
defectiveness or delinquency, to supervise the preparation of bulletins
and other literature upon social problems, to advise county superin-
482
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tendents of the poor and other public relief officials in the discharge of
their statutory duties, to maintain supervision of all State charitable
institutions and reformatories and of Indian relief as prescribed by
statute, to direct the support and removal of State, alien and non-
resident poor, to prepare annual reports of departmental activities,
and to perform such other related duties as may be imposed by statute
or departmental regulation.
Qualifications-
The person holding this position shall have:
1. The minimum qualifications prescribed for Supervising Social
Investigator (Institution) Grade II.
2. Not less than five years of service as a Supervising Social In-
vestigator (Institution) Grade II, or if appointed otherwise than by
promotion from Grade II, at least five years of experience in work of
Supervising Social Investigator (Institution) Grade II character and
standard, affording opportunity to become familiar with the history
of New York State and national charity, departmental procedure and
the interpretation and application of the laws governing public relief
and related matters.
3. Such additional qualifications as may be required by the State
Civil Service Commission.
Compensation. The range of annual compensation of this Grade
for full time service is from $3,600 to $4,500, inclusive, with standard
salary rates as follows: $3,600, $3,900, $4,200, $4,500.
8. In the Absence of True Classification¹
CLASSIFICATION OF POSITIONS BY THE COMMISSION
The Constitution provides that "appointments and promotions.
shall be made according to merit and fitness to be ascertained, so far as
practicable, by examinations, which, so far as practicable, shall be
competitive."
Section 12 of the State Civil Service Law provides for the enforce-
ment of this provision. It gives the State Civil Service Commission
jurisdiction over all positions in the classified service and empowers it
to group, with reference to competitive requirements as the basis for
¹ Extract from Second Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of
the State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate
Document 29," Legislature 1917, pp. 12–16.
CLASSIFICATION
483
appointment, all such positions within certain legal divisions known as
"exempt," "competitive," and "non-competitive."
In section 13 the exempt class is defined. Paragraphs 1, 2 and 3
specifically designate certain officers who are exempt and section 4
adds, "all unskilled laborers and such skilled laborers as are not in-
cluded in the competitive class and, in addition thereto, there may be
included in the exempt class all other subordinate offices for the filling
of which competitive or non-competitive examinations may not be
found to be practicable." The classification of positions under this pro-
vision is one of the most important functions of the Commission as a
State.
County.
City and village...
Total...
·
State.
County.
City and village.
Total...
•
•
• •
•
1910
39
6
TABLE I
45
1910
1911
28
25
36
89
Сл
елн
5
TABLE II
56
1911
152
U1 H N
81
1912
48
II
30
89
1912
152
31
2
1913
73T
I
II
1913
84
16
I
1914
127
22
149
1914
161
118
Ι
25
258 185 ΤΟΙ 280
1915 Total
270
542
23
70
14
45
657
307
1915
68
18
86
Total
645
289
65
999
board, because it is basic to the enforcement of the constitutional re-
quirement of competition. Tables I-VI show the divergence of opinion
of various commissions as to the practicability of holding examinations
for positions.
Table I shows, by years, positions which have been transferred from
the exempt class to the competitive class by action of the Civil Serv-
ice Commission in the years specified.
Table II shows, by years, the positions which have been transferred
from the competitive class to the exempt class by action of the Civil
Service Commission in the years specified.
Table III shows, by years and by class or service, the number of
positions which have been transferred from the competitive class to the
484
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
exempt class by action of the Civil Service Commission in the years
specified.
Table IV shows, by years and by class or service, the number of
positions which have been transferred from the exempt class to the
competitive class by action of the Civil Service Commission in the years
specified.
Managerial..
Clerical..
Professional and scientific..
Educational. . .
Services
Investigational and examining
Inspectional
Institutional..
•
Skilled labor.
Labor.
Unclassified..
Total..
Managerial
Clerical.
•
Services
Skilled labor
Labor...
Unclassified.
•
Professional and scientific.
Educational..
Investigational and examining
Inspectional.
Institutional.
•
•
• •
•
Total....
D
•
·
•
TABLE III
1910
757H© H
I
6
I
I
28
1910
96
23
I
1911
TABLE IV
39
23
57
IO
II
48
3
1911
152 152
9
14
12
7
9
51
•
•
1912
•
5
25
30
I
78
IO
3
1912
I
13
7
15
II
I
48
•
•
·
1913
II
34
II
21
4
I
2
84
1913
3
2
2
1914 1915 Total
39
44
23
7
35
9
4
161
1914
3
25
21
5
46
12
IO
5
50
15
18
18
6
II
68
1915
бо
62
35
13
63
35
2
7 127 270
100
183
99
9
157
83
3
4
7
645
Total
76
123
83
20
106
IOI
I2
IO
6
5
542
Table V and Table VI show by classes of service and departments
the number of positions which have been transferred (1) from the non-
competitive and competitive classes to the exempt class [and (2) from
the exempt class to the competitive and non-competitive classes] dur-
ing the years 1910 to 1915, inclusive, by action of the Civil Service
Commission.
GRE
[This material is supplemented in the text by two tables, showing
that out of a total of 645 and 542 positions transferred, the status
CLASSIFICATION
485
of relatively large numbers in various departments were changed at
the request of certain officials. For example, the numbers were for the
Comptroller 103 and 41; the Conservation Department 79 and 70; the
Labor Department 42 and 45; the Tax Department 38 and 40; the
Workmen's Compensation Commission in both cases was 65.]
Analysis of these tables shows, not only the extent of this diver-
gence of opinion, but also the apparent tendency to follow the dictates
of department heads and political leaders in transferring positions from
the competitive to the exempt class for the purpose of removing incum-
bents who are politically undesirable or in transferring positions from
the exempt class to the competitive service in order to protect a desira-
ble incumbent from the adverse action of a later administration. This
juggling with the classification by the Civil Service Commission is one
of the most serious drawbacks to the operation of the Civil Service
Law, because it tends to disrupt the examination system, breaks down
the line and opportunity for promotion, makes the tenure of employ-
ment uncertain and generally demoralizes the personnel of the service.
This Committee believes that the lack of independence on the part of
recent Civil Service Commissions created to develop and enforce the
merit system is very largely responsible for the attitude which is today
generally expressed toward this branch of the government.
9. The Importance of Central Control¹
SUGGESTIONS RE ORGANIZATION OF STAFF OF STATE COMMISSION
AND ITS CONTACT WITH THE CIVIL SERVICE OF MUNICI-
PALITIES AND COUNTIES OF THE STATE
··
From the examination recently made of the municipal commissions
and an analysis of their activities, the conclusion is reached that, with-
out exception, no civil service commission of the State is working up
to maximum efficiency.
In its Report for 1915, the State Civil Service Commission recog-
nizes the necessity for more frequent reviews of the municipal civil
service commissions. It calls attention to the fact that the lack of re-
sults in the small cities is due to the small amount of work necessary
therein and that the work which is done is only perfunctory and sug-
gests an extension of the jurisdiction of the State Commission. The
investigations of this Committee show that, taken as a whole, the civil
• Extract from Second Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of the
State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State (“Senate Docu-
ment 29," Legislature 1917), p. 66.
486
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
service administration of the municipalities of the State is most ineffi-
ciently performed. Either the local commissions should be greatly
strengthened and the supervision of the State Commission made
much more rigorous, or the whole work should be placed immediately
under the control of the State Commission.
In the State of Massachusetts, with a population of over three and
one-half millions, and in New Jersey, with a population of upwards of
two and one-half millions, all of the civil service administration of the
State comes directly within the jurisdiction of the State Commissions.
In New York State, the conditions are somewhat different owing to
the greater area and to the fact that the greatest centers of population
outside of New York City are at the extreme western end of the State.
The best method that has been presented to the Committee for
bringing about a more efficient performance of civil service functions
throughout the State is a districting of the State, each district to be
under the supervision of an examiner of the State Civil Service Com-
mission. This need not apply to cities of the first class, whose civil
service functions would not be disturbed. It is likely, also, that an at-
tempt to bring the administration of civil service of the second class
cities under direct supervision and control of the State Commission
would meet with opposition, although it may be shown, beyond any
doubt, that one examiner in a district could easily perform all of the
examination work of all the second class cities in any of the proposed
districts, besides attending to his other duties. The suggestion, there-
fore, is to bring under this direct supervision of the State Civil Service
Commission the third class cities and the examination work in those
counties whose service has been classified.
IO.
Basic Principles of Classification¹
TITLES
The titles in the specifications are used officially to designate the
grade or rank and the relative importance of the various positions.
They have been chosen as descriptive of the duties performed in gen-
eral. Wherever present titles are descriptive, they have been incor-
porated in the specifications, but the use of such general or non-de-
scriptive terms as "expert," "agent," etc., have so far as possible been
eliminated.
¹ Extract from Massachusetts Council, Report of the Special Committee of the
Executive Council on the Standardization of Salaries in the State Service ("House Doc-
ument No. 1175," 1918), pp. 23-27, 59–63.
CLASSIFICATION
487
The intent has been to make the titles as broad as possible, and
thus provide elasticity for the administrator in the assignment of
duties, provided the work so assigned is reasonably consistent with the
salary grade.
P
It is not necessary to eliminate the use of office titles, such as en-
grossing clerk, ledger clerk, etc., which may serve an important inter-
departmental purpose; but for purposes of work control and pay roll
audit the titles should generally conform to the specifications.
QUALIFICATIONS
Certain qualifications are established as minimum or basic re-
quirements. They are not so exact that they will prevent any compe-
tent employee from entering the service. Their purpose is to establish
a standard which the State can reasonably expect to have fulfilled.
They are intended to be a safeguard against the incompetent. In
no instance are they inconsistent with any qualifications that are al-
ready established by statute or civil service rules and regulations.
DUTIES
The grade limits are defined in terms of the duties performed there-
in, inasmuch as titles can naturally be designated as descriptive only
when the scope of duties for positions are well defined, and salary rates
can be fixed only when the responsibilities of a given position have been
established. It is not intended, however, by thus defining the duties
performed, to in any way limit the powers of the department heads in
assigning work to employees. This is a purely administrative function.
The amount of compensation to be paid, nevertheless, can be deter-
mined only by having a standard describing the grade of work, and, in
a general and flexible way, the duties involved.
SALARY RATES
The salary rates in this Report have been established solely upon
the basis of the duties and responsibilities as defined in the specifica-
tions for each grade of work.
In determining these, due consideration has been given to the
market value of the work performed, and also special consideration
has been given to each group in its relation to the service of the Com-
monwealth.
In order to determine market values of labor, comparisons have
been made with the rates paid for similar work in private practice, in-
488
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
cluding quasi-public and public-service corporations in Massachusetts
and other States where the standards of living are comparable; with
the rates paid for similar service in other State governments, large
municipalities and the national government; and with the rates estab-
lished in closely related groups of employment in our own State service.
In this connection conferences have been held with department heads
to ascertain whether or not the State was obtaining desirable recruits
and satisfactory service.
The theory for establishing salary ranges in the specifications has
been that a position cannot properly be measured by one salary rate.
By having a range of salary rates, opportunities are afforded for ad-
vancement within a grade-seniority can be rewarded and recognition
given to the character and efficiency of the individual employee. At
the same time the department head is permitted powers for wholesome
discrimination.
The annual salary rates in the specifications are in general divisible
by 12 for purposes of uniformity in auditing. Wherever weekly or
daily rates are more practical or expedient for the needs of the service,
rates on this basis are recommended. The advancement rates are made
proportional to the principal salary rates on the assumption that ad-
vancements which represent compensation for services of extra merit
or for seniority should be proportional to the caliber and relative im-
portance of the service rendered. The advancement rates are approxi-
mately 10 per cent of the annual salary rate. This scale does not apply
to the institutional service, however, nor to the other service in toto.
Salary standardization has no bearing upon the problem of the
Civil Service Commission, except that the classification of positions for
salary standardization purposes should be identical, in so far as grades
and titles are defined, with the classification used by the Civil Service
Commission for recruiting and promoting within the classified service.
Salary standardization applies to all positions, regardless of their legal
classes.
It is assumed that employees when entering the service, whether
by means of a civil service list or by direct appointment, shall gener-
ally begin at the lowest salary rate within a grade; and that advance-
ments will occur at specified periods, usually the beginning of the fiscal
year. If impossible to secure employees at the lowest rate, the second
or third rates within the salary range may be paid for the good of the
service.
This should be carefully watched, however, for salary standardiza-
CLASSIFICATION
489
tion as a general rule can be effective only by requiring entrance at uni-
form rates. In all instances, the entrance rate is believed to be suffi-
cient to attract qualified employees.
The specifications have been written and the salaries established
on the basis of "full-time service," meaning fifty-two weeks in a year,
less vacations, each week consisting of six days of active duty, and
each day to consist of the regulation number of hours in the case of
office and trade workers.
While certain positions in the public service approach a condition
bordering on undesirability as compared with private employment,-
by reason of uncertainty of advancement, tenure, promotion and polit-
ical considerations,—yet it should be borne in mind in establishing
salaries that the great majority of State positions are more desirable
than similar positions in private life, giving steady employment, with
no loss of time such as is experienced by industrial workers; and the
committee believes this should be quite a factor in determining salaries
for these positions. .
The questionnaires show that the daily and weekly working time
of the departmental employees in a large percentage of cases falls be-
low a normal day's work. These employees generally work only thirty-
eight hours per week,-from 9 A.M. to 5 P.M. five days a week and from
9 A.M. to 12 M. Saturdays-a total of forty-three hours; but as the
luncheon hour for five days per week is included as working time, the
actual number of hours is forty-three, less five hours for meals, or
thirty-eight hours. Such a condition of low working time efficiency is a
reflection on the Commonwealth and an unwarranted burden on the
taxpayers of the State. Mollycoddling of employees to such an extent
can only tend to lower the business morale of these same employees,
even though it raises the popularity of department heads at the ex-
pense of the Commonwealth. It is recommended that the office hours
of labor in the departmental service be standardized.
ADVANCEMENT-PROMOTION
The terms "advancement" and "promotion" as used in the speci-
fications are not synonymous. Advancement is considered to mean an
increase from one salary rate to another within a grade, and does not
necessarily involve a change of duties. Promotion is considered to
mean an increase in salary from one grade to a higher grade, and to in-
volve a change of duties to a position of larger responsibility, and can
be secured only when vacancies occur in a higher grade or when new
490
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
positions of importance are created opening up direct lines of promo-
tion. For the positions classified by the Civil Service Commission it is
intended that the approval for promotion be obtained from the com-
mission in accordance with its present rules and regulations. Except in
extraordinary instances it is proposed that the salary rates resulting
from promotion from grade to grade be dependent upon a sufficient
length of service in the lower grades.
VACATIONS, DEPARTMENTAL
The result of inquiries conducted in other States and among pri-
vate firms shows that there is no uniformity among States, and fre-
quently among departments within a given State, as to the length of
the vacation period, it varying from two weeks in 21 States reported
to four weeks in 7 States. Among private firms the procedure is found
to be equally varied, though practically all of the States have as a basis
a vacation period of two weeks, which has been extended to three or
four weeks sometimes after a considerable period of service. In our
own State service there is a great variance among departments: 3 al-
low thirty-one days; 8 allow one month; 7 allow four weeks; 3 give
thirty days; 5 give twenty-eight days; 2 allow twenty-two days; 3 allow
three weeks; I gives eighteen days; and I gives two weeks. In practical-
ly all instances the clerical force, however, receives a month, while the
field force is generally given an indefinite period, as the work permits.
The method of fixing this vacation period also varies greatly among
the States. Of those reported, in 19 the department head determines
this matter; in 10 it is fixed by law; in 12 it is fixed by custom; in 1 by
civil service rules. In Massachusetts the length of the vacation period
is determined by the departmental heads.
The total vacation expense for 1916 was approximately $246,436,
representing 40 departments and not including the institutional serv-
ice. Of these departments 30 have a four-week period, so that the cost
to these 30 departments would be $184,827 for four weeks; and the sum
of $92,413 would be saved in these 30 departments by halving the va-
cation period. The total saving would undoubtedly be approximately
$100,000 yearly in the departmental service.
It is strongly felt that a vacation period of one month is excessive
and unnecessary, and constitutes a drain of large proportions upon the
State treasury, necessitating also in most instances the employment
of extra temporary help through the summer and consequent ineffi-
ciency in the conduct of State business.
CLASSIFICATION
491
The committee recommends that a statute be enacted definitely
fixing fourteen working days as the yearly vacation period for all
State employees outside the institutional service.
CONCLUSION
Special interest was shown in the standardization problem in 1916,
first, because attention was called to the subject specifically by Gov-
ernor McCall; and secondly, because the continual demands for sal-
ary increases had become extremely burdensome to the Council and
the Legislature. Nowhere was there to be obtained proper and ade-
quate information upon which to form logical conclusions or appraisals
of the various positions in the service in making the required adjust-
ments. Many employees were the innocent victims of this lack of in-
formation and proper appraisal of their work; and some departments—
notably the institutions and normal schools-were seriously handi-
capped and in danger of losing efficient administrators. Some action
therefore seemed imperative to correct these conditions.
The experience of other States and cities has shown that a solution
of these difficulties can be found in a system of salary standardization,
and it is strongly urged by the committee that Massachusetts no longer
lag behind in the efficient and systematic regulation of personal service.
The States of Ohio, Illinois, Wisconsin and New York (in part)
have established a plan for salary standardization based upon scientific
classification. The cities of Pittsburg, Milwaukee, Minneapolis, Los
Angeles, Portland and Dallas have likewise adopted such a plan, and
the national government is now conducting a study for the purpose of
bringing about a standardization of the government employees in the
District of Columbia.
In developing a standardization plan for our State service, three
broad results have been sought by the committee, namely, a business-
like procedure; sufficient flexibility for practical and effective manage-
ment by departmental and institutional heads, subject to supervision
by higher authority; and a broader recognition of the human element
in the matter of employment, assuring an enlarged opportunity for the
individual employee in the public service.
Notwithstanding the fact that it appears to the committee that
certain employees are now overpaid, it is felt that it would not be
policy at this time, owing in large measure to abnormal economic con-
ditions, to bring about any reduction in the salary of present employ-
ees; and practically none of the present incumbents of State positions
492
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
would suffer reduction from the adoption of the proposed standardiza-
tion.
There has been no attempt to include in this classification the ad-
ministrative heads of departments, boards and commissions through-
out the State service, one reason being that the committee has been
unable to obtain data sufficiently specific and similar to admit of a
comparison with the work of administrators in other States in any par-
ticular line, owing to the great divergence in methods of handling gov-
ernmental business among States. Without such a basis it is extremely
difficult to make a comparative schedule or classification. Further than
this, the salaries of practically all these officials are fixed by legisla-
tive enactment, subject to the Governor's approval or veto. . . . .
Any classification to meet adequately the requirements, must be
broad and of considerate flexibility, and must be subject to control by
more than one authority. The system here outlined, it is believed, pos-
sesses these characteristics. The schedule of salary ranges shown is
based upon the specifications mentioned, which have been drawn with
great care and present the requisite flexibility to constitute a practical
working classification embracing all positions in the service. By fol-
lowing in general the standards thus established, the heads of depart-
ments may act wisely and speedily in dealing with the many details of
compensation connected with personal service; and the Council and
Legislature will have available at all times information necessary for
the preparation of a cientific budget relating to this subject.
The ranges of salaries in the specifications are recommended as
just and adequate; and present employees can readily be classified
under the titles suggested. From time to time, as conditions change, it
will undoubtedly be necessary to make some changes in these specifi-
cations. Economic conditions may require revision of some salary
ranges; new positions which may not fall within this classification will
undoubtedly be created; it may be necessary to change some of the
titles; and experience may show that the qualifications should in a
given instance be more strict or more lenient. But these are mere mat-
ters of detail. Standardization would be a failure were the specifica-
tions on which the classification is based not flexible and subject to
reasonable change when required. Such changes, however, should
be made only after careful consideration and proper cause shown.
The business of the Commonwealth should be regarded as akin to
that of a large corporation, with the Governor as the president, the
Lieutenant-Governor as the vice-president, and the Executive Coun-
•
CLASSIFICATION
493
cil as a board of directors or executive board; and it is felt that greater
supervisory powers should be given this branch of the State govern-
· ment. Under the present system the Governor and Council, after hav-
ing approved the salary of any State official or employee, has no further
control over him or the head of his department as regards ability to
regulate either his working time, duties or vacation periods. We be-
lieve this condition should not continue to exist, but rather that in a
broad and general way the Governor and Council should have super-
vision over all these matters. We recommend therefore that the broad-
est possible supervisory powers be conferred upon the Governor and
Council in connection with the personal service regulation of the Com-
monwealth.
II. Classification and the Federal Civil Service¹
SUMMARY OF FINDINGS
The facts found by the Commission in its investigation "of the
rates of compensation paid to civilian employees" and its parallel
study of working conditions and employment policies and practices,
are briefly summarized in the following statement. These findings are
more fully stated and discussed in Chapters II, IV, and V of this
Report.
As to the lack of uniformity and equity in present rates, the com-
mission finds:
1. That the salary and wage rates for positions involving like duties
and responsibilities and calling for the same qualifications (that is, for
positions of the same class) show wide variations and marked inequali-
ties.
2. That the salary and wage rates for positions of the same class
are different in different departments and independent establishments,
the scale of pay in some departments being markedly higher than the
scale for the same class of work in other departments.
3. That these inequalities in salary and wage scales as between
departments are most striking when the rates of pay in the war-ex-
¹ Extract from Report of the Congressional Joint Commission on Reclassification
of Salaries, March 12, 1920 ("House Document No. 686," U. S. Sixty-sixth Con-
gress, 2d sess.), pp. 18–27. See the "Sterling-Lehlbach" Act of 1923 creating the
Personnel Classification Board (42 U. S. Statutes at Large, Pt. I, chap. 265) and
the Lehlbach Bill (H. R. 359) of 1926, proposing to place the Classification Board
under the U. S. Civil Service Commission.
494
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
panded establishments are contrasted with those in the organizations
that were not largely increased during the war.
4. That the present system of paying bonuses tends to increase the
inequality in salary and wage rates for positions of the same class.
5. That rates of compensation in the Government service as a
whole have not increased as rapidly as has the cost of living.
6. That the amounts of recent increases in rates of pay in the Gov-
ernment service have varied greatly (a) as between classes of employ-
ment and (b) as between departments.
As to the causes that have led, and unless remedied will continue to
lead, to this lack of uniformity and equity the Commission finds:
7. That the Government has no standard to guide it in fixing the
pay of its employees and no working plan for relating the salaries ap-
propriated to the character and importance of the work for which such
salaries are to be paid, and that the designations of positions now ap-
pearing in the Book of Estimates are inaccurate and misleading.
8. That there is a large number of unnecessary titles of positions
contained in the Book of Estimates upon which appropriations are
based, due to the lack of definition of duties of positions, that this is a
factor in causing lack of uniformity in rates of pay, and that this num-
ber can be materially reduced.
9. That the lack of standardization in rates of pay may be largely
accounted for by the unrestricted freedom allowed in the administra-
tion of lump-sum appropriations and the rigidity of the present system
of statutory appropriations.
10. That the present method of fixing the salaries of employees
upon their entrance into the service leads to inequality in the rates of
pay for the same class of work at the very start.
II. That the absence of any uniform plan or system for regulating
increases in the pay of employees who have gained in experience and
usefulness in a given class of work and the even more serious lack of
any equitable system governing promotions from lower to higher clas-
ses of positions have been very large factors in causing the disproportion
in pay and work.
As to the effect of the lack of uniformity and equity in rates of
compensation of Government employees, the Commission reports:
12. That there is serious discontent accompanied by an excessive
turnover and loss among the best trained and most efficient employees,
that the morale of the personnel has been impaired, that the national
service has become unattractive to a desirable type of technical em-
CLASSIFICATION
495
ployee, and that the Government has put itself in the position of wast-
ing funds on the one hand and doing serious injustice to individuals on
the other, and of failing to get that degree of efficiency in administra-
tion that a more equitable and uniform wage policy would bring about.
13. That seven hours constitute a normal day's work for the cleri-
cal and professional groups of employees and eight hours for the man-
ual; and there is no uniformity of practice in the compensation for
overtime and night work.
14. That employees, on the average, receive nearly the full 30 days'
annual leave allowed by law; but that only about 3 per cent of the em-
ployees take the full 30 days' sick leave allowed by law, that nearly 50
per cent of the employees take no sick leave, and that certain groups of
employees receive no sick leave.
15. That Government employees enjoy greater permanency and
security of tenure than employees in industrial or commercial estab-
lishments.
16. That opportunities for advancement, either in salary or rank,
for those of marked efficiency do not compare favorably with the op-
portunities offered to persons of the same ability in the commercial
world. In the opportunity for development of professional or scientific
careers, the Government service has in many ways a distinct advan-
tage, which is, however, offset to some extent by certain personal re-
strictions generally unknown in the academic and business world.
17. That Government buildings in Washington are generally clean
and well kept, with sufficient toilet and washing facilities, but that as
regards such important matters as working space, illumination, ven-
tilation, rest rooms, and medical and surgical emergency relief there is
neither adequate provision nor accepted standard.
18. That the Government is paying heavily in the form of em-
ployees' compensation, as well as in loss of time and efficiency, for its
failure to adopt a thoroughgoing safety program. In safe construction,
safety inspection, and safety education the Government falls far
short of meeting the standards set by the more progressive States,
municipalities, and private employers.
As to those policies and measures that control the Government's
return in efficient personal service, the Commission finds:
19. That various governmental establishments show a lack of co-
ordination within and between various units, resulting in apparent
duplication of work and supernumerary employees.
20. That the Civil Service Commission has pursued a progressive
496
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
policy in the selection of employees, but that lack of funds hinders fur-
ther perfection of examination methods; that the probationary period
is not used effectively as an integral part of the process of selection.
21. That there is no systematic policy of introducing new appoint-
ees to their work nor of training them for new duties, although certain
progressive governmental organizations are proving the feasibility and
value of such training.
G
22. That in spite of the necessity of some satisfactory method of
testing efficiency as a basis for salary increases and promotions, effi-
ciency-rating systems are not in general use, and where they have been
adopted are commonly regarded as of questionable value.
23. That no uniform practice exists in the advancement of efficient
employees in either salary or rank, both of which are commonly re-
ferred to as "promotion"; that salary advancements proper are con-
trolled by administrative officers while true promotions are usually
made as the result of noncompetitive examinations; and that lack of
assurance that efficient work will receive suitable reward injures the
morale and reduces the efficiency of the entire service.
24. That the Government's failure to adopt a retirement system
for civilian employees has proved costly, inefficient, and destructive
to the morale of the force.
25. That present restrictions on transfers tend to make the service
immobile to the detriment of both the employees and the Government;
and that no attempt is made to handle, by transfers, the problem of
seasonal work in the various departments.
26. That there is a striking lack of any comprehensive personnel
policy administered by a central personnel agency and having in view
increased efficiency through standardizing and supervising the various
conditions of employment and through enlisting the co-operation of
the employees.
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
The Commission makes the following recommendations, in the
confident belief that their adoption will bring about and hereafter
maintain conditions of "uniform and equitable pay for the same char-
acter of employment," and will secure for the Government the maxi-
mum return in loyal and efficient personal service for the compensation
paid.
For the immediate attainment of uniformity and equity in pay for
the same character of employment the Commission recommends:
CLASSIFICATION
497
I. That the Congress adopt the classification of positions set forth.
2. That the Congress adopt the schedule of compensation set forth
for the respective classes of positions.
3. That the Congress authorize the Civil Service Commission to
take over the Reclassification Commission's records and keep them
current, pending action on the above recommendations.
4. That the Congress direct an existing agency (hereinafter referred
to as the "Classification Agency"), logically and preferably the Civil
Service Commission, to make a final allocation of individual positions
to the classes set forth in the recommended plan of classification.
5. That the Congress authorize and provide for the adjustment of
the rates of pay of individual positions and employees to bring them,
beginning July 1, 1920, into conformity with the schedules of compen-
sation prescribed for the respective classes into which the respective
positions have been classified.
For the future maintenance of uniformity and equity in pay the
Commission recommends:
6. That permanent administration of the classification and sched-
ules of compensation be delegated by law to an existing independent
agency of the Government (to be termed hereinafter the "Classifica-
tion Agency"), logically and preferably the Civil Service Commission.
7. That the Classification Agency periodically recommend to the
Congress additions to, or amendments of, the classification.
8. That the Classification Agency recommend to the Congress
new schedules of compensation for new classes of positions, or changes,
if deemed desirable, in the established schedules for existing classes,
recommended schedules for new classes to apply until acted upon by
the Congress and then to become effective in the form approved by
the Congress.
9. That new or additional positions that it is proposed to create be
first classified by the Classification Agency.
10. That estimates, appropriations, and payments for personal
services be made under the title of the class and in accordance with the
schedule of pay applying to the class which the Classification Agency
certifies as applicable to the position in which such services are to be
or have been rendered.
II. That the pay of individual employees be regulated on a basis
of efficiency and length of service in the class in which their respective
positions are classified, according to the schedule of compensation
applying to the class.
498
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
For the attainment of uniformity in the regulation of all factors
having an indirect bearing on rates of pay and for the improvement
and standardization of working conditions, the commission recom-
mends:
12. That the Classification Agency recommend to the Congress
from time to time those measures that it deems necessary to the im-
provement and the standardization of working conditions and terms of
employment.
13. That the Congress prescribe standard minimum working hours
for each group of employees, together with uniform rules for the com-
pensation of overtime work for those employees for whom the com-
pensation schedules provide for pay at an hourly rate, and for addition-
al compensation for all night work.
1
14. That the Congress provide that after January 1, 1921, (a) all
employees be granted annual leave at the rate of 2 days per month,
not to be taken until earned, and not more than 30 days to be taken in
any one calendar year; and (b) that all employees be granted sick
leave at the rate of 10 days per year, not more than 60 days to be taken
in any one calendar year.
For the securing of the maximum return in efficient personal service
for the Government's pay-roll expenditures the Commission recom-
mends:
15. That the Congress undertake a systematic examination of the
functions now being exercised, the organization now in effect, and the
methods of procedure in use in the several departments and independ-
ent establishments making up the Washington Service, in order that
unnecessary work, duplicated work, improperly allocated work, in-
stances of poor organization, and expensive or inefficient methods of
conducting business may be discovered and eliminated.
16. That the Congress provide for a comprehensive and uniform
employment policy to be administered by a central personnel agency,
logically and preferably the Civil Service Commission, and to include
the standardization of rates of compensation and working conditions
and the selection, development, and retention of an efficient personnel;
and that an advisory council be established to advise the Civil Service
Commission on matters coming under the jurisdiction of the latter,
and to arrange for the formation of personnel committees in the various
departments.
17. (a) That all positions hereafter be filled by the appointment
of those best fitted to perform the duties as determined by the central
CLASSIFICATION
499
personnel agency through the most effective methods of test and in-
vestigation; and (b) that no permanent appointment to the service be
made except on certificate by the central personnel agency that the
employee has satisfactorily passed his probationary period.
18. That the central personnel agency be empowered to undertake,
in co-operation with the departments, measures for the training of em-
ployees for increased usefulness in the service.
19. That the central personnel agency be authorized and directed,
after consultation with the heads of departments, to arrange for the in-
stallation of efficiency rating systems in the various Government es-
tablishments; and that the appropriate administrative officers be re-
quired to rate all employees under their direction in accordance with
these systems and under such rules and regulations as the central per-
sonnel agency may prescribe.
20. That hereafter employees be increased in pay not oftener than
once a year and only within the limits of the ranges set for their class of
positions and on the basis of ascertained efficiency of the required
standard, to be set by the central personnel agency; and that failure
to maintain such standard after advancement to a given rate shall sub-
ject the employee to reduction to a lower salary rate in the same
class.
21. That when vacancies in the higher classes are not filled by
transfer or reinstatement they be filled by promotion of properly quali-
fied employees as determined by competitive civil service examination;
and that open competitive examinations for the filling of such vacancies
be held only when three such eligibles cannot be secured from those
already in the service.
22. That employees who fail to attain a fair standard of efficiency
as prescribed by the central personnel agency be removed from the
service, after suitable opportunity for appeal to the personnel agency.
23. That employees who by reason of their age or disability result-
ing from their service, are unable to render service of a fair standard of
efficiency be retired under an actuarially sound pension plan.
24. That transfers, layoffs, reinstatements, demotions, dismissals,
suspensions, and other employment processes be regulated in accord-
ance with a uniform employment policy and in conformity with the
spirit of the above recommendations; and that employees have the
right to appeal to the central personnel agency in all matters coming
under its jurisdiction.
S
¡
500
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SUMMARY OF BENEFITS
The Commission is firmly of the opinion that the adoption of the
classification of positions and the uniform schedules of pay recom-
mended in this Report, and of the proposed plan for the future adminis-
tration of this classification and these schedules, will bring about the
following benefits to the Congress, the departments, the employees,
and the public at large.
The Congress will secure:
A sound and practical working basis for arriving at the proper rates of com-
pensation in appropriations for personal services.
The assurance that on this basis salaries and wages will be appropriated at
the same rate for the same work in all departments and at all times.
A means of controlling expenditures for personal services paid from lump-sum
appropriations or contingent funds, and of bringing them into conform-
ity with the basis observed in itemized appropriations.
The assurance that on this basis the salaries appropriated for positions of
different classes will have the equitable relationship that is called for by
the difference in the values of the work involved in the respective classes.
The further assurance that the salaries appropriated on this basis will be fair
to the employee and to the public as the taxpayer.
A method of adjusting salary scales from time to time, as required and justi-
fied by changes in economic conditions, in such a way as to permit of
discriminating application of increases or decreases which will take into
account the relative requirements of the several kinds of employment
(as against the arbitrary spreading of bonuses, increases, or reductions
over deserving and undeserving classes), and which will not affect the
relative status of employees in the same class.
Assistance in the consideration of estimates through the common use by all
departments of a specific and uniform terminology for classes of posi-
tions, i.e., kinds of personal service.
A means, through this descriptive system of nomenclature, of comparing the
organization requirements of different departments and of the same de-
partment at different periods.
Relief from the pressure of special requests for changes in the salary appro-
priations for individual positions or employees or for special groups or
departments.
The departments will secure:
The immediate relief, so vital to the holding together of the experienced de-
partmental organizations, that will come from the adoption of revised
salary scales for specialized workers (particularly scientific and technical
employees).
CLASSIFICATION
501
Permanent relief from the confusion resulting from the variations in salary
scales for the same work in different departments, with the consequent
tendency toward interdepartmental competition.
A means of expressing their exact organization needs to the appropriating
body-the Congress—and the recruiting body—the Civil Service Com-
mission.
All of the direct and indirect benefits that will come from a fair and business-
like wage policy and a contented personnel.
The employees will secure:
Immediate relief in cases where they are now inadequately paid.
Uniform justice in the relation between the compensation they receive and
the value of their work.
The assurance that all other employees of the Government engaged in the
same work are being treated in the same way.
The assurance that adjustments of pay in the future will have reference to
changes in living costs.
The incentive to effort that comes from knowledge of an assured reward for
successful accomplishment-advance in pay for increased usefulness
in the same class of work and higher compensation upon promotion to a
higher grade of work.
The public will secure:
The assurance that its Government aims to be a model employer, and to pay
each employee in proportion to the value of the work required of him.
The Commission further submits that many additional benefits in
addition to those enumerated above will accrue from the adoption of its
general recommendations for a comprehensive and centrally adminis-
tered employment policy (see Recommendations 16 to 24 in the fore-
going tabulation). It believes that the standardization of working
conditions that will result will be second only to the standardization of
pay in its good results. It is convinced that the personnel policies pro-
posed will insure to the Government a maximum return in loyal and
efficient service for its pay-roll expenditures and will make the public
service attractive as offering real opportunity for a worth-while career.
SECTION VT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
It has been pointed out that the movement toward the establish-
ment of central authorities in the field of charities and correction was
a steady and fairly rapid movement. When in 1913 the United States
Bureau of the Census published a Summary of State Laws Relating to
the Dependent Classes, there were only ten states in which some kind
of state authority had not been set up.¹ At that time there were twen-
ty-one states in which unsalaried boards of a supervisory character
still existed, nine in which salaried boards of control had replaced the
trustees of state institutions, and five in which there were two state
boards: one salaried replacing the trustees of state institutions, one
unsalaried and supervisory. In three the authority was single, either
a commissioner of charities as in New Jersey or Oklahoma or an in-
spector as in Alabama.2 In these three, the separate boards of trustees
of institutions still functioned, of course.
During the period when these questions of organization were being
discussed, there had been developed in the United States a sufficient
interest in rescuing the civil service from the spoilsmen to secure the
enactment of the federal Civil Service Law and laws on the subject
in ten states. The Illinois law was especially fostered by the Illinois
Board of Charities, and in fact the first act (1905) applied only to state
charitable institutions.3
There was during this period also considerable discussion of the
processes connected with the purchasing of the great volumes of goods
necessary for the care of the patients in institutions. And in the open-
ing years of the decade 1910-20 there were the beginnings of a series
I Note should be taken of the fact that while none of these authorities has been
abolished by statute except in those states referred to below (Part III, Sec. I) in
which the government has been departmentalized, in two states, Colorado and
California, under the plea of economy the appropriation for the work of the authority
has been vetoed: California in 1923, in Colorado in 1925.
2 Reference to this compilation was made above in the Introductory Note of
Part II, Sec. I and will again be made in Part III, Sec. I.
3 See above, Part II, Sec. IV, Document 6.
502
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
503
of commissions on economy and efficiency,' there was constant pressure
toward the establishment of a budget system in the stateş,² and there
developed a movement, in which Illinois led off in 1917, toward the
"codification" of the laws governing administrative relationships.3
In the field of public welfare, as in other fields of social relationship,
the art of consumption, the art of spending, is a belated art. As in busi-
ness, industry, domestic economy, such development of cost accounting
as has occurred is very recent, and, in many jurisdictions, either has not
developed or is greatly hampered by the domination of partisan politi-
cal motives. The lack of a widely recognized pattern for reports and ac-
counts makes it not only possible but easy for the corrupt or the in-
competent official to conceal or disguise his misuse of public funds.
In 1901 and the years immediately following, the Board of Trus-
tees4 of the Kankakee Hospital, for example, was able by a transfer
of certain items from the category of "ordinary" to that of "extraor-
dinary" expenditures to conceal many facts connected with the use
of the institution funds which were afterward uncovered by a special
investigation. But even when there is present neither incompetence
nor corrupt motive, the question as to what is sound economy and
whether the state can practice sound economy still remains. There is
still the widespread confusion of economy with parsimony. Persons of
recognized intelligence confuse these issues, and it is not surprising
5
¹ For discussion of this movement, see Arthur E. Buck, Administrative Con-
solidation in State Governments; Leonard D. White, Introduction to the Study of
Public Administration.
2 See Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol.
LXII' (November, 1915), and also ibid., Vol. CXIII (May, 1924). There is now
legislation on the subject in every state. See C. W. Hunt, "Developing Budgetary
Control in Relation to the State Institutions of Pennsylvania," ibid., p. 120.
3 See below, Part III, Sec. I.
4 Mildred E. Buck, The Illinois Eastern State Hospital for the Insane (Kankakee
State Hospital), 1877-1909 (Master's thesis, Graduate School of Social Service Ad-
ministration, University of Chicago, 1926), pp. 121 ff.
5 In the discussion in Social Forces II, 379, of the question of the proposed
federal Department of Public Welfare, one distinguished public official asks the
question as to whether or not our federal tax bill is not high enough, as though the
amount of the bill could be considered independent of the question of what one gets
for the taxes. Even he would probably be willing to have his tax bill increased if
by doing so the lives of mothers in child-birth or of infants could be given a new
security. The following statement points out something of the same difficulty:
"It is difficult to see, for example, how taxes expended for the care of defectives
and delinquents are not a burden. Similarly, many of the expenditures and conse-
504
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
if legislators, who often come from homes and communities in which
the general standard of living and expenditure is, because of the indus-
trial or commercial organization, below the level of true economy, mak-
ing impossible right housing, adequate schooling, or necessary recrea-
tional opportunity, are unable to formulate sound standards of care for
the "wards of the state."
There is, also, lacking a unit of service which can be easily indicated
as to its content and appropriate cost. In the matter of institutional
care for the insane, for example, while a dietetic¹ standard was worked
out and adopted by the New York authorities in 1897-98 and has been
taken over with modifications by other state authorities, there is lack-
ing a definite expression covering space, comfort, care, treatment, loca-
tion, and cost. Obviously the age of the institution and the question
as to the completeness with which it is being used will affect the cost.
Uniform records, accurately kept, carefully analyzed, honestly inter-
preted, and widely published, are the only basis for the progressive
development of a sound economy. Few annual reports of public-wel-
fare authorities fulfil these requirements. When all the other qualifica-
tions for supplying such records may be present, the interests of the
party in power, or the parsimonious denial of adequate clerical help, or
the inadequate organization of the State Printer's Office giving rise to
serious delay, any or all of these obstacles, may prevent the assembling
for the legislature or the public of the facts necessary to positive judg-
ment.
Gara
G
quently taxes made in behalf of education are certainly a burden Not that such
expenditures are unwise, they may be not only socially desirable in themselves, but
if the community can afford them should be made. This, however, is not the ques-
tion. The question is whether or not such expenditures and the taxes caused by
them are burdenless. The report assumes that these expenditures must be made by
private individuals if they are not made by the government. Even if this assumption
were correct, unless the government can furnish the service more efficiently and
consequently at less cost than it could be obtained otherwise, such expense would
involve an added burden. The truth is, however, that unless the government fur-
nished many of the services that it does provide, many individuals would go without
them. The government in taxing the people to provide these services in such cases
adds to the burden of taxes, even although as stated above such increased burden
may be socially justifiable."-Henry F. Walradt, "State Expenditures, Tax Burden
and Wealth: A Review of the Report of the New York Committee on Taxation
and Retrenchment,” National Municipal Review, XV (1926), 545.
¹ See Tenth Annual Report of the New York State Commission in Lunacy (1897–
98), Vol. I, p. 30; see also chap. v, "Preliminary Report on Dietaries for Hospitals
for the Insane," by W. O. Atwater.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
505
I
Certain devices for economy in practice have gained wide accept-
ance. As has been pointed out, the argument for the abolition of the
trustees and the substitution of the Central Board of Administration
rested largely on the claim to economy, especially in the centralization
of the purchasing function. The plan worked out under the Illinois
scheme and widely followed is set out in Document 7.2 The logical
corollary to such a scheme as this is the setting up of a special depart-
ment of economy and purchasing.3 The absence of convincing data is
illustrated by the Utah experience in creating such a department,
which claimed to bring about large economies but failed to secure the
continued support of the legislature.4
The lack of definite facts to which appeal may be made in support
of one or another policy is especially disastrous in the field of public
service. Since there are at hand no facts recognized as conclusive, a
governor can under the plea of economy justify himself in interrupting
by his veto the work of agencies which represent the labor and effort
of years, or which after a period of necessary experimentation and
pioneering are about to enter into the full expression of their power.
To be sure, the plea is not always the basis of partisan success. The
community may reject the program, but after the damage of crippled
activity and interrupted service has been accomplished.
It is of interest, for example, that in each of two states in which
under the guise of economy the public-welfare authorities have recent-
ly been attacked and disorganized, namely, Colorado and California,
the governor who had based his claims to support on this destructive
treatment of welfare agencies was rejected by the people of his state;5
I For Mr. Wright's discussion of the effectiveness of these administrative
arrangements, see above, Part II, Sec. III, Document 8.
2 See Part III, Sec. I, Document 3, for Mr. Wright's comment on the later
Illinois plan.
3 Centralized purchasing is said to be operating in twenty-seven American
states, as many counties, and seventy-three cities. Besides the twenty-seven states
with authorities for centralized buying, eight others maintain an institution in
limited form. See Milton Conover, American Political Science Review, XIX (1925),
73.
4 Document 9.
5 Governor Morley, of Colorado, and Governor Richardson, of California.
Governor Morley did not offer himself for renomination, and Governor Richardson
after a vigorous campaign was defeated in the primary. It might, therefore, be
argued that their policy could be reversed, and the agencies again find their oppor-
tunity. This is, however, quite impossible with the scattered personnel and the lack
506
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
but if the work that was overthrown was socially useful, its interruption
is a catastrophe.
In this section, then, will be found references to the mistaken ideas
of economy that prevailed¹ and still frequently prevail among legisla-
tors, the evidences of needed improvements in methods of public pur-
chasing and the methods adopted in some jurisdictions," the develop-
ment of the budget system, and a comment on the relation between
the welfare department and other departments having to do with the
expenditures for welfare purposes. It is to be hoped that in the future
careful studies in cost and in services may be made, throwing light on
the possible formulation of a unit of care.
Another question frequently discussed is the extent to which the
"pay as you go" system or the "pay as you benefit" system of pay-
ments should prevail: that is, should all costs be met out of current
income or should bonds be issued for permanent improvements? This
question becomes of great importance in the welfare field because of
the very great cost of the buildings.
The movement of civil-service reform was largely a movement for
"keeping the rascals out." The movement for central purchasing was
largely a movement for the prevention of dishonest practices.4 The
movement for budget reform was a movement to replace planless con-
duct of public affairs by forethought and positive adjustment of means
to ends. A budget has been defined as a complete financial plan for a
definite period based on a careful estimate of the expenditures and the
probable income. There must be not only uniform but intelligent ac-
counting, and the accounts must be critically scrutinized. There have
been three main types of budget procedure worked out: (1) the execu-
tive, when the chief executive is responsible (this was illustrated by
Illinois and by twenty-four other states); (2) the board type found
5
of assured and continuous support. Episodes like these point to the very great con-
fusion still existing as to the true character of these services and point to the need
of increased effort in the direction of general information and education.
I Documents 1, 2, and 3.
2 Documents 7 and 9
3 National Municipal Review, XIII, 335, Cummin; p. 430, Zukerman; pp 441,
497 See also ibid, XV, 280. The interesting view is set forth that decreased reliance
on the "pay as you benefit" system, an increased use of current income in meeting
the cost of permanent improvements, is one cause of the increase in the cost of state
government.
4 See Document 7.
5 In 1924, when A. E. Buck wrote.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
507
in Michigan and twenty-one other states; and (3) the legislative type
represented by Arkansas.¹
The economy and efficiency movement emphasized the importance
of reduction in the number of authorities and especially in the reor-
ganization of the state government, either really as in Illinois² and
Massachusetts³ or apparently as in Nebraska,4 in the creation of a
system of departments not unlike the arrangement of departments in
the federal system.5
In planning such reorganization, the Department of Public Welfare
is always included among the departments to be recognized as essential.
But the question arises as to its scope, whether or not under its organi-
zation are to be included not only the old "charitable field of activi-
ties" concerned with the relief of the adult destitute and with chil-
dren but the "mental diseases" and "corrections" as well. It will be
noted that although the Illinois Committee on Efficiency and Economy
did not recommend the consolidation of the correctional organization
with that of public charities," the Civil Administrative Code placed
for the first time all activities connected with the care of convicted
persons in the Department of Public Welfare, while in Massachusetts
there remained after the reorganization three separate departments.
I See Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, Vol. LXII
(November, 1915), J. A. Fairlie, "The Budget in Illinois, p. 85; W. O. Heffernan,
“The Ohio Budget,” p. 91. See also A. E. Buck, "Progress in State Budget Making,"
National Municipal Review, XIII (1924), 19.
2 Part III, Sec. 1, Document 1.
3 Part III, Sec. 1, Document 6.
4 Compiled. Statutes of Nebraska (1922), P. 2249.
5 Part III, Sec. I, Document 2, "Governor Lowden's Message."
'See above Section III, Document 10, and below Part III, Section 1, Docu
ment I.
SPECIAL PROBLEMS: SOUND ECONOMY AND
CENTRALIZED PURCHASING
I. Model Management¹
Allow me to say in conclusion, that, after all is said and done in re-
gard to infirmary-buildings, the highest need of these structures is not
so much model plans as model management. We may attain perfec-
tion in structure, but, if we fail to superadd to it a competent adminis-
tration, we shall have made a very unsatisfactory expenditure of pub-
lic money. A model building and a model administrator should go to-
gether, but, if we are to have but one of these requirements, let us have
a model administrator.
It is strange that this requirement is so rarely recognized; and yet,
strange as it may seem, the selection of an infirmary superintendent is
usually based much more upon his capacity to manage horses and cat-
tle, and make the farm productive, than it is upon his capacity to man-
age men and women, so as to encourage the good and reform the bad,
and to disburse the bounty of the public with a wise humanity and a
wise economy. There cannot be a stronger illustration of an economy
"that saves at the spigot, and wastes at the bung" than to employ a
cheap infirmary superintendent simply because he is cheap.
There are but few positions anywhere that require a larger com-
bination of the best qualities of head and heart than this; and, when
found, it is very certain it cannot be had at the wages of an ordinary
day-laborer. Undoubtedly great extravagance has been perpetrated in
many of our public institutions; but the loss of money arising there-
from is a mere bagatelle compared with the wastage resulting from par-
simony in the employment of those who manage those institutions.
An incompetent superintendent is dear at the smallest salary, and a
competent man is cheap at the highest. Therefore, whilst we urge im-
provement in infirmary-buildings, let us urge, with a double emphasis,
improvement in infirmary superintendence.
The golden rule of economy for all of our public institutions should
be. Retrenchment in construction, liberality in supervision.
¹ Extract from a report by General R. Brinkerhoff, "Infirmary-Buildings,"
Proceedings of the Sixth Annual Conference of Charities (Chicago, 1879), p. 112.
508
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
509
2. Non-Political Administration¹
Another essential requirement is to lift our public institutions out
of the domain of partisan politics. If this cannot be done, at least so
far as our benevolent institutions are concerned, the sooner we abandon
them as a State charge the better, and rely wholly upon private charity
and professional competition. If insane asylums, and orphan asylums,
and idiotic asylums, and deaf and dumb and blind asylums are to be-
come mere nesting places for political parasites, let us away with them
at once and forever. So long as the State occupies the ground, no one
else can do so to advantage. It is clearly right that the State should do
this work, for it is the natural guardian of its afflicted children; but
nevertheless, when a guardian becomes derelict in the discharge of the
duties of this high trust, it is a crime against God and humanity, and
the guardianship should be removed. That crime is committed when-
ever and wherever the administration of any public institution is inter-
fered with for any other reason than for inefficiency or misconduct.
Here in Ohio, our benevolent institutions have been our pride and
glory. Nowhere else upon the rounded globe, in all the ages, has there
been a people who have responded so munificently in taxation in order
that the afflicted and dependent classes should have the amplest oppor-
tunities for cure and care, absolutely free of charge to the recipients;
and yet it is becoming a serious question in the minds of our best
thinkers whether this whole expenditure is not an enormous mistake. It
surely is such if it is to become merely spoil, or booty, with which politi-
cal parties are to reward their henchmen.
There can be no proper efficiency in the management of any benev-
olent, penal, or reformatory institution without cultivated supervision,
trained attendants, and a continued experience, which is utterly unat-
tainable where the tenure of employment is based upon party suprem-
acy.
Any man, or body of men, who would attempt to operate a railroad,
or run a line of steamers upon the basis of political success, would be
considered insane or imbecile; but surely it is equally difficult, and far
more wicked, to operate our great asylums or penitentiaries upon such a
principle. In this judgment I am very sure there will be no difference
of opinion, among those who have had the largest experience in these
matters; and if the voice of this Conference is called for, I have no
¹ Extract from address of the president, General R. Brinkerhoff, "Our Charities
and Corrections as They Are and as They Ought to Be," Proceedings of the Seventh
Annual Conference of Charities and Correction (Cleveland, 1880), pp. 28–30.
510
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
doubt it will be given with absolute unanimity in favor of a non-parti-
san administration of our charitable and correctional institutions.
BUILDING EXPENDITURES
Another self-evident proposition is the need of greater economy,
and more wisdom, in the construction of buildings for the care of our
defective and dependent classes. There is not a State in the Union
where inexcusable extravagances of this kind have not been perpe-
trated. In every State there are large numbers of the insane, the epilep-
tic and the idiotic, who are either wholly deprived of public care, or
else are driven into dens or corners in poorhouses, or into cells in jails,
where proper treatment is impossible, simply because our asylums
have been built to make a show outside, rather than to provide accom-
modations inside. There are some asylum buildings which have cost
as high as $5,000 for every inmate they contain. Here in Ohio, we have
not a single asylum which has cost us less than $1,500 per capita of in-
mates, and we have been economical in comparison with other States.
There is no reason, justice, or common sense in this kind of expendi-
ture; $400 per capita is ample for any asylum, and an amount still
smaller will suffice for the idiotic, the imbecile, and the pauper classes.
Our Central Asylum, at Columbus, cost us $1,800,000, and accommo-
dates 900 patients. The same amount of money properly expended,
would afford accommodations for 4,500. As the matter now stands, we
have six asylums with accommodations for 3,400 insane, and this leaves
from 600 to 800 crowded into poorhouses or jails, or left out altogether.
This, however, is not the worst of it. Our legislators, after so much
extravagance in brick and mortar, have felt a necessity for retrench-
ment somewhere, and have made it by cutting down the cost of super-
vision, which is exactly what they ought not to have done. A log house
with competent supervision is better than a palace without it. The
golden rule of economy in all our public institutions should be retrench-
ment in construction and liberality in supervision. One of the duties
which should be devolved upon every Board of State Charities for its
careful consideration, should be the construction of public buildings,
and no plans should be adopted by local officials without its criticism
and suggestions. Fully one-half the money expended for public build-
ings in the United States is worse than wasted, through the ignorance,
foolishness, or malfeasance of architects, builders, or officials, and it
ought to be stopped
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
511
3. Standards of Care and Management¹
When a visitor first views a State hospital he is impressed by its
size, by its scrupulous cleanliness, by the orderly rows of beds, the
modern plumbing, the easy chairs, flowers and pictures, and the other
appurtenances of a well-ordered hospital; he sees the kitchen, and
tastes the food, and leaves, satisfied that the accommodations far ex-
ceed those of private life. In one sense, they do. Absolute cleanliness,
for instance, need not exist in the home, where, a few people live, but
is essential in a ward, where 50 or 100 careless and irresponsible persons
are sleeping in adjoining beds. The plumbing facilities which would
suit a family of two or three would breed disease immediately if sub-
jected to hospital conditions. The flowers and pictures which give so
cheerful an appearance to a hospital ward are insignificant in cost and
are, in fact, but a poor substitute for the personal treasures of the simp-
lest homes. It is true that the food supplied is ample and of a nourish-
ing character and that it is better than the food often found at the
homes from which our patients come, but it is believed that the food
ration is fairly similar to the average food ration of the homes of our
patients, and that, in any event, it is neither excessive nor of too good
a quality. The aim of the Commission and of the superintendents is to
maintain the patients in a state of cleanliness, to provide them with
some interests and to give them a healthy diet which corresponds with
some closeness to that to which they have been accustomed.
It is interesting to note that in the standards of construction the
hospitals in this State correspond with great closeness to the more
recent hospitals in England and Scotland. In the latter country, es-
pecially, very great care has been taken with and much thought has
been expended upon the proper standard of maintenance for the insane
poor, and it is a fact that although the standard of construction is sub-
stantially the same, the cost of maintenance is about 30 per cent less
than it is in this State. An analysis of the items by which this differ-
ence is gained does not lead one to feel that their system would be suit-
able here. The food consists, roughly speaking, of bread, butter, and
coffee for breakfast; bread, butter and tea for supper, throughout the
year. Meat three or four times a week for dinner, and the other days,
puddings, or soups, potatoes and bread. This standard of diet, prob-
ably coincides with the standard of domestic diet for the poorer classes
¹ Extract from Eleventh Annual Report of the New York State Commission in
Lunacy (1898-99), I, 12-15.
512
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
in Scotland and England, but is far below that which our laboring peo-
ple are accustomed to. Another great item of saving arises from the
fact that they have followed the custodial rather than the curative
system to a large extent, and at all, except the modern institutions,
the patients are given no liberty from year's end to year's end, except
a daily tramp within the four walls of an airing court, where they can
be supervised by a few attendants. This effects a considerable saving
in the number of attendants required, and an additional saving of at-
tendants is effected by the lower rate of wages which prevails in Eng-
land and Scotland. The wages of attendants there and here, of the
same grade, may be contrasted as follows:
English asylums, maximum charge nurses, male
Scotch asylums, maximum charge nurses, male
New York asylums, maximum charge nurse, male
$230
180
396
While it is not considered desirable to wholly separate the promis-
ing from the hopeless cases, the hospitals of this State make in fact
considerable difference in their treatment from an economic standpoint.
This separation can be further emphasized when the hospitals shall con-
tain special hospital buildings for the acute insane, but that cannot be
expected until the overcrowding which now exists has been remedied,
and until the new construction rendered necessary by the transfers
from Hart's and Blackwell's islands and from Flatbush has been com-
pleted, and all the insane have permanent accommodations.
V
For the insane it is maintained that every available means tending
to final recovery should be provided, not only for humane reasons,
but
as an economical policy, the State being rewarded for each dollar ex-
pended by many dollars saved in subsequent relief from custody and
maintenance, by the return of the recovered patient to self-supporting
life in the community. There can be no contention upon this point.
It is proved theoretically, and is shown by practice, and in the data
presented by the Commission in this and former years. In estimating
the average cost of maintenance of all of the insane, it should be borne
in mind that this includes the treatment of the acute class, which, in
some instances, may seem excessive, and which adds largely to the
whole average per capita cost. It is still the habit of superficial critics
to compare the present per capita cost with the former county asylum,
or almshouse, cost of maintenance, without bearing in mind that the
almshouse cases were merely custodial, and that the cost of their main-
tenance did not include treatment. To give a single illustration: A
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
513
case of acute delirium—a form of insanity running its course in a few
weeks-admitted to a State hospital, requires at once and continuously
during the acute attack an extraordinary expenditure. A severe case
will require the care of four nurses-two at night and two for day—
the most nourishing food and the best stimulants. These cases also
frequently soil and destroy bedding and clothing, and their treatment
calls for unexpected requirements, difficult to estimate until the need
is created. It is fair to assume that an extreme case would cost during
the active stage $25 per week, whereas the average per capita cost is
$3.50 per week. In these cases, however, the hope of recovery lies in
the most careful and expert treatment in the early stage of the disease,
else the patient lapses into dementia, and becomes a burden upon the
State for the remainder of the insane life, which has been shown to
average twelve years. It requires no expert computation to show that
the curing of this patient, at whatever cost, is a great ultimate saving
to the State. The Commission has, therefore, encouraged the most ad-
vanced and enlightened treatment for the curable class, and, although
discountenancing needless extravagance, has not discouraged the appli-
cation of every means that promised an aid to the treatment of the cura-
ble cases.
In the standard sought for the class who have passed the period
when recovery may be anticipated, the Commission has recognized
the need of caution to prevent the application of the hospital standard
to this class. It is held that humane care involves comfortable and
sanitary living and clothing, reasonable attendance and medical super-
vision. The food problem is treated elsewhere in this Report. An effort
has been made to establish the most economical dietary on a physiolog-
ical basis, and this it is believed will soon be crowned with success.
The Commission has endeavored to avoid the hospitalizing of this class
of the insane, who form the mass of those in custody. A proper stand-
ard, neither too high nor too low, has been sought to be established, and
it is believed with fair success. The results as shown by the recovery
rate, and the number discharged improved sufficiently to live at home,
have been achieved through a proper expenditure for treatment and
care. There is sufficient precedent to show that any material reduction
of these expenditures would modify these most desirable results.
514
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
4. True Economy v. Retrenchment¹
Education involves outlay and expense. Some thing more than
mere food, shelter and clothing are required. The officers needed for
educational work must be specialists, and have education, experience
and personal character. This is especially the case in institutions for
the care of the epileptic, for feeble-minded children and in those of a
reformatory character. Such officers are not easily found, and when
found their services cannot be secured for the same salary paid to others
whose duties are simply custodial. An erroneous view of the State's
purpose has retarded development and has hampered well considered
and adjusted plans of education in some institutions.
Those who urge economy as a plea for reduced appropriations fre-
quently ignore the fact that the effort of the State in behalf of these
wards is one of the most intelligent and rational economy. Its purpose
is to take into its special charge the defective and the delinquent and by
furnishing them, to such extent as may be practicable, with what cir-
cumstances have previously denied them, to place them in society
later as more intelligent, useful and self-supporting citizens. Without
such education and training they must swell the ranks of the depraved
and criminal classes, into which are gathered those elements most
destructive to society, and fraught with danger to the State. A wise
economy and forethought, therefore, have led to the adoption of such
educational policy by the State, and it should not be hampered and
thwarted by ill-considered and narrow views of retrenchment.
5. Institutional Service²
A. DIETARY REVISION
At the commencement of the year each institution prepared its own
dietary schedule. There existed a difference in the character of the
meals served at each institution, due to the individual management of
each particular institution. In general, however, the meals served suf-
fered from three distinct faults: Lack of variety, waste, and bad cook-
ing. The per capita per diem allowance for inmates contemplated in
the budget for the year was only 16 cents. This allowance was smaller
than in any previous year. The average per capita per diem cost of
¹ Extract from Committee on Education, Thirty-sixth Annual Report of the
New York State Board of Charities for the Year 1902, I, 15-16.
² Extract from Report of the Department of Correction of the City of New York
for the Year 1914, pp. 53–56.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
515
feeding prisoners in the year 1913 was 17.98 cents; practically eighteen
cents.
At the outset of the year, in January, the wardens of the several
institutions at a meeting called to discuss this subject, stated that it
would be impossible to live within this 16 cents per capita allowance;
that if it were attempted riots and internal institutional trouble would
result.
It was at once seen that the question of the prisoners' meals de-
manded immediate attention, both for economic reasons and for the
welfare of the inmates. It does not need emphasis to point out that
proper nourishment is a consideration of any correctional mental or
moral work.
A prisoners' menu, which characteristically represented the menu
served at all the institutions, before a revision of the dietary was at-
tempted, was as follows:
For breakfast, every day, bread and coffee, with hash added on Sunday and
Thursday.
For supper, every day, bread and tea, with prunes added three times a week
(Monday, Friday, and Saturday) and jelly added once (on Wednesday).
For dinner, every day, potatoes and onions; on four days, Sunday, Monday,
Wednesday and Thursday, beef, carrots, and turnips added. On one
day, Saturday, mutton and peas were added; and on Friday, fish, pickles,
and coffee.
Under this form of menu the expense in the year 1913 was consid-
erably greater than the per capita allowance of 16 cents per diem for the
year 1914, as allowed by the Board of Estimate and Apportionment.
As a result of a study immediately initiated on this most important
matter, a large amount of waste in both the cooking and the serving of
the food was disclosed. Studies were made as to the amounts of food
left over from each meal at several of the institutions, and the surpris-
ing fact was discovered that in bread alone the table waste represented
over fifty per cent of the bread issue.
Again, although the meat allowance per capita was very large, the
waste in its preparation was considerable. The meat issue being the
most expensive constituent of the meal and the issue per capita so large,
prevented any latitude in the serving of other foods. The cooking in
most of the institutions was decidedly on an elementary plane.
Briefly expressed, the institutional menu in vogue through all the
institutions was a menu apparently devised so as to entail as little
trouble as possible in the cooking and serving of meals. Little initiative
516
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
or consideration for the dietary welfare of the inmates seemed to have
been exercised in its formulation. The principal complaint received
from prisoners was the lack of variety, and the repeated serving of the
same meals day in and day out.
To change this condition, after an extensive investigation, a totally
different menu for use in all of the Institutions was promulgated
and quantitative tables were originated upon a per capita basis, so
that the amounts of unprepared food which were to be used in the prep-
aration of the revised dietary were definitely prescribed. The cooks
of the different Institutions were instructed in different methods of
cooking and in the way that the food should be served. The new diet-
ary as promulgated for use in all the Institutions included meals as
follows:
A breakfast consisting of bread, milk, and coffee, with cereals varied from
day to day, and hash added twice a week, a supper of bread and coffee
with the addition of such varied foods as baked beans, boiled rice and
syrup, macaroni and cheese, prunes and apple sauce; and a dinner in which
there were potatoes and bread, four varieties of soup, four varieties of
meat, and vegetables likewise varied from day to day.
Seasonable variations from this dietary were permitted, so as to
allow an even greater variety or to meet new market conditions. The
issues of unprepared food to the Institutions were all based upon this
established dietary, so that a control was maintained over the use of
such food by storehouse and central office supervision. The installa-
tion of this menu and quantity tables has resulted in giving unanimous
satisfaction to the inmates and at the same time has decreased the cost
of meals to within the budget allowance of 16 cents per capita per diem.
B. CLOTHING
While it is necessary to clothe prisoners in a distinctive uniform,
it is not desirable that the uniform be unpleasantly and unnecessarily
conspicuous. The "prison stripe" uniform found in use for the suits of
both Penitentiary and Workhouse men prisoners was decidedly con-
spicuous and abnormal.
As the placing of prisoners in "prison stripes" was felt to be unduly
degrading and effected no useful or beneficial purpose, the abolition
of this uniform was immediately decided upon. A considerable amount
of preliminary study was required, however, before the change could
be accomplished. A uniform had to be devised which in both color and
cut would not be confused with other uniforms, but which would also
be sufficiently distinctive for its purpose. Specifications were finally
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
517
determined upon and a plain cadet gray cloth was prescribed for the
Penitentiary men inmates and a grayish blue for the Workhouse men.
On account of the supply of stripe uniforms on hand at the time of
change, it was not possible to make an immediate and total change, but
during the year most of the men have been equipped with this new uni-
form.
It is intended to place all men in the plain uniform upon their en-
trance to the institution, but in the event of any misconduct, the plain
uniform will be taken away and the "prison stripe" uniform substitut-
ed, so that the bad conduct prisoners will be distinctively clothed. In-
cidentally it may be mentioned that the new cloth for the clothing has
been purchased at a saving over the price paid for the "prison stripe"
cloth.
The uniform provided for the Workhouse and Penitentiary women
prisoners was made from a wide stripe bed ticking. This ticking was
the same as that used for the making of mattresses.
As these bed-ticking dresses were unsightly, dresses made from a
small striped pattern of seersucker have been substituted. This seer-
sucker, while distinctive, is not too conspicuous in pattern and is cer-
tainly more appropriate for dresses than the bed-ticking found in use.
The uniform for matrons and women orderlies, in charge of the prison-
ers, has also been changed from a blue check seersucker to a plain white
and blue chambray. This change has been made so as to provide a
greater distinction between the dresses of the women prisoners and the
dresses of the matrons and women orderlies.
The shoes and the underclothing for men and women prisoners are
both made in the Manufacturing Industry shops at the Penitentiary.
The underclothing is warm, thick and suitable, but improvements are
contemplated which will make it a little more comfortable. During
the year the specifications for both men's and women's shoes have been
revised and materially changed. The shoes turned out in the latter part
of the year were decidedly superior to those turned out in the earlier
part, the workmanship and stock both being improved.
6. The Nature of True Economy
A. APPROPRIATIONS¹
The neglect of past legislatures to make adequate appropriations
for necessary buildings and extraordinary repairs has resulted in a
¹ Extract from "Twenty-second Biennial Report of the Osawatomie State Hos-
pital, Osawatomie, Kansas," Second Biennial Report of the Kansas Board of Admin-
istration for the Two Years Ending June 30, 1920, pp. 8–10.
518
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
cumulative necessity for these at a time when labor and material is ex-
tremely high.
Most of the recommendations for building improvement and re-
pairs embodied in this Report have been presented in previous reports,
some of them dating back as far as ten and twelve years. The legisla-
ture has consistently ignored the urgent necessity of the repairs and
improvements sought, with the net result of causing a state loss.
amounting to hundreds of thousands of dollars. Their dilatory policies
and tendency to shift their immediate responsibility to the shoulders
of their successors may be regarded as the chief cause of this condition.
There has been a decided shirking of responsibility in regard to our
charitable institutions. Legislators have regarded their function more
in the light of conservators of public funds than of constructive states-
manship. They have viewed with alarm every request for funds to
facilitate the work and improve the physical condition of some of the
state's charitable institutions. After the most cursory and superficial
inquiry into the wisdom and necessity of proposed improvements, they
have arbitrarily decided questions vital to the interest of the state on a
basis of immediate economy. Their purview has not comprehended
ultimate economies in administration or efficiency of operation from
the expenditures of funds guaranteeing these in the future. The opin-
ions and recommendations of those whose only interest concerned effi-
cient, humane and constructive administration have been viewed as
immature, trivial and unimportant.
The need for improvements in the past has been presented in the
most urgent and earnest manner, both by the governing boards and
the heads of the institutions, yet in many instances recommendations
vital to the welfare of the institution have been arbitrarily refused by the
legislature, until hopelessness, discouragement and impaired efficiency
have supplanted the hope of constructive and creditable administra-
tion.
Some years ago the state legislature changed the name of this in-
stitution from the "Osawatomie Insane Asylum" to the more high-
sounding title "Osawatomie State Hospital." Since that time they
have done nothing to support the new title of Hospital. The institu-
tion remains today as it was at its foundation in 1863-an asylum, a
place of detention, without means of administering curative treatment
to the unfortunates consigned to its care, notwithstanding repeated
and earnest requests for the necessary equipment. It has maintained
a corps of qualified physicians, expending large sums annually for their
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
519
salaries, but has refused the means by which their science could be best
applied for the amelioration of mental suffering and the restoration
to health and vigor of the mentally afflicted coming under their charge.
Hundreds of cases that, through this pernicious penny-wise policy,
have become life charges against the state, could and should have been
restored to mental competency and useful citizenship.
The ultimate economic loss to the state will be a thousand per cent
greater than the initial cost of the equipment required for its preven-
tion in the erection of adequate and properly equipped buildings for
the reception and treatment of acute cases and for the housing of its
various important industries.
Absolute justice and fairness demands that the mentally afflicted
coming to this institution should have an equal chance of mental re-
covery with those going to the Topeka Hospital, which under existing
conditions is impossible. The estimated cost of an equipped building
for the reception and treatment of acute cases, similar to the one con-
structed at Topeka, at the time this building was first recommended,
was approximately $150,000. At the present time, with the marked ad-
vance in prices of labor and material, the same building with its equip-
ment would probably cost $400,000.
The same penurious policy has resulted in the loss of over fifty
head of thoroughbred Holstein cattle from tuberculosis at this institu-
tion in the past seven years. The plea for a sanitary dairy barn, in
order that this tremendous loss might be remedied, has met with per-
sistent refusal. The cost of such a building when first recommended
would have been approximately $15,000. Up to the present time our
loss has about equaled this amount and the cost of constructing the
same dairy barn has more than doubled.
The necessity for these two buildings cannot be denied. It is readily
seen that immediate versus ultimate construction leaves no ground for
argument in favor of the latter. We have no assurance whatever that
the cost of labor and material will decrease perceptibly in the next two
years.
What argument can reasonably be advanced that the great com-
monwealth of Kansas cannot afford to protect its institutions against
decay, its herds against the ravages of disease and its wards against the
utter hopelessness of custodial incarceration?
The time is now here when it seems that these conditions must be
met squarely. The policy of the past of disregarding the carefully con-
sidered and thoroughly determined needs of these institutions, presen-
520
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ted by the Administrative Board, after all possible data have been se-
cured as to necessity and cost, the pursuit of the slogan "Economy" to
the point where efficiency is suppressed; the vicious, unproductive and
expensive junkets of various legislative committees to investigate needs
that they cannot possibly intelligently grasp in the limited time given
to their survey, must be recognized as both fallacious and pernicious
and should be superseded by more effective and direct methods. The
comparison of present construction cost for improvements that were
imperative ten years ago, and which have met with continued refusal
by past legislatures, unquestionably seriously reflects on the legisla-
tive erudition of those to whom the people look for a wise and judicious
administration of its great public responsibilities.
It is to be hoped that the co-operation of the present legislature
can be secured in order that the delinquencies of previous legislation.
can be redressed. A spirit of co-operation born of constructive earnest-
ness and an attentive consideration of the recommendations submitted
are essential, in that these recommendations necessarily involve ex-
penditures far in excess of any hitherto submitted, and in their sub-
mission it should be fully understood that their urgent need has been
previously presented and that they are vital to the preservation, pro-
gress and efficiency of the institution. That the state should continue
to suffer an economic loss that is obviously reparable is incogitable. We
have ever had as members of the legislature men of broad minds and
high principles whose sole desire has been to serve the state in a profi-
cient and progressive manner. Yet when these men, alert and co-oper-
ative in all other progressive measures, were brought face to face with
the imperative necessity of appropriations for construction, the neces-
sity for which was indubitable, they have transmitted this burden of
responsibility to their successors rather than resolutely face the obli-
gation themselves. Political and factional disputes have at other times
made these institutions their innocent victims. It has also been the vi-
cious custom of some of the institutions to seek appropriations far in
excess of the amount they candidly expected to obtain, while others
have hewed to the line and limited their recommendations to their ex-
act and vital requirements. This no doubt has tended to confuse the
legislator, and by making the problem difficult of determination has
worked a serious retroactive hardship on all institutions. A hastily
prepared and hurriedly performed junket is not conducive to a full
understanding of even the most superficial needs of these institutions.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
521
Rather should the responsibility be centered on the Administrative
Board, whose requisite capacity and familiarity equips it for the proper
assumption of this responsibility.
The administrative head of an institution is actuated by a desire to
have his institution assume a creditable standing with similar institu-
tions not alone in his home state, but elsewhere. It is inconceivable that
there should be even a covert purpose on the part of an executive to dis-
sipate the funds of the state. The recommendations submitted are, as a
rule, the cumulative consequence of years of intimate association with
and mature consideration of the requirements of his institution; and fur-
thermore, the recommendations of the institutional executive are sub-
jected to the scrutiny and censorship of the Board of Administration, so
that when his recommendations finally make their appearance before the
legislature they embody the fully digested discernment of men skilled
in institutional requirements, whose fidelity precludes the recommen-
dation of any measure nugatory in the welfare of the institution, and
whose obligation to the state is as keenly felt as is that of he legislator.
B. APPROPRIATION REPAIR FUNDI
TIO
There are constant demands for repairs about an institution. In
the early days of this Hospital, when the buildings, the steam and
water pipes, etc., were new, these demands were not urgent, but after
a period of years repairs are frequent and some of them imperative.
Some industrial plants set apart a percentage of the amount invested
in equipment as a repair fund and strive to keep the buildings, machin-
ery, plumbing, etc., always in first-class condition. If this is wise policy
in a money-making enterprise it is good policy for the state. Certainly
it is unwise to allow buildings and machinery to get in such condition
that large sums must be spent upon them when frequent small expen-
ditures at the proper time would accomplish the same result. The old
proverb of "a stitch in time" applies to state work. On the other hand
the maintenance fund is commonly exhausted by ordinary expenses
and a constant effort to make both ends meet is necessary. Needed re-
pairs are put off till a more convenient season, which seldom comes. A
definite repair fund should be created, either as a part of the mainte-
nance fund or as an entirely separate fund.
¹ Extract from "Ninth Biennial Report of the State Hospital for Epileptics,
Parsons, Kansas," Second Biennial Report of the Kansas Board of Administration for
the Two Years Ending June 30, 1920, p. 7.
522
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
7. The Illinois Organization for the Purchase of Supplies¹
Inasmuch as no statement has heretofore been published showing
the method pursued by the Purchasing Committee in purchasing sup-
plies for the eighteen State charitable institutions, a brief outline is
hereinafter given showing how these matters have been handled.
Appointment of Purchasing Committee.-Pursuant to the provisions
of the Act creating the board, annual meetings of the Board of Joint
Estimate were held Jan. 1, 1910, Jan. 2, 1911 and Jan. 1, 1912. At the
1910 meeting, Mr. Thomas O'Connor and Dr. J. L. Greene were
unanimously elected as members of the Purchasing Committee to act
with the fiscal supervisor in purchasing the supplies for the institu-
tions. At the 1911 meeting of the Board of Joint Estimate, Mr. Thomas
O'Connor and Dr. H. B. Carriel were unanimously elected members
of the Purchasing Committee. At the 1912 meeting of the Board of
Joint Estimate, Mr. Thomas O'Connor and Dr. H. G. Hardt were
unanimously elected members of the Purchasing Committee.
Quarterly or Annual Estimates.-The first step taken is to call for
the quarterly or annual estimates of supplies that are needed by each
of the State institutions. These estimates are made at the institutions
by the managing officers on a prescribed form.
These estimates are received at the office of the Board of Adminis-
tration approximately one month before the Purchasing Committee
advertises for bids. The estimates are examined and revised by the
f scal supervisor, one copy of which is filed with the State Auditor of
Public Accounts, one copy is retained by the Board of Administration
and one copy is returned to the institutions. All revisions, made by the
fiscal supervisor, are subject to the approval of the Board of Adminis-
tration. The managing officers of the institutions can appeal from the
decision of the fiscal supervisor to the board. In making the revisions
of the estimates, the fiscal supervisor has to consider what merchandise
is on hand; the amount of merchandise to be received; delay in transit
of supplies and the estimated population of the institutions. In order
to avoid purchasing an excessive supply of merchandise, in making
these revisions a ration table has been used. This table was secured
from the state of New York. The rations per day for one insane person
for the principal articles of diet are: Fresh and salt meats and fish,
10.5 ounces; farinaceous food, 13 ounces; potatoes, 10 ounces; eggs, 14
egg; eggs extra for 10 per cent of population, egg; milk, 1 pint; milk
12
¹ Extract from Report of the Board of Administration of the State of Illinois
(1910-12), pp. 83-85, 95-98, 101–7.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
523
3
8
extra for 20 per cent of population, 1 pint; butter, 1.5 ounce; butter
extra for 10 per cent of population, .05 ounce; cheese, 3 ounces; sugar,
2 ounces; tea,ounce; coffee, ounce; dried fruit, 4 ounces. The
above ration table does not represent what is actually fed to the pa-
tients, for the reason that many of them are invalids and do not require
the quantity of the rations given, but on the whole the average shows
that these quantities are required.
ADVERTISEMENTS FOR BIDS
The law requires that the purchase of all supplies, except for emer-
gency purposes, shall be decided by competitive bidding and competi-
tive proposals shall be advertised for in one or more newspapers of gen-
eral circulation, published in each one of the seven largest cities in the
State.
•
In addition to the purchase of general supplies for the institutions,
the Purchasing Coinmittee has provided for the purchase of perishable
supplies and stock feed upon bids received monthly by the managing
officer of each institution. The advertisement covering these purchases
is inserted in a prescribed form.
Specifications. As provided for in the advertisements, bids are
received upon specifications prepared and sent out by the Purchasing
Committee. In the purchase of these supplies there are seventy-eight
different classifications.
•
The Purchasing Committee has a mailing list of approximately
eight hundred names to which specifications are mailed regularly each
quarter. Specifications for all supplies are mailed to bidders upon re-
quest. Competition in the purchase of all merchandise is desired and
firms and individuals, desiring to submit bids, are requested to send in
their names to be placed on the mailing list.
As provided for in the advertisements, the bids are publicly opened
at the time specified and all interested bidders or their representatives
are permitted to be present and examine bids of their competitors.
Tabulations.—An extra force of approximately twenty clerks tabu-
late the bids for the Purchasing Committee. This usually takes a day
and night shift of employees for a period of about two weeks. During
one quarterly tabulation period it was estimated that in the grocery
classification alone there appeared approximately 110,000 entries.
Awarding of Contracts.-The tabulations sheets are taken to the
warehouse of the board where all quality samples are filed and the
Purchasing Committee then makes the award of the contracts to the
J
524
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
successful bidders. Under a statutory provision, supplies and material
produced in the State are preferred in the purchase provided that such
preference is not made at the expense of the State. All awards of con-
tracts are made by an aye and nay vote of the Purchasing Committee
and each item on the tabulation is marked by a rubber stamp.
In determining the successful bidder, the question of quality is an
important factor and in certain purchases the committee has been ad-
vised by those having technical knowledge of the value of such articles.
For instance, in purchasing coffee and tea the Purchasing Committee
employs an expert who tests the coffee and tea in the cup and reports
to the committee the best article, submitted by the different bidders,
the articles being graded in the order of their quality. The samples.
submitted to this expert are marked by number only, without the
names of the bidders, and the expert's report to the Purchasing Com-
mittee is by number of the sample only. The storekeeper, at least
twenty-four hours in advance of such test, files at the office of the board
a list of the firms and individuals submitting samples with the sample
numbers opposite each name. This list is sealed by the storekeeper in
such a manner that it cannot be opened without detection. When the
matter is considered by the Purchasing Committee, both the report of
the storekeeper and that of the expert are opened at the same time and
the contracts are awarded accordingly. The expert employed by the
Purchasing Committee is also in the service of the federal government
in the same capacity in judging teas and coffees purchased by the
United States Commissioners of Indian Affairs at Chicago.
·
Emergency Purchases. The law provides that the Purchasing
Committee shall have the power to purchase supplies for emergencies
without advertising. In such cases the Purchasing Committee certifies
in writing to the Board of Administration that an emergency exists and
the board authorizes the purchase. The constant effort of the Purchas-
ing Committee and the board has been to reduce the emergency esti-
mate purchases to the minimum. Frequent injunctions have been
made upon managing officers to foresee the needs of the institution, so
that only unforeseen occurrences will be covered by such purchases.
The emergency estimate purchases, unless closely supervised and held
down to the indispensable articles which cannot be avoided, may be-
come a prolific source of the evasion of the law requiring competitive
purchases.
Receiving Supplies at Institutions.-Each institution is furnished
with copies of specifications covering the purchase of supplies. On
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
525
each invoice of merchandise covering shipments or deliveries made to
the institution the receiving officer certifies as follows: "The full quan-
tity of merchandise entered on this invoice has been received and
complies with the specifications (or sample furnished)." On the same
invoice the chief clerk is required to certify as follows: "The prices,
supplies and amount, with extensions have been supervised, inspected
and found correct.'
""
Before any bills are paid they must bear these certificates. In
many cases quantity samples are forwarded by the Purchasing Com-
mittee to the institutions for comparison with the shipments and this is
oftentimes supplemented by visits to the institutions from the Pur-
chasing Committee and its storekeeper with a trunk of quality sam-
ples which are compared with the supplies received at the institutions.
In judging tea and coffee, samples from the shipments are sent to the
expert, employed by the Purchasing Committee, who examines them
and reports as to whether they conform to the sample filed by the suc-
cessful bidder receiving the contract. Where the receiving officer, or
the Purchasing Committee, has reason to believe that the supplies re-
ceived are not in accordance with the specifications, or it cannot be de-
termined without a chemical analysis, samples are obtained from the
shipments and are either forwarded to the State Analyst of the Pure
Food Commission, at Chicago, or to commercial chemists who report
the result to the Purchasing Committee. Among these supplies, which
have been analyzed and tested, are the following articles: Allspice,
blankets-woolen, butterine, cinnamon, corn meal, flour, coal, ginger,
lemon extract, mustard, milk, lubricating oils, pepper, laundry soap,
horse feed, soap chips for laundry use, vanilla extract, vinegar and
white lead.
The acceptance or rejection of the supplies is based either upon
the certificate of the receiving officer, the report of the expert, or
chemical analysis. The Purchasing Committee has rejected a large
quantity of supplies which have not conformed to the specifications.
The principal articles are flour, coffee, tea, butterine, soap chips for
laundry use, milk and blankets. Samples submitted for analysis are
forwarded to the chemist by number only without the name of the
contractor.
•
Payment of Bills Withheld for Rejected Supplies. In order to secure
an adjustment of differences between the contractors and the Purchas-
ing Committee, where supplies are not accepted, the payment of all
vouchers is withheld until such an agreement is reached. .
526
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Payment of Bills for Supplies.—If supplies are accepted, vouchers
are issued at the different institutions covering the invoices filed by the
contractors which are forwarded once a month to the Board of Admin-
istration for examination and are then transmitted to the State Auditor
of Public Accounts, who issues warrants for the payment of the bills
and mails them direct to the contractors.
8. The State Auditor of Colorado Urges a Purchasing
Department¹
STATE PURCHASING AGENT
The necessity for a department of State Purchasing Agent for the
purchase of all supplies and equipment for all institutions, depart-
ments, boards and commissions is becoming more apparent every year.
I believe that the creation of such a department would result in the
annual saving to the taxpayers of no less than $500,000 every biennial
period. On account of the many agencies now authorized to purchase
whatever may be necessary in the conduct of the political state, retail
prices are generally charged. This is demonstrated daily by perusal
of all bills presented to the Auditing Board for approval, which find
their way to the State Auditor's office where warrants are written. I am
informed that the creation of a Purchasing Agent department in one
state resulted in a saving to the taxpayers of equal to $300,000 the first
year, in another state, $500,000 in the first biennial period, and in the
state of Massachusetts approximately $2,000,000. Many states have
now created such a department and through correspondence with the
State Auditors of other states, I am informed that legislation creating
a State Purchasing department will be enacted during the present
meeting of the General Assembly. It should be borne in mind, how-
ever, that in creating this department the appointive representative's
term of office should be not less than six years, in order that a thorough
system could be established and a sufficient amount of money appro-
priated for salaries, traveling expenses, and administration purchases.
If taxes are to be reduced we must find methods of curbing the great
outgo of public moneys and creating this department would add an-
other step in line of conservancy now manifested by all business inter-
ests in the state.
¹ Extract from Biennial Report of Arthur M. Strong, Auditor of the State of
Colorado, 1922–24, p. 12.
ECONOMY AND EFFICIENCY
527
A State Purchasing Department Reports Progress¹
During the first biennium the organization was perfected and for
the past two years there have been few changes except when it was
found possible to reduce the cost of operations. We have continued
to operate in the two divisions, the Finance and the Purchase. There
has been no material change in the keeping of records, or the general
routine of work. Past experience has enabled us to better systematize
the work, and by closer supervision we will have been able to pass
through the present biennium at considerable less cost. The first two
years the Department was run at a total cost of $45,000, while the
present biennium will not exceed $34,000, though fully as much busi-
ness will have been done.
PURCHASING
The purchasing department has functioned well during the past
two years and the great volume of business has been done with dispatch
and to the general satisfaction of the departments of state and the
firms with whom the business has been done. We have continued to
follow the policy established in the beginning, that of purchasing as
far as possible within our own State and giving all dealers an equal
opportunity to bid on state requirements.
From April 1, 1921, to November 30, 1922, a period of 20 months,
the Department issued 14,704 purchase orders; while from December
1, 1922, to November 30, 1924, a period of 24 months, there were
issued 31,891 purchase orders. For the latter period the total purchases
for the State Institutions and Departments aggregated $1,626,467.97,
distributed as follows:
Utah Agricultural College
Branch Agricultural College (1 year-1924).
Utah School for the Deaf and the Blind..
•
•
•
$162,139.35
7,205.81
46,704.58
32,552.28
66,579.74
State Fair Association..
State Industrial School.
State Mental Hospital. .
191,740.94
10,981.20
Utah National Guard..
Utah State Prison.
University of Utah.
108,639.04
185,225.13
Departments (including Road Commission)..... 814,699.9c
¹ Extract from Second Biennial Report of the Department of Finance and Purchase
of the State of Utah for the Years 1923–24, pp. 3–5. Attention may be called to the
fact that the legislature of 1925 failed to make any appropriation for the work of
this department.
528
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SAVINGS
By centralized purchasing the state has become a specially pre-
ferred purchaser, receiving preferential discounts of from five per cent
to fifteen per cent under regular wholesale, which, with quantity pur-
chasing, competitive bidding and the elimination of the retail pur-
chases, has saved to the state, over the old method of doing business,
an average of more than twenty per cent, or in actual money, approxi-
mately $400,000 in the two-year period.
In our former Report we pointed out many examples of savings in
purchases and could point out many more here if it were necessary.
I do desire to call your attention, however, to the fact that our coal
contract this winter calls for three thousand tons of slack coal to be
delivered in the bins of the University of Utah and the State Capitol
at $3.20 per ton. The Salt Lake City School Board contracted last fall
for seven thousand seven hundred tons of screened slack at $4.28 per
ton. The price of screened slack to the State is only fifty cents more
per ton than straight slack. Coal purchased for all other institutions
is contracted for F.O.B. the mines.
In addition to the saving made in the purchasing of supplies and
materials for the various Departments and Institutions of the State,
there are many savings made in the controlling of purchases. This
Department has been under the necessity of refusing to purchase many
items that have been requested, because it was felt that the department
or institution requesting the purchase could well get along without the
items asked for, or that they could not afford to buy them, or in some
cases, items requested could not properly be charged to the state. It is
interesting to note, however, that there have been many times fewer
requests for such items during the past two years than there were for
the previous biennium.
SECTION VII
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Reference has been made a number of times to situations with
which the authorities of two or more states were concerned. It has not
been uncommon for one jurisdiction to make use of institutional facili-
ties in another jurisdiction. The successful plea for federal aid made by
the schools for the deaf on the basis of their interstate service has been
set out.¹ Rhode Island made use of the New Hampshire institutions
for the care of the insane;² Oklahoma sent its prisoners to the Kansas
penitentiary.3 These relationships might be relatively simple, since
neither state is under other compulsion than that dictated by a con-
sideration of its own interests. The one could withdraw, the other
could exclude. But there are possibilities of serious difficulties arising,
and two present-day problems are of special interest.
The first of these is the question of a difference of opinion and of
practice in a matter which calls for continuing action by both jurisdic-
tions. This is illustrated by Documents 1-5 setting forth the differ-
ence between Massachusetts and New York in the treatment of non-
resident poor. Since there was no superauthority, conference and dis-
cussion were resorted to in the attempt to secure agreement.
A second question is that of attempted co-operation in the carry-
ing out of a project of concern to all parties to the attempt. Documents
6-8 illustrate an attempt to bring about regional organization for the
more efficient development of prison industry and for the co-ordination
of the demand for the product of prison industry. Up to the present
time, the actual results of this effort on prison industry seem very
slight. Developments in the direction of reciprocal services and widen-
ing ranges of agreement should, however, be closely watched by stu-
dents. Especially should partisan changes tending to interrupt the
development be deplored.4
1 Part I, Sec. III, Documents 1 and 2.
2 Part II, Sec. II, Document 9.
3 First Annual Report of the Commissioner of Charities and Corrections of Okla-
homa (1908), pp. 4-15; Second Annual Report (1909), pp. 8-14, 101-93; Report of
the Trustees of the Kansas State Prison (1910), p. 10.
4 The recent changes in personnel in the New Jersey and Pennsylvania De-
partments should be closely studied with this question in mind.
529
530
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
In documents given below,' attention is called to the very great
volume of the demand for goods on the part of state institutions and
agencies, and of kinds of goods which it should be possible to produce
with prison labor without disturbing the general market for the prod-
ucts of "free" industry. Business and labor are, however, organized
without regard to state lines; and the necessity of organizing prison
industry, not only under the limitations set by business and labor, but
under those fixed by the political jurisdiction as well, has created a
situation to which the welfare organization seems not to be adequate.
Attention may, however, be called to the effort made by the
Pennsylvania authorities under the Pinchot administration to place
the welfare activities against a background of historical, psychological,
and social interpretation² and to the authority given by the legislature
to dispose of prison products outside the state. Note should also be
taken of the attempt worked out in California to pay wages to certain
groups of their convicts who can be employed in road-building and
other extra-mural undertakings; and of the attempts in Colorado to ex-
tend the construction operations of the prison to which Colorado owes
so much of its magnificent system of roads.4 But the matter really
pertinent to this volume is rather the ingenious proposal of the Na-
tional Committee on Prison Labor that the states organize in re-
gional groups for the purpose of regulating in advance and of ab-
sorbing afterward the products of their prison industry.5 In accordance
with these proposals, regional conferences of governors have been held,
beginning with an Intermountain Conference on the Allocation of
Prison Industries at Salt Lake City, April, 1924. This has been fol-
lowed by a conference in Atlanta, at which Alabama, Georgia, Missis-
sippi, North Carolina, and South Carolina were represented; by a con-
ference in Trenton, with Pennsylvania and Maryland present; a
Add
I See Document 6.
2 General reference may be made to the very able series of bulletins published
during the administration which may probably be obtained by applying to the
Department in Harrisburg
3 See Document 8 See also Part III, Sec. I, Document 15.
4 Governor William E Sweet devoted space in his message both in 1923 (see
Inaugural Address [1923], p 22) and in 1925 (Biennial Address, p 3) to this subject.
5 E. Stagg Whitin, "A Plan for the Interstate Sale of Prison Products,” Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CXXV (May, 1926),
260-64 Dr. Whitin is executive director of the National Committee on Prisons
and Prison Labor. The headquarters of this organization are at No. 4 West Fifty-
seventh Street, New York City.
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
531
conference in Salem, of Oregon with Washington; in Boston, with
Connecticut, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, and Vermont present; and
one in Kentucky, with North Carolina and Tennessee present. In all
the conferences, business, industry, and labor take part.
The organization of the regional groups has been supplemented by
the incorporation of an agency for the purpose of marketing the goods
produced. This is known as the Associates for Government Service,
Incorporated, and is described by Dr. Whitin as incorporated "to make
the exchange of prison goods among the states and to help develop the
purchasing methods of the states." Document 8 contains the statute
enacted by the Pennsylvania Legislature to enable the Department of
Welfare to market products of the prison industry outside the state.
INTERSTATE RELATIONS OF PUBLIC WELFARE OFFICIALS
A. THE RELATION BETWEEN THE STATE BOARD OF
ONE STATE AND THE STATE BOARD OF ANOTHER
WHEN THERE IS A CLEAR ISSUE OF POLICY
The Prelude¹
IMPORTATION OF BLIND, IDIOTIC, CRIPPLED, EPILEPTIC, LUNATIC
AND INFIRM PAUPERS
I.
The observations and investigations of this Board have clearly
established the conclusion that it has long been the practice of many of
the cities and towns of different governments of Europe to send to this
country their blind, idiotic, crippled, epileptic, lunatic and other infirm
paupers, incapable of supporting themselves, in order thereby to avoid
the burden of their support. To this end, a steerage passage
lands one
of these helpless creatures upon our shores, and thus relieves the lo-
cality whence they were sent, of twenty, thirty, and in many cases,
even more continuous years of their hospital treatment, nursing and
care. European countries find it much cheaper, therefore, to deport
these classes of their dependents to America, than to provide support
for them through life. The greater part of these, reaching this country
by the seaports of the United States, land at New York, and, while
some of them find their way into other States, most of them ultimately
become life-long incurable dependents in the hospitals, insane asylums
and other public charities of this State. Moreover, large numbers of
them come to this country by the way of Canadian or other British
provincial ports, whence many of them drift, or are sent into this State
to become permanent burdens upon its public charities.
To such an extent has this practice of sending confirmed helpless
paupers to America increased, that it cannot be denied; indeed, little
or no attempt at denial, or even concealment in the matter is made.
These various classes of chronic dependent aliens, come under the fre-
quent observation of the members and officers of this Board in their
visits to our insane asylums, hospitals, poor-houses and other charita-
ble institutions, and the fact of their fraudulent shipment to this coun-
¹ Extract from Thirteenth Annual Report of the State Board of Charities of the
State of New York (February 5, 1880), pp. 41–43.
532
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
533
try, has been fully established. Within the past.two years, the evil has
attained such proportions, that the Board has recently felt called upon
to bring the subject to the attention of the Department of State at
Washington, and to the representatives of this State in Congress.
The matter has also been brought to the notice of the proper authorities
of many of the other States, and has everywhere attracted marked
attention.
And the extent to which this evil has now increased suggests, also,
the need of protective legislation. Since the collection of head money
on immigrants by our Commissioners of Emigration has been de-
clared by the United States courts unconstitutional, this exotic burden
on the tax payers of the State has become much more onerous, and has
steadily increased. The classes referred to are in no wise the legitimate
objects of our charity, and the State ought not to be burdened with
their support; on the contrary, the task of supporting them should be
thrown back upon the countries in which they originated. To this end,
every blind, idiotic, crippled, epileptic, lunatic or other infirm foreign
pauper, designedly thrust upon us, if in condition to encounter the re-
turn voyage, should immediately be sent back to the place whence he or
she came. By a rigorous enforcement of this rule, it is believed that
the evil complained of would be greatly reduced.
To accomplish this end fully, Federal legislation will probably be-
come necessary, and a bill to this effect has recently been introduced
into Congress. Until appropriate legislation is had, if the State Legis-
lature were to provide a small special fund to be used by this Board
with power to send such helpless persons when found in our institutions
of charity, to the countries from whence they were shipped, it would
serve largely to protect the State and counties against these distressed
classes, especially those reaching us by the way of Canadian and other
British Provincial ports, and greatly lessen the burdens referred to.
The expense of maintaining a single one of these expatriated paupers
in an asylum or poor-house one year, would provide for the return to
their homes of five of them. To return them would not only be hu-
mane and just, but an immediate economy. It would also save the
State and counties future heavy annual expenditures in supporting
them.
Attention is invited to the report of the proceedings of the confer-
ence between a committee of the Massachusetts State Board of Health,
Lunacy and Charity, and this Board hereto appended, for further in-
formation bearing upon this subject.
534
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
2. The Charge¹
A person passing through the State of New York from Ohio, not
a pauper, but a person seeking employment, goes to Massachusetts to
get employment, becomes dependent, asks assistance to be sent back
to the State of Ohio where he formerly resided, and where he has a
settlement. Massachusetts says: "No; we will send you as far as Al-
bany, in the State of New York. We will drop you down there without
a cent of money, without any means of making further progress, and
you must rely upon the charities of the citizens of New York for fur-
ther help." Massachusetts, in the first instance, places an obligation
upon us for the support of a person for whom we have no obligation
whatever, a person who was never a citizen in our State and never a
dependent in our State; who was never in our State in the condition
leaning upon the verge of dependence even, but who, while in the State
of Massachusetts, becomes dependent and is dropped by the authorities
of Massachusetts in our State for the first time by the act of Massachu-
setts alone; not by the act of Providence, and not by any act that we
are in obligation bound to respect, but by the act of Massachusetts,
who has dropped upon us a burden for however long a time it may
extend. We cannot yield to that point.
3. Proceedings of a Conference on the Subject of
Non-Resident and Alien Paupers²
The policy of transferring paupers from one locality to another,
for the purpose of evading their support, is traditional. It existed under
the old parish system in England, and has come down to us through
Colonial times. Until a comparatively recent period it prevailed in our
own State, in the shipment of dependents from county to county, or in
the "passing on" process.
This policy, though regarded as being at the time in the interests
of economy, was found to be delusive, and attended with serious evils,
as the public burden remained the same, whether borne by one locality
or another, while the individual was thereby demoralized, and the hope
of his recovery from dependency greatly lessened. Thrown out of em-
ployment in a neighborhood where he has a settlement and is sur-
¹ Extract from Thirteenth Annual Report of the State Board of Charities of the
State of New York (February 5, 1880), p. 225.
2 Ibid., pp. 213-23, 249-50.
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
535
rounded by those who would naturally render him assistance in case
of dire extremity, he seeks a distant locality in the hope of finding occu-
pation. Here, owing to sickness or other causes, he is obliged to ask
for relief. Instead of being tided over his present difficulties, or re-
turned to his friends, the machinery of official charity comes into oper-
ation and assumes to discharge its responsibility by placing him beyond
its immediate jurisdiction. Under such circumstances, with his capital
of character unavailable, being looked upon even with distrust, it is
natural that he should become despondent, and abandon all hope of
regaining a position of respectability.
This policy is further believed to be pernicious in its influence upon
society as fostering selfishness, and presenting a constant temptation
to avoid legitimate liabilities. The sympathies which outflow from the
knowledge of the wants of the poor are suppressed, and indifference
supplants a better and more generous sentiment.
Another disadvantage of this policy is, that it fails to correct those
evils which form the source of pauperism and crime, where correction
is possible, namely, at the fountain-head; for if each locality was neld
responsible for the wrongs of this character originating within it,
the remedy would be more efficacious, because applied at home; but
if the paupers and criminals of one neighborhood can, by some official
process, be shifted upon another, the idea of retaliation is suggested—
a course which only multiplies the evil and increases individual suffer-
ing.
The Board, from its observations and interviews with the superin-
tendents of the poor and other officers interested, having become con-
vinced of the unsoundness of this policy, exerted itself in connection
with these officials, to establish a more enlightened, humane and eco-
nomic method of action, which in 1873 resulted in the enactment of the
State Pauper law.
This law empowers the Secretary of the State Board of Charities,
in case it is considered for the welfare of the individual, and the interest
of the State, to return to their friends or places of legal settlement in
other States or countries, such sick, infirm, or disabled dependents as
have not resided in any county of the State for more than sixty days.
The removal, except in clear or undisputed cases, is usually effected
after a correspondence with parties residing in the locality to which the
individual is sent. The operations of this law have been found to be
economic and humane. Through its instrumentality families have been
rescued from pauperizing, disabled soldiers sent to the National Homes,
536
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
lunatics escaped from asylums of other States taken into custody and
•
· returned, instead of being left a tax on the counties in which they were
found. On the other hand a considerable number of aged and infirm
persons, aimlessly wandering in their homelessness, have for the brief
remaining period of their existence been sheltered in our State alms-
houses and thus the obligations of humanity have been decently dis-
charged.
The execution of this law has enabled the Board to gain a more in-
timate knowledge of this class, and has revealed the fact that the State
of New York is being burdened with large numbers of paupers, sys-
tematically forwarded from other States, especially from the State of
Massachusetts. The geographical position of New York City with her
connecting lines of railroads and steamboats, also the fact of her being
the principal port of entry for immigrants to this country, over which
the same close scrutiny is not exercised as in the rural districts, renders
her expenses from this source exceptionally heavy. These are the great-
er from the fact that the State of Massachusetts, the immigration
into which from foreign countries by the way of New York city is
large, holds this State responsible for persons landing at her port from
foreign countries when becoming dependent in that State, sending
such at once back into the State of New York. The magnitude of this
evil led the Board to address a communication upon the subject to the
State Board of Charities of Massachusetts on the 1st of November,
1877, making complaint regarding the transfer of certain classes of
persons by her public officials to New York State, and protesting
against the practice.
To this the Massachusetts Board replied, that the system of pauper
removals did not originate with that Board, but was devised by the
Alien Commissioners and enforced by the Legislature in 1860; that
it had been retained because the Board believed it to be just and
equitable.
Further correspondence followed, and upon the reorganization of
the State Board of Massachusetts, under the name of the Commis-
sioners of Health, Lunacy and Charity, an invitation was extended,
through Commissioner Lowell of the New York Board, to a confer-
ence in New York City, which was held November 12th, 1879.
At this conference Massachusetts was represented by Hon. Charles
F. Donnelly and Dr. Robert T. Davis, Commissioners of the State
Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity; Dr. H. B. Wheelwright, Su-
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
537
perintendent of Out-Door Sick Poor; Mr. S. C. Wrightington, General
Agent.
New York was represented by William P. Letchworth, President;
John C. Devereux, Vice-President; Martin B. Anderson, LL.D., Ed-
ward C. Donnelly, Samuel F. Miller, Theodore B. Bronson, John H.
Van Antwerp, Ripley Ropes, Josephine Shaw Lowell, Commissioners
of the State Board of Charities; Charles S. Hoyt, Secretary; and James
O. Fanning, Assistant Secretary.
Upon invitation there were also present, Geo. J. Forest, President;
H. J. Jackson, Secretary; S. Kaufman, President German Emigration
Society, representing the Commissioners of Emigration; and William
Blake, Superintendent of Out-Door Poor, representing the Commis-
sioners of Charities and Correction, New York City.
This conference is deemed important, as those participating were,
by reason of their official relations, practically conversant with the
subject, and because the views of the Massachusetts Board and the
policy of that State were fully presented. It is believed that this com-
plicated question will be best understood by giving the discussion in
its essential details.
The conference was opened by the president of the New York State
Board who stated that it had become manifest to the New York Board
that the custom of Massachusetts in transferring paupers into New
York State had resulted in the imposition of a grievous burden. It
was felt in a greater or less degree by every county in the State, but
more especially by the city of New York. The several classes of per-
sons complained of were as follows:
First.-Persons belonging to other States and Canada transported
to this State by Massachusetts authorities, and left here without the
means to proceed to their destination.
Second.-Persons who were born in this State, but long resident
of Massachusetts, returned to this State upon becoming insane or
otherwise diseased, so as to require public aid.
Third.-Immigrants landing at the port of New York, but settling
in Massachusetts, sent to this State when sick or otherwise incapaci-
tated.
Against this practice the State of New York reiterated its protest
and renewed its complaint against the Commonwealth of Massachu-
setts. The State Board of Charities of New York would be pleased to
know from the Commissioners of Massachusetts, what would be the
538
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
future policy of their State in regard to the class of persons named, and
whether its Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity, were disposed and
had the power to correct the evils complained of.
The Commissioners of Massachusetts at the outset asked for the
precise data upon which the complaint was founded.
The Commissioners of New York preferred to discuss the principles
involved with a view to shortening the controversy, and in the hope of
arriving at some satisfactory basis for the just and reciprocal transfer
of the classes named between the two States.
The Massachusetts Commissioners still insisting upon some statis-
tical data, Commissioner Donnelly of New York referred to the Massa-
chusetts State Reports, showing that nearly 20,000 paupers had been
discharged by the Massachusetts authorities, of whom 7,000 were, by
the testimony of the same reports, delivered in New York in ten years.
That, he thought, was of itself a fact serious enough to satisfy the Com-
missioners that the complaint rose to the magnitude of a grievance.
An analysis of the cases would show that a certain number were luna-
tics and paupers of different classes. He thus contended that their own
reports were a sufficient allegation.
I
Secretary Hoyt, of New York, stated that the reasons actuating
the Board in not presenting a larger number of cases in support of the
allegation were, that in the correspondence of 1877, already referred to,
the facts were admitted and an attempt was made by Massachusetts
to justify her action. In support of this statement the following extract
from a letter of 27th of November, 1877, in reply to the original com-
plaint of the New York Board, was read:
It would be unjust to ask us in the case of a pauper tramping from the
west through New York to Maine, or to the Canadas, to send him the whole
distance back to his home. We pass him to New York in the expectation that
you will send him along to Pennsylvania or Ohio according as the circum-
stances may require, as you would send a man tramping from the Canadas
through Massachusetts to New York back to Boston, for us to pass along to
Canada. Or suppose a stowaway on a coast-wise vessel from Washington
lands at Boston and tramps to New York, would you not feel that you had
performed your whole duty by returning him to Massachusetts? . . .
Perhaps some better system than the present might be adopted, but it
should be done only after a free conference of the parties interested and the
¹ [The statistical information referred to by Commissioner Donnelly, which had
been presented to the Board in 1877, by Assistant Secretary Fanning, is contained
in appendix, pp. 279-80. It is necessarily omitted here.]
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
539
present system should we think be retained until another is substituted. Cer-
tain it is that we are constantly receiving paupers from New York as well as
from other States, sent us for no other reason than that they made Boston
their port of landing, or were born and formerly resided in this State.
President Letchworth, of New York, thought the discussion should
be confined to the principles of equity involved. Was the action of
Massachusetts right or wrong, referring to the first class complained
of, viz.:
First.-Persons belonging to other States and Canada transported
to this State by Massachusetts authorities and left here without the
means to proceed to their destination.
Commissioner Donnelly, of Massachusetts, assumed that this class
referred to tramps who had entered Massachusetts from New York.
Commissioner Donnelly, of New York, denied that it was confined
to tramps. It included paupers and insane of all descriptions belonging
to States other than New York, having no claim upon that State, who
being found in Massachusetts, and assumed not to belong there were
turned over to New York.
Commissioner Donnelly, of Massachusetts, said that Massachu-
setts was charged with removing from her State to New York, paupers
who had no claim on the State of New York. He would like to hear
the charge substantiated.
COMMISSIONER LOWELL, of New York: Is it denied by the Massa-
chusetts Board?
COMMISSIONER DONNELLY, of Massachusetts: So far as we have
knowledge it is not done, that is those who have no claim upon the State
of New York. We say that persons who have come to us from New
York can rightfully be returned to New York. We claim we have sent
no persons from Massachusetts to New York who have not come from
New York to us.
COMMISSIONER DONNELLY, of New York: Massachusetts assumes
that every person who gets into the State from ours, belongs to our
State, and is sent back without further inquiry.
The Massachusetts commissioners still called for exact information
as to the persons complained of, and Commissioners Miller and Ander-
son, of New York, while expressing their disappointment at the atti-
tude taken by Massachusetts, suggested the propriety of the secretary
reading a few specimen cases.
Secretary Hoyt, of New York, then read the particulars of the case
of Henry Morrisett, as follows:
540
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Henry Morrisett, who, with his wife and infant child, was found in dis-
tress at the Boston and Albany depot, in the city of Albany, November 24th,
1873, being sworn before J. J. Gallup, justice of the peace, deposed as follows:
"I was born in Quebec, Lower Canada, and am 27 years of age; my occupa-
tion for the past six years has been a clerk in the lumber business, in the em-
ploy of Henry Denning, lumber dealer and ship builder, in Quebec; being
thrown out of employment I left Quebec in August, and went to Boston, Mas-
sachusetts, thinking I might find work; after looking in vain for employment
and spending the little money I had laid by, I was compelled to apply to the
Commissioners of Charities, who sent me to Albany, N.Y.; wife and myself
are in feeble health and without means, and I am brought to the extremity
of asking charity.”
The family was committed to the Albany City State Alms-House, No-
vember 25th, 1873, and on the 28th furnished transportation to their home in
Quebec, Canada.
Mr. Morrisett declared that he had never before been in this State, and
that neither he nor his wif, who, as well as their child, was also born in Can-
ada, had relatives or friends in this State.
Commissioner Donnelly, of Massachusetts, did not claim the right
of sending persons of that sort who had never been in New York, but
there might be equity in returning persons who had been placed within
the limits of Massachusetts by New York.
SECRETARY HOYT, of New York: Suppose the person had passed
through New York on his way to Massachusetts, paying his own fare,
and not coming into the hands of the officers of the poor of the State
of New York, would you deem it right to return him to New York?
COMMISSIONER DONNELLY, of Massachusetts: That has been our
practice. We pass a pauper back, from State to State, until he reaches
his place of settlement. Now we are ready to hear any reasons that
may be urged against it. It is an abuse for Massachusetts to send a
pauper to New York who has not been in New York State. We deny
that it has the sanction of the Massachusetts authorities.
COMMISSIONER MILLER, of New York: Suppose the case of a per-
son proceeding from Ohio by rail to Massachusetts, passing through
New York in transitu merely, do you claim that going by rail through
New York to Massachusetts confers an obligation on the State of New
York in regard to that person?
COMMISSIONER DONNELLY, of Massachusetts: New York gets the
benefit of the transportation. Your corporation lands him on us, and
we claim the right to return him again. But cases of exactly that char-
acter are rare.
¡
541
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
For a better understanding of the nature of the acts complained of
the Peblow case was read by Assistant Secretary Fanning, as follows:
On August 30, 1877, Henry Peblow called at the office of the State
Board of Charities in Albany about 9 o'clock A.M., and made application
for aid. Says he is an Englishman by birth, aged 28 years, has a wife, and one
child 21 years old. He came to this country six years ago, landed at the port
of New York. For nearly four years last past he has worked in a paint and
oil shop in Chicago. For two years, for John F. Weare & Co., 205 Randolph
St. This summer was thrown out of employment by the closing of the house,
and with his family went to Boston, Mass., to look for work. He arrived in
Boston July 16, and sought for work among the correspondents of his old
employers but was unsuccessful in this and in all other attempts to find em-
ployment. He used up his money, sold his spare clothing and articles of
furniture, and at last made application to the authorities for assistance. He
stated that Mr. Wrightington gave him a pass for himself and family to come
to Albany. He says he objected to coming here as he was an entire stranger.
He wished to go to Detroit where he had friends who would assist him. The
Massachusetts authorities assured him that he would be sent on from here
and directed him to apply at this office. They did not furnish him with any
means of support and the family have been without food for six hours.
"My wife sold the shoes from her feet to procure our last meal." They
arrived in Albany at 10 o'clock last night and spent the night in the depot.
He has no money nor means of support whatever.
STATE OF NEW YORK
CITY AND COUNTY OF ALBANY
1} s
SS.:
Henry Peblow being duly sworn says that he is the identical Henry Peb-
low named in the foregoing statement. That said statement has been read
to him and that the facts therein set forth are true.
Subscribed and sworn before me,
this 30th day of August, 1877,
JAS. O. FANNING
HENRY PEBLOW
Notary Public in and for Albany Co.
COMMISSIONER DONNELLY, of Massachusetts: Does the affidavit
state that he came by way of New York from Chicago?
ASSISTANT SECRETARY FANNING, of New York: It does not state
it, but the facts are that he passed directly from Chicago to Boston.
The Massachusetts commissioners drawing attention to the omis-
sion in the affidavit to state whether the party came from Chicago via
New York and whether he made any stay in the latter place, said that
such cases reached the extreme verge of the obligation, and alluded to
542
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the responsibility of railroad corporations having charters in Massachu-
setts, for bringing persons into the State who became paupers within
one year. They were required to take them out of the State again at
their own expense. The Massachusetts commissioners claimed that it
rested with New York to show that their practice in this regard was
inequitable and erroneous.
COMMISSIONER ANDERSON, of New York: If a person is found in a
New York alms-house, who is a resident of Ohio, Illinois, or any other
State, we return that person to his residence wherever it may be, if he
has friends there and wishes to go. If he is sick and weak, he is sent
under an escort. If he is an insane person, we put him under proper
care and deliver him to the authorities to be placed in an insane asy-
lum. The habit of sending paupers from parish to parish in past years,
as practiced in England and some of the States of the Union, we sup-
pose to have become obsolete. It has been the origin, to a great extent,
of the tramp system. We have abolished this transfer system in the
State of New York. We have thought it a very improper one, and we
have supposed that it was eminently fit that it should be abolished as
between States. This is clear, however, that no obligation is assumed by
the State of New York by the mere fact of a man having landed in New
York City from a foreign port. When a person goes, in good faith, to
reside in Massachusetts, or in any other State, lives there for a number
of years, it seems to us that such locality is bound to construct their
settlement laws on such principles that if he become dependent he will
be taken care of. If he has not acquired a legal settlement, the State
has a right to choose between two alternatives, either to maintain him
for the period of his life, or to send him to the locality which by the
usage of civilized nations is morally bound to take care of him. But in
order to get rid of such a burden, there is no equity or justice in Massa-
chusetts imposing it upon an innocent State which has no color of
obligation to maintain such person. This proposition is so plain and
clear as to need no argument. It is a principle recognized in interna-
tional law always as between independent States, that the transfer of
paupers from one country to another, under such circumstances, is a
violation of international comity. The attempt of Massachusetts to
impose the support of a pauper belonging to Ohio or Canada upon the
State of New York, cannot be justified. We ask that Massachusetts,
if it has a State pauper who is not a resident but belonging to the State
of Ohio, that it shall transfer him to Ohio direct, and not to New York.
I think this proposition will be perfectly clear, and will be admitted
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
543
by all to be just and fair, also when applying to immigrants from for-
eign countries. A person being an immigrant landing at the city of
New York proceeds directly to Massachusetts, and becomes a resident.
there, should, if reduced to pauperism be cared for by Massachusetts,
or be sent by Massachusetts to the country from which he came. The
mere fact of his landing at New York creates no obligation for that
State to support him when he becomes dependent. We recognize, of
course, the binding force of the contract of our Emigrant Commission-
ers, arising from head money, to support him for five years. But even
that contract lapses after that period expires. A very large proportion
of the paupers which have been transferred by Massachusetts to this
State, have had no claims whatever upon the New York Emigrant
Commissioners.
COMMISSIONER LOWELL, of New York: In this case the welfare of
the pauper himself ought to be considered. The claims of common hu-
manity are to be taken into consideration apart from the great interest
of the State. Massachusetts has, in these two cases read for the infor-
mation of the gentlemen, not only pursued a selfish policy, but has
been utterly negligent of the welfare of the individual. If it be true as
stated, she has pushed these persons out of the limits of Massachusetts
with no regard whatever for their welfare. Both of these cases were of
decent respectable people. If Massachusetts chose to support them it
would be perfectly proper to do so, but she had no right to send them
to New York under the circumstances.
Commissioner Donnelly, of Massachusetts, urged as a great diffi-
culty in dealing with the question of transfer the fact that Massachu-
setts had no jurisdiction beyond her State line. He referred, by way of
illustration, to a party whom they proposed transferring to Philadel-
phia, who, when in New Jersey, objected to go farther, and calling upon
the authorities of that State to interfere, was set at liberty. He claimed
that there was a legal difficulty in following the policy recommended
by New York.
Commissioner Miller, of New York, replied that in New York the
party was sent out of the State with his own consent.
Commissioner Donnelly, of Massachusetts, said they would not in
such a case consult his volition, but send him on. He further claimed
that Massachusetts supported a large number of paupers in her lunatic
asylums and alms-houses who had no legal claim upon the State, sim-
ply on the ground of their having family ties in the State which it was
not desirable to break up.
544
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Commissioner Davis, of Massachusetts, thought that by the action
of the Emigrant Commission, New York admitted a certain responsi-
bility for parties arriving at the port of New York who were liable to
become paupers. She claimed to take charge of them for five years
after their arrival.
I am merely illustrating this as an equitable principle. It is easy to un-
derstand that many such cases arrived in the port of New York, and that
while they may have been a considerable length of time out of New York
State, and moving about other States, as tramps, that their stay in Massa-
chusetts had been very short. Certainly, Massachusetts has a right to pro-
tect herself from this class of immigrants. If they remain a certain length of
time in Massachusetts, long enough to become substantially inhabitants, I
suppose we should be willing to admit the responsibility of Massachusetts
for their maintenance; but when they have arrived but recently there, we
have the right to deport them. Suppose there should be an international law
with reference to foreign immigrants, the utmost we could do would be to
have certain treaty regulations making their port of exit responsible, or the
country from which they came, and to send them back there, they in their
turn disposing of them according to their treaty obligations. That would be
our position today. New York is the port from which this mass of paupers
and criminals radiate over this country. We may get, and we do get, a very ·
large part of it, and we are entitled to protection. It seems to me that we
could very easily come to some agreement with reference to paupers who are
recent immigrants to this country through this port. It seems also that there
you must assume the responsibility, and that there must be a limit to our
responsibility. I cannot see the impropriety of our State law. In regard to
the other class, where persons have gone the length of New York, or through
certain portions of New York, upon railroads, who prove to be paupers al-
most on their arrival in Massachusetts, and where we have no rights beyond
the limits of our own State, it seems that there is a propriety in transferring
those persons to the point from which they came; in other words, so far as we
are concerned, there is a responsibility resting upon New York for the trans-
fer through her limits into our limits of this pauper class which may in time
become a very great grievance, and Massachusetts would be justified in re-
turning them by the way they came. As regards the equity involved in trans-
porting these persons from point to point, take a case--a pauper comes from
Illinois, passes into Ohio, from there into Pennsylvania, from there into New
York, and finally passes from New York into Massachusetts. Now it seems
to me to be asking a great deal of Massachusetts to take that person, send
him through New York, through Pennsylvania into Ohio and back again into
Illinois. New York has taken the responsibility in importing that person into
Massachusetts. Her railroads have had the advantages of the transportation,
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
545
and it seems to me that an abuse would much more readily occur if a different
principle were adopted than the one adopted by Massachusetts. We should
like to have you show us wherein our error consists.
•
COMMISSIONER ANDERSON, of New York: That principle is the
descendant of the old English principle; that every man born in Eng-
land, however much he may be naturalized in the United States, was
liable to be pressed into the English navy. This settlement law of
Massachusetts seems to be an extension of that principle.
COMMISSIONER LOWELL, of New York: It is quite interesting to
see what the impression in England is of their own settlement laws. In
1847 a committee of the House of Commons passed the following reso-
lutions:
1. That the law of settlement and removal is generally productive of
hardships to the poor, and injurious to the working classes by impeding the
free circulation of labor.
2. That it is injurious to the employees of labor and impedes the im-
provement of agriculture.
3. That it is injurious to the rate-payers by occasioning expense in liti-
gation and removal of paupers.
4. That the power of removing destitute poor persons from one parish
to another in England and Wales be abolished.
Those were the resolutions of the committee in 1847. There was no
legislation following.
This year another committee reported July 10, 1879, the following
recommendation:
Your committee recommend that in England the law of removal should
be abolished, and that for the purposes of poor relief, settlement should be
disregarded, with the following exception:
That with respect to sea-port towns, persons landing in a destitute con-
dition and immediately applying there for relief be chargeable to the place of
their settlement for non-resident in-door relief.
So that the outcome of the resolution, referring to the practice and
experience in England, is the recommendation that the whole thing be
done away with as an injury to the poor. One great point made by the
local board of inspection in their testimony before this committee in
July last, was, that it was an impediment to the working people, the
fact that they could, when they became chargeable, be removed and
that they had no right in the place where they were working. It seems
to me as we are discussing this question, and as the Massachusetts laws
546
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
are the outcome of the English laws, that it is well for us to see the view
in which they are held in England.
DR. WHEELWRIGHT, of Massachusetts: They solved that problem
in 1847, by sending over numbers of their sick here.
COMMISSIONER DAVIS, of Massachusetts: In England it is a simple
matter of convenience between localities all under the same govern-
ment. Here, of course, it is a question between States, and it is differ-
ent. As Mr. Wrightington said, it is very evident that we do not have
common premises upon which to argue. Our laws must be assimilated
first.
A
COMMISSIONER LOWELL, of New York: The main point of this in-
quiry of the committee of the House of Commons, was in reference to
the Irish paupers, because the laws of England and Ireland were en-
tirely different. The English may remove paupers. The Irish may not
remove them. Consequently there was complaint on the part of the
Irish that paupers from England were being removed to Ireland, and
Ireland had no power to do the same thing. And this injustice toward
Ireland was one of the points of inquiry, and one point was whether
they had not better have the law of Ireland rectified, giving them power
to remove paupers. But the decision was the other way.
4.
The Massachusetts Point of View¹
DIVISION OF TRANSPORTATION
Here it may be proper to state that a Committee of this Board has
been in conference with the State Board of Charities of New York,
touching the matter of transportation of paupers who come from New
York to Massachusetts. The subject was first brought to this Board's
attention in a communication from Mrs. Lowell, of the New York
Board, in August last, although some correspondence had been pre-
viously carried on between the New York Board, and the former Mas-
sachusetts Board of State Charities.
At the conference which was held in New York City in November
of this year, the practice in Massachusetts, of removing beyond its bor-
ders paupers having no legal settlement in the State was complained
of, and the persons removed were described and classified by the New
York Board of Charities as follows:
First, Inhabitants of Western States and of Canada, temporarily
resident in Massachusetts, having entered the State from New York,
¹ Extract from First Annual Report of the State Board of Health, Lunacy, and
Charity of Massachusetts (January, 1880), pp. l-lii.
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
547
who, desirous of returning to their homes, were furnished transporta-
tion to New York, and instructed to apply to the authorities of that
State for transportation to some point beyond its borders.
Second, Former residents of the State of New York, though later
residents of Massachusetts, who were returned to the first mentioned
State, when applicants for public aid.
Third, Foreigners landing in New York, and subsequently residing
in Massachusetts, who were returned to the former State when appli-
cants for public aid.
As to the first class it was answered, that the fact of their applying
for public aid, usually soon after their arrival in this State, was pre-
sumptive evidence that, if they did not seek immediate relief on their
arrival, they were in that condition of mind or body soon to require
support or relief; and it was therefore unjust to ask Massachusetts to
be at the whole expense of returning them to their usual homes, if be-
yond New York; that they were passed to New York because they had
previously passed from that State to Massachusetts, and that State
would be relieved from the expense of their support by passing them
on to the State from which they first entered its borders (Massachu-
setts having no jurisdiction of them after they had been passed beyond
her State line); that if the persons referred to tramped from New York
to Massachusetts, then their entrance, and their subsequent demand
for public aid here was consequent upon the negligence of the authori-
ties of New York; and if they came by public conveyance, then a law
in New York similar to that upon our statute-book would compel the
corporation by whose means the person was originally brought into
New York to provide the means for his removal.
To the second complaint it was answered, that the settlement laws
of the two States are so unlike, that there seemed no other way of
equalizing the burden, for the reason that, though but a single year's
residence in New York is the necessary qualification for acquiring a
legal settlement, yet an absence from the State for the same period ab-
solved that community from all further liability in this relation; whilst
in this State a longer period is necessary to acquire settlement, but,
once acquired, the liability to support or relieve continued from genera-
tion to generation.
To the third complaint it was answered, that foreigners falling into
distress in States other than that in which they landed, are returned to
their place of landing; and that this is conformable to an arrangement
entered into by the authorities of Massachusetts, with the New York
548
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Commissioners of Charities and Corrections twenty years ago, which
should not be abrogated without at least some attempt being made for
some other equitable adjustment of the case.
The Conference adjourned without effecting any settlement of the
questions discussed. Since the return of the Committee to Boston, and
the presentation of its report, an invitation has been extended to the
New York Board for a further conference on the subject, to be held at
Boston.
a
5.
The Effect of the Conference¹
The effects of all deportations by foreign local authorities, chari-
table societies, families and individuals, of alien criminals, lunatics and
paupers, upon the city of New York, as the port of entry, are both di-
rect and indirect, and thus doubly disastrous. Those who stay become
charges upon the city. Those who go to other States may be assisted
by the authorities of such States to return to New York City, as was
often done in former years. Such breaches of inter-State comity by
Massachusetts, resulted in the conference between the Commissioners
of Health, Lunacy and Charity of that State and our State Board of
Charities, held in the city of New York, November 12, 1879.
Among the points brought out by this conference, are the following:
Ist. Massachusetts had deported by State authority, exclusive of
those sent out by its towns and cities, during the period from 1870 to
1878, seven thousand and five paupers to the State, and mainly to the
city of New York.
2nd. Massachusetts held New York responsible for the support of
persons who have become dependent in that State, but had no settle-
ment in New York, and had never been in New York, except as pas-
sengers in transit for Massachusetts.
It is difficult to say how far benefit has resulted from that confer-
ence; but if Massachusetts still continues such deportations to any
great extent, they are secret and indirect, through other doorways into
the State, though the intended and ultimate destination of such as-
sisted foreign paupers may be the city of New York, as the original
port of entry.
¹ Extract from "Special Report of the Standing Committee on the Insane in the
Matter of the Investigation of the New York City Asylum for the Insane," Twenty-
first Annual Report of the New York State Board of Charities for the Year 1887, pp.
252-53. See Jeffrey R. Brackett, "The Transportation Agreement," National
Conference of Social Work (1926), p. 532.
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
549
B. REGIONAL ORGANIZATION OF STATES FOR THE USE
OF THE PRODUCTS OF PRISON INDUSTRY
6. A National View of the Problem of Prison Industry¹
For many years, as you know, there has been a great controversy
over the question of employment. There have been private prison
contracts, against which the American Federation of Labor in 1881
took an affirmative stand. There has been, on the other hand, a very
strong movement growing in strength among the manufacturers of this
country to force the private prison contractors out of work, and there
has not always been sufficient realization of the importance of employ-
ment in the prison. There has not been sufficient realization of the im-
portance of employment in the other institutions. There has been in
our state, I am happy to say, a full recognition for several years of the
necessity of complete employment for all the wards of the state, and
Mr. Byers I am sure will bear me out in saying that our state hospital
was the first institution in this country to introduce wide employment,
which has grown by leaps and bounds in that institution in the manu-
facture of things worth while. There isn't time to go into the descrip-
tion of what they are. The same thing is true of our state institutions
for feeble-minded where we have transferred from our prison our tex-
tile industry, because it is a woman's industry.
Now there is always room for a difference of opinion. We find in the
small state such as New Jersey that there are times when, on account
of the fact that we can more than supply our local market in some lines
of goods, there is a surplus. On the other hand, we know in our
experience that there is a requirement upon us as directors and as
superintendents so to diversify our employment in our institutions that
all the people possible can get the right kind of training, and that we
cannot put all our eggs in one basket. We should have a wide diversi-
fication so that this surplus need not be a continuous matter in our
thickly populated state, but it may be occasional. It may be something
we can measure at the beginning of the year, and carry through the
year. Now that has led to the necessity that the various states should
cooperate in determining what the market is. The National Commit-
tee on Prisons and Prison Labor made up of some of the finest men and
women in America who never had the faintest idea in the world that
<
¹ Extract from discussion by Burdette G. Lewis, Commissioner, Department of
Institutions and Agencies, New Jersey, Proceedings of the Annual Congress of the
American Prison Association (Salt Lake City, 1924), PP. 131-32.
550
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
they were going to develop a prison trust, except a trusteeship in the
interest of the men and women in the prison, have caused a study to be
made of the best prison market and the possible supply of goods. It
was found that the actual possible market was something like seven
hundred million dollars worth of goods a year, and the possible supply
was something like three hundred and sixty millions a year. In other
words, if everybody was kept working all the time in all the institu-
tions they could not supply more than half of the market. Therefore
most of the controversy over the question of whether there is enough
market in the state-use field, if properly organized, as Mr. Byers said,
if I may borrow his expression, is mostly "bunk," and it is "bunk"
and propaganda put forward by those who have gotten rich out of
employing prisoners in this country, and it is continually put forward
by them.
7. Resolutions Adopted by Regional Conferences
RESOLUTION ADOPTED BY THE INTERMOUNTAIN
INDUSTRIAL ALLOCATION CONFERENCE
Be it resolved, by the Intermountain Prison Industrial Allocation
Conference, participated in by official representatives of the States of
Colorado, Idaho, Montana, Nevada, New Mexico, Utah, Washington,
Wyoming and the United States Department of Justice:
I. That all able bodied, physically fit, mentally competent male
and female prisoners should be employed and not maintained in idle-
ness.
II. That as soon as practicable, all work-competent prisoners be
employed under the "States' Use" system, including public works, as
the fairest method of employment alike to the taxpayers, to capital,
to free labor, and to the prisoners themselves; it being recognized that
the basic considerations that govern the selection of "States' Use"
industries are:
a) The selection of those industries whose products will find a
ready, stable and adequate market among State and local govern-
mental agencies, within or without the State, and for which adequate
raw materials are obtainable at reasonable prices.
b) The selection of industries in which the class of prisoners in the
institution can be most effectively and constructively employed.
• Initial Conference, Committee on Allocation of Prison Industries, Salt Lake
City, Utah, April 9, 10, 11, 1924. Publication of the National Committee on Prisons
and Prison Labor.
INTERSTATE RELATIONS
55I
III. That all prisoners should receive such compensation as their
conduct and efficiency warrant, to be paid out of the earnings of the
prison industries after all costs of prison maintenance have been de-
ducted.
IV. That the services of the Associates for Government Service,
Incorporated, be utilized whenever needed as a medium for the ex-
change of surplus products between the States.
V. That it is the sense of the Intermountain Prison Industrial Allo-
cation Conference that the several States with the United States Gov-
ernment, together, constitute the "States' Use" system.
8. The Interstate Marketing of Prison Goods Authorized¹
SECTION 1. Be it enacted, etc., That the Department of Welfare is
hereby authorized and empowered to sell to the Government of the
United States, including all departments, bureaus, commissions, and
other agencies thereof existing under acts of the Congress of the United
States; and to the Government of any state or commonwealth of the
United States, and to any county, city, borough, township, or other
organized subdivision of any state or commonwealth of the United
States; and to any institution maintained by, or receiving aid from,
any state or commonwealth of the United States, or any organized sub-
division thereof, such surplus products manufactured or prepared in
the industries established by the Department of Welfare in the Eastern
Penitentiary, the Western Penitentiary, the Pennsylvania Industrial
Reformatory at Huntingdon, and any other correctional institution of
this Commonwealth in which the Department of Welfare has estab-
lished industries, as are not purchased by this Commonwealth or by
any county, city, borough, or township of this Commonwealth, or by
any state institution, or by any educational or charitable institution
receiving aid from this Commonwealth.
SEC. 2. All receipts from the sales of surplus products herein
authorized shall be paid into the manufacturing fund, for the uses and
purposes of said fund, as provided by law.
"An Act Authorizing and Empowering the Department of Welfare to Sell
Surplus Products of Prison Industries to the Government of the United States
... and to the Government of Any State or Commonwealth of the United States;
and to Any County, City, Borough, Township, or Other Organized Subdivision of
Any State or Commonwealth of the United States; and to Any Institution Main-
tained by, or Receiving Aid from, Any State or Commonwealth of the United States,
or Any Organized Subdivision Thereof, April 7, 1925,” Laws of the General Assembly
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (1925), p. 188.
PART III
1917 TO THE PRESENT
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
In this part, several subjects are dealt with. In the first place, the
extension of public-welfare organization has continued so that there
are now only three states in which authorities have not been set up,¹
and there has occurred a development in the so-called codification of
the laws governing the administrative relationships in the states and
effecting a departmentalization of state governments, so that the num-
ber of authorities has been greatly reduced and the principle of the
single-headed authority accepted where the board form of organization
had been before relied upon.
At the same time with the spread of the departmental idea of
organization has gone an increasingly wide acceptance of what might
be called the "case method" of treatment, with an increasing interest
in the formulation of professional methods and the development of a
professional personnel.
Into the subject of standards of care it is impossible to go at length.
They involve the entire question of methods of professional practice
and of adequacy of community resources in the different divisions of
social work. Reference is made to them, and documents are included,
only to the extent necessary in order that the student may (1) ap-
preciate the difficulty in their formulation, (2) see how agreement upon
them is sometimes reached, and (3) realize the difficulty with which
they are enforced.
In Section I are assembled suggestive documents illustrating the
departmental reorganization in certain selected states and the develop-
ment of methods for securing co-operation among departments.
In Section II and Section III, too, are assembled a small number of
documents illustrating the slight measure of control or of influence
exercised by the state welfare organization over the county² and over
the city welfare work.3 The question might be raised as to the order
in which these subjects are dealt with, that is, whether they should
have been in Part II rather than in Part III; because, however, in some
cases, the materials are very recent, it has seemed best to put them in
¹ Attention will be called to the action of the governor in Colorado reducing
an ostensible department to a clerkship in his own office (see below, p. 559),.
2 Sec. II.
3 Sec. III.
•
1
555
556
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
this part. There is also a small body of material with reference to the
private charitable agency in relation to the public-welfare organiza-
tion. Since these private societies are usually incorporated and usually
hold their funds in trust, there is always theoretically control by the
court.
It may be that the axiom, the whole is equal to the sum of its
parts, needs no supporting argument in the realm of mathematical
truth. In the realm of human and especially of governmental relation-
ships it is far from an adequate statement of the fact. The whole is
something infinitely greater than the sum of its parts, and very differ-
ent from any or all of them. The question of a national organization
that will embody in action on a national scale the services called
for, while stimulating and suggesting activity on the part of the state
and through the state of every local jurisdiction must occupy the atten-
tion of the student in this field. To that subject the last secɩ on is de-
voted. Comment at greater length on that subject will be found in
the note introducing Section V.
I Sec. IV.
SECTION I
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Attention has been called above to the fact that in 1913 the United
States Bureau of the Census published a Summary of State Laws Re-
lating to the Dependent Classes. At that time thirty-eight states had
created central authorities of one kind or another.¹
It was among so great a variety of organizations and in the absence
of both a recognized unit of care and an adequate accounting system
that the Commission on Economy and Efficiency and the argument for
greater consolidation and a more definite fixing of responsibility had
their effect. Under the leadership of Governor Lowden, of Illinois,
the Civil Administrative Code of Illinois was adopted, replacing the
Act of 1909. This was followed in 1919 by the Massachusetts act
reorganizing the state government to include twenty departments,
among them public welfare, mental diseases, health, and corrections.3
Since that time eleven states have ostensibly created departments,
generally using the name "public welfare."4
2
¹ See above, Part II, Introductory Note to Section I, p. 245.
2 See Documents 1 and 2.
I
3 See Documents 6, 7, 8.
4 These are California, Colorado, Idaho, Michigan, Nebraska (without abolish-
ing or absorbing the Board of Control), New Jersey, New Mexico (really a Depart-
ment of Health and Child Welfare without responsibility for the charitable or penal
institutions of the state), New York, Ohio, Pennsylvania, and Washington (De-
partment of Business Control).
For purposes of completeness it may be said that at the present time nine states
(Delaware, Georgia, Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland, Montana, New Hamp-
shire, North Carolina) have single authorities in the form of supervisory boards;
nine have administrative boards that are either unpaid or ex officio-these
are Connecticut, Florida, Kentucky, Oregon, Rhode Island, South Carolina, Ver-
mont, Virginia, Wyoming. (Connecticut and Virginia are included here, although
their boards have been in each case given the name "Department of Public Welfare,"
since in each case the change of name expressly carried no change in character of
function. See, for similar change in the local field, the Massachusetts act changing
the name without altering the character, powers, or duties of poor-law officials
[Acts of 1921, chap. 146]). Ten have salaried boards of control (Alabama [control
and economy], Arizona [Board of Directors of State Institutions and Purchasing
Agent], Iowa, Kansas, North Dakota, Oklahoma, South Dakota, Texas, West
557
558
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
It should be pointed out that not all those states that created de-
partments entirely codified their administrative organization. Nor is it
true that the principle of the single-headed executive has been con-
sistently applied. There is, in fact, a great variety of ways in which the
attempt is made to introduce the advisory relationship as perhaps
distinguished from the supervisory function. The New Jersey act, for
example, passed in 1918¹, departed from this principle and created a
board, leaving to the board the selection of the commissioner. In this
act, a structure very like that proposed by Mr. Wright in 1909 was
created,² retaining the boards of trustees of the institutions. However,
under this act the trustees are appointed by the board, as is the com-
missioner, and may therefore fail to represent that external and
community viewpoint which is thought to be their special contri-
bution.
This departmentalization has raised again the question of super-
vision and criticism. It will be recalled that after 1890,3 when the
Wisconsin Board of Control replaced the two state boards that had
been created in 1871 and 1881 and the boards of trustees of the state
institutions as well, there were prolonged and heated discussions as to
the relative efficiency of the service to be secured, on the one hand,
by the centralized administration of state institutions by an authority
which should have the power of visitation and supervision as toward
local institutions and agencies and private institutions and, on the
other, by the unpaid supervising board co-operating with the unpaid
Virginia, Wisconsin), while four have two or more separate authorities. They are
Arkansas, Minnesota, Missouri, and Tennessee. California really belongs with this
group, but because of recent legislation ostensibly creating a Department of Public
Welfare it is listed above. Arkansas really has three boards, as there is an honorary
board for the administration of the penitentiary. Missouri, which has a State Board
of Charities, has also a Board of Managers of Eleemosynary Institutions, and a
Department of Penal Institutions.
It is interesting to note that the department created on March 16, 1926, in the
District of Columbia is an unpaid continuous board of nine, appointed by the
commissioners of the district and a director likewise appointed by the commissioners
as are the members of the institutional staffs of the district, and that the Utah
Commission, reporting in 1923, recommended the creation of an unpaid supervisory
board with a salaried executive, to function especially in relation to the Juvenile
Court, and also a Board of Control to replace the separate boards of trustees of
state institutions.
I See Documents 4 and 5.
3 See above, Part II, Sec. I, Document 11, and Sec. III.
2 See above, Part II, Sec. III, Document 8.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 559
boards of trustees of state institutions. To the reader of today the
heated discussions on this subject seem very remote. It is, however,
to be noted that the peculiar supervising function of the earlier state
authority has almost been abandoned as hopeless of accomplishment,
and not infrequently sight is lost of the possible difference between
the service rendered in this field as compared with other governmental
services. If the streets are not paved, if order is not maintained, if
wasteful practices prevail in other fields, the ordinary citizen suffers,
in his comfort, his safety, his pocket-book. He suffers, and he knows it.
If these benevolent or welfare institutions and agencies are more un-
skilfully and incompetently administered than is inevitable in the
present state of professional practice in the various lines of service, the
citizen may not know if reports are not forthcoming; he may not be
able to judge, if there is a question as to the appropriate standard; and,
if he suffers, it is in his right to live in a community whose level of
humane and scientific treatment of the weak is not too low-something
quite different from his right to clean, safe streets in an orderly com-
munity. The argument for provision for continuous skilful supervision
with regular honest reporting becomes therefore persuasive. It is a
need, however, either substantially ignored under the prevailing de-
partmentalized organization of state government or, if recognized in
the statute, defeated in the administration. For example, since 1921,
there have been no appointments in Illinois to the Board of Con.mis-
sioners, and in 1921 and 1923 no appropriations were made for the
executive officers and traveling expenses of that board. In 1925 an
appropriation was made, but no organization has been effected. And
as to the possibility of really advising under acts similar to the Massa-
chusetts act, there is the question of the board members being suffi-
ciently informed with reference to the issues or being given the oppor-
tunity to advise at a sufficiently early date.
I
The plan of departmentalizing, too, opens the way for a reorganiza-
tion that is specious and insincere. The Colorado act² is clearly in-
sincere, and suggests at once ulterior motives whose exposition would
take the student far afield in the state's partisan political situation.
Attention was called above³ to the fact that, as an item in a program of
alleged economy, Governor Morley, succeeding Governor Sweet,
vetoed the appropriation for the secretary, and the work of the os-
I
¹ $28,790 (Illinois Laws, 1925, p. 64).
2 Document 10.
3 See pp. 502 and 505.
560
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tensible "department" was reduced to the part-time service of a clerk
in the governor's office.
The question remains as to whether supervision is a factor in effi-
ciency other than as an item in administrative control for the purpose
of securing uniformity. If it is, the reliance upon it at present is in-
creasingly slight; if such is not the case, the energy hitherto directed
toward securing and retaining supervising agencies should be directed
rather toward formulating principles of care, securing wider agreement
upon questions of treatment, and developing agencies and methods
for attracting into the public service persons of courage, professional
attainment, and public spirit. These considerations lend special inter-
est to the opinion with reference to the effect of the reorganization ex-
pressed by executives responsible for administration under the new
scheme' and by public-spirited students of the problem.2
In addition to the question of the relation between the adminis-
trative and the supervisory authority, therefore, there arise under
any scheme of departmentalization questions of interrelations among
departments.³ The statutes often call for the exercise of the co-
operative spirit and the creation of devices for insuring co-operation.
Within the state there is, in case of an impasse, of course, always the
governor as the final source of authority. As to the possibility of effec-
tive co-operation, this will depend to a considerable degree upon the
extent to which each department is governed by a well-defined set of
principles so that the nature of the possible service may be clearly
understood, that is, to the extent to which the services have been pro-
fessionalized.4 Where this is the case, close interrelations and inter-
dependence may be developed.5
In connection with the question of departmentalization arises the
question of relative cost. It has been pointed out that the movement
to departmentalize is related to the movement for budgetary control
and to the movement generally characterized as that in behalf of
economy and efficiency. It is, however, extremely difficult to secure
comprehensive and comparable materials on which to base a sound
judgment as to relative costs. A new form of structure creating new
avenues of approach may give greatly improved service and incur
corresponding increased cost. Or ostensible economies may mean
¹ See Document 12 and 16.
2 See Document II.
3 See Documents 3 and 8.
+ See Document 14.
5 See Documents 14 and 15.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
561
simply juggling with the accounts or reduced standards of care. In
any case, there are to be considered the changed value of the dollar and
the possible change in the community standard of life, as well as the in-
creasing understanding of the community concern for adequate treat-
ment. It is agreed that the costs of state government have increased
since, for example, 1913.2 The increase in the proportion allotted to
welfare uses seems, however, to be relatively not so great as the total
increase, to which the increased costs of education and of road con-
struction especially contribute. The imperative need is that of such
accounting and reporting, such an analysis of the costs and of the
services as will render impossible the repetition of the Colorado, the
California, and possibly the New Jersey discussions and make possible
a judgment of methods and procedures on the basis of recorded experi-
ences.
I For example, in the case of the State School for the Feeble-Minded in Illinois,
before 1893, the per capita estimates were obtained by dividing the entire legislative
grant, special as well as general, by the average number of children in the institution.
After 1893, only the general appropriations were included in the estimate, and the
result was an apparent decline in the cost. (See Elizabeth C. Davis, State Care of
the Feebleminded in Illinois [Master's thesis, Graduate School of Social Service
Administration University of Chicago, 1926], p. 46 and also pp. 99-101.) In the
same way, in 1910 and in the following years, when the State Board of Administra-
tion replaced the earlier boards of trustees, many changes were effected in the organ-
ization of the state institutions, especially in the methods of purchasing. It is
extremely difficult to judge of the effect of this altered policy, since many other
factors entered into the final estimate of cost. See Reports of the Board of Administra-
tion of the State of Illinois (1910-1916).
2 See Edward B. Rosa, "Expenditures and Revenues of the Federal Govern-
ment,” Annals of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, XCV (May,
1921), 1-113; and Austin F. MacDonald, "The Trend in Recent State Expendi-
tures," ibid., CXIII (May, 1924), 8-15.
DEPARTMENTALIZATION OF STATE GOVERNMENT
INCLUDING PUBLIC-WELFARE ACTIVITIES
I. Illinois Civil Administrative Code¹
SECTION 3. Departments of the State government are created as
follows:2
The Department of Finance
The Department of Agriculture
The Department of Labor
The Department of Mines and Minerals
The Department of Public Works and Buildings
The Department of Public Welfare
The Department of Public Health
The Department of Trade and Commerce
The Department of Registration and Education
SEC. 4. Each department shall have an officer at its head who shall
be known as a director, and who shall, subject to the provisions of this
Act, execute the powers and discharge the duties vested by law in his
respective department. The following officers are hereby created:
Director of Finance, for the Department of Finance
Director of Agriculture, for the Department of Agriculture
Director of Labor, for the Department of Labor
Director of Mines and Minerals, for the Department of Mines and Minerals
Director of Public Works and Buildings, for the Department of Public
Works and Buildings
Director of Public Welfare, for the Department of Public Welfare
Director of Public Health, for the Department of Public Health
Director of Trade and Commerce, for the Department of Trade and Com-
merce
Director of Registration and Education, for the Department of Registration
and Education
I Extract from "An Act in Relation to the Civil Administration of the State
Government, and to Repeal Certain Acts Therein Named, March 7, 1917,” Laws
of the State of Illinois (1917), pp. 4-28.
2 [Two additional departments have been created, namely, a Department of
Purchases and Construction and a Department of Conservation. See Laws (1925),
P. 585.]
562
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 563
SEC. 5. In addition to the directors of departments, the following
executive and administrative officers, boards and commissions, which
said officers, boards and commissions in the respective departments,
shall hold offices hereby created and designated as follows:
THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
Assistant Director of Labor
Chief Factory Inspector
Superintendent of Free Employment Offices
Chief Inspector of Private Employment Agencies
The Industrial Commission, which shall consist of five officers designated
Industrial Officers
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE
Assistant Director of Public Welfare
Alienist
Criminologist
Fiscal Supervisor
Superintendent of Charities
Superintendent of Prisons
Superintendent of Pardons and Paroles
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
Assistant Director of Public Health
Superintendent of Lodging House Inspection
THE DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION AND EDUCATION
Assistant Director of Registration and Education
Superintendent of Registration.
The above named officers, and each of them, shall, except as other-
wise provided in this Act, be under the direction, supervision and con-
trol of the director of their respective departments, and shall perform
such duties as such director shall prescribe.
SEC. 6. Advisory and non-executive boards, in the respective de-
partments, are created as follows:
THE DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
A board of Illinois Free Employment Office Advisors, composed of five per-
sons
A board of local Illinois Free Employment Office Advisors, for each free em-
ployment office, composed of five persons on each local board
564
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE
A board of Public Welfare Commissioners, composed of five persons
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC HEALTH
A board of Public Health Advisors, composed of five persons
THE DEPARTMENT OF REGISTRATION AND EDUCATION
A board of Natural Resources and Conservation Advisors, composed of
seven persons
A board of State Museum Advisors, composed of five persons
The members of each of the above named boards shall be officers.
•
SEC. 9. The executive and administrative officers whose offices are
created by this Act shall receive annual salaries, payable in equal
monthly installments, as follows:
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE
The Director of Public Welfare shall receive seven thousand dollars
The Assistant Director of Public Welfare shall receive four thousand dollars
The Alienist shall receive five thousand dollars
The Criminologist shall receive five thousand dollars
The Fiscal Supervisor shall receive five thousand dollars
The Superintendent of Charities shall receive five thousand dollars
The Superintendent of Prisons shall receive five thousand dollars
The Superintendent of Pardons and Paroles shall receive five thousand
dollars
SEC. 10. No member of an advisory and non-executive board shall
receive any compensation.
SEC. 11. Each executive and administrative officer, except the two
food standard officers, the members of the Mining board, and the mem-
bers of the Normal School board shall devote his entire time to the
duties of his office and shall hold no other office or position of profit.
SEC. 12. Each officer whose office is created by this Act shall be
appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate. In any case of vacancy in such offices during the recess of the
Senate, the Governor shall make a temporary appointment until the
next meeting of the Senate, when he shall nominate some person to fill
such office; and any person so nominated, who is confirmed by the
Senate, shall hold his office during the remainder of the term and until
his successor shall be appointed and qualified. If the Senate is not in
session at the time this Act takes effect, the Governor shall make a
temporary appointment as in case of a vacancy.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 565
SEC. 13. Each officer whose office is created by this Act, except as
otherwise specifically provided for in this Act, shall hold office for a
term of four years from the second Monday in January next after the
election of a Governor, and until his successor is appointed and quali-
fied.
•
SEC. 16. The director of each department is empowered to pre-
scribe regulations, not inconsistent with law, for the government of his
department, the conduct of its employees and clerks, the distribution
and performance of its business and the custody, use and preservation
of the records, papers, books, documents, and property pertaining
thereto.
SEC. 17. Each department shall maintain a central office in the
capitol building at Springfield, in rooms provided by the Secretary of
State. The director of each department may, in his discretion and with
the approval of the Governor, establish and maintain, at places other
than the seat of government, branch offices for the conduct of any one
or more functions of his department.
SEC. 18. Each department shall be open for the transaction of pub-
lic business at least from eight-thirty o'clock in the morning until five
o'clock in the evening of each day except Sundays and days declared
by the negotiable instrument Act to be holidays.
SEC. 19. Each department shall adopt and keep an official seal.
SEC. 20. Each department is empowered to employ, subject to civil
service laws in force at the time the employment is made, necessary
employees, and, if the rate of compensation is not otherwise fixed by
law, to fix their compensation.
SEC. 21. All employees in the several departments shall render not
less than seven and one-half hours of labor each day, Saturday after-
noons, Sundays and days declared by the negotiable instrument Act
to be holidays excepted in cases in which, in the judgement of the di-
rector, the public service will not thereby be impaired.
SEC. 25. Each director of a department shall annually on or before
the first day of December, and at such other times as the Governor may
require, report in writing to the Governor concerning the condition,
management and financial transactions of their respective depart-
ments. In addition to such reports, each director of a department shall
make the semi-annual and biennial reports provided by the Constitu-
tion. The departments shall make annual and biennial reports at the
time prescribed in this section, and at no other time.
SEC. 26. The directors of departments shall devise a practical and
566
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
working basis for co-operation and co-ordination of work, eliminating
duplication and overlapping of functions. They shall, so far as prac-
ticable, co-operate with each other in the employment of services and
the use of quarters and equipment. The director of any department
may empower or require an employee of another department, subject
to the consent of the superior officer of the employee, to perform any
duty which he might require of his own subordinates. . . . .
SEC. 35. The following offices, boards, commissions, arms, and
agencies of the State government heretofore created by law are hereby
abolished, viz.: [Here follows a list of the officers whose powers and
duties are transferred to the new departments.]
THE DEPARTMENT OF FINANCE
SEC. 36. The Department of Finance shall have power:
1. To prescribe and require the installation of a uniform system of
bookkeeping, accounting and reporting for the several departments;
2. To prescribe forms for accounts and financial reports and state-
ments for the several departments;
3. To supervise and examine the accounts and expenditures of the
several departments;
4. To examine, at any and all times, into the accuracy and legality
of the accounts, receipts and expenditures of the public moneys and
the disposition and use of the public property by the several depart-
ments;
5. To keep such summary and controlling accounts as may be
necessary to determine the accuracy of the detail accounts and reports
from the several departments, and to prescribe the manner and method
of certifying that funds are available and adequate to meet all contracts
and obligations;
6. To prescribe uniform rules governing specifications for purchases
of supplies, the advertisement for proposals, the opening of bids and
the making of awards, to keep a catalogue of prices current and to
analyze and tabulate prices paid and quantities purchased;
II. In settling the accounts of the several departments, to inquire
into and make an inspection of articles and materials furnished or
work and labor performed, for the purpose of ascertaining that the
prices, quality and amount of such articles or labor are fair, just and
reasonable, and that all the requirements, express and implied, per-
taining thereto have been complied with, and to reject and disallow any
excess;
•
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 567
12. To prepare and report to the Governor, when requested, esti-
mates of the income and revenues of the State;
13. To prepare and submit to the Governor biennially, not later
than the first day of January preceding the convening of the General
Assembly, a State budget;
14. To publish, from time to time, for the information of the sever-
al departments, and of the general public, bulletins of the work of the
government;
15. To investigate duplication of work of departments, and the
efficiency of the organization and administration of departments, and
to formulate plans for the better co-ordination of departments.
SEC. 37. In the preparation of a State budget, the Director of Fi-
nance shall, not later than the fifteenth day of September in the year
preceding the convening of the General Assembly, distribute to all de-
partments and to all offices and institutions of the State government
(including the elective officers in the executive department and includ-
ing the University of Illinois and the judicial department) the proper
blanks necessary to the preparation of budget estimates, which blanks
shall be in such form as shall be prescribed by the Director of Finance,
to procure, among other things, information as to the revenues and
expenditures for the two preceding fiscal years, the appropriations
made by the previous General Assembly, the expenditures therefrom,
encumbrances thereon, and the amounts unencumbered and unex-
pended, an estimate of the revenues and expenditures of the current
fiscal year, and an estimate of the revenues and amounts needed for the
respective departments and offices for the two years next succeeding
beginning at the expiration of the first fiscal quarter after the adjourn-
ment of the General Assembly. Each department, office and institu-
tion (including the elective officers in the executive and judicial de-
partments and including the University of Illinois) shall, not later
than the first day of November, file in the office of the Director of Fi-
nance its estimate of receipts and expenditures for the succeeding bi-
ennium. Such estimates shall be accompanied by a statement in
writing giving facts and explanation of reasons for each item of ex-
penditure requested. The Director of Finance, may, in his discretion,
make further inquiries and investigations as to any item desired.
He may approve, disapprove or alter the estimates. He shall, on or
before the first day of January preceding the convening of the General
Assembly, submit to the Governor in writing his estimates of reve-
nues and appropriations for the next succeeding biennium.
568
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 38. The Governor shall as soon as possible and not later than
four weeks after the organization of the General Assembly submit a
State budget, embracing therein the amounts recommended by him
to be appropriated to the respective departments, offices, and institu-
tions, and for all other public purposes, the estimated revenues from
taxation, the estimated revenues from sources other than taxation, and
an estimate of the amount required to be raised by taxation. Together
with such budget, the Governor shall transmit the estimates of receipts
and expenditures, as received by the Director of Finance, of the elective
officers in the executive and judicial departments and of the University
of Illinois.
SEC. 39. Each department shall, before an appropriation to such
department becomes available for expenditure, prepare and submit to
the department of finance an estimate of the amount required for each
activity to be carried on, and accounts shall be kept and reports ren-
dered showing the expenditures for each such purpose.
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WORKS AND BUILDINGS
SEC. 49. The Department of Public Works and Buildings shall
have power:
II. To purchase and supply all fuel, light, water and other like
office and building services for the several departments except where
the same are now supplied by the Secretary of State;
12. To procure and supply all furniture, general office equipment
and general office supplies (other than stationery and office supplies
distributed through the office of the Secretary of State) needed by the
several departments;
13. To procure and supply all clothing, instruments and apparatus,
subsistence and provisions for the charitable, penal and reformatory
institutions;
•
14. To procure and supply all cots, beds, bedding, general room
and cell equipment, agricultural implements, harness, stable and garage
supplies, household supplies, periodicals, machinery and tools, medi-
cines and medical supplies, plumbing, light and engine supplies, wagons
and other vehicles and workshop supplies needed by the several de-
partments;
15. To prepare, or cause to be prepared, general plans, preliminary
sketches and estimates for the public buildings to be erected for any
department;
•
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
569
16. To have general supervision over the erection and construction
of public buildings erected for any department, and over the inspection
of all materials previous to their incorporation into such buildings or
work;
17. To make contracts for, and supervise the construction and re-
pair of buildings under the control of any department;
18. To prepare and suggest comprehensive plans for the develop-
ment of grounds and buildings under the control of any department;
23. To lease, for a term not exceeding two years, office space in
buildings for the use of the several departments;
24. To have general supervision and care of storerooms and offices
leased for the use of the departments.
•
THE DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC WELFARE
SEC. 53. The Department of Public Welfare shall have power:
1. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
board of administration, the fiscal supervisor, and other officers and
employees of the board of administration;
2. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
State deportation agent, his assistants, other officers and employees;
3. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
State agent for the visitation of children, his assistants, other officers
and employees;
4. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
commissioners, warden, deputy wardens, chaplains, physicians, stew-
ards, matrons, turnkeys, watchmen, and all other officers and em-
ployees of the Illinois State penitentiary at Joliet;
5. To exercise the rights, powers, and duties vested by law in the
commissioners, warden, deputy warden, chaplain, physician, steward,
matron, turnkeys, watchmen, and all other officers and employees of
the Southern Illinois penitentiary;
6. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
board of managers of the Illinois State reformatory, its superintendent,
chaplain, physician and all other officers and employees;
7. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
board of prison industries of Illinois, its officers and employees;
8. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
board of prison industries of Illinois, the president of the State Board
of Public Charities, and the Auditor of Public Accounts of Illinois, con-
570
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
stituting a board known as the board of classification, its officers and
employees;
9. To exercise the rights, powers and duties vested by law in the
board of pardons, its secretary and other officers and employees.
SEC. 54. The board of public welfare commissioners shall, in addi-
tion to the power vested by this Act in advisory and non-executive
boards, have power, and it shall be its duty:
I. To investigate into the condition and management of the whole
system of charitable, penal and reformatory institutions of the State,
including State hospitals, penitentiaries, reformatories, jails and alms-
houses;
2. To investigate, when directed by the Governor, into any or all
phases of the equipment, management or policy of any State charitable,
penal or reformatory institution, and report its findings and recom-
mendations to the Governor;
Gath
3. To inquire into the equipment, management and policies of all
institutions and organizations coming under the supervision and in-
spection of the Department of Public Welfare;
4. To collect and publish annually statistics relating to insanity
and crime.
2. Public Welfare Problems¹
The Department of Finance is also required, under the Adminis-
trative Code, to prepare a budget, and full powers were vested in the
Department to make any investigation which might be necessary to en-
able it to formulate intelligently the financial needs of the State for the
next biennium. Such investigation has been made and the budget has
been prepared as required by law, and will be submitted to your Hon-
orable Body. It will be readily seen that the Director of Finance began,
in fact, preparing for the budget on July 1, 1917, for when he exercised
his powers of supervision over the accounts of the several activities of
the State, he began to form some idea as to the real needs of the State.
At this time I need only say that the budget is the result of many
months of exhaustive study and arduous work. I believe that it will
commend itself to your wisdom.
PUBLIC WELFARE PROBLEMS
Perhaps the Department of Public Welfare has labored, during the
war, under greater difficulties than any other department of our gov-
* Extract from Biennial Message of Frank O. Lowden, Governor of Illinois, to
the Fifty-first General Assembly, January 8, 1919, pp. 5–7.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 571
ernment. Though the minimum wages of attendants were increased
40 per cent, it was impossible to secure competent attendants in any-
thing like sufficient numbers. The drafts specially made upon physi-
cians and nurses in the service by the War Department and the Red
Cross threatened to demoralize the service. In some instances, the en-
tire medical staff of a hospital, with the exception of superintendent
and assistant superintendent, was changed twice during the war. At
one time the situation was so serious that I deemed it necessary to make
a direct public appeal to the people to engage in the necessary work at
the State institutions in order that we might not have to close them.
Much trouble, too, was had in procuring sufficient and satisfactory
food for the inmates of the institutions because of government require-
ments. At best, where food must be prepared in such large quantities,
the problem is a hard one. Means have been provided, however, by
which it is hoped that this situation will be permanently improved.
Special attention has been given to the farms connected with the
different institutions. The Department of Public Welfare, in co-opera-
tion with the Department of Agriculture, has reorganized the activities
of these farms. They have been made very productive and profitable
in every instance. Indeed, they have been a very large factor in helping
us to meet the food problem at all. We have demonstrated that these
farms are not only a source of considerable revenue to the institutions,
but they also afford healthy and wholesome occupation for the inmates
of the institutions, who are suited to this work. In addition to this,
there is no reason why each of the institution farms should not be an
object lesson making for better agriculture in its community.
Under all the circumstances, it is submitted that the State institu-
tions have functioned much better than could have been expected.
The officers of these institutions, who overcame their difficulties and
embarrassments during these trying times, are entitled to the gratitude
of the people of Illinois. I visited most of the institutions myself and
know something of the appalling obstacles they had to overcome.
The buildings and equipment of the State institutions were found
to be in bad physical condition. That condition has been considerably
improved by utilizing the labor of inmates of the institutions. It has
been the policy of the Department to furnish occupation, wherever
possible, to the population of all the State institutions. Healthful and
congenial occupation has been found to be an important factor in re-
storing to normal condition insane patients and other defectives of
society. That it adds to their general well-being and happiness, there
572
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
can be no doubt. In fact, it is believed that the ideal form for State in-
stitutions to take is the community form, with the inmates contribut-
ing as largely as possible to the needs of the community life.
A survey has been made of the buildings, with equipment, belong-
ing to the State, and it has been estimated that the natural deprecia-
tion of those buildings will amount to 2 per cent annually. In the bud-
get that will be submitted to you, an appropriation for that amount
is asked, with which it is believed that all property of the State can be
kept in proper repair. While it requires but a small sum annually to
keep up a building, if it be allowed to go for a number of years without
any repairs, the damage becomes very great. Nothing is more wasteful
than delaying needed repairs to buildings.
The appropriations for buildings which we ask of your Honorable
Body for the Department of Public Welfare will be something in ex-
cess of three million dollars. This amount, it is believed, is necessary to
provide adequately for the growing needs of the State. It must be re-
membered that the wards of the State, to be cared for in the charitable
institutions alone, increase at the rate of a thousand each year. The
report of this department will disclose a well-thought-out and perma-
nent plan for future development of these institutions. It is believed
that a similar amount must be appropriated for buildings within that
department for each biennium, if Illinois is to keep abreast of her needs
and make the progress which her people have the right to expect. In-
stead of a large building program at one session and little or nothing
at the next, I think that wise policy requires that we should plan for
future development in such a way that something like the same amount
for buildings can be appropriated each biennium. In this way only can
rational, continuous and conservative progress be made.
The Department of Public Welfare has been consistently, from the
beginning, at work upon the problems of prevention. It has sought to
discover, so far as it could, the causes which have produced society's
defectives. The work along this line has developed so far that it is now
thought-necessary to establish a separate building for the laboratory
for psychopathic research, and you will be asked to make an appropria-
tion therefor.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
573
3. One-Man Control¹
THE ILLINOIS SYSTEM
It will be noted that the Act does not empower the Department of
Public Welfare to purchase supplies, or to erect or make repairs to
buildings. These functions have been placed in the Department of
Public Works and Buildings. That Department is empowered to pur-
chase all supplies and equipment used by the institutions; to prepare.
plans for and erect buildings; to make repairs; to plan the development
of grounds. All purchases except building material, engineering sup-
plies and equipment, are made through a Superintendent of Purchases
and Supplies. Building material and engineers' supplies are contracted
for through a Supervising Architect. Both of these officers are division
heads in the Department of Public Works and Buildings.
The Code provides, in the Department of Public Works and Build-
ings, for a Supervising Engineer who supervises the heating and power
plants of the institutions, although such rights and duties do not seem
to be clearly defined in the Code.
A Finance Department is created by the Code,2 with a Director
of Finance in charge, who has general financial powers over all other
departments responsible to the Governor. This Department can es-
tablish forms of bookkeeping and reports; supervise and examine ex-
penditures; establish specifications for supplies, and methods of adver-
¹ Extract from Henry C. Wright, A Valuation of a System for the Administration
of the State Institutions as Operated in Illinois, Made for the New York State Charities
Aid Association (1922), pp. 16–34. See above, Part II, Section III, Document 8.
2 [On the question of the control of the financial agency of the administration,
see Sir William Beveridge, The Public Service in War and Peace, pp. 6-7:
"As to financial control, the standard was set in the early days by the Ministry
of Munitions; hustle, regardless of expense, became the policy. The old rigid con-
trol of expenditure by the Treasury was necessarily abandoned, and was never re-
placed by any effective substitute. There has resulted, of course, the inevitable
crop of alleged scandals and extravagances. Here it is worth while to record the
fact that the people responsible for this have not been a special class of bureaucrats,
but mainly the business men of the country in a new environment. The vice of the
old time civil servants was certainly not extravagance, and the suggestion that busi-
ness men are now required to enforce economic administration in the Civil Service
is wide of the mark. When the various cases of extravagance are examined it will be
found almost invariably that they are due in the main not to civil servants, ordinari-
ly so called, but to business men spending for the first time the money of other people
instead of their own, and impatient of all the detailed controls-by the Treasury
or by a finance branch of their own department-by which expenditure is normally
checked."l
574
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tising; approve or disapprove vouchers and bills, and formulate for
the Governor a State Budget. In thus exercising his power to formu-
late this budget, he may modify the budgetary estimates submitted by
the Department of Public Welfare. The Code thus gives the Director
of Finance a very full power over the institutions in that he can estab-
lish their specifications for equipment and supplies, and can approve or
disapprove all bills for expenditures.
The theory of this form of governmental organization is that the
Governor shall be held responsible for the operation of the various de-
partments under his jurisdiction. The Governor's responsibility is dele-
gated to Directors to whom all administrative power is given as per-
taining to their respective departments, except where certain functions
are delegated to some other Director. Where such power is so delegated
to another Director, the theory is that if conflict arises between Direc-
tors, the two Directors will confer and reach some working agreement.
If, however, they fail to agree, either or both may carry the matter to
the Governor, who decides it. To illustrate: Should the Director of Fi-
nance establish a form of accounting or reporting that was too exact-
ing for the institutions; or, should he refuse to approve certain classes
of expenditures, it would be the duty of the Director of Public Welfare
to confer with the Director of Finance with regard to the matter, and if
they fail to reach an agreement, then either or both could take it to the
Governor, who would decide. Also: Purchasing for the Department of
Public Welfare, as heretofore stated, is done by the Department of Pub-
lic Works and Buildings. If the Superintendent of Purchases and Sup-
plies in the Department of Public Works and Buildings does not per-
form his function satisfactorily to the Director of Public Welfare, that
Director is supposed to confer with the Director of the Department of
Public Works and Buildings to the end that any difficulties may be
rectified. Should the latter Director support his division head, the Di-
rector of Public Welfare could then take the matter to the Governor,
who would hear both sides of the controversy and decide what should
be done in the matter.
Again, should there be a conflict between the Fiscal Supervisor and
the Superintendent of Charities, both in the Department of Public
Welfare, either of the two division heads could take the matter to the
Director of the Department for decision.
In this form of governmental organization, the assignment of duties
is clear, and the procedure for adjusting conflicts is designed to be di-
rect and speedy.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 575
THE SYSTEM IN OPERATION
RELATIVE COST OF PRESENT AND FORMER SYSTEMS
Much is claimed for economy secured by the present system.
The question arises whether or not these economies are offset wholly
or partly by an increased cost of operating the system as compared
with the cost of operating the former Board of Administration and al-
lied control bodies.
PAD
•
The expenditure for administrative purposes of the Board of Ad-
ministration, of the Charities Commission, and of the Boards of Trus-
tees of the three penal institutions for the year 1913-14 was about $145,-
ooo. It is probable this had increased somewhat before the introduction
of the new system, and it may be stated that in round numbers the
annual expenditure of the former system was $150,000. The expendi-
ture for the Public Welfare Department, including also an estimate of
that portion of the work of the Superintendent of Purchases and Sup-
plies, of the Supervising Engineer, and of the Supervising Architect,
devoted to the Department of Public Welfare, for the year 1918-1919,
was approximately $100,000. Thus, it appears that the administrative
control of the state institutions under the present plan costs approxi-
mately $50,000 annually less than it cost under the Board of Adminis-
tration and the boards of trustees for penal institutions.
FORMULATION OF THE ANNUAL BUDGET
The annual budget, which in the state of Illinois is made biennially,
is first made out by the Superintendent of each institution and pre-
sented to the Fiscal Supervisor in the Department of Public Welfare.
He, in conference with the Superintendent of Charities and the Super-
intendent of Prisons, formulates a budget which is presented to the
Director of the Department. The budget as approved by the Director
is transmitted to the Director of Finance, who has full power to modify
it. The Director of Finance is responsible for formulating the entire
state budget ready for the approval of the Governor, except those for
the Secretary of State, the State Auditor, State Treasurer, Attorney
General, Superintendent of Public Instruction, Board of Equalization,
and University of Illinois. The Governor presents the budget to the
legislature.
This process insures a full review of the budget. The Director of
the Department first formulates it. Then it is adjusted by the Director
of Finance and by the Governor to the needs of all other departments.
576
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
There is appropriated to the Director of Finance, a Contingent Fund,
which for the biennium 1917-1918, was $50,000. In addition, each of
the other departments, except the Department of Public Welfare, has
also a contingent fund. The Director of Finance is supposed to come
to the aid particularly of the Department of Public Welfare in case of
a contingent or emergent need. Thus far, during the three years of the
operation of the new system, the Director of Finance has been called
upon but for small expenditures from the Contingent Fund, for the De-
partment of Public Welfare. Some buildings have been repaired from
such funds.
HANDLING OF REQUISITIONS
Requisitions are sent quarterly from each of the institutions to the
Fiscal Supervisor. In addition, there is no limit to the number of spe-
cial requisitions which may be sent in. Each institution, in addition,
has a $1,000 contingent fund. The requisitions are not presented to the
Superintendent of Charities or to the Superintendent of Prisons, but
if the Fiscal Supervisor deems it advisable to modify or eliminate any
items, he takes up such items in conference either with the Superin-
tendent of Charities or with the Superintendent of Prisons, according
to which one may be interested in the proposed modification. After
approval by the Fiscal Supervisor, the requisition is sent to the Di-
rector of Finance for consideration and approval. His approval is sup-
posed to involve only the determination whether or not there are funds
available out of which the articles requisitioned may be purchased. He
has power, however, to raise the question whether or not any expendi-
tures or class of expenditures is advisable. In practice, he seldom
raises such question, but confines his decision to the fundamental ques-
tion of whether or not there be funds available. The requisition is then
sent to the Director of Public Works and Buildings for his approval to
purchase. If the requisition is for building material or engineering
equipment and supplies, it receives the approval of the Supervising
Architect or of the Supervising Engineer. Thus, the requisitions re-
quire at least three, and possibly four, approvals before they are placed
in the hands of the Superintendent of Purchases and Supplies.
The file of requisitions was examined; note was made of the date
stamp of approval by each of these departments. Thus far, there seems
to have been comparatively little delay in the progress of the requisi-
tions through these departments. The requirement that the requisi-
tions shall have all of these approvals, sooner or later is sure to cause
at times serious delay-delay that will be hampering to the institu-
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 577
tions. This statement is based on a general knowledge of governmental
departments.
The estimates also were examined, to determine to what extent
they were modified by the Fiscal Supervisor or other approving officer,
after leaving the institutions. There were surprisingly few modifica-
tions. Seldom was an article eliminated, or even reduced in amount,
except in the last quarter of the year, when some reductions were made.
These reductions, in connection with food, were made in such round
numbers and on such classes of food as to indicate that comparatively
little study and consideration had been given to the reductions made.
CARE OF PATIENTS AND INMATES
It is not easy to compare the work of one administration with
another, owing to the fact that it is almost impossible to measure their
respective handicaps. Inevitably many things that are obviously need-
ed cannot be done at a particular time, and must be left to some suc-
ceeding time and administration.
The Board of Administration made distinct improvements in the
institutions during its period of incumbency. Standards of food and
care of patients were established not theretofore existing. Many things,
however, were not done which have since been accomplished by the
system now in operation. In attempting to reach a comparative judg-
ment of the two systems, consideration must be given to the relative
rapidity of improvement. It must be determined whether or not there
has been any recession or any "marking of time." Also, comparison
should be made between the measures adopted in Illinois and those
adopted in other states.
A limited attempt was made to measure such advances as may have
taken place in the care of patients and inmates. This was not done by
detailed examination, but by general inquiry into measures that had
been adopted, and by general observation while going through the
various patients' buildings of the institutions.
Two conditions in the hospitals for the insane were worthy of
note: First, on going through the institutions, the absence of bars or
window screens of any sort was very noticeable. The statement was
made at the central office that this was the general condition. At one
of the institutions, an iron fence of considerable length had been con-
structed out of the gratings that had been removed from the windows.
In some institutions there appeared to be no locked wards, although
there were probably a few. Taking the insane hospitals as a whole,
•
578
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
there are few window bars or screens, and sixty per cent of the wards
are without locks. It was stated by the Superintendent of Charities
that if the buildings were but one story high, most of the remaining
locked wards would be abolished. Unfortunately, there are many of
the old type of three or four story buildings.
The removal of bars and locks is an illustration of the progressive
work done by the new administration. No judgment is passed as to
the practicability of the almost total removal of bars and locks.
The second outstanding feature observed in these institutions, was
the extended development of occupational work. Many insane hospi-
tals throughout the United States have developed good occupational
work, but in none so far as the writer is informed, has occupational
work been carried to the extent that it is carried in Jacksonville State
Hospital, in Illinois. As a visitor goes through the institution, he finds
almost no patients in the day rooms or wards. They are carrying on
occupational work in special rooms. The lowest type of dementia
praecox is thus occupied. The writer secured a schedule of assignment
of patients in Jacksonville State Hospital for June 9, 1920. It indicated
that out of a population of 2,172, there were employed that day, 1,715.
As stated by the Superintendent and by the Superintendent of Chari-
ties, this does not mean incidental employment, but practically all day
employment for those listed. This employment takes a variety of
forms. Some patients are employed in the care of wards and buildings;
others in construction work about the institution; some are detailed to
harvest fields. The largest proportion, however, are in occupational
work.
The question naturally arises: Boes it not require many more em-
ployees to carry on such work with the patients? This question was
inquired into, and it was found that there were on the payroll August
1, 1918, 328 employees in the Jacksonville institution. At the corre-
sponding time in 1920, there were but 284 employed. In the mean-
time, the occupational work had been started and developed. Many of
those formerly day attendants on the wards and in the day rooms are
now occupational teachers. Less night help is required, since the pa-
tients, having worked all day, usually sleep well. It was the opinion of
the Superintendent and of the Superintendent of Charities, that the
patients were being cared for better and were happier in their surround-
ings with the fewer employees of 1920 than with the greater number of
At this institution, men are detailed as harvest hands, and work on
1918.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 579
various farms within motoring distance of the institution. There was
an average of six to ten such details during the harvest season, each
detail numbering from 10 to 25. The farmers come for these patients
with a motor truck. They are accompanied by their attendant, and
remain in his charge throughout the day, returning in the evening to
the institution. These men work in the hay field, help in the harvesting
of wheat and oats, and also husk corn. The writer visited one of these
details on a farm some distance from the institution, and talked with
the patients. They were apparently happy and contented. The ques-
tion will be raised whether or not this method of detailing patients to
work on farms is an advisable procedure. It is a procedure that could
be easily abused, and unless properly safeguarded would undoubtedly
work harm, at times, to the patients. There are no surface evidences,
however, at Jacksonville, that there was any abuse. On the contrary,
the system seemed to be operating to the advantage of the patients,
and certainly to the profit of the institution.
The system is in operation to a much less degree in other institu-
tions of the state, because of the location of the institutions in farming
communities where such work is not called for.
Provision is made for the weighing of patients every month. These
weights recorded on charts are sent to the office of the Superintendent
of Charities. If loss of weight be noted, inquiry is made as to the quali-
ty and quantity of the food which has been served. Daily protein and
calory determinations are sent to the Fiscal Supervisor's office. But
the reports do not seem to be used as a basis of regulation. The weigh-
ing charts, however, are apparently reviewed. .
PURCHASING OF SUPPLIES
As heretofore noted, the purchasing of supplies for the institutions
is assigned to the Department of Public Works and Buildings, and by
the Director of that Department is delegated to a Superintendent of
Purchases and Supplies, who does the buying. Some of the building.
materials and engineering equipment and supplies, however, are pur-
chased by the Supervising Architect. A clear understanding could not
be obtained as to when the Supervising Architect would choose to pur-
chase and when he would choose to approve a requisition and delegate
the purchase to the Superintendent of Purchases and Supplies.
No central storehouse is maintained, to which and from which sup-
plies could be delivered. Goods are shipped direct to the institutions on
order of the Superintendent of Purchases and Supplies, if the whole
580
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
V
contract is to be shipped at once. If subsequent shipments are to be
made, order is sent by the institution to the contractor for shipment.
The Superintendent of Purchases and Supplies is supposed to exer-
cise no initiative or opinion as to the kind, quality or quantity of sup-
plies or equipment which the institutions are to use. He is supposed to
act purely as a purchasing agent for the items on approved requisitions.
So far as could be ascertained, with few exceptions, he follows this pro-
cedure. There were some instances noted, however, where a certain
kind of fabric was listed on a requisition, and where substitution of a
different kind was made without conference with the Superintendent of
the institution, with the Fiscal Supervisor, or with the Superintendent
of Charities. Though a number of instances of such substitution was
discovered on the records, yet on the whole, the proportion of such sub-
stitution was so small compared with the total number of purchases,
that they cannot be said to have caused any serious inconvenience to
the institution. The very fact, however, that substitution can be made
without conference, shows a tendency that should be carefully guard-
ed against, since, if the practice should be extended to any degree, seri-
ous inconvenience to the institutions might result.
The Superintendent of Purchases and Supplies was a clothing
merchant from Southern Illinois, a man who had been successful in
business, competent as a buyer, and in this work for the state is con-
scientious, painstaking, and honest. His knowledge of clothing and
fabrics enables him to do good buying along these particular lines, but
his lack of knowledge of foods and of the methods of purchase which
should be applied to them, is obvious. For instance, the samples of the
successful bidder were stored, during the period of the contract, in
the original containers submitted by the contractors. The containers
are usually a variety of pasteboard and paper boxes. Samples readily
deteriorate in such containers, and in a comparatively short time after
the contract has been entered into the sample ceases to be of the same
grade and character as the contract called for. Therefore, it ceases to
be a standard against which the supplies of the contract are to be de-
livered. Again, no samples of the foods contracted for are sent to the
institutions to serve as a standard against which deliveries are to be
received. The only basis of judgment the receiving storekeeper can
use is the printed specifications. But the Superintendent of Purchases
and Supplies in some cases, at least, received samples which did not
correspond to his printed specifications. He entered into a contract
on the basis of the sample instead of the specifications, then failed to
T
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 581
send a portion of the sample to the institution. This was particularly
true of evaporated apples, where the sample in the central storehouse
for the July-September contract was much inferior to the terms of the
specifications for apples. The failure to make it clear whether the
contract is on the basis of the specifications or on the basis of a sample;
the failure to keep samples in airtight containers, and the failure to
send samples to the delivery points-are all a conclusive indication
that the person responsible for such a system or lack of system does not
exercise the knowledge which he has.
No endeavor has been made at the institution to instruct or edu-
cate the storekeepers who are responsible for receiving supplies. It
might be said that this is not a function of a purchasing agent. It can-
not be questioned, however, that this is a function which must be right-
ly performed if good purchasing is to be done. One of the important and
essential elements of good purchasing is to see that the goods purchased
are delivered. The Superintendent of Purchases and Supplies is in one
department and receiving storekeepers are in another department.
For this reason he may hesitate to initiate any procedure looking to-
ward their instruction or regulation. Should he do so, difficulties might
readily arise. This at once raises the question whether or not purchas-
ing can be done satisfactorily by any department other than the de-
partment which uses the supplies purchased.
Purchases of supplies and equipment for the institution are made
chiefly for three-months' periods. Supplementary requisitions are re-
ceived from time to time, and these purchases are made as requisitions
are received. The Superintendent of Purchases and Supplies has not
been able to overcome one of the shortcomings of a central purchasing
system, viz., contracts are made at a definite time for a definite period.
That is, just preceding January 1, he contracts for the period from Jan-
uary 1 to April 1; preceding April 1, he contracts for the period from
April 1 to July 1, and so on. This is irrespective of market conditions.
One of the weaknesses of central purchasing is this definite time and
definite period contract.
PROMPTNESS OF PURCHASING
Examination was made, at the institutions, of the correspondence
between the institutions and the Superintendent of Purchases and Sup-
plies, to determine what delays there may have been, so far as noted by
correspondence, in the purchase of the supplies requisitioned.
In general, it may be said that the institutions have little ground
582
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of complaint due to delay on the part of the Superintendent of Pur-
chases and Supplies in ordering the goods requisitioned. The records of
a number of institutions showed no appreciable delay. At some insti-
tutions, however, there was sufficient delay to cause considerable incon-
venience.
•
The main difficulty in Illinois probably is that one man is expected
to furnish expert knowledge on the whole range of supplies used by the
institutions, and for that matter, by all departments of the state. It is
impossible that one man could have such expert knowledge. The pres-
ent incumbent of the purchasing office undoubtedly has good knowl-
edge of clothing and fabrics. Had the Governor selected a man who
was well versed in foods, it is more than likely that he would have little
knowledge with regard to clothing and fabrics. It would be possible
to organize a central purchasing office with a sufficient variety of ex-
perts on the different lines of supplies, so that all kinds of supplies
needed by the institutions could be purchased with full knowledge of
the product to be delivered. Such an organization, however, would be
very expensive, and it is questionable whether or not it would pay the
state to make the necessary outlay.
Wholesale and large retail houses purchase very large quantities
of most of the articles in which they deal. Such houses are warranted
in employing experts for each article or small class of articles. Though
the state purchases in reasonably large quantities, it does not pur-
chase, of any particular article, a quantity approaching that purchased
by the large houses. The amount purchased by the state would not
warrant the employment of the number of experts employed by large
private firms.
G
The foregoing consideration raises questions, not only with regard
to the purchasing done in Illinois, but also with regard to state pur-
chasing in general.
4. The New Jersey Department of Institutions and Agencies¹
ARTICLE I
ORGANIZATION, JURISDICTION AND GENERAL POWERS
101. There is hereby created the "Department of Charities and
Corrections," which shall consist of the "State Board of Charities and
Corrections" and the "Commissioner of Charities and Corrections,"
"An Act Concerning the Charitable, Correctional, Reformatory and Penal
Institutions, Boards and Commissions, Located and Conducted in This State,
Which Are Supported in Whole or in Part from County, Municipal or State Funds,"
Acts of the State of New Jersey (1918), chap. 147.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 583
with such divisions, bureaus, branches, committees, officers and em-
ployees as are specifically referred to in this act or as may be constitut-
ed or employed by virtue of the authority hereby conferred.
102. The Department of Charities and Corrections is hereinafter
referred to by the short title, "Department"; the State Board of Chari-
ties and Corrections by the short title, "State Board"; and the Com-
missioner of Charities and Corrections by the short title, "Commis-
sioner."
103. The State Board shall be composed of eight residents of this
State, of whom at least one shall be a woman. The Governor, or officer
administering the State Government, shall be ex officio an additional
member. The members of the Board shall be appointed by the Gover-
nor without regard to political belief or affiliation, subject to confirma-
tion by the Senate. They shall be subject to removal by the Governor
at any time for good and sufficient cause.
104. The first appointments made after the passage of this act
shall be designated by the Governor to be for terms ending respectively
on the thirtieth day of June in each of the following years: 1919, 1920,
1921, 1922, 1923, 1924, 1925, 1926. In the year 1919, and annually
thereafter, one appointment shall be made for a term commencing on
the first day of July and ending on the thirtieth day of June in the
eighth year thereafter. Vacancies shall be filled by the Governor for
the balance of the unexpired term only.
105. The members of the State Board shall not receive any com-
pensation for their services, but shall be reimbursed for their actual
expenditures incurred in the performance of their duties.
106. As soon as may be after the appointment of the first State
Board in accordance with the provisions of this act, it shall organize
by the election of one of its members as president, who shall serve until
the thirtieth day of June, 1919, and on the first day of July in each suc-
cessive year the State Board shall likewise reorganize by the election of
one of its members as president.
107. The State Board shall be provided with suitable office accom-
modations in the city of Trenton, where its principal office shall be
maintained. It may establish branch offices or bureaus elsewhere in
the State and in the various institutions within its jurisdiction, as it
may determine. It shall hold at least six regular meetings in each year
at its principal office in Trenton, and may meet there or elsewhere in
the State as often and at such times as it may consider necessary. The
presence of four members at any regular or special meeting shall con-
stitute a quorum for the transaction of all business.
584
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
108. The commissioner shall be appointed by the State Board. He
shall hold his office at the will of the State Board. He shall devote his
entire time to the performance of his duties. His office shall be in the
unclassified service list of the civil service. He shall receive a salary,
to be fixed by the State Board, not exceeding $10,000 per year. In the
selection of a commissioner the State Board shall not be restricted to
the residents of the State of New Jersey.
109. The State Board shall have power to create within the depart-
ment a division of education, a division of medicine and psychiatry, a
division of labor and agriculture, a division of statistics, a division of
parole, a division of food and dietetics and such other divisions as it
may deem necessary. Each division shall be in charge of a qualified
expert who shall be appointed by and receive the compensation fixed
by the commissioner with the approval of the State Board. The State
Board may in its discretion combine the duties of two or more divi-
sions under one head. The division chiefs shall perform such services
at such times and places and exercise such powers as the commissioner
shall prescribe. The commissioner may from time to time, with the
consent of the State Board, designate one of such division chiefs to exer-
cise the powers and perform the duties of commissioner during his
disability or absence.
Gay
110. The secretary of the State Board and the necessary clerks,
stenographers and assistants shall be appointed and their compensa-
tion fixed by the commissioner, under such general rules and regula-
tions as may be approved by the State Board.
III. The commissioner shall be the chief executive and adminis-
trative officer of the State Board and its official agent for all purposes.
Within the contemplation of the Civil Service act, he shall be consid-
ered the "head" of the department. He shall likewise be the budget
officer, and, unless some other official be designated by the State Board
for the purpose, he shall be its fiscal officer. He shall have general
charge and supervision of the work of the department.
K
112. The State Board shall appoint for each of the institutions or
noninstitutional agencies included in the provisions of sections 117
and 118 of this act, or for such groups or classes thereof as it may deter-
mine, a board of managers which shall be known as "The Board of Man-
agers of-
naming the institution or group or class of institutions
for which the board is appointed. The name or names of the boards in
charge of the noninstitutional agencies shall be determined by the
State Board. These boards of managers shall be appointed by the State
12
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 585
Board, with the approval of the Governor, from the residents of the
State at large, without respect to political affiliation or belief. These
boards shall consist of not less than five nor more than seven members.
Upon the board or boards which succeed, in accordance with the powers
conferred upon the State Board by this act, to the management of any
of the following institutions, the Hospitals for the Insane, the Village
for Epileptics, the Sanatorium for Tuberculous Diseases, the Home for
Disabled Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and Their Wives and Widows, the
Amelioration of the Condition of the Blind, the State Institution for
Feeble-Minded and the State Home for Boys, at least two of the mem-
bers shall be women. Likewise upon the board or boards succeeding
to the management of the Women's Reformatory, the State Home for
Girls, the Care of Dependent Children, at least a majority of the mem-
bers shall be women. The members of such boards shall serve for a
term of three years, commencing on the first day of August. (Except
in the case of the first boards appointed, whose terms shall commence
immediately upon appointments and terminate on the thirty-first of
July in the third year following.) Vacancies shall be filled by the State
Board for the balance of the unexpired term only. The members of
such boards shall not receive any compensation for their services, but
shall be reimbursed for their actual expenditures incurred in the per-
formance of their duties. They shall be subject to removal by the State
Board at any time, for good and sufficient cause.
113. The principal office of each board of managers shall be at the
institution or one of the institutions under its special charge, where the
board shall meet at least once a month and as often there and else-
where in the State as it shall determine.
114. Each board of managers shall have power, unless and until
otherwise provided by the State Board by rule, regulation or order for-
mally adopted, to determine the number, qualifications, compensation,
powers and duties of the officers and employees of the institutions or
noninstitutional agencies committed to its charge. Each board with
the approval of the State Board, shall appoint the chief executive officer
of each institution or noninstitutional agency in its charge, and deter-
mine his or her official title. The chief executive officer so designated
shall appoint, with the approval of the board of managers, all officers
and employees of the institution or noninstitutional agency. Nothing
contained herein shall apply to the appointment of the Principal
Keeper of the State Prison.
115. Subject to the supervision, control and ultimate authority of
586
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the State Board, the management, direction and control of the several
institutions and noninstitutional agencies shall be vested in the several
boards of managers, who shall be responsible to the State Board for the
efficient, economical and scientific operation thereof. The chief execu-
tive officer of each institution or noninstitutional agency shall be the
executive and administrative officer thereof, and shall be responsible
to the board for the proper conduct and management of the institu-
tion or noninstitutional agency under his care, the physical condition
of the property, the proper use of the plant and equipment, the con-
duct of all employees appointed by him and the care and treatment
of the inmates of the institution, subject to the rules and regulations
adopted by the board of managers.
116. Within the limitations imposed by general legislation applica-
ble to all agencies of the State, the State Board is hereby granted com-
plete and exclusive jurisdiction, supreme and final authority, and the
requisite power to accomplish its aims and purposes in and upon the fol-
lowing institutions, boards, commissions and other agencies herein-
after designated as the charitable and correctional institutions of the
State, to the end that they shall be humanely, scientifically, efficiently
and economically maintained and operated. Any particular grant of
power hereinafter contained shall be held to be in specification but not
in limitation of this general grant of power.
117. The charitable institutions and noninstitutional agencies of
the State, within the meaning of this act, shall include the following
and as well any institution established hereafter for any similar pur-
pose:
a) New Jersey State Hospital at Trenton
b) New Jersey State Hospital at Morris Plains
c) New Jersey State Village for Epileptics
d) New Jersey Sanatorium for Tuberculous Diseases
e) The State Institution for Feeble-Minded (formerly the Home for the Care
and Training of Feeble-Minded Women)
f) State Colonies for Feeble-Minded Males
g) New Jersey Home for Disabled Soldiers
h) New Jersey Home for Disabled Soldiers, Sailors, Marines and their Wives
and Widows
i) State Board of Children's Guardians
j) Commission for the Amelioration of the Condition of the Blind
as now established and as the same are to be hereafter maintained
and operated, pursuant to the provisions of this act.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
587
118. The correctional institutions of the State, within the meaning
of this act, shall include the following, and, as well, any institution
established hereafter for any similar purpose:
a) New Jersey State Prison
b) New Jersey Reformatory
c) New Jersey Reformatory for Women
d) State Home for Boys
e) State Home for Girls
as now established and as the same are to be hereafter maintained and
operated, pursuant to the provisions of this act.
11). The State Board shall have power to determine all matters
relating to the unified and continuous development of all the institu-
tion and noninstitutional agencies within its jurisdiction. It shall de-
termine all matters of policy and shall have power to regulate the ad-
ministration of any of the institutions or noninstitutional agencies
within its jurisdiction, correct and adjust the same so that each insti-
tution and noninstitutional agency shall perform its function as an in-
tegral part of a general system. The rules, regulations, orders and di-
rections issued by the State Board or by the commissioner pursuant
thereto, for this purpose shall be accepted and enforced by any board
of managers having charge of any institution or group of institutions or
noninstitutional agencies or any phase of the work within the jurisdic-
tion of the State Board.
-
120. The State Board shall arrange for the personal contact by its
members and by the commissioner with each of the institutions and
the work of the noninstitutional agencies, by visitation and by such
other means as it may determine to be necessary and proper, so that it
may be as nearly as is practicable continually in touch with and in-
formed concerning the general condition of and the progress made by
the several institutions and noninstitutional agencies and the general
results of the management thereof, the condition and welfare of the in-
mates and other persons committed or admitted to any institution or
noninstitutional agency within its jurisdiction or any of its committees
or any board of managers. The State Board shall, by special committee
or otherwise, visit and inspect each institution at least semi-annually,
at periods which shall not be fixed in advance.
121. Each board of managers and each division chief shall, at such
time as shall be fixed by the State Board, file with the commissioner a
written report concerning the conduct of the institution or the phase
of work or agency entrusted to it during the preceding year, which re-
588
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
port shall contain such detail of information as the commissioner shall
prescribe, including estimates for the conduct of the institution or
agency during the coming year. From these reports, with such other
matter regarding the continuous development of the charitable and
correctional institutions and noninstitutional agencies of the State or
matters allied thereto as the State Board or commissioner shall see fit
to include, the report of the State Board shall be compiled and filed
with the Governor at such time as may be provided by law. Such re-
port shall set forth the true condition of each and every such institu-
tion and noninstitutional agency, with such recommendations with
reference thereto, or the extension and development thereof, as the
State Board may determine. The State Board shall make the requisi-
tion for the annual State appropriation to be made in behalf of the de-
partment in such form and at such time as may be prescribed under the
present or any future budget system of the State.
122. Hereafter all appropriations of money from the State Treas-
ury for the uses and purposes of the several institutions and noninsti-
tutional agencies included within the provisions of sections 117 and
118 of this act, and for all expenses incidental thereto or connected
therewith, as well as appropriations for the uses and purposes of the
department, shall be made to the department as one item, in accord-
ance with the provisions of an act entitled "An act to provide a budget
system and to provide a method of ascertaining the financial condition
of the State and the appropriations necessary for the various depart-
ments, institutions and other agencies of the State," approved March
first, 1916, and the amendments, supplements and revisions thereof.
The several institutions and noninstitutional agencies included within
the provisions of sections 117 and 118 of this act shall submit their re-
quests for appropriations to the State Board in the form and at the
time prescribed by law. The State Board shall be the sole agency for
the transmission to the Governor of the requests for appropriations on
behalf of the department and the institutions and noninstitutional
agencies included within the provisions of sections 117 and 118 of this
set, with such modifications of the requests of the several institutions
as the board may determine. Within the meaning of the Budget Act,
the State board shall be the sole board authorized to submit a request
to the Governor for appropriations on behalf of any of the charitable
or correctional institutions or noninstitutional agencies included within
the provisions of sections 117 and 118 of this act. Appropriations for
working capital for all institutions and noninstitutional agencies in-
.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 589
cluded within the provisions of sections 117 and 118 of this act shall be
made in bulk, and may be alloted by the State Board or used as a gen-
eral fund, as it may determine. The expenditures of appropriations
made to the department, in accordance with the provisions of this sec-
tion, shall be subject to the provisions of an act entitled "An act regu-
lating the receipt and disbursements of State moneys in certain cases,'
approved October thirty-first, 1907, and the amendments, supplements
and revisions thereof.
""
123. All expenditures for or on account of the department or any
institution or noninstitutional agency within its jurisdiction, shall be
paid out of the funds appropriated by the Legislature, and all earnings
or income shall be duly accounted for and paid into the State treasury.
The total expenditures for all purposes shall not exceed in any year
the sum or sums appropriated by the Legislature.
124. In addition to the jurisdiction and power conferred by this act
upon the State Board over the institutions and noninstitutional agen-
cies named in sections 117 and 118 of this act, it shall have supervision
over all institutions and organizations, whether county, municipal,
public or private, to which payments are made from the treasury of the
State, directly or indirectly, for or on account of the board and main-
tenance of any persons admitted or committed thereto, with the right
of visitation and inspection at any and all times, for the purpose of
determining the conditions, circumstances and surroundings under
which such persons so admitted or committed are lodged, boarded,
cared for and maintained. In the execution of this power any member
of the State Board, the commissioner, or his duly authorized agent,
shall have the right of admission to all parts of any building or build-
ings in which such persons are lodged, cared for or treated, as often as
may be necessary. The books, records and accounts of such institution
or organization shall be open to his inspection, or for inspection and
audit by the State Auditor of Accounts, or any of his subordinates, in
so far as they relate to the receipt and expenditure of State moneys, in
order to determine whether the amount so paid by the State is a proper
charge, which question the State Board shall determine, and also to
determine whether such persons so admitted or committed are prop-
erly and adequately boarded, lodged, treated, cared for and main-
tained. The extent and results of such supervision and inspection shall
be included in the annual or any special report of the State Board with
such recommendations as it may deem necessary.
125. The State Board shall have power of visitation and inspection
dijā
590
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of all county and city jails or places of detention, county or city work-
houses, county penitentiaries, county insane and tuberculous hospitals,
poor farms, almshouses, county and municipal schools of detention,
and privately maintained institutions and noninstitutional agencies for
the care and treatment of the insane, the blind, the deaf, the dumb, the
epileptic, the feeble-minded, or other institutions and noninstitutional
agencies conducted for the benefit of the physically and mentally de-
fective, or the care of dependent children. Any member of the State
Board or committee thereof, or the commissioner or his duly author-
ized agent, shall be admitted to any and all parts of any of such insti-
tutions at any time, for the purpose of inspecting and observing the
physical condition thereof, the methods of management and operation
thereof, the physical condition of the inmates, the care, treatment and
discipline thereof. The State Board may make such report with refer-
ence to the result of such observation and inspection and recommenda-
tion with reference thereto, as it may determine.
5. The New Jersey Plan of Reorganization¹
REPORT IN BRIEF
I submit a special summary report of the activities of the State
Department of Institutions and Agencies for the four years ending
June 30, 1922. The significant accomplishments for the four years are:
The Establishment of a Co-ordinated Department in place of the In-
vestigational and Reporting Agency which preceded it.-The powers of
the former Department of Charities and Corrections were limited
chiefly to inspecting and reporting upon the condition of State and
County institutions, to maintaining statistical records of commitments,
admissions and discharges to State and County institutions, to check-
ing up admission lists for hospitals and training institutions by corre-
spondence and office interviews and by means of occasional mental
examinations, to co-operation with other agencies in handling prison
labor, and to occasional surveys of certain welfare problems. The vari-
ous institutions were administered without any special reference to
each other and through Boards of Managers chosen in various ways
who were responsible directly to the Governor and the Legislature.
Under the existing plan, all institutions are placed together in a sin-
gle Department with a central staff of a functional character co-operat-
¹ Extract from Four Year Summary of Reports of the State Board of Control of
Institutions and Agencies of the State of New Jersey (June 30, 1922), pp. 7–13.
1
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 591
ing with the institutional authorities in promoting and developing
such functions as medical treatment, provision of clothing, education,
employment and financial relations in all institutions, whether they
are correctional, charitable, hospital, training or custodial in type.
The State Board is responsible for all administration, is the channel
through which the annual estimates of all institutions are submitted
to the Governor and the Legislature, and it employs a Commissioner
as its chief executive, financial and budgetary officer. The system may
be characterized as one of centralization of policy making with decen-
tralization of administrative procedures, but the local Boards of Man-
agers are called upon by the State Board to make initial recommenda-
tions with regard to all matters of major interest. The Department is
responsible for investigations and reports upon the conduct and man-
agement of all county, municipal, public and semi-public institutions
and agencies in the State. The charter of corporations not organized
for pecuniary profit must be approved by the Commissioner before
filing with the Secretary of State. All private institutions for mental
disease must receive an annual license from the Commissioner in order
to operate and all agencies placing children of other States in this State
must receive a license from the Commissioner before they are author-
ized to bring children into New Jersey. The State Board or the Com-
missioner is authorized to summon witnesses, to take sworn testimony,
to summon documents and memoranda generally in connection with
any matters which it is empowered to handle. All State building opera-
tions requiring architectural treatment, save schools under the super-
vision of the State Board of Education, are carried on by the Depart-
ment.
Formerly the institutions tended to be cosmopolitan in character,
receiving patients of various classes. Under the re-organization, insti-
tutions are specialized to handle groups of patients. The feeble-minded
committed to the State Home for Boys whose delinquency is not a pri-
mary characteristic are transferred, with the approval of the court, to
the New Lisbon Colony, whereas, for the time being the children who
are characteristically delinquent although they may be feeble-minded
at the same time are maintained in separate groups at the State Home
for Boys, pending the establishment of a specialized institution for the
feeble-minded with marked character defects. The relatively few
feeble-minded of a highly trainable character without marked char-
acter defects are transferred, whenever possible, to the Training School
at Vineland as State patients. In like manner, inmates of the State
592
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Home for Girls with particularly difficult character defects are in many
instances transferred to the State Hospital Psychopathic Department
for medical treatment and are thus given an opportunity to recover and
return to society, whereas continued stay in a correctional institution
only aggravates their behavior difficulties. The ten-year construction
program includes provision for more specialized institutions.
The Installation of a thoroughly Modern and Complete System of Cost
and Consumption Accounting. Each institution formerly operated
with a system of accounting peculiarly its own. This Department has
established a uniform system of cost and consumption accounting,
which shows monthly the cost of service, the cost of supplies and the
total goods consumed in the various departments of the institutions.
The same monthly report carries a twelve-month recapitulation which
provides a twelve months' summary at the end of each month. As this
system develops, the Superintendents and Boards of Managers will
have an increasingly close control over administration and over the use
of supplies and materials, which in turn will enable the Commissioner
and the State Board to make more intelligent recommendations to the
Legislature as to financial requirements. The State is beginning to
reap the fruits of this system of accounting and of the subsequent con-
trol it has made possible. At the end of this year $580,645.64 in funds
appropriated for maintenance in the budget for this year was returned
unused to the treasury and an increase of $94,102.67, in receipts over
estimated receipts was achieved.
The work of the Department was inaugurated by a personnel study
of each and every position in each and every institution and by the
provision of administrative codes and books of rules governing the work
of each and every department, indicating the name and title of the per-
son to be assigned to each position and the number and assignments to
be made in each division of the institution. The annual budget rec-
ommendation for personnel is now made, utilizing this schedule as a
basis. Through co-operation with the Civil Service Commission a sys-
tem of rating has been established, indicating more clearly the standard
of performance for each employee. This serves as a basis for promotion.
The Department has aimed to obviate the common criticism that
its type of organization precludes a satisfactory critical revision of its
functioning. In many States it is maintained that no organization will
publicly criticize itself, notwithstanding that that type of organization
has become common in both large and small business enterprises. The
State Board and the Commissioner have maintained from the very be-
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
593
ginning that any particular unit of the Department is more interested
in discovering weaknesses and in modifying them than any outside
agency possibly could be. The uniform policy of the central depart-
ment has been a rigorous program of self-scrutiny and of self-criticism
which offers an opportunity not only to clean house but also to educate
the people of the State to appreciate the positive constructive needs of
the institutions. Frank criticism, coupled with constructive recom-
mendations to eliminate improper conditions, is the only sound basis
for administrative progress.
The Commissioner has always maintained that criticism is of more
service in the long run to a public official than uniform praise. Oc-
casions for self-criticism and for self-analysis have arisen repeatedly
in developing a program of centralization of policy making with de-
centralization of administrative details. It is not always easy but quite
necessary to end debates concerning policies with the issuance of gen-
eral rules in the formulation of which the central office and the in-
stitutions have participated. As time goes on, difficulties due to mis-
understandings of respective points of view and purposes will become
less and less a source of delay in institutional management.
C
The Substitution of a Program of Treatment and Prevention for a Pro-
gram of Custodial Care.-One of the alarming features of modern gov-
ernment is the increase in the cost of custodial care of the wards of
governmental agencies. From the day of its establishment, this De-
partment has taken a position in favor of preventive work in childhood
as contrasted with custodial care of adult dependents and delinquents.
It has maintained that all public institutions, no matter what their
present functions, should be operated primarily to supply information
to be used by the people and by all public and private agencies and in-
stitutions in carrying forward a program of prevention for the benefit
of children in their pliable and teachable age. The remarkable achieve-
ments in preventive health work, in training children in accordance
with their endowments and in emphasizing the moral and religious side
of life as well as the physical in isolated sections of the country warrant
the application of these well tested results on a State wide scale and
even a nation wide scale in public health work, in public educational
work and in public institutional management.
New Jersey institutional achievements have justly attracted atten-
tion and have been favorably commented upon by magazines, news-
papers and public officials throughout the world. Persons in British
India, China, Japan, Soviet Russia, England, France, Italy, Australia
594
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
and New Zealand have given particular attention to or have made in-
quiry for details concerning the advancement of our work.
The Establishment of a Modern System of Training, Productive Work,
Medical Treatment and Rehabilitation in Place of Private Prison Con-
tract Tread Mill Work.-For one hundred years the prison labor prob-
lem has puzzled the best minds on both sides of the Atlantic Ocean.
It has remained a serious stumbling block and one of the principal un-
solved problems in connection with correctional institutional manage-
ment in North America and in Europe. For want of more constructive
efforts, England in the middle of the last century inaugurated a system
of tread mills, water wheels and other devices requiring physical exer-
tion on the part of prisoners immured behind prison walls. This proved
a flat failure as did the former prevailing conditions of idleness, se-
questration and inactivity. In America since 1888, because of lack of
work, due to prejudice and lack of imagination on the one hand and
because of prevailing inhuman private contract prison labor on the
other, small progress has been achieved. New Jersey lagged behind
many other American States in eliminating inadequate private prison
contracts.
The present Department has adhered rigorously to a program of
training men to become self-supporting, economic persons rather than
to the exploitation of the labor of inmates for the alleged purpose of
paying the cost of maintenance. The Governor, as budget officer, and
the Legislature have supported this policy in every way, except by the
grant of adequate appropriations to carry it fully into effect and to end
idleness at the Prison and at Rahway Reformatory and at the State
Institution for Feeble-Minded at Vineland. This Department has
steadily refused to assign more men to a shop than would be required
under like conditions in the outside world and has tried to require the
same or a better standard of production than that prevailing in com-
merce and in industry. Special commissions from British India, from
Canada, from Massachusetts, from Ohio, from Pennsylvania, from
Minnesota, from Alabama and from the Federal Government have
visited and highly commended these phases of the department's work
in New Jersey. During the last two years special phases of the indus-
trial program of this Department have been commended by the Man-
chester Guardian and in the special report on "English Prisons Today"
by Hobhouse and Brockway.
The Completion of Adequate Surveys of the Problems of Tuberculosis,
Insanity, Feeble-Mindedness, Instability and Delinquency in New Jersey.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 595
-The Department did not have sufficient staff to enable it to discharge
its full responsibility to the State in advising as to the proper handling
of the problems of tuberculosis, insanity, feeble-mindedness, instability
and delinquency. It was indeed fortunate to secure the co-operation
of the National Committee on Mental Hygiene to make a survey of
mental hygiene in New Jersey.
•
This Department from the very beginning has labored earnestly
to promote the co-operation of the various State Departments and to
eliminate overlapping of functions and the consequent over-expendi-
ture of public funds for specific purposes with inevitable shortages for
other necessary public purposes. The Department has been met more
than half way by the Departments of Education, Health and Labor.
If this co-operation can continue and if a little larger expenditure could
be made for the best type of research concerning the fundamentals of
those Departments and this Department, the program of prevention
could be pushed further forward in the State, especially with re-
spect to education in grades one to five and in public health and
in private medical work for children between the ages of one and
five.
The Department has endeavored in every way to end the wasteful
policy of building custodial units for patients who are too sick to re-
cover. In like manner, it has striven to eliminate waste in the con-
struction of these buildings due to faulty design, improper and dishon-
est inspection, the use of wrong or improper materials and inadequate
upkeep of buildings when erected.
6. The Departmentalization of the Massachusetts Government¹
PART I. GENERAL PROVISIONS
SECTION 1. The executive and administrative functions of the
commonwealth, except such as pertain to the governor and council,
and such as are exercised and performed by officers serving directly
under the governor or the governor and council, shall hereafter be ex-
ercised and performed by the departments of the secretary of the com-
monwealth, the treasurer and receiver general, the auditor of the com-
monwealth, and the attorney-general, and by the following new depart-
ments hereby established, namely:
¹ Extract from "An Act to Organize in Departments the Executive and Adminis-
trative Functions of the Government," General Acts of Massachusetts (1919), chap.
350, secs. 1, 79–85.
596
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
•
The department of agriculture
The department of conservation
The department of banking and insurance
The department of corporations and taxation
The department of education
The department of civil service and registration
The department of industrial accidents
The department of labor and industries
The department of mental diseases
The department of correction
The department of public welfare
The department of public health
The department of public safety
The department of public works
The department of public utilities
A metropolitan district commission is also hereby established as here-
inafter provided and the provisions of Part I of this act shall apply to
said commission.
13. DEPARTMENT OF MENTAL DISEASES
SEC. 79. The department of mental diseases shall consist of the
Massachusetts commission on mental diseases as now organized and
existing under chapter two hundred and eighty-five of the General Acts
of nineteen hundred and sixteen, and acts in amendment thereof and
in addition thereto. All provisions of law relating to the commission on
mental diseases shall continue in full force and effect, except as is
otherwise provided in this act.
SEC. 80. The commissioner of mental diseases shall be the execu-
tive and administrative head of the department of mental diseases,
subject to all provisions of law now in force relating to said commis-
sioner. He may organize the department in such divisions as he may,
from time to time, determine, and, with the approval of the governor
and council, appoint, and fix the compensation of, an assistant com-
missioner to discharge the duties of the commissioner during his ab-
sence or disability, and such other duties as may be prescribed by the
commissioner. Physicians, pathologists and psychiatrists of the de-
partment, and engineers, firemen and head farmers employed at insti-
tutions under the supervision of the department, shall be exempt from
the civil service law, and the rules and regulations made thereunder.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
597
14. DEPARTMENT OF CORRECTION
SEC. 82. The Massachusetts bureau of prisons, existing under au-
thority of chapter two hundred and forty-one of the General Acts of
nineteen hundred and sixteen, is hereby abolished. All the rights, pow-
ers, duties and obligations of said bureau, and of any officer, board or
member thereof, are hereby transferred to and shall hereafter be exer-
cised and performed by the department of correction established by
this act, which shall be the lawful successor of said bureau.
SEC. 83. The department of correction shall be under the super-
vision and control of a commissioner, to be known as the commissioner
of correction, who shall be appointed by the governor, with the advice
and consent of the council. The first appointment of the commissioner
shall be for the term of one, two or three years, as the governor may
determine. Thereafter the governor shall appoint the commissioner for
the term of three years, shall fill any vacancy for the unexpired term,
and may, with the consent of the council, remove the commissioner.
The commissioner shall receive such annual salary, not exceeding six
thousand dollars, as the governor and council may determine.
SEC. 84. The commissioner shall be the executive and administra-
tive head of the department. He shall perform all the duties prescribed
by law for the director of prisons. He may, with the approval of the
governor and council, appoint and remove two deputy commissioners,
and with like approval, fix their compensation. The deputy commis-
sioners shall perform such duties as the commissioner shall prescribe,
and he may designate one of them to discharge the duties of the com-
missioner during his absence or disability.
SEC. 85. The duties prescribed by law for the board of parole of the
bureau of prisons shall hereafter be performed by a board to con-
sist of a deputy commissioner designated by the commissioner, and
two members to be appointed by the governor with the advice and con-
sent of the council. The first appointments of members shall be for
terms of two and three years respectively. Thereafter as the terms ex-
pire the governor shall appoint the members for the term of three years,
shall fill any vacancy for the unexpired term, and may, with the con-
sent of the councii, remove said members. The governor shall designate
the chairman of said board. The deputy commissioner shall receive no
additional compensation for his services on the said board. The two
appointive members shall receive such annual salary, not exceeding
two thousand dollars, as the governor and council may determine; but
if one of said members is designated as chairman, he shall receive an
598
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
annual salary not exceeding three thousand five hundred dollars. The
said board shall be known as the board of parole, and shall be consid-
ered a board of the department of correction.
7. Massachusetts Department of Public Welfare¹
SECTION 1. There shall be a department of public welfare, in this
chapter called the department.
SEC. 2. The department shall be under the supervision and control
of a commissioner of public welfare, who shall be its executive and ad-
ministrative head, and an advisory board consisting of the commis-
sioner, ex officio, and six appointive members, of whom two shall be
women. The commissioner shall receive such salary, not exceeding six
thousand dollars, as the governor and council determine. Upon the
expiration of his term of office, his successor shall be appointed for five
years by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council.
SEC. 3. Two members of the advisory board shall annually be ap-
pointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
for three years each. The members shall receive no compensation, but
shall be reimbursed for their actual necessary expenses incurred in the
performance of their official duties.
SEC. 4. Except as otherwise provided, the commissioner of public
welfare may appoint such officials, agents, clerks and other employees
as the work of the department may require, designate their duties, ex-
cept so far as they are otherwise defined by law, assign them to divi-
sions, transfer and remove them, and fix their compensation. The ap-
pointments in the divisions of aid and relief and of child guardianship
shall be made with the advice of the directors thereof.
SEC. 5. The commissioner shall organize in the department a divi-
sion of aid and relief, a division of a child guardianship, and a division
of juvenile training, each in charge of a director.
SEC. 6. The members of the boards of trustees of the state institu-
tions under the supervision of the department shall receive no compen-
sation for their services, but their traveling and other necessary ex-
penses shall be allowed and paid.
DIVISION OF AID AND RELIEF
SEC. 7. The commissioner, with the approval of the governor and
council, shall appoint, fix the compensation of, and may with like ap-
¹ General Acts of Massachusetts (1919), chap. 350, sec. 87, now embodied in The
General Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1921), chap. 18.
t
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 599
7
proval, remove the director of the division of aid and relief, who shall,
under the supervision and control of the commissioner, perform the
duties required of him by law relative to the state adult poor.
SEC. 8. There shall be a board of trustees of the state infirmary
serving in the division and consisting of five men and two women,
three of whom shall annually in June be appointed by the governor,
with the advice and consent of the council, for three years each, ex-
cept that in the year nineteen hundred and twenty-one and every
third year thereafter only one such trustee shall be so appointed.
DIVISION OF CHILD GUARDIANSHIP
SEC. 9. The commissioner, with the approval of the governor and
council, shall appoint, fix the compensation of, and may with like
approval remove, a director of the division of child guardianship, who
shall, under the supervision and control of the commissioner, perform
the duties required of him by law relative to children.
SEC. 10. There shall be a board of trustees, to be known as the
board of trustees of the Massachusetts hospital school, serving in the
division and consisting of five persons. The governor, with the advice
and consent of the council, shall annually appoint a member of the
board, who shall serve for five years beginning on the first Monday in
December in the year of his appointment, and until his successor is
qualified.
DIVISION OF JUVENILE TRAINING
SEC. 11. The director of the division of juvenile training shall be a
member of the board of trustees of the Massachusetts training schools
designated by the governor. He shall receive no compensation as
such, and his term of office shall be that of his appointment as such
trustee.
SEC. 12. The board of trustees of the Massachusetts training
schools shall consist of nine persons, two of whom shall be women, and
shall constitute the division of juvenile training. No person employed
by the board for compensation shall be a member thereof.
SEC. 13. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall in June of each year appoint two members, except that in nine-
teen hundred and twenty-one and every fifth year thereafter one only
shall be appointed. The members shall hold office for five years from
July first following their appointment.
SEC. 14. The trustees shall appoint, and may remove, a secretary
not a member of the board, at a salary to be fixed by the trustees.
боо
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
They may appoint a temporary secretary, who may be a member of
the board, who shall perform the duties of the secretary in his absence.
SEC. 15. The secretary shall be the executive officer of the trustees.
He shall be paid the necessary expenses incurred in the performance of
his duties.
SEC. 16. The trustees may expend such sums for clerical assistance
and office expenses as may be appropriated by the general court.
8. The Massachusetts Department of Mental Diseases¹
DUTIES OF THE DEPARTMENT
In accordance with chapter 350 of the General Acts of 1919, which
provided for the reorganization of State departments, the Massachu-
setts Commission on Mental Diseases became the Department of Men-
tal Diseases on Dec. 1, 1919. This legislation does not change the status
of the Department. Under the above act the Norfolk State Hospital,
at present leased to the United States government, and formerly under
the State Board of Charity, comes under the supervision of this De-
partment.
The statutes relative to the duties and powers of the Department
of Mental Diseases are to be found in chapters 19 and 123, General
Laws.
The Department has general supervision of all public and private
institutions for the insane, feeble-minded, and epileptic persoņs, etc.,
and it has the right of investigation and recommendation as to any
matter relating to the classes under care. Each State institution has,
however, its own board of trustees appointed by the Governor and
Council.
The direct powers of the Department concern the interrelations
of institutions and matters which are common to them all, such as the
distribution and transfer of patients, deportations of patients to other
States and countries, claims to support as State charges in institutions,
etc.
The expenditure of money under special appropriations for new
buildings and unusual repairs is under the control of the Department,
which is required to prepare plans for new buildings and to select land
to be taken for the purpose of any new or existing institutions. The
Department also analyzes all requests for maintenance appropriations.
¹ Extract from Annual Report of the Massachusetts Commissioner of Mental
Diseases for the Year Ending November 30, 1920, pp. 9–10.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 601
9. Further Consolidation Recommended¹
RECOMMENDATIONS OF THE COMMISSION
That the departmental consolidations include the following:
a) A Department of Administration and Finance to include the
supervisor's functions, a purchasing bureau, an accounting bureau
under a Comptroller, and a division of personnel and standardization.
b) A new Welfare Department, to include present departments
of Mental Diseases, Correction, Welfare, and health sanatoria.
c) A Department of Corporate Activities, to include present de-
partments of Corporations and Taxation, Banking and Insurance, and
Public Utilities.
d) Other smaller consolidations and transfers of activities.
PUBLIC WELFARE
Under the above title the Commission recommends the consolida-
tion of the Departments of Correction, Mental Diseases, the present
Department of Public Welfare, and the institutional activities of the
Department of Public Health. The remaining activities of the Public
Health Department, including its miscellaneous inspection and educa-
tional work and engineering of water supplies and sewerage systems
are not disturbed, and are left in a separate department retaining the
present title.
It is proposed to place the full administrative responsibility of the
new welfare department in the hands of a commissioner, who should
be a man of unquestioned executive ability and broad business experi-
ence. Under him should be associate commissioners in charge of the
following groups of activities: Mental diseases, correction, hospitals
and schools, aid and relief. These associate commissioners should all
be competent professional men, familiar with the duties of their re-
spective divisions, and with full authority in matters relating to treat-
ment and welfare of inmates, but relieved of the business and mechani-
cal details of operation, so that their time may be devoted primarily to
medical or corrective treatment and other professional functions of
their respective institutions.
It is proposed to include in the department, directly responsible
to the commissioner, a director of business affairs, who would supervise
all business details and financial matters incident to the operation of
¹ Extract from Report of the Massachusetts Commission on State Administration
and Expenditures ("House Document 800," General Court, 1922), pp. 12, 25–27
47-48, 51, 53.
602
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the various institutions, and direct the maintenance and construction
of institutional equipment, buildings and grounds. Under him should
be such purchasing or supply requisition clerks as are needed to func-
tion in connection with the central purchasing agency in the procuring
of necessary supplies for the institutions. There should also be under
this director a subdivision of technical assistants, who would supervise
the operation of power plants and other mechanical equipment of the
institutions to insure sustained maximum efficiency.
Directly responsible to the associate commissioners in charge of the
various groups of institutions should be the staff activities and the su-
perintendents of the various institutions. It is not proposed that the
director of business activities should interfere with the responsibility
of the superintendents over the operation of their respective institu-
tions, but rather that the director should serve in an advisory capacity
to the associate commissioners and the various superintendents, re-
lieving them of responsibility for details foreign to their professional
duties. Such interlocking activities might suggest possibilities of fric-
tion, but they exist in all large business organizations and work har-
moniously. If the recommendations of the director are not accepted
by the superintendent of an institution or his subordinates, the matter
should be referred to the associate commissioner, or, if necessary, to
the commissioner for final settlement; but it is not anticipated that
such reference will be necessary except under unusual conditions. It is
recommended that the commissioner be given authority to determine
and adjust the many details of responsibilities and activities of the
other divisions, to the end that the entire subsidiary organization may
work together harmoniously and efficiently. . . .
In creating a new administrative head for this group of institutions,
and adding a new division for handling its business affairs, the Com-
mission is not unmindful of the expense immediately involved, but
finds that present departmental organization and other costs can be
reduced more than enough to offset this expense, leaving the saving in
operating cost effected through the consolidation, estimated at $887,-
500, as a net saving.
•
CORRECTIONS
As the result of its surveys of this department, the Commission
has reached the conclusion that it has under its supervision too many
separate institutions, none of which is fully occupied. The State Prison
at Charlestown is obsolete, and there appears to be no question but that
it should be abandoned as soon as it is practicable to do so. The prop-
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 603
1
erty on which this prison is located has a value for other purposes
which has been estimated between $750,000 and $1,000,000.
As to the disposition of the Charlestown prisoners, it is the opinion
of the Commission that they should be transferred to Bridgewater.
The facilities at this point could be made suitable for the safe confine-
ment and proper housing of the prisoners by comparatively simple
alterations in the buildings and the erection of a custodial wall. It is
estimated that this work should cost not exceeding $400,000. The cus-
todial wall should include, not only the buildings now to be used for
prison purposes, but also sufficient space for future new buildings.
Under this plan, consolidation of prisons could be effected at a cost (in-
cluding the custodial wall) less than the estimated sale value of the
Charlestown property; and if at a later date new and more modern
prison facilities should be needed, they could be provided without ma-
terial loss on account of the work now done. It is estimated that the
annual saving in prison operation from the proposed consolidation
would be not less than $150,000. To this amount should be added the
substantial reduction in commissary expense which would result from
the further cultivation by prisoners of the fertile but now undeveloped
land owned by the State in connection with the Bridgewater plant.
MENTAL DISEASES
This department spends a much larger amount of money than any
other State department. The amount of money collected for the sup-
port of inmates in its institutions is, however, comparatively small,
and the Commission is of the opinion that a larger organization for the
collection of fees, particularly through recurrent investigation of the
financial standing of relatives, would result in a substantial increase in
revenues.
The appalling extent of mental deficiency within the Common-
wealth and the enormous sums of money expended for the care of pa-
tients suggest the need of careful study of preventive measures. Such
studies have been made in the past, and indicate that the root of the
problem is prevention, and that early treatment will keep many pros-
pective patients out of the institutions. It is hoped that further in-
crease in mental disorders has been checked by the work already done.
It is, however, by no means certain that all reasonable efforts looking
to curtailment of existing deficiencies and prevention of further devel-
opments by education, isolation, and otherwise have been taken. A
further careful study of preventive measures is recommended.
•
C
•
604
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
PUBLIC WELFARE
This department conducts two distinct classes of activities-in-
stitutional and general aid and relief.
Among the institutions under this department one, namely, the
State Infirmary at Tewsbury, has a heterogeneous collection of inmates
and general conditions attending it which need early correction. By
transferring this department to a larger new department of the same
name, it is proposed to make available to these institutions [adequate]
business supervision.
Attention is also called to the large amounts of State money dis-
bursed by the Division of Aid and Relief through city and town agen-
cies without adequate State supervision. The Commission has not
formulated any definite plan for correcting any abuses which may arise
in this connection, but recommends that the matter be given further
attention.
G
The laws of Massachusetts provide for a five-year residence in a
particular locality before "settlement" is recognized. The care of cer-
tain settled cases falls upon the cities and towns, but unsettled cases
are supported by the State. In many cases it is very difficult to solve
the question of settlement because of the five-year period. Most other
States have adopted a much shorter period, usually one or two years.
It is recommended that the matter of a similar change in Massachu-
setts be given attention, to the end that the solution of settlement
problems be simplified and the responsibility for support placed where
it belongs.
10.
A Legislature Pretends to Departmentalize
A. A SECRETARY REPLACES A BOARD AND A STAFFI
SECTION 1. That the State Board of Charities and Corrections is
hereby abolished and Sections 495 and 496 of the Revised Statutes of
Colorado of 1908 and Sections 524 and 525 of the Compiled Laws of Col-
orado of 1921, and Section 1 of Chapter 83 of the Session Laws of
Colorado of 1911, and Section 525 of the Compiled Laws of Colorado of
1921, are hereby repealed, and the Secretary of the State Board of
Charities and Corrections shall be known as the Secretary of the De-
"An Act to Abolish the State Board of Charities and Corrections and to
Repeal Sections 495, 496, 497, 498, 499, 500, 501, 502, 503, 504, 505, and 506 of the
Revised Statutes of Colorado of 1908, and Chapter 83 Session Laws of Colorado of
1911, April 26, 1923," Laws Passed at the Twenty-fourth Session of the General
Assembly of the State of Colorado (1923), chap. 169.
t
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 605
partment of Charities and Corrections, and shall continue to exercise
and shall exercise all the rights and powers and perform all the duties
vested in and imposed upon the Secretary and the members of the
board of the State Board of Charities and Corrections under the laws
governing and concerning the State Board of Charities and Correc-
tions and its Secretary, all under the direction of the Governor.
SEC. 2. The Secretary of the State Board of Charities and Cor-
rections shall be known as the Secretary of the Department of Charities
and Corrections and shall be paid an annual salary of $1800, the same
as the salaries of the other executive officers of the State are paid, in
addition to the necessary traveling expenses while making investiga-
tions and engaged in the conduct of the business of the Department of
Charities and Corrections.
B. THE GOVERNOR RECOMMENDS SUPPORT¹
CHARITIES AND CORRECTIONS
The laws of the State charge this Department with a great deal of
work, but the Legislature has left it with a totally inadequate appro-
priation. The Department of Charities and Corrections should be
made the clearing house and research division in all matters relating
to charities and corrections and social welfare in the State. Unless you
give this Department sufficient money to work with, it cannot carry
out the duties imposed upon it by law. I am recommending an in-
crease from $8,500 to $30,200 for the current biennium, which is only
$15,000 more than the Department received in 1913.
Gjy
C. THE GOVERNOR ATTEMPTS TO FIND A SUBSTITUTE²
A VOLUNTEER BOARD CREATED
Whatever the policy of the Governor regarding executive clemency
may be he cannot escape under the Constitution responsibility for
considering appeals that are made for clemency. In order that he may
do this intelligently it is necessary that some one should gather up for
the Governor's consideration the available facts regarding each case.
In the lack of a special Pardons Secretary this work was placed again
in the Department of Charities and Corrections. It is not now in any
• Extract from Biennial Address of Governor William E. Sweet to the Twenty-
fifth General Assembly (Denver, Colo., 1925), p. 5.
2 Extract from First Biennial Report of the State Department of Charities and
Corrections of Colorado (1923-24), p. 8.
606
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
way connected with this Department by law, but it is so related to the
work of the Department that this would be the natural place for car-
rying on such work in the lack of any other means specifically provided
for that purpose. The work would have to be done either in the
Governor's own office or in this office which is also his own, unless he
should ask some other office to do it for him as a matter of favor.
The Governor voluntarily appointed to assist him in these grave
decisions, an Advisory Board of Pardons, consisting of Father William
O'Ryan, Rabbi William S. Friedman, of Denver, both of whom had
long served on the Board of Charities and Corrections, Mrs. Helen
Fischer, of Boulder, and Mr. Hale Smith, Secretary to the Governor.
This Board has served without salary in advisory capacity only.
When the present Secretary came into the Department of Charities
and Corrections on March 1, 1924, the Governor relieved the Depart-
ment so far as possible of the pardons work, leaving the Secretary
free to devote her time to the regular work of the Department which
will presently be explained. The Governor's own Secretary assumed
responsibility for preparation of the facts regarding prisoners request-
ing clemency, but the clerical work remained in the Department of
Charities and Corrections. This work has been at best inadequately
done, yet it has occupied more than half of the stenographer's time.
II. The Peril of the New Plan¹
It is relatively easy to produce surface indications to show how
many state institutions are more economically administered by a cen-
tralized board than these same institutions have been administered by
decentralized boards. It should be remembered that under the decen-
tralized board plan where we have a strong state board of charities its
published reports of comparative costs of service in all the institutions
carefully analyzed is a constant challenge to each board and the execu-
tive officer of each institution to improve its efficiency. Moreover, it
should also be remembered that even the saving of several hundred
thousand dollars or even one or two million dollars annually in the
administration of twenty state institutions is no saving at all if it is
accomplished to the detriment of the higher development of these in-
stitutions and at the expense of the wards of the state for which the in-
• Extract taken by permission from J. E. Hagerty, "Recent Legislation in Pub-
lic Welfare Organizations—Their Trend and Meaning," Proceedings of the National
Conference of Social Work at the Forty-ninth Annual Session (Providence, 1922),
PP. 444-47.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
607
stitutions were created. The decision on superior financing reverts in
last analysis to the relative merits of the systems compared.
Within the last ten years many states appointed efficiency boards
to investigate the form of organization of the state governments and
state departments and to recommend changes to the legislature. Most
of these efficiency boards recommended a federal or centralized govern-
ment in which all of the state's work was to be consolidated in a few
departments presided over by heads appointed by the governor and
holding office at the pleasure of the governor. In these recommenda-
tions the work of the public welfare institutions was usually included
in a public welfare department.
The Illinois law of 1917 known as the civil administration code car-
ried out the programs of its commission in creating nine departments,
the heads to be called directors, appointed by the governor and holding
office at his pleasure. Two of these departments are the department of
public welfare and of public health. Since then the federal or central-
ized form of administration of some kind has been adopted by Idaho,
Nebraska, Ohio, Michigan, and Massachusetts. In all of them the
governor appoints the head of the public welfare department who is
responsible to the governor and holds office at his pleasure.
In recommending a state board of charities for Ohio the Report
says:
To take the place of the present board of State Charities a state board of
welfare consisting of members appointed by the governor for overlapping
terms of five years each, is recommended as a propaganda, educational and
inspectional agency. This board would have no administrative duties to per-
form, but its duty would be to visit and investigate State institutions for the
purpose of checking up on the work which is being done by the department
of welfare administration, and report the facts to the director, the legislature,
and the public. It will have no connection whatever with the management
of institutions, its chief function being analysis and criticism of programs
and results and constructive recommendations as to new policies and pro-
grams which should be undertaken.
With this recommendation of a state board of charities I am in
complete accord. I have believed for some time that the administra-
tive and executive functions of a state board of charities interfered with
its performance of those functions which the boards of state charities.
were originally organized to perform. In both Ohio and Michigan a
department of public welfare as a department of the state government
with a director of public welfare was created and in both instances the
608
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
board of state charities was abolished. Usually if a political adminis-
tration creates a department of public welfare headed by a director
appointed by the governor and responsible to him, it does not want
another department representing more nearly the public point of view
to check up on its work, criticize it, and report its findings to the public.
It is not in the nature of political parties to favor this sort of thing.
The following are some of the objections to the law: first, in Ohio
the governor holds office for two years. The director of public welfare
may not hold office longer than two years. A reasonable continuity of
policy so essential to the development of welfare work cannot be guar-
anteed where the head of the Public Welfare Department is likely to
be changed with changes in administration. This same argument will
apply to the director of public health; second, a brief and uncertain
tenure of office will not attract men of great ability and men of experi-
ence and technical training to enter this form of state service; third, if
appointments are made by governors only men from the state are
likely to be appointed. The position of director of public welfare or
director of health should go to the most competent men to be found in
the country or in the world; fourth, where high salaried men are ap-
pointed by the governors political pressure will be applied to secure
appointments of favorites, not only as directors of departments, but
also as subordinates in the departments.
I have stated that the efficiency committees of the different states
employed to investigate state government methods and operations
have almost invariably recommended the consolidation of the work of
the state in a few departments whose heads governors appoint. In
arriving at this conclusion they have followed the theory that where
responsibility is concentrated it is possible for the people to hold some-
one accountable for his conduct and attach praise and blame where it
belongs. With this theory in general, I am in sympathy. In most lines
of governmental activities, doubtless much good has been accom-
plished in gathering together widely scattered functions and placing
them where they belong in relatively few departments and giving some-
one the definite responsibility of accomplishing results.
This theory breaks down, however, when we assume that the peo-
ple in general have the capacity to distinguish between superior, less
efficient, and even very inferior results in the management of public
welfare institutions in such matters as probation, parole, or child-plac-
ing especially when political parties are actively engaged in misrepre-
senting the facts and clouding the issues. Is there any better reason for
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
609
}
the appointment of the director of public welfare and the director of
public health by the governor than there is that he should appoint the
president of the state university and the president of the state agri-
cultural college on the theory that you should hold someone definitely
accountable for these appointments. Judging from speeches one hears
at a conference like this we are inclined to believe that most social
workers consider political parties public political enemies. The political
scientist and the efficiency experts have not shown us how we can de-
stroy them, or at least how we can destroy the insane attachment of
otherwise sane, normal, and responsible human beings to his political
party. And until they do so I for one will not admit the necessity or
even desirability of concentrating authority and responsibility in all
matters pertaining to human welfare in a single executive who in the
nature of things is the leader of the dominant political party in the
state.
After all the most efficient system for the management of state
public welfare institutions and welfare work is the one which will select
the most capable men and women to manage and control these insti-
tutions and to do the welfare work and to give them the freedom and
the support to do their work in accordance with their ideals. All other
features of a superior system sink into insignificance in comparison
with this one.
I think that there is merit in having a single executive head in
charge of the public welfare institutions of a state if a man with techni-
cal knowledge and commanding ability can be found, and if he can be
appointed without any reference to his politics and is given indefinite
tenure in office so long as he is successful. If we are to have a single
executive then the public welfare institutions and public welfare work
should be placed under the control of a bi-partisan board of six persons
appointed by the governor for a period of six years, this board to ap-
point the director of public welfare who should be appointed for an
indefinite period and who should not be required to be a citizen of the
state where he is appointed. The long term office of board members will
make it impossible for any governor to organize the board for partisan
purposes. A state board of charities should be retained and made a vi-
tal part of this plan.
Unless a plan of this sort can be worked out it will be better to have
the decentralized plan of individual boards for each institution than to
have a centralized board of administration or a director of welfare ap-
pointed by the governor and responsible to him.
610
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
12. The Head of a Department Reviews the Situation¹
ORGANIZATION
In 1921 the 84th General Assembly passed the so-called re-organi-
zation law. This law, effective July 1, 1921, transferred all the duties
of the Ohio Board of Administration, together with the duties of the
State Board of Clemency, the Board of State Charities, and the ad-
ministrative authority of the Ohio Commission for the Blind, to a sole
managing head called the Director of Public Welfare. The law provid-
ing for a Board of Administration was enacted in May, 1911, under the
administration of Governor Harmon. At that time the then nineteen
state institutions, namely, eight Hospitals for the Insane, Ohio Hospital
for Epileptics, Institution for Feeble-Minded, Ohio Penitentiary, Ohio
State Reformatory, Boys' Industrial School, Girls' Industrial School,
Ohio State Tuberculosis Sanatorium, Ohio Soldiers' and Sailors' Home,
Madison Home, State School for the Deaf, and the State School for
the Blind, were managed by separate boards of trustees composed of
five members each, or ninety-five trustees in all. The Ohio Board of
Administration of four members, divided equally as to politics, as-
sumed the duties of the ninety-five trustees on August, 1911, and con-
tinued with full power to manage the state institutions until 1921.
Since 1911, four more institutions have been added, making twenty-
three in all under the control of the Director of Public Welfare, whose
term is co-extensive with that of the Governor.
The management of these institutions is a tremendously big busi-
ness proposition, embracing, as it does, property located in all sections.
of the state, and valued at more than thirty-two millions of dollars, in-
cluding more than 14,000 acres of land, of which nearly 10,000 acres
are tillable, nearly 3,500 officers and employees, annual agricultural
and manufactured production valued at more than two millions of
dollars, and an annual expenditure of nearly $8,000,000.00.
With the care, treatment, and education of more than 25,000 wards
in our state institutions, and the care and supervision of nearly 14,000
children in the Division of Charities, the problem is greater and vastly
more important than a mere business enterprise.
Each institutional superintendent or division head is appointed to
his or her position by reason of professional, scientific, or welfare train-
ing. These superintendents and division heads are widely separated in
different parts of the state and each has his own particular problems to
I Extract from Second Annual Report of the Department of Public Welfare of
Ohio (1923), PP. 9–13.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 611
1
deal with. It is necessary to have a central agency for the purpose of
co-ordinating all the institutional and departmental activities and for-
mulating a continuous uninterrupted welfare policy. That agency, in
my opinion, should be a bi-partisan board of members appointed for
definite terms, of which not more than one expires in any one year.
Under this plan there would always be an experienced majority to carry
on a continuity of policy and work and to stabilize ideas and notions of
new members.
For the same reason I think the work of the Division of Charities,
whether carried on in connection with state institutions as at present,
or not, should be directed by a non-partisan board of experienced social
welfare workers, members to be appointed by the Governor for definite
terms, of which not more than one shall expire in any one year. As
stated before, the term of the Director is co-extensive with that of the
Governor. Under the present scheme of government the term of the
Superintendent of Charities is co-extensive with that of the Director.
A change in administration means a new Director of Welfare, and a
new Superintendent of Charities; consequently there is likely to be no
continuity of policy, but a constant experimenting with ideas which is
bound to cripple the whole department and destroy the result of years
of labor and large expenditures of money. There is nothing so costly in
any business or an organization of any kind as constant experimenting.
The so-called Reorganization Bill did not materially change the Ohio
Board of Administration law, nor the law governing the Board of
State Charities, the Director of Public Welfare assuming all the duties
and responsibilities of these two Boards.
The reorganization bill supposedly was copied from the Illinois
Administrative code. I do not know how closely the Illinois law was
adopted in other departments but in the Department of Public Wel-
fare it was not followed and as a result we were given a make-shift—
an organization with which it is physically impossible to carry out the
law governing the Board of Administration, the Board of State Char-
ities, the Commission for the Blind and the Board of Clemency, which
the Department of Public Welfare inherited.
The organization of the Illinois Department of Public Welfare is
as follows:
Director
Assistant Director
Fiscal Supervisor
Superintendent of Prisons
Superintendent of Charities
Superintendent of Pardon and Paroles
Alienist
Criminologist
612
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The above positions are provided for by law with salaries ranging
from $5000.00 to $7000.00 per year.
Our organization as provided for by the Ohio reorganization law is
as follows:
Director
Fiscal Supervisor
Superintendent of Charities
Superintendent of Pardon and Parole
The salaries of the above officials are fixed by law and range from
$4000.00 to $6500.00 per year.
While Ohio is supposed to have adopted the Illinois System it is
apparent that we must try to function with a fifty percent organization
as compared with Illinois, or, without the services of four salaried ex-
perts. The result inevitably is that the 25,000 unfortunate wards of
the State cannot be given the care, attention, and study to which they
are entitled, not to mention economic waste to tax payers resulting
from lack of proper supervision.
After having been operated efficiently and successfully for ten
years under a bi-partisan board, the Department was thrown into an
experimental stage July 1, 1921, when the present one-man director-
ship became effective. That the present arrangement proved unsatis-
factory from its inception is demonstrated by the many suggestions
for revision. Different groups have different recommendations. For
instance, one group recommends a director, having associated with him
four experts; namely, a neuro-psychiatrist, a penologist, a sociologist
and a psychologist. Another recommends a board of seven members
appointed by the Governor for a period of seven years, which is to ap-
point a director, exercise general supervision and determine the policy
of the respective departments. In support of their recommendation
they call attention to the fact that the Ohio State University is man-
aged by a board of seven trustees, each appointed for a term of seven
years, and that the problems of administration of the Department of
Public Welfare are as complex, varied and difficult of solution as
those incident to the management of the University, etc.
In this connection, and for the purpose of comparison, I might say
that the Ohio State University is one unit, located on one tract of land,
engaged in one kind of work, and having an enrollment of about eight
thousand students-normal, intelligent persons. Nearly all of the
students live away from the institution and are on the campus only
long enough to attend classes.
In contrast, there are in the Department of Public Welfare, in addi-
I
}
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
613
tion to the Division of Charities, Commission for the Blind, Board of
Clemency and the Bureau of Criminal Indentification, twenty-three in-
stitutions scattered throughout the state, with an aggregate population
of twenty-five thousand defective, criminal, aged and sick persons and
nearly thirty-four hundred employees. These institutions consist of
eight hospitals for the insane, one institution for the feeble-minded,
one hospital for epileptics, two correctional schools, a school for the
deaf, a school for the blind, three penal institutions, and others. Practi-
cally all of the institutions have the same problems to deal with, so far
as the physical plants are concerned, as the Ohio State University.
Again, these institutions have a permanent population and require
constant supervision and care. The University's big problem is an edu-
cational one. We not only have an educational problem at each insti-
tution but additional problems of discipline, care, custody and the
mental and physical treatment of the wards. Also, we have at the vari-
ous institutions extensive manufacturing and farming problems that
require constant supervision. All this leads me to say that there is no
comparison between the scope and problems of the Ohio State Uni-
versity and the Department of Public Welfare.
One sad experiment-that of 1921-is sufficient. Let us not pro-
ceed from this mistake to another innovation which may prove un-
wise. The safe and sane thing to do is to return to the tried, tested and
successful system of a bi-partisan board. The sooner this is done, the
better.
Section 1833 of the General Code, creating the board of adminis-
tration, one of the few sections repealed by the reorganization law,
among other things provided:
The Governor shall appoint four persons not more than two of whom
shall belong to or be affiliated with the same political party. They shall be
selected so that the Board will have, as far as possible, in its membership the
advantages arising from special study, knowledge or experience regarding
the proper care and treatment to be afforded at institutions of the kinds gov-
erned by it, the production, manufacture and purchase of articles required in
or by such institutions, the care and cultivation of lands and the general
principles and conduct of business management.
Under the sections not repealed by the Reorganization code, the
duties of the Director of Public Welfare are enumerated, a few of which
are as follows:
To accept and hold on behalf of the State any grant, gift, or bequest of
money or property and make an accounting annually.
614
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Regulate the admission and discharge of pupils and inmates.
Be the guardian of all minors who are wards of the State.
Act as Commission of Lunacy with power to examine into, with or with-
out expert assistance, the question of sanity or condition of persons com-
mitted to or confined in any public or private hospital for the insane or re-
strained of his liberty by reason of alleged insanity in any place within this
state.
Order and compel the discharge of any such persons who shall not be in-
sane and direct what disposition shall be made of them.
Shall have the sole authority to transfer inmates from one institution to
another.
Shall determine the numbers of officers and employees to be appointed
in each institution and fix the salaries, which shall be uniform as far as
possible.
Shall assign among the correctional and penal institutions the industries
to be carried on therein.
Shall fix the prices at which all labor performed and all articles manu-
factured in said institutions shall be furnished to the state and political sub-
divisions.
Shall classify public buildings and determine the kinds and qualities of
articles to be manufactured therein.
Shall determine and direct what land belonging to said institutions shall
be cultivated and the crops to be raised.
Shall determine and present the needs of the institutions to the General
Assembly based upon a per capita allowance.
Under another section the Director of Public Welfare is required to
visit each institution at least once a month. To say nothing of the
other requirements, it is almost a physical impossibility for one person
to comply with this one section alone.
Following the sections prescribing the duties of the Director is sec-
tion 1871 of the General Code, not repealed by the Reorganization Bill,
which in my judgment is one of the best laws ever enacted affecting the
Welfare Department. It reads as follows:
The Board shall make rules and regulations for the strictly non-partisan
management of the institutions under its control. Any member or employee
of the board, or any officer or employee of any institution under its control,
who, by implication or otherwise, shall exert his influence directly or indi-
rectly to induce any other officer or employee of any such institution to adopt
his political views or to favor any particular person or candidate for office, or
who shall in any manner contribute money or other things of value to any
person for election purposes, shall be removed from his office or position, by
the board in case of an officer or employee, and by the Governor in case of a
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
615
member of the board. And no member or officer or employee of the board
shall recommend or in any other way seek to secure the appointment, em-
ployment or promotion of any person at any institution, the intent and pur-
pose of this act (G.C.Section 1832 et seq.) being to improve the service and
discipline at said institutions by entrusting the same to the managing officers
thereof without interference save by the rules, regulations and orders of the
board.
13. Social Service and the Care of the Insane
A¹
The past year has been marked by some interesting developments
in the Social Service Division. At the present time social service is
active in four sections or divisions within the Department, viz., Insti-
tution Service; Division of Mental Hygiene; Division of Feeble-Minded
and Division for Examination of Prisoners. Although the main pur-
pose of social service is essentially the same throughout the Depart-
ment, functions necessarily vary in accordance with the needs and pur-
poses of the various sections in which social work is required.
Social case work with patients in institutions is the chief function
of the hospital work-other duties being more or less directly related
to case work. The Mental Hygiene Division stresses preventive work,
particularly with children of pre-school age-hence the activities of the
social service are directed very largely toward educational measures
plus case work with this special group. The Division of Feeble-Minded,
created primarily for the community supervision of non-institutional
feeble-minded persons, has, up to the present time, been engaged in
the social study of applications for admission to the Massachusetts
School. The original list, containing about 1,467 names, is the founda-
tion of the study. From this list are eliminated subsequent commit-
ments; cases in which adjustments to community life have been made;
those in care of social agencies; those not located, etc. The remainder
are recommended either for commitment to the Department as com-
munity cases, or for commitment to an institution. Social case work
is done with all committed cases.
-
The most recent development is noted in the newly established
Division for the Examination of Prisoners. Eight new social workers
have been secured for the purpose of medical-social history work on
¹ Extract from "Report of Director of Social Service," Annual Report of the
Massachusetts Commissioner of Mental Diseases for the Year Ending November 30,
1924, pp. 25-26.
616
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
i
referred lists of prisoners. These histories are to be used for diagnostic
purposes only; no social case work is done in this division.
The establishment of social service in new fields, or rather in differ-
ent divisions of the Department of Mental Diseases, has required con-
siderable time and effort in order that the various sections may func-
tion harmoniously and effectively. There has been a steadily increasing
demand on the part of private agencies for advice or guidance in cases
in which mental factors are involved. This part of the service is both
gratifying and potentially far-reaching in results, in that the mental
difficulties of clients are being considered by non-medical social agen-
cies dealing with them.
The institution social service appears to be moving along the same
general lines and excellent work is being accomplished in a large major-
ity of institutions. Considerable emphasis is being brought to bear
upon the economic value of social service in State institutions and there
appears to be a growing tendency to place larger numbers of patients
in the community under supervision. The ever increasing costs of
maintenance make such a procedure more or less imperative and under
social service there is, possibly, a minimum of risk involved in such
measures. Some studies made during the past year have attempted
to interpret the economic value of social work on this basis.
BI
A careful review of Chapter 309, Acts of 1924, revealed that pris-
oners serving a sentence of more than thirty days, excepting those who
were compelled to serve because of non-payment of fine and expenses,
together with all those who had served a previous sentence, were to be
given a thorough psychiatric examination by a psychiatrist appointed
by the Commissioner of the Department of Mental Diseases,-this to
apply to all jails and houses of correction in the Commonwealth. Re-
ports of these examinations were to be forwarded to the Commis-
sioner of the Department of Correction together with certain recom-
mendations. This law became effective September 1, 1924, and this
division was established on that date.
The first step toward organization of a unit to make these examina-
tions was a careful study of statistics available in order to determine as
nearly as possible the number of prisoners to be examined in a given
time. This study, when completed, gave the following information:
¹ Extract from "Report of the Division for the Examination of Prisoners De-
partment of Mental Diseases," ibid., pp. 29–32.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 617
1. The larger part of those to be examined could be conveniently
reached from five centers, i.e., Boston, Salem, Taunton, Worcester,
and Springfield. Consequently, the State has been divided into five
districts which, for convenience, have been numbered District No. 1
including Suffolk, Norfolk, and Middlesex counties; District No. 2
including Essex County; District No. 3 including Bristol, Plymouth,
Barnstable, Dukes, and Nantucket counties; District No. 4 including
Worcester County; and District No. 5 including Hampden, Hampshire,
Franklin, and Berkshire counties.
2. Approximately one half of the prisoners to be examined came
within the jurisdiction of District No. 1, the other half being unevenly
divided among the other districts. From this it was possible to arrange
a tentative list of the personnel needed in each district.
District No. 1-Boston....
•
District No. 2—Salem...
District No. 3-Taunton......
District No. 4-Worcester...
..
District No. 5-Springfield...
·
Five Psychiatrists (part time)
Five Psychiatric Social Workers
Three Stenographers
One Psychiatrist (part time)
One Psychiatric Social Worker (District)
One Psychiatric Social Worker (part time),
vacant
One Stenographer (part time)
One Psychiatrist (part time)
One Psychiatric Social Worker (District)
One Psychiatric Social Worker (part
time), vacant
One Stenographer
One Psychiatrist (part time)
One Psychiatric Social Worker (District)
One Stenographer (part time)
One Psychiatrist (part time)
One Psychiatric Social Worker (District)
One Stenographer (part time)
Psychiatrists who could only give a part of their time to the work
were selected because of history of training and experience presented
by those applying for positions on that basis. We have been able to se-
cure a complete staff of psychiatrists, but because of a lack of persons
trained as psychiatric social workers progress has been somewhat
slower in filling the vacancies in that group. At the present time we
have only two vacancies, however..
618
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
From the first it was realized that uniformity of the methods used
would be very necessary. In order to insure this an outline to be used
in all districts was prepared. A complete case history is to contain:
1. Social History
2. Medical History
3. Physical Examination
4. Neurological Examination
5. Mental Examination
6. Recommendations
The part devoted to social and medical histories was written by the
Director of Social Service of this department. The physical examina-
tion guide was arranged by the Department of Public Health, this part
of the work having been assigned to that department by the statute.
The part covering the neurological examinations was prepared by the
staff of this division. This outline is in use and thus far only a few
changes have been necessary.
The office equipment and stationery, as well as automobiles for
the social workers who have large districts to cover, have been ac-
quired and at the time this Report was written all offices were in opera-
tion.
An Advisory Committee composed of the Commissioner of the
Department of Mental Diseases; Commissioner of the Department of
Correction; Superintendent of the Massachusetts School for the Feeble-
Minded; Deputy Commissioner and Secretary, State Commission on
Probation; and County Commissioner of Middlesex County, will hold
its first meeting in the near future.
No attempt has been made to examine prisoners admitted before
the date of the opening of our offices in the various districts because of
the large numbers involved. As a matter of fact we have been unable
to examine all those reported to us on this basis. The number of ex-
aminations recorded is increasing each week and it is hoped that we
will be able to cover the field in the not too far distant future. Figures
we have been able to compile recently indicate that the number to be
examined will be much larger than had been estimated. It is possible
that this may necessitate increases in personnel and equipment.
The recommendations which are to be sent to the Department of
Correction will be formulated in this office. The work will start the
first of the coming month. Arrangements have been made with the De-
partment of Public Health which make it possible to forward their
recommendations concerning the physical condition of the men at the
same time. One troublesome factor is that the law does not require
that a physical examination be made of all of the men we are required
•
•
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
619
to examine. In quite a few instances it has been found that our workers
have investigated cases which have not been examined by the jail
physician. This is due to the fact that the provisions of the statute are
not in agreement. It is hoped that this can be remedied at some future
time.
The co-operation we have met with from everyone is most gratify-
ing, and I wish to express my appreciation for the assistance which has
been given to us by the officials in the jails and houses of correction as
well as the many private and public social organizations.
14. Co-operation between Correction, Mental Diseases, and
Local Authorities after the Methods of Social Service¹
The Commissioner of Correction respectfully submits the fifth
Annual Report of the Department of Correction.
On October 31, 1924, Deputy Commissioner George B. Stebbins,
having been appointed by His Excellency to the position of Clerk of the
West Roxbury Municipal Court, terminated his connection with this
department, and Seymour H. Stone, of Boston, long well and favorably
known in private social work, accepted appointment to fill the vacancy.
At the time this Report is being written there seems to be some
uninformed belief that Massachusetts is being subjected to a crime
wave. It is true that the figures of prison population are somewhat
higher for the year 1924 than for two or three years previous. A [study
of the figures shows], however, that our adult prison population is still
far below the pre-war level.
It is but natural that the police, prosecuting attorneys, and others
engaged in the business of detecting and punishing crime should, upon
temporary increase in criminality, immediately call for stiffer sen-
tences, more quickly applied. The Department of Correction, how-
ever, again records its sincere belief (and this belief is born out of a long,
constant and studious observation of the personalities coming within
its institutions) that while temporary measures, such as long sentences,
may be advisable, in the long run crime can be abated and "crime
waves" prevented only by reforming the individual and preventing
the social conditions which cause crime.
•
Effort is made to shape the discipline in the State penal institu-
tions to that end. We, therefore, gather statistics concerning the early
¹ Extract from Annual Report of the Massachusetts Commissioner of Correction
for the Year Ending November 30, 1924, pp. 2–6.
620
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
life and influences surrounding our inmates; we provide them with
steady employment, give them an opportunity to attend school and
attempt the difficult task of bringing some new and regenerative influ-
ences into their lives. This cannot be called "coddling" the criminal.
The deprivation of a man's liberty is the greatest punishment that can
be meted out to him. Our important task is to use the period of his en-
forced restraint as an opportunity to make him a better man.
As a necessary preparation for this task an acquaintance with all
the important facts of each prisoner's social, family, individual and in-
dustrial history, and an accurate diagnosis of his present physical, men-
tal and neurological condition is vitally important. At the present time
three of our five state institutions, those which house the more serious
offenders, are well equipped to do this. The histories gathered and
prepared at the Reformatory for Women have been the model for in-
stitutions the world over. The State Prison and the Massachusetts
Reformatory have made much progress in the last few years in this line,
and now furnish this department and the Board of Parole with most
of the necessary facts required. In the large number of short-term men
and those of the vagrant type at the State Farm, the difficulty of gath-
ering the necessary information in the short time they are with us has
been encountered. Nevertheless, good progress is being made in this
line with regard to the longer sentenced men at this institution.
At the Prison Camp and Hospital a large proportion of the inmates
are transferred from county institutions, where no detailed histories or
vital statistics have been gathered. It may be that eventually the work
done under Chapter 309 of the Acts of 1924, providing for the psychiat-
ric examination of prisoners in county jails will soon be available for
the information of the department and the Board of Parole. In the
meantime, this department is unable to gather the necessary informa-
tion in these cases owing to lack of help and to the fact that the Legis-
lature has withheld so far the necessary appropriation to employ the
required assistance. The department nevertheless feels that the char-
acter and volume of the information gathered in the great majority of
the important cases is ample and cannot but be of help to the Board
of Parole and all others dealing with these cases, if properly utilized.
As ever, it is difficult to reconcile the point of view of the person
who demands severe punishment with the attitude of the man who
realizes the complex nature of the crime problem and the great extent
to which criminality is determined by forces within and without the
individual, over which he has only limited control.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE 621
Underlying many of the recommendations of this department is
this feeling of the possibility of the redemption of many apparently
hopeless individuals, and the Department of Correction again bespeaks
the public support in its endeavor to demonstrate what has been proven
in many times and places, namely, that the community that resolves
to administer punishment as a means of individual reformation will rid
itself of crime sooner than the community which demands punishment
solely for purposes of revenge or vindication.
Something of this feeling has led the officials of this department to
demand improvement in the present housing conditions at Charles-
town. It is not their desire simply that conditions be made more agree-
able and comfortable for those inmates, but that a new building can be
evolved, more economical in its administration and more consistent
with the present-day tendency towards classification and reformation.
Reference may be had to previous reports of this department for the
arguments existing in favor of the replacement of the present structures
at Charlestown. The great difficulty of getting the state government
to unite upon a policy has led this department this year to present its
suggestions for improving the situation in another form. The great ob-
jections to the present site of the State Prison are:
Lack of congregate dining room
Lack of sufficient exercise ground
Lack of school room facilities
Inadequate hospital accommodation
Inadequate and obsolete industrial buildings
Lack of plumbing facilities
Inappropriate site
The department has this year accompanied its annual budget re-
quests with suggestions for improvements which should eliminate all
these objections except the last two. Filed with the annual estimates
will be found plans and specifications for a new industrial building and
for a new service building to include an auditorium, congregate dining
room, several school rooms and a modern kitchen and store-room.
The plans for the new industrial buildings are so arranged as to double
the present limited out-door recreation space.
The last two criticisms seem difficult to obviate. Several expert
plumbers have advised the department that the character of the cell
blocks makes the insertion of flush closets in the cells an impossibility;
and of course no amount of repairs or renovations could overcome the
fact that the prison is located in a congested and dirty neighborhood.
622
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The department feels, however, that having asked the Legisla-
ture for a new prison for several years, it is justified in bringing to the
attention of the General Court an alternative remedy which, while not
entirely satisfactory, will go a long way toward making the State
Prison at Charlestown a better prison and help restore the Common-
wealth of Massachusetts to its position as a leader in penological work
in this country.
The Department of Correction cannot refrain from noting the
great increase in co-operation between the state department and those
having charge of county institutions. The discussion, which raged for
several years as to the means of increasing such co-operation, termi-
nated in 1924 with the enactment of Chapter 309. Under the able
leadership of the Department of Mental Diseases, the psychiatric
examination of about nine thousand county prisoners annually is being
undertaken, and the results in the form of history charts are being sent
to this office in conformity with the provisions of that act. The de-
partment is informed that between fifty and sixty thousand dollars
annually will be required to do this very important work. The recent
increase in the work of the Department of Correction, both in character
and volume of work, will make it necessary that some extra help be
given if the opportunities which will so obviously present themselves
as a result of these investigations are to be taken advantage of.
Many of the chronic cases of recidivism in our houses of correction
are undoubtedly irremediable. One has only to look over these investi-
gations, however, to perceive that a very great opportunity exists in
some of these cases to apply the principles of scientific social work in a
preventive way and thus help to stem the tide of criminal recidivism in
our classified penal institutions.
Co-incident with the termination of the discussion above referred
to which unfortunately developed the appearance of a contest, con-
siderable improvement has been noted in the conduct of many of the
county institutions. The Department of Correction expresses the hope
that a new era of mutual helpfulness and co-operation has been entered
upon, and that the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is about to join
with the various county organizations in a joint attempt to combat
the question of crime in an effective manner.
In general, the physical condition and aspect of the county institu-
tions is much improved. Within the last five years, four of these places
have been abandoned.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
623
15. The Prison Authorities Co-operate with the State
Highway Authorities¹
SECTION 1. The state highway commission of the state of Cali-
fornia may employ or cause to be employed, convicts confined in the
state prisons in the construction, improvement and maintenance of the
state highway system, provided for in the "state highways act” ap-
proved March 22, 1909, the "state highways act of 1915," approved
May 20, 1915, and in section two of article sixteen of the constitution,
and in the construction, improvement and maintenance of any other
state roads in California.
Upon the requisition of the state highway commission, the state
board of prison directors shall send to the place and at the time desig-
nated the number of convicts requisitioned or such number thereof as
are in the judgment of the warden available. All convicts so employed
as aforesaid shall receive not to exceed the sum of two dollars fifty
cents per day for the number of days which such convict shall actually
perform labor upon the construction, improvement and maintenance
of the state highway system; provided, however, in no event shall said
convict earn more than seventy-five cents net per day; provided,
however, that the convicts, when so employed, shall be charged with
his or their proportionate share of all expenses for the proper mainte-
nance of the road camp, including the expenses of transportation from
the prison to the road camp, clothing, food, medicine, medical attend-
ance, toilet articles, tools and appliances for the performance of such
labor, and the pro-rata cost of reward for capturing escapes from the
road camp, which award is hereby fixed at the sum of two hundred
dollars for the capture and return of each escaped prisoner, payable
to any individual or peace officer.
No convict while engaged in such construction, maintenance and
improvement of the state highway system or any other state roads
I "An Act Authorizing the Use of Convict Labor on State Highways or State
Roads; Providing for the Compensation of Such Convict Labor; Regulating the
Handling of Such Convict Labor; Providing for Payment of Compensation to the
Dependents of Such Convicts; Providing for a Forfeiture of Such Compensation;
Providing for Creation of Prisoners Recreation and Educational Fund; Providing for
Manner of Payment of Compensation to Said Convicts upon Release on Parole or
Release or Discharge from Prison; Authorizing Allowance of Extra Time Credits for
Such Labor; Providing Penalties for Interference with Such Convict Labor and
Repealing All Acts or Parts of Acts in Conflict Herewith, June 9, 1923," General
Laws of the State of California as Amended up to the End of the Session of 1923, Part
I, pp. 534-37 (Title 132, Convicts, Act 1677).
624
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
shall be engaged as drivers of motor trucks or other vehicle or wagon
used in the construction, improvement or maintenance of such high-
ways or state roads or in the transportation of supplies and materials
to or from the road camp where the said motor trucks or other vehicle
or wagon in the course of such hauling of materials and supplies in
such construction, improvement or maintenance of such state high-
ways or state roads, shall be required to travel to places or locations
away from the camp limits of the prison road camp.
After deducting all such expenses as aforesaid the California high-
way commission shall give two-thirds of the balance of such sums so
earned to the dependents of the convict or convicts; provided, that the
dependents of the convict or convicts are in need and are obtaining
state aid or if the dependents of the convict or convicts are not ob-
taining state aid then the convict or convicts may direct to which
of the dependents of the said convict or convicts the said money
herein provided for shall be given; and the remaining sum after such
deductions as aforesaid, if any, shall be retained until the convict
shall have completed his term of parole or earned his release or dis-
charge from prison; provided, however, that in case said convict shall
not have obtained work or employment at the time of his release on
parole and there shall be a balance of money to the credit of said con-
vict with the California highway commission then the said balance
shall not be paid to the convict in any sum greater than fifty dollars
per month until such convict shall obtain employment;
Provided, further, that in case of a release of the said convict on
parole the state board of prison directors may in its discretion specify
a reasonable amount of such balance to be retained by the California
highway commission for the purpose of insuring the good behavior
of such convict while on parole and transportation to the place of
confinement in case of the violation of the terms of his parole;
Provided, further, however, that it shall be within the discretion of
the board of prison directors in the case of a convict released or dis-
charged from a prison to direct that certain portions or amounts of
any sum due to such convicts from the California highway commission,
be advanced or furnished to such convict either for the purposes of
business, transportation to any place of employment or such other
purposes as the board shall deem proper and necessary. Every con-
vict upon his release on parole or release or discharge from prison shall
deliver to the California highway commission all tools and appliances
mentioned herein and for which said convict is charged and shall there-
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
625
upon be entitled to receive in addition to the amount herein specified
the amount so charged against him for the tools and appliances.
When any convict shall willfully violate the terms of his employ-
ment, or the rules of the road camp or of the terms of his parole the
board of prison directors may in its discretion determine what portion
of all moneys earned by the convict shall be forfeited by the said
convict and such forfeiture shall be deposited in the state treasury in
a fund to be known as the "prisoners fund," which said fund is hereby
created. All the money in said fund is hereby appropriated for educa-
tional and recreational purposes at the prison road camps as the same
shall be established and shall be expended under the direction of the
highway commission upon warrants drawn upon the state treasury
by the state controller after approval of the claim therefor by the state
board of control.
SEC. 2. The state highway commission shall designate and super-
vise all road work done under the provisions of this act. It shall pro-
vide, supervise and maintain necessary camps and commissariat.
SEC. 3. The board of prison directors shall have full jurisdiction
at all times over the discipline and control of the convicts employed
on said roads.
SEC. 4. The expenses of transportation of labor, necessary guard-
ing, commissariat, camps, and all other expenses incidental to such
work shall be borne by the respective funds provided for such state
road or highway in the manner provided by law, subject, however, to
the provisions of section one hereof.
SEC. 5. Said convicts when employed under the provisions of
this act shall not be used for the purpose of building any bridge or
structure of like character which requires the employment of skilled
labor.
SEC. 6. The state board of prison directors is hereby empowered
and directed to adopt a special rule applicable solely to convicts em-
ployed as herein authorized and contemplated, whereby convicts so
employed shall be granted additional good time allowance in addition
to the compensation herein provided, conditioned upon their loyal
obedience and efficient co-operation with the state in the construction,
improvement and maintenance of the state highway system or state
roads and in the maintaining of discipline and good conduct in the
prison road camps, but such additional good time allowance shall not
exceed one day for each two calendar days that the convict is absent
from the prison.
626
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
16. The Pennsylvania Department's View of the Field¹
On recommendation of the Governor the method of appropriation
to private hospitals was changed by the Legislature of 1923 from that
of grants based upon the ability of the institution to show a deficiency
in operation, (which method was conducive to bad business manage-
ment and juggling of bookkeeping), to compensation at a per diem rate
for service rendered the indigent sick. The Legislature, however, con-
tinued its custom of many years standing of fixing the amount of appro-
priation to the individual hospital instead of adopting the plan sug-
gested by the Governor that the total appropriation be made to the
Department of Welfare, the latter to purchase service at a specified
rate from any hospital equipped to render it.
It was provided that the Department should set up such rules and
regulations and provide such organization as it deemed necessary to
establish the right of patients to receive free state care in order to meet
the provisions of these special acts.
These two major functions added greatly to the responsibility
placed upon the Department.
POLICY OF THE DEPARTMENT
In considering the policies which should guide the Department
in its development it was determined that:
First.-Major emphasis should be placed upon education of the
public, Boards of Trustees and Superintendents rather than on such
police powers as the law might give in the effort to improve standards
of scientific work, social service or business management in various
fields.
Second. That the principle of "home rule in welfare work" should
be recognized as fundamental and that local responsibility and initia-
tive should be encouraged in all social activities whether conducted
by private charity or public officials.
Third.—That the Department should so develop its organization
that it should be ready at all times and in all places to render expert
consultation and advisory service to communities, organizations and
individuals throughout the State in all matters relating to professional
social work or institutional administration.
¹ Extract from Second Biennial Report of the Secretary of Welfare for the Period
Ending May 31, 1924 (“Pennsylvania Department of Welfare Bulletin 18," Janu-
ary, 1925), pp. 5-6.
2 See below, Section IV, Document 7.
WELFARE IN THE ADMINISTRATIVE CODE
627
Fourth. That in the re-interpretation of the laws under which
the Department operates the emphasis should always be placed upon
the prevention of the conditions which have created the necessity for
public and private welfare activities, namely, the Prevention of Pov-
erty, the Prevention of Delinquency, the Prevention of Crime and the
Prevention of Mental Disease and Defect.
The development of the Department during this biennium has been
based upon the principles noted above.
SECTION II
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
It has been pointed out that while the relief of the destitute and the
agencies for law enforcement were local in their organization, certain
groups have been from a relatively early day considered appropriate
subjects for state action. The groups for whom the state established
institutions and agencies were in fact from among the economically
disadvantaged, but it was generally with reference to other factors in
their distress than their poverty that central, i.e., state, action was
taken. It is perhaps clear from the foregoing sections that with refer-
ence to those services taken over by the state there is a general belief
that distinct advance has been made. The relief of the destitute and
the treatment of the misdemeanant, however, remain largely local and
largely of county responsibility. Here it must be acknowledged that
relatively little advance can be noted. The almshouse, outdoor relief,
and the jail remain in each case archaic survivals, travesties on the
poor, breeding-places of dependency and crime.¹
It is generally acknowledged that the county is in the govern-
mental system of the United States a retarded and retarding fa `tor.²
It has been characterized as the "Dark Continent" in American public
administration.³ The welfare work suffers as other interests intrusted
to county administration suffer. It is needless to multiply evidences
that the old problems are still to be faced. In this section certain pro-
posals for control are set out. As has been pointed out, the greatest
activity is found in the child-welfare field, where very considerable
advance has been made and there are points at which constructive
changes are in process of development.4 Here, again, it is hoped that
greatly increased attention may be given to setting out the facts,
since on a knowledge of the facts alone can sound remedies be based.
The documents in this section are not numerous and are perhaps
self-explanatory. Among them are proposals similar to those found in
2 See Document 3.
¹ See above p. 17, footnote 4.
3 See Leonard D. White, Introduction to the Study of Public Administration,
p. 468.
4 See especially the U.S. Children's Bureau Pub. 107, County Organization for
Child Care and Protection (Washington, D.C., 1922).
}
628
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
629
}
2
Section I, only made in different jurisdictions at later dates.¹ It will be
recalled that the policy of Wisconsin in the substitution of control for
supervision was clear cut and positive. In the same way, the Wiscon-
sin policy in the matter of the care of the "chronic insane" involving
co-operation between the state and the county, has been one regarding
which the welfare officials of that state have cherished no doubts.³
These deficiencies in the county government call, of course, for
especial intelligence and effort in order that reorganization may take
place as rapidly as possible, and from many sources proposals for re-
organization are made, of which a sample is cited here.4
It may be pointed out that through the efforts of the United States
Children's Bureau together with such private national organizations as
the National Probation Association and the Child Welfare League of
America, national standards of child care are being worked out.
Where such standards are recognized, the necessary relation of the
state government to the county government will be developed and
recognition of state minima will occur. In the absence of such an
agency of national scope able to assist the states and local jurisdictions
in the other welfare fields, diversity continues to characterize the work
within any state as well as the work of one state when compared with
that in any other commonwealth.
I Documents 1, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9.
2 See Part II, Sec. I, Document 11.
3 See Document 2.
4 See Document 10.
1
LATTER-DAY PROBLEMS OF COUNTY WELFARE
1. County Institutions in Michigan
A. CONDITIONS PREVAILING IN THE ALMSHOUSES¹
The poor-houses of the State number some 45, and are generally
located on a farm owned by the county, a short distance from the coun-
ty town. But few of the buildings have been constructed for the pur-
pose for which they are used. In most cases a farm with a dwelling
house already upon it has been purchased, and additions from time to
time, as they seem to be required, made to the house. The building
thus pieced out and patched up is in the majority of cases inconvenient,
poorly constructed, and without any adaptation to the object to which
it is appropriated. With no convenience for a division of the inmates,
or a complete separation of the sexes. With low ceilings, small win-
dows, no drainage, and oftentimes damp and cold, without means for
safely heating and properly ventilating the rooms, it fails to meet the
wants and requirements which such a building should supply.
While these remarks apply to not a few of the poor-houses, there
are a number that have been designed and constructed especially for
this purpose.
They are usually commodious, ornamental, and admirable in many
respects, but frequently are illy arranged, owing to the fact that they
have been planned by men inexperienced in the erection of such build-
ings, who have overlooked things essential to the comfort and classifi-
cation of the inmates.
G
The keepers are generally good and humane men, quick to discern
the peculiarities of the paupers, and prompt and kind in managing
them. They are usually good farmers, and much of the time are away
from the house superintending work upon the farm. As a consequence,
a large share in the control of affairs at the house falls upon the keep-
er's wife, and these women generally manage the inmates well.
The condition of these houses, considering the character of the in-
mates and the limited facilities and provision for caring for them, is
usually good. While some few are dirty and disorderly, displaying a
¹ Extracts from First Biennial Report of the Board of State Commissioners for the
General Supervision of Charitable, Penal, Pauper, and Reformatory Institutiors,
Michigan (1871-72), pp. 66-71, 76.
630
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
631
want of neatness, and sometimes almost a lack of decency on the part
of those in charge, the great majority are kept in a fair condition so far
as relates to cleanliness and order. The association under one roof, as
is frequently the case, of the old and the young, the sane and the in-
sane, the sick and the well, of diseased, dirty men, and squalid women
and children, makes it quite out of the question, without ample pro-
vision for separation, to keep such a house in a perfect condition of
neatness. Yet we have gone into some poorhouses in the State where
everything was as neat, as clean, and as orderly as in any family house,
and we have wondered how such results could be accomplished under
the circumstances. In this connection we may add, that in every such
establishment we found that the inmates were kept, as far as possible,
at some regular, moderate labor, and that such as were able were re-
quired and made to keep their rooms and themselves thoroughly clean;
and we are satisfied that light work, occupying the attention and inter-
esting the thoughts of the pauper, not only promotes health, but serves
to prevent him from lapsing into a condition of laziness and filth.
Our poor-houses have an average population of about fifteen hun-
dred persons. Of this multitude of dependents, about two hundred and
fifty are insane; one hundred and twenty-five idiots; forty blind; twen-
ty mutes; and about three hundred afflicted with epilepsy, deformities,
and chronic diseases, that totally unfit them for self-maintenance. Of
the whole number, toward one-fourth are children under sixteen years
of age.
Pauper Children.-The condition of these children, we are glad to
say, has already occupied the attention of the State authorities, and
measures have been inaugurated to place them under better influences
and amid different surroundings. Their wants are such, that provision
should be made for them as speedily as possible; and we look with
anxiety for the completion of the building for the State School at Cold-
water at an early date, in order that these children may be removed
from the terrible circumstances in which they are now placed. In some
of the counties these pauper children are not only growing up amid the
degradations of the poor-house, but they are denied the privileges of in-
struction in the common district school, the neighbors regarding them
as unfit to associate with their children, and creating a sentiment in the
district that excludes them.
Insane Paupers. Of all the inmates in these poor-houses there are
none in a more deplorable condition than the insane paupers. About
one-third of the whole number of them are kept closely confined in cells,
632
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
most of which are small, dark, and filthy in the extreme. They are fre-
quently noisy, and at times rave violently, using language unfit to be
heard. They are a constant source of annoyance and trouble to those
who have them in charge, who, being unskilled in the management of
crazy persons, frequently become vexed with them and treat them with
harshness and severity. Many of them have no bedding and no cloth-
ing, destroying both as fast as put within their reach. They are regard-
ed as beyond cure, and receive no treatment whatever for the ill that
afflicts them. Thus they remain, often for years, until death comes to
relieve them. Those who are allowed the freedom of the premises are
in a better condition, but nothing is done to help them, and they gradu-
ally grow worse. In some instances the same inmates of the house, es-
pecially the females, greatly fear them. We believe that by judicious
and proper treatment many of them might be restored to a right mind.
In some instances, without treatment, reason has returned. The wife
of the keeper of the Jackson County poor-house informed us that a
woman who was for a long time shut up in that institution, and who
was regarded as incurable, to their surprise, came to her senses and re-
turned to her home where she has since remained perfectly sane. This
may be a very exceptional case, but it is evidence that even the worst
cases are not hopeless; and we think these insane persons should be re-
moved from the poor-houses and placed in asylums, where they may
be properly cared for and have opportunity for cure.
Idiots. The condition of the idiots in the poor-houses is not much
better than that of the insane.
State Hospital. Our examination of the poor-houses of the State
develop the fact that they contain quite a large number of persons
suffering from chronic and nervous diseases, from cancers, syphilis,
and spinal afflictions, as well as from deformities, caused by contrac-
tions, curvatures, and diseases of the spine and joints. Some of these
afflicted ones are children and youth. Many of them, if properly treat-
ed by experienced physicians, and surgeons, might be relieved and
restored to a condition that would enable them to earn a living, and
thus save the public the expense of maintaining them during life. They
can not properly be cared for in the poor-houses, and generally are ly-
ing there in a most pitiable condition; some of them absolutely rotting
by inches, with sores that emit a smell so foul as to make the air all
about fairly sickening. They usually require a great amount of care,
and frequently are neglected. In most cases their difficulties are of
such a character as to demand that medical skill, experience, and ap-
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
633
paratus only to be found at the schools of the profession, in hospitals,
or where there are large numbers engaged in the practice of medicine
and surgery. Both public interest and humanity demand that some
provision should be made where these sufferers can be treated. This
can only be done by the erection of a hospital by the State, where per-
sons of this class can be sent by and at the expense of the several coun-
ties. We apprehend that such a hospital can be erected without a very
large expense. The buildings may be simple and comparatively inex-
pensive, and by locating them at Ann Arbor, very important results
could doubtless be accomplished, viz.: The hospital could be furnished
with the most skillful medical attendance from the faculty of the Medi-
cal Department without expense to the State. The Medical Depart-
ment of that great public institution would be made far more useful to
the public by having furnished to its students the advantages of wit-
nessing the practical treatment of disease by eminent physicians and
surgeons. Again, a corps of physicians and surgeons, as eminent as the
medical faculty of the University, would attract to the hospital many
patients who would be both willing and able to pay liberally for their
support while there.
Dissolute Paupers.—There are two principal classes of poor-house
paupers. First, those who are helpless and dependent, such as the in-
sane, idiotic, sick and crippled, aged and infirm, infants and young
children, and those who are unfortunate, but deserving and willing tú
work. This class may justly claim to be supported at the poor-house,
until some different and better provision may be made for them. They
are objects of real charity, and are rightly entitled to relief and help
from the public.
The second class consists of vagrants, idlers, and dissolute paupers,
who often times are not only lazy but criminal. They seek the poor-
house to be maintained in idleness at the public expense. They are
generally the very worst class of paupers; low, vile, and miserable, con-
taminating the whole establishment, and creating disorder and trouble.
They are usually fault-finding, quarrelsome, and often dangerous.
The poor-house register should embrace, under appropriate heads,
the items required to be reported by the superintendents of poor to the
Secretary of State, with a brief history of each pauper. To secure this
work well and faithfully done, form books should be provided, and a
penalty imposed by law upon officers required to keep such records who
neglect to do so.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
B. THE NEED OF RECORDS¹
Provision should be made by law for a uniform system of records in
jails and poor-houses. From many of the counties it is impossible to
get anything like correct statistics. In some no records are kept; in
others they are so incomplete as to be almost wholly worthless, while
in a few instances they are quite full, and kept in a neat, systematic,
business-like manner. Direct statistical facts often make plain what
may have seemed doubtful, and furnish a solid basis to build upon,
which theories and estimates cannot. If we could have complete statis-
tics, and take the exact measure of crime and pauperism of all grades in
our midst, we should be much better prepared for intelligent action in
the application of remedies therefor.
The jail record should show the name, age, offense charged, date of
admission, time of discharge, and social condition of each prisoner,
with a description of the person, and brief statement, as far as the same
can be ascertained, of habits and previous history. Such a record would
be valuable as a means of accurately ascertaining the number of com-
mitments and re-commitments, with the principal source of crime, and
it would furnish a complete description by which a prisoner, in case of
escape, might be followed and identified. With this record, and the
further precaution, said to be in practice in some jails, of photographing
all prisoners of a desperate and dangerous character, charged with high
crimes, like murder, arson, rape, burglary, or grand larceny, the number
who get away and succeed in staying away might be greatly lessened.
C. RECOMMENDATIONS
A law requiring sheriffs and poor-house keepers to make uniform
records in relation to all persons committed to the jails and poor-
houses, in the manner to be pointed out by law.²
We ask a careful consideration of the general condition of our
county poor-houses as disclosed in this Report, and we especially call
attention to the recommendation therein contained for a modification
of the present laws on this subject, so as to authorize the establishment
of a system of district alms-houses.³
¹ Extract from First Biennial Report of the Board of State Commissioners for the
General Supervision of Charitable, Penal, Pauper, and Reformatory Institutions,
Michigan (1871–72), pp. 75–76.
2 Ibid. p. 77.
3 Second Biennial Report (1873–74), P. 59.
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
635
I
2. County Care of Insane Paupers under State Supervision¹
That the incurable insane should have more humane and at the
same time more economical care, is a fact which is forcing itself upon
the attention of philanthropists and statesmen.
The rapid increase of this class, either by accumulation or by a
growing frequency of the malady of insanity, is crowding the question
to the front, and, under the system generally prevailing, threatens in
the near future a burden of taxation that is appalling to the political
economist.
There are causes for the disturbed or diseased mental condition of
so large a number of the human family. There are also remedies and
means of prevention discoverable in the realms of natural and patholog-
ical science; and we can but hope, that in view of the earnest thought
and deep research given to all these great questions, that a mastery will
soon be gained over the danger that threatens to render the burdens of
society quite unbearable.
In the meantime, what shall be done with the dependent incurable
insane? Can not we care for them as wisely and humanely, and at the
same time more economically?
The insane hospitals of the United States are all, except at Kanka-
kee, Illinois, so far as I am informed, built on one general plan. Each
state undertakes to care and provide for all its insane. The buildings
provided are used both as hospitals for the acute, or recent, and the
chronic or incurable cases. The increase of the insane has been in ex-
cess of accommodations provided, and there is now no state where the
insane are all in state buildings.
Almost irremediable mistakes have been made in dealing with the
question of insanity; none perhaps more serious than the attempt to
care for all, and to gather both acute and chronic into the same build-
ing, and that constructed for a hospital.
While from four to eight dollars per capita per week might not be
deemed extravagant for hospital treatment, we must consider that not
to exceed thirty per cent of the inmates of our hospitals are looked upon
as curable cases, leaving seventy per cent as incurable. The tax-payers
have reason to complain of the wisdom, or lack of wisdom, of those who
planned the existing order of things, especially when they are told that
it has required from eight to fifteen hundred dollars per capita to build
the houses they occupy.
I
¹ By H. H. Giles, Proceedings of the Ninth Annual National Conference of Chari-
ties and Corrections (Madison, 1882), pp. 97–102.
}
•
636
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
It is not my purpose to enter into any historical details of insane
hospitals, interesting as they would undoubtedly be. Suffice it to say
that they furnish us with remarkable instances of epidemic aberra-
tions of the brain.
Another mistake made was in providing for so large a number under
one administration. The plan for our hospitals was devised by the
American Association of Superintendents of the Insane, and, in the
early years of its history, the Association limited the maximum num-
ber to be treated in one building to two hundred and fifty, quite high
enough. But, as the insane increased in numbers, the maximum was
also enlarged, or their ideas expanded, until five hundred were thought
not to be too many to be cared for in one institution. Several institu-
tions today contain nearly a thousand patients. Probably the growing
ambition of specialists to be at the head of large institutions may have
had something to do with the decisions of the Association.
A large majority of the insane belong to the humbler classes of
society, and many are wholly dependent upon public bounty. They
were poor in purse and without wealthy friends or relations when mis-
fortunes overtook them. Such become the wards of the state, and it
must bear the expense of their support. That they should receive kind
treatment, and their wants be even generously supplied is the dictate
of our civilization. How can we most conscientiously, reasonably and
cheaply care for them?
As a rule the insane do not lose all memory of early life. Habits ac-
quired in the home circle become second nature, yet in removing pa-
tients to hospitals this fact is too often forgotten. The difference in cir-
cumstances and surroundings creates a feeling of great unrest, and
homesick despondency often aggravates their disease. It has always
been urged that insane persons should at as early a day as possible in
their malady be taken to a hospital for special treatment; yet how little
individual attention is given individual cases; how much must be sac-
rificed to patients collectively. The first experience is that of being
placed with from fifteen to thirty other insane persons and compelled
to associate with them in the wards and at meals. Comparatively few
recover or improve, and the wonder is that the percentage of cures is
not even smaller than it is. The whole atmosphere of the buildings and
grounds, however much care may be exercised, is laden with disease.
From a common sense standpoint we fail to see any reason, either sani-
tary or scientific, for aggregating the insane in large numbers. On the
other hand it seems to us the height of refined cruelty. It is endured
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
637
T
only because it is refined and because it is sanctioned by law and ap-
proved by blind philanthropy.
The State Board of Charities and Reform in Wisconsin has vigor-
ously wrestled with the problem of the chronic insane since its organiza-
tion in 1871. It early adopted the teachings of the sincere but unwise
experts in charge of the insane hospitals of the country, viz.: that all
classes should be placed in the same institution and that the state only
could extend proper care. In the early years of the board it annually
recommended hospital enlargement to the legislature. But the increase
of insane was greatly in excess of the enlargements made. It was urged
that an asylum be erected upon the grounds of one of the Wisconsin
hospitals of sufficient capacity to take all the chronic insane from the
poorhouses. Institutional jealousy, with perhaps other causes, defeated
the purpose of the board. In the meantime particular attention had
been bestowed upon county poor houses. As their standard of excel-
lence was raised, the condition of the chronic insane remaining in them
was improved. The overseers and matrons in studying the cases with
a view toward personal influence, naturally became more interested.
They soon found that occupation and employment were conducive to
quiet and order; that diseased minds should not, any more than healthy
ones, be allowed to prey upon themselves. With only a limited number
to superintend, it was seen that the peculiarities and idiosyncracies of
each could be studied, and the special attention given generally re-
sulted in the awakening of some dormant faculty, or in the glad dis-
covery that a new world had been opened to a darkened soul. The vio-
lent were tamed by their own industry, the morose and sullen were
lifted out of themselves by their own cheerful occupations, the dement-
ed gained strength by their own efforts, however feeble, to do some-
thing. In these respects the poorhouses, with a small number, were
found to possess decided advantages over the large hospitals, where
patients must be treated almost in a mass. The system of non-restraint
and light occupation has been very successful in hospitals also. I will not
detail the instances which our records show, but will only state that in
Wisconsin the cases of insane paupers, who are able-bodied and not
actively employed, are the exception in most of our poorhouses.
Objections to this plan are raised because county boards are pro-
verbially stingy and politically designing. It is true that they are com-
posed of many self-prospective candidates for legislative honors, am-
bitious to acquire a reputation for economy, and who have it in their
power to withhold the means for making insane paupers comfortable.
A
638
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
But the aid from the state is an incentive to good care and the best
conditions in county asylums. It is also argued that inhumanity and
even cruelty might be practiced. Such an abuse of power is no more
likely to arise in a county asylum than in a state hospital, and the
chances of exposure are much greater in the former than in the latter.
Our information regarding affairs in the wards of our hospitals must
necessarily be limited, while there is much familiarity with the inner
workings of our county poorhouses. Our experience has been that any
abuses practiced in them soon meets the public ear or eye.
Under what regulations shall the counties be permitted to care
for the insane? The following abstract of the Wisconsin law will give
the best judgment of the Wisconsin Board of Charities and Reform on
this subject:
Whenever in the opinion of the Board of Charities and Reform there is
insufficient provision for the insane in the state hospitals and county asylums,
they may file with the secretary of state a list of those counties that possess
accommodations for the proper care of the chronic insane, and thereafter
each of said counties which shall care for its chronic insane under such rules
as said Board may prescribe, on the properly verified certificate of said
board to the secretary of state, receive the sum of one dollar and fifty cents
per week for each person so cared for and supported as further provided.
On the first day of October in each year, the superintendent of the poor
or other officer having charge of the poor, certifies to the secretary of state
the names of ll persons cared for at public cost, the number of weeks sup-
ported, etc. If such certificate is approved by the State Board, the secretary
of state includes the amount in the next state tax, and on the first day of
February places the amount to the credit of said county.
The board is also given the power of transfer of patients from coun-
ties that possess insufficient accommodations for their own insane, and
at the expense of the county to which they belong, to other counties.
Whenever a county possesses accommodations for the care of a greater
number of insane than belongs to it, it may receive such additional in-
sane as the State Board of Charities and Reform may direct to be trans-
ferred to it, and for the care of such so transferred the county caring for
them shall receive the sum of three dollars per week, one-half the
amount to be paid by the county to which they belong and one-half
by the state.
In addition, the amount expended for clothing such persons shall
be paid by the county to which they belong. No county is entitled to
pay for the care of any person that has not been adjudged insane under
7
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
639
the laws of the state, nor for the care and support of any insane person
who is not lawfully and necessarily a public charge.
The rules adopted by the State Board of Charities and Reform are
as follows:
1. The buildings or parts of buildings set apart for the insane must be
sufficiently warmed, lighted and ventilated. They must be clean and free
from all offensive odors; and in addition to the sleeping apartments, they
must have an associate day room or common sitting room for each sex.
2. There must be a large airing court or enclosed yard for each sex.
3. There must be a sufficient number of special attendents for each sex.
4. As far as possible regular occupation should be provided for the in-
sane, at such kinds of work as they can be induced to engage in. We would
specially suggest gardening and farm labor for the men and housework for
the women.
5. Restraints of all kinds, such as shutting up in cells, tying the hands
with handcuffs, or "muffs," or shutting into covered beds, should be used
only in extreme cases.
6. A daily record book must be kept showing the persons in restraint, the
kind of restraint and the reasons for it.
7. The overseer of the poorhouse and his wife and all employes who have
charge of the insane must be intelligent and humane persons of correct
habits.
8. Some experienced physician must be appointed county physician, who
shall thoroughly inspect the building and patients as often as may be neces-
sary, and at least semi-monthly.
9. The overseer of the poorhouse and the county physician shall report
to the State Board of Charities and Reform, or of any person or persons au-
thorized by them.
10. The buildings or parts of buildings set apart for the insane shall at
all times be open to the inspection of the State Board of Charities and Re-
form, or of any person or persons authorized by them.
II. The State Board of Charities and Reform may at any time add to,
change or modify these rules as they may deem best for the interests of the
patients.
A rigid observance of the above rules is required on the part of the
board. Neglect or non-observance will endanger any aid from the state.
Under the system adopted the care and support of the insane is
but little more and generally less than one-half what it costs in our
state hospitals. It needs but a visit to the poor houses of the state and
a familiarity with the workings of the system to confirm the most skep-
tical that it, at least, has the merit of humanity. Our experience is,
that, as a rule, the insane are more quiet naturally than in our hospi-
640
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tals. No drugs or opiates are used, or if ever, very seldom used-ex-
ercise and occupation obviating to a great extent this necessity.
The farms connected with the poor houses afford work for nearly
all, and nearly all the inmates returned from the hospitals are found.
able to do some kind of farm or garden work.
On the score of greater economy and a wiser humanity, then, we
favor county care of the chronic insane under efficient state supervision.
3. Illinois "County Farms"
A. THE DELAPIDATED COUNTY HOME
Many of the paupers on county farms in this state live in decaying,
tottering houses, occupy rooms infested with vermin, sleep in beds
which are filthy, and are supplied with scanty, ill-cooked food, while
some of them are too poorly clad to hide their nakedness. Very many
of them are left absolutely without religious instruction or consolation.
The children in almshouses are especially to be pitied. Many of them
are growing up without education, and all of them are demoralized and
degraded by their associations. It is not right that one of them should
be left where they now are. The condition of the insane, and of the
idiots, in these establishments, is also deplorable. Kindly treated by
some keepers, by others they are regarded and treated as if they were
animals, and not men-indeed not so well as animals capable of earning
money for their owners. They are neglected, abused, confined with
chains, locked up, left in nakedness and filth, caged, and not a soul has
for them a friendly word. The medical supervision of them is wholly
inadequate; they have no proper personal attendance; they are with-
out amusement or occupation of any sort. Some of them are taken out
at long intervals for an airing or to be washed, possibly by standing
them naked in a corner and throwing water upon them with a hose-
pipe. Others remain in their cells or dens from one end of the year to
the other. Their mental malady is aggravated by neglect and cruelty,
and their only hope is in death. The darkness of the grave is preferable
to such a living tomb.
The blame for this state of affairs does not always rest upon the
keeper of the almshouse, but is shared in still larger measure by the
county board. If the county board is indifferent, niggardly or incom-
petent, the paupers pay the penalty. We have no doubt that some su-
¹ Extract from Seventh Biennial Report of the Board of State Commissioners of
Public Charities of the State of Illinois (1882), pp. 234–35.
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
641
pervisors are actuated by a contemptibly selfish desire to achieve a rep-
utation for economy in the administration of public business, in order
that they may turn it to political account and use it as a stepping stone
to office. There are also supervisors who have gained wealth by the
most painful self-denial and privation, patiently borne for the sake of
accumulating a fortune, who, now that they are independent, still re-
tain the habits engendered by their early experience in life, and are
reluctant to incur any expense which can be avoided, in the care of the
poor, because their property will be taxed to meet it. Others still are
influenced by local jealousies, disputes and conflicts, of which one of the
most common is that between the town and county members of a coun-
ty board. Whatever may be the reason, there are counties in which all
the efforts of the best men in and out of the board, continued for years,
have proved wholly unavailing to remedy the evils complained of.
The reply to all argument is: "It is good enough for paupers, or
"They live better than many people of the county," or "The taxpayers
will not stand it."
""
We have no words strong enough to express our reprobation of the
practice of letting out paupers to the "lowest and best bidder." Surely
a county board can select a suitable man, with a good wife, to take care
of the county farm, without advertising for proposals for the service
and inviting competition between rival applicants for the position of
keeper. The lowest pay means simply the poorest fare, and the houses
kept by such bidders are "poor" in every sense of the word. Neither
do we approve of those contracts by which the keeper is paid a per
capita allowance for the care of paupers. Under that system, his prof-
its must come out of the unfortunate creatures committed to his tender
mercies; he lives, of necessity, at their expense.
B. THE SOURCES OF PAUPERISMI
We have caused inquiries to be made of the keepers of almshouses,
somewhat similar to those addressed to sheriffs, and find that pauper-
ism is even more generally attributable to intemperance, than is crime.
Other causes are said to be: old age, sickness, being crippled, misfor-
tunes in business, insanity, idiocy, blindness, deafness, orphanage,
desertion, ignorance, improvidence, vicious habits, thriftlessness, lazi-
ness and bad management. Pauperism is to a considerable extent he-
reditary. For its suppression, very many of the same suggestions were
¹ Extract from Eighth Biennial Report of the Board of State Commissioners of
Public Charities of the State of Illinois (1884), p. 225.
642
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
made as for the suppression of crime, in the previous chapter. In addi-
tion, the importance of training children to habits of economy and fru-
gality, especially of saving money, was insisted upon; and more or less
desire was expressed for some amendment of the marriage laws, which
would have the effect of putting a stop to the propagation of paupers
and of those likely to become such.
The condition of the children upon the county farms continues to
give us much anxiety. In many counties, pains is taken to find homes for
such children, and many thus placed out are reported to be doing well.
In others, little or nothing is attempted in this direction. There is a
general agreement, on the part of poor-house keepers, that the county
farm is the worst possible place for a child. In Sangamon county, pau-
per children are sent to the Home of the Friendless; and in Cook Coun-
ty, many have been placed out in private charitable institutions in
Chicago. But the 500 children now in our poor-houses cry to us for
help in some form.
4. Poor Relief in Minnesota¹
In ten counties of the State, viz.: Benton, Carver, Douglas, Free-
born, Hennepin, Kandiyohi, Le Sueur, Sibley, Stearns and Wright,
paupers are made a charge upon the several towns under special laws.
This is the Massachusetts system and prevails in some other states.
The Board of State Charities of Ohio has recommended the adoption
of the town system of outdoor relief in that State.
The advantages claimed for this system are unquestionable, viz.:
closer contact between the poor and the disbursing officers; decreased
liability to imposition and greater interest on the part of taxpayers.
But it seems to me to be best adapted to a populous, fully organized
community. In our sparsely settled towns the total tax levy for pau-
perism is often only from $20 to $40 yearly. A single case of sickness or
surgery exhausts the fund in a short time, and neglect is liable to follow.
A family becoming a public charge is felt as a very heavy burden upon
such a community, and in some towns it is an open secret that such
cases are disposed of by giving them a railroad ticket to some distant
point.
The cheapness of this system as compared with the county system,
is not demonstrated. We have statistics for only one year, and those
¹ Extract from First Biennial Report of the State Board of Corrections and Chari-
ties to the Legislature of Minnesota for the Period Ending July 31, 1884, pp. 170-73.
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
643
statistics are imperfect. While the counties having the town system
spend less than the average, they do not spend less than economical
counties under the other system. E.g., the rate of Freeborn County
under the town system is 18 cents per inhabitant; while that of the
neighboring county of Olmsted is 16.8 cents, and that of Fillmore is
10.4 cents under the county system. Carver County spends only 10
cents per inhabitant, but McLeod, with about equal population, spends
only 6.6 cents. Benton County spends only 2.6 cents under the town
system, but Lincoln and Lac Qui Parle counties report very little more.
And as a matter of fact, pauperism costs more in Massachusetts pro-
portionally than in any other State whose statistics are available, and
there the town system is universal.
In our new State, with many sparsely settled districts, the county
system serves as an insurance to small towns against epidemics and
extraordinary expenses. In Wright County, where the town system
prevails, the county had to come to the rescue of the town treasuries,
two or three years ago, when the small pox broke out.
When the State shall become thickly settled the town system will
probably best secure economy and efficiency.
Indoor relief is extended to that part of the pauper population
which is lodged and fed at the public expense, whether in private fami-
lies, hospitals or poor houses.
•
In counties where there are no poor houses, and sometimes where
there are poor houses, homeless paupers are boarded in private families
at county expense, at so much per week. This plan seems to be a neces-
sity at present in many of the counties of the State, but great pains
should be taken to secure good care, especially in the case of aged per-
sons, invalids and children. In some states the inhuman plan has pre-
vailed of bidding off the paupers to the lowest bidder every year. This
makes the county particeps criminis in the neglect and even abuse
which are likely to occur. Paupers should not be boarded with families
where they cannot have sufficient good food nor with families where
cleanliness and warmth cannot be assured.
The best plan for boarding paupers in families is perhaps that prac-
ticed in Anoka and Scott counties, where the commissioners contract
with a responsible woman at the county seat to board in her own house
all paupers sent to her, at a fair weekly price, subject to suitable con-
ditions as to diet, cleanliness, care, etc. The commissioners can easily
inspect, at frequent intervals, guarding against abuses. In sparsely
settled counties this plan will be found much more economical than a
644
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
poor house. In the more populous counties a poor house is a necessity,
to secure suitable house room. In poor houses the overseer should be
paid a salary and not a weekly sum for the board of each pauper.
5. Pauperism in Wisconsin
A¹
The history of poor relief in some counties shows that the county
system can be abused by individual supervisors lavishing poor relief
upon their own towns or wards at the expense of the county treasury.
The same difficulty occurs under the town system where individual
aldermen of the city furnish poor relief to their own wards at the gen-
eral expense of the city. The evil is not obviated by appointing a
nominal superintendent of the poor, who is compelled to give relief to
such persons as the individual supervisors or aldermen direct. In Phila-
delphia and Brooklyn the abuses of out-door relief have led to its en-
tire abolition with marked success. It may become a necessity in our
larger cities to follow their example.
B2
Wisconsin has three systems of poor relief-town, county and
mixed. Under the town system of poor relief each town, village or city
relieves its own poor through its own officers, and the poor who have no
pauper settlement in the town are cared for at the expense of the
county. By the laws of pauper settlement a person who has lived one
year in a town without receiving poor relief acquires a pauper settle-
ment for himself and his legal family, and must be relieved by the town,
village or city in which he had that pauper settlement in case he needs
assistance. Poor relief is usually administered by the supervisors of
the town, village board or aldermen of a city. In many cities a super-
intendent of the poor is appointed by the common council who gives
relief under the direction of that body.
The county system of poor relief may be adopted in any county by
a resolution of the county board. A county board being composed of
the several town chairmen, supervisors of each village and wards of
cities each precinct affected by the change has a voice in the matter.
¹ Extract from Fourth Biennial Report of the State Board of Charities and Reform
of the State of Wisconsin for the Two Fiscal Years Ending September 30, 1890, p. 14.
2 Extract from First Biennial Report of the State Board of Control of Wisconsin
Reformatory, Charitable and Penal Institutions, for the Two Fiscal Years Ending
September 30, 1892, pp. 372-73.
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
645
I
>
In case of this change the distinction between town and county poor
is abolished and all poor are looked after by the county. Residence in
the county one year without poor relief secures a pauper settlement.
Under this arrangement poor relief is usually administered by superin-
tendents of the poor elected by the county board. These superintend-
ents cannot be members of the county board, except in one county
which has a special law for that purpose, but they must act under the
direction of the board. Much confusion is caused in many counties by
the practice of giving poor relief and not reporting to the superintend-
ents till the end of the year, making it almost impossible to get satis-
factory reports of the work done. It would be much the better plan for
supervisors to give poor relief in no case except when authorized to do
so by the superintendents of the poor. It is not an easy matter for a
supervisor to refuse assistance when applied for by one of his own
neighbors, and this is where the abuse creeps in.
In the mixed system the poorho. se is under the management of
the county and all of the county paupers are sent to it. Towns may
send their paupers to the poorhouse at an agreed rate per week, which
is generally from $1.50 to $2.00. The difference between the county
and mixed system is in the management of the poorhouse. In the for-
mer the superintendents act as trustees and elect the overseer of the
poorhouse, while in the mixed system the overseer is usually called
superintendent and is elected by the county board.
6. A Plea for the Abolition of the County Jail
Of all the reforms included under the general title of prison reform in
the United States, none is so urgent as the overthrow of our existing sys-
tem of dealing with misdemeanants. We have made substantial prog-
ress in the reconstruction of our penitentiary system. But are you
aware that in each year the number of commitments to prison for terms
not exceeding one year is four times as great as that for any longer pe-
riod? In other words, even though all our prisons, great and small, were
reformatory in their aim and influence, the major prisons would reach
and touch only one-fourth of the criminal and quasi-criminal popula-
tion in custody of the law. Three-fourths of those in custody are in fact
held in institutions, the practical effect of which is to train an unascer-
tained percentage of their inmates for the penitentiary.
I
By Frederick Howard Wines, Proceedings of the National Conference of Chari-
ties and Correction at the Thirty-eighth Annual Session (Boston, 1911), pp. 52-56.
646
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
When, a few months since, that distinguished group of foreign crim-
inologists and experts in prison administration in attendance upon the
sessions of the international prison congress in Washington accepted
the hospitality of the government, and made a hurried tour of inspec-
tion of some of our leading and typical penal institutions, they were
good enough to express their admiration of our reformatories, both for
children and adults, but they could with difficulty find language at once
sufficiently severe and decently diplomatic, with which to voice the
amazement and horror awakened in them by a casual glance at the
municipal and county prisons of this great republic. And when they
spoke to us about it, they seemed to think they were telling us what we
did not know.
On the contrary, there is not an habitual visitor to our county jails,
official or philanthropic, who is not alive to the evil conditions that pre-
vail in most of them. In any library that makes a specialty of collecting
public documents, I could show you scores or hundreds of reports in
which attention is called not only to the generally unsatisfactory state
of these minor prisons, but to the peculiarly repulsive and dangerous
conditions existing in some of them. Certainly, all are not equally bad.
It is no part of my purpose to indulge in exaggeration for the sake of
exciting a momentary sensation, or to represent as typical what is
really exceptional. But the best jail that was ever built, although the
physical treatment accorded to its unfortunate inmates may be per-
fectly humane and just, fails to subserve any of the ends of a prison
except that of confinement. There is in it no organized, intelligent,
thorough effort to reclaim the men and women committed to it. Such
effort as may be made, in certain prisons, is apt to be sporadic, spas-
modic, and it is ordinarily neutralized by the contamination of unre-
stricted communication and mutual intercourse between prisoners.
The number of what may be called good jails is relatively small.
Most of them are unsanitary, owing to their location or to their archi-
tectural construction. Many of them are overcrowded, almost to suffo-
cation. They are often horribly filthy. They are centers of tuberculous
and syphilitic contagion.
Where one finds filth, one is apt to find disease and immorality.
The moral atmosphere of the average county prison is even more foul
than the physical odors that often assail the nostrils of the visitor with
nauseating effect. The associations, the language, the practices in
vogue are vile beyond description. The inmates are corrupted by com-
pulsory association in enforced idleness. The worst of these prisons are
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
647
cesspools of moral contagion, propagating houses of criminality, fac-
tories of crime, feeders for the penitentiary, public nuisances, the dis-
grace of modern civilization.
And yet all the effort put forth to change these conditions for the
better has thus far proved almost wholly unavailing.
Why this indifference, this inertia, this immobility? Doubtless it
is partly attributable to ignorance. The county officials do not know
what a jail should be, and the people do not know what their jails really
are. The evil effects are scattered over an immense territory, and they
are subdivided, until the aggregate amount is hidden from sight in an
almost endless mass of details. But in plain Anglo-Saxon, the truth is,
that wherever there exists local graft and political dishonesty, the
county prison is its center and its stronghold. The sheriff or the jailor
makes a personal profit from crime by charging a per diem for board for
prisoners, and by the receipt of fees for locking and unlocking the jail
doors. That profit is a live wire; no local politician, possibly no mem-
ber of the legislature, or even of the state administration, dares mon-
key with it.
Instead, therefore, of laying the axe to the root of the tree, would-be
reformers resort to compromise measures, and undertake to "improve"
the jails, or, as the Illinois Charities Commission phrases it, to "stand-
ardize” them. Ladies and gentlemen, there can be and will be no ma-
terial improvement in these establishments, so long as they continue
to be regarded as local institutions and remain subject to local control.
Strange, is it not, that the smaller communities should be so anxious,
as they often are, to unload the burden of their poor, their sick, their
insane, their helpless and forlorn, of all ages, upon the shoulders of the
commonwealth, where it does not belong, but fight to retain that of
their criminals, which by right the state alone should bear.
This is, in my judgment, the secret of our failure and defeat. We
have substantially won the fight for the reformatory prison and the
indeterminate sentence, because we concentrated our fire upon a vul-
nerable point and made every shot tell. We made use of siege guns and
loaded them with shell. In attacking the county jail system, we have
pursued the opposite policy; we have scattered our fire and placed our
reliance upon buckshot. We have addressed our arguments and re-
monstrances to the county authorities, of whom there are, in round
numbers, twenty-five hundred sets, instead of to the legislative bodies,
of which there are less than fifty. We have pleaded for new jails, better
jails, when we should have insisted upon their replacement by prisons
648
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
owned and controlled by the state, thus emancipating them from local
political control, with its petty and selfish interests.
There was a time when local control was necessary and proper, but
that was long ago. Today the county prison is an anachronism. We
imported it, with other British institutions from England, the mother
country. But conservative England has outgrown it, and dates the
dawn of her regenerated prison system from the year of its abolition.
We still lag behind in the march of modern civilization.
There is no good and sufficient reason why the state which enacts a
criminal code, with its definitions of crime, its prohibitions, and its
penal sanctions, should assume the custody and care of the man com-
mitted to prison for three years and refuse to recognize its responsi-
bility for the man sentenced for three months, abandoning him to the
haphazard mercies of an inferior jurisdiction, which is certainly igno-
rant, often brutal, and sometimes dishonest. It is not the majesty of the
county, but that of the state, which calls for vindication. The county
has no criminal code of its own. The suppression of crime, let it take
what form it may, is the business of the state. The state should name,
and it should have exclusive authority over, the executive agents to
whom it entrusts the discharge of this supreme governmental function.
You are aware that, although the county and municipal constabu-
lary act as guardians of the public peace, the authority vested in them
is derived from the state. It is the peace of the state which is threat-
ened. If the local officials are unable to preserve it, the higher power of
the state is invoked. The state militia may be ordered out, but the ex-
pense of quelling the disturbance is charged to the city or county.
And, in some states, a sheriff who has failed to discharge his duty can
be summarily removed from office, and the governor is authorized to
appoint his successor.
The local officials in charge of a city or county prison sustain a
somewhat similar relation to the state. The local prison is an indispen-
sable part of the machinery of justice. For reasons of convenience, the
state, which is the fountain-head of justice, makes use of the officers of
justice in the minor political divisions of the state, to execute the orders
of the court. But they have no original jurisdiction. Their jurisdiction
is derivative, and it is revocable at the pleasure of the state. The mo-
ment that it becomes apparent to the public, and to their representa-
tives in the legislature, that the exercise of this delegated authority is
corrupt, ineffectual, or unsatisfactory, the legislature has power to re-
place that system by a better. Some of the states now exercise a quali-
7
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
649
fied visitorial power over the county prisons, but the boards in which
this power is lodged have not the right to issue and enforce orders.
which the county authorities must carry out. What is needed is man-
datory power vested in a single officer or commission and applicable to
all counties and municipalities alike.
The only hope of enlightened progress in dealing with the problem
of crime in America is the overthrow of the county jail system. To this
end we must direct our energies. With the state once in command,
there can be no question but it will find a way to right the wrong and
remedy the evils which inhere in the present organization and manage-
ment of minor prisons. The state has a wider outlook, and a deeper
sense of responsibility; it is less directly influenced by purely local con-
siderations, and it possesses the power which the county lacks.
The Washington international prison congress awakened much
dormant interest in all phases of the prison question throughout the
world, but especially in the United States. We succeeded in the at-
tempt to modify the mental attitude of Europe toward our reformatory
system, in its application to felons. Five years from now, we shall meet
our European friends in London to renew this great debate. Mean-
while, they point to us with polite scorn, and tell us that, until we
change our method of treatment of misdemeanants, we have no right
to arrogate to ourselves the position of leaders in the great work of
prison reform. The best answer to this taunt is to give heed to it, with
ready recognition of the friendly intent of their warning and admoni-
tion. "Let the righteous reprove me; it shall be an excellent oil, that
will not break my head." We thank them for it, and trust that it may
do us good. Is not this the opportune moment for effecting a complete
change of base, for the adoption of a new plan of campaign, and for
the inauguration of an evolutionary, or, if you please, revolutionary
program?
The relative importance of this burning question rests not alone
upon the numerical preponderance of misdemeanants in our prisons,
but upon the more favorable prospect of a reduction in the volume of
crime, through the wise and skillful application to them of a reforma-
tory prison discipline, than is to be anticipated from the attempt to
reform more hardened and daring culprits. Let me give you a modern,
sociological version of that hackneyed quotation from Juvenal, Maxi-
ma debetur puero reverentia, “In prison discipline, the misdemeanant,
not the felon, should be our first and chief concern."
Mine is a poor, weak voice; it will not carry very far. This right
650
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
arm is not the arm of a giant, nor even of an athlete; it will not deliver
a smashing blow. For the sake of the human derelicts languishing in
merited or unmerited confinement, I could wish that both were strong-
er. Still more earnestly do I wish it for the sake of our common country
and its honor. An old man suffers in many ways that a young man
hardly understands. One of my secret griefs is the shame I feel, that
my country has so long tolerated, and continues to tolerate, a wrong
which disgraces it in the eyes of the world, and which, unless it is re-
dressed, must sooner or later bring down upon it the vengeance of Al-
mighty God.
7. Indiana Jail Rules
JAIL RULES FOR SMALL JAILS¹
1. Every person shall bathe when admitted, and weekly thereafter.
2. Marking, defacing or littering the cells, walls or corridors, or in-
juring or destroying the jail property is prohibited.
3. Spitting on floors, walls or iron work is prohibited.
4. Prisoners shall make their own beds, keep clean their cells, and
perform such duties in taking care of the jail and keeping it clean and in
order as may be assigned to them.
5. Meals shall be served the prisoners at suitable and regular hours,
three times a day.
6. The sheriff shall inspect the jail at least once every day, and
shall see that it is kept clean and sanitary.
7. There shall be complete sex separation. Prisoners shall be clas-
sified and separated so far as the jail will admit.
8. No tramps or other persons shall be received without due form
of law.
A.
B. JAIL RULES FOR LARGER JAILS²
1. Every prisoner, when received, shall be required to bathe and
cleanse his person thoroughly and shall be given clean clothes. There-
after he shall bathe once a week, unless otherwise ordered by the jail
physician, and it shall be the duty of the jailer to see that water is at the
proper temperature and that soap and towels are furnished for bathing.
The prisoner's old clothing, if good, shall be disinfected, cleaned and
put away, to be returned to him when released. Otherwise it shall be
destroyed.
1 Extract from Indiana Bulletin of Charities and Correction, No. 93 (June, 1913),
pp. 177-78.
2 Ibid.
1
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
651
2. There shall be thorough sex separation. Prisoners who are
young, who are self-respecting, and witnesses shall be separated from
hardened criminals and low characters. All women prisoners and boys
shall be under the care of the matron, who alone shall have the keys to
their cells.
3. No tramps or other persons shall be received unless under due
form of law.
4. Under no circumstances, except for purposes of cleaning it, shall
inmates be permitted in the jailer's corridor.
5. Prisoners are forbidden marking or defacing the walls or other
parts of the jail, or spitting tobacco upon the walls of the jail or in any
way defacing, injuring or destroying property therein.
6. Each inmate shall keep his own cell clean and in order. The jail
shall be cleansed thoroughly daily and scrubbed at least twice a week.
7. Prisoners are forbidden using loud, boisterous or indecent lan-
guage.
8. For the violation of any of the foregoing rules, the sheriff shall,
for the first offense, restrict the diet of the offender to bread and water
for full twenty-four hours; for the second offense, bread shall be with-
held for a like period and in case of persistent violation of rules and
breaking of fixtures or furnitures, meddling with the gas or lights,
threatening an officer or tampering with locks or bars, it shall be the
duty of the sheriff to remove such offender from his cell to an unfurn-
ished cell or a dark cell, as he may deem proper, and keep such prisoner,
without bed, or food until such time as he may have reason to believe
that the privileges may be safely restored.
9. The jailer shall, to ascertain existing conditions and attend to
everything that is necessary, visit at least three times a day all parts of
the jail where men are confined and the matron shall make similar in-
spection of the departments for women and children. The sheriff shall
inspect the jail at least daily.
10. Meals shall be served the prisoners at suitable and regular
hours, three times a day.
C. STATE CONTROL OF JAIL RULES'
The jail rules mentioned were drawn up in conformity to Chapter
164 of the Acts of 1909. They are simple and can be easily enforced.
When made an order of court, as the law contemplates, a violation be-
'Extract from Indiana Bulletin of Charities and Correction, No. 93 (June,
1913), pp. 174–75-
652
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
comes a contempt of court and can be punished as such. The points
covered include the general government and control of the prisoners,
their classification and separation, proper sanitary regulations and
daily inspection of the jail by the sheriff. Two sets of rules have been
prepared, the longer set being intended for the larger jails. County
officials are asked to note particularly two provisions of the law: (1)
The Board of county commissioners is required to inspect the jail at
least once every three months; (2) it is made the duty of the sheriff to
furnish the circuit judge, at the beginning of each term of court, a list
of all persons confined in the jail, showing by whom committed, his
offense and the date and term of commitment; also, to report to the
county commissioners, in writing, at least once a quarter, the condition
and needs of the jail. In visiting jails, the Board of State Charities
occasionally learns of women committed to jail contrary to Chapter 135
of the Acts of 1907, and of children kept there, though this is made il-
legal by Section 7, Chapter 237, of the Acts of 1903.
8. Classification of the Judicial and County Service¹
The Committee planned originally to carry the standardization
studies through the judicial and county service of the State during the
current year, and, to this end, send out cards to all the counties and
courts in February. Owing to the enforced reduction of its staff, how-
ever, only a most cursory study has been possible. The cards have been
received from some of the counties and some of the courts, but others,
after repeated requests, have failed to fill them in and return to this
Committee. The work, therefore, has been largely confined to office
studies of such of the counties as have been classified, eighteen in num-
ber, and such data as are published by the State Civil Service Com-
mission.
It is far from the purpose of this Committee to suggest that politics
as a factor in government, be eliminated. After this cursory study of
the organization of the counties, there are, however, some defects and
injustices which are so patent that this Committee would feel remiss in
not making mention of them in this Report.
COUNTY ORGANIZATION
In the first place, the organization of the county, as a political sub-
division, is unique. Excepting in isolated instances, county government
¹ Extract from Second Report of the Committee on Civil Service of the Senate of
the State of New York Appointed to Investigate the Civil Service of the State ("Senate
Document 29," Legislature, 1917), pp. 50–64.
•
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
653
is independent of State control. Wherever there is supervision by a
State department it is likely to be superficial. The Board of Supervi-
sors, which is essentially the controlling agency in the administration of
county affairs, has jurisdiction over matters of purely local interest, in
which the application of purely business principles should suffice for
the complete and satisfactory solution of all detail. It would seem that
this would induce extensive application of the merit system, but for
some reason, the county unit has been overlooked to a considerable
extent in civil service administration. To be sure, the State has classi-
fied the service of eighteen counties embracing the preponderance of
the population of the State, and contemplates the classification of
others; but the entire absence of any standards whatever is more ap-
parent in the county service than in either the State or municipal serv-
ice. A careful analysis of the tabulation made a part of this Report,
which shows wide variations in salaries for identically the same sort of
service in various localities, indicates the necessity for a program of
standardization in the service of the counties which have already been
classified. If such irregularities are found in these counties, there is no
reason to suppose that conditions are different in the counties whose
service has not been classified and the Committee recommends that an
adequate appropriation be made to the Civil Service Commission for
carrying this work throughout the counties of the State. . . . .
MULTIPLICITY OF TITLES: INEQUALITIES OF COMPENSATION
A list of the titles employed in the services enumerated above, has
been prepared, and classified as nearly as may be without the work
cards, into the Groups established in the First Report to the Legislature.
With them are given the number of the positions under each and all of
the salary rates attached thereto.
CLERICAL SERVICE
As the Clerical Service represents the great mass of employees-
both of the Courts and Counties—the discussion of the inequalities in
this service will suffice to cover, generally, the entire situation. In the
county positions enumerated, are included the positions of clerical
nature in the county courts, the lists prepared for the State Courts con-
taining only the positions therein.
In order to enumerate specifically some of the inequalities, it is de-
sirable to bring attention to the following titles, and the wide range of
salaries:
654
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Bookkeeper, $600 per annum to $2,000 per annum, ten rates
Cashier, $1,080 per annum to $3,000 per annum, ten rates
Clerk, $300 per annum to $4,000 per annum, thirty-nine rates
Assistant clerk, $540 per annum to $3,000 per annum, seven rates
Chief clerk, $1,500 per annum to $10,000 per annum, eleven rates
Comparing clerk, $720 per annum to $2,000 per annum, five rates
Clerk of court, $1,200 per annum to $9,000 per annum, twenty rates
Deputy clerk of court, $800 per annum to $5,000 per annum, five rates
General clerk, $520 per annum to $2,400 per annum, fourteen rates
Index clerk, $780 per annum to $2,300 per annum, thirteen rates
Probate clerk, $1,500 per annum to $5,000 per annum, four rates
Record clerk, $950 per annum to $3,000 per annum, six rates
Transfer tax clerk, $720 per annum to $2,400 per annum, seven rates
Interpreter, $800 per annum to $3,000 per annum, ten rates
Messenger, $300 per annum to $1,800 per annum, fourteen rates
Stenographer, $300 per annum to $2,750 per annum, twenty-one rates
In the Clerical Service in the counties, there are 261 different titles.
Owing to the fact that much of the service is not covered at all in the
First Report, there is need for a large number of new titles with speci-
fications drawn to cover them, but that it is necessary to have 261 of
them is entirely out of the question.
It is to be expected that salaries in the counties embraced within
the greater city will be higher. Without studying the work cards, it
will be manifestly impossible to say that the work done by any individ-
ual under any title is not worth the salary paid therefor, but under any
definitions of work it is impossible to reconcile the title of "Chief Clerk”
with a salary of $10,000, "Clerk of Court" with a salary of $9,000, “As-
sistant Clerk" with a salary of $3,000, or "Deputy Clerk of Court" with
a salary of $5,000.
It is noteworthy also that all of the positions thus enumerated are
in the "Exempt Class."
IRREGULARITIES IN SALARIES OF ELECTIVE OFFICERS
The incongruities of salary are by no means confined to the Classi-
fied Service. As a general business proposition it is interesting to ob-
serve the facts as presented. A few cases will be cited:
Commissioner of jurors.
County clerk...
Department county clerk.
District attorney
Treasurer.
Sheriff.
•
·
$1,500 to $ 6,000 per annum
2,000 to 15,000 per annum
1,200 to
6,000 per annum
15,000 per annum
10,000 per annum
15,000 per annum
1,200 to
1,500 to
2,000 to
ī
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
655
A more specific study of the salaries of county clerks and sheriffs
reveals the fact that population had little, if any, bearing on the salary
paid as in the case of the former, the County Clerk of Erie County with
a population of 572,000 is $5,000 per annum, while the County Clerks
of Oneida County with 167,000, and Westchester with 322,000, receive
$10,000, and the County Clerk of Queens with a population of 397,000
receives $8,000.
In case of the sheriffs, Kings County with 1,798,000 gives $15,000,
New York with 2,138,000, gives $12,000, Bronx with 615,600 gives
$10,000, and Westchester with 322,000 gives $10,000. Erie with 572,-
ooo gives its sheriff $5,000 and Richmond with less than 100,000 gives
$6,000; all of which goes to show that little heed has ever been given to
the question of making the salary approximate a certain fixed relation
to the responsibilities of the office.
It is unreasonable to expect results other than those shown in
subordinate positions in offices, the heads of which are paid on such a
haphazard plan.
Were it possible to adopt a reasonable basis of compensation, grad-
uated according to population and duties, the possibilities of economies
in taxation are almost limitless.
FURTHER COMPARISON OF COUNTY SERVICE
On the hypothesis that there should be some uniformity in the
cost per unit of population, for the various services rendered, a table
has been prepared showing the number of persons employed, and the
amounts paid annually for personal service in the various county offices
in each of the eighteen counties whose service has been classified. The
unit of population chosen is 100,000.
It is expected that differences will be manifest at once between
those counties whose population is largely agricultural and those which
are largely or entirely urban, but they should be consistent. The tables,
however, show the same lack of uniformity in methods of employment
as must be anticipated after the analysis of the unclassified offices,
excepting in the offices of the District Attorney, where the number of
employees and cost will naturally be expected to be higher on account
of the larger proportion of criminals in the counties of urban popula-
tion.
656
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
9. Attempts at Securing Records and Reports
from Local Authorities'
It is necessary for each poor asylum superintendent to keep certain
records for the information of state and local officials, as well as for
himself and his successor in office. He should keep these in permanent
form, in well-bound books especially designed for the purpose. Before
adopting any financial record books, the superintendent should confer
with the State Board of Accounts, Indianapolis. The following will be
needed:
1. A record of inmates.-This will give the name of every person
admitted to the asylum, certain facts of personal and family history,
and the date of his admission, discharge or death. Such a record should
include all the facts required for the superintendent's reports to the
Board of State Charities and to the board of county commissioners.
The reports to the State Board of Charities are due February 28, May
31, August 31, and November 30. The board will furnish blanks and
envelopes on request. The State Board of Accounts has prescribed
Form 102 for the report to the board of county commissioners.
2. A record of receipts and expenditures on account of the asylum and
farm (see State Board of Accounts Form 69).
3. A record of the property of the asylum and farm.-This should be
kept in such form as to enable the superintendent to furnish an inven-
tory from time to time, as required.
4. A record of farm products.--This should be carefully itemized so
as to show the amount raised and how it is disposed of, i.e., whether
used in the asylum or sold.
5. A record of burials.—The asylum cemetery should be plotted
and the burial record should contain such information as will make it
possible to locate each body.
BURIALS
If for no other reason than its effect on the surviving inmates, a
simple burial service should be held. It is possible to purchase a coffin
at little expense and this should be done. A suitable marker should be
placed at each grave.
RULES
We frequently are asked to suggest rules for the administration of
poor asylums. We realize that the same rules cannot be applied to all;
that each one has certain peculiarities and conditions that prevent the
¹ Extract from Indiana Bulletin of Charities and Correction, No. 112 (March,
1918), pp. 15-16.
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
657
enforcement of some rules and suggest others in their stead. For an
average poor asylum we usually suggest about the following list of
rules. The commissioners and superintendents can go through them
and select such as they think will be applicable to their respective in-
stitutions.
1. The poor asylum and inmates are under the control of the super-
intendent. No inmate shall leave the premises without permission
from the superintendent.
2. Inmates shall rise at once when the signal sounds and promptly
respond to the call to meals.
3. After breakfast each inmate will go to work as directed by the
superintendent or his assistants.
4. No lights will be allowed after 8 o'clock P.M., except in rooms
where there are sick persons.
5. Quarreling and use of profane or obscene language is expressly
forbidden.
6. No spitting or filth of any kind will be allowed on the floors or
to be thrown out of the windows. Spittoons must be cleansed every
day.
7. Every inmate will have to bathe when admitted, and once a
week, or oftener, thereafter, if required by the superintendent.
8. Smoking in the sleeping apartments, or in other rooms except in
sitting rooms, is prohibited.
9. Inmates in good health will not be allowed to occupy sleeping
apartments during the day. The rooms will be closed when the inmates
leave them in the morning and remain closed until bedtime.
10. Each persons will be held responsible for the care of his room,
seeing to it that it is kept in good order.
II. It is the duty of the superintendent to enforce these rules
strictly and impartially. Inmates refusing to comply therewith are lia-
ble to be punished as the superintendent may deem necessary. Any in-
mate showing violence, disobedience or disrespect to the superintend-
ent or his family, or to any assitant, shall be liable to be imprisoned
or discharged.
10. Proposed Department of County Public Welfare¹
As has been indicated at various places in the foregoing discussion,
the evidence presented to the Committee indicates that nothing is more
¹ Extract from Report of the Special Joint Committee on Taxation and Retrench-
ment ("Document No. 55," New York State Legislature, 1923), pp. 99–100.
658
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
necessary in the administration of poor relief, child welfare, health and
hospitals than a bringing together of the scattered duties that have
been devolved upon the counties and the towns from time to time.
The present system of separation in the administration of these inher-
ently related functions is wasteful. It is, therefore, the suggestion of
the Committee that all of these functions should be brought together
and carried on or supervised by a single responsible official. There
seems to be no other method by which various welfare activities of the
counties and the towns can be correlated with each other or with the
work that is being done by private welfare agencies operating in the
same fields.
ORGANIZATION AND WORK OF PROPOSED DEPARTMENT
The proposed county department of public welfare would be under
the direction of a full-time commissioner appointed by the executive
authority of the county government. He would be in charge of-
1. Bureau of health under the supervision of a full-time health di-
rector. This bureau should bring together under a single head the fol-
lowing activities:
D
a) Local health control.-Local town and village boards into as many health
districts as expedient according to area, population and sanitary needs of
the county. Each health district should be placed in charge of a full-time
district health officer responsible to the county health director.
b) Tuberculosis sanatoria.—These should be included under the general su-
pervision of the county health director. Local boards of managers of
county tuberculosis hospitals should be abolished and the superintendent
thereof made directly responsible to the county health director.
c) County health nursing.-All county health nurses should be responsible to
the county health director under one or more nursing supervisors depend-
ing upon the number of nurses employed.
d) County health laboratories. Where these are established, they should be
under the direction of the county health director, and the bacteriologist
in charge should be responsible to such county health director.
e) Vital statistics.--The collecting and reporting of vital statistics should be
made a responsibility of local district health officers, each of whom should
be registrar of his district. The county director of health should be also
county registrar.
qe q
2. Bureau of social service.--This bureau should bring together
under single direction all social service work of the county, including:
a) Poor relief.--The office of county superintendent of the poor should be
abolished and his powers and duties, including the administration of
county almshouses and hospitals other than tuberculosis hospitals, should
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
•
659
be transferred to the commissioner of public welfare. Local overseers of
the poor should be abolished and their powers and duties transferred to
local town supervisors as is done in Jefferson county. All relief work
should, however, be done at the expense of the county and under the direc-
tion of the commissioner of public welfare who should act as the head of
the bureau of social service.
b) Boards of child welfare.-Independent boards of child welfare should be
abolished. Child welfare work including mothers' pension allowance and
other activities having to do with children should be centered in the bureau
of social service. There should be a full-time trained social worker in
charge of this activity with such staff as may be necessary.
ADVISORY WELFARE BOARD
As an aid to the county department of public welfare, provision
should be made for the appointment by the commissioner of public
welfare of an advisory committee of representative citizens of the coun-
ty whom he may call upon as required to aid him in developing his
program. Such a committee or board would conserve under the plan
proposed the admirable features of the present child welfare and hos-
pital boards without continuing their weaknesses.
کر
MODIFICATIONS TO MEET NEEDS
The plan of organization as here outlined can be made to fit even
the smaller counties. Where the consolidated welfare work of the
county does not warrant the employment of a commissioner, a deputy
in charge of health and a deputy in charge of social service, the com-
missioner himself would take charge of one of the bureaus. In the
smallest counties there would be no deputy commissioners.
II. The Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare¹
SECTION 1. That this Act shall apply to counties having a popula-
tion of 500,000 inhabitants or more.
SEC. 2. The term, "Social Service Functions," employed and used
in this Act shall be construed to embrace and include all powers, func-
tions and duties of social service investigators and other social service
officers and employes of said counties, authorized, conferred or imposed
by law, relative and pertaining to:
I "An Act to Create, Establish and Maintain in Counties Having a Population
of 500,000 Inhabitants or More, a Bureau of Public Welfare, in Aid of the Powers
and Duties of Such Counties, and the Powers, Functions and Authority of Courts
of Record in Such Counties Relative and Pertaining to Social Service Functions of
Said Counties and Said Courts" (July 13, 1925), Laws of the State of Illinois (1925),
pp. 264-66.
660
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
CO
1. Dependent children; meaning and intending to embrace and in-
clude only cases of pure dependency, where the action of a court of
record is not invoked.
2. Blind adults, as provided in "An Act for the relief of the blind,"
approved May 11, 1903, in force July 1, 1903, as amended.
3. Feeble minded persons, as provided in "An Act to better pro-
vide for the care and detention of feeble minded persons," approved
June 24, 1915, in force July 1, 1915, as amended.
4. Deaf and blind children, as provided in "An Act to make pro-
vision for deaf and blind children," filed June 28, 1917, in force July 1,
1917, as amended.
5. Paupers, as provided in "An Act to revise the law in relation to
paupers," approved March 23, 1874, in force July 1, 1874, as amended.
6. Adoption of children, as provided in "An Act to revise the law
in relation to the adoption of children, approved February 27, 1874, in
force July 1, 1874, as amended"; provided, however, that nothing in
this Act shall have the effect of repealing "An Act to provide for the
visitation of children placed in family homes," approved May 13, 1905.
7. Insane persons, as provided in "An Act to revise the law in rela-
tion to the commitment and detention of lunatics, and to provide for
the appointment and removal of conservators, and to repeal certain
Acts therein named," approved June 21, 1893, in force July 1, 1893,
as amended.
8. Children as defined and as provided in an "Act concerning bas-
tardy," approved April 3, 1872, in force July 1, 1872, as amended.
9. Minors, as provided in "An Act in relation to guardians and
wards," approved April 10, 1872, in force July 1, 1872, as amended.
10. Cases involving social, economic and home conditions, non-
support, desertion and abandonment, where the aid of the county or
the jurisdiction of a court of record is invoked.
11. The furnishing of social service and making provision of aid,
food, clothing, medical attention or other relief to all persons in said
county applying for or in need thereof.
SEC. 3. The purpose of this Act is to consolidate in a single depart-
ment, or bureau, of a county all branches of investigations, powers,
functions and duties included in the term, "Social Service Functions,"
enumerated and defined in Section 2 of this Act, that are now or may
hereafter be authorized by law.
SEC. 4. There is hereby created and established a county bureau
of public welfare in each county having a population of 500,000 in-
habitants, or more, which shall be maintained at county expense, con-
THE COUNTY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
661
sisting of one director, and such number of subordinates, together with
such number of clerical and other hire as shall be determined by the
board of commissioners each of whom shall be employes of said county
and shall be appointed in accordance with the terms and provisions of
the law in relation to civil service in such counties.
SEC. 5. The board of commissioners shall make and provide rules
and regulations for the conduct, control and management of said coun-
ty bureau of public welfare, and prescribe their powers, duties and func-
tions, but not inconsistent with the provisions of this Act.
SEC. 6. The records of said county bureau of public welfare shall be
kept as provided by the rules and regulations of the board of commis-
sioners, and it shall be the duty of the board of commissioners of each
county in which a county bureau of public welfare is created under this
Act to furnish suitable rooms and accommodations, equipment and
supplies for said bureau and clerical assistance for the keeping of said
records. The records so compiled shall be open to the public only upon
the written order of the president of the county board or upon the order
of any court of record in each particular case, after written application
setting forth reasons therefor shall have been filed. All copies of reports
made to any court shall be immediately impounded by an order of the
court and subject only to inspection upon an order of the court having
jurisdiction of the particular case.
SEC. 7. No officer or employe of said bureau receiving compensa-
tion under the provisions of this Act shall receive any compensation,
gift or gratuity whatever from any person, firm or corporation, for
doing or refraining from doing any official act in any way connected
with any proceeding pending, or about to be instituted in any court of
record. Any such officer or employe receiving compensation under the
provisions of this Act from any public funds who shall receive any com-
pensation, gift or gratuity from any person, firm or corporation for
doing, or refraining from doing any official act in any way connected
with any proceeding then pending, or about to be instituted in any
court of record, shall be deemed guilty of a misdemeanor and upon
conviction thereof shall be punished by a fine not exceeding $1,000.00
or by imprisonment in the county jail not exceeding one year, or by
both fine and imprisonment.
SEC. 8. This Act shall be and become in force and effect on the first
day of the next fiscal year of said counties.
SEC. 9. The invalidity of any portion of this Act shall not affect
the validity of any other parties thereof, which can be given effect
without such invalid part.
SECTION III
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
-
An examination of the organization and duties of the public-
welfare departments in cities reveals a greater diversity in the mean-
ing of the term "public welfare" than in either the state or the county
organization.¹ In some instances, as New York City, the public-welfare
authority is an agency for dealing with the same questions of poverty,
mental distress, dependent children, etc., with which the state author-
ity deals. And in New York City the same kinds of questions as to
scope and power have been raised with reference to the organization
of the city department as have been raised in the case of the state
board. In Chicago, however, the department³ is something quite dif-
ferent, having to do only with unemployment and research, as public
relief and corrections are in Illinois county functions. This difference
illustrates the very interesting question as to the effect of differing de-
grees of organization on some of the problems usually thought of as
welfare problems. Unemployment, for example, in the Chicago Wel-
fare Bureau and in cities generally, suggests at once the question of the
Poor Law facing the ancient dilemma of the able-bodied destitute; but
the remedy proposed is the modern remedy of diagnosis, special service
in the form of placement, and careful recording for purposes of com-
munity understanding of the problem.
This difference characterizes the treatment of many of the prob-
lems with which the documents have dealt. The homeless woman in
the city calls for treatment by way of lodging-houses or gives rise to
the problem of the prostitute, which involves then not so much relief
agencies as the police, the city health department, and the inferior
courts.4 The problems of the immigrant and the migrant take on
* See "Public Welfare in the United States,” Annals of the American Academy of
Political and Social Science, CV (Jan., 1923), 144 f.
2 See Document 2.
3 See for example, the Annual Report of Department of Public Welfare, City of
Chicago (1926) in which an admirable study of "500 Lodgers of the City" supple-
ments the account of the Chicago Unemployment Bureau and Municipal Lodging
House.
4 See, for example, the Report of the Department of Health, City of Chicago, for
1919–21, p. 166, for statement of co-operation between the city and state and each
with the federal government. See also Sixteenth, Seventeenth and Eighteenth Reports
of Municipal Court of Chicago, p. 87, describing work of the Morals Branch.
662
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
663
new aspects. The immigrant commissions established during the de-
cade 1910-20 in Massachusetts, New York, California, and Illinois
were placed in other departments than the Welfare Department; in
Massachusetts and Illinois under the Education Department, in New
York under the Labor Department, while in California an independent
authority was created. The point is that they represent the modern
method of treatment recognized largely because the situations to be
dealt with arise to a great extent in urban communities, where the
large numbers call for specialized professional service.
Indeed, because of various factors of urban organization too obvi-
ous to require enumeration, the city department or organization may
take on higher standards of work, enjoy more ample resources than is
possible for the state and may in general stimulate and lead the entire
organization. The student can, therefore, profitably examine not only
the welfare agencies in their intricacies and variety but the education,
health, and labor organization as well. It is clear that the me hod of
case work, that is, the point of view of social treatment, is ess、ntial
to the efficient conduct of attendance departments, placement bureaus,
and probation staffs. In a comprehensive view of city welfare work,
then, documents illustrating the work of these authorities would be
included. And as they are often organized after a “case-work” method,
records of cases could be assembled. The important point for the stu-
dent is to distinguish those activities analogous in purpose to the wel-
fare authority and to formulate the principles which should guide in
the establishment and conduct of such authorities.
In the following section a very small number of documents are
presented, selected apparently to a disproportionate extent from
New York City. They may serve, however, to illustrate certain points
that have special interest with reference to the relation between the
state and local authority rather than between the welfare and the other
authorities to which reference has been made. They also bring out the
interdependence of the welfare organization and the civil service.
In the first document the history of the department from the date
of its establishment to 1902 is reviewed. In the second, the proper
division of functions in a city as suggested by a member of the State
Board in 1881 is set out. In 1887 the State Board² received a report on
the City Department after a special study by Mrs. Lowell and also
from the State Charities Aid Association.³
¹ See Edith Abbott, Immigration: Select Documents and Case Records (Uni-
versity of Chicago Press, 1924), Part II, Sec. IV; Part III, Sec. II.
2 Document 3, A.
³ Document 3, B.
664
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
J
I
In 1914, when a clear issue was drawn between the State Board
and the City Department as to the adequacy of the Board's super-
vision of subsidized institutions for children, the City Department
was allowed by the City Civil Service Commission to treat certain
positions ordinarily under the civil service as exempt positions, and
the State Commission therefore investigated the City Commission.²
One effect of the controversy was an undertaking on the part of
the City Department to reorganize its staff, requiring the addition of
a considerable number of qualified persons selected after the best civil-
service methods, and to take on the function of child-placing which is
recognized as an especially delicate task for which there should be
widely accepted standards of work.³ Document 9 is included rather to
show the way in which such standards may be worked out and given
wide publicity than for the exact content of the standards.
¹ See Document 5.
See Document 4.
3 See Document 7.
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY AND THE CITY
1. The Early History of the New York City Department'
By an act passed on April 19th, 1798, five commissioners to be
called the commissioners of the almshouse were appointed to have
charge of the city's charities, consisting of the almshouse and "Bel Vue
Hospital." In 1800 the number of these commissioners was reduced to
three, and these were subsequently replaced by a single commissioner.
An act passed by the legislature in 1849 abolished the office of com-
missioner of the almshouse, and established a board of ten governors
of the almshouse, elected by the electors of the city. The number of
these governors was changed from time to time. By a law passed on
April 17th, 1860, the department of public charities and correction
was created to take over the functions of the governors of the alms-
house. On January 1st, 1896, the correctional institutions, including
the penitentiary, the workhouse, the city prison (familiarly known as
the Tombs), and the five district prisons, were separated from the
charitable institutions, and placed in the new department of correc-
tion. On February 28th, 1896, the New York City Asylums for the
Insane, with 6,800 inmates, were transferred from the department of
charities to the control of the board of managers of the Manhattan
State Hospital.
The public charities of the City of Brooklyn were under the man-
agement of officers of Kings County. Before 1838 the charitable in-
stitutions of the county were administered by overseers of the poor and
justices of the peace. Acts passed by the legislature in 1838 and 1847
authorized the election of county superintendents of the poor. An act
passed in 1858 divided Kings County into five districts, a superin-
tendent of the poor to be elected in each district.
The superintendents of the poor were succeeded in 1870 by the
three commissioners of charities of Kings County, who were elected
as provided in the law creating the new department. The election
of commissioners continued until 1880, when a law was passed to
provide for the appointment of three "commissioners of charities and
'Extract from Department of Public Charities of the City of New York, Statement
of Facts (published by the City Club of New York, May, 1903), pp. 6–7
665
666
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
correction of Kings County," two to be appointed by the president
pro-tem. of the board of county supervisors and one by the supervisor
at large of Kings County. Subsequently, and until the creation of the
Greater New York, the appointment of commissioners was made solely
by the supervisor at large.
Under the original charter of Greater New York, which went into
effect January 1st, 1898, all the public hospitals of the city excepting
those for cases of contagious diseases, were under the control of the
department of public charities, the head of which was the board of
public charities, consisting of three commissioners. One commissioner
had "administrative jurisdiction" in Manhattan and the Bronx; one,
in Brooklyn and Queens; and the third, in Richmond.
The revised charter, which went into effect on January 1st, 1902,
provided for the reconstruction of this department. The three com-
missioners were superseded by a single commissioner having jurisdic-
tion throughout the entire city. The amended charter provided, how-
ever, that after February 1st, 1902, Bellevue, Gouverneur, Fordham,
and Harlem hospitals and the Emergency Hospital at 223 East 26th
Street, should cease to be under the control of the department of public
charities, and should be taken over under the management of “The
Board of Trustees of Bellevue and Allied Hospitals," consisting of
seven trustees appointed by the mayor. Of this board the commis-
sioner of public charities is a member ex-officio.
J
2. The Proper Division of Functions in a City¹
In every city there should be three Departments, to be named
respectively: The Department for the Care of Children; The Depart-
ment for the Care of Public Dependents; The Department for the Re-
duction of Crime.
These Departments should each be governed by a separate Board,
the members to be men and women, appointed by the Mayor of the
city for life, unless sooner removed for incompetence or for violation
or neglect of duty, and required to give their whole time to their office,
receiving a sufficient salary to justify this demand.
I. With the Department for the Care of Children would rest the
duty of so dealing with the little ones entrusted to it, that they may
• Extract from Mrs. C. R. Lowell, "Considerations upon a Better System of
Public Charities and Correction for Cities,” Proceedings of the Eighth Annual Con-
ference of Charities and Correction (Boston, 1881), pp. 175–82.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
667
gradually but surely be cut off from the influences which have brought
their parents to a condition of dependence, and be absorbed into the
bulk of the population, with no memory even, if it can be avoided, of
anything suggestive of pauperism or crime. No child should ever for
a moment be allowed to associate with paupers and criminals, and the
States of New York and Massachusetts have been wise in forbidding
the sending of children to poorhouses and jails for destitution and va-
grancy. They should go further, however, and provide that no official
who has charge of paupers or criminals should have authority of any
sort over a dependent child. The creation of a separate department for
their care I believe to be a necessity, but not for the purpose of housing
them in public institutions;—this department should have but one in-
stitution (apart from schools, to be spoken of further on) under its con-
trol,—a central temporary home, into which should be received all
children who have any claim upon public support, pending the exam-
ination of that claim. From this temporary home, those found to be
really destitute should be quickly transferred to suitable private insti-
tutions, and until some other disposition could be made of them, the
city should pay for their support in such institutions.
In a measure this is the present practice in New York City and in
many other cities of New York State, but there is nowhere, so far as I
know, a separate department created to have the care of these children,
and most unfortunately, in New York City at least, the custom has
grown up of requiring that judges shall commit children to private in-
stitutions, as a necessary condition of obtaining payment from the
city for their support. This undoubtedly is a dangerous proceeding,
since the familiarization with a court of law tends to destroy the dread
of arrest, which should be fostered as one of the strongest deterrent
influences against crime. To bring a child before a judge in a criminal
court in order to secure his entrance into an institution of charity is a
most unwise measure.
How to care for the children of the very poor, and often depraved,
part of the population of cities, is one of the most serious of public ques-
tions; and, in discussing it, it is necessary to consider the effect to be
produced not only upon the child, but upon its parents and upon the
public at large.
The first and instinctive impulse is to collect all children who are
subject even to occasional suffering, neglect or evil example, and to sur-
round them with bright and good influences, guarding them from dan-
ger and trial through their tender youth. This seems to many to be the
668
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
duty of the community both to itself and to the children of misfortune,
but is it so in reality? Is the child itself to be saved by thus removing
it from its natural surroundings? Such removals often unfit it for the
battle of life. Again, shall we relieve the parent of the responsibility
which God has imposed upon him? In seeking to save the child by this
means, the parent is too often sacrificed and deprived of the strongest
incentive he can possibly have to exertion and right living.
The effect upon the tax-payer and upon the hard working poor
man, struggling to bring up his children to be honest, industrious, and
healthy, must not be ignored. The tax-payer should not be required
to give what he needs for his own family to support the family of his
dissolute neighbor, unless that family threatens to be a public injury;
nor should the honest laborer see the children of the drunkard enjoying
advantages which his own may not hope for. There can never be any
hard and fast lines laid down in regard to this question, for while, on
the one hand, children must be protected from cruelty and from evil
training, on the other, a constant watch must be kept that parents who
are capable of rightly bringing up their children are not tempted to give
up that duty because it is a hard one, and it is to be remembered that
the poorest home, unless it be a degraded one, is better than the best
institution.
In New York the law of 1878 requires that children committed as
destitute, unless boarded out in families, shall be sent to institutions
controlled by persons of the same religious faith as their parents, and
the authorities are obliged to provide for the support of all children
committed to institutions under this law. As a consequence, hundreds
of children who would never be entrusted to a Protestant institution,
or placed in a poorhouse, are yearly committed by magistrates and
other officials to Catholic institutions. The temptation is too over-
powering, the parents know that their children will be cared for and in-
structed by Sisters of Charity or members of other religious orders, and
they see no reason why, if such advantages are offered free, they should
refuse them; the managers of the institutions, anxious to save the souls
of as many children as possible, know that for every one received, a
sum sufficient, or more than sufficient for its support, will be paid from
the public funds; the magistrates are, some of them, quite ready to
augment, so far as they can, the prosperity and numbers of Catholic
institutions; and no one except the magistrates, the managers and the
parents has any authority in the matter. Thus is brought about the
condition of things which we see in New York City and elsewhere in
#5.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
669
the State; the growth of sectarian institutions, and a great increase in
the number of children who are supported by the public, and yet who
are not regarded by their parents as paupers, and who, when once in
the institution, may remain there till they reach the age of sixteen
years, costing the public usually about $100 a year each.
Were the training they receive the best imaginable, and one that
would fit them to be intelligent American citizens, there might be a
question whether this expenditure were not, after all, a wise one, but
unfortunately, many of these children are likely to be incapable of
earning their own living when they leave these institutions, and the
fact that they are carefully guarded from all but the most extreme
Catholic influence, during the entire period of childhood, even from
such influences as must affect the children of the most scrupulous
Catholic parents if outside the walls of an institution,-makes their
present training, and their probable future character a subject of anx-
ious interest to the community.
I think there can be no question that public institutions, and insti-
tutions maintained by the public money, should not be sectarian in
character, and that all children dependent upon the public funds for
support should be required to attend the public schools. There should
moreover be a constant pressure brought to bear on parents to contrib-
ute towards the support of their children, and as soon as they are able,
they should be required to take them back, or if unable or unfit to do
this after a given number of years, they should forfeit all claim to them.
No child should be held as a public charge for an indefinite time, and
the parent have the right to reclaim it at any moment. A parent who
will not perform the duties of a parent should not have the rights of a
parent. All this field of labor should belong to the Department for the
Care of Children, which should periodically examine into the circum-
stances of all parents whose children are a public charge, decide
whether payment should be exacted or not, whether the child should
return to its home or be entirely removed from its parents, find per-
manent places for all children who remain a charge upon the city after
three years, and watch over them in their new homes. This department
should also be required to draw up rules and by-laws for all institutions
receiving children to board at the public expense, and see that they are
carried out to the letter.
Besides these duties in regard to children who are fit subjects
for public support, the Department for the Care of Children should
have the control and management of Industrial Day Schools for the
670
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
children of persons who, though able to support them, neglect, or do
not know how, to train them to be useful, industrious and honest.
These schools should be especially designed to supply the wants of their
home training, and attendance should be made compulsory on all
vagrant and truant children. By such means, the Department for the
Care of Children would be a potent factor in the work of diminishing
crime and pauperism.
II. The Department for the Care of Public Dependents should
have charge of the public hospital, insane asylum, almshouse and work-
house, the last to receive only persons committed as destitute. There
are two means of reducing pauperism: 1st, by preventing accessions
to the ranks of paupers from without, which can be accomplished by
rendering pauperism unattractive and by the general enlightenment
of the people, and 2nd, by restoring individual paupers to manhood
and independence. The Department for the Care of Public Dependents
can make use of both these methods, by the adoption of judicious dis-
cipline within the institutions, and by refusing to give relief outside of
institutions. The aim being to cure the individual, whether of sickness,
insanity, intemperance, or simply of the tendency to be shiftless and
lazy, the same system should be enforced in all the various buildings
under the charge of the department; strict discipline should be en-
forced, absolute cleanliness demanded, industry be inculcated, not for
the purpose of saving money, but to teach the individual. To train the
mental and moral nature should be the first object, and no other should
be allowed to take precedence of it.
-
Thus, in the hospitals, the classification of cases should not be made
with regard to the convenience of the physicians, but with a view to pre-
venting contamination. Men and women who have become ill by in-
temperance should not be encouraged in their evil propensities by the
use of beer and whiskey, even though they be ordered as a medicine.
The convalescents, especially the young, should be taught and em-
ployed so far as possible.
In the insane asylums, teaching, moral instruction and employ-
ment would usually be found the most efficacious means for the cure
of disease, and thus even here the attempt to raise the individual and
mould his character would result in the diminution of the expense of
supporting the asylum.
I do not think that we sufficiently recognize the fact that, in public
asylums at any rate, insanity in the majority of cases is due to exces-
sive indulgence in one form or other of vice, and that frequently the in-
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
671
sane are persons who have so long neglected self-control that they
finally lose all power of self-control. I am sure, however, that this is so,
and I believe that there is as much room for reformatory treatment in
an insane asylum as in any other institution. The fact that a large part
of the population of all public institutions are driven to them through
their own folly and sin, renders it an imperative duty to seek to elevate
these unfortunates so far as possible, and, still more, to prevent their
contaminating others less degraded than themselves. Whatever may
be the temptations that beset the weak and wicked outside the walls
of an institution, not one evil influence should be allowed to approach
those who are under the charge of a great city. A wrong that is done
by the authority of law is an outrage against humanity, and no wrong
is so black as one that hurts the soul.
III. The Department for the Reduction of Crime would have, as
its name imports, a wide field of labor,—to my mind it would be the
most important of the three departments which I propose, and I have
chosen this name for it, in order that every one, inside of it and outside
of it, may fully recognize what is the main end of its creation, and that
the care of criminals and the supervision of prisons may be put in their
proper subordinate places, as one means only of accomplishing the real
work of the department. I would place under the charge of this branch
of the city government not only the reformatory institutions in the city
(including those for juvenile offenders), but the station-houses and the
police force, which latter should be its agents to prevent, as well as to
detect crime, to protect the weak who cannot resist temptation un-
aided, to watch habitual criminals when at large, and to guard those
undergoing sentence. This department should also have the entire
control of licensing the liquor business, that most potent of the causes
of crime.
If it were possible, it would, I am sure, be well that the judges
should in some way be connected with this department, and, in any
event, the management of the courts should be a part of its business.
It seems to me that the harm done by our courts, as at present gov-
erned, is not at all recognized. The publicity to which all persons on
trial are exposed is in itself a serious evil, especially in the case of chil-
dren and young women, breaking down and destroying all natural
modesty and making them in very deed "brazen faced," while it also
fosters the love of notoriety which is so common in weak natures as
to be, I believe, acknowledged as a very strong incentive to crime
among a certain class. One form of the harm done by the publicity of
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
trials was brought to my notice a short time since by a lady who visits
the New York penitentiary. A young woman whom she had befriended
showed her a letter from a total stranger, who said he had seen her on
trial, and if she would come to him when she left the prison, he would
take care of her. The girl confessed with tears, that, but for the care
afforded by my informant, she should have gone to him. I am sure
that, at least the trials of women and children should be conducted in
comparative privacy,-only certain persons being allowed to be pres-
ent. We have passed the time when we need a public trial to ensure
justice for the accused.
There is no doubt also that the station-houses are, in many cities,
places of contamination and degradation,-there should be special
buildings for the temporary imprisonment of women, and women-
officers should be employed to guard them; and here, as well as in con-
veying prisoners to and from the reformatories, they should be pro-
tected from contamination by every known means. I speak only of
reformatories, ior there should be no prison or penitentiary which is
not a reformatory, and here I believe that the State of New York can
furnish, in the institution at Elmira, an example for other States and
cities to follow. The right principle has been adopted and carried out
in this reformatory, the prisoners are sentenced practically for an
indeterminate period, and the managers may, at their discretion send
them out on probation, or finally discharge them. Here we have the
only rational means of dealing with offenders against the law. It is a
truism to state that the very same crime may be committed either by
a comparatively innocent man, who, it is morally certain, will never
transgress again, or by a man who is a standing menace to society; but
notwithstanding this fact, the law now requires that the first man shall
pay very much the same penalty as the second, whereas were these two
men both simply committed to the charge of the Department for the
Reduction of Crime, that department, after a short test, would dis-
charge the repentant and humbled citizen, sure that the terror of crime
itself would in the future save him from any further offence; while the
hardened criminal would be placed under such teaching as would save
him, too, from future transgression of the law, even if a discipline of
ten or twenty years were required to ensure that end. If the object be,
as it should, to protect society, why should not an irresponsible criminal
be treated as an irresponsible insane patient is dealt with? the superin-
tendent in charge of each deciding when he may safely be trusted at
large. With proper regulations and efficient supervision by the police
✩
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
673
to save them from their own weakness, undoubtedly a large number of
criminals who are now shut up, in demoralizing idleness and vile com-
panionship, might be safely allowed at liberty; thus saving them from
debasing influences, and the State from the necessity of supporting
them. But there is a smaller number, who now are periodically turned
loose to prey upon their fellows, who are as dangerous as any madman,
and who ought to be always kept under control. Thus our folly is ap-
parent in both directions, we keep masses of men shut up under a
system which destroys both soul and body, who are quite capable of
being useful and valuable members of society, while we constantly un-
chain wild beasts, knowing them to be such, waiting for some overt
act before we dare to lay our hands upon them again.
Under the rule of the Department for the Reduction of Crime,
the number of criminals imprisoned would surely be greatly diminished,
and the training of all actually in restraint would be such as to teach
them the lessons they failed to learn from the influences of a natural
life; while those who could not learn would never be allowed the oppor-
tunity to injure themselves and their fellow-men. Our present system
of treating prisoners is generally the exact opposite of this.
3. Department of Public Charities and Correction
of the City of New York
A. MRS. LOWELL'S REPORT TO STATE BOARD¹
As has already been reported to you by the Committee on the In-
sane, the October grand jury of New York city, on November second
of this year, made a presentment referring to the "Female Insane Asy-
lum" on Blackwell's Island.
After making certain recommendations concerning the asylum in
question, based upon an examination of the management made by ·
them, the grand jury closed the presentment with the following words:
"Finally, that the law be changed placing the poor and insane under a
different commission from criminals, and ask that the State Board of
Charities (be asked) to look into the matter."
You will remember that your Committee on the Insane, in their
report on the Insane Asylum on Ward's Island, made August 12, 1887,
¹ Extract from Commissioner Josephine Shaw Lowell to the State Board of Char-
ities, "Report on the Department of Public Charities and Correction of the City
of New York" (December 9, 1887), Twenty-first Annual Report of the New York
State Board of Charities for the Year 1887, pp. 261–70.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
also came to the conclusion that the insane in New York city should not
be under the charge of a department containing criminals, and made
the following recommendation:
Either the management and government of both the insane asylums,
with all their various branches, to be given to a board of trustees composed
of men and women appointed by the Mayor, to whom they should report; or,
as the alternative preferred, all matters relating to the insane be entrusted
to one independent commissioner, to be appointed by and to be responsible
to the Mayor; in accordance with which the Department of Charities and
Correction would have to be reorganized, and might well be divided into four
separate departments, each with an individual head, respectively, for (1) in-
sane asylums; (2) institutions for children; (3) all the hospitals and the alms-
house, and, (4) the work-house, the several city prisons and the penitentiary.
In my "Report on the Public Charities of New York City for the
Year 1886," I also made a similar recommendation in the following
terms:
I believe, as I did years ago, that the real solution of the difficulty that
confronts us, is the breaking up of the Department of Public Charities and
Correction into three departments, one to have charge of the criminals and
able-bodied paupers, one of the sick, insane and helpless, and the third to
have the care and supervision of the dependent children of the city.
The State Charities Aid Association, which is composed of some of
the most intelligent and public-spirited men and women in New York,
and which has for more than fifteen years made a study of the Depart-
ment of Public Charities and Correction of the city, in the year 1883
made the same recommendation, and by its president, Hon. Charles
S. Fairchild, prepared a bill, entitled “An Act to divide the Department
of Public Charities and Correction of the city of New York into Four
Departments, and to define the powers and duties of the same,
" which
was introduced in the Assembly in March, 1883, Mr. Fairchild sup-
porting it by a statement to the Legislature.
It would thus appear that there is a very strong consensus of opin-
ion on the part of those who have studied the subject, to the effect
that the present system under which the paupers, the criminals, and
the lunatics and sick poor of New York city are cared for by one de-
partment, is highly objectionable and should be done away with.
I would therefore bring the matter again to your attention and ask
that you memorialize the Legislature in regard to it, after due consul-
tation with the proper authorities of New York city.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
675
The present Department of Public Charities and Correction is un-
der the charge of three commissioners, whose duties are as follows:
To care for four thousand and two (4,002) prisoners of different
grades, in five different prisons in the city, and in the Penitentiary,
Branch Penitentiary, Workhouse and Branch Workhouse on Black-
well's, Randall's and Hart's Islands; for three thousand, seven hundred
and sixteen (3,716) sick and disabled persons in eight different insti-
tutions on Blackwell's, Ward's, Randall's and Hart's Islands and in the
Alms-house; for four thousand, three hundred and ninety-two (4,392)
insane men and women in four different asylums on Blackwell's,
Ward's, Randall's and Hart's Islands; for six hundred and twenty-
seven (627) infants, and sick, crippled and idiotic children.
There are one thousand one hundred and eleven (1,111) officers
and employes in the department.
Can it, for a moment, be supposed that any three men could prop-
erly govern and care for such a mass, twelve thousand seven hundred
and thirty-seven (12,737) of incongruous human beings, scattered in
twenty-nine different buildings, from East Twenty-sixth street to
Hart's Island in the Sound, besides transacting all the business neces-
sary for their maintenance?
As a fact, it has been demonstrated over and over again, that these
various classes of sinning and suffering humanity, are not cared for in
a way that is good for them, good for the community or creditable to
the city of New York.
To take one by one the various classes of persons, for whom the
Commissioners of Public Charities and Correction have to provide, it
will be easy to show that this is so.
With the prisons, the State Board of Charities has no official con-
nection, but I have lately learned that in only three of the city prisons
is there any night matron, and in the other two (where the women
prisoners average sixteen and six respectively every night) the women
are left entirely to the care of men at night, and there is but one day
matron, who divides her time between the two prisons.
The Penitentiary I know but little of, except that no attempt at
reformation of the prisoners is made there.
On Randall's Island, a branch penitentiary contains about fifty
prisoners who work in different parts of the island, where all the sick
and crippled children are also domiciled. Whether the familiar sight
¹ These and the following figures show the census on November 30, 1887.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of prisoners, in striped prison dress, has a good or bad effect on these
children, no one stops to inquire.
Of the work-house, I need not report to you further than what I
said last July. There is no question that it is a place of moral contami-
nation to every man and woman, to every boy and girl, not already de-
praved, who goes into it; or that the work-house men and women, who
are distributed to the number of 804 over the other institutions of
the department as "helpers," are transmitters of moral contagion.
To Randall's Island, where, as I have said, hundreds of children,
boys and girls of all ages, are cared for during the year, bold young
prostitutes are not infrequently sent to work in the laundry.
The hospitals under the charge of the department are eight, with
various annexes. There are four in the city, and one each on Black-
well's, Ward's, Randall's and Hart's Islands. They had on November
30th, two thousand and fifty-eight (2,058) patients and about three
hundred and fifty officers and employes. I do not know very much in
regard to them. They all have resident physicians and visiting physi-
cians as well, and it is to be presumed that they are reasonably well
managed. If not, it seems to me that the responsibility rests with the
visiting physicians, who should insist upon deficiencies being supplied,
or else make the matter public.
It is not necessary to dwell upon the condition of the insane and
lunatic asylums. It was after an investigation into the management
of the Ward's Island asylum, and the Blackwell's Island asylum, that
your Committee on the Insane, and the grand jury of New York city
each recommended that the insane should not remain under the charge
of the Department of Public Charities and Correction.
I would recommend a plan for dividing the present Department
of Public Charities and Correction somewhat different from any hith-
erto proposed, either by myself or others.
There are four divisions into which the inmates of the institutions
of that department naturally fall—
Ist. The criminals and able-bodied paupers
2nd. The sick and disabled
3rd. The insane
4th. The children
The criminals and able-bodied paupers I would advise placing
under the care of the Board of Police of the city. The present duties
of that board are so tremendous that to increase them by the additional
care of these prisoners would, in proportion to their total charge, not
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
677
be a very important matter, and it would greatly simplify the work of
dealing with the prisoners, who have all now to pass through the hands
of that department, when arrested and during trial. By placing them
directly in their charge during sentence also, unnecessary transfers
and division of authority would be avoided. The work-house prisoners
are actually criminals, either past or present, with few exceptions, and
these few should not be in the work-house at all.
Riker's and Hart's Islands, being comparatively distant from the
city, should be placed at the disposal of the police department for the
sites of a new penitentiary and work-house, which prisons ought, as
soon as possible, to be removed from Blackwell's Island, where they
are now most badly placed in the midst of the sick and insane.
All the hospitals, and the alms-house as well, should, in my opinion,
be under the care of one department, to whose care should also be en-
trusted unteachable idiots, all epileptics, and all infants under two
years (unless their mothers were criminals); that is, all persons, except
the insane, needing medical care by reason of old age, of disease, or of
mental or physical disability.
Blackwell's and a part of Randall's Island, together with the hospi-
tals of the city, should be under this department.
The insane should be placed under a separate board or commis-
sioner; and Ward's Island and the farm at Islip be devoted to this class.
There remain only the children of the department to be provided
for, and these I recommend placing under a superintendent or commis-
sioner, to whom also should be entrusted the oversight of children
boarded in private institutions by the city, and the exclusive right to
commit such children to such institutions, and to remove them from
them.
These children numbered in June of this year, 5,688. They were in
eighteen different institutions, and the city had paid for their board
for the six months ending June 30th $278,862.79.
To enable the managers of the various institutions to obtain this
payment for board, each child must be "committed"—that is, must be
carried into court before a judge, and by him sent to an institution.
Such an experience cannot but be injurious to the moral nature of the
child.
Having been committed, the city is required to pay their board,
and there is at present no provision made for removing these children
from the institutions, even though it should be the policy of the man-
agers to hold them for years, and although the training given them
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
may unfit them to be useful citizens hereafter. I have already reported
to you at length ("Report on the Institutions for the Care of Destitute
Children of the City of New York, 1886") upon the evils and dangers
connected with this system of caring for these children, and I repeat
my recommendation, that the power to commit and remove children
to and from private institutions, where their board is paid by the city,
should be placed in the hands of a public officer, who should have
charge also of part of Randall's Island, to be used as a quarantine and
hospital for them.
Concerning the thousands of other children, who are also main-
tained at public cost by the city of New York, in another class of insti-
tutions, under the authority of special acts of the Legislature, whereby
the city is required to expend about a million dollars annually for this
purpose, the children being admitted and retained at the will of the
managers of those institutions, I say nothing, because I do not suppose
that, at present, it would be possible to induce thesc managers, not-
withstanding the fact that they are public-spirited men and women, to
relinquish the power so unwisely placed in their hands, of drawing at
will on the public treasury, and without their consent no change could
be made.
I confine my recommendation, therefore, to the class of institutions
already referred to, entrance to which is now obtained only by commit-
ment by a magistrate.
B. THE STATE CHARITIES AID REPORTS
ON THE CITY DEPARTMENT¹
The work of the Department of Public Charities and Correction
has become too great for the system.
The number of persons under the charge of this department on
March 9, 1883, as given at the office of the Department, was 11,400, of
whom 3,206 were insane; 958 were prisoners in the penitentiary, and
about 1,600 were work-house cases. The remainder were either in hos-
pitals, ill with all manner of diseases, were idiots, blind, helpless infants
or feeble old persons. They were housed in more than thirty different
buildings, which are scattered over the city and islands, and are many
miles apart. No one can visit and inspect them all, without giving
weeks to the task. There are as many insane under the charge of this
department as are in the six great State asylums. The average number
¹ From Twenty-first Annual Report of the New York State Board of Charities for
the Year 1887, pp. 272–74.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
679
of persons always in the work-house and penitentiary bears fair com-
parison with that of those in the State prisons. The total number which
goes through these two institutions every year is much greater than
that which goes through the State prisons.
The last published Report of this department covers the year 1879.
It is impossible to get totals except from that Report, and it is not easy
to get them from it, because each institution reports after a method of
its own, and there are twenty-two such separate reports, bound to-
gether to make this Report of 1879, and no general summary is given.
But it would seem, from a careful examination of them all, that
over 60,000 cases were under the care of one branch or another of that
department in 1879. Of these, 17,392 were in the work-house, and 2,954
in the penitentiary.
We do not know and cannot learn the numbers for any year since
1879, and must await the publication of further reports-that for 1880
will soon be published, it is said.
No effort is now made to reform any of all these thousands whom
the city imprisons every year, and yet there were in the work-house in
1879, 663 persons under nineteen years of age; in the penitentiary, 508
under twenty, and 455 between twenty and twenty-five. It would seem
that here was a field for reformatory work of great promise.
The Report says that, of those committed to the penitentiary in
that year, 370 had been committed once before, 152 twice, and so on,
until three were back for the tenth time or more. The work-house Re-
port has no such statistics, so we are left ignorant as to the revolving
there.
This Association believes that the charity and correction of the city
cannot be well administered without some such classification and separa-
tion of the work as is provided for in the bill introduced by Mr. Miller.
It believes that a man who will properly conduct the Department for
the Insane, should be at the head of an independent department. He
will be entitled to the dignity which such a position ought to give, and
so for the others. We also believe that the man who does the work
which the head of any one of these departments ought to do, in devising
and carrying out methods to heal the sick, to punish and reform the
criminal, will earn the salary named in the bill, $6,000. We believe that
the civil service sections of the bill are most necessary, to improve the
service in this department of the city government. The fact that the
changes among the four or five hundred subordinates are annually
from forty to fifty per cent is enough to prove this.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Not long since the changes in one institution where there were 124
paid subordinates were 140 in one year. In Bellevue Hospital, in 1881,
there were forty-one changes in 104 officers and employes. In the
Homoeopathic Hospital the changes in 1881 were thirty-two in a total
of thirty-five.
These are the most marked cases for that year, but changes were
numerous enough in all the institutions to show that either appoint-
ments or removals were too carelessly made.
These appointments and removals should only be made upon the
recommendation of the head of each institution, as provided in this
bill. This would give such officers a portion, at least, of the authority
over subordinates which is necessary for proper discipline.
A word of explanation is needed of the powers to be given to the
Commissioner for Dependent Children. He is given sole power to com-
mit to private institutions children who come upon the public simply
through poverty and not for violation of law. This, it is believed, would
be a gain. First. Because the first contact of an innocent child with
government should not be in a criminal court. Second. This officer
could give time to investigate each case, to learn if the child ought to
be supported by the city. It is believed that many children are so sup-
ported now, who ought not to be. Third. He should have power to re-
move children committed by him. The city has no power now to do
anything but to pay a certain sum every year for each child who has
once got into a private institution, no matter how unfit the institution
may have become, as has been found to be the case in more than one
instance lately. The limitation as to age is also believed to be wise both
for the child and for the public. This power of removal is not intended
to be given to this officer, over children placed in institutions for refor-
mation, nor is the age limitation to be applied to such cases. The man-
agers of institutions can alone determine when the work of reform has
gone far enough to make it wise to release the child.
Finally, we ask that the reports of the New York City Commis-
sioners of the State Board of Charities and our own reports be carefully
read. In them will be found ample proof that some such measure as is
provided in this bill is needed.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
681
4. The State Civil Service Commission Investigates the City
Commissioner's Lenient Treatment of the City
Department of Welfare
Α'
Recently Dr. Edward T. Devine has accepted a temporary ap-
pointment in the Department of Charities for the purposes among
others, of developing a more definite social service program in con-
nection with the work of the examiners whose numbers have been en-
larged, and he testified that he has found excellent material among the
old examiners, and that in his grouping of the examiners, his instructing
them and his urging for the new, social service program, he is receiving
encouraging assistance from a large proportion of these old examiners.
Early in 1914, it appears that the Commissioner of the Department
of Charities began to proceed with a program for enlarging his force of
examiners. There was an eligible list in existence from which appoint-
ments easily could be made upon the transfer of funds to the Charities
Department to provide for their salaries. This eligible list contained
many persons of good practical experience, people who had lived in
the City of New York for a long time and who were familiar with prac-
tical problems of life in crowded parts of the city. Many of these have
done volunteer work for years in the charitable societies connected
with churches and synagogues. But it was not part of the commission-
er's program or desire to accept candidates from that list. He desired
to make personal selections and personal appointments and he and his
advisers turned to rule 12 for help. Paragraph 6 of that rule provided
that:
G
The Commission may by resolution except from competitive examina-
tion any person engaged in private business who shall render any professional,
scientific, technical or expert service of an occasional and exceptional char-
acter to any city officer and the amount of whose compensation in any one
year shall not exceed $750.
It was designed in appointing under this clause, if the local civil
service commission would permit it, to have the employments run for
six months at the rate of $1,200, a year (which would be within the
$750 provision), and in the meanwhile to procure another eligible list
to follow the old list on its expiration near the end of the year. The
¹ Extract from Report of an Investigation of the Municipal Civil Service Com-
mission and of the Administration of the Civil Service Law and Rules in the City of New
York ("Senate Document 35," New York State Legislature 1915), pp. 134–37.
682
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
first problem was to secure a transfer of funds to pay the salaries. A
long and careful statement was made to the comptroller who, in turn,
presented it to the board of estimate and apportionment and on that
statement $42,750 was transferred from the food and supplies account
(used by hospitals, etc.) of the Department of Charities to pay the sal-
aries. In the comptroller's report it was stated that this proceeding
was most unusual and would be subject to criticism unless there was a
very good reason for it and that reason was stated to be the claim by
the commissioner of charities that if his force of examiners were en-
larged so that adequate re-examinations could be made, the additional
re-examinations would result in the removal from child caring institu-
tions of so many dependents that the cutting out of the allowances
made for the care of those children would result in a saving to the city of
many times the salaries, and at the same time discourage those who
suffered their children to be placed as charges upon the treasury of the
city. There was no word expressed in the report of the commissioner upon
which the comptroller's report was based nor in the comptroller's report,
expressive of any intention to organize a social service program with the
new examiners. No doubt there were men in the board of estimate and
apportionment who understood that that project was included in the
proposition, but it is just as certain that there were other men in the
board of estimate and apportionment who were not informed of this
relatively expensive program, nor of the new social service scheme that was
to be built up, by a transfer of food supply funds.
The money being appropriated, the next step was to evade the
eligible list upon which many worthy people had been long waiting for
appointments. When the commissioner of charities addressed the
Municipal Civil Service Commission asking that his appointees be
excepted, it did except them upon a proposition not mentioned to the
board of estimate and apportionment, namely, that it was intended to
do a new work of social service-of the rehabilitation of families which
would require just the kind of people as examiners who are described
in paragraph 6 of rule 12. It appears that the persons whom the com-
missioner had selected to appoint were already known and designated
when the resolution was adopted. That resolution was not put through
the Municipal Civil Service Commission without discussion and divi-
sion of opinion and it seems clear that the resolution was passed with-
out the concurrence of one of the commissioners who held that the pro-
posal was not lawful.
The State Civil Service Commission examined a large proportion
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
683
of the forty-seven persons who were appointed to these important
positions without competitive examination, and who by their tempo-
rary service gained practical advantages which helped them materially
to get upon the new eligible list which recently was made up to super-
sede the old eligible list. Conceding that several of the forty-seven
were persons of good qualifications and experience, it was perfectly
plain that in general these new examiners did not meet the require-
ments of section 6, which was tortured to permit their appointment.
The report of the commissioner of charities upon which the financial
provision for the forty-seven was made by the board of estimate, con-
tained a careful computation of the number of cases that must be re-
investigated, in the time (six months) in which it must be done, of the
average number of cases per day that an investigator could handle,
with the final straight result that it required just that number of ex-
aminers to reinvestigate that number of cases. The computing was so
carefully done as to run into decimals. It was conceded by the com-
missioner and his subordinates that rehabilitation work requires very
much more time than investigating and that the average number of
cases that can be handled for social service is very much fewer than
those which can be handled for reinvestigating. Our investigation
showed clearly that if the forty-seven were to be used for the purposes ex-
pressed to the board of estimate and apportionment they could not do
social service or rehabilitation work, and also that if they were to be used
for social service and rehabilitation they could not accomplish the reinvesti-
gation which was urged as the basis for the financial provision.
Cha
The persons who were appointed were relatively young and lacking
the experiences of life. Relatively they had more college and special
training than the old examiners or eligibles but that was discounted by
their lack of experience in the world and in the real problems of life.
Two of the persons appointed were under twenty-one years of age and two
of them were not citizens. Some had to be dropped soon, because they
did not qualify in the service. They had come largely from the em-
ployment bureau associated with the School of Philanthropy where
they registered and paid a fee. One of those dropped had been recom-
mended by President Moskowitz of the municipal commission. He
rendered false reports. It might be supposed that to qualify forty-
seven appointments upon the ground of "peculiar and exceptional
qualifications of a scientific, professional or educational character,"
that there would have been a careful examination made and recorded
of each one of the appointees. The fact as developed in the testimony
684
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
given before us, and the admissions of the commissioner and his assist-
ants, was that the examinations were short and perfunctory, lasting in
some cases five minutes and occasionally twenty minutes, that no record
was kept of these examinations, that nothing could be shown to indicate
what the inquiries and answers were and that in some cases the selection
proceeded upon the ground of personal acquaintance and recommendation.
BI
It was not with any intention of overhauling the general conduct
of the Department of Charities that these cases were examined, but
entirely for the purpose of observing in action the new force of exam-
iners excepted from competitive examination upon the ground of pe-
culiar qualities and qualifications and likely to be permanently grafted
upon the city's civil service list through the competitive examination
which they were to take, with the advantage of several months'
experience in the positions temporarily held and with the specialized
training and acquired terminology of charity experts who organized
the new movement.
A summation of the whole matter is this: A complete reinvestiga-
tion to determine whether there were unworthy cases in the children's
hospital and in the child-caring institutions required exactly the old
force of investigators, plus the forty-seven who were provided for in
the action of the board of estimate on purely economical grounds-and
on no program of social service, and who might just as well have been taken
from the standing eligible list. They could have done the social work on
the side as they have been doing by the use of kind words and helpful
suggestions and by referring cases of need and distress to the A.I.C.P.,
the dispensaries and other charitable institutions. The ignoring of the
eligible list and going to the Municipal Civil Service Commission for
an exception under Rule 12 paragraph 6 was simply a device to beat
the list and did not result in securing "experts" such as are described in
the rule. It did not open a real program of social service any different
from that which was carried on by the old examiners and which is being
followed and enlarged by Doctor Devine with the effective help of the
old examiners, for carrying the humane spirit into their work. The
augmented force is no greater than necessary to do thorough reinvesti-
gating of dependent cases with humanity and helpfulness on the side.
¹ Extract from Report of an Investigation of the Municipal Civil Service Com-
mission and of the Administration of the Civil Service Law and Rules in the City of
New York ("Senate Document 35," New York State Legislature 1915), pp. 138–41.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
685
The temporary excepted examiners were not specially humane, and
their conduct in many cases shows that some of them were heartless and
were more intent on putting children out of places and thereby saving
money for the city, than they were of helping the poor and the distressed.
To do a real inspirational social work among the poor properly and
effectively, would require a much larger force than has been provided
for or contemplated, and would impinge on the excellent work of pri-
vate organizations that are all within reach by an enlargement of the
policy of co-ordination between the examiners and the societies that
has long existed.
The view of the Board of Estimate is shown in the fact that the sal-
aries for the new social service investigators coming from the new list
that has been established have been fixed at $900 to $1,050 and $1,200
(instead of all at $1,200).
James P. Conway (1419, etc.) who was formerly Assistant Chief
Examiner of the Municipal Civil Service Commission, took part in pre-
paring and rating the examination for the former eligible list. He had
considerable experience in social service (p. 1550). He made a com-
parison of the papers of 40 of these candidates, with the statements of
35 of the 47 made to the State Civil Service Commission, as to their
experience and qualifications. He said (p. 1425) that those on the eligible
list were in general well qualified by age, experience and fundamental edu-
cation, and some were exceptionally well qualified. Out of 40 examined
30 were between 26 and 40 years of age, and only 2 were under 26. As
for the new appointees, they had good fundamental schooling, but
lacked in training after leaving school and in business matters, and were
particularly lacking in investigation experience. Of the 35 examined, 10
were under 26 years of age, and 19 were under 35. Twelve of these had
not been employed since leaving school, or their occupations were
meagre. On the whole, the qualifications of those on the old eligible
list for practical work, were superior. That opinion is sustained on all
the evidence in the case.
The Commissioner of Charities on August 6, 1914, wrote to the
Municipal Commission and said: "The persons whom we desire to en-
list in the work are real experts within the meaning of Rule 12, Clause
6. The service which they are to render is distinctly, expert service
of an occasional or exceptional character.”
On July 25 he had notified that commission that the appointment
of the 47 had been made, and referred to July 7 as the date of an agree-
ment for their appointment. On that letter one of the clerks of the
686
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
commission endorsed a reference to the existing eligible list, and did
the same on a similar letter dated August 6, 1914.
John A. Daly, one of the old regular force of examiners testified
(p. 4726) that he protested directly to President Moskowitz against
the appointment of the 47 as an injury to those who had entered the de-
partment in the regular way. He said (p. 4730) there was dissension,
antagonism and disorganization of the employees by the reflection upon
them (that they were not fitted for the kind of work to be done); that
the examiners felt they were not getting a square deal. At a conference
of the examiners attended by Commissioner Kingsbury, he declared
that the social service idea was nothing new, and that the old examiners
had been working on those lines. He said: That since that time he had
not been invited to conferences, and he has been transferred to Staten Island
and has the whole of that island to cover alone.
CONCLUSION
In concluding our Report, we regret to have to say that the Munic-
ipal Civil Service Commission has shown itself in many respects to be
weak and inefficient. The integrity of the law lies with the local com-
mission. In some cases the Commission has neglected its duty; in
others it has not seen its duty; in others it has concurred in evasions and
violations; and it has violated the law itself. The dominating member
has been the President, and on him rests the greatest share of the
blame. He has demonstrated himself to be temperamentally incompe-
tent and impractical, while the other members failed to grasp oppor-
tunities to offset these defects and resultants thereof.
5. The City Department and the State Board¹
It has been the custom in the past for the Department to receive
and accept the reports of the State Board of Charities on these various
institutions, without making any inquiry itself as to the kind of care
afforded the children for whose support it is paying. During the year,
1914, however, we found that the conditions in some of these institu-
tions bearing the certificate of approval of the State Board of Charities
were such as to be little less than a public scandal and disgrace. The
¹ Extract from Annual Report of the Department of Public Charities of the City
of New York for 1914, p. 15.
2 [See Document 2 in this section, Lowell, "Considerations upon a Better Sys-
tem of Public Charities and Correction for Cities."]
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
687
agents of the Board, presumably without the full knowledge of all the
members of that body, had apparently gone through their inspection
of these institutions with both eyes closed or with one auspicious and
one drooping eye. Naturally when we found on the certified lists of the
State Board, institutions in which the beds were alive with vermin, in
which the heads of boys and girls were itching with uncleanliness, in
which antiquated methods of punishment prevailed, and in which the
children were disgracefully overworked and underfed, we found it
necessary to decline to commit children to those institutions, and to
decline to accept as reliable the official reports of the State Board of
Charities. It is obvious that it should not be necessary for the City to
duplicate in expense and effort the work intended to be performed by
an already existing public agency. The conditions which make neces-
sary this wasteful duplication of effort, it seems to us, would warrant a
special inquiry into the methods of this branch of the State government
by the Governor or by the State Legislature.
6. Volunteer Assistance to the Civil Service Commission¹
Α'
For many examinations, the Commission has secured the voluntary
and extremely valuable help of experts. Many conferences have been
held in which the best informed and unselfishly interested private citi-
zens have taken part. Such conferences have been held, for example, in
preparing for the examination for
Superintendent of Municipal Lodging House, attended by:
Dr. Edward T. Devine, Secretary of the Charity Organization Society
Mr. William H. Matthews, Director Bureau of Family Welfare, Associa-
tion for Improving the Condition of the Poor
Dr. Robert W. Hill, Superintendent State and Alien Poor, State Board of
Charities
Angus P. Thorne, Superintendent, Bureau of Dependent Adults, Depart-
ment of Public Charities
Attendance Officer, attended by:
Dr. Edward B. Shallow, Associate Superintendent of Schools
William J. O'Shea, John Davis and Cecil Kidd, District Superintendents
George H. Chatfield, Director of the Bureau of Compulsory Attendance
Howard Nudd, representing the Public Education Association
¹ Extract from Thirty-first Annual Report of Municipal Civil Service Commission
of the City of New York, 1914, pp. 7–8.
688
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
George A. Hall, representing the Child Labor Committee
Miss Nellie Schwartz and Mrs. Florence Kelley, representing the
Consumer's League
Playground and Gymnasium Attendant, attended by:
Mr. J. C. Boyers, Executive Secretary of the Recreation Alliance of New
York City
Miss Madeline Stevens, Supervisor of Plays for Parks and Playgrounds
and for
Police Matron, attended by:
Miss Maud Minor
Mr. Fred Whittin, of the Committee of Fourteen
Mrs. Charles L. Israels
BI
IMPORTANT EXAMINATIONS OF THE YEAR
In this connection, the Commission is glad to record the fact that
the request for exemptions have been comparatively few. This has
been notably true in the course of the reorganization for the Depart-
ment of Health, where, although several new and important bureaus
were established, the Commissioner of Health in no case suggested ex-
emption.
Vý
During the year 1915, the Commission, for the first time in at least
nine
years, has not found it necessary in a single case to waive the re-
quirement of competition to a competitive position in order to permit
the permanent employment of a candidate nominated by a depart-
ment head. On the contrary, throughout the year, the Commission
has succeeded in establishing eligible lists for such important adminis-
trative positions as Superintendent of the Municipal Lodging House,
Superintendent of the Employment Agency, Director of the Bureau of
Food Inspections, Department of Health, Director of the Bureau of
Social Investigations, Department of Public Charities, Secretary on
Recreation for the Committee on Social Welfare, Assistant Director of
the Bureau of Standards and Superintendent of the New York City
Children's Hospitals and Schools, Randall's Island.
The results of these examinations have justified the policy of the
Commission in assuming the heavy responsibility to which reference
has already been made. The examinations themselves have been of
¹ Extract from Thirty-second Annual Report of the Municipal Civil Service Com-
mission of the City of New York, 1915, pp. 16–18.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
689
the most advanced, practical type. In some cases, the Commission
has again resorted to the non-assembled test which, as explained in the
last annual Report, was used in the New York City service, for the first
time in 1914.
Such an examination was tried in the selection of the superintend-
ent of the New York City Children's Hospitals and Schools, Randall's
Island. In this case, the Commission had to meet a peculiarly difficult
problem due to the desire and plans of the Commissioner of Public
Charities to reorganize the entire management of the Randall's Island
Home, so as to bring its conduct up to modern ideas of caring for the
feeble minded inmates of such an institution. This field of develop-
ment in public charitable work is comparatively new, the number of
qualified candidates not large and the selection of persons qualified to
conduct such a test proportionately difficult.
The commission was finally successful in securing the assistance of
Dr. Walter E. Fernald, superintendent of the Massachusetts State In-
stitute for the Feeble Minded of Waverly, Mass., and recognized as a
pioneer and leader in the modern ideas in the care of feeble minded
children. Through his invaluable and hearty co-operation, the plan of
examination was developed so as to meet with the hearty approval of
the Commissioner of Public Charities. The examination was thrown
open to the entire country. Candidates were required to submit a de-
tailed account of their experience which, under the terms of the adver-
tisement, included the possession of a medical degree and experience
in the management of child-caring institutions.
7. The City Department and the Subsidized Institution¹
Undoubtedly the most far-reaching results of the work of this De-
partment during the year 1915 have been in connection with the care
of the 23,000 dependent children, of whom necessity has made the City
of New York the foster parent. Though not underestimating the im-
portance of those branches of the Department which deal with the care
of the adult poor, we have felt that the improvement of the conditions
affecting the lives of these 23,000 children represented the problem,
which more than any other single problem, cried out for attention,
called for drastic action and carried with it more of promise and hope
for the social betterment of this community.
* Extract from Annual Report of the Department of Public Charities of the City of
New York for the Year 1915, pp. 13-15.
690
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The work of the Department of Public Charities quite naturally
divides itself into two distinct fields of effort, the care of persons (de-
pendents) in public institutions-including the sick poor, the homeless,
the aged and infirm, the tuberculous and the feeble-minded-over
which the Department has complete jurisdiction, and the care of per-
sons (dependents) in private institutions which receive money from the
city for this work and over which the city and this Department has a
limited jurisdiction. It is, of course, well known to your Honor, that
in the past the work and attention of the Department has been almost
exclusively confined to the first of these two activities, viz., to the care
and treatment of the various groups of dependents in the public insti-
tutions. With the second problem the City has never seriously con-
cerned itself. In fact, as Comptroller Prendergast has truly said in a
report entitled "A Digest of Laws, Decisions and Regulations Relating
to the Control of Private Charitable Institutions Receiving City Funds
and the Commitment of Public Charges to Their Care," which was
issued in 1911:
The Department of Public Charities exercises practically no supervision
over the care and treatment of children committed by its agents and by the
Juvenile Courts, once they are sent to private institutions. Where responsi-
bility rests for the supervision of service; what degree of regulation should be
exercised; who should determine the conditions of commitment and dis-
charge; what character of treatment and service should publicly-supported
inmates receive in private institutions; what kind of education should be
given them; what efforts are made by the institutions properly to equip their
inmates to meet the obligations of citizenship and economic independence
after discharge; whose responsibility it is to find permanent foster homes for
children bereft of parents and committed, in consequence, to what in theory
should be only the temporary custody of the institution-these and many
other questions vitally affecting the welfare of the thousands of children who
by misfortune are brought into the care and keeping of public authorities it
has apparently been nobody's business heretofore to solve.
Prior to 1914, the City perfunctorily committed children to the
custody of various private charitable institutions, paid these institu-
tions on a per capita basis for the care of these children without super-
vision of service, and perfunctorily accepted the certificate of the State
Board of Charities as to whether or not these institutions were giving
proper, decent and humane care to the City's wards. Further than this
the City made no effort to ascertain whether or not the City was getting
a dollar's worth for every dollar expended in the care of dependent
children. Like many individuals it took credit to itself for an expendi-
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
691
ture for "charity" and then forgot about it. It sent thousands of boys
and girls to orphan asylums and then forgot about them; it made no
inquiry as to whether the taxpayers' money, presumably appropriated
to provide decent physical care and proper moral, educational and in-
dustrial training, was actually being used for these purposes; it made
no effort to ascertain whether these children were being given a chance
to play and a chance to learn. It merely accepted the report of the
State Board of Charities as to whether a given institution was an “A”
institution, a "B" institution, or a "C" institution, these letters repre-
senting the relative merits of the institutions, as rated by that Board.
This condition of affairs was considered so serious as to warrant
the Mayor in submitting this report to the Governor of the State, with
the suggestion that the Governor institute a special investigation of the
work of the State Board of Charities. The Governor responded by or-
dering such an investigation and by appointing Mr. Charles H. Strong¹
a Commissioner, under the Moreland Act, to conduct the inquiry.
The investigation, as your Honor is aware, is now in progress.
Whatever the nature of Commissioner Strong's report may be, its out-
come is bound to be of great benefit to the 23,000 children who are
under the City's care. Already a number of institutions have made
zealous efforts to improve the conditions criticized by the Committee
of Inspection, which with your Honor's approval, I appointed in 1914
to examine into the care received by the City's children in these insti-
tutions.
In addition to the improvement of the standards and ideals of the
various private, child-caring institutions, however, there must be se-
cured some other developments of more far-reaching importance to
this community. I respectfully represent to your Honor that our ex-
perience during the past two years points convincingly to the fact that,
in the matter of caring for dependent children, the City of New York
has for years been moving in the wrong direction. Like Pennsylvania
and Maryland, we have been following the line of least resistance and
building up a great, top-heavy, subsidized institutional system, so high
and huge, that it threatens to collapse. More dependent children, for-
merly, have merely meant more institutions, and more institutions
have meant more dependent children. At the same rate that Massa-
chusetts has been decreasing her institutional population during the
last decade, we have been increasing ours. We have failed to realize
I
* [See above, Part II, Section III, Document 13.]
692
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
that institutional life for normal children, is abnormal at the best, and
that an orphan asylum, unlike a school or college, represents only a
recourse, and not an opportunity.
I feel it my duty to urge upon your Honor that the time has now
come when the City of New York should thoroughly test the plan of
placing our children in private homes, which long ago passed the experi-
mental stage in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. It is the con-
vincing force of the idea that home life, even under some adversities,
is vastly superior to institutional life for children, which has brought
legislation providing for public pensions to widowed mothers in twenty-
nine states of the Union. Widows' pensions, however, help only the
fatherless; they do not provide for motherless boys and girls. It is with
the motherless, at this moment, that I am most seriously concerned.
I respectfully recommend to your Honor that the City, through this
Department, should earnestly make an effort to search out a childless
home for the homeless child with a view either to effecting an adoption
or paying a good foster-mother a sufficient allowance to enable her to
provide proper care and training for the child. I do not underestimate
the difficulties of this new work, but I believe that necessity demands
a thoroughgoing effort in this direction. This work should properly be
done through a Child-Placing Bureau in this Department, with a staff
of earnest, sympathetic and experienced investigators to find foster
homes and to supervise the care given the City's children in such
homes.
8. The Development of Social Service in the
Department of Public Charities¹
The particular reason why I have been asked to continue this dis-
cussion is because I have had something to do with a reorganization of
certain services in the Department of Charities, which recognizes the
fact that there is need for social service in connection with every kind
of application that may for any reason be made to the Department of
Public Charities. When the mother comes asking for a child's commit-
ment it means that there is very apt to be a situation in that family
which calls for the same kind of attention, for the same kind of assist-
ance by the Department of Charities or by some other voluntary
agency or by a neighbor as is needed when there is a patient in the
hospital. If a feeble-minded person is to be committed by action of the
Department of Public Charities to an institution for the feeble-minded
¹ Extract from address by Edward T. Devine, Proceedings of the Sixth New
York City Conference of Charities and Correction, 1915, pp. 22–25.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
693
there is very apt to be some situation in the family that calls for such
relief and preventive work as is in our mind when we talk about hos-
pital social service. When there is a patient to be committed to a tuber-
culosis hospital or infirmary, when there is an application made to the
Bureau of Domestic Relations for action in non-support or abandon-
ment or bastardy case, there is also an opportunity for social service,
for intelligent analysis, careful study of the situation in that family to
see whether anything can be done in addition to the particular action
which the Department has been asked to take. I should be glad if
there were time to recount the history in the last twenty years in the
Department of Public Charities, the development of the specialized
bureaus and divisions of various kinds that have split off from the old
undifferentiated superintendent of outdoor poor. There are some here
who remember the office of superintendent of outdoor poor when Mr.
Blake and his predecessors and successors (I believe there was one suc-
cessor) sat in the building at Eleventh Street and Third Avenue and
took care of all kind of cases that came to the Department of Charities,
regardless of what the applications were. I remember, among other
things, his giving out those little bottles of medicine for stomach ache.
He didn't require the diagnosis or prescription of the physician. Any
woman that thought that she herself or some member of her family
needed it could come and get it. I am told it was a very good prescrip-
tion; I never tried it, but I understand it was tried on many people and
I never knew of a death resulting from its use. That is an illustration
of the miscellaneous duties that devolved upon this layman whom we
called the superintendent of outdoor poor; but in the course of time we
had a children's bureau, a clearing house for mental defectives, a do-
mestic relations bureau, a tuberculosis bureau, a social service division
in the hospitals. We have various kinds of services. They are all social
services. However long they may have been in existence, they repre-
sent a kind of social service.
The thing which the reorganization of this present year is intended
to recognize is that this process of specialization-I won't say has
gone far enough; I have no doubt that the need for their special serv-
ices may arise but must be supplemented by another principle, if
you please. The two principles are not antagonistic. First as there are
many special kinds of needs arising, so we need to have many kinds of
bureaus or services. After that, however, it remains true the family
in which all these things arise is one. They are the same people, the
same family. It is therefore desirable that the different services should
694
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
be consolidated whenever there is an application for any one kind of
assistance; the person who makes the investigation should have all of
the experience of the Department of Public Charities in dealing with
that same family. The creation of the bureau of social investigations
means the consolidation of these different services, the consolidation
of the staffs of the various bureaus, the recognition of the family as the
unit of work, and then consistently with this policy an organization for
administrative purposes on geographical basis, breaking up this great
city into manageable districts, so that a particular district will not have
the whole of Brooklyn, but only half; so that the visitors working in
that particular district can come to know the families, can come to
know the private agencies and public institutions and deal with them
in that way on a family basis.
Specialized consolidation of records, consolidation of the services,
is thus accompanied by decentralization for administration on a geo-
graphical district basis and reasonable co-operation with other city
departments and services and with voluntary agencies on the ground
that the Department of Charities of itself, even though it had five times
the resources it now has, would not be able to do all that needs to be
done in the way of service in the city, any more than the private chari-
ties, even though they had a hundred times the services, would ever
apply to it all that needs to be done. . .
As citizens, we are responsible for what takes place in these public
institutions. We cannot discharge our elementary religious obliga-
tion by feeding the hungry, clothing the naked, being kind to the indi-
vidual patient that is sick, or the one who is in prison who may happen
to be known to us. The only way in which you and I can fulfill our ele-
mentary religious obligation is by seeing to it that the institutions, pub-
lic and private, of the community in which we live are taking care of
the sick, hungry and naked, and the people who are in prison in the
community in which we live.
9. Standards of Placing Out Developed after the
Controversy with the State Authority¹
At the fourteenth New York State Conference of Charities and
Correction, held at Buffalo, in 1913, at which a paper on "What Do
¹ Extract from Homer Folks, "Report of the Special Committee on Standards
of Placing-Out, Supervision and After-Care of Dependent Children," Sixteenth New
York State Conference of Charities and Correction Proceedings, 1915, pp. 271–89.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
695
We Know About the Ten Thousand Placed-Out Children in New York
State?" was read by Miss Florence L. Lattimore, the following pre-
amble and resolutions were recommended for adoption by the Com-
mittee on Resolutions, and were adopted by the Conference:
WHEREAS, It is important both for the protection of dependent
children and for a wise development of child-caring agencies that there
should be made available more complete information as to the physi-
cal, economic and moral condition of children who have been for sub-
stantial periods of time under the care of institutions or societies, and
have been returned to their relatives or placed out or otherwise pro-
vided for; therefore,
Resolved, That this Conference urges upon agencies engaged in
placing out children, that after conference with each other and due
consideration, they formulate standards of placing-out and supervi-
sion, and of after-care, which they mutually agree to endeavor to put
into practice, and which will enable them to give a uniform and com-
prehensive accounting of the children cared for by them; and
Resolved, That this Conference likewise urges upon institutions
for children that in like manner they formulate and endeavor to carry
into effect standards of after-care of children returned by them to rel-
atives or friends or otherwise provided for; and,
Resolved, That the President of the Conference be requested to
appoint a committee of fifteen, representing placing-out agencies and
institutions, to provide for carrying the foregoing resolution into effect.
This Committee begs to submit and to recommend the adoption
of the statement of standards of placing-out, supervision and after-
care of dependent children both by placing out societies and by insti-
tutions appended hereto. This statement has been formulated as a re-
sult of the comparison of methods and experiences of the Catholic
Home Bureau for Dependent Children and the State Charities Aid
Association.
The Committee is pleased to report that the New York State Con-
vention of the Superintendents of the Poor in 1914 appointed a com-
mittee on this subject. .
The tentative report of the Committee of the State Conference of
Charities and Correction was placed in the hands of this committee of
the Convention of the Superintendents of the Poor, and with slight
modifications was recommended by that committee to the Convention
of the Superintendents of the Poor in 1915 for adoption, and was adopt-
696
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ed unanimously by that Convention with the modifications suggest-
ed.
•
STANDARDS OF PLACING-OUT, SUPERVISION AND AFTER-CARE
I. STANDARDS OF PLACING-OUT
1. What constitutes an adequate investigation of a home?
2. Must an adequate investigation include a personal visit to the
home by a personal representative of the placing-out agency?
3. What are the things which such a personal visit, if necessary,
should include in the way of inspection and inquiry?
1, 2 and 3. An adequate investigation should be made before a
child is placed in any home. It should include-
a) The filling out by the applicant of a blank to be signed by both husband
and wife, application stating the essential facts in regard to the proposed
home and foster parents;
b) Written reports from the references given by the applicant and usually
from independent references, and
c) A personal visit by a representative of the placing-out agency to the home
of the applicant. A personal interview should be held with the foster
mother and with the foster father, if practicable.
The facts collected by the investigator should usually include the
sex, age, character, habits, health, temperament and occupation of each
member of the family, general standards of the home and neighborhood
distance to school and to church, living conditions, such as sleeping
arrangements, sanitation, ventilation, cleanliness and comfort; the fi-
nancial status of the family including the approximate amount of the
annual income and its sources, opportunities for advancement, sav-
ings, insurance, etc.; the family's social connections and amusements;
their moral and religious standards; motive in taking a child and their
attitude toward discipline of a child, and the possibilities for recreation.
At least three references, people who have known the family intimately
for a period of at least three years, should be visited.
4. Should references be required in addition to those given by the
applicant?
Unless the information about the home, as gained by personal visits
to it and to the references given by the family, is unquestionably satis-
factory in every respect, references known independently to be reliable
and of good standing, in addition to those given by the applicant,
should be had when possible. Whenever any substantial doubt is sug-
gested in the course of an investigation, the matter should be pursued
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
697
until the doubt is removed or the undesirability of the home is estab-
lished.
5. Should references be seen in person in every case, or is corre
spondence with the references sufficient?
The references given by the applicant, or independent references,
or other persons of standing in the community should always be seen
personally.
6. Assuming that an adequate system of investigation is estab-
lished and thereby the true facts in regard to the homes secured, what
are to be considered minimum standards by which homes are accepted
or rejected, from the point of view of:
a) Income. (Amount, regularity, etc.)
A family in a large city dependent on wages should have an income
of not less than $900 a year for a family of three, and savings to draw on in
case of emergency. In smaller cities and in villages a smaller income may
be sufficient, and in the country no definite income can be stated, but fami-
lies should have some capital in the form of real estate, stock or imple-
ments, or savings for emergencies.
b) Intelligence. (Including the education of foster parents and also the edu-
cational opportunities likely to be offered to the child.)
No definite amount of education should be demanded. The families
should be sufficiently intelligent to appreciate the value of regular
mental and vocational training, to teach the child practical, every day
matters of decent living and to give the child moral protection. Decided
preference should be given to families of some degree of natural refine-
ment.
c) Moral Standards. (e.g.: How much is to be permitted in the way of pro-
fanity, occasional drinking, etc.)
1. Honesty in business and personal relation is essential.
2. No home should be accepted where any member of the family is not
living in accordance with the usual American standards of social and
personal morality.
3. Temperate use of alcoholic drinks which does not interfere with the
home or business life of the family should not necessarily interfere with
a placement, though, other things being equal, preference should be
given to abstainers. If any member of the family becomes intoxicated,
even at rare intervals, or if moderate but regular drinking seriously re-
duces the family resources the home should not be used. No home
should be used which is a resort for public drinking, even if the family
itself is temperate.
4. Profanity alone (unless indulged in habitually and in the home) does
not necessarily make a home unusable. If it indicates vulgarity and a
698
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
generally low moral standard, the home should be rejected.
d) Religious Training.
Children should be placed with individuals of the same religious
faith as the parents of the child. Ordinarily it is not practicable to place
Protestant children according to the various Protestant denominations.
Opportunity for religious training should always be required.
7. Should standards higher than the minimum be required in re-
gard to homes for certain classes of children? If so, what classes of
children, and what standards?
For a child of general marked promise, a home should be selected
where more than the minimum amount of required education will be
given the child, and where he will be surrounded by refinement and
culture. Children with a talent of any kind should be placed where that
talent can best be developed. For a child needing special physical care
a home which is especially equipped to meet the need should be select-
ed. A difficult child requiring expert attention needs a home where the
person in charge of the child has had some special training or is tem-
peramentally fitted to deal intelligently and sympathetically with him.
8. How far should inquiries be pushed in regard to the parentage
and family connections of children who are to be offered to foster
parents?
The investigation of the family history of a child should include all
the data which can be obtained without undue expense in regard to
the parents, brothers, sisters and grandparents of the child. Honest
and earnest effort should be made by personal visit and by correspond-
ence to secure this information. There should also be secured such facts
as may be readily obtainable in regard to aunts, uncles, and other
relatives.
In regard to the child's immediate family, i.e., parents, brothers,
sisters and grandparents, the facts should, whenever possible, include
the following: the name, former and last known address, with date;
whether living or dead; if dead, date and cause of death; nationality,
race; religion; occupation; health; mentality; habits, moral character;
prominent traits; personal description; social and moral standards of
the family, etc. Any indications of abnormality should be noted. The
housing and neighborhood conditions and the standards of home life
should be recorded, as well as the child's characteristics and personal
history. The sources of information should be given with full name and
address, and if an official, the title of the person from whom the infor-
mation is secured.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
699
9. What must we require of the children in the way of:
a) Health.
A placing-out society should be fully informed by a competent physi-
cian concerning the physical condition of each child who is to be placed.
No child suffering from an infectious or contagious disease, which would
endanger others, should be placed. Children suffering from a physical de-
fect, who are not a menace to the community, may be placed in specially
chosen homes.
b) Mentality.
No child should be deprived of an opportunity for family life merely
because of the fact that he is peculiar, backward, retarded in school or
mentally slower than the ordinary child of his age. If his mental deficien-
cy, however, results in such conduct as to be an actual danger to himself
or to others under the usual conditions of family life, he should either be
placed in a family home selected for its ability to afford special super-
vision, or in a custodial institution. Border-line and doubtful cases of
mental ability should be placed in boarding homes rather than free homes,
and under special supervision, pending determination of their mental
status. Children pronounced by competent authorities to be definitely
feeble-minded, should be placed in charitable institutions. In the absence
of adequate institutional provision, boarding in carefully selected families
may be the next best alternative.
c) Character and Disposition.
No child should be deprived of a trial in a family home because of an
undesirable disposition or unfortunate habits, unless such disposition and
habits constitute a source of actual danger to himself or to others in the
community, which cannot be overcome by home life under ordinary con-
ditions. A child whose conduct may be an actual danger to others, under
the ordinary conditions of family life, should either be placed in a family
home selected for its ability to afford special supervision, or in a reforma-
tory institution. Border-line and doubtful cases should be under special
supervision, both by the family and by the placing-out agency, pending
determination of the necessity of commitment.
1) Heredity.
A child, both of whose parents are obviously feeble-minded, or have
been pronounced feeble-minded by competent authorities, should not
be placed in a free home for adoption, but may be boarded in a family
under careful supervision until the mental capacity of the child is clearly
established. A child, one or both of whose parents are epileptic, insane,
of weak or degenerate stock, or of doubtful mentality, or who are reputed
to be feeble-minded, should not be placed in a free home for adoption
unless the foster parents are fully informed as to the child's history, and
are able to understand the responsibility they are assuming. If such a
700
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
child has reached an age at which his mental, moral and physical status
can be reasonably determined, he should be dealt with on the basis of
his individual capacity and not on the basis of his heredity.
10. What should be required as to legal custody, commitment,
surrender, etc.?
A child who is to be placed in a free home with a view of perma-
nence, should either have been
a) Legally surrendered by the parents or surviving parent, or
b) Removed from their custody as improper guardians by an order of the
court, or
c) Removed from the family by some other process authorized by law, such
as commitment by a poor law officer.
Separation, however, with a view to a permanent free foster home,
should only be made after investigation has shown that the parents are
not "fit, competent and able to fully maintain, support and educate
such child," and that there is no reasonable probability that these disa-
bilities will ever be overcome. A full statement should be placed on
record of the conditions which necessitated the separation of the child
from its parents, the legal process by which such separation was made,
and, if the separation occurred more than three months previously, of
the present whereabouts, circumstances and conduct of the parents.
II. When a placed-out child, not legally adopted, is returned by
the foster parents, who is responsible for its support?
a) While awaiting replacement, or .
b) Permanently if unplaceable?
Under the poor law, a person must be maintained by the town, city or
county in which he has a legal settlement, and the legal settlement of a
minor is that of the father, if living, or if not, of the mother. Morally,
the obligation of a community to provide for a dependent child does
not cease because it may be desirable to provide a home for the child in
some other community. Both the legal and the moral responsibility
for the support of a poor child is a continuing responsibility upon the
poor law district in which the parent of the child has or had a settle-
ment. When a child who has been placed in a free home is returned and
must be supported either temporarily or permanently, that support
should be provided by the locality from which he came, and if the child
has been proven to be unsuitable for family life, permanent provision
should be made for him by such locality.
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
701
II. STANDARDS OF SUPERVISION
1. What should supervision include in the nature of:
a) Personal visits by responsible trained agents. How often?
Personal visits by responsible trained agents should be made as a
rule at least twice a year. In cases where there is discontent on either side,
or doubt as to the desirability of the home, they should be made as often
as necessary.
b) Correspondence with the foster parents or the child. Friendly and, in
some cases, instructive correspondence should be carried on with the fos-
ter parents. If the child is placed in a home when from six to twelve years
of age, friendly correspondence may be useful. In the case of a child placed
when twelve years of age or older, correspondence with the child should
always be maintained.
c) Correspondence with school teachers?
Correspondence with school teachers of children of school age is de-
sirable, unless in exceptionally good homes where families prefer not to
have the teacher know that the child is not their own. The school report
should give a record of the child's formal school progress, his attendance
and general position in the community.
d) Visits by or correspondence with local volunteers.
Visits by or correspondence with local volunteers is helpful in special
cases, but under ordinary circumstances it is best not to emphasize the
fact that the child is not in its natural home.
2. What should be the character of a visit of supervision?
Before visiting a child, the agent should review the child's history,
and also the original investigation of the home, noting any points sug-
gesting further inquiry. When a child is visited, the agent should ob-
serve carefully the condition of the child, his health, his clothing, his
attitude toward the foster parents, whether or not the child is happy,
the amount of work he does, his progress in education, where and with
whom he sleeps, his opportunities for play and possibilities for social
life. The agent should also note the condition of the home, particularly
as to cleanliness, order, comfort, the foster parents' attitude toward the
child, their method of discipline, their plans for the child's future. Any
changes in the home or home life should be noted. Agents should be
instructed not only to gather information, but to give constructive ad-
vice to the family and child. Any child over eight years of age when
placed should be interviewed alone. If any question arises as to the
home or the child, some responsible person in the community familiar
with conditions in the home should be interviewed.
702
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
3. How long should such responsible supervision continue in re-
gard to:
a) Children who are not legally adopted.
Supervision should continue until the children reach the age of
twenty-one, unless by reason of the exceptionally satisfactory char-
acter of a home and exceptionally close relation between foster parents
and the child it becomes evident at an earlier date that further super-
vision can serve no useful purpose. The form and purpose of super-
vision gradually changes as the child grows older, involving more and
more, as time passes, of friendly advice and counsel to the child in re-
gard to matters of education and occupation. If the supervision is skil-
fully done, it gradually passes over from control to friendly counsel, as
it does between parent and child.
When a child has been in a home for a period of five years or more,
and conditions of the home and the development of the child have been
satisfactory, an annual visit may be sufficient, or in a few cases in
which conditions are similar to legal adoption, the supervision may
consist of correspondence only.
Supervision in case of older children should always include a con-
sideration of the training of the child in regard to earning and spending
money. If the child was placed in the home when ten or twelve years
of age, some compensation for his labor may reasonably be suggested
to the foster parents after he reaches the age of sixteen or seventeen,
provided he is not attending school. Due allowance should be made for
the period of time the child has been in the home, and the amount of
expenditure the foster parents have necessarily incurred in his behalf.
As to children placed out when less than twelve years of age, the
wisdom of the foster parent granting a small allowance of spending
money to be used by the child in his discretion, with friendly advice,
may well be suggested.
b) Children who are legally adopted.
Responsible supervision, of course, stops when legal adoption takes
place. It is desirable, however, that placing-out agencies should, when
practicable, and when it can be done without danger of disturbing the
relations between the child and the foster parents or the community,
secure information, from time to time, as to the subsequent careers of
children who are legally adopted, both for the practical reason of being
able to answer criticisms as to what finally becomes of such children,
and for the scientific reason of being able to form an increasingly wise
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
703
judgment as time passes as to the operations of heredity and environ-
ment. Placing-out agencies should therefore be careful to place on
record all information which comes to them in the ordinary course of
events concerning children who have been legally adopted, and also, in
so far as it is practicable for them to do so, with the consent and ap-
proval of the foster parents, to keep informed by correspondence with
the foster parents or others, as to the welfare of the child until it reaches
majority, or even subsequently. Naturally, very great care must be
taken to see that this is not done in such a way as to cause embarrass-
ment either to the child or the foster parents.
4. Standards of Adoption.
a) How long a time should elapse after placing-out before an application for
legal adoption will be considered? Should any exception to this standard
period be permitted?
At least a year should elapse before consent for legal adoption is con-
sidered. Some agencies require two years. In special circumstances, such
as a change of residence, or in matters of inheritance, consent may be
given sooner if the family is unquestionably a good one.
b) What children, if any, should not be legally adopted?
It is wise to delay permission for legal adoption of children in whose
family stock, on one or both sides, there is clear evidence of mental de-
fect. However, if the foster parents, having been fully informed of the
child's history and being sufficiently intelligent to realize the responsibili-
ty they are assuming, still desire to adopt the child and are willing that
the placing-out agency should keep in sufficiently close touch with the
child to be able to suggest and assist in securing custodial care for the
child, should mental deficiency develop, consent for adoption may be giv-
en. Special effort should be made in such cases to keep informed as to
the welfare of the child during minority.
c) What standards should be required as to families to which consent for
legal adoption will be given?
The standards required as to families to which consent for legal adoption
should be given are not materially different from those which should be
required in case of the original placing-out. Consideration of permission.
for adoption should, however, include careful inquiry as to whether sub-
sequent events have fully confirmed the judgment which approved the
home originally. Consent for adoption may appropriately be delayed or
withheld, if there is lack of sufficient intelligence or income in the fam-
ily to give reasonable assurance of the maintenance of high standards
of training and education without supervision from the placing-out
agency.
704
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
STANDARDS OF AFTER-CARE
It is assumed that after definite, formal supervision is finished there
will be, in some cases at least, an opportunity, and in others, perhaps,
a necessity for after-care. How far should this be carried out by a soci-
ety which has placed-out children in families in the following respects:
a) In seeking information as to the subsequent progress of children who have
been legally adopted.
By consent of foster parents, supervision after adoption is desirable
for both scientific and practical purposes, as in this way complete records
of the child's development can be kept, and a study of these helps in mak-
ing it possible to revise present methods of work in dealing with children
who are placed and those who are to be selected for placing.
b) If this should be done at all, how should it be done? How often, and until
the child reaches what age?
III.
It should be done by correspondence and, when convenient, by friend-
ly personal visits, but care should be taken that the fact of the adoption
is not disclosed or emphasized. Such visits every second year are suffi-
cient until the child is of age and self-supporting or married. If after adop-
tion is completed there is a radical change in the family life, such as the
death of one of the foster parents, or if the child has developed in any
way abnormally, regular supervision should be maintained.
c) In the case of children who have not been legally adopted, but who are
especially promising in some line, how far should the society go in securing
opportunities for special education, training or care in those lines?
As much as possible should be done in securing opportunities for
special training for promising children, even after formal supervision has
stopped.
d) In the case of children no longer under definite, formal supervision, but
who have developed weaknesses or tendencies to go wrong, how far should
friendly interest and informal supervision continue, and to what age?
In the case of children who have developed subnormal or abnormal
tendencies, formal supervision should, if possible, continue until the child
has been committed to some special institution, placed in the care of some
responsible organization, or until some private individual assumes the
responsibility or permanent interest.
CHILDREN RETURNED TO THEIR OWN HOMES
1. What constitutes an adequate investigation of an application
from parents or relatives for the return of a child from the care of a
society to their custody?
Before returning a child to the custody of parents, an investigation
should show that they are morally and financially able to give the child
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
705
•
proper care, protection and training. If a child is to be returned to rela-
tives other than parents, the investigation of the home should be as
thorough as that for a free foster home.
2. Should such an investigation concern itself with any other mat-
ters than the moral suitability of the parents or relatives to look after
the children?
In considering the return of a child to parents, lower economic
standards can be accepted than those required in a foster home. Pov-
erty alone should not, as a rule, prevent the return of a child to its
parents.
3. If such an investigation should take into account the income,
financial circumstances and sanitary condition of the home, should a
different standard be accepted than would be required in placing-out a
child in a foster home?
A lower standard can be accepted in case of children returned to
parents or to older brothers or sisters, provided it is sufficiently high
to assure moral protection and physical welfare.
4. After a child has been returned to his parents or relatives by a
placing-out society, what degrees of supervision should the society
exercise over the child?
a) If the child has been in the care of the society for less than six months?
When a placing-out agency investigates histories of children carefully
before placing them in homes, as should invariably be done, there would
rarely be a sufficiently radical change in the family situation within six
months to warrant the return to his parents of a child who had previous-
ly been permanently removed. If the circumstances justify the return of
the child to his parents within six months, ordinarily there would be no
duty of subsequent supervision. If the child is returned to other relatives,
the supervision should be sufficient for a period of three years to show
whether the return was justifiable, and in doubtful cases should be fur-
ther continued.
b) If the child has been in the care of the society for longer than six months
and less than three years?
Supervision should continue long enough to assure the placing-out
agency that the child is properly and permanently provided for.
c) If the child has been in the care of the society for longer than three years?
Supervision should continue the same as if the child had been placed
in a free home.
CHILDREN PLACED IN EMPLOYMENT
When children in the care of a placing-out society reach a working
age and are not permanently settled in some home, so that the foster
706
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
parents feel the same responsibility that its own parents would feel as
to the child's occupation and station in life, and if the children have no
parents or relatives able, willing and suitable to provide for them, what
standards should the society observe in finding employment for the
children?
a) As to age at which a child is to be employed.
The laws regarding the ages of child employment should be carefully
observed, and it is desirable that every child should be in school until he
is at least sixteen years old.
b) As to the kind of work, number of hours, amount of compensation and
opportunities for training and promotion.
As far as possible work should be chosen which is suited to the child's
aptitude. The hours and character of employment should be clearly in
accordance with the Child Labor Law of the State. Only occupations
offering definite training or advancement should be chosen. The begin-
ning compensation may be small in such situations, but the exploita-
tion of the child should be guarded against.
c) As to supervision of conditions of work to ascertain whether original ar-
rangements are carried out.
Close supervision by trained agents should be maintained.
d) As to selection of suitable boarding place for children employed, and
e) As to subsequent supervision of life in other than working hours.
The living conditions, opportunities for social intercourse and the
moral influences should be ascertained by a personal visit before placing
a child in a boarding home, and enough supervision should be given after-
ward to be sure that the living conditions and social and moral influences
remain good.
RECORDS
What should be regarded as the essential records to be kept in
placing-out, supervision and after-care of children?
A complete record in permanent form should include all the facts
collected in connection with the investigation of the family history of
the child (see Standards of Placing-Out, 8), with the investigation of
the child's foster home (see Standards of Placing-Out, 1 to 7), and with
every visit made and all the correspondence in the supervision, includ-
ing copies of all letters to and from the family and the child, or about
them. All formal documents such as birth certificates, vaccination
certificates, school cards, etc., should be filed with the child's record.
Records should be kept in such a form that the information is readily
accessible. Written records should be made of all important arrange-
THE CITY AND PUBLIC WELFARE
707
ments made by the placing-out society or by any of its supervising
agents, either with the family or with the child.
TRAINED SERVICE
What degree of training should be required on the part of persons
who are to be employed as agents for placing-out or supervision of
children, and what salaries will it be necessary to pay to secure such
services?
Only people of judgment, intelligence and ability to get along with
different types of people are useful as children's agents. A good general
education, special training or its equivalent in experience in social
work, teaching, nursing, etc. should be required. A college education
or training in schools for social work is desirable.
CONFIDENTIAL NATURE OF THE WORK
Placing-out work is essentially confidential in its nature, and all
interviews and records should be so regarded.
SECTION IV
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
It will be recalled that in analyzing the situation as they found it,
the Massachusetts and the New York boards called attention to the
problem of the private charitable society and its relation to the central
authority. This is a question on which there is still great diversity of
opinion. The question of the state's power arises in connection with
the organization and especially the incorporation of private charitable
agencies, the supervision of their work, and their certification, of the
payment to them of certain amounts, either on a per capita basis or in
lump, the granting and withdrawing of licenses, and so forth. These
are, of course, wholly independent of legal questions arising in connec-
tion with the use of funds as related to the purpose of the trust or other
matters of donors' continuing rights in a property.
I
There will undoubtedly be differences of opinion and confusion of
thought so long as there remains doubt as to the purpose and object
of the various forms of welfare organization and so long as standards of
care remain unformulated. So long, that is, as donors give to ease
their own conscience or to save their souls, the distribution of alms
or of services will lack the scientific method that is based on study of
the community needs, and of the origin of those needs in social or in-
dustrial or political maladjustment.
It is now, however, an accepted view that a private agency under-
taking health functions should submit to public control. In this cate-
gory would be included, among others, hospitals, maternity homes,
and institutions in which young children are cared for. This control is
often exercised by the state health department, but the welfare impli-
cations are obvious.
It is also generally agreed that the institution receiving public
grants or subsidies may be placed under supervision, so that in addition
to the health supervision, there is the question of maintaining stand-
ards of work in other lines that are not too varied and not too remote
from the best practice in the field. For this, inspection, the making of
¹ See above Part II, Sec. II, Documents 1 and 5; see also below, Documents
3 and 4.
708
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
709
rules, periodic certification, and grants in aid or sharing the cost are
resorted to as devices in control.
It is not necessary to set out the arguments for and against the
use of the subsidized institution. Obviously, no plan in which private
agencies are depended upon to do the entire work will be adequately
carried out. It is not possible for the private agency to take a com-
prehensive view of the needs of the situation; and the stimulus to pri-
vate activity, in sectarian organization, religious ardor, and philan-
thropic motive will be such as always to give a peculiar importance to
the work that has been begun. It is therefore essential that any pro-
gram in which the private agency plays a conspicuous part should
include provision for supplementary organization on the part of the
public.¹
In any case, setting the conditions under which public funds will
be allotted to the private agency is recognized as a proper exercise of
public authority. And it is often argued that, by setting conditions
under which grants or payments will be made, the standards of pri-
vate organizations can be fixed and maintained. This is true, as
has been pointed out, only to the extent to which the public can sup-
plement as well as support the activities of private organizations. In
other words, if there is no power to supplement and the need can be
met only by using the private agency which is below standard, such
an agency will have to be used. If agencies of varying quality of work
must be used, it is clear that the value received for the same payments
of public money will be very different. This is unfair to the taxpayer,
who has a right to feel that out of his forced contribution as great value
in service is obtained as out of any other taxpayer's contribution.
It is also clear that, when once a policy of relying on subsidized
private agencies for a part of the public work has been entered upon,
it is very difficult to change either to a policy of using public agencies
only or of using private agencies which finance themselves. On the
other hand, when agencies have been allowed to develop under a sys-
tem of subsidies, it is very unfair to them suddenly to cut off that
source of support.
In the few documents presented in the following section, together
with certain documents given above in other connections, some of
¹ For example, in the use by the English authorities of the reformatory and
industrial schools there is the constant possibility that the local authority will
provide such facilities as are lacking to the scheme as created by private initiative.
See Sir Edward Troup, The Home Office (London, 1925), pp 129 f.
710
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
these principles are illustrated. In the first document some of the
difficulties of dealing with the private subsidized institution or agency
are set out. On the other hand, the private, like the public, institution
may have its troubles,' in the form of duplicated supervision.
The constitutional rights of the central authority to draw up rules,
to inspect or generally to supervise, cannot be abrogated by an agency
seeking indorsement; but the agency must be shown to have come
within the constitutional limitation.3
The constitution not infrequently forbids the payment of allow-
ances to sectarian institutions and agencies. The Illinois court4 inter-
prets that prohibition in a liberal manner, leaving a considerable num-
ber of persons in grave doubt as to just what is the status of the institu-
tion. In Document 6 a decision of the Pennsylvania court put an end
to a practice of many years' durations and brought about something in
the nature of a crisis for the subsidized institution. That there should
be a clearly defined policy followed in the allotment of public funds
would seem obvious, and Document 7 suggests after careful inquiry
the details of such a policy.
¹ See Document 2. See also above, Part II, Sec. III, Documents 9 and 11.
2 See Document 3.
3 See Document 4.
4 See Document 5.
5 It is said that for the institutions belonging to the Roman Catholic and
Jewish congregations, enlarged private giving prevented serious harm from fol-
lowing the decision. Of the effect on the Protestant institutions, no statement is
ventured. See Emil Frankel, State-aided Hospitals in Pennsylvania, “Pennsylvania
Department of Public Welfare, Bull. 25."
THE STATE BOARD AND THE PRIVATE CHARITABLE
INSTITUTION OR AGENCY
I.
The New York Policy of Institutional
Care for Dependent Children¹
For cause or causes that will be variously accounted for by differ-
ent authorities on the subject, there was a large increase in dependent
children in institutions of the class under consideration in the eleven
years' interval between October 1, 1881, and October 1, 1892. The
number remaining at the latter date was 24,074, being one to 270 of the
population. The total expenditure in connection with orphan asylums
and institutions of like character for dependent children, exclusive of
the Thomas Asylum for Orphan and Destitute Indian Children, and
not including juvenile reformatories nor institutions for the defective
classes, during the fiscal year ending September 30, 1892, amounted to
$4,359,932.01. Toward the support of the inmates in the orphan asy-
lums and institutions of like character there were received:
From county boards of supervisors..
From cities..
From individuals for the board of inmates...
From legacies, donations and voluntary contribu-
tions.
$ 527,996.68
1,491,346.26
159,636.94
819,127.06
There is not a little uneasiness, if not dissatisfaction, in the public
mind over the large expenditure for children under institutional care in
this State; and the extraordinary expansion of the asylums may well
cause anxiety in the minds of the benevolent, through fear that this
now rapidly growing system may be crushed by its own weight. Even
among the strongest advocates of the present system are found those
who are convinced that many of our asylums have grown to unwieldly
proportions; that the numbers congregated within them forbid that
individual treatment and social intercourse with superiors which is de-
sirable to the elevation of the inmates, and that the monotonous rou-
tine and restriction incident to the discipline and handling of large
bodies, and the long detention under this system, tend to the process.
aptly termed “institutionizing." In consequence of these tendencies,
¹ Extract from William P. Letchworth, “The History of Child-saving Work
in the State of New York," Twenty-seventh Annual Report of the New York State
Board of Charities for the Year 1893, pp. 99-102.
711
712
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
it is averred that the asylum system is losing its hold upon popular
favor. It would therefore seem well for asylum managers to consider
to what extent these criticisms are true, and, if found to be just, en-
deavor to correct them. I have strong faith in the beneficence of these
institutions; but I would have the length of time spent within them re-
duced, the children sooner restored to family life, and the public burden
in this way lessened. It would seem prudent for the managers of these
institutions at once to put in operation an active placing-out system,
as was done in 1875, when the Children's Law was about to become
operative.
The large accumulation of children in asylums in Buffalo, Erie
county, some years ago, became the subject of public controversy.
The board of supervisors complained that the cost of their support was
unreasonably large, in consequence of their prolonged stay in the asy-
lums. The matter was finally disposed of by the board of supervisors
appointing two agents who were charged with the duty of co-operating
with the asylum officers in placing out children. The desired object
was speedily attained; and the arrangement, which is still continued,
has proved satisfactory to all concerned.
·
This incident suggests the question whether the State might not
establish, in connection with one of its departments, an agency to assist
asylums in finding homes and placing out children. The same agency
might be of service in dealing with juvenile delinquents upon a plan
similar to that adopted in several other States of the Union.
It is customary for superintendents of the poor, in placing children
in families, to indenture them. Owing to the frequent changes of offi-
cials, the duty of looking after them till maturity is theoretical rather
than practical. Formerly the custom of indenturing was more preva-
lent in placing out children than at present. It is now growing into dis-
use, it having been found that, where there was dissatisfaction existing
on the part of the foster-parent or the child, it was better to change
than to insist upon a relation which was irksome to both. The greater
proportion of children leaving the asylums are returned to parents.
There is no uniform rate of compensation paid by counties or mu-
nicipalities to asylums for the maintenance of children committed as a
public charge. By some counties the price allowed for support is but
one dollar per capita a week, while in New York city, the sum is $110
a year. For such asylums as maintain schools an allowance is made for
education in proportion to the number of pupils instructed.
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
713
2. Need of Co-ordination of State Supervision™
The State Board of Control shares with the State Board of Chari-
ties and Corrections in the supervision of all children's institutions
receiving any state aid. It fixes the terms which the orphanage must
meet in order to receive the state subsidy and thus exercises a very real
control over the institutions. This means that two sets of state agents
visit the state-aid orphanages. Both give advice; both make criticisms
and suggestions. No matter what agreement the two boards enter into
for the supervision of the work, overlapping, duplication and confusion
are possible. New legislation is needed which shall centralize all this
work.
3. The Constitutional Right to Lay down Rules²
HAIGHT, J. On or about the 5th day of August 1901, Mamie Schell-
berger, a minor of the age of thirteen years was surrendered to the New
York Juvenile Asylum by her mother as an ungovernable child. She
was received by the board of directors of the asylum and for the re-
mainder of the month was retained therein, after which time the asy-
lum, in accordance with its custom, rendered a bill to the commissioner
of public charities for the support of the child in order to obtain a cer-
tificate that the child was a proper public charge, and that the asylum
was entitled to its pay therefor by the comptroller of the city of New
York. The commissioner of public charities refused to give the certif-
icate called for, upon the ground that the child had not been committed
to the asylum in accordance with the rules established by the state
board of charities; thereupon this proceeding was instituted to compel
the commissioner to give the certificate called for.
The New York Juvenile Asylum was incorporated by special act
of the legislature in the year 1851, by chapter 332 of the laws of that
year. Its object was the reception of children between the ages of five
and fourteen years, to provide for their support and to afford them the
means of a moral, intellectual and industrial education. The corpora-
tion was authorized to take under its care the management of such
children as should by the consent, in writing, of their parents or guar-
¹ Extract from Seventh Biennial Report of the State Board of Charities and Cor_
rections of the State of California (1914–16), pp. 13-14. Such appeals were the basis
of Governor Richardson's program of consolidation leading to the creation of the
California Department of Public Welfare (Statutes of California [1925], chap. 18).
See also above, p. 505.
2 Extract from In the Matter of the New York Juvenile Asylum (1902), 172 New
York Reports 52-60.
714
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
1
dians be voluntarily surrendered and intrusted to it; also such children
as should be committed to its charge by order of any magistrate of the
city and county of New York; and also such children as should be
found in the streets, highways and public places in the city in cir-
cumstances of want, suffering, abandonment, exposure, neglect or va-
grancy.
By an amendment of the act of incorporation in 1866, chapter 245,
section 28, the board of supervisors of the county were required in each
year to levy and collect by tax and to pay over to the asylum one hun-
dred and ten dollars per annum, or proportionately for any fraction of
the year, for each child which, by virtue and in pursuance of the provi-
sions of the act, "shall be intrusted or committed to the said asylum and
shall be supported and instructed therein." This section of the statute
was subsequently incorporated into the Greater New York charter, sec-
tion 230, which is the statute upon which the petitioner bases its claim
for support of the child, Mamie Schellberger. Under this statute, claims
of this character have been paid for many years, and unless it has been
repealed, amended or modified by the imposition of conditions, it fur-
nishes authority for the payment of the petitioner's claim.
The Constitution of 1895, article 8, section 11, provides that
The legislature shall provide for a state board of charities, which shall visit
and inspect all institutions, whether state, county, municipal, incorporated
or not incorporated, which are of a charitable, eleemosynary, correctional
or reformatory character. . . .
SECTION 13. Existing laws relating to institutions referred to in the fore-
going sections, and to their supervision and inspection, in so far as such laws
are not inconsistent with the provisions of the Constitution, shall remain in
force until amended or repealed by the legislature.
SEC. 14. Nothing in this Constitution contained shall prevent the Legis-
lature from making such provision for the education and support of the
blind, the deaf and dumb, and juvenile delinquents, as to it may seem proper;
or prevent any county, city, town or village from providing for the care, sup-
port, maintenance, and secular education of inmates of orphan asylums,
homes for dependent children or correctional institutions, whether under
public or private control. Payments by counties, cities, towns and villages
to charitable, eleemosynary, correctional and reformatory institutions, whol-
ly or partly under private control, for care, support, and maintenance, may
be authorized, but shall not be required by the Legislature. No such pay-
ments shall be made for any inmate of such institutions who is not received and
retained therein pursuant to rules established by the state board of charities.
Such rules shall be subject to the control of the Legislature by general laws.
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
715
Pursuant to these provisions of the Constitution the legislature in
1895, chapter 754, authorized cities, towns and villages in their dis-
cretion to appropriate and raise money by taxation and to pay the
same over
to charitable, eleemosynary, correctional and reformatory institutions wholly
or partly under private control, for the care, support and maintenance of
their inmates, of the moneys which are or may be appropriated therefor;
such payments to be made only for such inmates as are received and retained
therein pursuant to rules established by the state board of charities,
and again by the Laws of 1896, chapter 546, section 9, subdivision 8,
provided that the said board of charities shall "establish rules for the
reception and retention of inmates of all institutions which, by section
14 of article 8 of the Constitution, are subject to its supervision."
Section 230 of the Greater New York charter, as amended by chap-
ter 466 of the Laws of 1901, authorized the board of estimate and appor-
tionment in its discretion to annually include in its estimate, to be
raised and appropriated, various sums of money for institutions therein
specifically named, among which, by subdivision 14, is the New York
Juvenile Asylum; but by the concluding subdivision 24 of the section
it is provided that payments were to be made "only for such inmates as
are received and retained therein pursuant to rules established by the state
board of charities." Again by the same charter, section 658, a depart-
ment of public charities was created and the head of the department
was called the "commissioner of public charities." Such commissioner
was given jurisdiction over all the hospitals, almshouses, and other
institutions belonging to the city, with power to commit children who
may become a public charge to any institution incorporated for chari-
table purposes, and to reimburse such societies and corporations for the
expense incurred in the support of such children (sections 660 and 664);
but by section 661 it is provided that
No payment shall be made by the city of New York to any charitable, elee-
mosynary or reformatory institution wholly or partly under private control,
for the care, support, secular education, or maintenance of any child surren-
dered to such institution, or committed to, received or retained therein in ac-
cordance with section 664, . . . except upon the certificate of the com-
missioner of public charities that such child has been received and is retained
by such institution pursuant to the rules and regulations established by the
state board of charities.
•
The state board of charities, pursuant to the provisions of the Con-
stitution and of the statutes to which we have called attention, estab-
716
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
lished rules which, so far as is material upon the question under consid-
eration, are as follows:
I. THE RECEPTION OF INMATES
The following classes of persons and no others may be received as public
charges into charitable, eleemosynary, correctional and reformatory institu-
tions wholly or partly under private control, authorized by law to receive
payments from any county, city, town or village for the support, care and
maintenance of inmates.
4. . . . . No child between the ages of two
and sixteen years, unless convicted of crime, shall be received into any such
institution as a public charge unless committed thereto or placed therein by
a court or magistrate having jurisdiction, or by the superintendent of the
poor of a county, or overseer of the poor of a town, or commissioner or com-
missioners of charities, or other local officer or board legally exercising the
powers of an overseer in the county, city, town or village sought to be charged
with the support of such child and authorized by law to commit children to
such institution or to place them therein.
As we have seen, Mamie Schellberger was placed in the New York
Juvenile Asylum by her mother. She had not been convicted of any
crime and was not committed by any court or magistrate, or by the
commissioner of charities of the city of New York who legally exercised
the powers of an overseer of the poor in counties. It is not alleged that
this child was a poor person or that her mother was unable to support
her, and thus far there has been no adjudication that she was a proper
public charge. It will thus be seen that the claim of the asylum rests
upon the provision of its charter giving parents the right of surrender-
ing their children to it, and the provisions of the statute authorizing
the city of New York to pay it one hundred and ten dollars a year for
each child so given to its charge and custody.
In answer to this the city invokes the rule established by the state
board of charities to which we have referred. The asylum contends
that this rule is illegal, unauthorized and void. If this rule is to be con-
strued as effecting the repeal of the statute we should hesitate about
sustaining its validity. The Constitution and the legislature, by the
acts to which we have referred, have authorized the state board of char-
ities to make rules, but such rules are subject to the control of the legis-
lature by general laws. By authorizing the board to make rules the
legislature has not delegated to it any of its powers to enact or to repeal
laws, and, doubtless, no such power was contemplated by the constitu-
tional provision to which we have referred. This is evident from the
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
717
concluding clause, which subjects the rules of the board to the control
of the legislature.
The Constitution is the supreme law of the state, and before it all
statutes must fall that are in conflict with its provisions. The first pro-
vision to which we have called attention preserves statutes until
amended or repealed by the legislature, which are not inconsistent with
its provisions. The next section to which we have referred gives to the
legislature the power to authorize counties, cities, towns and villages
to make appropriations for charitable institutions wholly or partly
under private control, but prohibits the legislature from requiring such
appropriations. In other words, cities may be authorized to make
donations to charitable institutions, but they must be left free to exer-
cise their own judgment as to the amount and character of the charities
they shall bestow; but no payments shall be made for any inmate of a
charitable institution under private control who is not received and re-
tained therein pursuant to the rules established by the state board of
charities. Here we have an express prohibition with reference to pay-
ments made for inmates of such institutions. Under the charter of the
asylum the city of New York was required to pay one hundred and ten
dollars per annum for each child surrendered to its care by its parents,
or committed to it by an officer authorized to commit children to such
institutions. Under this statute there was no discretionary power vest-
ed in the common council or board of supervisors. The payment was
required to be made by the act of the legislature, and it was subject.
to no rules or regulations of any board, but the provisions of the
Constitution effected a change of the statutes in these particulars. The
payment of one hundred and ten dollars per annum can no longer be
required by the legislature; it can only authorize the city to make it,
leaving it free to act through its constituted authority and to make the
payment or not in its discretion. Not only this but it changes the provi-
sion of the statutes by prohibiting payments, unless the conditions
specified in the Constitution are complied with. What are these condi-
tions? They have been repeated time and again in the statutes, as
well as in the Constitution. There was a purpose sought to be accom-
plished; this purpose appears from the discussions that were engaged
in by the members of the constitutional convention in which this provi-
sion was framed. Mr. Choate, the president of the convention, spoke
at some length when this provision was under consideration, and,
among other things, stated that in the city of New York, as it then
existed before its enlargement, there were eighteen thousand children
1
718
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
in these asylums supported by charity, many of whom were placed
there without commitment by parents who were perfectly able to sup-
port them; and that these provisions had been framed for the purpose
of preventing this abuse and the wrongful appropriation of the public
moneys. It is thus apparent that the object and purpose of the provi-
sion was that there should be some means provided for determining
whether the inmates of these asylums were properly a public charge.
This duty the Constitution delegated to the state board of charities,
but subject to legislative control. It impaired no legislative function;
it merely involved an inquiry as to the condition of the inmates in
regard to their financial responsibility or that of their parents or
guardians. It doubtless was not deemed practicable for the board itself
to investigate and determine the financial condition of each inmate of
these asylums throughout the state, consequently it was given power
to adopt rules and to specify officers by whom these questions could
readily be determined.
It is not the rule that repeals or amends the statute; it is the Con-
stitution itself that effects the change. If the Constitution had pro-
vided that no payments should be made for the support of infants in
these asylums, except upon an order of the court adjudging that the
person for whom payment is sought was properly a public charge, it
would hardly be contended that the court in determining the question
was in effect repealing the statute. To our minds no greater force can
be given to the action of the state board of charities. It has adopted
rules as it was required to do by the provisions of the Constitution and
of the statutes, to which we have referred. It is the Constitution that
gives life and force to these rules and it is the Constitution that places
limitations upon the payments that the statutes had previously au-
thorized and required. The Constitution itself does not provide the
means for the determination of the question as to whether the children
in these institutions are properly a public charge; that function, as we
have seen, devolves upon the state board of charities. Until, therefore,
the state board of charities takes action in the matter and provides the
means by adopting rules, the constitutional provision may not be self-
executing; but as soon as the board takes action and adopts the rules,
then the Constitution acts presently upon the existing statutes and all
payments thereafter made must be in accordance with its provisions.
This was asserted by Chief Judge ANDREWS in the case of People ex
rel. Inebriates' Home for Kings County v. Comptroller of the City of
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
719
Brooklyn (152 N.Y. 399-410) in which it was again asserted that this
provision of the Constitution says:
We entertain no doubt that this prohibition operated presently, that is
to say, that from the time rules should be established by the State Board
regulating the reception and retention by charitable institutions, no pay-
ments would be justified for the care, support and maintenance of inmates
received or retained in contravention of the rules of the board.
So in the case of People ex rel. New York Institution for the Blind v.
Fitch (154 N.Y. 14-38) in which it was again asserted that this pro-
vision of the Constitution operated presently from the time rules were
established by the state board of charities; and in addition thereto,
MARTIN, J., in delivering the opinion of the court, says:
This declaration of the organic law is plain and unambiguous, and ex-
pressly forbids the appropriation of money by the counties and cities of the
state to any such purpose, unless the inmates are received and retained in
the manner stated. Its manifest purpose is to make all appropriations of pub-
lic moneys by the local political divisions or municipalities of the state to in-
stitutions under private control, subject to the supervision and rules of the
state board of charities.
There is nothing in these provisions which affects the rights of
parents or guardians in surrendering their children or wards to the
custody of the asylum for support and education, if they so desire.
The asylum may still receive such children and support them at the
expense of their parents or guardians, or of such charitable fund as may
be in its possession for that purpose. They are only prohibited from
collecting pay from the city for the support of these children until the
commissioner of charities of the city, or of some court having jurisdic-
tion, has committed them to the asylum as proper subjects of a public
charge. This imposes no great hardship on the asylum, and it protects
the city from the frauds which may be practiced upon it by those who
are able to support and educate their own children.
Order affirmed.
4. When Is a "Charity" a "Charity"?
O'BRIEN, J. . . . . The whole discussion resolves itself, in the end,
into the inquiry: what is a charitable institution within the meaning
' Extract from People of the State of New York ex rel. State Board of Charities v.
New York Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Children (1900), 162 New York Re-
ports 430-36. See also 161 New York Reports 233 and 42 New York App. Div. 83.
720
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of the Constitution and the statutes? When that term, as used in the
Constitution, is defined, the controversy is settled, since the statutes
are no broader than the Constitution, and whatever construction is to
be placed upon the fundamental law, the same construction would fol-
low with respect to the same terms when used in the statute. The
brief upon this motion is signed by the attorney-general and his prede-
cessor in office, who appeared as counsel in the case, and also by two
other distinguished members of the bar who did not participate in
the original argument. It is somewhat remarkable that in all the dis-
cussion upon the only question in the case the counsel have not at-
tempted to furnish a definition of a charitable institution, as that term
is used in the Constitution. All must admit that it does not include
every corporation or society that has some charitable feature or is en-
gaged in some good work, but that the meaning of those terms must be
limited. This much, it is safe to premise, has already been demon-
strated and must be conceded. Assuming that this proposition is be-
yond dispute, the question is, and always has been, where is the line to
be drawn? The learned counsel who have presented the brief in sup-
port of this motion have not attempted to draw it. It is true that they
earnestly contend that this court, in the decision of the case, has drawn
the line at the wrong point, but they have not attempted to inform us
at what other point it should be placed. They evidently have not con-
tented themselves with attempting to show that wherever it is drawn
this defendant should be included within the powers of the board of
charities.
It is quite obvious, however, that if any limitations at all are to be
placed upon those powers the language of the Constitution must be
construed by some reasonable rule or upon some rational principle.
We have attempted to do that by holding that a charitable institu-
tion must be one that in some form or to some extent receives pub-
lic money for the support and maintenance of indigent persons. By
public money is meant money raised by taxation not only in the
state at large but in any city, county or town. The adoption of
this principle will permit the board to visit, inspect and regulate
every institution in the state, public or private, where children or
adults are supported or maintained, in whole or in part, by the
use of public money, and every institution, public or private, where
children or adults are sent or detained for support or maintenance
in pursuance of any law. But we are informed by the papers upon
this motion that this rule would deprive the board of jurisdiction
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
721
over half the charitable institutions in the state. The papers presented
in opposition to this motion show that the institutions thus excluded,
with the exception, perhaps, of about half a dozen, have never been
visited by the board in the past; and obviously, if it be true, as the re-
lator asserts, that there are over twelve hundred charitable institutions
in the state, it would be impossible to exercise the power of visitation
by the board with respect to all of them in any one year. There must,
in the nature of things, be a distinction in this respect between private
institutions receiving public money in some form or in some measure as
charity and the same class of institutions that do not. This may be
illustrated by reference to a class of institutions mentioned in the mov-
ing papers. We will suppose that a private individual is wealthy and
benevolent enough to found and endow a private hospital. When com-
plete the building and everything in it is his private property. No one
is compelled by any law to go there or remain there, and the founder is
under no legal obligation to receive patients. It is purely a private
concern, and it is difficult to understand upon what legal ground the
state can claim the right to inspect his books, or to make rules and regu-
lations for the transaction of the business. There must be some limit
to the power of government to interfere in purely private affairs; and
what is true of a hospital is equally true of many of the other private
institutions referred to in the moving papers. But when any of these
institutions become, in any form or to any extent, the recipients or ben-
eficiaries of public money as charity, there is a just and reasonable
ground upon which the state may claim the right of visitation. And
it is by the application of this principle that a charitable institution,
as used in the Constitution, is to be defined and understood.
It was upon this principle that the decision in this case attempted
to define what is and what is not a charitable institution. We are satis-
fied, upon further examination of the case, that the rule adopted is not
only just and reasonable in itself, but it was the principle which the
convention intended to engraft upon the Constitution, and this really
presents the only disputed question of law in this case. The learned
counsel for the relator do not assent to this construction. Their posi-
tion to the contrary is distinctly stated in the moving papers in these
words: "The main purpose and intention of the constitutional pro-
visions and the statutory enactment are not so much to supervise the
pecuniary affairs of institutions as to provide for an inspection of the
management of the institutions and to see that the inmates are prop-
erly treated, and, if not, so to secure the correction through due proc-
722
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ess of law of whatever abuses, evils or defects which may be found to
exist." It is not very easy to see how the state can examine into the
evils or correct the abuses in a purely private unincorporated institu-
tion to which no one could be sent, or in which no one can be detained
by any law, and where the inmates may come and go at pleasure. If
the framers of the Constitution had any such purpose in mind it is re-
markable that no trace of it is to be found and no reference was made
to it in the proceedings and debates upon those provisions of the Con-
stitution relating to charities. The proceedings of the convention do
not disclose any purpose to interfere with private institutions that were
not in any form, or to any extent, the beneficiaries of public money. I
refer, of course, to those private institutions that admit or care for
children or adults without any compensation from the public and
where the inmates are in the institutions solely by their own volition.
If the inmates in these institutions are not properly treated they are
not obliged to stay there or to go there. If they are detained there
against their will the process of the courts is open to them to secure
their enlargement or liberation. If a mere private institution is not
properly managed in the opinion of the board of charities it would be
difficult, I think, to point out any law which confers power upon the
board to change the management. It is safe for the courts to assume
that such institutions, depending on the patronage of the public, will
be interested to merit it by such a management of their affairs as will
commend them to the confidence of their patrons, and that if they fail
to treat the inmates properly they will not go there voluntarily or re-
main when there. The perfect liberty of action which the inmates en-
joy, and the prompting of self-interest on both sides, will regulate pri-
vate charity without any governmental interference. There is nothing
in the proceedings of the convention to warrant us in holding that
there was any purpose to subject purely private institutions which
cared for or maintained those indigent adults or children who volun-
tarily seek such places as homes or remain there voluntarily to state
inspection or regulation. The purpose which the learned counsel for
the relator now claim was in the mind of the convention is nowhere
expressed in the proceedings of that body, and there was no public
demand for any change in that respect.
On the contrary, the purpose of regulating the expenditure of pub-
lic money for charity was stated and avowed by nearly every member
that spoke on that subject, and in all the written records of that body.
The article of the Constitution now under consideration was reported
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
723
from the committee on charities by the chairman, Mr. Lauterbach, on
the 2d of August, 1894. It was accompanied by an elaborate report in
writing, and it is only necessary to read it in order to ascertain the
underlying purpose in view. When the convention was about to ad-
journ on the 29th of September, 1894, the president, Mr. Choate, de-
livered an address, which was evidently the result of reflection, if not
of careful preparation. On the subject now under consideration he
said:
There was another subject which deeply agitated the minds of the people
of this state, and that was the application of public money in the way of pri-
vate charity. By many who had not carefully examined the subject it was
believed to be inherently an evil which could only be cured by cutting it out
by the roots. We have, through our charities committee, most carefully
examined that question, and I think we came to the conclusion that the sys-
tem which the state had deliberately adopted and carefully followed now for
more than twenty years, of employing the aid of honest, faithful, devoted
private charitable institutions for the care of certain wards of the state that
could not otherwise be as well cared for, ought not to be departed from; but,
at the same time, there were abuses incident to the conduct of that mode of
charity which at least there should be a stop put to, and we have deprived the
legislature of the compulsory power in the matter. Hereafter, if this consti-
tution is adopted, no subordinate division of the state can be compelled, by
the central power of the state, to devote a dollar of its money, against its will,
to any particular form of charity. Besides that we have secured the regula-
tion of the state board of charities to this effect; that wherever any public
money is devoted to a private charity for the public service it shall continue
under public control, and the vigilant eye and the strong arm of the people
shall be able to follow every dollar of the public money into every institution
to which it is so devoted.
Before the adjournment, the convention appointed a committee to
prepare a public address to the people in order to inform them before
the election with respect to the purpose and scope of the changes made
in the fundamental law. That committee was composed of some of the
most prominent members of the convention, including the president.
The question of charities was referred to in this address in the following
language:
We have required the legislature to provide for free public schools in
which all of the children of the state may be educated; and we have prohibit-
ed absolutely the use of public money in aid of sectarian schools. We have
provided also for regulating and limiting the payment of public money to
private institutions for the support of the poor by depriving the legislature
724
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of the power to pass mandatory laws requiring such payments from counties,
cities, towns and villages, and by subjecting such expenditures to the control
of the State Board of Charities.
These statements from the highest and most authoritative sources
indicate very clearly what the purpose of the convention was, and in
the light of that purpose we may safely interpret the meaning of the
language employed. The purpose was to safeguard the expenditure
of public money for the support and maintenance of indigent persons in
public or private institutions; and hence the language employed should
be made subservient to that purpose. It is reasonable, therefore, to
conclude that when the framers of the Constitution spoke of charitable
institutions they intended to designate only such as were within the
scope of the reform. So long as we give effect to the Constitution, ac-
cording to the spirit and purpose in which it was framed by the con-
vention and adopted by the people, it is safe to conclude that the de-
cision rests on reasonable grounds.
There is no distinction, we think, between a charitable institution
and an eleemosynary one. The two words are used interchangeably
and express substantially the same idea. Nor do we think that the
suggestion that the defendant, if not a charitable institution, is a re-
formatory or a correctional one, has any substantial foundation. The
defendant is not a correctional or a reformatory institution, unless,
indeed, in the same sense that the police department or the police
courts are. Much emphasis is placed on the circumstance that the de-
fendant, under a special statute, may be appointed guardian of a minor
child. We assume that many trust companies and other corporations
have been given the like capacity, but the fact that they possess such
power does not prove or tend to prove that they are charitable insti-
tutions. It is said that this case is of great public importance, and in
view of this suggestion we have carefully considered all that has been
submitted in support of the motion, but we see no reason to change
our views with respect to the proper decision of the case.
The motion for a reargument should, therefore, be denied, with ten
dollars costs.
PARKER, CH. J., GRAY and BARTLETT, JJ., concur; HAIGHT, MARTIN
and VANN, JJ., dissent from opinion, but concur in result upon the
ground that there is no reason for a reargument.
Motion denied.
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
725
5. Grants to Sectarian Institutions under the
Illinois Constitution¹
The facts as determined by the pleadings, a stipulation of the
parties and the evidence heard by the chancellor are as follows: The
Chicago Industrial School for Girls was organized as a corporation
under the act of the General Assembly of May 28, 1879, entitled “An
act to aid industrial schools for girls." (Laws of 1879, p. 309.) It is
managed and controlled by a board of directors, and maintained near
Des Plaines, in Cook county, buildings, with ample grounds and equip-
ment, to meet the requirements of the act. The buildings contain rec-
reation halls, shower baths, class rooms, a music room and rooms for
instruction in hand sewing and domestic science. The inmates are
taught the usual school studies, and cooking, music, sewing, embroid-
ery, crocheting, laundry work, general housework, and domestic work
generally. The number of girls in the institution for the year 1915
between the ages of three and eighteen years was 534, and the average
attendance of girls during the year was 356. A considerable number of
the girls were committed to the school by the juvenile court of Cook
county, and they each and all enjoyed the benefit of the care, instruc-
tion and attention afforded by the institution. There are eleven teach-
ers or instructors who are sisters of mercy and who are paid $16 a
month, which goes into the common treasury of the religious order, and
there are six other women instructors who belong to no religious order.
The children committed to the school by the juvenile court are all
children of Catholic parents and members of that church. The insti-
tution is under the control and management of the Roman Catholic
church, and there is a priest who is chaplain and conducts religious
services. There is a mother superior in general charge, and there is a
chapel on the grounds where religious services according to the doc-
trines of the Roman Catholic church are held which all inmates are re-
quired to attend. The school has been receiving $15 per month for
each girl, which is less than the cost to the State for each girl committed
to the State Training School for Girls at Geneva, a similar institution
maintained by the State, where the cost is $28.88 for each girl per
month. The amount paid by Cook county is less than the cost of food,
clothing, training, medical care and tuition furnished to the wards of
the county outside of any religious instruction or religious services,
and the balance above the amount paid by the county is made up by
¹ Extract from Opinion of the Court, William H. Dunn, Appellee, v. The Chi-
cago Industrial School for Girls et al. (1917), 280 Illinois Reports 614-19.
:
726
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
donations, largely given by the archbishop. Each year the school has
been given a certificate by the State Board of Charities, or its successor,
the Board of Administration, that the school is competent and has ade-
quate facilities to care for the children committed to its care by the
juvenile court.
The substantial basis of the brief and argument for the appellee is
that the payment of public funds to a school under church or sectarian
control violates the constitution even when it is made in payment for
clothing, board, education in the arts and sciences and training in the
domestic sciences, and in the argument at the bar counsel contended
that under the constitution no ward of the State can be committed to
any institution where there are religious services or where religious
doctrines are taught but all institutions to which they may be commit-
ted must be absolutely divorced from religion or religious teaching.
This is a clear misapprehension of the attitude of the people toward re-
ligion expressed in the constitution. In the preamble expression is
given to the gratitude of the people of the State for the religious liberty
which they had been permitted to enjoy, and section 3 of the bill of
rights provides:
The free exercise and enjoyment of religious profession and worship,
without discrimination, shall forever be guaranteed. . . . . No person shall
be required to attend or support any ministry or place of worship against
his consent, nor shall any preference be given by law to any religious denom-
ination or mode of worship.
Section 3 of article 8 of the constitution, which particularly prohibits
any preference to any religious denomination or mode of worship, is as
follows:
Neither the General Assembly nor any county, city, town, township,
school district, or other public corporation, shall ever make any appropria-
tion or pay from any public fund whatever, anything in aid of any church
or sectarian purpose, or to help support or sustain any school, academy, sem-
inary, college, university, or other literary or scientific institution, controlled
by any church or sectarian denomination whatever; nor shall any grant or
donation of land, money, or other personal property ever be made by the
State or any such public corporation, to any church, or for any sectarian
purpose.
The people not only did not declare hostility to religion but regarded
its teachings and practices as a public benefit which might be equal to
the payment of taxes, and by section 3 of article 9 of the constitution
provided that property used exclusively for religious purposes may be
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
727
exempted from the burden of taxation, and the General Assembly, by
virtue of that provision, has declared such exemption. In harmony
with the provision for the free exercise and enjoyment of religious free-
dom and worship, the General Assembly in the Juvenile Court act
provided by section 17, that
the court in committing children shall place them as far as practicable in
the care and custody of some individual holding the same religious belief as
the parents of said child, or with some association which is controlled by per-
sons of like religious faith of the parents of the said child.
Not only have the people, by the constitution and by their repre-
sentatives in the General Assembly, recognized and provided for the
enjoyment of religious liberty, but the court has not adopted any rule
antagonistic thereto. In Nichols v. School Directors, 93 Ill. 61, the court
said: "Religion and religious worship are not so placed under the ban
of the constitution that they may not be allowed to become the recipi-
ents of any incidental benefit whatsoever from the public bodies or
authorities of the State." In Millard v. Board of Education, 121 Ill.
297, where the authority of a board of education to lease the basement
of a Catholic church and pay rent therefor was questioned and an in-
junction sought, the court said that if it became necessary for a board
of education to procure a building to be used for school purposes it had
a right to rent from any person who had property suitable for school
purposes, and whether the owner of the property was a Methodist, a
Presbyterian, a Roman Catholic or of any other denomination was a
matter of no moment, which is applicable to this case, where the care
and education of girls as wards of the State are required and payment
must be made therefor. In Reichwald v. Catholic Bishop of Chicago,
258 Ill. 44, in denying the right to an injunction to prevent the erection
of a Roman Catholic chapel on the grounds of the county used as a
poor farm, the court said that in return for the care given the body the
State does not exact the surrender of all care for the soul; that the
constitution does not prohibit the exercise of religion, but, on the con-
trary, provides that the free exercise and enjoyment of religious pref-
erence and worship, without discrimination, shall be forever guaran-
teed, and that the declaration of the constitution does not mean that
religion is abolished. The whole religious world is divided into separate
denominations distinguished from each other by peculiarities of faith
and practice, and what the constitution prohibits is a preference given
by law to any denomination or mode of worship or aid to any such
denomination by an appropriation or payment from any public fund
728
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
whatever. The constitution guarantees absolute religious liberty, and
no discrimination, in law, can be made between different religious
creeds and forms of worship. (Hoeffer v. Clogan, 171 Ill. 462.) It would
be contrary to the letter and spirit of the constitution to exclude from
religious exercises the members of any denomination when the State
assumes their control or to prevent the children of members from re-
ceiving the religious instruction which they would have received at
home. The constitutional prohibition against furnishing aid or prefer-
ence to any church or sect is to be rigidly enforced, but it is contrary
to fact and reason to say that paying less than the actual cost of cloth-
ing, medical care and attention, education and training in useful arts
and domestic sciences, is aiding the institution where such things are
furnished.
Much reliance is placed upon the decision in a suit brought by the
Chicago Industrial School for Girls against the county of Cook, in
which it was held that payment to the school under the facts of the
case would be a violation of the constitution. (County of Cook v. Chi-
cago Industrial School for Girls, 125 Ill. 540.) At that time the corpora-
tion had no industrial school and had neither leased nor contracted for
a building nor owned or acquired property of any kind. The girls com-
mitted to it were divided between the House of the Good Shepherd and
St. Joseph's Orphan Asylum, and it was in no sense an industrial school
for girls. The money received was divided between the sisters of St.
Joseph and the sisters of the Good Shepherd. The court held that an
industrial school had no power to relinquish the care and guardianship
of girls committed to it or surrender them to another corporation;
that it was not sufficient to have a charter and a formal organization,
with no habitation and nothing more than a mere paper entity, but
that the county was only required to make payment to the industrial
school to which girls were committed and was not bound to pay an in-
dustrial school to which they were not committed. It did not then ap-
pear that such payment would not be an aid to the Catholic church or
its sectarian purposes, and the payment for board was likened to the
aid given to a merchant by a customer paying for his goods. If there
were no difference, in fact, between the business of the boarding house
or hotel keeper carried on for profit and this institution the decision in
that case would apply, but upon the plainest grounds no aid is given to
an industrial school where the payment is less than the actual cost,
aside from and regardless of any religious instruction or religious exer-
cise. It costs the State $28.88 per month for each girl in a similar in-
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
729
stitution maintained by the State, and it is the State, and not the in-
dustrial school, that is benefited by the payment of less than the cost
of food, clothing, medical care and attention and education and train-
ing in the useful arts and domestic science. Such payment does not
violate any provision of the constitution.
6. Subsidized Institutions in Pennsylvania
and the Constitution¹
Article III, section 18, of the Constitution of Pennsylvania pro-
vides: "No appropriation, except for pensions or gratuities for military
services, shall be made for charitable, educational or benevolent pur-
poses to any person or community, nor to any denominational or sec-
tarian institution, corporation or association."
The history of the development of social and political life in Amer-
ica shows a set purpose to divorce, absolutely, church and state: and
this is the real underlying explanation of provisions like the one now
before us, which appear, in one form or another, in the constitutions
of many American commonwealths. The intent of these provisions
was, and therefore still is, to forbid the state from giving, either directly
or indirectly, any recognition to a religious sect or denomination, even
in the fields of public charity and education; they in effect provide that,
to serve charitable, educational or benevolent purposes, the money of
the people shall not be put under denominational control or into sec-
tarian hands, for administration or distribution, no matter how worthy
the end in view.
It will be noted, the Constitution does not say merely that no ap-
propriations shall be made for sectarian or denominational purposes,
nor does it confine the limitation against state aid to these institutions
which actually teach sectarian doctrines or promote denominational
interests; what it provides is, that "no appropriation shall be made
to any denominational or sectarian institution." These words, when
taken at their face value, are most comprehensive in scope; they plainly
forbid state aid to institutions affiliated with a particular religious sect
or denomination, or which are under the control, domination or gov-
erning influence of any religious sect or denomination, the ordinary
understanding of the phrase "sect or denomination" being a church, or
body of persons in some way united for purposes of worship, who pro-
¹ Opinion of the Court, Collins, Appellant, v. Kephart et al. (1921), 271 Pennsyl-
vania State Reports, 432-41.
:
730
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
fess a common religious faith, and are distinguished from those com-
posing other such bodies by a name of their own.
After studying and reflecting upon the carefully prepared opinions
of the court below, the arguments of able counsel and the authorities
cited, we have reached the deliberate conclusion that, when a chari-
table, benevolent or educational establishment is "denominational or
sectarian" according to the meaning of this term as understood by the
average man, even though the institution in question may bestow its
benefits on others and permit those outside the ranks of the sect or
denomination involved to take part in its management, it is none the
less a sectarian or denominational institution, within the inhibition of
the Constitution against state aid.
When simple words are used in writing the fundamental law, they
must be read according to their plain, generally understood, or popu-
lar, meaning; with this thought in mind, we restate the provision under
discussion: "No appropriation shall be made for charitable,
educational or benevolent purposes to . . . . any denominational or
sectarian institution." How could the definite thought that institu-
tions, under denominational or sectarian tutelage, shall not receive.
state aid, be more simply expressed? We cannot doubt that the aver-
age voter, when he read these plain words, must have understood that
no public moneys could be appropriated, lawfully, to institutions other
than those entirely unconnected with any of the various religious sects
or denominations; the law, being so written, must be enforced accord-
ingly.
•
It appears from a table, printed in the paper-books of one of the
appellants, which table is not challenged by any of the appellees, that
no appropriations to sectarian institutions were attempted until the
year 1881, when $30,000 was set aside for that purpose. The table
shows, with the exception of 1889, a steady increase of these appro-
priations, until 1919, when they reached the grand total of $2,120,689.
During this period two governors vetoed such appropriations, on the
distinct ground that they breached the Constitution; but the majority
of our executives have followed the construction placed on the funda-
mental law by the legislatures, permitting gifts of this kind to stand;
and the claim is now made that, after all these years, we should do like-
wise.
The argument just stated does not appeal to us; long persistence
in a breach of the Constitution neither warrants the course pursued
nor gives it legality: Kucker v. Sunlight, etc., Oil Co., 230 Pa. 528, 533.
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
731
The other two departments of government, in making and passing on
appropriations of the character before us, generally consider questions
of right and expediency alone, leaving constitutional points to the
courts; but, when the latter come here for determination, our duty is
plain, we must follow and enforce the organic law as written, suffer
who may.
All five cases here for review involve the same legal principles;
but each of them presents its own facts, which require consideration.
In this connection, before entering upon a brief discussion of the in-
dividual appeals, we take occasion to say that the trial court's findings,
being the result of deductions from facts averred in written pleadings,
do not possess the binding qualities of conclusion based on oral evi-
dence: Hindman's App., 85 Pa. 466, 470; Milligan's App., 97 Pa.525,
532; Woodward v. Carson, 208 Pa. 144, 145; Com. Title Ins. & Trust
Co. v. Seltzer, 227 Pa. 410, 416.
The first appeal involved an appropriation to the Passavant Hos-
pital of Pittsburgh, which was founded by the Reverend W. A. Passa-
vant, some time prior to 1849. It appears that this establishment, and
its property, is owned by a Pennsylvania corporation called “The In-
stitution of Protestant Deaconesses," the charter of which provides:
That, as the persons composing the aforementioned society are members
of the Evangelical Lutheran Church, and desire to remain unmolested in the
free exercise of their religious faith and worship, it is hereby provided that
no one shall be elected director or vice-director of the institution who is not
a clergyman in good and regular standing in some one of the synods of said
church in the United States.
This charter was amended in 1902 by the insertion of a provision that
two of the hospital board might be laymen, but declaring that all
members must belong to the Evangelical Lutheran Church. In the
face of these charter provisions, it is idle to contend that defendant cor-
poration is not a denominational or sectarian institution; but it appears
that, in 1919, while the appropriation bill in controversy was in course
of passage, defendant by duly formulated resolutions, created "a local
board . . . . with [alleged] legal power to conduct the Passavant Hos-
pital," and it now contends that this board is a purely nonsectarian
body, which may collect and expend the appropriation from the State.
The board in question consists of five men, of different religious
faiths; but the resolutions creating it expressly provide that its au-
thority shall in no wise conflict with the internal management of de-
fendant corporation; that, when more than $10,000 is to be expended,
732
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the matter shall "first be submitted to the board of the Institution of
Protestant Deaconesses for approval"; and that this latter board is
to have the right, when in its judgment the interests of the hospital
so require, to demand the resignation of any or all members of the local
board.
It is quite apparent that the creation of the so-called local board
represents simply an effort to make the Passavant Hospital appear
as though it were not a denominational institution, and thus enable
it to obtain state aid; but that which cannot be done directly the law
will not permit to be accomplished by indirection, for such a course,
when tolerated by the courts, only serves to bring the law into con-
tempt. The appropriation under attack, having in fact been made to
a sectarian and denominational institution, cannot stand in law.
The next appeal concerns an appropriation to St. Timothy's Memo-
rial Hospital and House of Mercy, a Pennsylvania corporation located
in Roxborough, Philadelphia. The charter of this institution provides
that membership in the corporation shall consist, inter alia, of the rec-
tor, church warden and vestrymen, for the time being, of a certain
Protestant Episcopal church, called St. Timothy's; that the business of
the hospital shall be directed by fifteen managers, to be elected annual-
ly by the vestry of the church, of whom one shall always be the parish
rector, who shall be warden of the hospital; that the nursing shall be
done by sisters or deaconesses of the protestant church, or by other
trained women. The charter also provides that in certain contingen-
cies, "The Bishop for the time being of the Protestant Episcopal
Church in the Diocese of Pennsylvania in which Philadelphia is situ-
ated," shall designate the manner of electing directors of the hospital.
Since the date of the appropriation now under attack and the filing of
the bill in this case, the name of defendant has been changed to the
"Memorial Hospital of Roxborough, Philadelphia," and other efforts
appear to have been made to separate the institution from the control
of St. Timothy's church; but, of course, the facts must be treated as
they were at the time the act under attack was approved. While all
persons, without distinction of race, color or religion, are admitted to
defendant hospital, yet there can be no doubt that it is a sectarian in-
stitution within the meaning of that term as used in the Constitution;
therefore the appropriation to it fails in law.
GAR
We must now consider an appropriation to the Duquesne Univer-
sity of the Holy Ghost, named in the act as the Duquesne University
of Pittsburgh, which is its popular designation; its charter purpose
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
733
is to support and maintain a college for the instruction of youth in all the
branches of a thorough moral and secular education, including languages,
the liberal arts and sciences, and to confer the usual scholastic degrees and to
establish, maintain and conduct courses of instruction and to confer degrees
in the sciences of law, medicine, dentistry and pharmacy.
Defendant's original charter name was "Pittsburgh Catholic Col-
lege of the Holy Ghost," which, after undergoing another change, was
altered in 1911 to its present title. The chancellor found that the words
"Holy Ghost" were used, throughout these changes of title, "in recog-
nition of the relation existing between said corporation and another
distinct Catholic organization known as "The Society of the Holy
Ghost,' which in past years supplied most of the members of the facul-
ty, and supported to a very large extent the undertakings of said cor-
poration"; also that the word "Duquesne" was selected as the name
of an early Catholic governor of the province in which Fort Duquesne
was located.
It appears that religious ceremonies, according to the doctrines of
the Roman Catholic Church, are conducted in this institution; but
the students, many of whom are outside the Catholic faith, need not
attend. In the high school department alone courses of instruction in
the tenets of the Roman Catholic Church are given, which courses are
elective; but the court found that no part of the money appropriated
by the State is used to "maintain such courses of instruction." There
is, however, nothing in the act, making the appropriation, which for-
bids spending the state's money on this or any other department of the
institution. We can but conclude that the institution in question is
sectarian and denominational, within the inhibition of the Constitu-
tion, and may not receive state aid.
Another appropriation attacked is to the Dubois Hospital Associa-
tion, a Pennsylvania corporation, whose charter indicates no sectarian
purpose; but the property occupied by this institution is owned and
operated by another Pennsylvania corporation called the "Sisters of
Mercy of Crawford and Erie Counties," which is named as the de-
fendant, and which the court below very properly found to be a sectari-
an institution. The Sisters of Mercy operate the hospital under a con-
tract with the first mentioned corporation. This writing provides that
defendant shall "establish," operate and maintain a hospital; that it
shall furnish the skilled services "necessary in conducting the hospital
. . . ., the expenses thereof to be defrayed out of or from the general
funds of the hospital"; that defendant shall have full "executive man-
734
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
agement and control"; that the title to all property of the Dubois
Hospital Association, and to any new property erected or acquired by
the hospital, shall vest in defendant; and that defendant is to be the
"sole custodian of the hospital funds." This contract also formally pro-
vides that the hospital shall be "nonsectarian," opening its doors to all
alike without distinction as to creed, color or race; that defendant shall
be" aided in all matters of moment" by the "advice and coöperation"
of the "trustees of said hospital"; that defendant's books, "containing
the accounts of the hospital funds," shall be "open to an auditing com-
mittee of the board of directors of such hospital"; and that the "board
of trustees of said hospital association" shall have "supervising" con-
trol of the hospital, "subject, however, to the terms of this agreement";
but these provisions do not change the fact that the appropriation here
in question is made to help what in substance is an institution under
direct sectarian control.
We cannot but see that the arrangement before us is nothing more
or less than a plan to evade the Constitution. No doubt the plan was
honestly conceived, in the belief that it was permissible and would
prove effective; but this makes it none the less a legal subterfuge. The
pruning knife of the law eliminates all such devices, and lays bare the
realities of the situation with which we must deal; these show the hos-
pital named in the appropriation act to be under the control of a well
known, much respected, religious order, and the state's money cannot
be permitted to go through the agency of the hospital association to
this sectarian institution, since it falls within the class to which the
character of recognition is forbidden by the Constitution.
The last appropriation we must consider is to the Jewish Hospital
Association of Philadelphia, a Pennsylvania corporation whose charter
contains the following preamble:
Since there is no institution now in existence within the State of Pennsyl-
vania under the control of Israelites wherein they can place their sick, and
where these can enjoy during their illness all the benefits and consolations of
our religion, we, the subscribers and our successors, associate ourselves,
etc.
The defendant association, which owns the property occupied by,
and controls what is popularly known as, the Jewish Hospital, is con-
fined to persons of the "Jewish faith"; but neither the chief physician
nor the chief nurse is a Jew. The great body of the patients are out-
side that faith, and none of them is obliged to attend religious ceremo-
nies or worship of any kind. The fact remains, however, that this hos-
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
735
pital is a sectarian institution according to the sense in which that term
is used in the Constitution.
The establishment under consideration is one of the noble contribu-
tions of the Israelites of Philadelphia to the cause of charity; but it falls
within the broad meaning of the term "sectarian," as that word is
understood by the people generally. The Jews are commonly believed
to constitute a distinct religious body, or sect, and to all such bodies,
Christian or otherwise, our organic law forbids the legislature to give
recognition by the appropriation of public funds to their charitable,
educational or benevolent institutions; hence this appropriation, like
the others, must fall.
There can be no doubt that all the institutions at bar are worthy
charities; but it is equally clear they are within the inhibited class, so
far as state aid is concerned. We did not write the Constitution; but,
whether agreeing with or dissenting from the rules of public policy
there announced, our sworn duty is to enforce them. Those who adopt-
ed the restriction against appropriating money to sectarian institutions
must change the rule, if desired, either through an amendment to the
present Constitution or by making a new one; neither the legislature,
acting alone, nor the courts have power so to do.
7. Principles Applicable to the Granting of Subsidies by the
State to Private Organizations and Agencies¹
SUMMARY AND CONCLUSION
It is probably unnecessary to add that the plan of restricting and
controlling the further development of State appropriations to private
agencies recommended in this report, is not presented as the only plan
available in the circumstances. It is proposed as one sound plan whose
application to the present situation would result in certain economies
and increased efficiency in the use of State funds. Its details would
have to be adjusted to the general scheme of State finance, and would,
of course, be subject to such modification as experienced legislators
would suggest, in the interest of simplicity, definiteness and certainty
of Legislative action.
• Extract from “A Survey of the Fiscal Policies of the State Subsidies to Private
Charitable Institutions by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania," by Kenneth L. M.
Pray, A Report to the Citizens' Committee on the Finances of the State of Pennsylvania
Appointed by Honorable Gifford Pinchor, December, 1922, pp. 295–96.
736
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Only three essential principles are insisted upon as necessary for
the satisfactory handling of this problem:
1. The Legislature should not designate appropriations to individual
institutions, since such appropriations inevitably become more or less ar-
bitrary, unscientific and inequitable; they open the way for harmful pres-
sure and trading of political and personal interests and for the use of the
appropriations as weapons in the control of other legislation;
2. The distribution of the funds among agencies of a given kind should
be on an automatic basis, if possible; determined by fact, not discretion,
and in accordance with the general rule which entitles all agencies, conform-
ing to standards acceptable to the State, to compensation in proportion to
the service they render to the State;
3. State funds should be expended only for service to those who are in
actual need of State help, should be under the strictest control of the State,
and should contribute to the development of a foresighted, well-planned
and comprehensive system of welfare activities, covering the whole State.
Any system that accomplishes these three purposes, whether it
agrees in detail with the plan here proposed or not, would be a notable
improvement over the present situation.
In the absence of such thorough-going change of policy, it remains
for the Governor, in co-operation with the Commissioner of Public
Welfare, to exercise the full authority of his office to bring the appropri-
ation acts that carry his signature into reasonable accord with the gen-
eral principle of compensation for service. By announcing his determina-
tion to approve for no agency an appropriation larger than the com-
pensation it has earned, in the light of its reports, for service to actual
patients unable to pay for that service, and by living up to that prom-
ise, the Governor of Pennsylvania would soon disarm and destroy un-
reasonable opposition to more thorough reforms. It is because present
appropriations, however inequitable and indefensible, "get by" and
become law, that greedy interests continue to cling to the discredited
system now in vogue. If once the log-rolling, wire-pulling, blind, hap-
hazard methods were to be brought to naught by vigorous executive
action, so far as the executive authority could be made to reach, the
hope of a return to the old régime would grow dim, and the united in-
fluence of those who seek only justice and fair play would soon perpet-
uate the new order through Legislative action.
THE SUBSIDIZED INSTITUTION
737
8. Institutional Resistance to Supervision¹
For several years in succession bills have been introduced in the
Legislature seeking to extend the powers of the Board to include the
inspection of all institutional activities of a charitable, eleemosynary,
correctional and reformatory nature, but they have never been re-
ported out of committee. These measures have had the support of
poor law officials, charitable organizations, the State Commission to
Examine laws relating to Child Welfare, and many institutions which
would be affected by such legislation. They have been opposed by cer-
tain organizations which for varying reasons do not desire that the
State shall visit or inspect or have any degree of authority over their
activities.
Some of the opponents of this legislation claim to be entirely satis-
fied with their own activities and feel that they have nothing to learn
or gain by the advice, counsel or cooperation of the State. They have
even claimed that any such restoration of the State's powers would be
akin to socialism or paternalism and that the next step would be the
assumption by the State of the inspection of family homes. They
therefore claim that they are moved to oppose such measures on the
ground of protecting the world from its own destruction in this social-
istic whirlpool. The absurdity of such a contention is so patent that a
mere statement of it is sufficient refutation. That the restoration to
the Board of the power it formerly exercised, namely, to visit and in-
spect all institutions which are caring for groups of helpless and depend-
ent persons and to ascertain if such persons are receiving proper care,
instruction and protection is going to involve the State in meshes of
communism and bring destruction to organized society is without any
foundation in reason.
The institutions whose representatives make these statements do
not object to the inspection by the proper department of their barns
and the conditions under which the cattle kept by the institution live.
Nowhere is there reasonable objection to the proper supervision by
the State of factories or shops relative to the working conditions found
therein, to the State's supervisory powers over banks, insurance, and
other material things, but the power of the State to visit and inspect
the places where defenseless children are kept, sometimes for many
years, is strenuously and constantly opposed. Other opponents of this
¹ Extract from Fifty-ninth Annual Report of the State Board of Charities of the
State of New York (1925), pp. 5–6.
738
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
legislation have contented themselves with the citation of the Court of
Appeals decision' and claim that any new legislation of this kind is un-
constitutional.
The State Board of Charities is not in search of increased power for
the sake of power. It has not initiated legislation to extend its powers
without having first ascertained from many sources the justice and the
necessity of such legislation. In this matter it now wishes to go on
record as being in favor of and strongly urging the restoration of the
power of the State to perform the duties which the framers of the Con-
stitution intended should devolve upon it, and which that document
permits.
No institution or organization in this State caring for the young,
the aged, the sick or defective, according to reasonable standards of
food, protection, education and medical care, need fear the visitation
by the State. Its demands have not been unreasonable and its stand-
ards have not been impracticable. We have only to refer to the hun-
dreds of institutions which are under the supervision of the Board to
demonstrate the friendly relations which exist. The gradual elevation
of standards of institutional life, and the fact that throughout the
country the State of New York may easily be considered in the first
rank with regard to its institutions, prove that the relation of the State
to institutional activity is helpful and that the cooperation between the
two makes for higher efficiency in the care of dependents. Such insti-
tutions as are averse to progress, to new ideas, or which are in the
slough of self-contentment will naturally resent any outside associa-
tion or suggestion that may disturb their equanimity or self-satis-
faction.
I See Document 4.
SECTION V
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
Attention was called in the earlier sections to the general accept-
ance of the principle of parochial responsibility for the care and treat-
ment of those in distress and to the local character of the criminal-law
administration. The development of state agencies for certain pur-
poses and the retarded condition of county and town administration
have been brought out. The propriety of attempting to bring federal
resources to bear on the subject was recognized in the early appeal by
the schools for the deaf to the United States Congress and by Dorothea
Dix's effort to secure federal lands for the care and treatment of the
insane. The general acceptance of the doctrine laid down by Pierce in
his veto of Miss Dix's bill has, however, relegated to state auspices
the entire development, except so far as the United States Census and
the United States Children's Bureau have supplied information and
federal authorities in jurisdictions that have not arrived at the status
of statehood may have offered suggestion or leadership. That the
sources of destitution or other forms of distress found in the disorgani-
zation of industry or in the retarded condition of social and political
life are national or possibly international in scope would probably be
denied by no one; but the remedial measures must none the less find
their origin in each of the forty-eight states. Concerted action, com-
prehensive and continuous treatment, are therefore substantially
impossible of accomplishment, except to the extent to which agreement
may be reached and supplementary effort supplied by the private
society organized on a national or international scale.¹
I
For the purpose of securing agreement the conference then be-
comes of great importance. This may be a permanent organization such
as the National Conference of Social Work or the American Prison
Association or the various state conferences, or it may be a tempo-
rary conference organized for a time to formulate and propose princi-
The National Probation Association has its office at 370 Seventh Ave., New
York City; the National Committee for Mental Hygiene, at 370 Seventh Ave.,
New York City; the American Association for Organizing Family Social Work
and the Child Welfare League of America can be reached at 130 E. Twenty-second
St., New York City. Attention might be directed to the organizations related to
the National Conference as "affiliated groups.”
•
739
740
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ples of action in special fields of interest. The United States Children's
Bureau has stimulated such conferences on the subject of general
child-welfare standards,' juvenile-court standards, illegitimacy,³ and
employment certificates;4 and the New York Probation Commission
has promoted conferences of probation officers and of different groups
of judges,5 in the state of New York.
A number of the papers presented at various meetings of the Na-
tional Conference of Social Work, formerly known as the National
Conference of Charities and Correction, have been included in the
earlier sections. The Conference cannot, however, be studied without
noting its connection with the early interest in the development of
social science, and Document I of this section is selected to set out that
relationship, while Document 2 gives the facts with reference to the
setting up of the National Conference on an independent basis.“
Ι
With reference to the national organizations, no documents are
given. Their place in the general situation is obvious, and in the annual
reports of the public-welfare authorities reference is frequently made
to their co-operation. The National Mental Hygiene Association is
especially relied on as an agency for research in the field of mental
diseases, providing a body of information from a wide geographic
range assembled after a uniform method and therefore giving compa-
rable data.
2
Attention should also be directed briefly to the work of the Uni-
form Law Commissioners. The model acts proposed for the control of
child labor, regulating marriage and divorce and improving the status
of the child born out of wedlock will interest students of public welfare.7
When these agencies for uniformity are examined in the light of the
great diversity of organization and when the cost is estimated,' it
I U.S. Children's Bureau Pub. 60.
2 Ibid. 121.
3 Ibid. 66, 75, 128.
4 Ibid. 116.
5 The annual reports of this Commission contain extremely interesting reports
of these conferences. See, for example, 1924, pp. 53, 54.
6 Document 7 in Sec. II of Part II is taken from the first session of the American
Prison Association.
7 Proceedings of the Annual Meeting of the National Conference of Commissioners
on Uniform State Laws. Organized in 1892, they are known also as "state boards
of commissioners for promoting uniformity of legislation in the United States."
› See above, Part II, Sec. I; Part III, Sec. I.
9 The amount expended on charities by the states in 1922, estimated as 11 per
cent of the total state expenditures, was approximately $140,800,000 (Annals
of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, CXIII [May, 1924], 8).
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
741
R
becomes evident that from the point of view of need the conditions in
the country as a whole calling for the creation of central unifying and
standardizing authorities are similar to those in the states that led to
the creation of the state boards of charities.
There are no available comparable statistics¹ giving a continuous
comprehensive view of the situation; there are great diversities of prac-
tice, and consequently great inequalities in the economy with which the
taxpayer's money is expended and differences in the skill with which
social ills are treated. Some communities are therefore compelled to
expend very large sums in treatment of ills for which they are in no
wise responsible; there is unevenness in the rate at which agencies and
institutions develop and consequent waste of state resources.²
When, however, the development of a national, that is, a federal
organization, is proposed, two objections are met: (1) that of consti-
tutional limitations,³ and (2) the danger of a bureaucratic stifling of
state or local initiative.
The subject of the constitutional limitations has been widely dis-
cussed in connection with the attempt to secure a national minimum in
the protection of working children,4 and in the extension of the use of
the "grant-in-aid" or the policy of sharing the costs with the states for
certain specified purposes. This latter plan has been that followed in
the recent co-operation between the federal and state governments5 in
education, rehabilitation of veterans of the Great War, and the pro-
motion of maternity and infancy care."
The power of Congress in the educational field has not been seri-
ously questioned. As to the infancy and maternity protection, the
United States court refused to take jurisdiction in the actions brought."
'See Documents 4, 5, and 9.
2 The subject of prison industry illustrates this lack, and reference should be
made to Documents 6, 7, and 8 of Sec. VII in Part II.
3 "A Debate on the Subject of a National Department of Public Welfare,"
Journal of Social Forces, II, 377.
4 Hammer v. Dagenhart, 247 U.S. 251; Bailey-v. Drexel Furniture Company,
259 U.S. 20; U.S. Children's Bureau Pub. 78, The Administration of the First Federal
Child Labor Law, also ibid. 146, The Administration of the Maternity and Infancy
Act; Twelfth Annual Report of the Chief of the Children's Bureau (1924), P. 7.
5 See U.S. Statutes at Large, 12:503, 24:44, 26:417, 34:1281. In the early acts
no provision was included looking toward central control. Reporting to the heads of
institutions was the only method of securing uniformity. See also ibid., 39:929.
• Ibid., 42:224; U.S. Children's Bureau Pub. 146.
7 See Document 3.
742
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
•
That the bureaucratic stifling of local initiative is certainly not
necessary is shown by the administration of the Federal Child Labor,
and Maternity and Infancy Acts. Document 6 gives pictures of stim-
ulated activity, of sympathetic co-operation, and of variety of treat-
ment that should convince the most incredulous of the possibility of
fine national service eventually resulting in a minimum of skill and
activity on the part of the state.
Go
Such relationships as these are, however, quite different from those
proposed in certain measures looking to the creation of a Department
of Welfare in the federal government.
During the presidential campaign in 1920, Mr. Harding announced
the creation of such a department as an item in his program,' and
several measures were later introduced both in the House and in the
Senate. The bill quoted,² like all the bills introduced in either House,
contemplated simply the rearrangement under one administrative.
division of certain "bureaux, offices, and branches of the public serv-
ice."
Whether such rearrangements will bring about a more economical
use of federal resources and a greater efficiency in the federal service
is a matter on which no positive word can be spoken. To the extent to
which they ignore the organic relationships that have been built up,
and manifest a lack of a "sense of history," they will lead to waste
and loss, and they obviously lack all purpose to make good the de-
ficiency growing out of the fragmentary, isolated character that must
weaken the public-welfare activities so long as they are regarded as
exclusively matters of state jurisdiction. The series closes, therefore,
not with one of the recent proposals so divorced from actual need
but with a modest plea put a number of years ago for a federal bureau
that would at least supply the basic data on which alone a compre-
hensive, developing plan can be framed.
I See Document 8.
2 See Document 7. See also Senate Bill 4782, (Sixty-fifth Congress, 1st sess.);
H.R. 5837 (Sixty-seventh Congress, 1st sess.); Senate Bill 408 (Sixty-seventh
Congress, 1st sess.); Senate Bill 1607 (Sixty-seventh Congress, 1st sess.); Senate
Bill 4278 (Sixty-seventh Congress, 4th sess.). See also Lloyd M. Short, The De-
velopment of National Administrative Organization in the United States.
A NATIONAL PROGRAM AND PROPOSALS FOR
A FEDERAL DEPARTMENT OF
PUBLIC WELFARE
I.
Historical Sketch of Social Science¹
In the autumn of 1856, the late Lord Brougham, who had special
qualifications for the place as the tried head of the Society for the
Amendment of the Law, was invited to take the lead in founding an
association, intended to unite all those engaged in efforts for the moral
and material improvement of the British people. He assented readily,
but owing to various causes, the plan of the originators of the move-
ment could not be matured until July, 1857. In the latter part of that
month, a private meeting was held in London at the residence of Lord
Brougham, to consider according to the call, the best means of bringing
about a union of those interested in social progress. Forty-three persons
were present. The meeting resulted in the adoption of a resolution, af-
firming the necessity of a closer union among the supporters of the
different efforts for social advancement, and pronouncing for the es-
tablishment of the National Association for the Promotion of Social
Science. A committee was appointed to give effect to the resolution,
and immediately commenced its labors under the chairmanship of
Lord Brougham.
The founders of the Association were impressed with the idea that,
in order to induce the widest possible interchange of opinion, experience
and information, both a priori reasoners and practical reformers should
be included in its organization. It was their purpose to accept aid from
all quarters, without reference to classes or opinions; to elicit truth.
without propounding dogmas, and to maintain the most absolute free-
dom of opinion. With this view, the work proposed for the Association
was divided into five departments, viz.: Law Amendment, Education,
Prevention and Repression of Crime, Public Health and Social Econo-
my, which division has been preserved to this day. Competent persons
were invited to prepare papers and reports, expressing their opinions
and embodying their experience upon subjects within the scope of the
¹ Extract of paper by Henry Villard, Journal of Social Science, I (June, 1869),
5-10.
743
744
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
five departments, and to read them at public meetings of the Associa-
tion. This plan of operation has been adhered to in the main ever since.
The invitations of the Organizing Committee to persons through-
out Great Britain, to participate in the labors of the Association, met
with such hearty responses, that a first general meeting could be con-
vened in the fall of 1857. It was opened at Birmingham on October
12th, and continued for five days. The organization was perfected by
the formal adoption of a constitution and the election of a permanent
set of officers, of whom Lord Brougham was chosen chief by acclama-
tion. The proceedings were of a very attractive character, and showed
the deep interest already developed in the objects of the Association.
They were opened with an address by Lord Brougham, in which he
dwelled with great thoroughness and eloquence upon the task of the
new Society, and upon the benefits he expected to result from its la-
bors. Papers were read on the different days of the session upon topics
relating to Education, Public Health, Social Economy, and Law Re-
form, by Lord Stanley, Lord John Russell, Sir J. S. Pakington, Sir B.
C. Brodie, Thomas Hare, G. W. Hastings, Miss Carpenter, and other
high authorities. The meeting was a success in every respect, attracted
general attention, and served to establish the Association on an endur-
ing basis.
Since that time, the British Association has not only lived, but
from year to year has gained numerical and intellectual strength. True
to its original purpose of promoting social reforms by scientific inquiry,
it has pursued a career of unquestionable usefulness in spite of certain
defects in its management, and of the doubts raised in many quarters
as to its capacity for good. Its annual meetings, held successively in the
leading cities of England, Ireland and Scotland, spread the principles
of Social Science, and stimulated investigation of the facts, on which
they are founded, among all classes. Branches of the Association were
by degrees established in a number of the large towns of England, and
more than eighty associations, following special objects, and scattered
throughout the United Kingdom, became affiliated with it. That
the Association has had a salutary influence upon government and
society, is an admitted fact. Better municipal administration, espe-
cially in a sanitary respect, in many cities and towns; more intel-
ligent dispensation of public and private charity; marked improve-
ments in popular education; greater attention to economic sciences
at the universities, and the inauguration of certain wholesome re-
forms by Parliament, may be mentioned among the results obtained.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
745
Nor has the influence of the Association been confined to Great
Britain. It soon became a general centre of social information, com-
manded the sympathies and secured the co-operation of many lead-
ing minds on the continent. Its printed transactions, now grown into
an imposing array of volumes, justly rank among the most valuable
publications of our times, and have been so regarded by thinkers
and reformers in all civilized countries. The contents of these volumes
have had no little weight, indeed, in directing the process of social and
political reorganization, progressing of late years in the principal States
of Europe.
Not the least auspicious effect of the steady and extended pursuit
of Social Science in Great Britain, was the incitement to similar efforts
on the continent. Several distinguished economists of France and Bel-
gium, among them, M. M. Michel Chevalier, Garnier Pagès, Corr-
Vander Maeren and Desmarest, attended the fifth annual meeting of
the British Association at Dublin. They were so much struck with the
proceedings, that they conceived the idea of starting an international
organization, by which the truths of Social Science might be propa-
gated throughout the other countries of Europe. After due consulta-
tion, they agreed upon the proposition of M. Corr-Vander Maeren,
that the capital of Belgium, as the freest and most accessible of conti-
nental States, should become the seat of the projected society. The
task of initiating the new organization was entrusted to M. Corr-
Vander Maeren, whose position as Judge of the Tribunal of Commerce
at Bruxelles, and former experience as the founder of several economic
associations, especially qualified him for the work. Immediately after
his return to Bruxelles, he organized a local committee, consisting of the
most eminent men of the kingdom. The Committee prepared a consti-
tution and by-laws, similar to those of the British Association, and in
May, 1862, issued a circular to persons throughout the continent, ask-
ing their co-operation, and inviting them to attend the first interna-
tional congress for the promotion of Social Science, to be convened at
Bruxelles in the month of September of the same year. In order to
insure the success of the first meeting, three members of the Commit-
tee were chosen as delegates to attend the sixth annual meeting of the
British Association, and familiarize themselves more thoroughly with
the work of that body. A resolution was passed on the part of the latter,
assuring the "Association internationale pour le progrès des Sciences
Sociales," of its active sympathy.
The international congress met on September 22d, of the year
746
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
named, and remained in session four days, under the presidency of the
Mayor of Bruxelles. Representatives of Belgium, Holland, Great
Britain, France, Germany, Italy, Russia, Switzerland, and the United
States, were present. The division of labor agreed upon by the Com-
mittee of Organization, and adopted by the congress, differed from the
British plan. The number of departments was the same, but they cov-
ered a somewhat different ground, viz.: 1st, Comparative Legislation;
2d, Education; 3d, Art and Literature; 4th, Charities and Public
Health; 5th Political Economy, including taxation, finances, com-
merce, industry and agriculture. As in Great Britain public meetings
and the publication of the transactions were adopted as the practical
means of pursuing the objects of the Association, and another added in
the form of pecuniary prizes to be offered for essays on given subjects.
The proceedings also varied from the British model. Few papers were
read, and most of the time was devoted to the discussion of a number
of questions in each of the departments, proposed by the Organizing
Committee. The discussions were of an elevated character, and con-
ducted in a fair spirit; but nevertheless, the preponderance of this ele-
ment in the proceedings made the session less fruitful of substantial
results, than it would have been, had the example of the British Asso-
ciation been more closely followed.
The second congress of the International Association was held in
September, 1863, at Ghent, under the presidency of M. Vervoort, pre-
siding officer of the lower house of the Belgium legislative assembly. It
was as numerously attended as the first by representatives of different
nationalities. The proceedings extended over a whole week. The mode
of proceeding was the same as at Bruxelles. Certain questions were pro-
posed in the several departments, and elaborately discussed in separate
meetings. The danger of violent clashings of opinion, with which dis-
cussions of this kind are necessarily always attended, was not alto-
gether avoided during the session, but fortunately no serious discords
were developed. Other annual meetings have since taken place.
Considering the obstacles, presented by the differences of language
and national condition, as well as the complexity of social interests in
the continental States, it would have been too much to expect the or-
ganization in question to do for all the countries represented within it,
what the British Association has done for Great Britain alone. The
International Association was intended to be a channel of exchange of
thought and experience, rather than an instrument of direct action,
and this useful function it has fulfilled to a great extent.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
747
It must not be supposed that the International Association repre-
sents the totality of the efforts made up to this time on the Continent
in the field of Social Science. In France, in Germany and in other coun-
tries, societies have existed for years, and pursued the search for and
application of social truths in special directions, with great assiduity.
Of these, the most active are the French and German, and among
them the Société d'Economie Politique of Paris, and the Volks-
wirtschaftliche Verein (Economic Society), are the most successful.
True these bodies touch upon but parts of Social Science, but what
with the growing solidarity of the material and moral interests of
all civilized nations, and the natural tendency of inquirers into social
questions, to extend the range of their investigations, their labors are
continually widening. Efforts have been making in France for some
time, to organize a Social Science Association according to the British
prototype, and have failed so far, only in consequence of obstacles in-
terposed by the Government.
The American Association was founded in the autumn of 1865.
Three years having been spent in preliminary efforts, which met with
all the encouragement that could have been expected, it was decided
by the Executive Committee to perfect the organization and extend
the work of the Association. This is now in course of execution.
2. The Origin of the National Conference of Social Work¹
In accordance with an invitation extended to the Boards of Public
Charities in the States of New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Massa-
chusetts, Michigan, Wisconsin, Connecticut, Rhode Island, and Kan-
sas, a Conference of these Boards was held on May 20, at 10 A.M. At
first, only delegates of these Boards and members of the Executive
Committee of the Association were present; but after the organization,
on motion of Dr. Bishop, the reporters were admitted, and members of
the Association or others having experience in the matters discussed
were invited to take part in the Conference. Hon. J. V. L. Pruyn,
President of the New York Board, was appointed Chairman, and F. B.
Sanborn, Delegate from the Massachusetts Board, was chosen Secre-
tary. There were also present from the New York Board, Dr. Nathan
Bishop, of New York; William P. Letchworth, Esq., of Buffalo; Hon.
¹ Extract from "Conference of Boards of Public Charities, Held at New York,
May 20 and 22, 1874," Journal of Social Science, VI (July, 1874), 61, 87. See above,
Part II, Sec. I, Document 11, p. 281, n. 1.
748
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Samuel F. Miller, of Delaware County, and Dr. Charles S. Hoyt, of
Albany, the Secretary. The State Board of Wisconsin was represent-
ed by Hon. Henry H. Giles, the President, and Mrs. W. P. Lynde, a
member of the Wisconsin Board of Charities; and Connecticut by Mrs.
Mariette E. Pettee, Secretary of the State Board of Connecticut. A
dispatch was received from George L. Harrison, Esq., of Philadelphia,
President of the Pennsylvania Board, announcing that a recent domes-
tic affliction would prevent his attendance.
Letters were read from the Boards of Rhode Island, Pennsylvania,
Michigan, and Kansas. The city Board of New York, which had been
invited, was occupied with a public investigation during the sessions
of the Conference, and was not represented therein; but gentlemen rep-
resenting the State Charities Aid Association and the Bureau of Chari-
ties in New York City were present.
REPORTS OF COMMITTEES
During the first session of the Conference a committee was ap-
pointed, consisting of F. B. Sanborn, of Massachusetts, W. P. Letch-
worth, of New York, and Henry H. Giles, of Wisconsin, to report
a plan for the Uniformity of Statistics, and a better co-operation among
the Boards of Charities throughout the United States. At the second
session, on Friday, May 22, this committee made a preliminary report,
to the effect that it was desirable to have the statistics of pauperism,
crime, insanity, and the other topics discussed in the board's reports,
made as completely as possible upon a uniform plan, and include a gen-
eral statement of all the facts for the whole State in which the report is
published, and asked further time to prepare a form for use by the
different boards. It was also reported that a plan for better co-opera-
tion between boards could not be prepared without some correspond-
ence with all the boards, and further time was asked for, which was
granted. It was stated that a conference in the spring of 1875, at Buf-
falo or Detroit, had been proposed, and would probably be called. Dr.
Bishop, for the Committee on Public Buildings for the Poor, the In-
sane, etc., made a preliminary report setting forth the present evils of
extravagant architecture, and asking time for the preparation of a
more complete report, which was voted. It was also voted that the
Chair appoint a committee of five to consider the condition of destitute
and delinquent children, and the prevention of pauperism.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
749
3. The Constitutionality of the Maternity and Infancy Act¹
The functions of government under our system are apportioned.
To the legislative department has been committed the duty of making
laws; to the executive the duty of executing them; and to the judiciary
the duty of interpreting and applying them in cases properly brought
before the courts. The general rule is that neither department may in-
vade the province of the other and neither may control, direct or re-
strain the action of the other. We are not now speaking of the merely
ministerial duties of officials. Gaines v. Thompson, 7 Wall. 347. We
have no power per se to review and annul acts of Congress on the
ground that they are unconstitutional. That question may be con-
sidered only when the justification for some direct injury suffered or
threatened, presenting a justiciable issue, is made to rest upon such
an act. Then the power exercised is that of ascertaining and declaring
the law applicable to the controversy. It amounts to little more than
the negative power to disregard an unconstitutional enactment, which
otherwise would stand in the way of the enforcement of a legal right.
The party who invokes the power must be able to show not only that
the statute is invalid but that he has sustained or is immediately in
danger of sustaining some direct injury as the result of its enforcement,
and not merely that he suffers in some indefinite way in common with
people generally. If a case for preventive relief be presented, the court
enjoins, in effect, not the execution of the statute, but the acts of the
official, the statute notwithstanding. Here the parties plaintiff have
no such case. Looking through forms of words to the substance of their
complaint, it is merely that officials of the executive department of the
government are executing and will execute an act of Congress asserted
to be unconstitutional; and this we are asked to prevent. To do so
would be not to decide a judicial controversy, but to assume a position
of authority over the governmental acts of another and co-equal de-
partment, an authority which plainly we do not possess.
4. The Need for Uniform Statistics²
Progress has been made on a plan for uniform reporting of juvenile-
court statistics. Study of published and unpublished court reports has
shown that no general agreement exists with reference to terminology,
¹ Extract from Opinion of the Court, Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S. 488.
2 Extract from Thirteenth Annual Report of the Chief of the Children's Bureau,
Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 1925, p. 20.
750
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
A
unit of tabulation, or methods of presentation. A set of simple tables
with instructions for their preparation and forms for statistical cards
have been prepared and will be published and distributed to courts
willing to co-operate by annually filling out these tables or the cards
from which they can be compiled. The tables will show for each co-
operating court the total number of cases of delinquency and of de-
pendency and neglect disposed of during a year, the number of cases in
which the children had been previously dealt with by the court, the
nature of the complaint, the method of care pending hearing or dis-
position of case, the manner of dealing with the cases (whether through
formal court action or informal adjustment), and the types of disposi-
tion made (for example, placement on probation or under supervision,
commitment to institutions or agencies). The number of different
children dealt with will also be shown, and certain social facts such as
sex, race, age, parental condition, employment of mother, and where-
abouts of the children. Data concerning the number of probation cases,
length of time on probation, and reason for discharge from probation
will be included. It is hoped that through this plan a beginning may
be made in the collection of statistics of delinquency and dependency
as dealt with by courts, which may eventually extend over the entire
country.
5. The Prospect of Better Statistics¹
Several factors contribute to the difficulty of securing a satisfac-
tory census of dependents and delinquents.
Perhaps the most fundamental of these is the lack among insti-
tutions and agencies of comprehensive and uniform records and sta-
tistics. This is true both of the institutions for juvenile delinquents
and, to an even greater degree, of the multitude of organizations for
dependent and neglected children.
Special institutions for juvenile delinquents are, as a rule, State
institutions, and they usually have clerical service and are able to sup-
ply readily at least certain minimum data concerning their inmates,
while a number of them have very detailed social histories. The best
of the institutions and societies for dependent and neglected children
probably surpass most of those for delinquents in the quality of their
records and statistics, but this is not generally the case, and the group
as a whole presents many more difficulties to the census taker. The
total number of such organizations is vastly larger and many of them
I Extract from Children under Institutional Care, 1923 (U.S. Department of
Commerce, Bureau of the Census, 1927), pp. 11-13.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
751
are relatively small and unequipped with the clerical service needed
for assembling and recording social data. Since relatively few are under
State management, the majority being under the auspices of religious,
fraternal, or non-sectarian groups, or of county or city officials, it is
more difficult to impose State regulations concerning records and
reports, although where State supervision is well established much has
been accomplished in promoting minimum standards of records and
statistics in such organizations as are subject to State control. Yet,
notwithstanding the progress that has been made by many States and
individual organizations, in general it must be said that the social
data concerning dependent or neglected and delinquent children, for
the country at large, are meager, unstandardized, and difficult to
assemble.
While every effort was made to check any returns which seemed
questionable, and while organizations and individuals on the whole
co-operated generously, it is inevitable that there should be omissions
and differences of interpretation which greatly restrict the value of the
material for the purposes of fine analyses and comparisons.
It should also be pointed out that although an effort has been made
in each decade since 1850¹ to take some account of the dependent and
delinquent population, the difficulties of securing dependable returns
have been so great that the tendency has been to cover those segments
of the field from which the most satisfactory returns could be secured
and to eliminate those which presented serious obstacles, with the
result that no census has ever measured the total magnitude of de-
pendency and delinquency.....
Another obstacle to securing an accurate census of dependency
and delinquency is the difficulty of eliminating duplicates. . . . al-
though the registration systems of some State boards and the social
service exchanges of the larger cities may in time afford a solution.
In the main, responsibility for improving the national index of
social problems rests not so much with the Census Bureau as with the
public and its representatives, the directors and executives of institu-
tions, and agencies organized to study and ameliorate these problems.
There are some signs of a quickening interest in this question and there
are a number of factors which should make for definite and continuous
¹ See previous census reports, especially those on Benevolent Institutions and
Prisoners and Juvenile Delinquents for 1904 and 1910, for statements of methods
followed and ground covered since 1850. [See also Prisoners, 1923 (Bureau of the
Census, 1926), p. 6, n. 6.]
752
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
improvement in national statistics of dependency and delinquency.
Important among these are:
A growing number of responsible State boards of charities and cor-
rection and departments of public welfare through which co-operation
in standardizing and compiling statistics may be looked for.
An increasing interest on the part of individual institutions and
agencies in improved records and statistics.
The influence of local community chests and financial federations
and of certain unofficial national organizations in standardizing records
and reports.
The facilities offered by the permanent staff of the Children's
Bureau of the United States Department of Labor for giving unity,
purpose, and direction to statistical reporting in co-operation with
local, State, and national organizations.
It is believed that, with adequate advance planning, many existing
national and State organizations could be enlisted in gathering census
material in a way that would not only greatly facilitate the work of the
Census Bureau but insure more accurate and uniform returns. With
the registration facilities now existing or being developed in certain
States, counties, and cities, it does not seem fanciful to expect that
there may in time be developed a method of measuring depend-
ency and delinquency analogous to the registration-area plan in
the field of vital statistics, although the task would be vastly more
complex.
6. The Federal Authority Stimulates State Activity
A. FIRST FEDERAL CHILD-LABOR LAW¹
DESIGNATION OF STATES UNDER SECTION 5 OF THE ACT
To avoid the expense and inconvenience to the child, the employer,
and the Government of a double certificating system it was important
that, so far as the State laws and administrative practices made it pos-
sible, State certificates should be accepted for the purposes of the Fed-
eral act. In a number of States, radical amendment of the State law
was necessary before a reasonably satisfactory certificating system
could be assured. As many legislatures were in session in 1917 which
would not meet again until 1919, it was felt to be important to call the
attention of the States to the advantages of a common State and Fed-
¹ Extract from "Administration of the First Federal Child-Labor Law," U.S.
Children's Bureau Bulletin No. 78 (Washington, 1921), pp. 16–21.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
753
eral standard in the issuing of certificates. Before the adoption of the
rules and regulations, therefore, a letter was sent to the governors of
the various States calling attention to the provisions of the Federal
child-labor act and the desire of those charged with its administration
to prevent the confusion of a double certificating system. The letter
made two alternative suggestions, either of which it was said would
lead to the designation of the State by the board. These suggestions
were:
First. That the legislatures of the several States consider the advisabil-
ity of constituting a board of State officials similar to the Federal Child-
Labor Board, or of designating an appropriate State official with general
power to make rules and regulations respecting proofs of age under the State
child-labor laws, in order to secure conformity to the Federal child-labor law
and the rules and regulations thereunder; or
Second. If any State does not desire to grant the administrative power
recommended above, that its legislature be asked to enact in lieu thereof the
following requirements for proof of age which indicate the limit of probable
regulatory requirements by the board. [Here follow the list of proofs of age
now familiar to those who deal with the process of certification: namely
birth certificate, baptism certificate, Bible record, certificate signed by two
physicians.]
The first suggestion-an elastic clause, empowering an adminis-
trative board or officer to change requirements as the Federal require-
ments changed—was little known in State legislation, but precedents
for it existed in legislation which had been passed in California, New
Jersey, Oklahoma, and Virginia, providing that State standards as to
what constitutes adulteration, etc., should follow the standards fixed
by the Department of Agriculture in its administration of the Federal
pure food law. This suggestion of the board for a flexible law with
reference to the proof of age for work permits was adopted in Arkansas,
Kansas, and Vermont, in 1917.
During the same year, State laws in Illinois and Tennessee were
amended so that evidence of age was required substantially as recom-
mended by the board, and the whole system of certificating was much
improved.
The regulation finally adopted by the board with reference to
designation of States was as follows:
Regulation 3—Authorization of acceptance of State certificates.—States in
which the age, employment, or working certificates, permits, or papers are
issued under State authority substantially in accord with the requirements
of the act and with regulation 2, hereof, may be designated, in accordance
754
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
with section 5 of the act, as States in which certificates issued under State
authority shall have the same force and effect as those issued under the direct
authority of this act, except as individual certificates may be suspended or
revoked in accordance with regulations 4 and 8. Certificates in States so
designated shall have this force and effect for the period of time specified by
the board, unless in the judgment of the board the withdrawal of such au-
thorization at an earlier date seems desirable for the effective administration
of the act. Certificates requiring conditions or restrictions additional to those
required by the Federal act or by the rules and regulations shall not be
deemed to be inconsistent with the act.
In accordance with this regulation the following 39 States and
the District of Columbia were designated on August, 15 by the
board, the designation to take effect on September 1, for a six-months
period:
Alabama
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Dist. of Columbia
Florida
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
Tennessee
New Hampshire Texas
New Jersey
Utah
New York
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
West Virginia
Wisconsin
These States could be roughly classified as follows:
1. Those in which the evidence of age required by the State law
and accepted in practice in the issuing of certificates met or exceeded
the Federal standards.
2. Those in which satisfactory evidence was required by the statute,
but the law was generally disregarded and quite unsatisfactory evi-
dence of age was accepted in practice by the local certificate-issuing
officers.
3. Those in which satisfactory evidence was required by the stat-
ute, but the statute was variously interpreted and administered in
different parts of the State.
4. Those in which the evidence of age required by the State statute
did not meet the standards laid down by the Federal act, but discre-
tion was lodged in the administrative officers, so that they could if
they so desired raise the local standards.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
755
Letters were sent to the State departments of education and of
factory inspection explaining regulations 2 and 3, the apparent diffi-
culties in the local situation, and the basis on which the designation
had been made by the board. Through personal visits, conferences
with State officials, and local inspections, attempts were made to assist
in those adjustments in the State practices which were necessary
if the
certificating was to be left largely in the hands of State officers and at
the same time an approximately uniform enforcement of the Federal
law insured. It was recognized that while this could not be accom-
plished at once, progress toward this end was necessary and possible.
On March 1, 1918, the designation of all these States expired. At
this time 13 States-
Connecticut
New York
Maryland
Kansas
New Hampshire
Alabama
Arkansas
Colorado
Oregon
Rhode Island
Maine
Massachusetts
were redesignated for a period of 12 months; and 22 States and the
District of Columbia-
Michigan
Utah
Louisiana
Minnesota
Montana
Dist. of Columbia North Dakota
Illinois
Iowa
New Jersey
Ohio
Tennessee
Washington
Missouri
Oklahoma
Pennsylvania
Wisconsin
Vermont
Arizona
California
Delaware
Florida
Kentucky
Nebraska
were redesignated for a period of 6 months.
The redesignation of Virginia and West Virginia was limited to a
period of three months.
The evidence of age required by the Virginia law was below the
Federal standard, and the certificates were issued by notaries public.
The latter were entirely out of touch with schools and had no training
for, or interest in, the administering of a child-labor law, except those
notaries who were regularly employed by a manufacturing establish-
ment to issue certificates for children employed in the factory. It was
to be expected that under such a system results would be entirely un-
satisfactory. Investigations and inspections made in Virginia showed
that the notaries were making a general practice of issuing when the
only proof of age presented was a parent's affidavit, although docu-
G
756
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
mentary evidence required by law was easily obtainable. At the time
when the first designation of six months expired (Mar. 1, 1918), legis-
lation was pending which if passed would have made it possible to
continue to accept the Virginia certificates. The measure finally adopt-
ed required better proof of age, but the issuing of the certificates was
still left to the notaries public. It was therefore considered necessary
to begin the issuance of Federal certificates in Virginia.
The question of the redesignation of Indiana and West Virginia
was pending at the time the law was declared unconstitutional.
As the inspection reports show, States were redesignated for 12
months in which the administrative practices in certain sections of the
State were far from satisfactory. The principal difficulty in deciding
as to the designation of many of the States was that the certificating
was done well in one town and very poorly in another. In a few States
-for example, Connecticut, New Hampshire, and Wisconsin-the work
was under State control; but in most States the authority to issue
certificates was given to the local superintendent of schools. The work
requires careful attention to administrative details. This kind of at-
tention, as the inspections made clearly show, will usually not be given
by busy school or other local officers unless the value of it is clearly and
frequently indicated by State officers. Supervision has been specifically
provided for in the statutes of only a very few States. Many of the
laws, however, have given to State superintendents or commissioners
of education, or to State labor boards, or some similar public authority,
the power to prepare the forms to be used by local officers, or required
that reports of certificates issued and refused shall be made to the State
labor department. Even without a specific grant of supervisory au-
thority, much could be done and in some States the Federal in-
spectors found that much was being done by the State superintend-
ents or factory inspectors to bring the examination of the children for
their working papers up to the standard.
The conditions which the inspections in Ohio revealed are typical
of a very large proportion of the States. In that State and in a number
of others, there were provisions in the law which could have been made
the basis for bringing local conditions up to standard. These provisions
were the requirement that reports on all certificates should be filed
with the department of factory inspection, or that forms, etc., should
be prescribed by the State superintendent of education. But in general
this power was not used, and local communities had been allowed to
continue practices which were in violation of the law.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
757
While absolute uniformity was not necessary and perhaps not de-
sirable, still if the certificates of every city and town in a certain State,
or of no city or town in that State, were to be accepted for the purposes
of the Federal act, it was essential that at least a certain minimum ad-
ministrative standard should be followed throughout the State.
B. PROMOTION OF THE WELFARE AND HYGIENE
OF MATERNITY AND INFANCY¹
FEDERAL STAFF
For the administration of the maternity and infancy act the
United States Children's Bureau added to its already existing six
major divisions a division of maternity and infant hygiene. The staff
of this division has consisted of a director and associate director, both
of whom are physicians, a public-health nurse, an accountant, a secre-
tary, and a stenographer. For a part of the year two additional phy-
sicians and one social worker were added to the staff to conduct re-
search and to aid in consultation work.
The director and associate director have not only performed the
various duties involved in the administration of a central office but
at least once during the year either the director or the associate di-
rector has visited each State co-operating under the act.
The public-health nurse visits the State supervisors of nurses in
an advisory capacity and observes field work in rural districts, bringing
to each State the experience of the others. She has also attended in-
stitutes for public-health nurses, giving addresses and conducting
classes.
The accountant has visited all the States accepting Federal funds
and has audited the accounts of all co-operating State agencies.
CONFERENCE OF STATE DIRECTORS
After a period of co-operation in Federal and State maternity and
infancy activities, it was felt that a meeting devoted to the discus-
sion of problems confronting the different States would be beneficial.
The directors of all of the State bureaus of child hygiene were there-
fore asked to attend a conference at the Children's Bureau in Wash-
ington (September 19 to 21, 1923). Representatives from 40 States
were in attendance, including two from States not co-operating under
¹ Extract from U.S. Children's Bureau Publication No. 146 (Washington, 1925),
p. 44.
758
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the Federal maternity and infancy act. No formal papers were pre-
sented, opportunity being given instead for general discussion on the
subjects listed in an outline program. At the request of the State di-
rectors the following topics were discussed: Prenatal care (distribution
of literature, consultation facilities, public-health nursing), confine-
ment care (hospital, home, midwife), postnatal care (rest, infant feed-
ing, discharge examination); early birth registration; health confer-
ences (methods and standards); nutrition work for the preschool child;
dental hygiene; public-health nurses (ways of increasing number and
decreasing turnover; training, extent of activities in maternity and
infancy programs); development of county "projects" and relative
value of projects undertaken on small budgets; co-operation of the
medical profession; utilization of lay workers; methods and value of
surveys.
7. One Proposal for a Federal Department of Public Welfare¹
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States of America in Congress assembled;
That there is hereby created an executive department to be known
as the Department of Public Welfare, with a Secretary of Public Wel-
fare, who shall be the head thereof, to be appointed by the President,
by and with the advice and consent of the Senate, who shall receive a
salary of $12,000 per annum, and whose term and tenure of office shall
be like that of the heads of other executive departments; and section.
158 of the Revised Statutes is hereby amended to include said depart-
ment, and the provisions of title 4 of the Revised Statutes, including
all amendments thereto, are hereby made applicable to said depart-
ment. The Secretary of Public Welfare shall cause a seal of office to
be made for the Department of Public Welfare of such device as the
President shall approve, and judicial notice shall be taken of the said
seal.
SECTION 2. That there shall be in the Department of Public Wel-
fare three Assistant Secretaries of Public Welfare, to be appointed by
the President, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. Each
Assistant Secretary shall perform such duties as may be prescribed by
the Secretary or required by law and shall receive a salary of $7,50c
per annum. There shall also be a solicitor, a chief clerk, and a disburs-
I "A Bill to Create the Department of Public Welfare and for Other Purposes"
(May 17, 1921), Senate Bill 1839 (U.S. Sixty-seventh Congress, 1st sess.).
•
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
759
ing clerk, and such other clerical assistants as may from time to time
be authorized by Congress.
SEC. 3. That the Department of Public Welfare shall be vested
with jurisdiction and control over the bureaus, offices, and branches of
the public service hereinafter specified. All unexpended appropriations
which shall be available at the time when this Act takes effect in rela-
tion to the various bureaus, offices, and branches of the public service,
which are by this Act transferred to or included in the Department of
Public Welfare or which are abolished by this Act, and their authority,
powers, and duties transferred to the Department of Public Welfare,
shall become available for expenditure in and by the Department of
Public Welfare and shall be treated the same as if said branches of the
public service had been directly named in the laws making said appro-
priations as parts of the Department of Public Welfare, under the direc-
tion of the Secretary of Public Welfare.
SEC. 4. a) That the following-named bureaus, offices, and branches
of the public service, now and heretofore under the jurisdiction of the
Department of the Interior, and all that pertains to the same, known as
the Office of Indian Affairs, the United States Indian Service, the Bu-
reau of Pensions, the Bureau of Education, Saint Elizabeths Hospital,
Howard University, and Freedmen's Hospital, are hereby transferred
from the Department of the Interior to the Department of Public
Welfare, and the same shall hereafter be and remain under the juris-
diction and supervision of the last-named department; Provided, That
the Board of Indian Commissioners is hereby abolished, and the au-
thority, powers, and duties conferred and imposed by law upon said
board shall cease and terminate. The official records and papers now
on file in and pertaining exclusively to the business of the Board of
Indian Commissioners, together with the furniture, equipment, and
other property now in use by said board, shall be transferred to the
custody of the Secretary of Public Welfare.
6) That the following-named bureaus, offices, and branches of the
public service now and heretofore under the jurisdiction of the De-
partment of the Treasury, and all that pertains to the same, known as
the Bureau of War Risk Insurance, the Office of the Surgeon General
of the Public Health Service, and the Public Health Service, are hereby
transferred from the Department of the Treasury to the Department
of Public Welfare, and the same shall hereafter be and remain under the
jurisdiction and supervision of the last-named department. The Pub-
lic Health Service shall hereafter be charged with the collection of the
760
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
statistics of the births and deaths in registration areas as required un-
der the provisions of section 8 of the Act approved March 6, 1902, en-
titled "An Act to provide for a permanent Census Office," as amended.
c) That the United States Employees' Compensation Commission
is hereby abolished, and the authority, powers, and duties conferred
and imposed by law upon said commission shall be held, exercised, and
performed by the Bureau of Pensions, under the general direction of
the Secretary of Public Welfare.
d) That the Federal Board for Vocational Education is hereby
abolished, and the authority, powers, and duties conferred and im-
posed upon said board by the Act of February 23, 1917, entitled "An
Act to provide for the promotion of vocational education; to provide
for co-operation with the States in the promotion of such education in
agriculture and the trades and industries; to provide for co-operation
with the States in the preparation of teachers of vocational subjects;
and to appropriate money and regulate its expenditure," as amended,
shall be held, exercised, and performed by the Bureau of Education,
under the general direction of the Secretary of Public Welfare. The
authority, powers, and duties conferred and imposed upon the Federal
Board for Vocational Education under the provisions of the Act
approved June 27, 1918, entitled "An Act to provide for vocational
rehabilitation and return to civil employment of disabled persons dis-
charged from the military or naval forces of the United States, and for
other purposes," as amended, and all other authority, powers, and du-
ties conferred and imposed by law upon said board, shall be held, exer-
cised, and performed by the Secretary of Public Welfare through such
instrumentalities of the Department of Public Welfare as may be de-
cided upon by him, with the approval of the President.
e) That the United States Interdepartmental Social Hygiene
Board is hereby abolished; and the authority, powers, and duties.
conferred and imposed by law upon said board shall be held, ex-
ercised, and performed by the Surgeon General of the Public
Health Service under the general direction of the Secretary of Public
Welfare.