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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
✓
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.
<d
94. But they did not believe those evils to be its necessary conse-
quences; they believed that, under strict regulations, adequately en-
forced, such relief might be afforded safely and even beneficially. In
all extensive communities circumstances would occur in which an indi-
vidual might be exposed to the danger of perishing from want. To
refuse relief, and at the same time to punish mendicity when it could
not be proved that the offenders could have obtained subsistence by
labour, was repugnant to the common sentiments of mankind; it was
repugnant to them to punish even depredation, apparently committed
as the only resource against want. In all extensive civilised communi-
ties, therefore, the occurrence of extreme necessity was prevented by
almsgiving, by public institutions supported by endowments or volun-
tary contributions or by a provision partly voluntary and partly com-
pulsory, or by a provision entirely compulsory, such as might exclude
the pretext of mendicancy.
95. But in no part of Europe except England had it been thought
fit that the provision, whether compulsory or voluntary, should be
applied to more than the relief of indigence, the state of a person unable
to labour, or unable to obtain, in return for his labour, the means of
subsistence. It had never been deemed expedient that the provision
should extend to the relief of poverty; that is, the state of one who, in
order to obtain a mere subsistence, was forced to have recourse to
labour.
K
98. It appeared to the Commission that the abolition of partial
outdoor relief to the able-bodied, and particularly of money payments,
should come into universal operation at the end of two years, and, as
respected new applicants, at an earlier period, and that the chief
remedy should be the reception of the able-bodied paupers in a well-
managed workhouse.
99. As to how such workhouses could be provided and the requi-
site management enforced, the Commissioners had no difficulty in
showing that this could be obtained only if parishes were amalgamated
and incorporated for the purpose.
30
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
2. The Josiah Quincy Report of 1821 on the Pauper Laws
of Massachusetts'
The committee to whom was referred, at the last session of the
General Court, the consideration of the pauper laws of this Common-
wealth, with directions to report, whether any, and if any, what amend-
ments or alterations may be made therein, with leave to report by bill
or otherwise, ask leave to
REPORT
That they have been prevented from making as complete and gen-
eral an investigation of the state of our pauper laws, and on their bear-
ings on different parts of the Commonwealth, from the delay of some
of the towns and the neglect of others, in complying with the request of
the House of Representatives made relative to this subject at their last
session. Your committee have the satisfaction, however, to state that,
although the incompleteness of the returns from all the towns in the
Commonwealth renders it impossible for them to present as full a
survey of the interests and relations of this great subject as it demands,
yet, that the number of the returns which have been made and the
general intelligence, precision, and zeal to fulfill the wishes of the Legis-
lature displayed in them, enable your committee to present some views
touching the object of their appointment which they deem important,
and which go far to establish conviction in the mind as to the course to
be pursued, and to indicate what further details of information are
necessary in order to enable the Legislature to adopt the course, with
satisfaction to themselves and the public.
In the opinion of your committee it is of the highest consequence
that all the relations of the subject should be well considered, and the
facts and reasons upon which any course may be adopted is founded
should be well understood, not only by the Legislature, but by their
fellow citizens, previously to any material change in the existing laws.
From the nature of the subject, any change, to be beneficial, must ob-
tain not only a sanction from the sentiment but a co-operation of the
active support of the community. It will probably require in some
parts of the Commonwealth that some prejudices should be yielded;
and that some usual and long-established habits of distributing public
charity to the poor should be altered. Those who may be called to
abandon these prejudices and habits will be more likely to give efficient
¹ Massachusetts, General Court, Committee on Pauper Laws, Report of Com-
mittee to Whom Was Referred the Consideration of the Pauper Laws of the Common-
wealth, 1821; reprinted in Charities, Vol. III, No. 18 (September 30, 1899), pp. 2–7.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
31
support to any system which may be recommended if the conviction
of their understandings shall precede the exertion of legislative au-
thority. Your committee, therefore, will deem a material part of their
duty fulfilled if they are able to draw the attention of their fellow
citizens to the principles connected with the subject; and by illustrating
them from the experience of another nation, as well as of their own,
they prepare their minds to adopt and to co-operate in the establish-
ment of such a system as, after such an investigation, shall be found
thus sanctioned and supported.
if
It was impossible for your committee, while contemplating the
effect of the existing poor laws in Massachusetts, not to turn their at-
tention to the state of the same subject in England. In this part of the
British nations a system of pauper laws prevails having the same orig-
inal and a similar principle with our own, and it will be found not only
that the results of her experience are, in a remarkable degree, similar
to our own, but also that the reasonings and opinions of her statesmen
and writers on public economy, founded on that experience, are singu-
larly coincident with the facts detailed, and the opinions expressed, in
almost every important document obtained from the returns of the
overseers of the poor in Massachusetts.
In contemplating these coincidences the anxiety of your committee
was not allayed, but, on the contrary, their sense of the vital impor-
tance to Massachusetts of adopting a just system upon this subject,
was in an extreme degree augmented by a comparison of the effects
of their common pauper system upon the pecuniary resources of Eng-
land and upon those of this Commonwealth. The returns of the towns,
under the request of the Legislature at their last session, being in point
of number but a little more than half of all the towns in the Common-
wealth, it is impossible for your committee to compare the gross ag-
gregate of all the pauper expenses of this Commonwealth with those
of Great Britain. But if the proportion of the increase of the payments
out of the treasury of this Commonwealth for the last twenty years be
taken as an evidence of the proportion of the increase of the pauper
burden on Massachusetts, then the proportion of the increase of the
pauper burden on Massachusetts has exceeded in a given number of
years the proportion of the increase of the pauper burden of Great
Britain. It appears by an official statement made in the year 1816 to
the House of Commons, and published in a report of a select committee
of that house on the poor laws, that the proportion of the increase of
the British poor rate between the years 1785 and 1815 was, in round
•
32
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
numbers, from two millions sterling to five millions; in other words,
there was an increase of three-fifths in thirty years. According to an
annexed statement of the treasurer of Massachusetts it appears that
the increase of the payments out of the treasury of this State on pauper
accounts, between the years 1801 and 1820, was, in round numbers,
from twenty-eight thousand dollars to seventy-two thousand; in other
words, an increase of three-fifths in twenty years. Without pretending to
assert that the state of the payments out of the treasury of the State
is a true criterion of the increase of the whole amount of pauper burden
in Massachusetts, your committee do consider themselves justified by
the fact in concluding that the pernicious consequences of the existing
system are palpable, that they are increasing, and that they imperious-
ly call for the interference of the Legislature in some manner, equally
prompt and efficacious.
It is well known to the General Court that the evils of pauperism
in Great Britain have of late years become so desperate and malignant
in their nature as to have been a subject of parliamentary investiga-
tion, and that the causes of those evils and their remedies have been the
source of more controversy, and given rise to as great a number of
publications in that nation as perhaps any other subject whatsoever.
Your committee, as far as they have had opportunity, have avail.d
themselves of all the light to be derived from those sources, in the
prosecution of their researches, and without availing themselves, in-
tentionally, of the language or particular course of thought of any of
the English writers; they ask leave to state, in a very short and abstract
way, their general view of the light derived from these sources as it
concentrates upon and illustrates certain particular and important
points in the actual condition of pauperism in Massachusetts.
The principle of pauper laws is that of a state, or public, or, as
sometimes called, a compulsory provision for the poor. The poor are
of two classes: first, the impotent poor, in which denomination are
included all who are wholly incapable of work, through old age, in-
fancy, sickness, or corporeal debility; second, the able poor, in which
denomination are included all who are capable of work of some nature
or other; but differing in the degree of their capacity and in the kind of
work of which they are capable.
With respect to the first class, that of poor absolutely impotent,
were there none other than this class there would be little difficulty
either as to the principle or as to the mode of extending relief.
But another class exists, that of the able poor, in relation to which,
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
33
and from the difficulty of discriminating between this class and the
former and of apportioning the degree of public provision to the degree
of actual impotency, arise all the objections to the principle of the
existing pauper system. The evils, also, which are attributed to this
system of diminishing the industry, destroying the economical habits
and eradicating the providence of the laboring class of society may all
be referred to the same source, the difficulty of discriminating between
the able poor, and of apportioning the degree of public provision to the
degree of actual impotency.
This difficulty cannot, apparently, be removed by any legislative
provision. There must be, in the nature of things, numerous and
minute shades of difference between the pauper who, through im-
potency, can do absolutely nothing and the pauper who is able to do
something, but that, very little. Nor does the difficulty of discrimina-
tion proportionally diminish as the ability in any particular pauper to
do something increases. There must always exist so many circum-
stances of age, sex, previous habits, muscular or mental strength, to be
taken into account that society is absolutely incapable to fix any
standard or to prescribe any rule by which the claim of right to the
benefit of the public provision shall absolutely be determined. The con-
sequence is that the admission or rejection of the claim to such relief is
necessarily left to the discretion of overseers, or to those who are in-
trusted by law with the distribution of the public charity.
The necessity of intrusting this discretion, the class of society to
which it must be intrusted and the circumstances and feelings under
which such distribution must be made are the proximate causes of the
evils resulting from a public or compulsory provision for the poor.
From the nature of things this discretion will always be intrusted
to men generally in easy circumstances; that is, to the prosperous class
of society. "The humanity natural to this class will never see the poor
in anything like want when that want is palpably and visibly brought
before it, without extending relief." Much less will this be the case
when they have means placed in their hands by society itself applicable
to this very purpose. In executing the trust they will amost unavoid-
ably be guided by sentiments of pity and compassion, and be very little
influenced by the consideration of the effect of the facility or fullness
of provision to encourage habits of idleness, dissipation and extrava-
gance among the class which labor. "They first give necessaries, then
comforts; and often, in the end, pamper rather than relieve.”
If the means placed under their control are confined to provision for
34
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the poor, in public poor, or almshouses, the effect of these dispositions
and feelings appears in the ease with which admission is obtained, the
kindness with which the poor are treated during their residence and
in the superiority of the food of the public table to that to which they
have been accustomed. (If those means consist of funds, the same tem-
per and feelings predominate in their distribution. It is laborious to as-
certain the exact merit of each applicant. Supply is sometimes exces-
sive; at others, misplaced. The poor begin to consider it as a right;
next, they calculate upon it as an income. The stimulus to industry and
economy is annihilated or weakened, temptations to extravagance and
dissipation are increased in proportion as public supply is likely or
certain or desirable. The just pride of independence so honorable to
man in every condition is thus corrupted by the certainty of public
provision, and is either weakened or destroyed according to the facility
of its attainment or its amount,
Views of this kind connected with the experience of England under
the operation of her poor laws have led some of her most distinguished
statesmen and writers on public economy to denounce all public or
compulsory provision for the poor as increasing the evil they pretend
to remedy and augmenting the misery they undertake to prevent.
Thus the Earl of Sheffield, in his observations on the English poor laws,
published in 1818, declares that
the tendency of all parochial relief is to encourage the worthless and auda-
cious, to suppress the feelings of pity toward the poor, to lessen their honest
exertions, to deprave their morals, to destroy the notions of a provident
spirit, to multiply their number, offering a premium for indolence, prodigal-
ity and vice, and stopping that course of things by which want leads to labor,
labor to comfort, the knowledge of comfort to industry and its consequent
virtues, and neglecting that respectable poverty which shrinks from public
view; it encourages all those abominable arts which make beggary and parish
relief a better trade than labor.
The celebrated Henry Brougham also, in a letter to Sir Samuel
Romilly, published in the same year, on the abuse of public charities,
lays it down as "a principle which will admit of no contradiction that
the existence of any permanent fund for the support of the poor, the
appropriation of any revenue, however raised, which must be per-
emptorily expended, as maintaining such as have no other means of
subsistence, has, upon the whole, a direct tendency to increase their
numbers." To the class of funds "directly productive of paupers," he
refers “all revenues of almshouses, hospitals and schools where children
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
35
are supported as well as educated; all yearly sums to be given away
to mendicants or poor families, and, above all, the statutory provision
for the poor itself."
Your committee, in placing in this strong light the objections to the
entire principle of our existing pauper laws, have had no intention to
recommend, nor any idea that their investigations would ultimately
result in an abolition of those laws altogether in Massachusetts. But
they have been induced to this statement from a consideration that to
any effectual attempt to ameliorate the present system of the pauper
laws a distinct apprehension of the nature of the objections to them
should be attained; and the real nature of the evils, as well as the man-
ner in which the causes which induce them operate should be known
and made familiar to our fellow citizens. It is apparent, also,
that a similar train of thought exists in some parts of this Common-
wealth.
•
Taking it for granted, therefore, that the present system of making
some public or compulsory provision for the poor is too deeply riveted
in the affections or the moral sentiment of our people, to be loosened
by theories, however plausible, or supported by however high names
of authority, your committee next turn their attention to the various
modes which, it appeared by the returns from the various Overseers of
the Poor in this Commonwealth, had been adopted in different towns,
and compared the results of their experience with that of Great Britain;
so far as they had the means of such comparison. Your committee
found these modes to be four:
1. Provision for the poor by letting them out to the lowest bidder, in families
at large, within the town.
2. Provision by letting them to the lowest bidder, together; that is, all to
one person.
3. Provision by supplies, in money or articles, at their own houses.
4. Provision by poor or almshouses.
As to the first mode, your committee do not consider it as of a
nature to require much examination or analysis. It is obviously ap-
plicable only to very small towns. That it is exceptionable in its prin-
ciple is well illustrated by the reflections of the Overseers of the Poor
of the town of Danvers, annexed to this report. And how liable to
abuses it is may be gathered from the remarks of those of the town of
Chilmark, who state "that in that town the average expense of sup-
porting adults and children is about one dollar and thirty cents per
head per week; this," they add, "we consider a large sum, but the poor
36
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
being sometimes boarded with those who are in want themselves, it is not
lost to the town."
As to the second mode, it partakes of the character of the preceding.
It is also, as is well observed by the Overseers of the town of Sutton,
"an approximation to the method of supporting them in a poor house
and is a diminution of the expense." It is obviously more unexception-
able in other respects than boarding them to the lowest bidder at
large.
As to the third mode, provision for the poor by 'supplies of money
or articles at their own houses, the result of the experience of England
is unequivocally stated to be that
the discretion of the Overseers of the Poor, exercised in this way, has been
the source of abuse, mismanagement and waste; that supplies, if given in
money, are mischievous and often misapplied; when given for necessaries,
as expended by the men in ale, and by the women for tea and sugar; that
when given in articles of food and clothing they were often sold to obtain
luxuries, encouraged other applications, checked exertion and promoted
habits of indolence and dissipation; and that the great object of English
policy ought to be to eradicate this mode of parish support.
Your committee apprehend that the general current of the evidence
resulting from the annexed returns from towns, who have adopted the
system of poor houses and prohibited parish support in private families,
coincides with the general experience of England in this respect.
As to the fourth and last mode, provision by poor, or almshouses,
the experience of England has resulted in this, that
in every case where means of work were connected with such houses in united
districts, and when they have been superintended by the principal inhabi-
tants, they have been greatly beneficial. This has been done in various parts
of England by a number of parishes being united into one district, with evi-
dent good effect both as it respects the condition of the poor, and also as to
the reduction of the expense.
For this purpose it is obvious that they ought to be well regulated,
under the superintendence of the principal inhabitants of the vicinity;
and be conducted systematically with strictness and intelligence.
As, however, to the economy of this mode of providing for the poor
by means of an almshouse, with a small farm or extent of land suffi-
cient for agricultural purposes attached, your committee apprehend
that nothing can be added to the demonstration of its advantages from
the annexed abstract of returns from the towns of Rowley, Hubbards-
town, Reading, Hingham, Duxbury, Danvers, Roxbury, Newbury-
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
37
port, Dorchester, Quincy, Andover, West Cambridge, and Salem, all
of which returns contain a mass of information highly honorable to
their respective boards of overseers, and well worthy to be dissemi-
nated through the state, not only by way of example to other towns,
but as presenting, in the apprehension of your committee, a series of
facts well authenticated and sufficient to be made the basis of an uni-
form system of provision for paupers throughout the Commonwealth.
Upon the whole your committee apprehend that the experience
both of England and of Massachusetts concur in the five following re-
sults, which may be well adopted as principles in relation to the whole
subject:
1. That of all modes of providing for the poor, the most wasteful,
the most expensive, and most injurious to their morals and destructive
to their industrious habits is that of supply in their own families.
2. That the most economical mode is that of almshouses having
the character of workhouses or houses of industry, in which work is
provided for every degree of ability in the pauper, and thus the able
poor made to provide, partially at least, for their own support, and
also to the support or, at least, the comfort of the impotent poor.
3. That of all modes of employing the labor of the pauper, agri-
culture affords the best, the most healthy, and the most certainly
profitable; the poor being thus enabled to raise always at least their
own provisions.
4. That the success of these establishments depends upon their
being placed under the superintendence of a board of overseers con-
stituted of the most substantial and intelligent inhabitants of the
vicinity.
5. That of all causes of pauperism, intemperance in the use of
spirituous liquors is the most powerful and universal.
Under the conviction of the soundness of these principles and of
their general applicability to the existing condition of the Common-
wealth, your committee would proceed at once to recommend a system
of measures founded upon them, had they only to consult their own
sense of duty and expediency. But in coincidence with the opinion
expressed in the commencement of this report, considering the great-
ness of the subject and the importance to the final success of any meas-
ures which may be recommended, that the sentiment as well as active
support of their fellow citizens should co-operate, they have deemed
it sufficient at this stage of proceeding simply to present this elucida-
tion of the general principles connected with the subject, accompanied
•
38
--
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
by those important details of the experience and opinions of the several
towns in this Commonwealth, which are contained in the subjoined
document.
The first step towards effecting a remedy of any existing public evil
is to make the community realize its nature and to promote a knowl-
edge of its general relations. It will not be difficult to arrange the de-
tails of any system which shall be supported by a general conviction of
its propriety among the enlightened citizens of the Commonwealth.
Your committee, also, must further remark that although the
General Court have great reason to be satisfied with the promptitude
and exactness with which their request, made at the last session, was
complied with by so great a number of towns, yet the information at-
tained is far from complete, only one hundred and sixty-two towns
having made any returns.
To a complete and satisfactory arrangement of the whole subject,
an exact knowledge of the number and expense of paupers in every
town in the Commonwealth is requisite. And it appears that this can
only be with certainty obtained from all by a course of proceedings
more authoritative than that of request.
While, therefore, your committee on the one hand are of opinion
that no subject more imperiously claims the attention and solicitude
of the Legislature, that it is the duty of society by general arrangements
to attempt to diminish the increase of pauperism, as well as to make
provision for that which is inevitable; that diminution of the evil is
best and most surely to be effected by making almshouses houses of
industry, and not abodes of idleness, and denying for the most part all
supply from public provision, except on condition of admission into the
public institution; and that of all modes of employing the industry of
the poor, the best is in agriculture; yet, on the other hand, they are
also of opinion that no ultimate system should be founded upon these
principles, until they have been laid before their fellow citizens for their
contemplation. Certainty and general satisfaction being in cases of
this nature much more important than expedition.
Your committee, therefore, only recommend that measures should
be adopted to communicate to their fellow citizens in the several towns
the results of this investigation; that measures should be taken to
insure returns from the several towns of the gross aggregate of their
several expenses on account of paupers for at least one year, and also
the whole number of paupers by each town supported during that year;
and that a committee should be appointed, instructed to report at the
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
39
next session, a system of Town or District Almshouses, with such rules,
regulations and provisions for their management and government as
shall be best adapted to promote the great objects contemplated in
this report, and conformable to its general principles, in the form of a
bill or bills; having a reference to placing the whole subject of the poor
in the Commonwealth under the regular and annual superintendence
of the Legislature.
For the committee,
JOSIAH QUINCY, Chairman
3. The Relief and Settlement of the Poor'
In obedience to concurrent resolutions of the honourable the Senate
and Assembly, of the 16th and 18th of April, 1823, instructing the
Secretary of State among other things, "to collect from the several
towns cities and counties of this state, such information as would be
necessary to give a distinct view of the expenses and operation of the
laws, for the relief and settlement of the poor; and also such informa-
tion from other states, with respect to their poor laws, as would show
the effect of those systems, and suggest improvements in our own;
and that he communicate an abstract or digest of such information to
the legislature,” the following report is respectfully submitted.
During a considerable portion of the preceding year, the secretary
was engaged in directing his enquiries to every source from which
intelligence could be procured, on the subjects embraced in the pre-
ceding resolutions. The important nature of those resolutions, no less
than his own sense of duty, induced him to use every exertion for aid-
ing in the accomplishment of an object so deeply interesting to the
community, as an inquiry into the cause and nature of the evils of
pauperism, and the best means for meliorating or removing them. The
statistical information thus procured, from different parts of this state,
and of the United States, he has now the honor of presenting to the
legislature, consisting of two parts, in a form as digested and condensed
as the subject would admit.
The first part exhibits the number of paupers in the several cities,
towns and counties in this state; the sums of money expended for their
¹ Extract from New York Legislature, Report and Other Papers on Subject of
Laws for Relief and Settlement of Poor (in Assembly Journal [January, 1824], pp.
386–99, Appendix B; Senate Journal, Appendix A); reprinted in Thirty-fourth Annual
Report of the State Board of Charities of the State of New York, I (1900), 939–43;
945-47; 948-60; 962–63.
40
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
maintenance and relief; the sums expended for the costs and fees of
justices, overseers of the poor, and constables, in the examination and
removal of paupers, and in other incidental services, together with the
costs and expenses of instituting, conducting, managing, and defending
appeals from orders of removal; the number of paupers removed; the
ratio of pauperism in each county, and the ratio of taxation imposed
on each county for the maintenance and relief of the poor; the amount
of taxes raised for that purpose, in the several counties, for the last
six years; and extracts of letters from mayors of cities, supervisors and
clerks of counties, overseers of the poor of towns, and from other
sources entitled to credit; showing the management, general success,
and effect of the various local experiments in the state, for the support
of the poor, either by towns or in poor houses.
The second part exhibits a digest or analysis of the poor laws of most
of the states in the union, with extracts from official letters and docu-
ments, showing the operation and effect of those laws, together with a
view of the state of pauperism in Europe, and brief extracts from works
of American and European writers, illustrative of the evils of pauper-
ism, and suggesting plans for their melioration and removal.
Although the information received from the several towns and
counties in answer to the communications transmitted to them, is not,
in every instance, as full and satisfactory as could have been desired,
(as several towns neglected to make returns, and others made im-
perfect ones) yet it is believed, that sufficient data appear for the pur-
poses contemplated by the concurrent resolutions of the Senate and
Assembly. It is also observable, that the information derived from
some of our sister states, is more limited than had been anticipated.
From these several digests, or abstracts, the following general
views, connected with some necessary details, are respectfully pre-
sented to the legislature.
The poor of this state consist of two classes-the permanent poor
or those who are regularly supported, during the whole year, at the
public expense; and the occasional, or temporary poor, or those who
receive occasional relief, during a part of the year, chiefly in the autumn
or winter.
Of the first class, according to the official reports and estimates re-
ceived, there are, in this state, 6,896; and of the last, 15,215; making a
grand total of 22,111 paupers. Among the permanent paupers, there
are 446 idiots and lunatics; 287 persons who are blind; 928 who are
extremely aged and infirm; 797 who are lame, or in such a confirmed
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
41
state of ill health, as to be totally incapable of labor; 2,604 children,
under 14 years of age, and 1,789 paupers of both sexes, all of whom,
though not in the vigor of life, may yet be considered capable of earn-
ing their subsistence, if proper labor were assigned, and suitable means
used to induce them to perform it, and whose labor might produce at
least 150,000 dollars annually to the state. Of the whole number of
permanent paupers, the returns and estimates will warrant the asser-
tion, that at least 1,585 male persons were reduced to that state by the
excessive use of ardent spirits; and of consequence, that their families
(consisting of 989 wives, and 2,167 children) were reduced to the same
penury and want; thus presenting strong evidence of the often asserted
fact, that "Intemperance has produced more than two-thirds of all the
permanent pauperism in the state": and there is little hazard in add-
ing, that to the same cause may be ascribed more than one half of the
occasional pauperism. Of the whole number of both classes of paupers,
10,523 are males, and 11,588 females (being an excess of 1,065 female
paupers): 5,883, including their children in that number, are either
aliens or naturalised foreigners; and 16,228, including also their chil-
dren, are native citizens.
Ad
There are 8,753 children of both classes under 14 years of age, the
greater number of whom is entirely destitute of education, and equally
in want of that care and attention, which are so necessary to inculcate
correct moral habits: It is feared that this mass of pauperism, will at
no distant day form a fruitful nursery for crime, unless prevented by
the watchful superintendance of the legislature.
In eighteen counties bordering on the ocean, and on the Hudson
river, with a population of only 582,225 souls, being somewhat more
than a third of our entire population, no less than 12,270 permanent and
occasional paupers, are maintained or relieved, being far more than one
half of all the paupers in the state. The city of New York alone main-
tains 1,698 permanent paupers, and relieves 7,858 occasional paupers,
being more than three sevenths of all the paupers of both classes, and
nearly one fourth of all the permanent poor.
It will hardly be necessary to explain the cause of this great
disparity. It will be found in the dense population of that city, and of
the large villages and towns, which, from their convenient situation for
navigation and commerce, allure to their haunts and recesses, the idle
and dissolute of every description.
Populous places have at all times, been burthened with a larger
proportion of paupers, than places where a thin or scattered population
42
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
is found; and the evil sufficiently indicates the necessity of a rigid
police, for compelling the sturdy vagrant to abandon his vicious pur-
suits: It is due, however, to the intelligence and activity of our munici-
pal authorities, and to the character of our people, to notice the com-
paratively happy exemption of our cities, from that profligate, and
disgusting character of street beggary, which seems to have been en-
tailed on most of the large cities of Europe.
In this state there is one permanent pauper for every 220 souls, and
one for every 100 occasionally.
In Massachusetts, one for every 68 souls is a permanent pauper.
In Connecticut, one for every 150.
In New Hampshire, one for every 100.
In Delaware, one for every 227.
In the interior counties of Pennsylvania, one for every 339, and
throughout the state, one for every 265.
In Illinois there are no paupers supported at the public expense,
or their number is so small that no comparative estimate can be pre-
sented.
The information received from the other states in the union will
not authorise any clear or satisfactory statement to be made of the
ratio of pauperism in those states, although it may be generally re-
marked, that in Rhode Island, and Virginia, it is less than in our own
state, and that in Pennsylvania, Delaware, Rhode-Island and Vir-
ginia, where the poor-house system has prevailed for the greatest
length of time, and to the greatest extent, the ratio of pauperism, and
of the amount of expense is less than it is in any other state in which
that system has been more recently or partially introduced. . .
The next branch of this subject, is the amount of the whole pauper
expense which has been borne by the state for several years past.
In the year 1815, according to the returns and estimates received,
the whole pauper expense in this state, derived from taxation and the
excise duties, amounted to 245,000 dollars. In the year 1819, it had
increased to 368,645 dollars, and in 1822, to 470,000. The excise duties
during the year 1822, are computed to exceed 66,600 dollars, and the
costs and expenses of justices, overseers, and constables, in examining
and removing paupers, and in other duties incident thereto, together
with the expenses of appeals from orders of removal, exceeded 64,450
dollars. This amount of expense (which, with ordinary management
and care alone, would be sufficient to maintain at least 2,148 paupers in
an almshouse for a whole year) is certainly too large a deduction from
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
43
our pauper funds, not to call for correction, especially when we con-
sider the benevolent purposes for which our poor laws were professedly
instituted. 1,796 paupers, among whom were more than 600 children
and 320 women, were removed (and many of them while sick and
diseased) during the year 1822, to different parts of the state, under
orders or warrants of justices, at an expense far exceeding 25,000 dol-
lars; a sum [which] if it had been applied for their support instead of
their removal, would have maintained 833 of those paupers for a whole
year, being nearly half the number removed. From these orders of re-
moval, there were no less than 127 appeals to the courts of general
sessions of the peace, the management and defence of which, cost the
litigant parties upwards of 13,500 dollars, a sum equal to the support of
450 paupers for a year.
With respect to the amount necessary for the support of a pauper
in an almshouse, it appears to be variously estimated, as much depends
on the skill, fidelity, and management of the keeper, the number of
paupers supported and able to work, the expense of fuel, the contiguity
of the institution to a market town, the economy of the house, and the
conveniences for agricultural labour, connected with it. It is believed
that with proper care and attention, and under favorable circum-
stances, the average annual expense in an almshouse, having a con-
venient farm attached to it, will not exceed from 20 to 35 dollars for
the support of each pauper, exclusive of the amount of labour he may
perform; while out of an almshouse, it will not be less than from 33 to
65 dollars, and in many instances where the pauper is old and infirm,
or diseased, from 80 to 100 dollars, and even more.
There are few regular and well established poor-houses in this state.
In the year 1820, authority was given to erect a house of industry in
the county of Rensselaer, and that institution which has been estab-
lished, and is in full operation, has completely fulfilled, if not surpassed
the expectation of its founders.
It would perhaps be proper to mention in this place, that the
judicious and satisfactory report made of its management and econ-
omy, furnishes very clear and decided evidence of the success of the
poor-house system. . . .
From the preceding statement, it will be seen, that the average
annual expense for supporting a pauper in the almshouses above men-
tioned, differs from $20.28 cents to 53 dollars; but it is proper to add,
that a variety of circumstances have concurred to render this inequal-
ity so considerable, and the legislature are respectfully referred for par-
44
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ticulars to the extracts of letters from the supervisors of towns, and
superintendents of such institutions, accompanying this report. One
circumstance, however, is too striking to be omitted: that all those ex-
tracts, with but few exceptions, speak in the strongest terms of the
efficacy of the poor-house system, the great saving of expense it has
produced, and the improved state of the poor, in consequence of
adopting this plan for their support.
In most, or all of the towns and villages in the state, where there
are no almshouses, the poor are disposed of by the overseers in one of
three ways: First, The overseers farm them out at stipulated prices
to contractors, who are willing to receive and keep them, on condition.
of getting what labor they can out of the paupers: Or Secondly, The
poor are sold by auction-the meaning of which is, that he who will
support them for the lowest prices, becomes their keeper; and it often
happens of course, that the keeper is almost himself a pauper before he
purchases, and he adopts this mode, in order not to fall a burthen upon
the town: Thus he, and another miserable human being, barely subsist
on what would hardly comfortably maintain himself alone—a species
of economy much boasted of by some of our town officers and pur-
chasers of paupers: Or, Thirdly, Relief is afforded to the poor at their
own habitations.
The expenses for physicians and nurses, in attending paupers, in
towns where there are no poor houses, form a very prominent article
in the amount of taxation. Pauperism and disease, except in an alms-
house, are generally found associated together, and hence it is, that
this item of expense is so much complained of in the towns just alluded
to.
After a full examination of the pauper system and its various pro-
visions and results, two questions will probably arise for the considera-
tion of the legislature.
The first is-Ought the whole system to be abolished, and the sup-
port of the poor left altogether to the voluntary contribution of the
charitable and humane. Or,
Secondly. If the system ought not to be abolished, is it susceptible
of improvement, and in what mode can it be best effected?
The affirmative of the first proposition, viz. That there ought to be
no compulsory provision for the poor, has many powerful advocates.
Men of great literary acquirements, and profound political research,
have insisted, that distress and poverty multiply in proportion to the
funds created to relieve them, and that the establishment of any poor
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
45
rates is not only unnecessary, but hurtful. It is not the design of this
report, nor would it be proper, and certainly it would not be possible
in the compass of an ordinary report, to enter into a discussion of the
merits of a question which has agitated and divided the most dis-
tinguished writers both in Europe and America, and has called forth
volumes of facts and arguments in support of both sides of this difficult
and perplexing question.
It may, however, be remarked, that there is a wide and manifest
difference between the character, habits, and manners of the population
of this country and those of Europe; besides, pauperism there, has
become truly frightful, and almost ruinous; for with a population of
one hundred and seventy-eight millions of souls, Europe contains no
less than eighteen millions of paupers. The poor rates in England, in
the year 1819, exceeded thirty-five millions five hundred and fifty-five
thousand dollars, and they are stated to be at present, not less than
fifty millions. Now, in this country, the labor of three days will readily
supply the wants of seven; while in Europe the labor of the whole week
will barely suffice for the maintenance and support of the family of an
industrious laborer or peasant.
It is worthy of particular observation too, that every state in the
union, and many governments in Europe, have adopted a code of laws
for the relief and maintenance of the poor; even in China, the laws of
the empire have made provision for their support. All this is certainly
no slight proof that the total want of a proper system, would be incon-
sistent with a humane, liberal, and enlightened policy. Indeed it can
hardly be urged, that the idiot and lunatic, the sick, the aged, and the
infant (and few others, perhaps, should be made the objects of legal
support) ought to be placed in this precarious state for protection and
subsistence; and still less will it be pretended, that no provision ought
to be made for the education of the children of the poor; and though
it is true to a certain extent, that compulsory provision for the relief
of pauperism has a tendency to impair that anxiety for a livelihood
which is almost instinctive, and thus to relax individual exertion by
unnerving the arm of industry: yet the consequence by no means fol-
lows, that all provision of that nature should be abandoned, because
individual cases of its abuse might, and perhaps necessarily, would
exist. A similar objection could be urged against the adoption of any
insolvent system because it not only produces great improvidence and
neglect in the ordinary concerns of life, but it is also frequently the
parent of perjury and fraud. All then perhaps that can be done under
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
such circumstances, is to prevent or check, in the best manner that
human legislation can devise, those excrescences that cannot be
eradicated from wholesome and necessary systems, without destroy-
ing the systems themselves.
Proceeding then upon the necessity and utility of having a pauper
system, the remaining question is, "whether our present laws are sus-
ceptible of improvement, and if so, in what manner it can be best
effected." Before we can apply a remedy with certainty and success,
it is necessary to have a distinct view of the existing evils intended to be
removed. That our poor laws are manifestly defective in principle, and
mischievous in practice, and that under the imposing and charitable
aspect of affording relief exclusively to the poor and infirm, they fre-
quently invite the able bodied vagrant to partake of the same bounty,
are propositions very generally admitted. Indeed, the full and satis-
factory details given by the society for the prevention of pauperism
in the city of New York, and also by the writers of extracts of letters
accompanying this report, of the gross abuses which have grown out of
these laws, irresistibly force themselves upon the mind, and deserve
great attention. Without intending to enter into details, it will be
sufficient generally to state, ist. That our present poor laws (as has
already been suggested) lead to litigation of the most expensive and
hurtful kind, in appeals and law suits concerning the settlement, main-
tenance and removal of paupers, exhausting nearly one-ninth of the
funds intended for their relief, in the payment of fees of justices, over-
seers, lawyers, and constables, and are at the same time productive of
much cruelty in the removal of paupers, frequently at inclement sea-
sons of the year, regardless of the claims of age, sex or condition.
The removal of so many human beings, like felons, for no other
fault than poverty, seems inconsistent with the spirit of a system pro-
fessing to be founded on principles of pure benevolence and humanity.
English jurists of celebrity, and among the number, Sir William Black-
stone, have reprobated this feature in their poor laws (and from which
ours have been copied) as inconsistent with the genius of a free gov-
ernment, and as being an invasion upon natural and inalienable rights.
2d. The poor, when farmed out, or sold, are frequently treated
with barbarity and neglect by their keepers. More than one instance
has stained our judicial records, in which it appeared that the pauper
had suffered such cruelty and torture from his keeper, as to produce
untimely dissolution. The British parliament, the Massachusetts legis-
lature, and almost every writer on the subject of pauperism, have con-
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
47
demned these modes of providing for the support of the poor, as being
wasteful, in regard of economy, and cruel in regard of the paupers
themselves.
3d. The education and morals of the children of paupers (except
in almshouses) are almost wholly neglected. They grow up in filth,
idleness, ignorance and disease, and many become early candidates for
the prison or the grave. The evidence on this head is too voluminous
even for reference.
4th. There is no adequate provision for the employment of the poor
throughout the state, and no industrious habit can be effectually incul-
cated under our present system. This is indeed a very principle defect.
Without providing employment for the poor, no system can be pro-
ductive of much good, either to the public, or the paupers themselves.
Idleness necessarily generates vice, dissipation, disease and crime.
5th. The poor laws tend to encourage the sturdy beggar and prof-
ligate vagrant, to become pensioners upon the public funds. The facili-
ties afforded them, in being placed upon the pauper list, operate as so
many invitations to become beggars. Overseers not unfrequently grant
relief without sufficient examination into the circumstances or ability
of the party claiming it, or without the means of ascertaining them.
6th. These laws also hold out encouragement to the successful
practice of street beggary.
7th. Idiots and lunatics do not receive sufficient care and attention
in towns, where no suitable asylums for their reception are established.
8th. There is an evident want of economy in the disbursement of
the public funds, appropriated for the support of the poor in several
towns and counties. In one county particularly (Oswego) the monies
raised by tax for the fees of officers, and appeals, exceeded the amount
raised for the support of the poor.
Independently of these defects, there are embarrassments attend-
ing the execution of those laws, which either prevent their being fully
carried into effect, or if resort be had to their provisions, produce
enormous expense. The law of settlements has become the most fruit-
ful source of litigation and difficulty. The qualifications necessary to
constitute a settlement, are so technical, numerous, and complicated,
if not obscure, that even eminent counsel are often at a loss to deter-
mine questions arising upon this branch of our pauper system. What
then must be expected from the decisions of men, unlearned in our
laws, and upon whom their execution is so frequently imposed? It
seems, therefore, that some plain, and simple rule defining a settlement,
ma
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ought to be adopted. The penalties inflicted by some of our sister
states, upon those who bring, or leave paupers within their jurisdic-
tion, have deterred our officers from executing orders of removal, to
take paupers out of this state. Thus the principal object intended to
be obtained by the law concerning removals, has been almost wholly
defeated; nor is there any adequate provision for preventing the prac-
tice of fraudulently introducing paupers into towns, cities, or counties,
where they do not belong, in order to charge them with their support,
and by these means relieve some other towns or counties from the
burthen. Paupers even from the Canadas, are thus introduced among
us, and become a heavy charge upon our frontier counties. It may be
added also, that boards of supervisors do not possess sufficient means
of investigating the accounts for maintaining county paupers, pre-
sented to them for allowance against the county. These boards cannot
subpoena, nor examine witnesses upon oath, touching the justice of the
accounts, nor whether the paupers were in fact county paupers; and
as overseers of the poor, not unfrequently feel disposed to cast the
support of a pauper, rather upon the county, than upon their own
towns, the want of this power has been severely felt in several parts of
the state.
It has been likewise stated that the provision in our laws which
directs a town where a pauper becomes chargeable by sickness or acci-
dent, to give notice to the town in which he is legally settled, to pay the
expense of his relief, is rendered so difficult and expensive in its execu-
tion on account frequently of the remote situation of the latter town,
that this provision is rendered almost nugatory.
These are some of the embarassments attending the execution of
our pauper laws; and there are likewise other provisions complained of
as defective or unjust; as for instance: Overseers are in some cases
liable in their individual capacity for monies adjudged against the
towns, and warrants are served upon their property to enforce the pay-
ment of those monies. This is more peculiarly oppressive as it is
doubted whether the overseers thus made chargeable, have any com-
pulsory process against a refractory town for reimbursement: again—
It is represented that the removal of a pauper "from constable to
constable," till he arrives at his place of destination, gives rise to great
expense and trouble (to say nothing of its cruelty) much of which
might be saved, if the justices could send the pauper the whole dis-
tance, under the care of one constable, or (provided it was thought
proper by those magistrates) under the care of a person specially de-
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
49
puted for the purpose, with all the powers of a constable: and it is
objected to the whole system of removals, that until the legal settle-
ment of a pauper shall have been definitely ascertained, by legal ad-
judication, no removal ought to take place; because, when an order is
reversed, the like expense and trouble are incurred, by removing the
pauper back again, to the place whence he was first taken. In the city
of New York, difficulties have existed in making orders of removal, in
cases where, although the county where the pauper was settled was well
known, the particular town or towns could not be ascertained with
sufficient certainty and precision. Again—it is objected that the pro-
vision requiring the assent of a justice to every order for relief, before
relief can be afforded to a pauper, is, in cases of extreme necessity, or
sudden sickness, such as women in child-birth, wounds, &c. attended
with more delay than is consistent with humanity, especially where the
magistrate lives 8, 10 or 12 miles from the place where the necessity
of the case requires immediate aid and attention. Some other difficul-
ties are suggested, such as the delay and expense attending the mak-
ing of an order by the court of general sessions upon a father for the
support of his son, and vice versa; and it is urged, that they indicate the
necessity of conferring that power upon justices in towns. Besides, no
provision exists for relieving a person in prison, upon civil process,
when his settlement is not in the town where the gaol is placed, while
persons charged with crimes are relieved at the county expense.
These and other defects have been suggested to exist in our pauper
systems, and they certainly require correction.
Until a system therefore can be devised, which, with economy and
humanity, will administer relief to the indigent and infirm, incapable
of labor, provide employment for the idle, and impart instruction
to the young and ignorant, little hope can be entertained of melio-
rating the condition of our poor or relieving the community from the
growing evils of pauperism. "If these duties are performed," says an
elegant writer, "then the increased population of our poor, becomes
security, power, glory, and dominion. If they are neglected, danger
and ultimate destruction."
G
To devise such a system is confessedly a task as arduous as any
that falls within the whole range of political and economical experi-
ment; and statesmen of the most profound talents and extensive re-
search, have lamented their inability to provide a full and competent
remedy. All the systems that have yet been devised, have only in a
greater or less degree, approximated to the end in view, without having
50
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ever completely reached it. It is then with the greatest diffidence and
embarrassment that the secretary has approached the performance of
the last duty imposed by the concurrent resolutions of the honorable
the Senate and Assembly, to wit: To prepare for their considerațion
"a law, relieving the state from the evils of pauperism, and affording
adequate support to such of the poor as ought to become exclusively
the subjects of relief."
In obedience, however, to the directions of the legislature, a bill
has been prepared and submitted for revision to the Attorney General,
and it is now respectfully presented, accompanying this report. With-
out professing to believe that its adoption will remove altogether the
evils alluded to, (for so long as human frailty and vice prevail, the
hope would be vain) it is presumed that it will remove or ameliorate
many of them. And it is also confidently believed, that two prominent
features of the proposed system, are entitled to much consideration, to
wit: First, It will relieve the poor with greater humanity, and em-
phatically with more economy, than under the existing poor laws:
And, secondly,—It will provide employment for the idle, and compel
them to labor, and of consequence put an end to the practice of street
beggary. It is obvious, however, that vigilance, fidelity and intelli-
gence, in the officers to whom the execution of this plan is entrusted,
are indispensable to those favorable results.
The plan submitted, proposes as improvements to the present
pauper system:
First.-The establishment of one or more houses of employment,
under proper regulations, in each of the counties of this state, with a
farm of sufficient extent, to be connected with each institution. The
paupers there to be maintained and employed at the expense of the
respective counties, in some healthful labor, chiefly agricultural, their
children to be carefully instructed, and at suitable ages, to be put out to
some useful business or trade.
Secondly. That each house of employment be connected with a
workhouse or penitentiary, for the reception and discipline of sturdy
beggars and vagrants. The discipline to consist either of confinement
upon a rigid diet, hard labor, employment at the stepping mill, or some
treatment equally efficacious in restraining their vicious appetites and
pursuits.
Thirdly. That the excise duties be increased, and a tax be laid
upon the owners of distilleries of whiskey, and other ardent spirits, to
compose a fund for the relief and maintenance of the poor.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
51
Fourthly. That one year's residence in a county shall constitute a
settlement (except in certain specified cases) instead of the present
difficult and perplexing requisites of a settlement, which are contained
in our poor laws.
Fifthly. That all orders of removal, and consequently appeals, be
abolished; persons who claim relief, shall receive it in the county where
they become sick or infirm the healthy vagrant shall be commanded
to return to the county where he belongs; and upon refusal, shall be
sent to the workhouse, and there treated according to his demerits. It
is believed that no order of removal, under the present system, can be
so effectual, and certainly none so economical, as the one here sug-
gested.
Sixthly. That no male person in health, with the use of all his
faculties, and being between the ages of 18 and 50 years, shall be placed
upon the pauper list, or be maintained at the public expense.
Seventhly. That severe penalties be inflicted upon all those who
bring to, or leave in, a county, paupers, not legally chargeable to it.
Eighthly. That street beggary be entirely prohibited-Beggars of
this description, to be instantly sent to the workhouse; and magistrates
shall be subject to indictment and punishment, for any neglect of this
duty; and grand juries shall be specially charged to inquire into such
neglects, and to present the offenders.
Ninthly.—That the expenses of erecting and completing each house
of employment, be paid by the county, and raised by tax, in four equal
annual instalments.
Tenthly. That persons in prison, on civil process, and their fam-
ilies, shall be maintained, if necessary, at the expense of the county in
which they are imprisoned. (For the support of this class of paupers,
when imprisoned in towns in which they are not settled, there is at
present no legal provision.)
There are several other provisions in the proposed bill; but the
foregoing are believed to be the most prominent. It has been supposed
unnecessary to state, in this report, the numerous details required to
give effect to the system.
From these general views it will be perceived, that the adoption of
the poor-house plan, in every county, is recommended by the proposed
bill; and it may safely be affirmed, that wherever that plan has been
fairly tried, the expense of supporting paupers has decreased 33, and
in many instances 50 per cent.
Its advantages over every other system for the support of paupers,
52
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are manifest. The experience of our sister states, offers such clear and
conclusive proof on this subject, that a more particular reference to the
information obtained from those states, will, it is hoped, prove not un-
acceptable.
In Rhode Island, the establishment of poor-houses has diminished
the expense of supporting paupers more than one-third, besides im-
proving the condition of the poor, in order, sobriety, cleanliness, and
real comfort. Women wholly unacquainted with household work, have
been taught to card, spin, and weave, and to perform such kinds of
culinary labor, as are required in the families of farmers; and many of
them are now respectably settled in life, living upon the fruits of their
industry. Religious services, performed on the sabbath, have been very
effectual; and from the utmost disorder and inattention, the paupers
have become, in an uncommon degree, silent and attentive auditors.
Intemperance is wholly restrained, order is preserved, education dif-
fused, and comfort universally seen in those institutions. In Pennsyl-
vania, it is agreed, as well by those immediately entrusted with the
execution of the poor laws, as by those whose opportunities have en-
abled them to pay attention to the subject, that the poor-house system
is greatly superior to the plan of each town providing for its own poor;
and that the expense of supporting the poor, is not only greatly dimin-
ished, but superior accommodation is afforded the paupers in their liv-
ing. Their convenience to medical assistance, and their preservation
from idleness and dissipation, are two important features in the poor-
house plan. Several towns in the state of New Hampshire, have, within
a few years past, purchased farms, with suitable buildings, farming
utensils, and stock, and have placed their poor under the superin-
tendence of proper persons, authorised to compel them to labor. Where
a fair experiment of this system has been made, the result has been
entirely satisfactory. It was adopted in the town of Londonderry, in
the spring of the year 1819; and a saving in expense, of more than one
half, in three years, has already been the consequence. Wherever work
or poor-houses have been established, in the state of Virginia, it was
invariably found that they diminished greatly the number of paupers.
Hundreds of persons before, had been found soliciting pecuniary aid,
few of whom would take refuge in a poor-house, but in the last ex-
tremity. In Connecticut, they are satisfied, that the best and cheapest
way of supporting and employing the poor, is by the establishment of
alms and work-houses. In Massachusetts, as appears from a very full
and elaborate report, made in the year 1821, to the legislature of that
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
53
state, by a committee appointed to consider the subject of pauperism,
a decided preference is given to the poor-house system. In every coun-
ty in the state of Delaware, there is a poor-house, with a farm attached
to it; and the economy and utility of the system there, have been fully
tried and demonstrated. The total expense of supporting a pauper in
the Newcastle poor-house, in that state, is less than five cents per day.
This institution has justly been called "one of the noblest institutions,
of the kind, in the world."
doda
In England, also, the poor-house system has been tried, with great
success, in several districts of country; and other European institu-
tions, such as the work-house or Rasp-house, in Amsterdam; the Sal-
pêtrière and Bicêtre, of Paris; the houses of industry, at Strassburgh and
Hamburgh; and the Great Hospicio, or general workhouse of Cadiz,
have been productive of great benefits, in restraining idleness and
beggary, and in relieving the unfortunate and distressed.
So far as the poor-house system has been tried in our own state, it
has likewise been attended with success; and a strong and general
sentiment seems to prevail in every part of the state, in favor of its
adoption. The communications received from many of our public
officers, clearly show, that this plan is far preferable to any other...
•
It is confidently believed, that with such a mass of evidence before
us, there can be no hazard in adopting the poor-house system, in every
county in the state. If, however, there is any county, whose small
population, in the opinion of the legislature, would not at present war-
rant the expense, suitable provision might be made, either for exempt-
ing it from the operations of the proposed bill, attaching it to some
other county, or directing some small building with a farm to be hired
as a temporary poor-house.
Having thus presented to the legislature, as concisely as the limits
of a report would authorise, the information which the experience of
this state, and of the other states in the union could afford (so far as it
was attainable) the secretary respectfully begs leave to refer the legis-
lature to the accompanying abstracts, digests and papers, for such
other particulars as could not properly fall within the scope of this
report. These will furnish a very valuable and curious body of sta-
tistical information, together with many interesting details of the man-
agement and success of the various local experiments, to improve the
plan of employing and supporting paupers in the state. The opinions
and statements of our town and county officers, reflecting the highest
credit upon their intelligence, fidelity, and zeal, have contributed much
54
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
to the development of the plan proposed for adoption in this report.
Whether the remedy here suggested, for the melioration of our present
system of poor laws, is worthy of a trial, must be submitted to the
superior wisdom and experience of the honorable the legislature; but
the secretary indulges the hope, that with the aid of the materials fur-
nished, and of such others as may be acquired, some system will be
devised, by that honorable body, to relieve the state from the enormous
pressure of its pauper burthens, and check the growing evils of pauper-
ism among us. Arduous as the task may be, and it has been declared
by able statesmen, to be "one of the most difficult problems of govern-
ment," it is yet believed to be not entirely hopeless. The improved
state of society, the diffusion of useful knowledge, by means of com-
mon schools, and other seminaries, the vast tracts of territory yet to
be reclaimed and cultivated, the spirit of enterprise and habits of in-
dustry which so generally pervade our country, the purity of our laws,
the excellence of all our civil institutions, and our remote situation
from European conflicts, oppression and slavery, offer strong induce-
ments for believing that pauperism may, with proper care and atten-
tion, be almost wholly eradicated from our soil; and the attainment of
such an object, adding no less to the honor of our state, than to the
prosperity and welfare of her citizens, has very justly claimed and
received the attention of her legislature.
All of which is respectfully submitted.
J. V. N. YATES, Secretary of State
4. The Legacy of the Poor Law¹
We have adhered in New York substantially to the plan which sug-
gested itself to the statesmen of England about three hundred years
ago, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It is remarkable in other direc-
tions with what tenacity we have clung to the legislative theories of
that period. We still manage our county highways on the same rude and
clumsy plan as was devised in the reign of Philip and Mary; we settle
the estates of deceased friends in local courts patterned after those
which were permitted to exist in the reign of Henry VIII; we care for
our poor in the same disjointed methods as were recognized in the
Elizabethan days. The principle running through that legislation was
local support of the poor with no general superintendence. The care of
paupers was devolved upon parish officials: we have modified this
rule by casting it, at the election of the people, upon the counties,
¹ Extract from Theodore W. Dwight, "The Public Charities of the State of
New York," Journal of Social Science, II (1870), 83.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
55
though, if the inhabitants prefer, a distinction may be retained be-
tween town and county poor, as it is in some counties where the Eliza-
bethan methods are exactly reproduced. Whatever course may be
adopted, the results are alike. "The shade in the two cases may be
different, but the body of the color is the same."
5. The Creation of a City Department¹
SECTION 1. The alms-house department of the city and county of
New-York, including therein the alms-house proper, and the support
and relief of the poor, the county lunatic asylum, and the nurseries for
poor and destitute children, the penitentiary, the city prison, and
Bridewell, and the other prisons and houses of detention in said city,
with the hospitals connected therewith, except the sheriff's jail in
Elbridge street, and the house of refuge, shall hereafter be under the
exclusive control and management of a board of governors, to consist
of ten persons, who shall be named and styled the governors of the
alms-house.
SEC. 2. Richard S. Williams, Jonathan J. Coddington, Simeon
Draper, James H. Titus, (Merchant,) Schureman Halsted, Andrew H.
Mickel, William T. Pinckney, Isaac Townsend, J. Phillips Phoenix,
Timothy Daley, shall be the first board of governors, and two of their
numbers [who] shall be designated by the board, shall go out of office
on the first day of January in each year.
SEC. 3. At every general election held in said city and county, one
of said governors shall be elected and shall hold his office for five years.
No ballot for such governor shall be counted which shall contain more
than one name. Immediately after such election, and the county can-
vass of the votes, if such governor shall be declared duly elected, then
it shall be the duty of the mayor of said city, to appoint the person who
shall have received the next highest number of votes to the one de-
clared elected, as another governor, and to forthwith file a certificate
of such appointment in the county clerk's office. Such two governors
shall enter upon the discharge of their duties on the first day of Janu-
ary next succeeding such general election. The one thus appointed
shall have the same powers and hold his office for the same term as the
one thus elected.
SEC. 4. Said board of governors shall have the full and exclusive
power to govern, manage and direct the several institutions herein-
1 “An Act to Provide for the Government of the Department of Alms and Peni-
tentiary, in the City and County of New York, April 6, 1849," Laws of the State of
New York (1849), chap. 246. See below Part III, Sec. III, Document 1.
56
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•
before mentioned, to appoint such wardens, chaplains, physicians and
clerks, as may be necessary; to define their respective duties and au-
thority; to prescribe the number and duties of the various subordinates
to be employed therein, and to fix the amount of their compensation,
and shall generally possess all the power and authority now by law
conferred, and be subject to the duties imposed on the commissioner
of the alms-house in said city, the common council of said city, and
the board of supervisors of said county, in respect to the said depart-
ment and the said institutions.
SEC. 5. No governor shall, directly or indirectly, be in any way
interested in any contract for supplies or for any other purpose, con-
nected with any of the institutions under the control of the board, or
in any arrangement by which any pecuniary benefit shall result to him-
self. It shall be the duty of any governor who may have any knowledge
or information of the violation of this provision, forthwith to report the
same to the board. Every governor shall, before entering upon the
duties of his office, take and subscribe the oath prescribed in article
twelve of the constitution, which oath, when subscribed, shall be filed
in the office of the county clerk of the city and county of New-York.
SEC. 6. The said governors shall have power to indenture and bind
out, as apprentices, during their minority, any minor children under
their care and control, by reason of the provisions of this act. If subse-
quent to such indenture, any father, mother, or other relative, shall
give satisfactory security, to be filed in the office of said governors, that
such child shall not become a cha ge to the city and county of New-
York, during such minority, thenceforth such indenture shall become.
void, and it shall be the duty of said governors forthwith to cancel the
same. In case any disagreement, as to the sufficiency of such security
tendered, shall occur between said governors, the father, mother, or
other relative of any child, before such security tendered shall become
in any way effectual, it shall be approved by some judge of the supreme
court elected or appointed in and for the city and county of New-York.
SEC. 7. The said wardens, chaplains, physicians and clerks, shall
hold their offices during the pleasure of the board of governors, and
shall receive such compensation as they shall prescribe.
SEC. 8. The said wardens shall respectively have power to appoint
such subordinates as may be required to assist in the proper discharge
of their several duties, who shall hold their offices during the pleasure
of said wardens, but may at any time be removed by the board of
governors.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
57
SEC. 9. The said board of governors shall annually, and in the
month of January, in each year, make to the legislature and to the
common council of the city, a full report of their proceedings, of the
condition of the institutions under their charge, and of all receipts and
expenditures for the preceding year.
SEC. 10. The said common council shall by committees, by them
for that purpose duly appointed, visit and inspect the said department
and all of said institutions, at least twice in each year, and shall have
power to impeach before the supreme court, any of said board of
governors or any officer connected with any of said institutions, and
the said court shall have power at a general or special term, to remove
any of said governors or officers for due cause shown.
SEC. 11. In case of any vacancy in the board of governors, the
remaining members shall fill the same for the residue of the term thus
made vacant.
SEC. 12. The board of supervisors of said county shall annually
raise and collect by tax upon the real and personal property taxable
in the said city and county, such sum of money as said board of gover-
nors shall from time to time require for the purposes of this act, to be
applied by said governors exclusively to said purposes, and to be ac-
counted for by said governors, which sum shall be in lieu of all taxes
in said county for the relief and support of the poor thereof.
SEC. 13. This act shall take effect on the eighth day of May next,
and so much of the act entitled "An act for the better regulation of the
county and state prisons of the state, and consolidating and amending
the existing laws in relation thereto," passed December 14, 1847, as
confers upon the sheriff of the city and county of New-York, any power
or control over any of the prisons named in this act, is hereby repealed:
and on and after the first Tuesday of May next, the office of commis-
sioner of alms-house shall be abolished.
6. A Charge to a Grand Jury™
Let then the community understand,² that in all these cases where
the court is obliged, by law, to condemn to solitary imprisonment and
hard labor, it is deceptive. The sentence is never executed. The real
¹ Extract from Josiah Quincy, Remarks on Some of the Provisions of the Laws of
Massachusetts, Affecting Poverty, Vice, and Crime; being the General Topics of a
Charge to the Grand Jury of the County of Suffolk in the March Term, 1822 (Cam-
bridge, 1822), pp. 17–20.
2 [The grand jury is an ever-present possibility in the field of supervision, avail-
able, however, chiefly for the discovery of conditions in the nature of a nuisance.]
58
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sentence is confinement in the county gaol, amid idleness, often with-
out air; without exercise; exposed to the worst society; and under cir-
cumstances the least calculated to support the mind under temptation,
and the best to corrupt and debase it.¹
In the course of these inquiries, my engagements have permitted
only a personal inspection of the gaols in this vicinity and of the state
prison.
Of Boston gaol, I shall say nothing, because its condition is notori-
ously objectionable. The attention of the community has been long
since drawn to it. And more commodious accommodations are in
course of preparation.
That at Cambridge, being the best prepared, and under an intelli-
gent and well disposed citizen, is probably as well conducted as any in
the commonwealth. Its condition is sufficiently safe and comfortable.
It is well ventilated. But how notoriously defective it is in those means
of reformation and employment, which the act of February 1819 re-
quires, the public will perceive, by its deficiency in almost every re-
quisite prescribed by that act.
1. The gaol has no cells. In case of sentence, it must therefore be
executed in one of the lower rooms; which has a large space, light,
and
has, in all respects, as little of terror as any room in the gaol. And as to
solitude, there is no difficulty in prisoners conversing together from
any one room to another.
2. There are no tools provided, nor any materials for work.
3. There is no employment in the gaol.
4. The yard is confined, and employment in it is impracticable,
even were it to be attempted.
Of course all the other wise provisions of that act are wholly neg-
lected. It is in effect a dead letter.
A few facts, with which I became acquainted, in consequence of my
visit to the gaol at Cambridge, will evince, more than a thousand argu-
ments, the duty of society to restore and to perfect, in efficiency, that
system, which was sketched in the act of February 1819.
["Finally, it must be repeated that the greatest blessing which could come to
our charitable work in the way of further differentiation and better classification
would be improvements in our judicial and punitive machinery. An inefficient police
department and vulgar and corrupt police courts are the greatest "cross" that an
active worker for the poor in many of our large cities has to bear. No thorough-
going reforms in work for the poor can be perfected until the system of jails, reforma-
tories, and prisons is reformed" (Amos G. Warner, American Charities: A Study in
Philanthropy and Economics, pp. 296-97).]
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
59
D
There are now in that gaol three boys and three girls. The boys
under an original sentence of five years' imprisonment, by the munici-
pal court of Boston. The girls under that of three. These sentences
were the least, which, under the circumstances of their offence, the
court deemed itself authorized to inflict, in compliance with the law.
Two of the boys are under sixteen; all the girls under fourteen years of
age.
I visited these. children. The room was sufficiently comfortable,
for a gaol; well aired and clean. But how were they employed? Sitting
opposite to one another, at a board, doing absolutely nothing. They
complained of want of employment. The keeper had none to give them.
The wise provisions of the statute book are but words to catch the
sense. There are no means, or materials, of employment, provided by
society. The act looks well upon paper. Strangers, who know nothing
of our laws but in the statute book, will wonder and admire at the
providence of our legislature. But citizens, who know facts and see
effects, must feel something like contempt for such provisions; unless,
indeed, a higher and a holier sentiment shall invite them indignantly
to urge upon their representatives the disgrace, which results to a com-
monwealth, from wise laws existing in form, and being repealed in
effect; from those, who ought to be the fathers of the state, condescend-
ing to promise reformation, and under that promise continuing old
abuses. What right has society to oblige, by general provisions, its
ministers of justice, to condemn children to pass the best years of life,
the most important to their future prospects, immured between the
four walls of a prison, in utter sloth and idleness, in a situation to incur
the worst habits; and exposed to a perpetual influx and efflux of what-
ever is base, and vicious, and criminal? Their offences, indeed, require
restraint and require punishment. Society has a right to inflict both.
But it has no right, nor do such crimes require, that youth, in its tender
years, should be confined to a moral pest-house, out of which nothing
good can ever issue; and where it is inevitably exposed to taints, which
will corrupt the whole course of their future existence in this world,
and fix their eternal destiny in another.
There is a cold and heartless reply to these arguments; in making
which indifference and meanness put on the cloak of philosophy, and
wrap themselves round with the oracular air of wisdom. "Those, who
commit crimes of atrocious character, are beyond the reach of reforma-
tion. All attempts of that kind have proved fruitless." The assertion
can be proved false in a thousand instances. Conviction is not always
W
60
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proof of atrocity, especially in the young. One fact shall suffice, and
that taken from the gaol and the subjects in question.
The three girls, above mentioned, were sentenced last October.
They remained three months in close confinement. One of them, a girl
of twelve years, was so obviously humble, interesting, and contrite,
that the keeper took her out of the prison into his own house, to save
her from the perdition, with which her confinement among her com-
panions threatened her. She has been now three months at liberty;
an inmate in his family. I saw her, active, industrious, happy, and
respectable. Neither of these three knew their letters when imprisoned,
or any thing of work. This individual could now read, and had been in-
structed in the usual work of the family, and had every appearance,
and her uniform conduct since her release, indicated the existence of
good dispositions. If the accommodations of the gaol permitted, even
if all the statute provisions were only executed, five children, besides
two or three women, less than twenty years of age, (to say nothing of
men,) might be employed in this single gaol, and saved from those
worst of all corporeal and mental habits, which long continued sloth,
and idleness, and vicious companions, induce; and this too without loss
to the establishment; the first cost of the arrangements only excepted.
7. The Regulation of Houses of Correction and Jails¹
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representa-
tives, in General Court assembled, and by the authority of the same, That
there shall be erected or otherwise provided, by the county commis-
sioners in every county of this Commonwealth, and by the mayor and
aldermen of the city of Boston, at the charge of such county and city,
a fit and convenient house or houses of correction, (where such house
is not already provided,) with convenient yards, work shops, and other
accommodations thereunto adjoining and belonging, to be used and
employed for the keeping, correcting and setting to work of rogues,
vagabonds, common beggars, and other idle, disorderly, vicious, and
lewd persons. And the yards shall be laid out of sufficient dimensions
for the employment of the persons confined therein, and enclosed by a
fence sufficiently high and strong to prevent escapes, and all access to,
or intercourse with the persons confined therein, by any person from
• Extract from "An Act for the Regulation of Gaols and Houses of Correction,
March 29, 1834," Laws of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1834), chap. 151,
pp. 189-91, 193–94.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
61
¿
without the prison yard. And until such house or houses of correction
be provided, the common jail in each county may be used for that pur-
pose. But all such county jails shall be surrounded with such yards and
fences as are above described.
SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, That the county commissioners in each
county, and the city council in the city of Boston, shall appoint at their
will and pleasure a suitable person, to be master of such house of cor-
rection. They shall also establish such rules and orders, (not repugnant
to the laws of this Commonwealth,) as may be necessary for the govern-
ing and punishing of the persons there confined. And any justice of the
peace, or of any police court, or any court of common pleas, may com-
mit unto the said house, to be kept and governed according to the rules
and orders thereof, all rogues and vagabonds, and all idle persons going
about in any town or place in the county begging, or persons using any
subtle craft, juggling, or unlawful games or plays, common pipers,
fiddlers, runaways, stubborn children, common drunkards, common
night-walkers, pilferers, wanton and lascivious persons, in speech, con-
duct, or behavior, common railers or brawlers, such as neglect their
callings or employment, misspend what they earn, and do not provide
for themselves or for the support of their families, upon conviction of
any of the offences or disorders aforesaid, complaint thereof having
been made in writing. And it shall be the duty of the master of such
house of correction, or the keeper of such gaol, to set to work all such
persons as shall be duly committed as aforesaid, (if they be able,) for
such time as they may continue in said house. . . .
SEC. 6. Be it further enacted, That the county commissioners in
their respective counties, and the city council of the city of Boston,
are hereby empowered to appoint two or more, not exceeding five,
suitable and discreet freeholders of their county or city, to be overseers
of such house, who shall see that the rules established, by the county
commissioners or city council, for the government of the house, and
the persons therein confined are duly observed, and also examine the
accounts of the keeper, with respect to the earnings of the prisoners and
the expense of the institution; and they shall keep a register of all their
proceedings fairly written. They shall have power to make contracts
for work to be done in the house, with any person disposed to supply
the materials, and to make contracts for letting out any of the persons
confined, to employers living, in the estimation of the overseers, con-
veniently near to the house of correction for the overseers or the master
of the house to have the general inspection of the persons so let out and
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of the treatment they receive. And the overseers shall receive such
reasonable compensation as the county commissioners or city council
shall allow.
8. The Department of Public Charities and Correction of
New York City¹
SECTION 1. There is hereby created in the city and county of New
York, the department of public charities and correction. The chief
officers thereof shall be four in number, and shall be denominated
commissioners of public charities and correction.
SEC. 2. Immediately upon the passage of this act, the comptroller
of the city and county of New York shall appoint the said four com-
missioners, who shall hold their offices for five years. Whenever a
vacancy shall occur in said office of commissioner the board shall fill it
for the unexpired term by appointment. However, in case of disagree-
ment on the part of said commissioners, such vacancy or vacancies
shall be filled by a majority of the judges of the superior court of the
county of New York, within thirty days from the time of said vacancy;
and in case of the failure of said judges to perform said duty, the board
of commissioners shall have the right to appeal to the judges of the
court of appeals, to forthwith perform said service, and all appoint-
ments and removals from office shall be deferred until such appoint-
ment is made and the vacancy or vacancies filled. Three months pre-
ceding the expiration of the five years aforesaid, the said comptroller
shall proceed to appoint four commissioners for the term of six years.
The commissioners first appointed under this act shall immediately
take oaths of office and file them with the clerk of the county of New
York, and shall then commence their respective terms.
SEC. 3. The said four commissioners shall, together, constitute a
board of control over the department hereby created. Three of them
shall form a quorum. The board shall appoint one of the commissioners
to be president thereof for five years. Each of the commissioners shall
receive an annual salary of three thousand dollars. From and after
the twentieth day of April, one thousand eight hundred and sixty, the
alms house department of the city and county of New York, and the
office of governor of the alms house shall be abolished, and thereupon
I "An Act to Create in the City and County of New York, the Department of
Public Charities and Correction, and to Abolish the Almshouse Department
Therein, April 17, 1860," Laws of the State of New York (1860), chap. 510. See below,
Part III, Sec. III, Document 1.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
63
the books, accounts, vouchers, records and all property of whatsoever
nature then or theretofore under management or control of, or in the
keeping of the said alms house department, or any governor or sub-
ordinate thereof, shall be transferred to the keeping and custody of
the board of control of the department of public charities and correc-
tion thereby created, and for the use thereafter of said department;
but the said property shall forever remain and continue the property
of the mayor, aldermen and commonalty of the city of New York, sub-
ject to the public uses of said board of control as aforesaid, and for the
purposes provided by this act.
SEC. 4. The department hereby created, is hereby empowered and
directed to possess and exercise full and exclusive powers for the gov-
ernment, management, maintenance and direction of the several
institutions and buildings, and premises and property and appurte-
nances thereto, which immediately preceding the appointment of the
four commissioners aforesaid, were under control of the board of
governors of the alms house, and especially of the alms house and work
house, of the nurseries for poor and destitute children, and of the
county lunatic asylum, and of the Potter's field, or other public burial
place of the poor and strangers in the city and county of New York,
and especially also of the penitentiary and city prison, and various
prisons and houses of detention in said city, which are hereby particu-
larly designated as the institutions of the public correction and
charities provided for by this act. But the foregoing shall not relate to
the house of refuge, nor the juvenile delinquent asylum, nor the house
of detention of witnesses, nor the county or sheriff's jail.
SEC. 5. The department hereby created is hereby empowered by
its board of commissioners and of control as aforesaid, to appoint and
remove, or by rules provide for appointment or removal of such sub-
ordinate officers as it shall see fit, for the purpose of distributing its
said powers of government, management and direction as aforesaid, or
as hereinafter provided. The said board may define the respective
duties and authority of said subordinates, and fix their respective
designations of office, and fix their respective compensation. And until
otherwise provided for by said board of commissioners, under the
exercise of the power of appointment and removal aforesaid, but no
longer. The superintendents, wardens, chaplains, physicians, clerks
and other subordinates who may be in office or place, over or within
the institutions aforesaid, shall remain in office or place, and legally
discharge all the duties and fulfill all the powers necessary thereto.
64
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
And the said commissioners respectively, and subordinate officers of
the said department shall generally possess every power and authority
now conferred upon, and be subject to every duty imposed upon the
former alms house commissioners, or the board of ten governors, or the
individual governors of the alms house, by any law of the state, or by
any ordinance, or by any resolution of the mayor, aldermen and com-
monalty of the city of New York, or board of supervisors of the county
of New York, which power, authority and duty may affect or relate
to the institutions aforesaid, or their inmates, or their officers, or the
late alms house department of the city and county of New York, and
is not inconsistent with the provisions of this act.
SEC. 6. No moneys for the purposes of the department hereby
created shall be expended by the board of commissioners or under their
direction or that of any individual commissioner, unless a proper ap-
propriation therefor has been made, in the manner now provided by
law. And no commissioner nor subordinate of the department hereby
created shall ever be directly or indirectly interested in any contract for
supplies, or for any other purpose connected with any of the institu-
tions, or property under control of the board of commissioners, or sub-
ordinates, nor interested, directly or indirectly, in any arrangement by
which any pecuniary benefit shall result to himself.
SEC. 7. It shall be lawful to detain in the work house, for the pur-
pose of employment therein, any person who shall have been duly com-
mitted to the city prison, the penitentiary or the alms house; but it
shall not be lawful for vagrants or paupers, or the recipients of the
public charities of the department hereby created, unless they have
been before convicted of crime, to be employed in company or in
association with persons committed as aforesaid, for offenses other than
intoxication, or assault and battery, not felonious. The board of com-
missioners aforesaid may transfer and commit, or cause to be trans-
ferred and committed from the said city prison, penitentiary or alms
house, to the said work house, or to any parts of Blackwell's island as
are set apart for purposes of public criminal correction (subject to the
prohibition of company and association aforesaid), the following classes.
of persons: persons committed for crime; persons in the alms house;
persons applying for relief to the department hereby created, providing
their own consent to such transfer or committal be obtained; persons
committed by magistrates as vagrants or disorderly persons.
SEC. 8. Every person whose age and health will permit, shall be
employed in getting out stone, or in cultivating the grounds under use
of the department hereby created, or in manufacturing such articles.
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
65
as may be required for the ordinary use of all the institutions under the
control of the said board of commissioners, preparing and building sea
walls around the islands or other places upon which the said public
institutions now are or may hereafter be located, or at such mechanical
or other labor as on trial shall be found to suit the capacity of the indi-
vidual. It shall be the duty of the department to use every proper
means to furnish convicts and paupers with suitable employment by
contract; such employment, however, not to conflict or come into com-
petition with any mechanical or other employment pursued by the
people of this state. And in case any convict or pauper shall neglect
or refuse to perform the work allotted to him or her, by the person in
charge, it shall be the duty of the proper subordinate to punish such
convict or pauper by confinement, by being fed on bread and water
only, for such length of time as may be considered necessary; which
refusal and punishment shall forthwith be reported to said board of
commissioners. And in case any pauper shall refuse or neglect to per-
form the work assigned to him or her on three several occasions, the
said board may expel such pauper from the alms house.
SEC. 9. The hours of labor shall not exceed ten per day to each
person subject to the discipline of the department, and shall be fixed
by the said board of commissioners; and the articles raised or manu-
factured shall be subject to the order, and placed under the control of
said commissioners. All the grounds occupied by the department here-
by created, or under the jurisdiction of the said board of commission-
ers, not otherwise occupied, and which are capable of cultivation, shall
be used for agricultural purposes, and improved in such manner as will
yield the greatest revenue to the department; and the proceeds arising
from the sale of articles thus raised, shall be paid monthly into the
hands of the board of commissioners, and be by them paid over to the
city chamberlain and a memorandum thereof filed with the depart-
ment of finance of the city and county of New York.
SEC. 10. The said board of commissioners may open in its discre-
tion an account with all paupers, committed to the said work house,
charging them with all the expenses incurred by the city for their board
and maintenance, and crediting him or her with a fair and reasonable
compensation for the labor performed by such pauper; and at the
expiration of the term of sentence, if any balance shall be found to be
due to them, may pay the same to such pauper in cash at the time of
their discharge in the discretion of the board.
SEC. II. It shall be the duty of the said board of commissioners to
cause to be kept and employed, separate and apart from each other,
66
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the paupers and criminals, and as far as possible to cause the latter to
be classified, so that the novice in crime may not become contaminated
by evil example of, or by association and contact with the more hard-
ened and confirmed.
SEC. 12. Each superintendent, each warden or chief officer of the
several institutions under charge of the departments hereby created,
shall make his requisitions in writing, on the said board of commis-
sioners, for all articles deemed necessary by the said board, to be used
in the respective institutions under his charge, and shall keep an accu-
rate account of the same.
SEC. 13. Each said superintendent, warden or chief officer shall,
once in each week, report to the said board of commissioners, the
number of persons received, transferred, sick, died, and remaining in
the respective institutions under their charge; also the quantity and
kind of labor performed; and the said board of commissioners shall
make a quarterly report thereof of the board of supervisors of the
county of New York.
SEC. 14. The officer having charge of the alms house shall daily
send all paupers residing in the alms house, capable of performing any
work, and not otherwise employed, to the work house, or such other
of the institutions, the city prisons and penitentiary exempted, where
they shall be put at such labor as the chief officer thereof may be au-
thorized by the board of commissioners to direct.
SEC. 15. It shall be the duty of the officer in charge of the nurseries
to provide suitable employment for all the children under his care, un-
der such regulations and provisions as are hereinbefore provided for,
in reference to paupers committed as aforesaid.
SEC. 16. The said board of commissioners shall be authorized to
make, from time to time, such rules and by-laws for the management
and government of the department hereby created, and especially of
each institution, as may seem to them necessary, and which shall not
be inconsistent with the provisions of this act, nor contrary to law.
SEC. 17. The said board of commissioners shall, whenever the in-
crease of inmates in, or the proper care and government of, the institu-
tions or establishments on Randall's island, or Blackwell's island or
the Bellevue hospital, under their charge, or any other of them, shall,
in their judgment, render it necessary or expedient, have power to en-
large, add to or alter the buildings belonging to such institutions, or
any one of them, and to erect other buildings on said islands, or within
the enclosure of Bellevue hospital, for the uses and purposes of said
institutions, or any one of them. The said board of commissioners shall
LOCAL WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
67
also have power to lay out Potter's field, to make inclosures therein, to
build vaults therein, and to provide all necessary labor therefor, and
for interments therein. The said board of commissioners shall also have
the power to make all needful repairs to buildings or property under
its control.
SEC. 18. The said board of commissioners, or any one commission-
er, shall have power to indenture and bind out, as apprentices during
their minority, any minor children who may be under their care and
control by reasons of the provisions of this act, or of any other act of
this state, in the forms, and with the provisions now prescribed by law;
and the board, or any commissioner, shall have power, in their discre-
tion, to cancel such indentures; and they may bind out such children
for the employment of farming, or any useful art or trade, to citizens
of the adjoining states.
SEC. 19. The board of commissioners aforesaid shall, annually, in
the month of January in each year, make to the board of supervisors
of the county of New York, and the legislature of the state, a full report
of their proceedings, and of the condition of the department of public
charities and correction hereby created, and of all its receipts and ex-
penditures of the preceding year.
SEC. 20. The board of supervisors of the county of New York shall,
and are hereby empowered to annually raise and collect by tax, upon
the real and personal property taxable in said city and county, such
sum of money as said board of commissioners shall, from time to time,
require for the purposes of this act, to be applied by said board of com-
missioners exclusively to said purposes, and to be accounted for by the
said board of commissioners; which sum shall be in lieu of all taxes in
said county for the relief and support of the poor thereof, and for the
support and expenses of the county criminals.
SEC. 21. The board of supervisors of the county of New York, shall
have power, by committee, to visit and inspect the department hereby
created, and the institution under its control, and report the same to
the governor of the state, who shall have power to remove any com-
missioner of the said department, against whom charges of misconduct
in office may be established, under the provisions of law relating to
sheriffs.
SEC. 22. The board of commissioners hereby appointed shall an-
nually appoint an attorney to the department hereby created, who
shall perform such duties of a legal nature as the said department may
require, and whose compensation shall be fixed by said board of com-
missioners.
SECTION II
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The following documents in Section II illustrate the development of
state provision for various groups of persons who have come to be
spoken of commonly as the "wards of the state." These classes for
whom special provision was made by the state were in general the
insane,¹ persons convicted of felony,² the deaf and the blind,³ delinquent
youth,4 the alien,5 and the feeble-minded." The statutes cited show the
nature of the authorities set up and indicate the differences in attitude
in one state as compared with another, possibly with regard to the
division of responsibility between the central and the local authority
or possibly with regard to co-operation between public and private
agencies. From this point of view it is interesting to compare the Penn-
sylvania and Kentucky statutes with reference to the imprisonment
of persons convicted of felony and the Massachusetts' and Kentucky⁰⁰
provision for the education of the deaf. Massachusetts was the first
to establish a public institution for delinquent youth." Among the
documents will be found illustrations of the methods employed by the
governor¹² in his review of the needs of the state and the use of the
legislative committees, sometimes a standing committee, sometimes
a special committee, in either case a body without either the true
technique of inspection or administrative skill, bringing to their task
a common-sense judgment, although a partisan bias regarding the
conditions called to their attention might sometimes be the occasion
of their appointment, and a determining factor in their recommenda-
tions.¹4
13
1 Documents 2, 6, 10.
2 Documents 3, 4, 8, 9, 12, 13.
3 Document 5.
4 Document II.
1
8 Document 4.
9 Document 7.
10 Document 5.
II Document 11.
12 Documents 7, 8, 9.
13 Documents 13, 17, 18.
5 Document 14.
6 Document 18.
7 Document 3.
14 No document representing this type of report has been included. Refer-
ence could be made to an Investigation of Illinois State Institutions 45th General
Assembly, 1908 (Illinois General Assembly, House, Special Committee to Investi-
gate State Institutions).
68
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
69
This is perhaps the place in which to speak of the nature of the
institutional administrative machinery set up. There was generally an
unsalaried,¹ separate board of "directors" or of "trustees" or of "con-
trol" set up, for each institution. The numbers constituting the board
varied as the term varied; for the term of office was generally so ar-
ranged that the board was never wholly renewed at one time and the
theory was that it should not be renewed during any one administra-
tion. Continuity of policy and freedom from partisan interference were
the objects sought by these arrangements. The members were sup-
posed to represent the interests of the entire state, and there were some-
times limitations as to the number to be selected from a single county.
At a later point the question of the extent to which they were protected
by the nature of their organization will be more fully discussed. Atten-
tion may be called here to the great need of research into the history of
these institutions, a field of inquiry in which the difficulties are many
and the available material inadequate. The question will in fact arise
many times as to the value of the services of these boards. The prob-
lem of the relative efficiency and value of the unpaid, volunteer, part-
time service of board members as against the salaried, full-time public
employee is one which it will be necessary to discuss from many points
of view. Little information as to the actual influence of this type of
organization on the quality of the board's work seems available. It is
interesting, however, to examine in some detail the differences in the
structural details of these authorities. It is perhaps not accidental that
the state almshouses in Massachusetts had so bad a start, when the
appointment of the trustees, of the superintendent, and of the in-
spectors was retained by the governor, whereas in the case of the
institutions for the insane and the reform schools, the appointment of
the staff of the institutions was in each case intrusted to the governing
board. In the same way, the elective inspectors of prisons4 in New
York would feel a pressure of political influence more directly than
the appointive, continuous board of directors would be likely to feel it.
It is important to note details of administrative arrangement such as
2
I They were sometimes allowed a per diem for the days actually spent in per-
formance of their duties and sometimes had their actual expenses allowed.
2 For the facts about one institution created later than those for which these
statutes provided, see below, Part II, Sec. IV, "Partisan Interference with the Civil
Service," Document 6.
3 See Documents 15, 16, 17.
4 See Document 12, "Inspectors of Prisons."
70
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
these. They undoubtedly account, to some extent, for the unsuccessful
attempts registered in this development of governmental machinery.
Another important point for the student to note is the very great
complexity and difficulty of administering such an institution as any
one of those noted in this section. Aside from the task of securing
specialized care, treatment, education, or discipline for the group of
patients, there were the common problems of domestic management
on a large scale, providing food when there were no recognized dietetic
standards, providing service when no pattern had been set. The politi-
cal advantage to be obtained in the award of contracts or by locating
building sites would be obvious to the board members, the claim of the
local interest as over against the general concern for the patients would
be recognized; the rule-of-thumb method of dealing with persons under
care could be followed with results that could be only unsatisfactory;
such defects in the organization as lack of uniformity in records, diver-
sity in practice, sectional competition in seeking legislative favors-
these defects in the organization would be apparent only when a com-
prehensive view was taken. When such a view became possible the
remedy that suggested itself took the form of a single, unifying, super-
visory agency.
Just how such an agency would bring about improvements was, of
course, not clear. Nor could it be demonstrated that the economies
resulting from its activities would compensate for the cost of its main-
tenance. It will, in fact, appear that evidence based upon comparative
figures is not yet available. But the argument in favor of a central
authority has steadily prevailed, and the development in that direction
has been widespread and on the whole relatively swift.
1
THE ESTABLISHMENT OF STATE INSTITUTIONS
I. The Province Poor¹
WHEREAS, In and by an act passed in the fourth year of the reign
of their late majesties, King William and Queen Mary, intitled "An
Act for regulating of townships, choice of town officers and setting
forth their power," it is, among other things, enacted,
That any person orderly warned to depart any town whereof he is not an
inhabitant, and neglecting so to do by the space of fourteen days next after
such warning given, may, by warrant of the next justice of the peace, be sent
and conveyed, from constable to constable, unto the town where he properly
belongs, or had his last residence, at his own charge, if able to pay the same,
or, otherwise, at the charge of the town so sending him;
AND WHEREAS, It frequently happens that the persons so sent and
conveyed, by warrant as aforesaid, do not properly belong to, nor had
their last lawful residence in, any town in this province, but are in-
habitants of some other province or colony, and are poor, and unable
to pay the charge of such their removal, whereby an unequal charge
and burthen arises to the towns to which such poor persons happen to
come; for remedy whereof, and to the end that such charges may be
borne in a more equitable and just proportion,-
Be it enacted by the Governor, Council and House of Representatives:
SECTION 1. That when and so often as any such person or persons
are to be sent or conveyed out of this province, it shall and may be
lawful for any justice of the peace of the county from whence the person
or persons are to be sent or conveyed, and he is hereby impowered, to
grant a warrant for sending such person or persons out of the province,
either by land or water, as he shall think will be most convenient, or
least liable to charge.
SEC. 2. That when and so often as it shall happen that any person
so to be sent and conveyed, either by land or water as shall be thought
most convenient, by warrant as aforesaid, doth not properly belong to,
nor had gained a settlement in, any town in this province, but is an
I "An Act in Addition to the Several Laws Already Made Relating to the Re-
moval of Poor Persons out of the Towns Whereof They Are Not Inhabitants,
March 19, 1767," Acts and Resolves, Public and Private, of the Province of Massa-
chusetts Bay, IV, 911-12, Acts, Passed 1766–67, chap. 17.
71
72
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
inhabitant of, or had settlement in, some one of his majesty's provinces
or colonies on this continent, then and in every such case the charge
of conveying such person or persons shall be borne by said person or
persons, if able to pay the same; otherwise, to be borne and paid by
this province, in order to their being sent or conveyed to the province
or colony where they last had a settlement.
SEC. 3. And the constable or constables of each town, respectively,
to whom such warrant shall be directed, to convey such person or per-
sons by land, and to whose care such person or person(s) shall be com-
mitted, shall, by virtue of said warrant, receive and convey him, her
or them through the county to which he belongs, and to one of the
constables of the next town in the next county, who shall, by virtue of
said warrant, receive the said person or persons, and convey him, her
or them through the county in which such constable dwells; and the
said person or persons shall, by virtue of the warrant aforesaid, be con-
veyed by the constable from county to county, in the same manner,
unto the province or colony to which he, she or they shall be first
ordered.
SEC. 4. And every constable so receiving and conveying such per-
son or persons, shall receive, out of the treasury of such town where he
belongs, so much money as the selectmen of such town shall think the
'charge of conveying such person or persons, as aforesaid, through the
county, shall amount to, the said constable to keep a fair account of his
trouble and expence, and exhibit the same to the said selectmen, who
are to consider and adjust the same; and the said selectmen are also
hereby empowered and directed to adjust and pay the charge of con-
veying any person or persons, by water, as aforesaid, they to receive the
same again out of the province treasury.
SEC. 5. That when and so often as any person or persons to be re-
moved shall be an inhabitant or inhabitants of any town or district
within this province, they shall be conveyed to such town or district
where he, she or they are inhabitants, or have a settlement, in the same
manner as is herein before provided in cases where the persons so re-
moved are not inhabitants of any town within this province, the
charge of such conveyance to be paid as by a law of this province is
already provided.
SEC. 6. That from and after the tenth day of April next, no person
whatsoever, coming to reside or dwell within any town in this province,
shall gain an inhabitancy in such town by any length of time he or she
may continue there without warning, unless such person shall first have
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
73
made known his or her desire to the selectmen thereof, and obtained
the approbation of the town, at a general meeting of the inhabitants,
for his dwelling there; nor shall any town be obliged to be at charge for
the relief and support of any person residing in such town (in case he
or she stand in need), that have not been approved as aforesaid.
SEC. 7. And all such persons as have not been approved as aforesaid,
together with their children, whether born before or after their coming
to such town, in wedlock, or otherwise, shall be liable to be sent or
conveyed to the town where they properly belong, by a warrant from
a justice of the peace, who is hereby empowered, upon application from
the selectmen of the town from which such person or persons are to
be sent, to issue his warrant, accordingly; excepting for such as are
apprentices to some inhabitant or inhabitants of such town, who shall
not be liable to be sent or conveyed out of any town where they are
apprentices, till the time of their apprenticeship is expired, any law,
usage or custom to the contrary notwithstanding.
SEC. 8. That every constable shall, before he delivers said warrant
to the constable of the next county, certify his doings thereon.
2. A Colonial Institution for the Insane¹
I. WHEREAS, Several persons of insane and disordered minds have
been frequently found wandering in different parts of this colony, and
no certain provision having been yet made either towards effecting a
cure of those whose cases are not become quite desperate, nor for re-
straining others who may be dangerous to society: Be it therefore en-
acted, by the Governor, Council, and Burgesses, of this present General
Assembly, and it is hereby enacted, by the authority of the same, That the
honourable John Blair, William Nelson, Thomas Nelson, Robert
Carter, and Peyton Randolph, esquires, and Robert Carter Nicholas,
John Randolph, Benjamin Waller, John Blair, jun. George Wythe,
Dudley Digges, jun. Lewis Burwell, Thomas Nelson, jun. Thomas
Everard, and John Tazewell, esquires, be and, they are hereby con-
stituted trustees for founding and establishing a public hospital, for the
reception of such persons as shall, from time to time, according to the
rules and orders established by this act, be sent thereto. And the said
trustees shall be called and known by the name and style of the court
I "An Act to Make Provision for the Support and Maintenance of Idiots, Luna-
tics, and Other Persons of Unsound Minds, November, 1769," Hening's Statutes at
Large; Being a Collection of All the Laws of Virginia, Vol. VIII, chap. xxviii, pp.
378-81.
74
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of directors of the public hospital for persons of insane and disordered
minds.
II. And for the better and more regular ordering the business of the
said hospital, the said directors shall, at their first meeting, proceed to
the choice of a president who, with any six of the other directors, shall
hold a court for the dispatch of business, and in case of the absence,
sickness, or death of the said president, the other members of the said
court may choose another president, either perpetual or temporary,
as the exigency of affairs may require; and in case of the death, resigna-
tion, or absence out of the colony for the space of two years of one or
more of the said directors, the president, for the time being, and the rest
of the directors, continuing in office, shall and may proceed to the
choice of other fit and able persons, to supply all such vacancies.
II. That the said court of directors be, and they are hereby im-
powered to purchase a piece or parcel of land, not exceeding four acres,
the most healthy in situation that can be procured, and as convenient
as may be to the city of Williamsburg, and to contract for the building
thereon a commodious house or houses, fit for the reception and ac-
commodation of such disordered persons as are described by this act,
and to provide a proper keeper and matron of the said hospital, with
necessary nurses and guards, and, as occasion may require, to call in
any physicians or surgeons for the assistance and relief of such poor
patients, and to provide all necessaries for their comfortable support
and maintenance, and in general, from time to time, to make and or-
dain all such rules, orders, and regulations for the better establishing
and governing such hospital, as to them shall seem fit and necessary.
And for the better and more regular determining who are the proper
objects of this act.
Ma
III. That any magistrate of the quorum, in any county within
this colony, or any chief magistrate of any city or borough, either upon
his own knowledge, or on proper information, that any such disordered
person is going at large in his county, city, or borough, shall, and he
is hereby required to issue his warrant to the sheriff, or any one of the
constables of the said county, city or borough, commanding him to
bring such person before himself, or any other justice of the quorum,
and any other two magistrates, which three magistrates, being assem-
bled, may examine the said person supposed to be disordered in his or
her senses, and take such evidence in writing, touching his or her in-
sanity, and the causes of it, as they can procure; and if it shall appear
expedient and necessary to such magistrates, or a majority of them,
A
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
75
they shall forthwith, by warrant under their hands and seals, transmit
such disordered person, together with the depositions taken before
them, either with or without a guard, as may seem necessary, to the
public hospital, to be delivered to the keeper of the said hospital, who
shall give a receipt for such person, and immediately give notice to the
president of the directors, who shall in convenient time summon his
court to consider what is farther necessary to be done; and if it shall
appear to such court, that such person is a proper object of this act,
they shall enter his name in a book to be kept for this purpose, and
pursue such measures as his or her case may require.
IV. Provided always, If any friend of such person will appear be-
fore such magistrates, or such court of directors, and give sufficient
security that proper care shall be taken of such person, and that he or
she shall be restrained, or secured from going at large till he or she is
restored to his or her senses, it shall and may be lawful for such justices,
or such court, to deliver such insane person to his or her friend.
V. That the sheriff or other officer conveying such disordered per-
son to the public hospital, shall receive such compensation for his
trouble and expenses as to the court of directors shall seem reasonable,
having regard to the quality of such person.
VI. That the treasurer of this colony for the time being is hereby
impowered and required to pay, upon the governor's warrant, to the
court of directors, for purchasing the land, building the hospital, and
other incidental charges, any sum or sums of money, not exceeding
the sum of twelve hundred pounds, and for each person removed, to be
maintained and supported in the said hospital, any sum not exceeding
twenty-five pounds per annum.
VII. AND WHEREAS, It may happen, that some persons may fall
into the unhappy circumstances described by this act, whose estates
may be sufficient to defray the expense of their support and mainte-
nance in the said hospital, where they may be more securely kept and
managed, and with much less anxiety to their friends: Be it further
enacted, by the authority aforesaid, That it shall and may be lawful for
the court of any county, city or borough, within this colony, upon ap-
plication to them made by the friend or guardian of any such insane or
disordered person, to appoint three or more of their members to en-
quire, upon oath to be taken before such court, into the state and condi-
tion of such person, and also into the circumstances of his or her estate;
and if, upon the report of the persons so appointed, it shall appear to
such court necessary or expedient, that such person should be placed
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
in the said hospital, the said court is hereby impowered and required
to order and direct such person to be forthwith removed thereto, and
at the same time to settle the allowance to be made to the said hospital
for such person's support and maintenance out of his or her estate hav-
ing regard to the neat profits thereof.
VIII. That the said court of directors are hereby impowered and
required to receive such person into the said hospital, and, from time
to time, to make and ordain such rules and orders for the better govern-
ment of such person, according to his or her quality, and the allowance
made out of his or her estate, as to them shall seem necessary or ex-
pedient. And the said court of directors are hereby directed and re-
quired to keep distinct and proper accounts of the expenditure of all
such monies which shall be paid into their hands, to be laid before the
general assembly, when the same shall be called for.
IX. That if any person who shall be taken into the said hospital,
shall recover his or her perfect senses, so that he or she, in the opinion
of the said court of directors, may be safely released, it shall and may be
lawful for the said court to discharge such person, giving him or her a
proper certificate thereof. .
3. The Philadelphia Jail as a Convict Prison'
SECTION I. WHEREAS, By the thirty-eighth section of the second
chapter of the constitution of this state, it is declared, "That the penal
laws, as heretofore used, should be reformed by the Legislature as soon
as may be, and punishments made in some cases less sanguinary, and
in general more proportionate to the crimes," and by the thirty-ninth
section, "That to deter more effectually from the commission of crimes,
by continued visible punishment of long duration, and to make sangui-
nary punishments less necessary, houses ought to be provided for
punishing, by hard labour those who shall be convicted of crimes not
capital, wherein the criminal shall be employed for the benefit of the
public, or for reparation of injuries done to private persons." AND
WHEREAS, The laws heretofore made for the purpose of carrying the
said provisions of the constitution into effect have in some degree failed
of success, from the exposure of the offenders employed at hard labour
I "An Act to Reform the Penal Laws of This State, April 5, 1790,” Laws of the
Commonwealth of Pennsylvania (Carey and Bioren reprint), III (1785-90), 440–54.
See O. F. Lewis, The Development of American Prisons and Prison Customs, 1776–
1845, chap. xi.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
77
to public view, and from the communication with each other not being
sufficiently restrained within the places of confinement; and it is hoped
that the addition of unremitted solitude to laborious employment, as
far as it can be effected, will contribute as much to reform as to deter:
SEC. II. Be it therefore enacted. . . . That the pains and penalties
hereinafter mentioned shall be inflicted upon the several offenders, who
shall, from and after the passing of this act, commit and be legally
convicted of any of the offences hereinafter enumerated and specified,
in lieu of the pains and penalties which by law have been heretofore
inflicted; that is to say, every person convicted of robbery, burglary,
sodomy or buggery, or as accessary thereto before the fact, shall forfeit
to the commonwealth all and singular the lands and tenements, goods
and chattels, whereof he or she was seized or possessed at the time the
crime was committed, to undergo a servitude of any term or time, at
the discretion of the court passing the sentence, not exceeding ten
years, in the public gaol or house of correction of the county or city,
in which the offence shall have been committed, and be kept at such
labour, and fed and cloathed in such manner, as is hereinafter directed:
Provided always, and be it further enacted by the authority aforesaid, That
no person accused of any of the aforesaid crimes shall be admitted to
bail but by the Judges of the Supreme Court, or some or one of them,
nor shall he or she be tried but in the Supreme Court, or in a court of
Oyer and Terminer or General Gaol Delivery, held in and for the
county wherein the offence shall have been committed; and that per-
emptory challenges shall be allowed in all such cases wherein they have
been heretofore allowed by law: But no attainder hereafter shall work
corruption of blood in any case, nor extend to the disinherison or
prejudice of any person or persons, other than the offender.
SEC. III. That every person convicted of horse-stealing, or as ac-
cessary thereto before the fact, shall restore the horse, mare or gelding,
stolen, to the owner or owners thereof, or shall pay to him, her or
them, the full value thereof, and also pay the like value to the com-
monwealth; and moreover undergo a servitude for any term, not ex-
ceeding seven years, in the discretion of the court before which the con-
viction shall be, and shall be confined, kept to hard labour, fed and
cloathed, in manner hereinafter mentioned. Every person convicted
of simple larceny to the value of twenty shillings and upwards or as
accessary thereto before the fact, shall restore the goods or chattels so
stolen to the right owner or owners thereof, or shall pay to him, her or
them, the full value thereof, or of so much thereof as shall not be re-
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stored; and moreover shall forfeit and pay to the commonwealth the
like value of the goods and chattels stolen, and also undergo a servi-
tude for any term of years, not exceeding three, at the discretion of the
court before which the conviction shall be, and shall be confined, kept
to hard labour, fed and cloathed, in manner hereinafter directed.
SEC. IV. AND WHEREAS, By the ninth section of the first chapter
of the constitution, it is declared "That in all prosecutions for criminal
offences, a man has a right to be heard by himself and his counsel, to
demand the cause and nature of his accusation, to be confronted with
the witnesses, to call for evidence in his favour, and a speedy public
trial by an impartial jury of the county, without the unanimous con-
sent of which jury he cannot be found guilty." Since which declara-
tion, it is not proper that persons accused of small or petty larcenies
should be tried and convicted before two Magistrates or Justices of the
peac without the intervention of a jury: Be it therefore enacted by the
authority aforesaid, That the act of Assembly, entituled “An Act for
the trial and punishment of larceny under five shillings," be, and the
same is hereby, repealed; and that if any person or persons shall here-
after feloniously steal, take and carry away any goods or chattels,
under the value of twenty shillings, the same order and course of trial
shall be had and observed as for other simple larcenies, and he, she or
they, being thereof legally convicted, shall be deemed guilty of petty
larceny, and shall restore the goods and chattels so stolen, or pay the
full value thereof, to the owner or owners thereof, and also forfeit and
pay the like value to the commonwealth, and be further sentenced to
undergo a servitude for a term not exceeding one year, in the discretion
of the court before which such conviction shall be, and be confined,
kept to hard labour, cloathed and fed, in manner hereinafter directed:
And every person convicted of bigamy, or of being an accessary after
the fact in any felony, or of receiving stolen goods, knowing them to
have been stolen, or of any other offence not capital, for which, by the
laws in force before the act, entituled "An Act to amend the penal laws
of this state," burning in the hand, cutting off the ears, nailing the ear
or ears to the pillory, placing in and upon the pillory, whipping, or im-
prisonment for life, is or may be inflicted, shall, instead of such parts
of the punishment, be fined, and sentenced to undergo in the like
manner, and be confined, kept at hard labour, fed and cloathed, as is
hereinafter directed, for any term not exceeding two years, which the
court, before whom such conviction shall be, may and shall in their
discretion think adapted to the nature and heinousness of the offence.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
79
SEC. V. That robbery or larceny of obligations or bonds, bills
obligatory, bills of exchange, promissory notes for the payment of
money, lottery tickets, paper bills of credit, certificates granted by or
under the authority of this commonwealth, or of all or any of the
United States of America, shall be punished in the same manner as
robbery or larceny of any goods or chattels.
SEC. VI. AND WHEREAS, By the eighth section of the act of
Assembly, entituled "An Act for the advancement of justice, and more
certain administration thereof," it is enacted, that if any woman shall
endeavour privately to conceal the death of her child, which, by being
born alive, should by the law be deemed a bastard, so that it may not
come to light whether it was born alive or not, and be convicted there-
of, shall suffer death as in a case of murder, "except such mother can
make proof, by one witness at the least, that the child, whose death
was by her so intended to be concealed, was born dead," whereby the
bare concealment of the death is almost conclusive evidence of the
child's being murdered by the mother or by her procurement. Be it
therefore declared and enacted by the authority aforesaid, That from and
after the publication of this act, the constrained presumption that the
child, whose death is concealed, was therefore murdered by the mother,
shall not be sufficient evidence to convict the party indicted, without
probable presumptive proof is given that the child was born alive.
SEC. VII. That every other felony, or misdemeanor, or offence,
whatsoever, not specially provided for by this act, may and shall be
punished as heretofore.
SEC. VIII. That the commissioners for the county of Philadelphia,
with the approbation of the Mayor and two of the Aldermen of the
city of Philadelphia, and two of the Justices of the Court of Quarter
Sessions for the county of Philadelphia, shall, as soon as conveniently
may be, cause a suitable number of cells to be constructed in the yard
of the gaol in the said county, each of which cells shall be six feet in
width, eight feet in length, and nine feet in height, and shall be con-
structed of brick or stone, upon such plan as will best prevent danger
from fire; and the said cells shall be separated from the common yard
by walls of such height, as, without unnecessary exclusion of air and
light, will prevent all external communication, for the purpose, of con-
fining therein the more hardened and atrocious offenders, who, by the
act, entituled “An Act for amending the penal laws of this state,"
have been sentenced to hard labour for a term of years, or who shall be
sentenced thereto by virtue of this act.
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SEC. IX. That, for the purpose of defraying a proportionable part
of the expense of erecting such cells and walls, the President and
Supreme Executive Council shall be, and they are hereby, authorized
to draw orders on the State Treasurer for the sum of five hundred
pounds, to be paid out of the funds especially appropriated for claims
and improvements, when the same shall be sufficiently productive; and
for defraying the residue of the expense, it shall be lawful for the com-
missioners of the said county, or a majority of them, to assess, levy
and collect, within the said county, so much money, as they, with the
concurrence and approbation of the said Mayor, Aldermen and Jus-
tices, shall judge necessary, provided the same does not exceed the
sum of one thousand pounds.
SEC. X. That the said cells shall be and are hereby declared to be
part of the gaol of the city and county of Philadelphia; and the residue
of the said gaol shall be appropriated to the purposes of confining as
well such male convicts sentenced to hard labour, as cannot be ac-
commodated in the said cells, as female convicts sentenced in like
manner, persons convicted of capital offences, vagrants, and disorderly
persons committed as such, and persons charged with misdemeanors
only, all which persons are hereby required to be kept separate and
apart from each other, as much as the convenience of the building will
admit, and to be subject to the visitation and superintendence of the
inspectors, hereinafter appointed.
SEC. XI. That it shall be lawful for the Mayor or any Alderman
of the city of Philadelphia, and any Justice of the peace of the said
county, to commit any vagrant or idle and disorderly person (being
thereof legally convicted before him, as by law is directed) to the said
gaol, to be kept at hard labour for any term not exceeding one month,
any law of this state to the contrary notwithstanding.
SEC. XII. That, in order to prevent the introduction of contagious
disorders, every person who shall be ordered to hard labour in the said
gaol shall be separately lodged, washed and cleansed, and shall con-
tinue in such separate lodging, until it shall be certified by some
physician that he or she is fit to be received among the other prisoners:
and if such person be a convict, the clothes in which he or she shall then
be cloathed shall either be burnt, or, at the discretion of two of the
said inspectors, be baked, fumigated and carefully laid by, until the
expiration of the term for which such offender shall be sentenced to
hard labour, to be then returned to him or her.
SEC. XIII. That all such convicts shall, at the public expense of
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
81
such county, during the term of their confinement, be cloathed in
habits of coarse materials, uniform in color and make, and distinguish-
ing them from the good citizens of this commonwealth, and the males
shall have their heads and beards close shaved at least once in every
week, and all such offenders shall, during the said term, be sustained
upon bread, Indian meal, or other inferior food, at the discretion of said
inspectors, and shall be allowed one meal of coarse meat in each week,
and shall be kept, as far as may be consistent with their sex, age, health,
and ability, to labour of the hardest and most servile kind, in which the
work is least liable to be spoiled by ignorance, neglect or obstinacy,
and where the materials are not easily embezzled or destroyed; and
if the work to be performed is of such a nature as may require previous
instruction, proper persons for that purpose, to whom a suitable allow-
ance shall be made, shall be provided by order of any two of the in-
spectors hereafter named; during which labour the said offenders shall
be kept separate and apart from each other, if the nature of their sev-
eral employments will admit thereof; and where the nature of such
employment requires two or more to work together, the keeper of the
said gaol, or one of his deputies, shall, if possible, be constantly present.
SEC. XIV. That such offenders, unless prevented by ill health,
shall be employed in work every day in the year, except Sundays; and
the hours of work in each day shall be as many as the season of the
year, with an interval of half an hour for breakfast, and an hour for
dinner, will permit, but not exceeding eight hours in the months of
November, December and January, nine hours in the months of
February and October, and ten hours in the rest of the year; and when
such hours of work are passed, the working tools, implements and
materials, or such of them as will admit of daily removal, shall be re-
moved to places proper for their safe custody, until the hour of labour
shall return.
SEC. XV. That the keeper of the said gaol shall, from time to time,
with the approbation of any two of the inspectors hereafter mentioned,
provide a sufficient quantity of such stock and materials, working tools
and implements, for such offenders, for the expense of which the said
inspectors, or any two of them, shall be, and they are hereby, author-
ized to draw orders, to be countersigned by the commissioners of the
county, on the Treasurer of the county, if need shall be, specifying in
such orders the quantity and nature of the materials, tools or imple-
ments wanted, which orders the said Treasurer is hereby required to
discharge out of the county stock, for which materials, tools and imple-
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ments when received, the said keeper shall be accountable; and the
said keepers shall, with the approbation of any two of the said in-
spectors, have power to make contracts with any person whatever, for
the clothing, diet, and all other necessaries for the maintenance and
support of such convicts, and for the implements and materials of any
kind of manufacture, trade or labour, in which such convicts shall be
employed, and for the sale of such goods, wares and merchandizes, as
shall be there wrought and manufactured; and the said keeper shall
cause all accounts concerning the maintenance of such convicts and
other prisoners to be entered regularly in a book or books, to be kept for
that purpose, and shall also keep separate accounts of the stock and
materials so wrought, manufactured, sold, and disposed of, and the
monies for which the same shall be sold, and when sold, and to whom,
in books to be provided for those purposes, all which books and
accounts shall be at all times open for the examination of the said in-
spectors, and shall be regularly laid before them, at their quarterly or
other meetings, as hereinafter is directed, for their approbation and
allowance.
SEC. XVI. That if the said inspectors, at their quarterly or other
meetings, shall suspect any fraudulent or improper charges, or any
omissions in any such accounts, they may examine, upon oath or
affirmation, the said keeper, or any of his deputies, servants or as-
sistants, or any person of whom any necessaries, stock, materials, or
other things, have been purchased for the use of the said gaol, or any
person to whom any stock or materials wrought or manufactured
therein have been sold, or any of the offenders confined in such gaol, or
any other person or persons concerning any of the articles contained
in such accounts, or any omission thereout, and in case any fraud shall
appear in such accounts, the particulars thereof shall be reported by
the said inspectors, in writing, to the Mayor of the said city, for the
purposes hereinafter mentioned.
SEC. XVII. That, in order to encourage industry as an evidence
of reformation, separate accounts shall be opened in the said books for
all convicts sentenced to hard labour, for six months and upward, in
which such convicts shall be charged with the expenses of cloathing and
subsistence, and such proportional part of the expenses of the raw
materials upon which they shall be employed, as the inspectors at their
quarterly or other meetings shall think just, and shall be credited with
the sum or sums from time to time received by reason of their labour,
and if the same shall be found to exceed the said expenses, one half of
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
83
the said excess shall be laid out in decent raiment for such convicts
at their discharge, or otherwise applied to their use and benefit, as the
said inspectors shall upon such occasions direct; and if such offender,
at the end or other determination of his term of confinement, shall
labour under any acute or dangerous distemper, he shall not be dis-
charged, unless at his own request, until he can be safely discharged.
SEC. XVIII. That no person whatever, except the keeper, his
deputies, servants or assistants, the said inspectors, officers and min-
isters of Justice, Counsellors or Attornies at law, employed by a
prisoner, ministers of the gospel, or persons producing a written license
signed by two of the said inspectors, shall be permitted to enter within
the walls where such offenders shall be confined; and that the doors of
all the lodging rooms and cells in the said gaol shall be locked, and all
lights therein extinguished at the hour of nine, and one or more watch-
men shall patrol the said gaol at least twice in every hour, from that
time, until the return of the time of labour in the morning of the next
day.
SEC. XIX. That the walls of the cells and apartments in the said
gaol shall be white-washed with lime and water, at least twice in every
year, and the floors of the said cells and apartments shall be washed
once every week, or oftener, if the said inspectors shall so direct, by
one or more of the said prisoners, in rotation, who at the direction of
the said keeper shall have an extra allowance of diet for so doing; and
the said prisoners shall be allowed to walk and air themselves for such
stated time as their health may require, and the said keeper shall per-
mit; and if proper employment can be found, such prisoners may also
be permitted, with the approbation of two of the said inspectors, to
work in the yard, provided such airing and working in the yard be in
the presence, or within the view, of the said keeper, or his deputies or
assistants.
SEC. XX. That one or more of the apartments in the second story
of the said gaol, and at the extreme end of the west wing, shall be fitted
up as an infirmary, and in case any such offender, being sick, shall, upon
examination of a physician, be found to require it, he or she shall be
removed to the infirmary, and his or her name shall be entered in a
book to be kept for that purpose, and when such physician shall report
to the said keeper, that such offender is in a proper condition to quit
the infirmary, and return to his or her employment, such report shall
be entered by the said keeper in a book to be kept for that purpose,
and the said keeper shall order him or her back to his or her former
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
labour, so far as the same shall be consistent with his or her state of
health, and the said Mayor, Alderman and Justices shall from time to
time, appoint a physician to attend at said gaol.
SEC. XXI. That the keeper of the said gaol shall have the power
to punish all such prisoners guilty of assaults within the said gaol,
when no dangerous wound or bruise is given, profane cursing and
swearing, or indecent behaviour, idleness, or negligence in work, or wil-
ful mismanagement of it, or of disobedience to the orders and regula-
tions hereinafter directed to be made, by confining such offenders in
the dark cells or dungeons of the said gaol, and by keeping them upon
bread and water only, for any term not exceeding two days; and if any
such prisoner shall be guilty of any offence within the said gaol, which
the said keeper is not hereby authorized to punish, or for which he shall
think the said punishment is not sufficient, by reason of the enormity
of the offence, he shall report the same to two of the said inspectors,
who, if upon proper enquiry they shall think fit, shall certify the nature
and circumstances of such offence, with the name of the offender, to
the Mayor of the said city, and the Mayor shall thereupon order such
offences to be punished by moderate whipping, or repeated whippings,
not exceeding thirteen lashes each, or by close confinement in the said
dark cells or dungeons, with bread and water only for sustenance for
any time not exceeding six days, or by all the said punishments.
SEC. XXII. That it shall be lawful for the Mayor and two Alder-
men of the said city, and two of the Justices of the peace of the said
county, on the first day of May annually, to appoint a suitable person
to be keeper of the said gaol, who shall, however, be liable to be re-
moved by the said Mayor, Aldermen and Justices aforesaid, when oc-
casions may require, in which case another shall, from time to time, be
appointed in like manner, who shall receive, as a full compensation for
his services, and in lieu of all fees and gratuities by reason or under
colour of the said office, so much per annum, as the said Mayor, Alder-
men and Justices, at the time of such appointment, shall direct, to be
paid in quarterly payments, by orders drawn on the Treasurer of the
said county, by the said Mayor, and also five per centum on the sales
of all articles manufactured by the said criminals; and such keeper
shall have power, with the approbation of the Mayor, Aldermen, and
Justices aforesaid, to appoint a suitable number of deputies and
assistants, at such reasonable allowances as the Mayor, Aldermen and
Justices aforesaid, shall think just, which allowances shall be paid
quarterly, in like manner; and before any such gaoler shall exercise
1
C
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
85
any part of the said office, he shall give bond to the Treasurer of the
county, with two sufficient sureties, to be approved by the said Mayor,
in the sum of five hundred pounds, upon condition, that he, his dep-
uties and assistants, shall well and faithfully perform the trusts and
duties in them reposed, which bond, the due execution thereof being
proved before, and certified by, any of the Aldermen of the said city,
shall be recorded in the office of the Recorder of Deeds for the
county of Philadelphia, and copies thereof, exemplified by the said
Recorder of Deeds, shall be legal evidence in all courts of law, in any
suit against such gaoler, or his sureties.
SEC. XXIII. That it shall be lawful for the said Mayor, Aldermen
and Justices aforesaid, on the first Monday in May next, to appoint
twelve inspectors, six of whom shall be in office until the first Monday
in November next, and six until the first Monday in May following,
and so, from time to time, six inspectors shall be appointed in manner
aforesaid, on the first Mondays in May and November annually; and
if any person so appointed, not having a reasonable excuse, to be ap-
proved of by the said Mayor, Aldermen and Justices, shall refuse to
serve in the said office, he shall forfeit and pay the sum of ten pounds,
to be recovered by action of debt, as debts of like value are recover-
able by the laws of this commonwealth, the one half thereof to the
use of the person suing, the other half to be paid to the Treasurer of
the said county, to be applied to the purposes hereinbefore mentioned.
SEC. XXIV. That the said inspectors, seven of whom shall be a
quorum, shall meet once in three months, in an apartment to be pro-
vided for that purpose in the said gaol, and may be specially con-
vened by the two acting inspectors, when occasion shall require, and
they shall, at their first meeting, appoint two of their members to be
acting inspectors, who shall continue such, for such time, as shall be
directed by the said inspectors, or a majority of them when met to-
gether. And the acting inspectors shall attend at the said gaol at least
once in each week, and shall examine into and inspect the manage-
ment of the said gaol, and the conduct of the said keeper and his
deputies, so far as respects the said offenders employed at hard labour
and the directions, of this act, and shall do and perform the several
matters and things hereinbefore directed by them to be performed.
SEC. XXV. That the board of inspectors, at their quarterly or
other meeting, shall make such further orders and regulations, for the
purpose of carrying this act into execution, as shall be approved of by
the Mayor and Recorder of the said city, and such orders and regula-
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tions shall be hung up in at least six of the most conspicuous places in
the said gaol; and if the said keeper, or any of his deputies or assistants,
shall obstruct or resist the said inspectors, or any of them, in the
exercise of the powers and duties vested in them by this act, such per-
son shall forfeit and pay the sum of twenty pounds, to be recovered
as aforesaid, and shall moreover be liable to be removed, in manner
aforesaid, from his respective office or employment in the said gaol.
SEC. XXVI. That the present House of Correction in the city of
Philadelphia shall be reserved for the exclusive reception and confine-
ment of debtors, and persons committed to secure their appearance as
witnesses in criminal prosecutions, and not charged with any mis-
demeanor or higher offence, which witnesses, if bound in recognizances
for their appearance in favour of the prosecution, shall be allowed the
sum of six-pence per diem, to be paid out of the county stock. And the
commissioners of the said county are hereby authorized to make such
alterations in the same, not exceeding the sum of sixty pounds, as shall
be necessary to accommodate all such prisoners; and to distinguish the
said House of Correction by a proper title, henceforward it shall be
called and known by the name of "The Debtors Apartment."
SEC. XXVII. That the keepers of the said gaol and of the said
House of Correction, respectively, shall forthwith exchange the several
prisoners in their respective custody, conformable to the true intent
and meaning of this act, and shall be, and are hereby, indemnified for
all such prisoners as shall be safely delivered into proper custody,
pursuant to the directions of this act.
SEC. XXVIII. AND WHEREAS, It may not at present be practi-
cable to introduce all the above mentioned regulations into each of the
counties of this state, although it is necessary that an uniformity of
punishment should as much as possible prevail in all: Be it enacted
by the authority aforesaid, That the malefactors sentenced to hard
labour as aforesaid in the several counties of this state, other than the
county of Philadelphia, shall be employed in the several gaols and
work-houses in the respective counties, in such hard and servile
labour, and fed and cloathed in such manner, as is hereinbefore di-
rected. And the Sheriff of the proper county, to whom the said male-
factor shall be committed in execution of their sentence, shall, from
time to time, with the approbation of the Justices of the court of
Quarter Sessions of the proper county, in open court, appoint so many
keepers of the said malefactors as shall be necessary, whose wages shall
be ascertained and allowed by the said court, and paid by the Treasurer
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
87
of the county, out of the monies in his hands raised for the use of the
caid county, by a warrant drawn by the said Sheriff, and at least one of
the commissioners of the proper county, and that the duty of the said
keepers shall be to superintend and direct their labours, manage and
attend to their cloathing, diet and lodging, and take care that they be
safely kept; and the better to effect this purpose, they shall have au-
thority to confine in close durance, apart from all society, all those
who shall refuse to labour, be idle, or guilty of any trespass, and during
such confinement to withhold from them all sustenance, except bread
and water; and also to put iron yokes around their necks, chains upon
their leg or legs, or otherwise restrain in irons such as shall be incor-
rigible or irreclaimable without such severity.
SEC. XXIX. That the court of Quarter Sessions of any such
county shall have power, either ex officio, or upon information against
any such keeper for partiality or cruelty, to call before them such keep-
er, together with the material witnesses, and enquire into his conduct,
and if it shall appear that he hath been guilty of gross partiality or
cruelty, it shall and may be lawful for the said court to suspend or
remove him; and any of the Judges of the Supreme Court, when upon
the circuit of such county, either on their own motion, or on complaint
made by any other, may take original cognizance of the misbehaviour of
any keeper, and remove him from office, if they see cause; and in case
of suspension or removal of all or any of the said keepers, either by the
Justices of the Quarter Sessions, or the Judges of the Supreme Court,
the Sheriff of the proper county, with the approbation of the Justices
of the Quarter Sessions of the same county, shall and he is hereby,
authorized and directed to appoint another keeper or keepers, in the
room of such as shall have been so suspended or removed.
SEC. XXX. That the keepers of the gaols and work-houses, or
houses of correction, in such counties, shall, once in every three months,
or oftener, if required, furnish the commissioners of their respective
counties with a complete calendar or list of all persons committed to
their respective custody, under sentence of such servitude, together
with the names of their crimes, the term of their servitude, in what
court condemned, the ages and the description of the persons of such
as shall appear to be too old and infirm, or otherwise incapable to
undergo hard labour out of the gaols or work-houses, and the said
commissioners shall, at the charge of the proper county, provide the
cloathing and the food hereinbefore directed for them, as also such
articles and materials of labour and manufacture, as shall be most suit-
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
able for the employment of all those who are capable of labour or
manufacture, and deliver the same to the said gaoler, or work-house
keeper, taking a receipt therefor; and that the gaoler or work-house
keeper shall render an account quarterly, or oftener, if required, to
the commissioners, of the work done by the said malefactors, and dis-
pose
of the same in such manner as the commissioners shall direct; and
the said commissioners are hereby authorized, from time to time, to
draw orders, or give their warrants on the Treasurer of the proper
county, for the advance of such sums as they shall think reasonable
and necessary for carrying this act into execution, and all expenses and
charges incurred, or to be incurred, by virtue of this act, shall be
levied and raised as other county charges are, and be accounted for in
like manner, excepting the said sum of five hundred pounds, directed
by this act to be paid out of the treasury of the state, towards erecting
the said cells in the yard of the gaol of the county of Philadelphia.
SEC. XXXI. That the said keepers of any of the gaols and houses
of correction within this commonwealth, their deputies and assistants,
in case any of the said offenders, shall escape from confinement without
the knowledge or consent of the said keepers, deputies or assistants,
shall forfeit and pay the sum of ten pounds, to be recovered and applied
in manner aforesaid: Provided, That nothing in this act contained shall
be deemed or taken to extend to escapes voluntarily suffered by any
such keepers of the said gaols or work-houses.
SEC. XXXII. That, if any such offender sentenced to hard labour
shall escape, he or she shall, on conviction thereof, suffer such addi-
tional confinement at hard labour, agreeably to the directions of this
act, and shall also suffer such additional corporal punishment, not
extending to life or limb, as the court, in which such offender shall have
been convicted, shall adjudge and direct; and if any such offender shall,
after his or her escape, be guilty of any offence, for which he or she
would have been sentenced to death, by the laws in force before the
passing of the act, entituled "An Act amending the penal laws of this
state," he or she shall suffer death, as if the said act, or this act had
not been made.
SEC. XXXIII. That any such offenders who have been or shall
be pardoned for the offences or crimes, of which he or she hath been
or shall be convicted in pursuance of the said act, or of this act:
Provided, Such offence was by any law in force before the passing of
the said act made capital, and who shall be convicted of a second
offence of the like nature, shall suffer death on such conviction without
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
89
benefit of clergy, and any constable who shall take up and convey to
gaol any convict who shall escape from his confinement, shall be allowed
mileage, at the same rate as constables are commonly allowed, to be
paid by the Treasurer of the proper county.
SEC. XXXIV. That any felon convicted in any county in this
state, other than the county of Philadelphia, of any felony or felonies,
for which he or she shall be sentenced to hard labour for the space of
twelve months or upwards, may, at the discretion of the court in which
such felon shall be convicted, within three months after such convic-
tion, be removed, at the expense of the said county, under safe and
secure conduct, to the gaol in the said county of Philadelphia, and
therein be confined, fed, cloathed, and employed at hard labour, as is
hereinbefore directed, for the remaining part of the time for which,
by such sentence, he or she shall be liable to imprisonment; and the
commissioners of the said county of Philadelphia, upon the application
of the said inspectors, shall have authority, from time to time, to draw
orders upon the Treasurer of the county from which such felon shall
have been so removed, for the expenses of feeding and clothing such
felon, if the labour of such felon shall not be sufficient to pay the same,
which orders the Treasurer of such county shall accept and pay.
SEC. XXXV. That if any gaoler, or other person whatever, shall
introduce into, or give away, barter or sell, within any gaol or house
of correction in the said city, or any of the counties of this state, any
spirituous or fermented liquors, excepting only such as the gaoler or
keeper of such gaol or house of correction shall make use of in his own
family, or such as may be required for any prisoner in a state of ill
health, and for such purpose prescribed by an attending physician,
and delivered into the hands of such physician, or other person ap-
pointed to receive them, such person shall forfeit and pay the sum of
five pounds, to be recovered as debts of like value may be recovered
by the laws of this state, one moiety thereof to the use of the person
suing, the other moiety to be paid to the said inspectors, for the pur-
poses in this act contained.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
4.
The Reform of the Criminal Law in Kentucky, Including
Provision for a State Penitentiary¹
WHEREAS, It frequently happens that wicked and dissolute men,
resigning themselves to the dominion of inordinate passions, commit
violations on the lives, liberties and property of others; and the secure
enjoyment of these having principally induced men to enter into so-
ciety, government would be defective in its principal purpose, were
it not to restrain such criminal acts, by inflicting due punishment on
those who perpetrate them; but it appears at the same time equally
deducible, from the purposes of society, that a member thereof com-
mitting an inferior injury, does not wholly forfeit the protection of his
fellow citizens, but after suffering punishment in proportion to his
offence, is entitled to protection from all greater suffering; so that it
becomes a duty in the legislature to arrange in a proper scale the crimes
which it may be necessary for them to repress and to adjust thereto a
corresponding gradation of punishments. AND WHEREAS, The refor-
mation of offenders, an object highly meriting the attention of the
laws, is not effected at all by capital punishments, which exterminate
instead of reforming, and should be the last melancholy resource
against those whose existence is become inconsistent with the safety
of their fellow citizens; which also weaken the state by cutting off so
many, who, if reformed, might be restored sound members to society,
who, even under a course of labor, might be rendered useful to the
community, and who would be living and long continued examples, to
deter others from committing the like offences. And forasmuch as
experience in all ages and countries hath shewn that cruel and sangui-
nary laws defeat their own purpose, by engaging the benevolence of
mankind to withhold prosecutions, to smother testimony, or to listen
to it with bias; and by producing in many instances a total dispensation
and impunity, under the names of pardon and benefit of clergy; when
if the punishment were only proportioned to the injury, men would feel
it their inclination, as well as their duty, to see the laws observed; for
• Extract from "An Act to Amend the Penal Laws of This Commonwealth,
February 10, 1798," The Statute Law of Kentucky (Littell), II (1798–1801), 10-19.
This act was amended and explained in December, 1798, chap. 119; in Decem-
ber, 1799, a supplemental act was passed, chap. 206; in December, 1800, an amenda-
tory act, chap. 299; in December, 1801, a large amendatory act, chap. 375; two
others in 1802, Vol. III, chaps. 34 and 35; and another in 1804, Vol. III, chap. 254.
In 1805 an act was passed to amend the proceedings in criminal cases, Vol. III, chap.
302.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
91
rendering crimes and punishments therefore more proportionate to
each other.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted, That no crime whatsoever committed
by any free person against this commonwealth, (except murder in the
first degree,) shall be punished with death, within the same.
SEC. 18. AND WHEREAS, The great saving of expenses, as well as
the beneficial effects to be produced by the present change¹ in the mode
of punishment, will very greatly depend on the choice of a proper situa-
tion for the said jail and penitentiary house: Be it therefore enacted,
That Harry Innis, Alexander S. Bullitt, Caleb Wallace, Isaac Shelby
and John Coburn, gentlemen, be and they are hereby appointed com-
missioners, for the purpose of choosing a situation for the said jail and
penitentiary house, in some town or village within this commonwealth,
which will be most likely to afford the necessary materials for the labor
and employment of the said convicts, on the most easy, cheap and
profitable terms, and in the greatest abundance; attending at the same
time to the healthfulness of the said place; and which will be most likely
moreover to afford the most suitable persons contemplated by this act,
to be employed in the superintendence and management of the same.
And in case either of the said commissioners shall die or refuse to act,
the governor shall fill up such vacancy with some other fit person.
AND WHEREAS, The funds of this commonwealth may not at present
be fully competent to the complete erection of the said buildings, and
to the purchase of a lot of ground on which to erect the same, and the
benevolence of the good citizens of this commonwealth may induce
them to give their aid: Be it enacted, That the said commissioners shall,
'within three months from the passage of this act, advertise for four
weeks successively in the Kentucky Gazette, such times and places as
they shall judge proper, when and where they will meet and receive
any subscriptions that may be offered for the purchase of a lot of one
acre of ground, and the erection of the buildings aforesaid. The said
commissioners, or a majority of them, shall, within five months from
the date, after severally taking an oath, well and truly to discharge the
duties hereby imposed on them, to the best of their judgment, for the
advantage of this commonwealth, proceed to the choice of a situation
aforesaid, and to the purchase of one acre of ground. The said acre
of ground, when purchased as aforesaid, shall be conveyed to the
governor for the time being and his successors forever, for the use
of this commonwealth, for the purposes aforesaid; and the said
[I.e., the substitution of imprisonment for the earlier forms of punishment.]
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
commissioners shall give to the person so conveying the said lot, a
certificate under their hands and seals, expressive of such purchase
and the amount thereof, which shall entitle the holder thereof to receive
the sum therein expressed, from the treasurer, by warrant from the
auditor. All monies subscribed as aforesaid upon condition of erecting
said buildings at any particular place in the said subscriptions men-
tioned, shall, in case the commissioners aforesaid do make choice of
such place, be considered as unconditionally due from such subscribers
respectively, and may be recovered by the directors hereinafter men-
tioned, in case of non-payment on demand, by motion on ten days'
previous notice to such subscriber, in any court of record having juris-
diction thereof, from which there shall lie no appeal. The commission-
ers having completed as aforesaid the business to them committed,
shall within ten days thereafter transmit to the governor a full state-
ment thereof, under their hands and seals, together with the subscrip-
tions for such place as they made choice of for the seat of the said
buildings; and their powers shall then determine. The governor is here-
by requested, as soon as he receives a return from the commissioners
as aforesaid, to appoint three fit and proper persons as directors to
contract for and superintend the building on the lot of ground to be
purchased as aforesaid, a jail and penitentiary house, sufficient to con-
tain thirty convicts at least. The said buildings shall be constructed
of brick or stone, in a plain strong manner, and upon such plan as may
hereafter be added to, with conveniency and propriety, and as may be
best adapted for the accommodation, safekeeping, and treatment of
convicts, as contemplated by this act, as also for the accommodation
of a keeper and his family. The said directors shall also cause to be•
built adjoining (or surrounding, as they may judge best) the said jail
and penitentiary house, a wall, sufficiently strong, high and extensive
to afford a yard for the use of the said convicts, and shall also cause to
be built a suitable number of cells, to be constructed in the said yard,
each of which shall be six feet in width, eight feet in length, and nine
feet in height, and shall be constructed of brick or stone, upon such
place as will best prevent danger from fire; and the said cells shall be
separated from the common yard by walls of such height as, without
unnecessary exclusion of air and light, will prevent all external com-
munication; for the purposes of confining therein offenders, who may
be sentenced to solitary confinement by virtue of this act.
SEC. 19. And for the purpose of defraying the expense of such
buildings, cells and wall, the said directors shall be, and are hereby
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
93
authorized to draw upon the treasurer, which he is hereby directed to
pay on warrant from the auditor, a sum not exceeding five thousand
dollars; one half thereof to be paid on the first day of August next, and
the residue within six months thereafter. The said directors shall, at
the next session of the general assembly, lay before the legislature a
plan of the buildings by them contracted for, and a statement of
monies arising from the subscriptions; and shall receive for their serv-
ices an adequate compensation, to be hereafter ascertained by the
general assembly.
SEC. 20. The said jails and cells shall be appropriated to the pur-
pose of confining such males and females as shall have been convicted
of the offences above enumerated as punishable with imprisonment and
labor, but the males and females are hereby required to be kept sepa-
rate and apart from each other and all the prisoners shall be subject
to the visitation and superintendence of the inspectors hereinafter ap-
pointed.
SEC. 21. Every person convicted in any district court in this state,
of any crimes (except murder of the first degree) hereinbefore specified,
shall, as soon as possible after conviction, be safely removed by the
sheriff of the county, or sergeant of the corporation in which the crime.
or offence shall have been committed, and at the expense of the com-
monwealth, to the said jail and penitentiary house, and therein be
kept during the term of their confinement, in the manner and on the
terms hereinafter mentioned; and every sheriff or sergeant who shall
neglect to remove and safely deliver at the jail aforesaid, such convict,
shall forfeit and pay the sum of one hundred dollars, to be recovered in
any court of record, and applied, one half to the use of the county or
corporation where the offence was committed, the other to such persons
as shall sue for the same.
SEC. 22. Every person convicted of any of the crimes aforesaid,
and who shall be confined in the jail and penitentiary house aforesaid,
shall be placed and kept in the solitary cells thereof, on low and coarse
diet, for such part or portion of the term of his or her imprisonment, as
the court in their sentence shall direct and appoint: Provided, That it
be not more than one half, nor less than one-twentieth part thereof;
and that the inspectors of the said jail shall have power to direct the
infliction of the said solitary confinement, at such intervals, and in
such manner as they shall judge best.
SEC. 23. AND WHEREAS, It is of importance that the nature of the
offence, and the former conduct and character of the convicts should
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
be known by the said inspectors: Be it further enacted, That whenso-
ever any person shall be convicted of any crime which now is capital,
or a felony of death, the court before whom such conviction is had,
shall, before their adjournment to another term, make and cause to be
transmitted to the said inspectors, a report or short account of the cir-
cumstances attending the crime committed by such convict, particu-
larly such as tend to aggravate or extenuate the same, and also what
character the said convict appeared on the trial to sustain, and whether
he had at any time before been convicted of any felony or other in-
famous crimes: which report the said inspector shall cause to be en-
tered in books or registers to be provided for that purpose.
SEC. 24. If any person convicted of any crime which now is capital,
or a felony of death without benefit of clergy, shall commit any such
offence a second time, and be thereof legally convicted, he or she shall
be sentenced to undergo an imprisonment in the said jail and peniten-
tiary house, at hard labor, during life, and shall be confined in the said
solitary cells, at such times and in such manner as the inspector shall
direct; and if any person sentenced to hard labor and solitary confine-
ment by virtue of this act, shall escape or be pardoned, and after his or
her escape or pardon, shall be guilty of any such offence as now is capi-
tal, or felony of death without benefit of clergy, such persons shall be
sentenced to undergo an imprisonment for the term of twenty-five
years, and shall be confined in the solitary cells aforesaid at the discre-
tion of the said inspectors.
SEC. 28. All such convicts shall, at the public expence, during the
term of their confinement, be clothed in habits of coarse materials,
uniform in colour and make, and distinguishing them from the good
citizens of this commonwealth; and the males shall have their heads
and beards close shaven, at least once every week; and all such offend-
ers shall, during the said term, be sustained upon bread, Indian meal,
or other inferior food, at the discretion of the said inspectors, and shall
be allowed two meals of coarse meat in each week, and shall be kept,
as far as may be consistent with their sex, age, health, and ability, to
labor of the hardest and most servile kind, in which the work is least
liable to be spoiled by ignorance, neglect, or obstinacy, and where the
materials are not easily embezzled or destroyed; and if the work to be
performed is of such a nature as may require previous instruction,
proper persons for that purpose, to whom a suitable allowance shall be
made, shall be provided by order of any three of the inspectors herein-
after named; during which labor the said offenders shall be kept
•
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
95
separate and apart from each other, if the nature of their several em-
ployments will admit thereof; and where the nature of such employ-
ment requires two or more to work together, the keeper of the said jail,
or one of his deputies, shall, if possible, be constantly present.
SEC. 29. Such offenders, unless prevented by ill health, shall be em-
ployed in work every day in the year, except Sundays, and such days
when they shall be confined in the solitary cells; and the hours of work
in each day, shall be as many as the season of the year, with an interval
of half an hour for breakfast, and an hour for dinner, will permit, but
not exceeding eight hours in the months of November, December and
January; nine hours in the months of February and October, and ten
hours in the rest of the year; and when such hours of work are past,
the working tools, implements and materials, or such of them as will
admit of daily removal, shall be removed to places proper for their safe
custody, until the hour of labor shall return.
SEC. 30. The keeper of the said jail shall from time to time, with
the approbation of any three of the inspectors hereinafter mentioned,
provide a sufficient quantity of stock and materials, working tools and
implements for such offenders, for the expences of which the said in-
spectors, or any three of them, shall be, and they are hereby authorised
to draw orders, to be counter-signed by the auditor of public accounts,
on the treasurer of this commonwealth, if need shall be, specifying in
such orders the quantity and nature of the materials, tools, or imple-
ments wanted, which order the said treasurer is hereby requested to
discharge out of any money which may be at the time in the treasury;
for which materials and implements, when received, the said keeper
shall be accountable; and the said keeper shall, with the approbation
of any three of the said inspectors, have power to make contracts
with any person whatever, for the clothing, diet, and all other neces-
saries for the maintenance and support of such convicts, and for the
implements, and of any kind of manufacture, trade or labor, in which
such convicts shall be employed, and for the sale of such goods, wares,
and merchandize as shall be there wrought and manufactured; and the
said keeper shall cause all accounts concerning the maintenance of
such convicts and other prisoners, to be entered regularly in a book or
books to be kept for that purpose; and shall also keep separate ac-
counts of the stock and materials so wrought, manufactured, sold, and
disposed of, and the monies for which the same shall be sold, and when
sold, and to whom, in books to be provided for those purposes, all
which books and accounts shall be at all times open for the examina-
f
96
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tion of the said inspectors, and shall be regularly laid before them at
their quarterly or other meetings as hereinafter directed, for their
approbation and allowance.
SEC. 31. If the said inspectors at their quarterly or other meetings,
shall suspect any fraudulent or improper charges, or any omission in
any such accounts, they may examine upon oath or affirmation, the
said keeper or any of his deputies, servants or assistants, or any person
of whom any necessaries, stock, materials, or other things have been
purchased for the use of the said jail, or any persons to whom any stock
or materials wrought or manufactured therein have been sold, or any
of the offenders confined in such jail, or any other person or persons,
concerning any of the articles contained in such accounts, or any
omission thereout, and in case any fraud shall appear in such accounts,
the particulars thereof shall be reported by the said inspectors to the
court of the county in which such jail is situate, for the purposes here-
inafter mentioned.
SEC. 32. In order to encourage industry as an evidence of reforma-
tion, separate accounts shall be opened in the said books for all convicts
who have no property and are sentenced to hard labor for six months
and upwards, in which such convicts shall be charged with the expences
of their prosecution and conviction, and of clothing and subsistence,
and of such proportionable part of the expences of the raw materials
upon which they shall be employed, as the inspectors at their quarterly
or other meetings, shall think just, and shall be credited with the sum
or sums from time to time, received by reason of their labor; if the same
shall be found to exceed the said expences, the said excess shall be laid
out in making restitution to the party injured; and if none is adjudged
them, in decent raiment for such convicts at their discharge, or other-
wise applied to their use and benefit, as the said inspectors shall upon
such occasion direct; and if such offender at the end or other determina-
tion of his term of confinement, shall labor under any acute or danger-
ous distemper, he shall not be discharged, unless at his own request,
until he can be safely discharged. . . . .
SEC. 36. The keeper of the said jail shall have power to punish all
such prisoners guilty of assaults within the said jail, when no dangerous
wound or bruise is given, profane cursing and swearing, or indecent
behavior, idleness or negligence in work, or wilful mismanagement of
it, or of disobedience to the orders or regulations hereinafter directed
to be made, by confining such offenders in the solitary cells of the said
jail, and by keeping them upon bread and water only, for any term
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
97
not exceeding two days; and if any prisoner shall be guilty of any
offence within the said jail which the said keeper is not hereby author-
ised to punish, or for which he shall think the said punishment is not
sufficient, by reason of the enormity of the offence, he shall report the
same to two of the said inspectors, who, if upon proper enquiry they
shall think fit, shall certify the nature and circumstances of such
offence, with the name of the offender, to the county court where such
jail is situate, and the court shall thereupon order such offences to be
punished by moderate whipping, or repeated whippings not exceeding
thirteen lashes each, or by close confinement in the said solitary cells
with bread and water only for sustenance, for any time not exceeding
six days, or by all the said punishments.
SEC. 37. It shall be lawful for the governor for the time being, to
appoint a suitable person to be keeper of the said jail, who shall how-
ever be removed whenever occasion may require; in which case another
shall from time to time be appointed in like manner, who shall receive
such compensation for his services, and in lieu of all fees and gratuities,
by reason or under colour of the said office, as the legislature from time
to time shall direct, to be paid in quarterly payments, by orders drawn
on the treasury of this commonwealth by the auditor of public ac-
counts, and also five per centum on the sales of all articles, manu-
factured by the said criminals; and such keeper shall have power, with
the approbation of the governor, to appoint a suitable number of depu- .
ties and assistants, who shall also receive such allowances as the legis-
lature shall think just, which allowance shall be paid quarterly in like
manner; and before any such jailor shall exercise any part of the said
office, he shall give bond to the governor of the commonwealth, with
two sufficient sureties, to be approved by the court of the county where
such jail is, in the sum of two thousand dollars, upon condition, that
he, his deputies and assistants, shall well and faithfully perform the
trust and duties in them reposed; which said bond, being executed
before, and certified by the said court, shall be legal evidence in all
courts of law in any suit against such jailor or his deputies.
SEC. 38. It shall be lawful for the said court of the county where
such jail is, at the first court after the time when the said jail shall be
erected agreeable to the directions of this act, to appoint six in-
spectors, three of whom shall be in office for six months, and three for
twelve months, and so during every succeeding six months, three
inspectors shall be appointed by the said court, who shall be in office
for twelve months; and if any person so appointed, not having a reason-
98
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
able excuse, to be approved of by the said court, shall refuse to serve
in the said office, he shall forfeit and pay the sum of thirty dollars:
to be recovered by action of debt, the one half to the use of the person
suing, the other half to be paid to the treasurer of this commonwealth,
to be applied to the purposes hereinbefore mentioned.
SEC. 39. The said inspectors, four of whom shall be a quorum,
shall meet once in three months in an apartment to be provided for that
purpose in the said jail, and may be specially convened by the acting
inspectors when occasion shall require; and they shall at their first
meeting appoint one of their members to be acting inspector, who shall
continue for such time as shall be directed by the said inspectors, or a
majority of them, when met together; and the acting inspector shall
attend the said jail, at least once in each week, and shall examine into
and inspect the management of the said jail, and the conduct of the
said keeper and his deputies, so far as respects the said offenders em-
ployed at hard labor by the directions of this act, and shall do and
perform the several matters and things hereinbefore directed by them
to be performed.
SEC. 40. The board of inspectors, at their quarterly or other meet-
ings, shall make such other and further orders and regulations for the
purpose of carrying this act into execution as shall be approved of by
the governor, and such orders and regulations shall be hung up in at
least three of the most conspicuous places in the said jail: and if the
said keeper or any of his deputies or assistants shall obstruct or resist
the said inspectors or any of them in the exercise of the powers and
duties vested in them by this act, such person shall forfeit and pay the
sum of sixty dollars, to be recovered as aforesaid, and shall moreover
be liable to be removed in manner aforesaid, from his respective office
or employment in the said jail.
5. The Kentucky Institution for the Deaf and Dumb
Α'
WHEREAS, It is desirable to promote the education of that portion
of the community, who, by the mysterious dispensation of Providence,
are born deaf and of course dumb, and experience in other countries
having evinced the practicability of reclaiming them to the rank of
I "An Act to Endow an Asylum for the Tuition of the Deaf and Dumb, Decem-
ber 7, 1822," Acts of the General Assembly, Commonwealth of Kentucky (1822), chap.
481. See also below, Sec. III, Document 3.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
99
their species, by a judicious and well adapted course of education-it
is represented that many of our philanthropic citizens would contribute
to promote an object so benevolent and humane, if this legislature
would co-operate, by affording pecuniary aid, and designating a mode
by which the gratuities devoted thereto could be effectually applied.
Therefore,
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Common-
wealth of Kentucky, That the trustees and their successors of the Cen-
tral College at Danville, shall be, and they are hereby authorised and
empowered to receive by legacies, conveyances or otherwise, lands,
slaves, money and other property, and the same to retain, use and ap-
ply to the education of the deaf and dumb within this commonwealth,
to any amount, the interest, profits or proceeds of which, shall not ex-
ceed the sum of thirty thousand dollars per annum.
The institution shall be located at Danville, in Mercer county, and
supported by the donations and legacies of the charitable, by such aid
as the legislature may be pleased to afford and by the money to be re-
ceived for the education of children whose parents, guardians or friends
are of ability to pay.
The trustees of the Danville College, and their successors in office,
shall have power to appoint a teacher or teachers, president, treasurer,
and all other officers that they may think necessary, and remove any
of them at pleasure, and make such bye-laws as they may think neces-
sary for the interest of said asylum.
There shall also be a committee of twelve Ladies, selected by the
trustees at their first meeting, and their vacancies filled from time to
time, as they may happen from death, removal or resignation, to aid in
the management of the asylum, under such provisions as may, from
time to time, be prescribed by the bye-laws.
The funds of the institution shall be under the management of the
trustees, subject, however, to such restrictions as shall accompany the
grant of aid by the legislature; and it shall be the duty of the trustees
for the time being, to present to the speakers of the Senate and House
of Representatives, respectively, annually, within the first week of their
session, a statement of the funds and expenses of the institution, and
of the number of children received and educated therein, during the
year immediately preceding, and of the parts of the state whence they
have come, distinguishing between those who have been supported
gratuitously and others.
Indigent children resident any where within the state, shall be re-
100
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
::
ceived into the asylum, maintained and educated gratuitously, so far
as the funds of the institution will admit: Provided, that where more
children shall be offered for the benefit of this institution than can be
received at any one time, the trustees shall so apportion their number
among the several counties of this commonwealth, according to their
representation, when application shall be made, that every county
may equally receive the benefits of the same.
SEC. 2. Be it further enacted, 'That in order to aid the funds of the
said asylum, the governor is hereby authorised and required to draw
his warrant on the auditor of public accounts in favor of the trustees
of this asylum, for the sum of three thousand dollars immediately;
and moreover, shall draw his warrant on the auditor in favor of said
trustees, for the further sum of one hundred dollars for every indigent
pupil taught in said asylum, which shall authorise the auditor to draw
a warrant on the treasurer for the amount directed in the governor's
warrant, which shall be paid out of any money in the treasury not oth-
erwise appropriated by law, and charged to the school fund: Provided,
That no one scholar shall be taught at the expense of the state more
than three years; and Provided also, That the sum so to be drawn from
the treasury, for such tuition shall, in no one year, exceed the sum of
two thousand five hundred dollars.
B¹
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Common-
wealth of Kentucky, That the trustees of the Kentucky institution for
the tuition of the deaf and dumb, shall hereafter be entitled to receive
for the support and maintenance of each indigent pupil that now is, or
may hereafter be admitted into said institution, the sum of one hun-
dred and fifty dollars, in lieu of the sum now allowed by law.
SEC. 2. It shall and may be lawful for the trustees of said institu-
tion to receive pupils from other states: Provided, The expense of their
maintenance and tuition be defrayed by such state or states, or by some
individual or society. Provided, That such admission shall not operate
to the exclusion of any indigent pupil of the state of Kentucky, until
the number of such shall be twenty-five, for which number provision is
herein made.
SEC. 3. That to aid said trustees in the erection or procurement of
“An Act to Increase the Allowance to Indigent Pupils in the Asylum for the
Education of the Deaf and Dumb, and for Other Purposes, January 7, 1824," Acts
of the General Assembly, Commonwealth of Kentucky (1823), chap. 712.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
IOI
suitable buildings, the sum of three thousand dollars is hereby appro-
priated, out of the interest accruing from the literary fund.
6. The Kentucky Lunatic Asylum
A¹
The consideration of public safety, the well being of society and
long experience enforced by the example of other countries, conspire to
prove the necessity of providing by law for the care, comfort and safe
keeping of persons, mentally diseased and who are of unsound minds.
And a full and fair trial having proved that the present laws of this
state are highly defective, and are not calculated to aid in the best
manner, the restoration and final cure of such persons; and yet are
found to be enormously expensive in their operation and rapidly in-
creasing; For remedy whereof,
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Common-
wealth of Kentucky, That a Lunatic Assylum shall be, and is hereby es-
tablished in this state, which shall be seated in the county of Fayette,
near the town of Lexington, and that Richard Higgins, Elisha Warfield
and John W. Hunt of the county of Fayette, John Pope, of the county
of Washington, and William P. Roper, of the county of Fleming, be
appointed commissioners to purchase, on behalf of this commonwealth,
a suitable tract or lot of ground including a spring of never failing
water, of not less than ten nor more than twenty acres, for the public
purpose aforesaid. The said commissioners shall proceed immediately
after the passage of this act, to make such purchase, upon the best
terms practicable, and proceed to erect or cause to be erected, suitable
and convenient buildings, of stone or brick or both, sufficient for the
care and safe keeping of at least two hundred persons, having due re-
gard to their comfort as well as safe keeping. The said commissioners
are required to make use of all reasonable despatch in erecting and com-
pleting said buildings, and in providing the necessary maintenance
with plain cheap lodging for the proposed number of Lunatics, and
when provided shall immediately report the same to the executive of
this state, whose duty it shall be to make proclamation thereof, giving
notice to all committees of Lunatics and also to the circuit courts, that
the assylum is ready for the reception of Lunatics; from and after a day
to be named in said proclamation (giving reasonable time) the whole
"An Act to Establish a Lunatic Assylum, December 7, 1822," Acts of the
General Assembly, Commonwealth of Kentucky (1822), chap. 478.
102
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
*
of the laws now in force in this state providing for the care and main-
tenance and safe keeping of persons of unsound mind shall cease.
The commissioners in making the purchase herein provided for,
may select a lot or tract of land with suitable buildings thereon, or
partly erected, having due regard to the provisions of this act.
The governor may appoint some suitable person as Stewart, to
receive and take care of all such Lunatics and such other unsound per-
sons as may be committed to said assylum to commence so soon as
may be necessary, who shall hold his appointment until the close of the
next General Assembly thereafter, and shall be allowed at the rate of
five hundred dollars per annum, for the time he may be engaged in the
faithful discharge of the duties of his station.
SEC. 2. The sum of ten thousand dollars shall be set apart and ap-
propriated for the purposes herein specified, to be paid quarterly as
the said work progresses, by the treasurer of this state-For the ob-
taining of which the said commissioners, a majority agreeing thereto,
may obtain the auditor's warrant, having first entered into bond with
security, to be approved of by the Fayette county court, in the penalty
of thirty thousand dollars, conditioned for the due and faithful appli-
cation of the sum herein appropriated.
A report of the application and disbursements provided for by this
act shall be laid before the next general assembly for their correction
and approbation.
SEC. 3. A majority of the commissioners appointed by this act,
may perform the duties herein assigned them.
BI
Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Commonwealth of Ken-
tucky, That if it shall be made appear to the satisfaction of the circuit
court, before which any person hath been, or shall be found a lunatic
or idiot, that said lunatic or idiot is harmless, and can be safely and
properly kept by his or her parent or near relation, and that said luna-
tic or idiot hath not sufficient property to support him or her, the said
court may in its discretion, appoint a committee, and make an allow-
ance as heretofore, any thing in the act, entitled, an act to establish a
lunatic hospital, to the contrary notwithstanding.
"An Act Supplemental to an Act Entitled 'An Act to Establish a Lunatic
Hospital,' December 11, 1822,” Acts of the General Assembly, Commonwealth of
Kentucky (1822), chap. 512.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
103
CI
The Lunatic Asylum being now complete and ready for the re-
ception of all persons of unsound minds within this Commonwealth.
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the Common-
wealth of Kentucky, That John W. Hunt, Richard Higgins, Elisha War-
field, John Brand, William W. Worsley, Richard H. Chinn, William
Morton, John Bradford, Andrew M'Calla, and John R. Witherspoon
be, and are hereby appointed commissioners to carry said establish-
ment into operation; and they are hereby authorized and directed to
purchase bedding, clothing and all other necessaries, or cause the same
to be done, by some careful and discreet person, to be appointed by
them for that purpose, having due regard to economy, which said com-
missioners shall hold their appointment for two years and until others
may be appointed by law.
SEC. 2. The commissioners are hereby directed and required, care-
fully and scrupulously to examine the case of every subject brought to
the Asylum, distinguishing, by all the means in their power, between
such persons as are sick or imbecile only, and such as are actually luna-
tic, or of unsound mind, admitting only the latter, and rejecting the
former, also carefully distinguishing maniacs, or persons who are dan-
gerous, from such as are quiet and peaceable, making orders for their
confinement or otherwise, accordingly.
SEC. 3. From and after the first day of May next all laws commit-
ting persons of unsound mind to the care of committees and charging
the Treasury of the state with the payment thereof, shall entirely cease,
and from thence forward, the care and safekeeping of all such persons.
shall be confided to the Lunatic Asylum.
SEC. 4. Upon the production of any lunatic or other person of un-
sound mind, at the Asylum, and examination had, if the person offered
is found to be a fit subject of admission, he or she shall be provided for,
according to his or her state of disease, and the reasonable expense and
trouble of conveying said patient, shall be paid to the person delivering
him, her or them, by the commissioners, or by their order, and the said
commissioners shall have full power and authority to discharge any
person or persons, from said Asylum, whenever they deem such person
or persons sufficiently restored.
I "An Act to Carry into Operation the Lunatic Asylum, January 7, 1824,"
Acts of the General Assembly, Commonwealth of Kentucky (1823), chap. 703.
I04
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 5. The said commissioners are hereby required to cause an
account to be kept of all their transactions and disbursements, to be
laid before the Legislature annually.
SEC. 6. The said commissioners are hereby authorized to draw
from the Treasury, the sum of ten thousand dollars, to be applied to
the purposes herein mentioned, who, or any two of whom, may draw
and receipt therefor, having entered into bond with good and sufficient
security, to be approved of by the Fayette county court, in the penal
sum of at least twenty thousand dollars, conditioned for the due and
faithful application thereof; which sum shall be paid quarterly in ad-
vance, out of any money in the Treasury, so soon as the Auditor shall
be satisfied such bond has been executed.
SEC. 7. The commissioners are hereby authorized to appoint a
chairman, make and digest a system of bye-laws, for the government
of said Asylum, not inconsistent with the laws of this state.
SEC. 8. Said commissioners shall appoint some fit and suitable per-
son as keeper or steward of said Asylum, to take the care and manage-
ment thereof, removable at pleasure, and so much of the act passed at
the last session of the General Assembly as requires the Governor to
make such appointment, shall and is hereby repealed.
SEC. 9. Provided however, That Idiots shall be permitted to remain
with their parent or parents, if their parents so desire, and such parent
or parents shall be authorized to continue in possession of such Idiot
as heretofore directed by law: Provided however, That the court shall
not make a greater allowance for the keeping such Idiot than it would
cost for keeping such person in said Asylum.
SEC. 10. Provided however, That nothing in this act contained shall
be so construed as to authorize the managers to support any person in
said institution, at the public charge, who have estate sufficient for
their support, and in all cases where an inquisition is found, the same
shall accompany the individual sent to the said Asylum.
7. The Deaf and Dumb Children of Massachusetts¹
An interesting communication from Mr. Gallaudet, Principal of
the Asylum of the Deaf and Dumb at Hartford, received through the
Department of State, is with pleasure referred to your notice. There
are now fifty-four Beneficiaries of the Commonwealth, in an equal num-
¹ Extract from Levi Lincoln, "Governor's Message" (January 7, 1829), Re-
solves of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1828–31), pp. 87–88.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
105
ber of males and females, supported and in a course of education at
that Institution. With thirty-two of these, the limited term of pupilage
will expire in the course of the present year, and, from past observation,
there is reason to believe, that there will not be a sufficient number of
applicants, within the description of the Act of the Legislature, to sup-
ply their places. If such should be the fact, the propriety of permitting
a longer continuance at the Asylum, of such of the pupils as should be
selected for their talents and proficiency, and who, by further oppor-
tunities for instruction, might themselves become qualified to teach,
or be otherwise particularly useful, is recommended to your favorable
regard. This humane and charitable indulgence is strongly enforced
by the observation of the Principal, that "four years affords but a very
imperfect opportunity for the education of those, who, like the Deaf
and Dumb, begin at the very alphabet of learning, and have to be
taught systematically, in the schoolroom, a great deal that other chil-
dren acquire by promiscuous conversation and intercourse with Soci-
ety.” It is to be recollected, that these Beneficiaries, without instruc-
tion, are not only, from their natural defects, the most helpless and de-
pendent of our Fellow Beings, but, from their condition in society, and
the poverty of those, who otherwise would be bound to provide for
their support, must be sustained by the public bounty. It is cheering
to the heart of the Philanthropist to witness the benign charities of the
Government interposed for their relief,—to know, that while the ear is
dead to sound and the tongue lost to speech, the mind is opened to ac-
quisitions of knowledge, and life made a blessing by new powers of
communication.
·
8. The Massachusetts State Prison¹
The Reports of the Officers of the State Prison show the highly im-
proved condition of that Institution. It is now made, eminently, what
a Penitentiary should become, a place of just yet merciful correction,
and of the means of moral reform. A strict and steady discipline has
been enforced from the time of the occupation of the new Building.
All improper indulgencies have been effectually repressed, intercourse
and social communication are prevented, and constant restraint, in
alternate labor and the seclusion of the solitary cell, is imposed. The
faithful offices of the Chaplain give opportunity for religious improve-
¹ Extract from Levi Lincoln, "Governor's Message" (January 5, 1831), Re-
solves of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1828-31), pp. 451-
53.
106
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ment. Instruction is imparted in exercises of private and public de-
votion, by an attendance on morning and evening prayers, in the
teachings of the Sunday School, and in stated ministrations on the
Sabbath. Classes of the young and ignorant are taught to read and
write, and whatever respite is allowed from toil to any, is given to the
means of moral and intellectual culture, to self reflection, or to neces-
sary rest. Already the fierce and turbulent spirit is seen to yield, and
habits of submission, useful occupation, and patient industry to be
formed. The Inspectors, in their Report, say:
The effects of the new system, under the direction of the Warden, Chap-
lain, and Physician, are visible and cheering to the prospects, and encourag-
ing to the hopes of the friends of Penitentiary Reform. The Convicts have
become more submissive, obedient, orderly and contented, more susceptible
of moral influences and religious impressions. They are easily governed,
and attentive to the instructions of the Chaplain. Few punishments are in-
flicted, and those chiefly for minor offenses, and their daily tasks are dili-
gently performed, without the aid of pecuniary rewards.
A frequent visitation and careful inspection of the Prison afford the
truest cause for satisfaction with this representation. To the principal
Officers the community are indeed indebted, in a measure of respect
greatly beyond what is due for the mere performance of duty. They
have given to the objects and interests of the institution a purpose
of mind, and a devotion of feeling, which have added ten-fold influence
to the voice of authority. With the advancement of moral purposes,
it is gratifying to find that the pecuniary affairs of the Prison are also
improving. By the accounts made up to the first of October, the bal-
ance of expenditures beyond the earnings of the convicts, the last year,
appears to be $6,892.02—and the whole excess, into $90.60, to have
been incurred in the first six months of that period. The deficiency in
1829, was $8,396.43, and in the year preceding it exceeded $12,000.
It should be distinctly understood, that in stating the accounts for the
year past, no credit has been given for the labor of the convicts upon
the new chapel erected within that time, and that the institution is
chargeable with an expense of not less amount, in the estimation of the
Inspectors, than $2,000 annually, for the removal of prisoners from the
County Jails, and for clothing furnished to discharged convicts, and
allowances of money to enable them to return to their families, or for
their temporary subsistence while they seek employment, immediately
upon their liberation. These items, so considerable in the aggregate,
and the latter so creditable to the humanity of the laws, have no neces-
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
107
sary connexion with the support of the Prison. They are believed to be
peculiar to this establishment, and should be taken into consideration,
when comparing the accounts of recent with former years, and the pe-
cuniary results of this, with other similar Institutions. With such de-
ductions, and a credit to the Prison for the labor upon the Chapel, the
balance of the last year would be reduced to less than $4,000.
It is scarcely reasonable to expect that the Prison, under an entire
change in its arrangement and government, should be made, at once,
a place of profitable labor. From the physical incapacity of some of the
convicts, the short terms of the commitments of many of them, their
previous habits of idleness, and, generally, their ignorance and unskil-
fulness, at first, in the work to which they are put, their productiveness,
is, in no degree, proportionate to their numbers. But experience is con-
tinually suggesting improved modes for their employment, and for
effecting savings in the cost of their support. By judicious manage-
ment, rigid economy, and a strict accountability under the administra-
tion of the present system, it may be hoped, that the annual debit will
be made gradually to diminish, and, with better prices for labor and
the productions of the Prison, the balance may be shifted to the credit
side of the account.
9. Early Prison Reform in Massachusetts¹
Various matters, which are the usual and proper subjects of annual
communication, will be presented to you, with the necessary minute-
ness of detail, in Reports from appropriate Departments, and Agents
of the Government. Among these, it will not fail to be distinguished as
cause for peculiar gratification, that the condition of the State Prison
has at length reached a highly satisfactory point of improvement.
Honor to the wisdom, the moral confidence and courage, the deter-
mined and persevering purpose of successive Legislatures in a few
past, that, by liberal appropriations from the Treasury to the means of
experiment in penitentiary regulation and discipline, a mere Prison
House, for the physical restraint of the body, has been converted into a
school of salutary instruction and reform to the minds of the most vi-
cious and abandoned of our fellow men. The eye of Christian hope may
now rest with assurance upon the influence of this Institution, in the
accomplishment of an object of the truest benevolence. Although but
¹ Extract from Levi Lincoln, "Governor's Message" (January 9, 1832), Re-
solves of the General Court of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts (1832-34), pp. 32–36.
108
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
little more than two years have elapsed since the introduction of a new
system of employment and control into the Prison, the beneficial effects
are already distinctly visible, both within and without the walls. The
demeanor of the convicts has been softened and corrected, and from
the admonitions afforded here, and the greater terror inspired abroad,
commitments have sensibly diminished. Within the last year the num-
ber of prisoners was reduced from 290, at its commencement, to 256
at its close. The Directors express the opinion "that crimes of an atro-
cious character are less frequent than was once the case; and that the
majority of the Convicts appear to be inferior in intelligence and in-
formation to the average of any class of our Citizens." A most instruc-
tive result is also produced by the curious and critical investigations
of the Chaplain, into the characters and lives of these miserable men.
Of 256 convicts, whom his inquiries respected, he ascertained that 156
were led by intemperance to the commission of the offences for which
they suffer; that 182 of the first mentioned number had lived in the
habitual neglect and violation of the Sabbath; 82 were permitted to
grow up from infancy, without any regular employment; 68 had been
truants to their parents while in their minority; 61 could not write, and
many were wholly unable to read. The intimate connexion and asso-
ciation of ignorance with vice, of dissoluteness with outrages upon
the laws are here distinctly traced, and furnish an impressive lesson
upon the importance of knowledge and temperance to individual wel-
fare and social order, which should give a thrilling excitement to the
advancement of these objects, in the heart of every virtuous and pa-
triotic citizen and magistrate.
The business operations of the Prison, during the year past, have
been conducted with success. The balance of the annual account
which, for several of the preceding years, had been found to be large
against the Institution, in the exhibit of this year, is diminished to the
inconsiderable sum of $477.41; and against this, even, it should be
understood, there are numerous considerations of credit, particularly
mentioned in the Reports, which, if they had been taken into the ac-
count, would materially and most favorably have affected the result.
In 1828, the excess of expenditure was more than 12,000 dollars, in
1829, it was between 7 and 8,000, and, in 1830, it approached to 7,000.
There can be but little doubt that henceforth, the earnings of the Prison
will meet the ordinary expenses of its government and support, and
leave something, annually, for repairs and such additional accommoda-
tions as utility or convenience may require. The Reports, which will
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
109
be submitted to you, contain suggestions of the need of alterations in
the Hospital, and of a building for the residence of the Warden. The
latter seems to be necessary to a compliance, by this officer, with the
requisitions of duty, under the existing law; and I recommend that
authority should be given by the Legislature for the proposed improve-
ments.
The progress towards the establishment of another Institution of
public benevolence, in a Hospital for the Insane, under the authority
of a Resolve of the Legislature of the 10th March, 1830, has been as
great as the peculiar character of the last season, and the magnitude
of the work, would permit. The exterior structure of a spacious Edifice
for the accommodation of a Superintendant and of one hundred and
twenty Lunatics, has been completed, and the finishing of the interior
is in such forwardness as will secure the preparation of the building for
occupation, in the course of the next summer. From the economy and
good management which have been observed by the Commissioners,
in the contracts for the work, it is confidently believed, that the ex-
pense of erecting the Hospital, in the manner required by the Resolve,
will not exceed the appropriation. The plan of the Commissioners,
however, embraces a small additional range of strong Lodges, some-
what detached from the principal Building, for the restraint of those
persons who may be, either, so furiously mad, or so mischievously dis-
posed, as to endanger their safe keeping, or to disturb the tranquillity
of the quiet and convalescent patients; and for this most indispensable
arrangement to the good order and successful management of the In-
stitution, as well as for enclosing the grounds, necessary furniture for
the Building, and the support of the Establishment, provision remains
to be made by the Government. Estimates for these objects have been
requested of the Commissioners, for the purpose of being laid before
you. It will also devolve upon the Legislature, at the present session
to authorize the removal of such subjects of relief, as are now confined
in the Jails and Houses of Correction, in the different Counties, when-
ever the Hospital shall be prepared for their reception; and likewise to
determine, in what manner and on what terms, others of the same class
of unhappy Beings, differently situated, may be admitted to the care
and support of this public charity. It was made, by the Resolve, the
duty of the Commissioners, to prepare and report to the Executive,
a system of discipline and government for the Institution; but as this
system requires the sanction of the Legislature for its adoption, the
Report is transmitted by me, for your consideration and disposal.
IIO
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
IO. The Massachusetts Hospital for the Insane¹
SECTION 1. Be it enacted, That the government of the State Lunatic
Hospital, at Worcester, shall be vested in a board of five trustees, to be
nominated by the governor, and appointed, with the advice and consent
of the council, whose duty it shall be to take charge of the general inter-
ests of the institution, and to see that its affairs are conducted according
to the requirements of the legislature, and the by-laws and regulations
which the trustees shall establish, from time to time, for the internal
government and economy of the institution. The trustees shall appoint
a superintendent, who shall always be a physician, constantly resident
at the hospital, and a treasurer, who shall give bonds in such sum, and
with such sureties, as the trustees shall judge proper, for the faithful
discharge of his duties. They shall also appoint, or make provision in
the by-laws for appointing such other officers, as in the opinion of the
board, may be necessary for conducting, efficiently and economically,
the business of the institution. The salaries of all the officers shall be
determined by the trustees, to be approved by the governor and coun-
cil; and all appointments by the trustees shall be made in such a man-
ner, with such restrictions, and for such terms of time, as the by-laws
may prescribe.
SEC. 2. That there shall be thorough visitations of the hospital,
once in each month, by one or more of the board; semi-annually by a
majority; and annually by the whole board. At each visitation, a
written account shall be drawn up, of the state of the institution, to be
presented to the board at the annual meeting, which shall be in the
month of December; at which time, a full and detailed report shall be
made, to be laid before the governor and council during the first week
of the session of the legislature, for the use of the government, exhibit-
ing a particular statement of the condition of the hospital, and of all
its concerns. The treasurer shall, at the same time, present to the
gov-
ernor and council his annual report of the finances of the institution;
both of which reports shall be made up to the thirtieth day of Novem-
ber, inclusive.
SEC. 3. That the judges of probate in the several counties of the
Commonwealth, except Suffolk, and in the county of Suffolk, the judge
of the municipal court, are authorized to commit to said hospital any
lunatic, who, in their opinion, is so furiously mad as to render it mani-
I "An Act Concerning the State Lunatic Hospital, March 28, 1834,” Laws of
the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, (1834), chap. 150.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
III
festly dangerous to the peace and safety of the community, that such
lunatic should continue at large. And all lunatics ordered to be con-
fined by the proper judicial tribunals, by virtue of the twenty-eighth
chapter of the statutes of 1816, shall be committed to the custody of
the superintendent of said hospital. And no tribunal, other than the
judicial officers herein mentioned, shall have power to order the com-
mitment of any lunatic to said hospital. And the person or persons ap-
plying for the commitment of any lunatic under the provisions of this
section shall first give notice in writing to the selectmen, or either of
them, of the town, or to the mayor of the city, where such lunatic re-
sides, of the intention so to apply; and satisfactory evidence that such
notice has been given shall be furnished to said judges, at the time of
the application as aforesaid.
SEC. 4. That two trustees shall be appointed annually; and for
that purpose, the places of the two senior trustees, as they stand ar-
ranged in their commissions, shall be annually vacated, and they shall
not be again eligible until the expiration of one year from the time when
their places are so vacated. And the trustees shall receive compensa-
tion for all expenses incurred in the discharge of their official duties.
SEC. 5. That town pauper lunatics may be committed to, and kept
at the hospital, for a sum, in no case exceeding the actual expense in-
curred in their support. And as a bounty upon humane efforts for the
prompt relief of poor patients, whether supported by any town or city.
or not, recently attacked by insanity, the trustees are authorized to
receive such patients, at their discretion, for a less sum than the actual
cost of their support.
SEC. 6. That any two of the trustees, or either of the justices of
the supreme judicial court, or of the court of common pleas, at any
term of said courts, holden within and for the county of Worcester, may
discharge from confinement any lunatic committed to the hospital by
judicial authority, after the cause of such confinement shall have
ceased to exist, application being made therefor in writing. And a
majority of the trustees shall have authority to remove to the town or
city where they were resident at the time of the application for their
commitment, and at the expense of such town or city respectively, any
idiot, or other person, whom said trustees shall adjudge to be not dan-
gerous, within the meaning of the law, and not susceptible of mental
improvement by remedial treatment at the hospital. Provided, That
such town or city do not, after reasonable notice, in writing, from the
treasurer, take upon itself the removal of such idiot or other person as
II2
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
aforesaid. And the tribunals and magistrates having power to order
commitments to the hospital, shall, in the order of commitment, certi-
fy the name of the town or city in which the person committed may
reside at the time of the application for such commitment, and such
certificate shall be conclusive evidence of the fact.
SEC. 7. That the accounts of the hospital, for the support of all
patients committed thereto, in all cases where other and ample secu-
rity is not taken, satisfactory to the trustees, shall be regularly charged
to, and shall be paid by the town or city where the patient resided at
the time of the application for commitment. And when any town or
city shall neglect or refuse to pay whatever sum may be charged and
due for the support of any patient at the hospital, according to the by-
laws, or shall be due for the removal of such patient as aforesaid, for
the space of thirty days after the same shall have been demanded by
the treasurer, in writing, of the selectmen of the town, or of the mayor
and aldermen of the city liable therefor, the trustees shall be entitled
to an action on the case, to be commenced and prosecuted in the name
of the treasurer, to recover such sums against such delinquent town or
city, respectively, and the declaration therein shall be in a general in-
debitatus assumpsit, and judgment shall be recovered for such sum as
shall be found due, with legal interest from the time of demanding the
same, and costs. And such town or city shall have the same rights and
remedies against all corporations and persons, to recover such expense
of supporting and removing any pauper lunatic, as if such expense had
been incurred by said town or city, in the ordinary support of such
lunatic.
SEC. 8. That no keeper of any gaol or house of correction shall
hereafter make any private contract for the custody and support of any
town pauper lunatic, within the county buildings, without the consent
and approbation in writing, of the mayor and aldermen of the city of
Boston, or of the county commissioners of the respective counties,
under a penalty of not less than one hundred dollars, to be recovered
by indictment in any court of competent jurisdiction, for the use of the
Commonwealth.
SEC. 9. That no pauper lunatic shall be allowed to leave the hos-
pital without suitable clothing, which the trustees are authorized to
furnish, at their discretion, together with such amount of money as
they may think proper and necessary, not exceeding twenty dollars.
SEC. 10. That the board of trustees, for the time being, may re-
ceive any grants or devises of lands and tenements, and any donations
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
113
or bequests of money or other property, in trust for the Common-
wealth, to be used and improved for the maintenance of insane persons
and for the benefit of the institution.
II.
The First Public Institution for Delinquent Boys
ΑΙ
I
Resolved, That his excellency the governor, by and with the advice
and consent of the council, be, and he is hereby authorized and em-
powered to appoint a board of three commissioners, who shall have
power to select and obtain, by gift or purchase, and take a conveyance
to the Commonwealth, of a lot of land, containing not less than fifty
acres, which shall be an eligible site for a manual labor school, for the
employment, instruction and reformation of juvenile offenders, regard
being had, in the selection thereof, to the centre of population, cheap-
ness of living, and facility of access. And that said commissioners shall
further be directed to procure plans and estimates for the buildings
necessary for such an institution, and to prepare and mature a system
for the government thereof, and to ascertain what laws would be neces-
sary and proper to put the same into successful operation, and to report
the result to his excellency the governor, in season to be communicated
to the Legislature at the commencement of their next session. And the
said commissioners shall present all their accounts to the governor and
council to be by them audited and allowed as they may deem just.
Resolved, That to defray the expense incurred by the purchase of
said land, and in the execution of the other objects of the commission,
his excellency the governor be, and he hereby is, authorized to draw his
warrants, from time to time, on the treasury of the Commonwealth, for
any necessary sums of money, not exceeding in the whole ten thousand
dollars.
B2
Resolved, That his excellency the governor, by and with the advice
and consent of the council, be, and he is hereby authorized and em-
powered to appoint a board of three commissioners, who shall cause to
be erected, on such site, upon any part of the farm in Westborough
recently obtained by gift to the Commonwealth, as they may judge
best, a building or buildings suitable for the accommodation of a super-
I "Resolves for the Erection of a State Manual Labor School, April 16, 1846,”
Resolves Passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts (1846), chap. 143.
2 "Resolves for Erecting the State Reform School Buildings, April 9, 1847,"
Resolves Passed by the Legislature of Massachusetts (1847), chap. 35.
114
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
intendent and steward, with their families, and a teacher or teachers,
and capable of accommodating three hundred boys; and that said com-
missioners shall have power to make all necessary contracts for, and to
appoint agents to superintend the erection of the same. And said com-
missioners shall present all their accounts to the governor and council,
to be by them audited and allowed, from time to time, as they shall
deem just.
Resolved, That, for the purpose of defraying the expenses to be in-
curred under the previous resolve, his excellency the governor be, and
he is hereby authorized, by and with the advice and consent of the
council, to draw his warrants, from time to time, upon the treasurer
of this Commonwealth, for the necessary sums of money, not exceed-
ing, in the whole, thirty-five thousand dollars, in addition to the sum
already appropriated by a resolve passed on the sixteenth day of April
in the year one thousand eight hundred and forty-six.
Resolved, That the sum of one thousand dollars, remaining in the
hands of the commissioners being the balance of the donation of ten
thousand dollars to the Commonwealth, be appropriated for perma-
nent improvements for the benefit of said school, and be expended
under the direction and at the discretion of the trustees.
Resolved, That, for the purpose of stocking, improving and culti-
vating, said farm at Westborough, for the current year, the sum of one
thousand dollars be appropriated; and his excellency the governor be,
and he is, hereby authorized by and with the advice and consent of
the Commonwealth to draw his warrant upon the treasurer of the
Commonwealth for the same.
CI
SECTION 1. There shall be established, in the town of Westborough,
in the county of Worcester, on the land conveyed to the Common-
wealth for the purpose, a school, for the instruction, employment, and
reformation, of juvenile offenders, to be called the State Reform School;
and the government of said school shall be vested in a board of seven
trustees, to be appointed and commissioned by the Governor, by and
with the advice of the council.
SEC. 2. It shall be the duty of said board of trustees, to take charge
of the general interests of the institution; to see that its affairs are con-
ducted in accordance with the requirements of the Legislature, and of
such by-laws as the board may, from time to time, adopt for the orderly
1 "An Act to Establish the State Reform School, April 9, 1847,” Acts and Re-
solves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the Year 1847, chap. 165.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
115
and economical management of its concerns; to see that strict disci-
pline is maintained therein; to provide employment for the inmates, and
bind them out, discharge, or remand them, as is hereinafter provided;
to appoint a superintendent, a steward, a teacher or teachers, and such
other officers as, in their judgment, the wants of the institution may
require; to prescribe the duties of the superintendent and other officers;
to exercise a vigilant supervision over the institution, its officers, and
inmates; to remove such officers at pleasure, and appoint others in their
stead; and to determine the salaries to be paid to the officers, respec-
tively, subject, in all cases, to the approval of the governor and coun-
cil. The trustees shall also prepare, and submit to the inspection of the
governor and council, a code of by-laws, which shall not be valid until
sanctioned by them. The by-laws may, subsequently, be enlarged or
amended, by the assent of five members of the board of trustees, at
any legal meeting of said board, and not otherwise; but no alteration
shall be valid until it shall have been approved by the governor and
council.
SEC. 3. As soon as the governor shall have been notified, by the
commissioners to be appointed under a resolve "for erecting the State
Reform School Buildings," that said buildings are prepared for occu-
pancy, he shall, forthwith, issue his proclamation, giving public notice
of the fact.
SEC. 4. After proclamation shall have been made, as provided in
the third section of this act, when any boy, under the age of sixteen
years, shall be convicted of any offence, known to the laws of the Com-
monwealth, and punishable by imprisonment, other than such as may
be punished by imprisonment for life, the court, or justice, as the case
may be, before whom such conviction shall be had, may, at their dis-
cretion, sentence such boy to the State Reform School, or to such pun-
ishment as is now provided by law for the same offence. And if the sen-
tence shall be to the Reform School, then it shall be in the alternative,
to the State Reform School, or to such punishment as would have been
awarded if this act had not been passed.
SEC. 5. Any boy, so convicted and sent to said school, shall there
be kept, disciplined, instructed, employed, and governed, under the
direction of said board of trustees, until he shall be either reformed and
discharged, or shall be bound out by said trustees, according to their
by-laws, or shall be remanded to prison, under the sentence of the
court, as incorrigible, upon information of the trustees, as hereinafter
provided.
:
116
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 6. If any boy shall, upon any conviction, be sentenced to said
school, and the trustees, or any two of them in the absence of the oth-
ers, shall deem it inexpedient to receive him, or if he shall be found in-
corrigible, or his continuance in the school shall be deemed prejudicial
to the management and discipline thereof, they shall certify the same
upon the mittimus by virtue of which he is held, which mittimus, to-
gether with the boy, shall be delivered to the sheriff of any county, or
his deputy, or to the constable of any town, who shall, forthwith, com-
mit said boy to the jail, house of correction, or state prison, as the case
may be, in pursuance of the alternative sentence provided for in the
preceding section of this act.
SEC. 7. All commitments, to this institution, of boys, of whatever
age when committed, shall be for a term not longer than during their
minority, nor less than one year, unless sooner discharged by order of
the trustees, as hereinbefore provided; and whenever any boy shall be
discharged thereform, by the expiration of his term of commitment, or
as reformed, or as having arrived at the age of twenty-one years, such
discharge shall be a full and complete release from all penalties and
disabilities which may have been created by such sentence.
SEC. 8. The trustees of this school shall have power to bind out all
boys committed to their charge, for any term of time during the period
for which they shall have been committed, as apprentices or servants,
to any inhabitants of this Commonwealth; and the said trustees, and
master or mistress, apprentice or servant, shall, respectively, have all
the rights and privileges, and be subject to all the duties, set forth in
the eightieth chapter of the Revised Statutes, in the same manner as if
said binding or apprenticing were made by overseers of the poor.
SEC. 9. The trustees shall cause the boys under their charge to be
instructed in piety and morality, and in such branches of useful knowl-
edge as shall be adapted to their age and capacity; they shall also be in-
structed in some regular course of labor, either mechanical, manufac-
turing, agricultural, or horticultural, or a combination of these, as shall
be best suited to their age and strength, disposition and capacity; also
such other arts and trades, as may seem to them best adapted to secure
the reformation, amendment, and future benefit, of the boys; and, in
binding out the inmates, the trustees shall have scrupulous regard to
the religious and moral character of those to whom they are to be
bound, to the end that they may secure to the boys the benefit of a
good example, and wholesome instruction, and the sure means of im-
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
117
provement in virtue and knowledge, and, thus, the opportunity of be-
coming intelligent, moral, useful, and happy citizens of this Common-
wealth.
SEC. 10. The superintendent, with such subordinate officers as the
trustees shall appoint, shall have the charge and custody of the boys.
He shall himself be a constant resident of the institution; and shall dis-
cipline, govern, instruct, and employ, and use his best endeavors to
reform the inmates, in such manner as, while preserving their health,
will secure the formation, as far as possible, of moral, religious, and
industrious habits, and regular, thorough progress and improvement
in their studies, trades, and various employments.
SEC. II. The superintendent shall have the charge of the lands,
buildings, furniture, tools, implements, stock, and provisions, and
every other species of property pertaining to the institution, within
the precincts thereof; he shall, before he enters upon the duties of his
office, give a bond to the Commonwealth, with sureties satisfactory to
the governor and council, in the sum of two thousand dollars, condi-
tioned that he shall faithfully account for all moneys received by him
as superintendent, and faithfully perform all the duties incumbent on
him as such. He shall keep, in suitable books, regular and complete
accounts of all his receipts and expenditures, and of all property en-
trusted to him, showing the income and expenses of the institution;
and he shall account to the treasurer, in such manner as the trustees
may require, for all moneys received by him, from the proceeds of the
farm, or otherwise. His books, and all documents relating to the school,
shall, at all times, be open to the inspection of the trustees, who shall,
at least once in every six months, carefully examine the said books and
accounts, and the vouchers and documents connected therewith, and
make a record of the result of such examination. He shall keep a regis-
ter, containing the name and age of each boy, and the circumstances
connected with his early history; and he shall add such facts as may
come to his knowledge, relating to the subsequent history of said boy,
while at the institution, and after he shall have left it.
SEC. 12. All contracts, on account of the institution shall be made
by the superintendent in writing, and, when approved by the trustees,
if their by-laws require it, shall be binding in law, and the superintend-
ent, or his successor, may sue, or be sued thereon, to final judgment
and execution; and no such suit shall abate by reason of the office of
superintendent becoming vacant pending such suit, but any successor
118
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of the superintendent may take upon himself the prosecution or defence
thereof, and, upon motion of the adverse party, and notice, he shall be
required so to do.
SEC. 13. There shall be a treasurer, to be appointed by the gover-
nor and council, who shall, before he enters upon the discharge of the
duties of his office, give a bond to the Commonwealth, with sureties
satisfactory to the governor and council, in the sum of three thousand
dollars, conditioned that he shall faithfully account for all money re-
ceived by him as treasurer; which bond, and also that of the superin-
tendent, when approved, shall be filed in the office of the Treasurer and
Receiver General.
SEC. 14. The board of trustees shall be appointed forthwith, and
they shall take charge of the farm in Westborough which belongs to the
Commonwealth, except so much thereof as shall be needed for the pur-
poses of the commissioners, for the erection of the buildings. When the
governor shall have made proclamation that the buildings are ready for
occupancy, the school and the buildings shall be at once in charge of
the trustees.
When two years shall have expired after the first appointment of
a board of trustees, two trustees shall be appointed and commissioned
annually; and, for this purpose, the places of the two senior members,
as they stand arranged in their commission, shall be, thereafter, an-
nually vacated. No trustee shall receive any compensation for his
services; but he shall be allowed the amount of expenses incurred by
him in the discharge of the duties of his office.
SEC. 15. One or more of the trustees shall visit the school at least
once in every two weeks, at which time the boys shall be examined in
the school-room and work-shop, and the register shall be inspected. A
record shall be regularly kept, of these visits, in the books of the super-
intendent.
Once in every three months, the school, in all its departments, shall
be thoroughly examined by a majority of the board of trustees, and a
report made, showing the results of these examinations. Annually, in
the month of December, an abstract of these quarterly reports shall be
prepared, which, together with a full report by the superintendent,
shall be laid before the governor and council, for the information of the
Legislature. The treasurer shall also submit, at the same time, a finan-
cial statement, furnishing an accurate detailed account of the receipts
and expenditures, for the year terminating on the last day of the month
of November next preceding.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
119
12.
Supervision of State Prisons in New York, 1847¹
SECTION 29. There shall continue to be maintained for the security
and reformation of convicts in this state, three state prisons; one at
Sing Sing, in Westchester county; one at Auburn, in the county of
Cayuga; and one at Clinton, in the county of Clinton; which prisons
shall respectively be denominated the Sing Sing prison, the Auburn
prison, and the Clinton prison.
SEC. 30. The state prisons shall be under the charge and superin-
tendence of three inspectors, to be chosen at a general election accord-
ing to the provisions of the fourth section in the fifth article of the con-
stitution of this state.2
SEC. 31. The governor shall have the power to remove every in-
spector so elected, for misconduct or malversation in office, giving to
such inspector a copy of the charge against him, and an opportunity
of being heard in his defence.
SEC. 32. The inspectors elected at the last general election, shall
enter upon the duties of their office on the first day of January, eight-
een hundred and forty-eight, and each inspector to be hereafter chosen
shall enter on the duties of his office on the first day of January next.
following his election.
SEC. 33. The inspectors shall hold their first joint meeting on the
first Wednesday in January next, at the state prison in Sing Sing, and
at such meeting shall choose one of their number as president of the
board for the ensuing year, and shall assign to each inspector the spe-
cial charge and supervision of one of the state prisons to be designated,
for the ensuing quarter of the year; and they shall make a similar
assignment and designation at the commencement of each quarterly
term thereafter.
• Extract from "An Act for the Better Regulation of the County and State
Prisons of the State, and Consolidating and Amending the Existing Laws in Rela-
tion Thereto, December 14, 1847," Laws of the State of New York (1847), chap. 460.
2 "ART. V, SEC. 4. Three inspectors of state prisons shall be elected at the gen-
eral election which shall be held next after the adoption of this constitution, one of
whom shall hold his office for one year, one for two years, and, one for three years.
The governor, secretary of state and comptroller shall meet at the capitol on the
first Monday of January next succeeding such election, and determine by lot which
of said inspectors shall hold his office for one year, which for two, and which for
three years; and there shall be elected annually thereafter one inspector of state
prisons, who shall hold his office for three years; said inspectors shall have the charge
and superintendence of the state prisons, and shall appoint all the officers therein.
All vacancies in the office of such inspector shall be filled by the governor, till the
next election" (Constitution of the State of New York [adopted in 1846]).
I 20
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 34. The inspectors of the state prisons shall have the power,
and it shall be their duty,
after
1. To visit jointly each of the state prisons that now are or here-
may be established in this state, at least four times in each year.
2. To examine and enquire into all matters connected with the
government, discipline and police of each prison, the punishment and
employment of the convicts therein confined, the money concerns and
contracts for work and the purchases and sales of the articles provided
for each prison or sold, on account thereof.
3. To require reports from the agent, warden or other officers of the
prison in relation to any or all of the preceding matters.
4. To make such general regulations for the government and dis-
cipline of each prison, as they may deem expedient, and from time to
time to alter and amend the same, and in making such regulations it
shall be their duty to adopt such as in their judgment, while consistent
with the discipline of the prison, shall best conduce to the reformation
of the convicts.
5. To enquire into any improper conduct which may be alleged to
have been committed by the warden or other officer of either of the
said prisons, and for that purpose to issue subpoenas to compel the at-
tendance of witnesses and the production before them of writings and
papers, and to examine any witnesses on oath who shall appear before
them.
6. To keep regular minutes of the meetings and proceedings at
each prison which they shall visit, which minutes shall be signed by
them and shall be entered by the clerk in a book which shall be kept
for that purpose in each of said prisons.
7. To make an annual report to the legislature on or before the
fifteenth day of January in each year, of the state and condition of each
of said prisons, the convicts confined therein, of the money expended
and received; and generally of all the proceedings during the past year.
8. To furnish to the legislature, with their respective annual re-
ports, summary abstracts of all the returns which shall have been made
to them during the past year, by the warden or any other officer of each
of the said prisons; and also a list of all contracts entered into the past
year for the employment of convicts, stating what portion of each con-
tract may have been finished during the year, sums of money received
thereon, the probable time of its completion and the amount which
will then remain and become due.
9. To cause all orders, rules and regulations adopted by them, and
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
121
the entries of their proceedings at each meeting, to be recorded by the
clerk of the prison then visited and to furnish to each officer of the
prison, on his appointment a printed copy of the general rules and reg-
ulations of the prison.
10. To employ artizans from abroad for the purpose of teaching
such new branches of business in the state prisons as are not pursued
in the state.
11. To prescribe the articles of food and the quantities of each kind
that shall be inserted in each contract for the supply of provisions to
each state prison, and to authorize each contract to be made for the
term of one year, or for any less term in their discretion or to cause such
provisions to be furnished by the agent, in their discretion.
12. To employ a suitable matron and not exceeding one assistant
matron to every twenty-five convicts, to supervise and have charge of
all female convicts in the female convict prison at Sing Sing, and to
prescribe rules and regulations for the government and discipline of
such convicts, and to cause them to be employed as shall best conduce
to their support and reformation.
13. To transmit to the comptroller of the state on or before the
first day of January in each year, the account and inventory rendered
to them by the agent of each state prison, with such observations and
remarks thereon as they may deem necessary to enable the comptroller
to understand the same, and to correct any errors that may be dis-
covered therein.
14. To cause an estimate to be made of the value of the goods and
other property of the state, of which an inventory has been rendered to
them by the agent of each state prison, which estimate shall be made
under oath by two or more competent persons, to be appointed for that
purpose by the inspectors, and shall be transmitted by the inspectors
to the comptroller with the inventory to which it relates.
15. To select, as far as practicable, such persons in appointing
keepers to each prison, where manufacturing is carried on by the state,
as are qualified to instruct the convicts in the trades and manufactures
thus prosecuted in such prison.
SEC. 35. It shall be the duty of each inspector to spend at least one
week at the prison assigned to him, at least once in each month, and he
shall at that time diligently examine and enquire into the condition of
such prison and give such general directions in writing, for its govern-
ment and discipline as he shall deem to be necessary and expedient,
provided the directions so given shall not conflict with the laws of the
122
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
state or with the general regulations of the prison as established by the
board of inspectors; each inspector shall keep a journal of his proceed-
ings at each monthly or other visitation, and shall report the same to
the board of inspectors at their first joint meeting thereafter held at
such prison; such journal shall also be entered by the clerk in the book
of the proceedings of the board of inspectors kept in the prison to which
the journal shall relate.
SEC. 36. Each inspector shall have power to suspend any of the
officers of the prison at that time under his special charge until the
next meeting of the board of inspectors, and may appoint some suitable
person to supply the place and perform the duties of the officer sus-
pended, during his suspension. He shall also have power to make tem-
porary appointments to supply all other vacancies, which appoint-
ments shall be in force until the next meeting of the board of inspectors.
SEC. 37. All appointments to office made by the inspectors or by
an inspector, and all removals of any officer by the inspectors or by an
inspector, shall be made by an instrument in writing, to be signed by
such inspectors or inspector, and in case of removal by any one in-
spector, the reason or causes of such removal shall be briefly stated in
such instrument. The instrument by which such appointment or re-
moval is made, within two days after the same shall have been signed,
shall be delivered to the agent of the prison, who shall note the same
on his next account to be rendered to the comptroller.
SEC. 38. Neither the inspectors nor an inspector shall knowingly
appoint any person to any office in a state prison who shall be related
to either of them by consanguinity or affinity within the third degree.
SEC. 39. No inspector shall be agent of any state prison, to be con-
cerned in the business of such agency, or hold any other appointment
connected with said prison, nor shall he be interested directly or indi-
rectly in any contract for the employment of the convicts, or the supply
of provisions, or the purchase of materials.
SEC. 40. The inspectors shall appoint to each of the state prisons
the following officers: an agent, a principal keeper to be denominated
a warden, a clerk, a chaplain, a physician and surgeon, and so many
keepers, not exceeding the proportion of one to twenty-five convicts,
as they may deem it expedient to employ.
SEC. 41. Whenever any number of convicts in any state prison
shall be less than three hundred, the warden of the prison shall have all
the powers and perform all the duties herein imposed upon the agent.
SEC. 42. Each of the inspectors and each of the officers of each
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
123
prison shall, before entering on the duties of his office, take and sub-
scribe the oath of office prescribed by the constitution of this state,
which oath may be taken and subscribed before any officer authorized
by law to take and administer an oath. The oath of an inspector shall
be filed in the office of the secretary of state; and that of the officers of
each prison in the office of the clerk of the county in which such prison
is situated.
•
SEC. 46. The inspector having charge, at the time, of such prison,
shall from time to time visit such cells, and examine into the causes of
confinement of each convict thus confined, and may, if the warden shall
concur, designate the length of time during which such solitary con-
finement, in each individual case shall continue, subject to the approval
of the board of inspectors at each meeting thereof held at such prison,
whose duty it shall be to regulate and control such solitary confine-
ment; and they shall prescribe the fare and treatment of all convicts so
confined, and shall adopt such rules and regulations in reference thereto
as they shall deem proper, not inconsistent with the existing laws.
13. A General View of Massachusetts Public Charities, 1850¹
The State Lunatic Hospital, at Worcester, received the earliest
notice of the committee, and, in their visit to this institution, they were
accompanied by two of the trustees, who appear to regard its conduct
and usefulness with deep solicitude and interest.
In every large establishment it is necessary, not only that a sys-
tematic course of management be adopted, but also that a rigorous
supervision be exercised over the various divisions and subdivisions of
labor by which the system is carried out; otherwise, an imperfect per-
formance of the several delegated duties will gradually become the
usual routine. In this respect, after having carefully examined every
accessible part of the building occupied by the hospital, and given es-
pecial attention to the furniture of the sleeping apartments, the condi-
tion of the wardrobes, and the arrangements of the culinary depart-
ment, your committee feel bound to express entire approbation of the
present management of this establishment.
•
But, having accorded to the officers of the institution the praise
deemed to be justly their due, your committee are constrained to bring
to the notice of the Legislature some striking defects in the building
¹ Extract from Report of Committee on Public Charitable Institutions on Visits to
Several Public Charitable Institutions Receiving Patronage of the State ("Massachu-
setts Senate Document No. 79,” 1850).
124
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
itself. At the time when this edifice was erected, the subject of ventila-
tion was very imperfectly understood, and the apertures left for that
purpose are wholly inadequate to effect it in a proper manner. The air
throughout all that portion of the building used as "corridors," is so
impure as to be exceedingly offensive, more so than that of any county
hospital visited by the committee.
It is considered desirable that the plumbing work, connected with
the water-closets and urine basins, should be repaired and put in order;
the latter should be made of glazed or glass ware, either of which can
now be procured.
Another subject requiring especial notice, is the existence, on the
east side of the hospital building, of what is called a "cottage," but
which is, in reality, a shed, covering cells where those furiously mad are
confined. The condition of this wretched retreat has been made known
to the legislatures of other years, but, as it still remains a disgrace to
the State which protects the institution, and a melancholy and disgust-
ing object to every humane visitor, your committee make no apology
for offering you a description of the premises.
We recall, therefore, the sight of a long and narrow den, low in
walls, floored with stone, and divided into nine compartments, in each
of which human beings are caged. Overhead, square holes from four to
six inches in diameter, leading towards the roof but not through it.
These apertures are designed to ventilate a place where are confined,
not only the miserable beings with their offensive habits, but whatever
may be accumulated during the interim of the attendant's visits. Un-
derneath is a cellar, containing the arches which support the room
above, and also some apologies for furnaces set promiscuously among
them. The heat from these stoves, after being diffused through the
cellar, passes, of course, at a much lower temperature, through the
stones which form the floor above, thus conveying to the occupants the
only warmth which they may receive during the severest season. It is
to be remembered that this class of patients is so violent that garments
of the strongest texture are soon torn or picked in pieces from their
persons, so that the greater portion of their bodies is entirely unpro-
tected from the changes of the atmosphere.
In this connection, however, your committee have the satisfaction
of informing you, that some new "strong rooms," in the plan of which
attention has been given to the means of warming and ventilation, are
now in progress, and will soon be ready for occupancy by the present
inmates of the "cottage." But since the county hospitals are mostly in
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
125
an overcrowded state, it will be next to impossible for the superintend-
ent of this State institution to refuse applications, while any shelter,
however unsuitable, remains under his control unoccupied. It is, there-
fore, to be hoped that such a disposition may be made of the shed as
shall prevent the possibility of its being ever again used as a receptacle
for suffering humanity.
In conclusion, your committee earnestly recommend that a perfect
system of ventilation be introduced throughout the hospital, that the
water-closets, and other conveniences, be remodelled, and that the
"cottage" be demolished at the earliest moment when the new strong
rooms can be made ready to receive their intended occupants.
The Hospital for Lunatics in Essex County is located in Ipswich; it
has, like most other institutions of the kind within the State, many
more inmates than can be conveniently accommodated.
This establishment appears to be well conducted by its superin-
tendent, and the building and appurtenances are in perfect order
throughout. In the present construction of the rooms, there is not even
an attempt at proper ventilation, but your committee were informed
that the county commissioners intend to introduce the most approved
system of arrangements, in this respect, during the ensuing season.
Water is conducted, from a spring on a neighboring hill, to a reservoir
under the roof of the building, and from thence distributed to all parts
of the house where needed.
The condition of the institution was considered creditable to its
officers.
The Hospital for the Insane in Middlesex County, is situated in
East Cambridge, and this also is now full, to overflowing. The build-
ings are well arranged and comfortable, and all the apartments are
kept in excellent order. The most approved system of ventilation has
been introduced by the superintendent, and this is the only building
occupied by lunatics and visited by your committee, which is entirely
free from any unpleasant odor.
The Perkins Asylum for the Blind, at South Boston, has always
and deservedly received the fostering care of the Commonwealth. It
has also, from its infancy, had the advantage of possessing one of the
most indefatigable and energetic men in New England, as its superin-
tendent and principal director.¹
Your committee have not had an opportunity to visit other insti-
tutions of a similar nature out of the State, and can, therefore, compare
I Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe. See below, p. 297.
•
126
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
this asylum with no other; but, after an interesting examination of the
pupils in their several studies, a particular notice of the various useful
employments taught them, and a careful scrutiny of the building, with
the domestic arrangements contained therein, they feel satisfied that
the teachers, and other officers, connected with the establishment, are
fully entitled to their commendation.
It is well known that many blind persons are now supporting them-
selves by their own exertions, who, without the instruction afforded
here, would probably have remained through life, a burden to their
friends or the community. Many others, following their example, are
now at the workshops of the institution, qualifying themselves to be-
come expert artizans at several of the useful trades. It is evident, how-
ever, that they must labor under serious disadvantage, when, upon
leaving their apprenticeship, they enter establishments where the ar-
rangements are designed for persons not deprived of the blessing of
vision. It is hoped, therefore, and anticipated, as this class of opera-
tives increases, that enlightened mechanics, or others, may be induced
to open workshops for the employment of blind people exclusively,—
an enterprise which, it is believed, may be made as profitable as it cer-
tainly would be benevolent.
•
Connected with this institution, or, more properly speaking, under
the care of its superintendent, and located in another building, is a
school for the training of weakminded and idiotic children.
This was established under a resolve of the Legislature of 1847,
granting $2,500 a year, during three years, for the purpose of teaching
and training ten children of this class, one to be selected from each
congressional district, or in that proportion. The result of this experi-
ment, as it must necessarily be termed in this country, has thus far,
proved encouraging to its projectors. Children who were, before their
admission, completely helpless, have been taught to control perfectly
their personal habits, to feed themselves in a proper manner, and are
otherwise much improved. Considerable progress has also been made
in teaching to some of them the elements of a common education; and,
when the large number of this class—"twelve hundred or more, scat-
tered throughout the Commonwealth"-is considered, the practicabil-
ity of thus improving their condition becomes a subject of great im-
portance and encouragement, and most amply repays the outlay made
for their benefit.
Singa
The Massachusetts Charitable Eye and Ear Infirmary is estab-
lished in Boston, and ranks among the noblest exhibitions of practical
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
127
benevolence within the borders of our State. As annual reports of this
institution are seldom printed, the extent of its usefulness may not be
generally appreciated, except by the particular class of sufferers to
whose relief it is devoted; your committee are happy, therefore, to
submit some interesting information kindly furnished them by one of
its surgeons.
This institution was founded in 1824, since which time 24,000 pa-
tients have applied for assistance.
•
2.
•
The number of patients who applied for advice, in the last year,
was over two thousand, and of this number, one hundred and fifty-nine
were boarders in the infirmary; the remainder were treated as out-door
patients.
The expenses of this institution are paid, in a great measure, by the
contributions of charitable persons, principally of this city, and by an
annual grant from the State, with an occasional additional grant when
needed.
The government of the infirmary is a board of twelve managers, of
whom Robert G. Shaw, Esq., is President, and J. W. Edmands, Esq.,
Treasurer.
The infirmary is open daily, at eleven o'clock, when one of the sur-
geons is in attendance, to give gratuitous advice to the poor. It is
strictly a charity, and none but the poor are expected to apply there.
In some cases, board may be had at the infirmary at three dollars a
week, and a limited number of free patients can be received. .
The State Reform School, at Westborough, projected, and most
generously endowed by the late Honorable Theodore Lyman, is de-
signed for the noble purpose of rescuing boys who have just entered
upon a vicious course of life. At the previous examination of this in-
stitution, it had scarcely commenced, having at that time but about
fifty boys, a number which has since increased to more than 300.
Wide
The buildings erected for the accommodation of the school are
neat and commodious, the out-buildings and workshops convenient,
without attempt, in any portion of them, at ornament or display. A
very cheap and simple arrangement has been made by means of a wind-
mill, constructed on the edge of a pond in the vicinity, by which pure
water is forced into a reservoir, at the top of the building, of sufficient
capacity to supply the whole establishment.
The boys are taught, during portions of the day, studies adapted to
their abilities and previous training, also instructed in such labor or
mechanical work, as seems best suited to each, and from an examina-
128
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tion of a large portion of them, a very good progress appears to have
been made during their stay. There is also evidence, not to be mistak-
en, in examining the children who compose this school, and, in learning
their past history, that vice and crime have not been, in all cases, of
their own seeking, but have, in many instances, been forced upon them,
by those whose blood courses in their veins; indeed, not infrequently,
commitments have been caused, by doing the bidding of parents, who
shrink from no means of gratifying a depraved appetite.
A barn has been erected, about a quarter of a mile from the main
buildings, for the use of the farm connected with the school. It is 132
by 44 feet in size, with a granary, 16 by 50 feet, attached, and contains,
under its roof, all the conveniences usually grouped in various forms
around a farm-house. There is a deep cellar under the whole building,
divided by brick and stone walls into compartments, for the reception
of vegetables, manure, etc., and for such other purposes as a well-con-
ducted agricultural establishment will suggest.
The barn was built by contract, at a cost of $5,600, and appears to
be well and substantially constructed, but has nothing superior in style
of finish, and is inferior in size and cost to other buildings used for a like
purpose, in the same county.
Important responsibilities must necessarily devolve upon those
who accept the charge of directing the first steps toward any new estab-
lishment. After a careful survey of all the buildings, and arrangements
intended for the convenience of the Reform School, your committee are
of the opinion, that the trustees have, in the performance of their du-
ties, evinced sound judgment, and a most judicious regard to economy.
And they can perceive no reason, why the institution, which has com-
menced under auspices so favorable, should not fully realize the high
expectations of its founders.
The American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, at Hartford, was
examined with great care, and your committee may safely assure the
Legislature, that this establishment will compare most favorably with
any public institution within their knowledge, and that those of her
children, placed under its influence, are well and carefully nurtured.
The committee much regretted that the principal of the asylum,
Lewis Weld, Esq., was absent at the time of their visit; his place, how-
ever, was supplied by his assistant, Mr. Turner, who politely escorted
them over all parts of the premises, including the school-rooms, work-
shops, play-grounds, etc. All the rooms in the building are properly
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
129
ventilated, and neatly kept, and the arrangements are well adapted to
the wants of the inmates.
The several classes of pupils were separately examined, and their
progress, in the branches of study to which they respectively attend,
was tested by members of the committee, with most satisfactory re-
sults. The teachers appear much attached to their occupation, and an
unusual degree of affection and sympathy seemed to pervade their in-
tercourse with the pupils; this may perhaps be owing, in a measure,
to the peculiar method of communication between them, but whatever
the cause, no one can spend a day in their midst, without noticing its
happy effect. Another characteristic of this little community, is the
habit of constant industry, evinced by all; listlessness seems unknown
among them, while their animated countenances in the school-room,
and the mirth and joy displayed on the playground, or as they dance
their own peculiar evolutions, give ample evidence of active minds and
cheerful hearts.
In reporting the condition of the several institutions, which your
committee were instructed to visit, it has not been deemed necessary
to go into lengthy details, as official reports from most of them are now
before the Legislature; but, in concluding, they feel it their duty to ask
particular attention to the present state of the various lunatic asylums,
throughout the State, and to express their opinion, that a most pressing
call for increased means of accommodation is now made, not only by
the over-crowded hospitals, but by a large number of the class for
whose relief they are intended, but who are now temporarily sheltered
in various locations, waiting the action of the Legislature in their be-
half.
14. Alien Passengers in Massachusetts¹
SECTION 1. The governor and council shall, upon the passage of
this act, and hereafter in the month of January, annually, appoint a
member of the council, who, with the auditor of accounts of the Com-
monwealth, and the superintendent of alien passengers for the city of
Boston, shall constitute a board of commissioners to superintend the
execution of such laws as are now in force, or may hereafter be enacted,
in relation to the introduction of aliens into this Commonwealth, and
the support of state paupers therein.
1 "An Act to Appoint a Board of Commissioners in Relation to Alien Passengers
and State Paupers, May 24, 1851," Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of
Massachusetts in the Year of 1851, chap. 342.
130
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 2. The commissioners shall have authority to appoint one or
more persons, whose duty it shall be to visit, at least once in every year,
all the almshouses or places in the Commonwealth where state paupers
are supported, and ascertain, from actual examination and inquiry,
whether the laws in respect to such paupers are properly regarded, par-
ticularly in relation to such as are able to labor, or are but partially
supported by the respective cities and towns; and, in case any infrac-
tions of the laws are discovered, make immediate report thereof to the
commissioners, who shall examine and decide upon all such cases, and
thereupon notify the auditor of accounts. The commissioners shall also
give such directions as will insure correctness in the returns now re-
quired to be made in relation to paupers, and may use such means as
are necessary to collect all desired information in relation to their sup-
port.
SEC. 3. The said commissioners shall appoint one or more persons,
to be approved by the governor and council, whose duty it shall be to
ascertain the names of all foreigners who are landed in any city or town
within this State, otherwise than by water, and also procure all such
further information in relation to the age, &c., of said foreigners as is
practicable, in order to identify them in case they should hereafter be-
come a public charge. And all officers and agents of railroad corpora-
tions, and proprietors or agents of other means of conveyance, are here-
by required to furnish the agents of the Commonwealth, when so re-
quired, with the information above named, so far as in their power, by
filling up blanks to be furnished them for that purpose. Any neglect
or refusal to furnish such information, when requested, shall be pun-
ishable by a fine of not less than twenty dollars for each person in rela-
tion to whom the refusal is made, to be collected by the commissioners,
for the use of the Commonwealth, of the corporation, proprietors, or
agents aforesaid.
SEC. 4. The one hundred fifth chapter of the statutes of the year
one thousand eight hundred and fifty, being "an act relating to alien
passengers," is hereby so far modified or amended as to except from its
provisions, lines of communication established for the regular trans-
portation of passengers by water, and not extending beyond or stopping
at places without the limits of the United States; and such lines shall be
subject to the provisions and liabilities of this act, in manner and form
as provided for railroad corporations, and proprietors of other means of
conveyance, in the preceding section.
SEC. 5. Any aliens or other persons who shall be brought into this
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
131
Commonwealth as above specified, shall, if they fall sick, or from any
cause become a public charge within one year after coming into the
Commonwealth, be supported, so long as necessary, at the expense of
said corporation or party by whose means they were brought into the
Commonwealth, in the same manner as is now provided in regard to
alien passengers by water: Provided, however, That the party liable for
support shall be notified of his liability, in any particular case, as soon
as practicable, in order that he may, if so disposed, provide for other
means of support or removal.
SEC. 6. The commissioners shall annually, in the month of Janu-
ary, make a report of their doings to the governor and council, to be laid
by the governor before the Legislature, and shall therein make such
suggestions, in relation to the present or other plans for the support of
paupers, as may occur to them.
SEC. 7. The commissioners shall have such compensation for their
services as may be deemed reasonable by the governor and council,
and the agents appointed by them, such salary as may be fixed by the
commissioners, not exceeding three dollars for each day employed, to-
gether with their necessary expenses for board and travel; the same to
be paid quarterly, as other public salaries.
15. The State Poor in Massachusetts and Their Care¹
SECTION 1. His excellency the governor, with the advice and con-
sent of the council, is hereby authorized and empowered to appoint a
board of three commissioners, who shall select and purchase three sites
for the purpose of erecting on each of them a building which shall be
sufficient for the accommodation of five hundred inmates, a superin-
tendent and his family, and all necessary subordinate officers; one of
which sites shall be in the county of Middlesex or the county of Essex;
one in the county of Bristol or the county of Plymouth, and one in
some town of the Commonwealth west of the town of Brookfield.
SEC. 2. The said commissioners shall cause to be erected on each
of said sites a building of the capacity aforesaid, and shall properly
furnish the same, and shall also cause to be constructed such work-
shops, and make such other provision for labor in connection therewith,
as they may deem proper, and may purchase as much land attached to
said buildings as, in their opinion, may be usefully devoted to such pur-
"An Act in Relation to Paupers Having No Settlement in This Common-
wealth, May 20, 1852," Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachu
setts in the Year 1852, chap. 275. See below, Document 17.
132
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
pose; and they shall have power to make all contracts and employ all
agents necessary to carry into effect the powers hereinbefore granted.
SEC. 3. After the completion of such buildings the governor, upon
being notified of that fact by the said commissioners, shall issue his
proclamation accordingly; and thereupon the several cities and towns.
in the Commonwealth shall have a right to send to one of said institu-
tions, to be maintained at the public expense, all paupers not having
a settlement within the Commonwealth, who are then receiving sup-
port from, or who may thereafterward fall into, distress in said cities or
towns; that is to say, the cities and towns in the counties of Suffolk,
Middlesex, or Essex, may send such persons to the institution to be es-
tablished as aforesaid in the county of Middlesex or the county of
Essex; the cities and towns in the counties of Norfolk, Bristol, Ply-
mouth, Barnstable, Nantucket, or Dukes county, to the institution to
be established as aforesaid in the county of Bristol or the county of
Plymouth; and the remaining cities and towns in the Commonwealth
to the institution to be established as aforesaid in the western part of
the Commonwealth.
SEC. 4. No city or town shall receive any payment or allowance
from the Commonwealth for the expense of supporting any such pau-
per incurred more than thirty days after the issuing of such proclama-
tion.
SEC. 5. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall appoint a superintendent of each of said institutions, whose salary
shall be one thousand dollars per annum, and who shall receive no
other compensation or perquisite for his services, excepting the right to
reside with his family, in the building under his care; and it shall be his
duty to receive all paupers sent as aforesaid with a proper certificate
from the mayor of the city, or one of the overseers of the poor of the
town from which they may be so sent, and to provide for them under
such rules and regulations as shall be established in the manner herein-
after provided.
SEC. 6. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall appoint for each of said institutions three inspectors, residing in
the immediate vicinity thereof, respectively, who shall receive a salary
of one hundred dollars each, whose duty it shall be to establish rules
and regulations for the proper management and government of said
institution, subject to the approval of the governor, and to see that all
such rules and regulations are enforced. And each of said institutions
shall be visited by one of said inspectors at least once in each week.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
133
SEC. 7. The said inspectors shall have the same power to bind as
apprentices, minors who are inmates of the institution under their
charge, the same authority in causing the inmates of said institution
to be returned to the place or country from which they came, and the
same authority in regard to the removal of lunatics to the State Lunatic
Hospital, as is now vested in the overseers of the poor in the several
cities and towns in the Commonwealth.
SEC. 8. Each city and town shall be allowed, for the expense of
transporting such paupers as aforesaid to said institutions, ten cents
for each mile of the distance from said city or town to said institution;
to be paid from the treasury of the Commonwealth upon the certificate
of the superintendent of the institution where such pauper shall be
received.
SEC. 9. If any inmate of either of said institutions, above the age of
sixteen years, shall leave the same without the consent of the inspectors
thereof, and shall, within one year from the time of such leaving, be
found within any city or town of the Commonwealth soliciting public
or private charity, he shall, upon complaint and proof thereof, before
any police court or justice of the peace, be punished by confinement to
hard labor in the house of correction for the county within which he
shall be so found, for a term not exceeding three months.
SEC. 10. It shall be the duty of the inspectors aforesaid to audit all
the accounts of the superintendents of the said respective institutions;
and to report to the governor and council in the month of December,
annually, the state of the institution under their charge, and the ex-
penses, in detail, of said institution for the year next preceding said
report.
SEC. 11. The said commissioners are hereby authorized to put the
buildings belonging to the Commonwealth on Rainsford's Island, in
the harbor of Boston, in a proper state of repair for the reception of sick
persons, and for the accommodation of proper attendants: Provided,
however, That the expense of such repairs shall not exceed the sum of
five thousand dollars. And after the issuing of his proclamation by
the governor, as is hereinbefore provided, all foreign paupers arriving
by water within the Commonwealth who cannot, on account of sick-
ness, be removed to one of the institutions aforesaid, shall, during the
continuance of such inability, be supported at said island; and the gov-
ernor is hereby authorized, by and with the consent of the council, to
appoint such officers and attendants, and to ordain and establish such
rules and regulations for the government and supporting of the said
,
134
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
paupers, and to establish such compensation for said officers and at-
tendants, as he may think proper, until the further action in the prem-
ises of the Legislature.
SEC. 12. To defray any expenses for the purchases, buildings, and
repairs hereinbefore authorized, the treasurer of the Commonwealth
is hereby empowered, under the direction of the governor, with the ad-
vice and consent of the council, to issue scrip or certificates of debt, in
the name and behalf of the Commonwealth, and under his signature
and the seal of the Commonwealth, to an amount not exceeding one
hundred thousand dollars, bearing an interest of five per cent. per
annum, payable semi-annually, with warrants for the interest attached
thereto, which scrip or certificates shall be redeemable in twenty years
from the date thereof, and shall be countersigned by the governor and
be deemed a pledge of the faith and credit of the Commonwealth. And
the said treasurer may, under the direction of the governor, dispose of
any portion of said scrip at any price not less than its par value.
SEC. 13. Three thousand dollars annually shall be reserved from
the amount received from alien passengers arriving in the Common-
wealth, to constitute a sinking fund for the redemption of the scrip is-
sued as hereinbefore authorized.
SEC. 14. The amount of expenses and liabilities for said purchases,
buildings, and repairs, shall not exceed the amount of said scrip and the
amount of premium received upon the sale thereof.
SEC. 15. If said institutions are ready for the reception of inmates
before the first day of February next, the governor is hereby authorized
to draw his warrant upon the treasury for all expenses incurred in the
support of such inmates until the said first day of February.
16. An Inquiry as to Possible Public Economies¹
Considering the length of time that would be necessary for the
"vigorous and searching examination of the whole [pauper] system,"
recommended by His Excellency, the Committee found themselves con-
strained to confine their investigations to the manner of its administra-
tion by those to whom the duties had been intrusted, in the hope of
being able to point out such changes as would inure to the interests of
the State.
¹ Report of the Joint Standing Committee on Public Charitable Institutions as to
Whether Any Reduction Can Be Made in Expenditures for Support of State Paupers
("Massachusetts Senate Document No. 63," 1858).
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
135
The Committee visited the Hospital at Rainsford Island, and the
Almshouses at Monson, Tewksbury, and Bridgewater. Those insti-
tutions were found to be in good condition, and appearances indicated
that the mental and physical wants of the inmates were fully consid-
ered. The schools afforded evidence of the care and competency of the
teachers, the houses were clean and well kept, and the inmates com-
fortably clothed. A hasty visit of a day, however, is insufficient to form
reliable judgment of the actual workings of such institutions. Travers-
ing the buildings hastily, with merely time to glance to the right or the
left, and make the natural inquiries incident to the occasion, does not
furnish sufficient foundation on which to base practical suggestions, nor
to discover defects which are not of a glaring character. The appear-
ance of inmates, buildings and grounds may be certified to, but no prac-
tical insight can be obtained into the internal workings of any public
institution by a flying visit. Disorder or palpable inefficiency might be
discovered; equally possible is it, that other evils might escape detec-
tion by a committee having only time for a bird's-eye view, who neces-
sarily compress into hours, duties which would require days to discharge
with advantage to the State and wholesome influence upon the insti-
tutions. The fresh bed-spreads, creased garments, and other minutiae
not uncommon upon the visits of "company," would awaken a surmise
as to whether the change was legitimate, or induced by the presence of
visitors. Still, the Committee feel confident the slight cost of the annu-
al visits of legislative committees is well invested.
The Committee summoned before them, the superintendents of
Rainsford Island Hospital and of the three Almshouses, with other wit-
nesses from whose knowledge and experience they thought they could
derive information which would aid them intelligently to perform the
duties devolved upon them. To the testimony thus elicited, they have
given careful consideration, and the result of their deliberations is
herein embodied.
If there ever was a system at loose ends, it is the present pauper
system of Massachusetts. There is a total want of harmony between
the administrative elements-the almshouses are in rivalry; the head
of each institution entertaining different views of management; no uni-
form data existing by which reliable comparisons can be instituted,
whether it regards number of inmates admitted or supported during
the year; the Alien Commission has only advisory power, not reach-
ing to the dignity of supervisory. In truth, there is an evident feeling
of jealousy prevalent, and a want of centralized authority injurious to
136
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the interests of the State. Unison, co-operation, oneness, is eminently
desirable.
The system now in practice for the rendering and payment of ac-
counts for the purchases for Rainsford Island Hospital and the three
almshouses, is indirect, clumsy, unsatisfactory, irresponsible, and un-
safe; leaving the State, as the mode in practice does, without any evi-
dence that the supplies purchased have actually been paid for, or that
the money has ever gone out of the hands of the superintendent. The
purchases are generally made by the superintendent, the bills rendered
to him, examined and endorsed; then submitted, with a schedule, to the
inspectors, who examine them and approve the schedule, which is then
sent with the bills to the auditor, who also examines them, and certifies
the amount to the governor and council. A warrant is then drawn for
the amount in favor of the superintendent, who draws the money from
the treasury, and pays the bills. There is no voucher left with the audi-
tor or treasurer that the money ever goes beyond the hands of the su-
perintendent, an omission which cannot be reconciled with correct
business principles. The Committee recommend, therefore, that in all
future purchases on account of these institutions, the receipt of the
articles in good condition and of the agreed quality, shall be certified
to by the superintendent, the correctness of the bills endorsed by the
inspectors and auditor, the warrants drawn in favor of the seller,—
and the original bills, receipted, deposited with the treasurer, on the
presentation and payment of the warrants. To avoid the inconvenience
of too great a multiplicity of bills for trifling purchases, a specific sum
should be paid quarterly in advance, to the superintendents, on their
requisition, for the expenditure of which they should account quarterly
by a regular bill subject to the same examination and approval by
the inspectors and auditor, as is provided in the case of other pur-
chases.
At Rainsford Island and at Monson the accounts of the institutions
have not been kept with that care for details which is desirable; for it is
quite as important for the superintendents as for the State, that they
should always be able to tell exactly and for what specific purposes,
money has been expended. The books of each institution should show
how much has been expended for repairs, how much for permanent im-
provements, and how much for labor, food, etc., otherwise all attempts
to judge fairly of the working of the present system, or to reduce the
expenses to the lowest possible point, must prove entirely abortive. A
large sum of the money appropriated for current expenses, has been
་
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
137
expended for permanent and necessary improvements, for which direct
appropriations should have been asked.
A considerable annual saving may be made to the State by giving
to the superintendents of the almshouses the authority to compel in-
mates to leave the institutions, or accept such compensation for their
labor as may be offered by those desiring their services, and approved
by the inspectors. It appeared in evidence that cases were of frequent
occurrence where board and small wages were offered for the services
of paupers, which the latter refused to accept, demanding the highest
wages paid to the most valuable help. The superintendent at Bridge-
water testified that if he had possessed the power to compel his inmates
to work for their board, in suitable families, he could have obtained
employment for three hundred since last November. The superin-
tendent at Tewksbury also testified to the necessity and advantage of
such power. There is no justice nor charity in supporting able-bodied
men and women in idleness, who have opportunity to earn their own
living.
The present law requires the inspectors to indenture the boys from
the institutions who are placed in families. The indenture is represent-
ed to be, in many instances, an objection on the part of those desiring
boys, and productive of a bad effect on the boys themselves. The com-
mittee recommend that it be left discretionary with the inspectors, to
indenture or not, as they may think best.
Your Committee consider it vitally important that some kind of
daily labor be provided for the inmates; not of a character requiring
appropriations for buildings, but such as can be done in the places
where hundreds of persons are daily idling in winter, contracting habits
of laziness which tend to make them permanent paupers. Within a few
weeks the braiding of floor mats has been introduced at Tewksbury, em-
ploying about two dozen persons. General work should be provided for
all able to labor. If the stock and labor yield the cost of the material,
it will be profitable to the State, in nourishing industrial habits, and
directly tending to keep out those who, if they knew they would be
compelled to labor, would be less likely to apply for aid. It is hoped
this matter of labor, so desirable in every point of view, will be attended
to by those having the charge and oversight of the institutions, without
needless delay. For a year or two, oakum picking has been a feature of
the Bridgewater institution.
The Reports of the institutions do not correctly show the actual
number of paupers in the State. If a person is admitted two or more
138
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
times a year at one establishment, or discharged from and enters an-
other, as is frequently the case, the published statements enumerate
them as so many different persons. While the record is correct as to the
number of paupers admitted, the enumeration is erroneous as to the
number of different persons who receive State aid as paupers. There
should be uniformity in this respect, as well as in others. The defects.
of the present system render comparison between the almshouses, on
the same specific basis, entirely out of the question.
A comparison of the salaries paid at the different almshouses is
subjoined [Table I].
Superintendent.
Physician and assistant-superintendent.
Matron
• • •
Assistant-matron.
Assistant-physician and clerk.
Engineer.
Watchmen.
•
Nurse.
Farmer.
Teamster
Chaplain.
Inmate cooking department
Laundry.
Depot-man
Teachers.
Charge wards.
Carpenter..
• •
•
•
• ·
•
• •
•
·
TABLE I
COMPARISON OF SALARIES AT STATE ALMSHOUSES
· •
•
Charge male clothing.
Charge female clothing.
Baker.
Totals....
·
•
•
•
•
•
·
•
•
Monson.
Tewksbury..
Bridgewater.
•
Females in superintendent department.
Taking care of inmates..
Care of boys and heating.
Head shoemaker.
Office boy...
•
•
•
·
Monson
$1,200.00
800.00
300.00
208.00
500.00
396.00
300.00
208.00
400.00
240.00
400.00
600.00*
240.00
240.00
I, 200.32†
300.00
600.00
182.00
182.00
300.00
275.00*
$9,071.32
·
Tewksbury Bridgewater
$1,200.00
800.00
$1,200.00
I,000.00
300.00
250.00
300.00
208.00
240.00
300.00
240.00
260.00
300.00
240.00
400.00
240.00
156.00
240.00
312.00*
208.00
156.00
240.00
240.00
300.00
$6,580.00
27 persons
21 persons
18 persons
•
•
300.00
208.00
450.00
350.00
200.00
240.00
208.00
456.00*
400.00
300.00
156.00
208.00
274.00
$6,500.00
*Two persons.
† Five persons.
The officers of these institutions receive their board from the State, with the exception of
Chaplain and Physician, at Bridgewater and Tewksbury, and Carpenter at Monson.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
139
The difference between the total sum paid at Monson and that paid
at other institutions, is caused, in part, by the greater number of teach-
ers employed in the educational department of the former. The school
would not suffer by comparison with other schools of a more select
character. In other departments, the Committee are of opinion that a
material reduction in the aggregate salaries paid, could be made with-
out impairing the efficiency or usefulness of the institution at Monson.
It is believed that a uniform system of rations for each day in the
week, alike in all the almshouses, would be productive of economical
results.
The Committee recommend that the Board of Inspectors of Rains-
ford Island be abolished, and their duties devolved upon the Chairman
of the Board of Alien Commissioners, and the State Auditor. The direct
saving by this measure may not be large, but if it serves, as it is expected
it will, to place a check upon the amount of company annually enter-
tained there at the expense of the State, the result will be a saving of
not less than $2,000 a year. The testimony before the Committee on
this point was clear; and it is due to the Superintendent to state that
he is not responsible for this costly politeness. It is also proper to state
that the number of visitors thus entertained the past year, has been
less than in former years. A monthly or quarterly visit to Rainsford
Island, by the inspectors, is all that the public interest requires. The
Committee further recommend that the office of Assistant-Superin-
tendent at Rainsford Island be abolished, the Superintendent testify-
ing that there is no necessity for such an officer. . .
It is gratifying to the Committee to be able to report a specific re-
duction of $10,000 below the sum asked for by the institutions, in re-
sponse to the call of the Committee who reported the General Appro-
priation Bill. The reduction is made in conformity with estimates fur-
nished by the superintendents. The statement [in Table II] shows the
reduction from the amount originally asked for.
TABLE II
STATEMENT OF APPROPRIATIONS FOR STATE PAUPER ESTABLISHMENTS
Rainsford Island Hospital.
Tewksbury Almshouse.
Monson Almshouse.
Bridgewater Almshouse.
Totals...
•
•
• •
·
• •
•
Original Estimates Present Estimates
$ 32,000.00
51,000.00
45,000.00
37,000.00
$165,000.00 $154,836. 20
$25,000.00
48,000.00
44,836. 20
37,000.00
Reduction
$7,000.00
3,000.00
163.80
$10, 163.80
-
140
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
It will be seen that Bridgewater requires the sum originally asked
for; Monson is slightly reduced. The reduction of salaries in the latter
establishment should further lessen the amount $1,500, making a total
reduction in the amount needed by the institutions, below what was
originally asked for, of $11,663.80. If no other beneficial results were
to flow from their investigations, the Committee feel assured that the
above saving will be received with satisfaction by the tax-payers of the
Commonwealth, as indicative of a practical determination to econo-
mize in this branch of the public burdens.
ALIEN COMMISSION.-Your Committee did not find time sufficient
to prosecute their researches into this branch of the pauper system, so
as to feel justified in recommending either that the commission be
abolished or continued. Its connection with the administration of the
system is, seemingly, so intimate, so closely interwoven, that there ap-
pears to be a positive necessity either for the commission or some sub-
stitute therefor. In conference with the Joint Special Committee on
the reduction of offices, and after comparison of notes, that Committee
also declined the responsibility of any recommendation on this point,
without further examination.
Your Committee are strengthened by every day's investigation, in
the conclusion that there is urgent necessity for carrying out the recom-
mendation of His Excellency for a "vigorous and searching examination
of the whole system," particularly upon economic grounds; believing
that the more "vigorous," and the deeper the search is extended, in
the same ratio will harmony, and consequently economy, be induced.
A controlling and regulating head is needed; something more than the
advisory power now resting in the Alien Commission. An object on
which so large an amount of money is annually expended, an interest
every year increasing in importance, and threatening at no very distant
day to be one of the most serious financial questions which the people
of this Commonwealth will be called on to decide should be seasonably
and carefully investigated. In the pauper system of this State, there is
now no harmonious and concerted action, no acknowledged or control-
ling head; but a clashing of authority and purposes, a conflict of duties
and powers, prejudicial to the best interests of the State. A remedy
could only be effected after a laborious and critical examination of all
its merits and defects. From present information it is the opinion of
the Committee that the several boards of inspectors of the State alms-
houses should be abolished and the whole conduct of the charities of
the State, committed to a Central Board of Commissioners, invested
t
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
14I
with all the power to enable them to direct and control the several in-
stitutions and their inmates, and exercise a supervisory authority over
all the details of the system. Further and more thorough investigation
might modify, and perhaps reverse, this opinion. Hence, with their
present limited knowledge of the actual workings and usefulness of this
branch of the system, the Committee do not feel justified in recom-
mending so radical a change.
The investigations of the Committee have sensibly impressed them
with the importance of an immediate, minute, thorough, and literally
“searching” examination of the whole pauper system of Massachusetts.
The brief space of time which can be devoted to so extensive a field of
investigation and study, during the session of the legislature, will not
suffice for the minute and laborious examination so indispensable be-
fore recommending material changes in the present system. The exam-
ination should include the entire charities dependent upon the State
for support; and the result of such labors could not fail to reduce the
annual expenditure for those objects many thousands of dollars. A
gentleman holding an honorary connection with an important and
expensive charity, stated to the Committee, incidentally, that if he
had the authority to perfect the workings of the institution, he "would
willingly underwrite to carry it on for $14,000 less than the present
yearly cost." Other testimony, similar in character, came before the
Committee. The work of investigation should at once be taken in hand
by a committee, who should be required to investigate thoroughly, and
report the result of their labors to the next legislature. It is only by
such instrumentality that the recommendation of His Excellency can
be usefully carried out, and a “vigorous and searching examination
of the whole system both upon economic and philanthropic grounds,'
be effected.
""
In accordance with their convictions, your Committee herewith
submit a Resolve for the appointment of a joint committee to examine
the pauper system of the State in all its phases. Such committee should
be clothed with authority to investigate the internal as well as external
workings of the various charitable institutions of the Commonwealth,
-the necessity and usefulness of the Alien Commission, and also to
secure such testimony as may be needed for the intelligent and practi-
cal prosecution of their labors. The effect of such investigations would
inevitably result in lessening the amount of the drafts upon the State
treasury
142
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
17. The Lack of a Supervisory Authority¹
The public charitable institutions directly under the control of
the State are nine in number, viz.: three lunatic hospitals at Worces-
ter, Taunton, and Northampton, established respectively in 1829, 1851,
and 1855; the reform school for boys at Westborough, established in
1849; the three State almshouses at Bridgewater, Tewksbury, and
Monson, and the hospital at Rainsford Island, established in 1852;
and the State industrial school for girls, at Lancaster, established in
1854. The dates which we have mentioned indicate the time of the
passage of the first legislative Act authorizing the establishments; gen-
erally the institutions were not opened until a year or two later. There
are also four other charitable institutions which receive annual grants
of money from the State treasury, viz: the Perkins' Institution and
Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind at South Boston; the American
Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb at Hartford, in Connecticut; the Mas-
sachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary at Boston, and the School for Idiotic
and Feebleminded youth at South Boston. These institutions are man-
aged by boards of trustees, in which the State is represented, but the
legislature is not concerned for their government, otherwise than by
* Extract from Massachusetts State Charities: Report of the Special Joint Com-
mittee Appointed to Investigate the Whole System of the Public Charitable Institutions
of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts, during the Recess of the Legislature in 1858
("Massachusetts Senate Document No. 2," 1859), pp. 3–10.
With reference to the separate institutions, this Committee found that the
Boys' School had been too rapidly enlarged and that parents were sending boys
there who could be cared for at home (p. 13); the Lancaster School for girls they
found most satisfactory (p. 16). With reference to the system of State Almshouses,
they found it unsatisfactory, because, while it was much more convenient from the
point of view of pauper accounts (p. 19) and while the old system had inadequate-
ly compensated the towns, and was unjust in the apportionment of the burden (p.
20) and encouraged idleness by not making grants to “able-bodied” and the standard
of being able-bodied was very low, and the new scheme enabled the towns to take bet-
ter care of their own poor, it had grave disadvantages. For example: (1) partisan ad-
ministration, (2) tendency of breaking up families to perpetuate dependency, (3)
greater difficulty in placing children, (4) or finding work, (5) increased costs of
transportation, (a) involved extra school and church facilities, (b) increased risks
from fire and from moral and social contamination. The Committee recommended
that the system be abandoned after a time "the earliest consistent with the public
welfare” (p. 14). They recommended also the installation of a system of uniform ac-
counting, and annual reports covering certain items with reference to which it was
important to have comparable data. The Committee also called attention to the
importance of preserving the records which should be regarded as the property of
the Commonwealth and not of the officials of the institutions.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
143
making the annual grant to aid in their support. The amount of these
grants as now established by law appears to be reasonable, and having
no doubt that it is wisely and economically applied, the committee
give their attention chiefly to the nine institutions which are directly
and wholly under the control of the State.
The rapid growth of our system of charities is seen in the fact that
of these nine institutions only one existed twenty years ago; and only
two of them ten years ago. Indeed seven out of the nine (and these in-
cluding the most expensive) have been opened within the last five
years. Thus the cost of State charities, which was $82,399 twenty
years since, and $118,034 ten years since, has now swollen into an an-
nual expenditure of more than $300,000.
Each of these new institutions has been created without especial
reference to others, and in no degree as a part of a uniform system.
It happens accordingly that there are anomalies in their organization
and management, increasing the expense of conducting them, and im-
pairing their efficiency, notwithstanding the most assiduous and most
intelligent efforts of the gentlemen to whom their conduct has been
separately intrusted. These anomalies are evident upon the most su-
perficial view: for instance, the lunatic hospitals have five trustees
each, the reform and industrial schools, seven each, and the almshouses
and pauper hospital three each (called inspectors). The superintend-
ents in five of the institutions are appointed by their trustees, and in
four others by the executive. The almshouses and pauper hospital owe
a qualified allegiance to the board of alien commissioners, of which the
others are wholly independent. There may perhaps be good reasons
for these differences of organization; our present purpose in mentioning
them is simply to indicate the obvious fact that a want of symmetry
so palpable on the surface betrays an absence of system—of adaptation
of different parts to each other—which cannot fail to produce confu-
sion and loss. No doubt harmless lunatic paupers have been supported
in the lunatic hospitals at an expense to the State of $2.75 per week,
who might with equal or greater comfort to themselves have been sup-
ported at one of the almshouses at an expense not exceeding $1.12 per
week; paupers have been supported at Rainsford Island at the cost of
$2 per week, whose health would not have suffered by placing them at
one of the almshouses, where the cost would have been but about half
as much. On the other hand, paupers may have been kept at the alms-
houses, whose condition would have been improved by treatment at
the hospitals.
144
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Our first recommendation, accordingly, looks to the creation by
law of a permanent State Board of Charities, to be intrusted with the
duty of constantly supervising the whole system of public charities, in
order to secure the greatest usefulness, without unnecessary expense.
We propose to model this board after the plan of the existing Board of
Education, which the experience of twenty years has proved to work
admirably. We propose to have a board of five members appointed
by the governor for terms of five years each, in such manner that after
the first appointments, one new appointment shall be made each year;
the members not to be removable except for cause, and to receive no
compensation for their services, but to be reimbursed their necessary
expenses. They would choose a secretary, who would be their executive
officer, having an office in the State House, devoting his whole time to
the duties of the position, and receiving the same salary that the secre-
tary of the board of education and the secretary of the board of agri-
culture now receive, to wit.: two thousand dollars. This arrangement
would involve no increased expense to the State, but the contrary,
since we propose to devolve upon this new board all the duties of the
present board of alien commissioners, which costs annually seven thou-
sand dollars, in addition to an equal sum for the expenses of the superin-
tendent of alien passengers. The present board of alien commissioners,
from the awkward nature of its organization, is necessarily an ineffi-
cient body, especially since the laws as they now stand fail clearly to
define its powers and duties. It consists of three members, two of them
State functionaries who may be presumed to have sufficient employ-
ment to occupy their time in the discharge of the legitimate duties of
their primary offices, and one other member, who was at first selected
from the executive council, but since 1855 has been appointed at large.
This arrangement was doubtless designed by the legislature which
originally adopted it to save expense in creating a board composed
wholly of members who were already paid servants of the State; but it
completely failed of this purpose, since these officers were paid an extra
sum for their services as commissioners every year until the present,
when this duplication of salaries was prohibited by law; but the pro-
hibition has effected but little saving as regards the alien board, since
the salary of the superintendent of alien passengers was very properly
raised in anticipation of its operation, and the third member of the
board had previously become an independent commissioner, not hold-
ing any other office. The office of superintendent of alien passengers
must be retained, if for no other reason because that officer is a col-
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
145
lector of State revenues, some ten or fifteen thousand dollars of head-
money or commutation being annually paid into the treasury by him.
A considerable part of the other expenditures of the superintendent
and of the commission of alien passengers doubtless will be necessary
under any organization that may be adopted; but it is sufficiently
clear upon a superficial view, and a careful analysis of details confirms.
the fact, that the establishment of the State board which we propose,
and the abolition of the alien board as at present constituted, will not
only make no increased expense to the State, but will probably result
in a saving.
We propose to give to the State Board of Charities thus constitut-
ed, permanently, the same general powers of examination as were con-
ferred upon ourselves by the Resolve under which we are acting with
regard to all the institutions, including those which receive grants of
money only, as well as those which are under the direct and exclusive
control of the State. We propose further that this board shall have full
power to transfer inmates from one institution to another, and for this
purpose to grant admittances and discharges, in the form of precepts
addressed to the immediate officers of the several institutions, and
binding on them. In other respects we do not propose to confer upon
the central board power to interfere in any manner with the actual
management of the several institutions otherwise than by offering
counsel and advice; appealing if need be to the constituted authorities,
executive, judicial or legislative, for aiding the enforcement of the
laws if they are disregarded; but in general co-operating with the man-
agers of the several institutions, and (what is equally important)
leading them to co-operate with each other. Our own experience justi-
fies us in believing that a power of this sort will be ample to promote
the desired object, without absolutely subordinating the managers of
the several institutions to the central board. Although our powers are
only those of examination, ending with a report to the next legislature,
we have found the superintendents, trustees, inspectors and other offi-
cers of the several institutions not only willing to receive suggestions
from us, but generally anxious to solicit them; and whenever practica-
ble, to carry them at once into execution of their own accord. We
make no doubt that the same generous spirit of solicitude to advance
the welfare of the various institutions by the ready adoption of every
new means of usefulness that may be suggested, from whatever source,
and even without the absolute power to enforce its immediate adoption,
will be found always to prevail. At the same time, after the State
146
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Board of Charities has once been established as a permanent part of
the administration of the affairs of the State, it will be very easy for
the legislature from time to time to add to its powers such general pro-
visions as experience may show to be necessary to promote the highest
degree of efficiency.
On no account, however, would we destroy the boards of trustees
or inspectors attached to the various separate institutions; we would
neither impair their powers nor seem to abate the public confidence in
their faithful discharge of their duties from which springs in honorable
minds a sense of responsibility forming the surest guaranty of wise and
careful management that the State can obtain. It is impossible to esti-
mate too highly the debt of gratitude due from the people of Massa-
chusetts to the gentlemen who have acted as trustees of our lunatic
hospitals, reform and industrial schools, in every instance without pay
for their services, and often refusing even the reimbursement of their
expenses which the law allows. Men of the highest talents and attain-
ments, occupying honorable positions in public life, or the most re-
spected in private life, have in this way ungrudgingly given to the State
long-continued and painstaking services, to the interruption of their
private avocations, in a manner which cannot be requited. We would
do nothing to fetter the sphere of duties discharged by such men. The
only change which we propose with regard to the boards of trustees of
the lunatic hospitals, the reform schools and industrial schools, is to
make the number uniformly five for each institution, which experience
shows is as large a number as can be conveniently assembled together;
and we wish farther to insure as far as possible, their selection in each
case from the neighborhood of the institution with which they are to
be connected. During the long period that the lunatic hospital at Wor-
cester was the only State institution, there was very naturally an im-
pression on the part of the appointing and confirming powers, that all
portions of the Commonwealth ought to be represented in its board of
trustees; and the same feeling has been perpetuated to a greater or less
extent with regard to all the institutions to this day. But now that
there are nine institutions, scattered all over the State, it is clear that
this usage is no longer required by reason; on the contrary the desired
distribution of authority may be better secured by confining the elec-
tion of trustees and inspectors for each institution, to its own neigh-
borhood. The advantage of this is obvious, in promoting greater con-
venience for more frequent meetings, and at the same time causing less
expense for travel. We attach so much importance to this point,
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
147
chiefly from the former consideration, (as the travelling fees are seldom
if ever excessive), that we have desired to introduce its observance into
the law, and have considered the expediency of limiting the executive
choice of trustees to the county where the institution is located, or to
a range of 20 or 30 miles about it; but an arbitrary limitation of this
kind may sometimes prove inconvenient, in excluding the very best
man for a place merely on account of residence; besides 20 miles on a
railroad is practically a less extent than half the distance on a common
highway. We have concluded therefore to propose simply that the se-
lection shall be made as far as practicable from the neighborhood of the
institution, leaving it to the discretion of the appointing power to apply
this principle with due regard to the peculiar circumstances of any ex-
ceptional case. We have dwelt at some length upon the point, with a
view to impressing our judgment of its importance, upon those into
whose hands may fall the opportunity of carrying it into execution. It
is to be observed that the central board will supply any deficiencies
that might exist on the score of locality, in representing all parts of the
State in the management of all the institutions.
We propose to provide explicitly by law, that the trustees shall hold
their offices severally for the full term of five years, unless sooner re-
moved for cause. It has been a question whether trustees of the lunatic
hospitals are removable at the pleasure of the governor; the usual prac-
tice has been to suffer them to hold their offices for the full term; but
governors Gardner and Banks each in a single case created a vacancy
by removal. It is worthy of notice that in both instances, this was done
to provide for the appointment of gentlemen who had previously ren-
dered service to the same institutions under former appointments, the
renewal of their connexion therewith doubtless being deemed an object.
of consequence to the best interests of the charity. But the danger to
our institutions which would follow if the usage should become general
of changing the trustees every year, especially if it should be done
hereafter from partisan considerations, seems to us so appalling, that
we propose to provide that the trustees shall not be removable before
the expiration of their terms except for cause.
The original Act relating to the lunatic hospital at Worcester pro-
vided that a trustee whose term had expired should not be reappointed
except after an interval. We can conceive no good reason for maintain-
ing it. If a shadow of ground exist for the suspicion that any trustee
had become unfitted for further service by five years' experience, of
course the governor will not reappoint him; but in most cases, experi-
148
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ence will but add to the late incumbent's qualifications, and if he is
willing to continue in harness, we see no reason why the governor
should be prohibited from appointing him immediately to another
term.
In general, what we have said with regard to the trustees of the
lunatic hospitals, reform and industrial schools, will apply with equal
significance to the inspectors of the almshouses and pauper hospitals.
There are these differences, however; the boards of inspectors consist
only of three members each, (which number we do not deem it expedi-
ent to change), and the principle of selecting them from the neighbor-
hood of the institution is already pretty well established, although we
trust it may be closely preserved. The inspectors of the almshouses,
moreover, are allowed salaries of one hundred dollars each per annum,
and those of the pauper hospital at Rainsford Island, one hundred and
fifty dollars. These sums are altogether too inconsiderable to be
grudged in the aggregate account of expenditure for the support of the
State charities, and in many instances, no doubt, they are not regarded
by the incumbents of the offices as worth a moment's thought. There
have been cases, we know, in which gentlemen who have served as in-
spectors, have acted with as much disinterestedness as the trustees of
lunatic hospitals whose generous and unselfish devotion to the service
of the State, without pay, we have already warmly commended. But
upon the whole, with rare and bright exceptions, this paltry salary of
$100 or $150 has operated to make the office the desideratum of some
politician of attainments and capacity not much superior to the reward
he covets. We may be wrong in expressing this opinion; if so, we are
simply confirmed in the wisdom of the recommendation which we
make: we propose to abolish this petty salary altogether; and to put
the inspectors of the almshouses on the same footing as the trustees of
the lunatic hospitals.
With regard to the board of inspectors of the hospital at Rainsford
Island, we propose that it be abolished, as the State Board of Charities
can appoint the officers, and exercise all needful powers of inspection
for this institution, with perfect convenience, especially when the oper-
ations of the establishment are reduced to the scale proposed in a sub-
sequent part of this Report. In proposing this measure, in fact, we are
simply reiterating the will of the legislature, already expressed. A bill
for the abolition of this board passed both houses at the last session,
but by some accident, after being engrossed, was mislaid, and failed to
receive the signatures of the presiding officers, and accordingly was not
sent to the governor and did not become a law.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
149
18. A General View of the Charitable Organization in
New York, 1857¹
Mr. Spencer from the select committee appointed by the Senate,
under a resolution passed February 7, 1856, "to visit, after the adjourn-
ment of the Legislature, all charitable institutions supported or assisted
by the State, and all city and county poor and work houses and jails,"
and "to examine into the condition of the said establishments, their
receipts and expenditures, their methods of instruction, and the gov-
ernment, treatment, and management of the inmates, the conduct of
the trustees, directors, and other officers of the same, and all other mat-
ters whatever pertaining to their usefulness and good government,"
Reports:2
Since the adjournment of the Legislature, they have, for five
months, with some intermissions, been engaged in the investigations
required by the resolution of the Senate. They have diligently exam-
ined into the existing condition of the poor houses, work houses, hos-
pitals, jails, orphan and lunatic asylums, and other charitable and
reformatory institutions, supported or assisted by the State; and have
committed to writing the evidence taken in the course of their investi-
gations, an abstract of which is appended to this Report.
Much of the evidence is necessarily of such a characteì, that a pub-
lication of it, in detail, for general perusal, would not be desirable. The
abstract prepared by the committee, as an appendix to this Report, is
sufficient for the purpose of illustrating and sustaining the criticisms,
remarks and arguments of the committee, and of communicating such
statistics and details, not otherwise contained in the Report, as seem
to be requisite for public information.
¹ Report of Select Senate Committee to Visit Charitable and Penal Institutions,
1857 ("New York Senate Document No. 8," 1857), reprinted in Thirty-seventh
Annual Report of the State Board of Charities of the State of New York, I (1903), 795–
820.
2 The Senate having ordered the printing of an additional number of copies of
this Report, an opportunity is afforded the committee of saying what was omitted
when it was submitted to the Senate, that all their visits were necessarily made dur-
ing the summer and autumn, when it will be seen that the average number in the
poor houses is twenty-five per cent. less than in the winter. It is apparent, therefore,
that they were seen under the most favorable circumstances, and that they did not
witness, the suffering that might be seen at this season, when the sleeping rooms are
crowded, the want of fuel, clothing and bedding most felt, the destitute condition
of the children more pitiable, and more general suffering prevailing, and they feel
called upon to make this explanation, as many of these houses have been recently
visited by those long accustomed to such duties, and who represent them in a much
worse condition than they are reported by the committee.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
}
I. POOR HOUSES, ALMS HOUSES, AND KINDRED CHARITIES
Exclusive of the alms houses and poor houses in New York and
Kings counties, (which are particularly referred to in the appendix),
there are fifty-five poor houses in the State; the average number of in-
mates for the year, according to the testimony taken by the committee,
being 6,420. The actual number of inmates at the time when the com-
mittee was engaged in its examinations, was 4,936, of which 2,670 were
foreign born, and 1,307 were children. During the past year, the
number of deaths in these fifty-five poor houses was 770. Such a
great mortality as this number indicates, should arrest the public
attention.
The number of lunatics found confined in the poor houses (except-
ing those in New York and Kings counties) was 837, (329 males and
508 females), of which number 301 were received during the last year.
Of the whole number, 130 were reported as being in cells and chains.
During the year, 59 improved, and 26 recovered. All were paupers
except 27. Why these twenty-seven should be confined in a poor house
can only be accounted for by the inadequate provision now made by
the State for accommodating the poor insane. This circumstance im-
pressed the committee with the urgent necessity of providing additional
establishments similar to the State Asylum at Utica. At least two such
are required for present emergencies. A bill was reported to the Legis-
lature at its last session, by a select committee of the Senate, providing
for this necessity, which in its principal features, at least, and proba-
bly in its details, deserves the favorable consideration of the Senate,
and, in the judgment of the committee, ought to become a law. Suffi-
cient reasons for such an opinion may be found in the Report of the se-
lect committee who introduced the bill, and they are fortified by the
facts attested to by the various witnesses whose testimony is appended
to this Report.
There was found in these poor houses 273 idiots, 25 deaf-mutes,
and 71 blind persons. Of those numbered as idiots, many are simply
demented, and are suitable subjects for lunatic asylums. The average
weekly support of the inmates is eighty-three cents.
The poor houses throughout the State may be generally described
as badly constructed, ill-arranged, ill-warmed, and ill-ventilated. The
rooms are crowded with inmates; and the air, particularly in the sleep-
ing apartments, is very noxious, and to casual visitors, almost insuffer-
able. In some cases, as many as forty-five inmates occupy a single dor-
mitory, with low ceilings, and sleeping boxes arranged in three tiers
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
151
one above another. Good health is incompatible with such arrange-
ments. They make it an impossibility.
The want of suitable hospital accommodations is severely felt in
most of the poor houses. The sick, considering their physical condition,
are even worse cared for than the healthy. The arrangements for medi-
cal attendance are quite inadequate to secure that which is suitable;
the physician is poorly paid, and consequently gives only such general
attention as his remuneration seems to require. In some cases, the in-
mates sicken and die without any medical attendance whatever. In
one county almshouse, averaging 137 inmates, there were 36 deaths
during the past year, and yet none of them from epidemic or contagious.
disease. Such a proportion of mortality indicates most inexcusable
negligence.
A proper classification of the inmates is almost wholly neglected.
It is either impossible, or when possible, it is disregarded. Many of the
births occurring during the year are doubtless, the offspring of illicit
connections. During the last year, the whole number of births was 292.
The indiscriminate association of the sexes generally allowed strongly
favors this assumption. By day, their intercourse is common and unre-
stricted; and there is often no sufficient safe-guard against a promiscu-
ous intercourse by night. In one case, the only pretense of a separation
of the sexes consisted in the circumstance of separate stairs being pro-
vided at each end of a common dormitory; and a police regulation, re-
quiring one sex to reach it by one flight, and the other sex by another,
appeared to be deemed a sufficient preventive of all subsequent inter-
course.
In two counties, the committee found that the poor houses were
supplied by contract, the contractor being allowed to profit by all the
labor which he could extort from the paupers. In both counties, the
contractor was a superintendent of the poor; and in one, he was also
keeper of the poor house. In one, the keeper received his compensation
from the contractor; and in this case, the food supplied was not only
insufficient in quantity, but consisted partly of tainted meat and fish.
The inmates were consequently almost starved. They were also de-
prived of a sufficiency of fuel and bedding, and suffered severely from
cold. So gross and inhuman was the conduct of the contractor for this
poor house, that two female inmates (lunatics), were frozen in their
cells (or rather sheds), during the last winter, and are now cripples for
life.
The treatment of lunatics and idiots in these houses is frequently
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
abusive. The cells and sheds where they are confined are wretched
abodes, often wholly unprovided with bedding. In most cases, female
lunatics had none but male attendants. Instances were testified to of
the whipping of male and female idiots and lunatics, and of confining
the latter in loathsome cells, and binding them with chains. In one
county, where eleven lunatics were confined, six were in chains, some
of whom were females. In several of these cases, the patients were not
violent; but it may be proper to say that the severity and inhumanity
of their treatment were probably owing to the apprehensions and ig-
norance of the keepers, rather than to any intentional harshness or any
unkindness of disposition.
In some poor houses, the committee found lunatics both male and
female, in cells, in a state of nudity. The cells were intolerably offen-
sive, littered with the long accumulated filth of the occupants, and with
straw reduced to chaff by long use as bedding, portions of which, min-
gled with the filth, adhered to the persons of the inmates and formed
the only covering they had.
A great evil of the poor houses is idleness. Its effects are most visible
in the winter season, when the houses are crowded, when there is little
out door work to be done, and when the inmates are in the most vigor-
ous state to do full work. In all the large counties, at least, work houses
should be established, either in connection with the poor houses or as
distinct establishments; and suitable legal power should be given to
the proper officers to consign able bodied paupers to the work house in-
stead of the poor house proper. Such work houses would tend to dimin
ish pauperism; at all events, to diminish the burthen of it. Under
suitable regulations, and with little public aid, the committee are satis-
fied that work houses, if generally established, would become most use-
ful and economical auxiliaries in the support of paupers, and in restor-
ing them to positions of independence and respectability.
A still more efficient and economical auxiliary in supporting the
poor, and in the prevention of absolute pauperism, consists, in the
opinion of the committee, in the proper and systematic distribution of
out door relief. Worthy indigent persons should, if possible, be kept
from the degradation of the poor house, by reasonable supplies of pro-
visions, bedding, and other absolute necessaries, at their own homes.
Half the sum requisite for their maintenance in the poor house would
often save them from destitution, and enable them to work in their
households and their vicinity, sufficiently to earn the remainder of their
support during the inclement season when indigence suffers the most,
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
153
and when it is most likely to be forced into the common receptacles of
pauperism, whence it rarely emerges without a loss of self respect and
a sense of degradation. The committee are confirmed in their opinion
by the success of the system of out door relief practiced in the city of
New York; and they see no good reason why a similar system might
not be adopted throughout the State, with great benefit to the several
counties, as well as to those indigent persons who require only occa-
sional assistance. The present provisions of law seem to be inadequate
and ill-suited to the purpose.
In many instances the committee learned that the poor houses
were not visited by the supervisors for more than a year. They cannot
but regard this as a gross neglect of public duty, and therefore submit
it to public criticism, and to such legislative interference as may effect
a more efficient supervision.
It will be seen that in the counties of Queens and Suffolk, no county
poor houses are established. By the appendix it will appear that a poor
house for two towns, in Queens county, was visited by the committee,
but here they saw nothing creditable to those having charge of the es-
tablishment, and it was understood, in some of the other towns of that
county, the man who would bid the lowest price, secured to himself the
profit of keeping the poor of the town, and that they were accordingly
delivered to his care. The committee visited one town poor house at
River Head, in the county of Suffolk, and though there were only three
or four inmates seen, they were evidently well provided for and kindly
treated. It was represented that there were similar provisions made in
all the other towns in the county.
The opinion is prevalent that the poor houses are asylums for the
worthless and vicious only. Among the inmates, however, the commit-
tee found persons of great worth and respectable character, reduced to
extreme poverty, not by any vice or fault of their own, but by some in-
evitable loss of property, or of friends and relatives, who, if living,
would have supported them in their age and infirmities. In one county,
they met with a soldier who had served under Washington in the wars
of the revolution, still of sound mind, and in good health; but who was
until lately ignorant that he was entitled to a pension that would suffice
to make the residue of his life comfortable outside of a poor house. He
is now about to obtain it, as he doubtless deserves it. Poor houses, if
properly conducted, might be what they were originally designed to be,
comfortable asylums for worthy indigence. To suffer them to become
unsuitable refuges for the virtuous poor, and mainly places of confine-
•
154
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
·
ment for the degraded, is to pervert their main purpose; and the present
management of them is such that decent poverty is virtually excluded
until the last extremity of pauperism is reached, when the necessity
of supporting mere existence compels it reluctantly to seek the scanty
comforts of a poor house rather than to suffer the horrors of starvation
outside.
The most important point in the whole subject confided to the
committee, is that which concerns the care and education of the chil-
dren of paupers. There are at least thirteen hundred of these now in-
mates of the various poor houses, exclusive of those in New York and
Kings county; enough, in these nurseries, if not properly cared for,
to fill some day all the houses of refuge and prisons in the State. As
receptacles for adult paupers, the committee do not hesitate to record
their deliberate opinion that the great mass of the poor houses which
they have inspected, are most disgraceful memorials of the public char-
ity. Common domestic animals are usually more humanely provided
for than the paupers in some of these institutions; where the misfortune
of poverty is visited with greater deprivations of comfortable food,
lodging, clothing, warmth and ventilation than constitute the usual
penalty of crime. The evidence taken by the committee exhibits such
a filth, nakedness, licentiousness, general bad morals, and disregard of
religion and the most common religious observances, as well as of gross
neglect of the most ordinary comforts and decencies of life, as if pub-
lished in detail would disgrace the State and shock humanity. The
committee hesitates to record in the pages of their report the particular
instances which would amply justify their general condemnation of
these misnamed charitable provisions for the adult poor. But with re-
spect to children, the case is far worse; and the committee are forced
to say that it is a great public reproach that they should ever be suf-
fered to enter or remain in the poor houses as they are now misman-
aged. They are for the young, notwithstanding the legal provision for
their education, the worst possible nurseries; contributing an annual
accession to our population of three hundred infants, whose present
destiny is to pass their most impressible years in the midst of such vi-
cious associations as will stamp them for a life of future infamy and
crime. From such associations they should be promptly severed; and
provision should be made for them either in asylums devoted to their
special use, or in such orphan asylums as would consent to take charge
I
¹ [The facts about New York and Kings counties are in an appendix of this
Report and are not reproduced here.]
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
155
of them for a fair compensation to be provided by the State, or by the
several towns and counties properly chargeable with the expense.
Although pauperism is not in itself a crime, yet that kind of pov-
erty which ends in a poor house, unless it is the result of disease, in-
firmity, or age producing a positive inability to earn a livelihood, is not
unusually the result of such self-indulgence, unthrift, excess, or idle-
ness, as is next of kin to criminality. With such pauperism as that, it is
certain that the young should not be associated and trained to matur-
ity; for it is an association with discomfort, evil manners, profanity,
and licentiousness. The education which the statutes provide for them
is not suited to their particular case. In-door instruction is often con-
fided to unfit and vicious teachers; and the attendance of pauper chil-
dren at schools in the vicinity of the almshouse is accompanied by
a sort of disgrace attaching to their position which has a most un-
favorable influence. Orphanage is not subject to the like stigma; and
therefore to go from an orphan asylum to a public school does not ex-
pose the orphan to the same taunts and inconsiderateness that follow
the pauper child who is the inmate of a poor house; which is generally
reputed, in its vicinity, as a habitation for vice and degradation, so low
has it fallen from its original purpose.
If adequate provision cannot be made in the various existing
orphan asylums, and such as may be hereafter founded, for the sup-
port and education of these unfortunate children of poverty, as a con-
sideration for increased benefactions from the State or from the coun-
ties, then the committee most earnestly recommend the establishment
of special institutions for the purpose of maintaining and educating
them by themselves, apart from the contaminations which now sur-
round and vitiate them. It would, in the end, prove a most useful and
economical public charity, and one which the present state of the alms-
houses seems to demand very urgently, if the welfare of succeeding
generations is worthy of the care of the present one.
Attempts have been made, in some of the counties, to establish
separate asylums for insane paupers. As a saving of expense to the
county in the maintenance of these appears to be a principal object, it
is obvious to the committee, considering all the circumstances requisite
to be observed, that such efforts must terminate either in sacrificing
the lunatic or the purpose of economy sought to be achieved. A lunatic
asylum for every county, properly constructed, on suitable grounds,
and with due regard to warmth, ventilation, bathing, and all the pecu-
liar necessities of the insane, including suitable medical and other at-
156
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tendance, must necessarily involve not only an original outlay, but a
constant annual expenditure, far exceeding, in comparative amount,
that which would be incurred for the support and care of the same
number of inmates in four or five larger institutions properly distribut-
ed throughout the State. So many different asylums could not employ,
without extravagance, the necessary medical aid and experience; and
they could not be so constructed and arranged, without great expense,
as to allow of a proper and essential classification of the patients wheth-
er for health, improvement, or cure. They would doubtless serve to
ameliorate somewhat the condition of those who are now unfortunately
confined to the ordinary almshouses; but, at considerable additional
expense to the counties, they would still leave them in a worse condi-
tion than if they were the inmates of an asylum assisted and managed
by the State.
It would not be difficult to show that it must cost a county more
to support an independent asylum for its insane poor, with the same
care of the patient, than to send them to the State Asylums and sup-
port them there. It would be still easier to show that if the difference
of cost were the reverse of that, the well-being of the insane will be
sacrificed in an equal or greater proportion. The parsimony which
would stint them in the enjoyments and comforts that might conduce
to their restoration, if curable, and would certainly solace their nights
and days if incurable, is very questionable in its humane, as well as its
economical aspects. In the opinion of the committee, therefore, it is
not desirable to encourage the foundation of such a multiplicity of
lesser asylums as would place each county on an independent footing
with respect to insane paupers. It is bad economy, and worse human-
ity; and the tendency of it must be to send to the State Asylum as
"indigents" simply, and at the charge of the counties, "many who are
legally paupers," and who, under that designation would, but for the
interference of humane friends and considerate judges, be necessarily
consigned to such unfit abodes as the county asylums, to be at the
mercy of some selfish contractor, who might farm out a contract made
on starvation estimates to some subordinate who must reduce the star-
vation limit still lower, if he would not starve himself.
Before passing from the subject of poor houses, the committee
may be allowed to say that it is much to be regretted that our citizens
manifest so little interest in the condition even of those in their imme-
diate neighborhood. Individuals who take great interest in human suf-
fering whenever it is brought to their notice, never visit them, and are
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
157
entirely uninformed, that in a county house almost at their own doors,
may be found the lunatic suffering for years in a dark and suffocating
cell, in summer, and almost freezing in the winter,-where a score of
children are poorly fed, poorly clothed, and quite untaught,-where
the poor idiot is half starved and beaten with rods because he is too dull
to do his master's bidding,-where the aged mother is lying in perhaps
her last sickness, unattended by a physician, and with no one to min-
ister to her wants, where the lunatic, and that lunatic, too, a woman,
is made to feel the lash in the hands of a brutal under-keeper—yet
these are all to be found-they all exist in our State. And the committee
are quite convinced that to this apparent indifference on the part of
the citizens, may be attributed in a great degree, the miserable state to
which these houses have fallen; and they would urge upon the benevo-
lent in all parts of the State to look into their condition, and thus assist
to make them comfortable abodes for the indigent and the unfortu-
nate.
II. ORPHAN ASYLUMS
It is agreeable to turn from the consideration of the poor houses
and their mismanagement, to the examination of the Orphan Asylums
to which the benefactions of the State are contributed. The committee
visited them all. Whether it be that the principal charge of these is con-
fided to females, or whatever be the cause, it is certain that with less
comparative expenditure of the public moneys an incomparably greater
amount of comfort, cleanliness, kind treatment, health, and good edu-
cation is secured to the inmates, than happens to be the lot of the pau-
pers in our poor houses.
To a cordial expression of praise respecting the general manage-
ment and good condition of the Orphan Asylums, the committee most
cheerfully add a recommendation of them to the liberal support of the
State government; and especially if additional benefactions can be
made the means of relieving the poor houses of their young inmates, by
providing for their support and education in the Orphan Asylum as
heretofore suggested by the committee. Children, whose parents are
paupers in the legal sense, and actual residents in pauper asylums, are
generally to all practical intents as much orphans as those who are de-
prived by death of their natural protectors; and their actual condition
is much more pitiable. An association with their destitute parents,
and their necessary poor house companions, is not only a deprivation
of the attention and comforts which they ought to enjoy during their
tender years, but it is a fatal exposure to examples of most evil tenden-
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
cy. Their chance to become virtuous and exemplary citizens is the
most desperate of all human chances; and upon a future generation is
inflicted the necessary consequence of supporting them as criminals
in our jails and prisons.
The Orphan Asylums are twenty-six in number and contain 2,816
children, of whom 2,224 are of foreign parentage, to whose support the
State appropriates the annual sum of thirty-five thousand dollars.
In connection with this fact the committee desire to state that the
cost to the public of supporting 678 prisoners confined in the jails, is
eighty thousand seven hundred and thirty dollars. The inference is,
that to educate one orphan to usefulness, the public treasury expends
less than one-tenth as much as it does to maintain one useless convict
in jail.
At suitable ages, orphan children are placed in respectable families,
(by which they are frequently adopted as children), or they are inden-
tured, the boys to farmers and mechanics, the girls to learn housekeep-
ing and needle work. The care of the managers still follows them be-
yond the precincts of the asylum, until they become of age, and if they
are unsatisfactorily provided for, or are ill-treated, new situations are
obtained for them. The committee in all cases made strict inquiry as
to the standing and reputation of the inmates who had left the asylums,
and it was ascertained that, with few exceptions, they became good and
useful citizens.
III. LUNATIC ASYLUMS
For statistical and other details respecting the lunatic asylums en-
dowed or assisted by the State, the committee refer to the appendix to
this Report. They are as well and efficiently managed as is possible with
the means and conveniences at the command of the superintendents
and managers, and in conformity to the existing provisions of law. A
particular examination of these has forced the committee to a conclu-
sion which seems to have been generally adopted by the superintend-
ents and managers of such asylums, both in this country and abroad;
that the common practice of transfering insane convicts, or convicts
assumed to be so, from the prisons to the lunatic asylums is impolitic,
injurious and unjust. Lunacy has no necessary association with crime;
nor should lunatics be enforced to an association with criminals. It is an
association every way detrimental to the lunatic, and no way beneficial
to the criminal. While lunacy may be wisely deemed a sufficient cause
for absolving a convict from punishment, it is not a sufficient one for
letting him loose on the community at large, and much less upon that
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
159
afflicted portion of it, for whose protection and care asylums are found-
ed and maintained. A decent respect for their infirmity demands that
they should not be legally associated with those outcasts of society
who, in the possession of their faculties, have degraded themselves by
crime.
The original act establishing the State Lunatic Asylum made no
provision for insane convicts; and experience shows that it was wisely
framed in that particular. Of fifty convicts discharged from incarcera-
tion for crime, and transferred to the State Lunatic asylum, fourteen
eloped soon after the transfer. Only one or two of these were really in-
sane. The others feigned insanity. They were mostly burglars or rob-
bers, who preferred the chances of escape from an ill-protected asylum,
to the certainty of detention in a well guarded prison, and who there-
fore simulated insanity as the shortest way to impunity and freedom.
The existing statutes seem to favor such modes of escaping the
penalties of crime, and defeating criminal justice. While the law re-
quires that a plea of insanity interposed before conviction shall be tried
by a jury upon competent evidence, yet, after a conviction, it allows a
question of insanity to be decided by the sole judgment of the medical
and other officers of a prison (not usually experts in insanity,) who are
legally impowered to transfer a convict from a prison, where labor and
severity of treatment are his due punishment, to an asylum, where he is
not only free from both, but is tempted by a facility of escape of which
he does not hesitate to take speedy advantage. A prison is a place of
strict confinement and enforced labor, by way of punishment; an asy-
lum is simply a place of confinement, by way of isolation, and for the
benevolent purpose of protection and cure. To make the two places
common, is to confound two different intents of the law and of human-
ity, and to defeat both.
It seems to the committee, therefore, that there is an imperative
necessity to provide some safe building connected with a public prison,
as a part of its hospital department, to which convicts who are found,
on a proper legal investigation, to be insane, may be removed; and in
which they may be confined, not only for the cure of their insanity, but
for the safe keeping of their persons, and for the protection of the com-
munity against their criminal propensities. Their case is very different
from the case of the usual inmates of lunatic asylums. They have been
convicted justly of crime; and, but for their subsequent infirmity,
would expiate their offence by the usual severities and disgrace of in-
carceration. Lunacy should absolve them from actual punishment;
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
1
but it should not involve the innocent insane in the terrors, dangers
and disgrace of an association with them.
While the committee, for these reasons, feel constrained to recom-
mend, most earnestly, the establishment of a separate institution for
insane convicts, they are equally constrained to recommend a greater
conformity to the usual forms of law and judicial proceeding, in solving
the question of their insanity. The present looseness in that respect,
produces great evil. If it be proper as it has always been customary,
to require that no person shall be deprived of the control of his person
or property without an inquisition by a jury, on due legal proof, as to
his capacity to control himself and his affairs; or if it be proper that a
person indicted for a crime, who offers a plea of insanity for his defence,
should have the question of his sanity tried by a jury; it certainly seems
to be much more important, that after a due conviction on the verdict of
a jury, under the instructions of a court, it should not lie in the mere
discretion of the medical and other officers of a prison, to subvert the
course of criminal justice, and to dismiss a convict from the rigid con-
straints of a prison to the comparative ease of an asylum, and the con-
sequent facility of an escape to renew his offences. Whenever the ques-
tion of insanity arises in respect to crime and its penalties, it should be
judged according to the usual forms of the law; and more strictly so
after a conviction than before it. A conviction is the legal stamp of
guilt, after all the evidence of both parties is heard: an indictment is
merely the formal suggestion of it, after hearing the evidence of the
accuser only. The opinion of the medical officer of the prison, (especi-
ally if he be an expert in insanity), respecting the sanity of a convict,
might suffice for some emergency, or for a temporary purpose, but it
should not suffice to discharge him from punishment, nor be tanta-
mount to an overruling of the judgments of courts and juries and the
sentence of the law. An allegation of insanity, pending imprisonment,
should be tested as formally, and by the same judicial modes as a plea
of insanity pending a trial. The same reasons apply to both circum-
stances, and with more force after a conviction. Medical advisers are
important in their place; but it is not their particular vocation to be
the substitutes for courts and juries, or to have a substantial appellate
power, enabling them as the statutes now do, to overrule in the most
informal and summary way, both courts and juries, as well as to exer-
cise a kind of executive power by virtually remitting or modifying the
punishment of crimes.
The committee do not by any means intend to intimate that the
A
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
161
•
discretion of the officers of the prisons in this State, in regard to insane
convicts, has been abused or misdirected. They state the case upon
general principles. The insanity of convicts, like the insanity of other
men, should be ascertained by the usual legal modes. The inquisition
of a jury may not be absolutely the surest way of reaching the truth;
but it is the usual way, conformable to the common law, and to the
feeling and customs of the country. If such an inquisition be properly
required by law to test a plea of insanity interposed to an indictment
before a conviction, it seems to be more requisite after a conviction
when the effect of it may be to discharge the convict from a penalty to
which a jury on suitable evidence, had adjudged him to be legally
amenable, and to which the court had given its sanction by pronounc-
ing a sentence according to the degree of the offence.
The whole number of convicts who become really insane is not so
great as to demand extensive accommodation for their especial use;
and those who simulate insanity deserve as little accommodation as
consists with security. A small appropriation for a building to be erect-
ed on the capacious grounds inclosed within the outer wall of the Au-
burn prison, would enable the State to make a fair experiment of a
separate establishment for insane convicts; an experiment which is de-
manded by humane considerations towards lunatics not under convic-
tion for crime, as well as for the protection of the community against
those who are.
The grounds of the Auburn prison have been suggested by the com-
mittee as a site, because of the centrality and healthfulness of the posi-
tion, the magnitude of the area now safely inclosed (about four acres)
and the economy with which the proposed experiment may be made.
Should the Legislature see fit to found such an asylum, it should be
placed under the general charge of the Inspectors of Prisons. But there
should also be a board of visitors, having the same general powers and
duties as the Managers of the State Lunatic Asylum, and to be ap-
pointed in the same manner. A majority of them should be of the vicin-
age to facilitate the performance of their duties.
The asylum being a part of the hospital department of the prison,
the physician of the prison should be its ordinary physician and super-
intendent. But he should be at liberty to consult with the superintend-
ents of such lunatic asylums as are within the control of the State
authority, and it would be made their duty, by law, to give him their ·
advice whenever required.
The discipline of such an asylum should not, of course, be the ordi-
162
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
nary discipline of prisons; but provision should be made for the em-
ployment of its inmates in such modes of labor as may conduce to their
support, with due regard to their health, and to their physical and men-
tal improvement. Their insanity having been duly ascertained by the
inquisition of a jury before their removal from the prison proper, they
should be legally presumed to be insane, and retained in the asylum,
until another inquisition shall establish their sanity, and they should
then be recommitted to prison to pay the prescribed penalty for their
crimes. The prison physician should therefore be required in all cases,
whether of feigned insanity or of presumed restoration to reason, to
apply to the proper tribunal for an inquisition to establish the fact,
and the verdict of the jury should determine the question of confine-
ment whether in the prison or in the asylum.
IV. ASYLUMS FOR IDIOTS, DEAF-MUTES AND THE BLIND
STATE IDIOT ASYLUM
The asylum for idiots was established, and commenced receiving
pupils in 1851. It was first opened and placed under the direction of a
board of trustees appointed by the State, a few miles north of the city
of Albany, where it continued till August, 1855. The success of the
undertaking being established, larger accommodations were required,
and it was determined to erect suitable buildings in a more favorable
location.
The citizens of Syracuse having offered to contribute a sum nearly
sufficient, to purchase suitable grounds near that city, eighteen
acres of productive land were bought for the site of the new asylum,
and in September, 1854, the corner stone of the new edifice was laid.
The site is an elevated one, being sixty feet above the general level of
the plain, upon which the city of Syracuse is built, and commands a
fine view of the surrounding country. The building which presents a
pleasing exterior, was completed in August, 1855, and the pupils re-
moved to it in the following month. It is constructed according to a
plan submitted to the Legislature in 1855. The convenience, comfort
and safety of the pupils are apparently well provided for; the school
rooms are hardly surpassed in convenience of arrangement by any in
the State; the whole are well warmed, the dormitories well ventilated,
and a large gymnasium affords all necessary facilities for training the
physical organs, so necessary to children of this class. The whole prop-
erty has not cost over 75,000 dollars; and an examination of the build-
ings convinced the committee that the money of the State has been ju-
diciously and economically expended by the trustees.
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
163
The asylum is capable of accommodating 150 pupils, and there are
now 104 under instruction. The annual expenses will be found to be
16,000 dollars and last year 2,333.88 dollars was received from paying
pupils. In consequence of the failure of the annual appropriation a
considerable balance against the asylum has accumulated, which the
trustees have been compelled to borrow upon their individual respon-
sibility, and from which they should be promptly relieved. By its
failure also the operations of the asylum for the current year have
been greatly retarded; a number of indigent idiotic children entitled to
admission have been refused, and provision ought to be made if pos-
sible against the effects of a similar occurrence.
The committee had full opportunity to witness the system of in-
struction in the asylum, the chief object of which is to raise the imbe-
cile from his degradation and awaken him to a consciousness of exist-
ence as a moral and intellectual being; and it was truly gratifying to
find that these unfortunate ones are susceptible of a high degree of im-
provement. This however can only be accomplished by a skillful, en-
thusiastic, patient superintendent; assisted by teachers possessing
similar qualifications, and it was noticed by the committee that those
chosen for this difficult task, were all females, whose gentleness and
patience commended them to his choice. The condition of most of
those received here can hardly be known except to those who have
visited the asylum. Commissioners appointed by the Legislature of a
neighboring state to visit this institution, said of them: many are piti-
able objects, often unable to walk or speak, uttering the peculiar moan
of the idiot, frequently malicious, violent, destructive and filthy in
their habits; it would seem that they were beyond the reach of human
aid-monuments of God's anger-but this is not the view the superin-
tendent and the teachers take of them. Past experience has convinced
them, that these beclouded intellects into which the first ray of reason
has not yet shone may be enlightened, that these brutal natures may
yet offer from humble and loving hearts their petitions for pardon, and
their orisons of praise to our Common Father.
The State of New York was the first to erect a State Idiot Asylum,
and has now the satisfaction of having successfully demonstrated that
those usually called idiots may be so trained and instructed as to ren-
der them useful to themselves and fitted at least to learn some of the
ordinary trades, or to engage in agriculture, and her citizens as they
pass her great western thoroughfares may now point to this elevated
building, as evidence of the wisdom of the undertaking, and complet-
•
164
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ing the circle of our State's charities, now embracing every class whose
infirmities call for public aid.¹
•
VI. HOUSES OF REFUGE
The State of New York claims to have been first in the United
States in establishing houses of reformation for juvenile delinquents.
The New York house of refuge is now in the extent of its opera-
tions, the greatest reform school in the world. Established in 1824, it
has served as a model to the various houses since established elsewhere.
In 1848 the State purchased a small farm near Rochester, and erected
a house of refuge, and placed it under the care of a board of managers.
These houses of refuge are under similar regulations; the institu-
tion in New York receiving both boys and girls from all parts of the
State, the one in Rochester receiving boys only, both being schools of
reformation—receiving such children only, as are committed by judges
or police magistrates, and retaining the control of them until they are
of age. Strictly parental in their government, the managers take the
place of the parent who has forfeited his natural claim to guardianship,
and educate and discipline the child for the period the parent would
discharge the same duty; and they receive them in full confidence that
though stained with crime, the stains may be washed away, and past
deficiencies be remedied by instruction and discipline. Here the State
provides a home for the neglected erring child, and in many cases a
more comfortable and happy home than they have ever known before;
where they are properly provided for-receive instruction in the ordi-
nary branches of a common school education; are trained to habits of
industry, and have instilled into their minds those principles of moral
and religious truth, which will fit them for a life of virtue, happiness
and usefulness. After remaining in the house a sufficient time, which
varies in different cases, but averaging perhaps a year and a half, they
are indentured to persons of good character, living in the country, away
from their former companions and thickly spread snares of the city;
and it is found that there is no want of demand for these children as
apprentices, which shows that their training makes them valuable as
such, and that there is no stigma branded upon their characters—and
their conceptions of their own position is transformed into earnest con-
I
[The committee visited and examined the institutions for the instruction of
the deaf and dumb and the asylum for the blind; and the hospitals, dispensaries, and
infirmaries of the state, and reported them as under good management, deserving the
commendation of the committee and continued encouragement and benefactions.]
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
165
fidence and hopeful aspirations. They leave the refuge feeling a sense
of independence, that their stains are washed out, that they are re-
stored, and look back in after life to the houses of mercy, invoking
blessings on those by whose interposition the headlong current of their
early life was stayed, and turned into channels of private worth and
social usefulness and respectability.
VII. JAILS AND PENITENTIARIES
Nearly all of the jails in the State are insufficient to fulfill the pur-
poses contemplated by law. No adequate provisions are usually made
by the counties to enable the jailor, however well disposed, to discharge
the duty which is clearly enough imposed on him by the statutes. Wit-
nesses and criminals are often confined in the same apartment, (not
unfrequently a cell), and females, without discrimination of the various
causes for their commitment are compelled to associate together. In
one instance, the committee found a lad of eight years confined in a
cell with two old offenders, one charged with rape, and the other with
burglary. Cases not unlike this are common.
Many of the jails are extremely unhealthy places of confinement.
They are insecurely built, damp, and unventilated, and the air which
the inmates are compelled to respire continually, is very offensive and
productive of disease.
The statutes require that each room or cell in a jail shall be provid-
ed with a Bible. This is often disregarded. They also require the classi-
fication of prisoners; and to this point the committee were particular
in making inquiries. In most cases the answers were to the effect that
the jail accommodations were such as to forbid such a classification;
and a personal inspection by the committee usually corroborated the
truth of the answers. For this grave omission of duty, the county au-
thorities are responsible, rather than the subordinates in immediate
charge of the jails; many of whom seem disposed to conform to the law
as closely as their limited means will permit; but so little attention has
been paid to the just requirements of the law, that there are but fifteen
jails in the State in which prisoners can be classified, and only thirty-
two in which they are supplied with Bibles.
Grand juries have from time to time visited these county prisons,
and presented many of them as nuisances; but the mere presentment
of them has no legal effect, and serves merely to call the public atten-
tion, in a formal way, to the existence of the evils. If such presentments
could be made to assume the legal force of an indictment against the
•
166
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
supervisors, the jailor, or other delinquent whose duty has evidently
been grossly neglected, they might have an effect in ameliorating the
state of the jails, and producing a conformity to the humane and politic
intentions of the law, which are now sadly overlooked or perverted.
The committee suggests that an amendment of the statutes might pro-
vide that whenever such presentments are made by the grand inquest,
it shall be the duty of the court receiving the presentment forthwith to
require the district attorney to frame an indictment against the actual
or presumed delinquents, and to detain the grand jury until they shall
find or ignore it.
The whole number of persons confined in the jails is 678, and in-
temperance is the cause of the confinement of three-fourths, or 75 per
cent. of the whole number. The average cost of their support, so far as
it could be ascertained, is about two dollars and twenty-six cents each
per week.
Compared with the cost of supporting paupers and orphans, the
cost of supporting criminals would seem extravagant. In a punitive
respect, it would be more humane and consistent with justice that the
case should be reversed.
In the three penitentiaries of this State there are 1,212 inmates, so
that the whole number in penitentiaries, jails, houses of refuge and
work houses, is 3,863.
The committee cannot close their remarks on the jails of our State,
without alluding to one other point in connection with this subject.
Observation has led us to the conclusion that one at least of the objects
of imprisonment of those guilty of crimes and misdemeanors is lost
sight of. The community at large, officers of justice, jailors and keepers
of penitentiaries, seem to think that violators of good and wholesome
laws, should not only suffer the penalty attached to the violated laws,
but the association of wrong doing and criminality with the criminals,
leads many to feel that the wrong doer has by his wickedness cast him-
self beyond the reach of human sympathy. Hence he is too often treat-
ed as an outcast, and is not only incarcerated within the walls of a pris-
on, but when there, often treated inhumanely.
The facts stated above show most conclusively that in a very large
majority of our jails, prisoners cannot be confined long, without serious
injury to their health; cold, damp, many of the cells below the surface
of the surrounding grounds; with no means of ventilation, the in-
mates breath the same foul atmosphere day after day, and are sup-
plied, too, often, with coarse and insufficient food, straw for a bed, no
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
167
employment to help them pass their dreary hours, the old and hardened
criminal associated with the juvenile offender instructing him in all the
tricks and devices of the most depraved. What wonder is it that he
comes out of prison, not only a more hardened villain, but mad with
all the world! He may feel he has done wrong in the commission of
the crime for which he was imprisoned, but he still feels he is a human
being and entitled to human treatment. Instead of receiving this, his
bodily sufferings have been such as to make him look upon every man
he meets as his enemy, and he goes forth to commit further depreda-
tions upon society.
We believe that offenders against our laws, should be subject to
the penalty of the violated laws.
Punishment should be sure to follow transgression. The object of
confinement should be, not only the punishment of the offender, and
the protection of community against further depredations, but should
also seek the reformation of the criminal. It should be so conducted,
and tempered with mercy that when the offender goes forth after his
incarceration, he will be a reformed man, an honest citizen. This can
only be done by a change in the construction, and in the government of
most of our jails; making them more healthy by constructing them in
all cases above the surface of the surrounding grounds; by providing
means for free ventilation and cleanliness, better food for the inmates,
a proper classification of the prisoners, constant employment; not suf-
fering the old hardened criminal to corrupt the youthful delinquent
by the history of his own deeds of villainy, and last, though not least,
by affording suitable moral and religious instruction. Thus teaching
them that the path of rectitude is the only path to respectability.
The most fertile source of pauperism, lunacy, and crime, as all sta-
tistics respecting these evils show, is intemperance. It sends to the
lunatic asylums a large proportion of their inmates, to the poor houses
70 per cent., and to the jails 75 per cent. The propensity to it is either
inherited or acquired. In one case, it is a disease; in the other it may
become so. In either case, it demands peculiar treatment, the result of
which, whether for restraint or cure, would usually be favorable to the
patient and to the community. The Legislature, satisfied of this, has
accordingly passed a law incorporating an institution for the care, re-
formation, and restoration of inebriates. Should it prove a successful
experiment, it would obviate a great difficulty now existing in the way
of classifying the inmates of our charitable and reformatory institu-
tions. It would provide a proper retreat for many of them, and thus
168
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
open the doors of other institutions for the admission of suitable cases
which are now excluded from the asylum they need. The experiment
therefore, should receive such encouragement from the State as its im-
portance, in an economical view, seems to require.
There are various associations in the State, and particularly in the
cities and larger towns, for charity, reform and education, which not
receiving aid from the State, do not fall within the terms of the resolu-
tion of the Senate under which the committee have pursued their in-
vestigation. Many of them, however, have been visited by the com-
mittee for purposes of information and of comparison with other insti-
tutions of a kindred character which were the legitimate subjects of
visitation. They are generally supported by private endowments and
contributions, with occasional aid, perhaps, from the local authorities.
Homes for the friendless, and industrial and other schools are of this
class; charities devoted to the maintenance or training of vagrant and
destitute children, to the care and protection of young females out of
employment or in reduced circumstances, as well as of aged or decrepit
women. They deserve to be favorably regarded when the Legislature
is considering any general and economical plan of charity or reform.
Those, more particularly, which have for their object the support and
training of destitute children, and their salvation from the evils of
vagrancy, idle habits, and vicious examples, are worthy of attention
and encouragement. The management of such charitable enterprises
happens fortunately to be confided mainly to benevolent women, whose
thrift, economy of expenditure, skill in management, and tenderness of
feeling, enables them to produce greater results with less means than is
the usual fortune of the other sex. The public bounty bestowed on such
institutions, under such management, goes farther and is more certain
of producing a suitable return, than the usual application of it. It
gives the committee great pleasure to commend such charities to ap-
proval and support, as no insignificant part of the great scheme of be-
nevolence and reformation which it is the duty of every good govern-
ment to maintain.
The general result of the examinations made by the committee, is
a conviction of the necessity of providing by law:
Ist. For a more efficient and constant supervision of all the charit-
able and reformatory institutions which participate in the public boun-
ty, or are supported by taxation; and a commission of well qualified
persons, to be appointed by the Governor and Senate, with such ar-
THE CREATION OF STATE AGENCIES
169
rangement of the terms of service as will constantly secure experience,
appears to be the best mode of effecting the purpose.¹
2d. For the better regulation of poor houses, so as to make fit asy-
lums for the worthy indigent; for which purpose better structures than
now commonly exist, should be legally required, with such arrange-
ments for warmth, ventilation, bathing, classification of the inmates,
separation of the sexes, labor, medical attendance, instruction, and
religious exercises, as decency, health, and sound morals demand.
3d. For the better maintenance, and education of pauper children,
either in the orphan asylums, or in such local institutions as may be
established in the several judicial districts by special provisions of law.
4th. For the establishment of two or more asylums for the insane,
in addition to the existing asylums, and to be under similar control and
management with the State asylum.
5th. For the establishment of an asylum for insane convicts in the
prison grounds at Auburn.
6th. For the more efficient regulation of county jails in regard to
their structure, and most of the particulars requisite for the better regu-
lation of poor houses as above specified.
7th. For a revision of the poor laws.
I
* [See below, Part II, Sec. I, Document 6, for act creating such an authority.
Attention may also be called to the Reports, Majority and Minority, submitted by
the Committee on Charities and Charitable Institutions, to the Constitutional Con-
vention of the State of New York, 1867–68. See also Art. 8, Sec. II, of the Constitu-
tion of 1894.]
SECTION III
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The question may be raised as to the further step in centralization
and the possibility of an appeal to the federal government and of the
establishment of federal agencies in the field of public welfare; but up
to the present time the federal government has restricted its activities
in this field except in the areas for which it is the responsible govern-
ment to giving information¹ and conducting and stimulating confer-
ences as the basis for wider agreement on important questions of
method.²
From the documents in the preceding sections, it appears that in a
number of instances interstate relations were developed and interstate
services were rendered. Especially in the case of the institutions for
the deaf, there developed something in the nature of a regional con-
sciousness and a sense of a reciprocal or interstate service. The use by
distant states of the Connecticut and Kentucky institutions for the
deaf and dumb was the occasion for federal grants of land.³ This inter-
state character of the service was distinctly urged as the basis for a
claim to federal aid, and that together with the fact that they were
educational in purpose may distinguish them from other welfare
institutions and agencies. In any case, in her magnificent appeal in
which was recorded the extraordinary devotion and comprehensive
knowledge of Miss Dix4 concerning the wretchedness and misery char-
acteristic of the lot of the insane in all sections of the United States,
no interstate element was suggested, and only the national feature of
universality was urged. Whether, if an argument based on the inter-
state factors that would inevitably be present when migration is freely
¹ Note such publications of the U.S. Bureau of the Census as the bulletins on
Almshouses, the "Thirteenth Census Bulletin" on Benevolent Institutions, the
Statistical Directory of State Institutions for the Defective, Dependent, and Delinquent
Classes, the Summary of State Laws Relating to the Dependent Classes, 1913, the
U.S. Children's Bureau series on "Infant and Maternal Mortality."
2 Note the U.S. Children's Bureau publications, No. 60, Standards of Child
Welfare; No. 121, Juvenile Court Standards; No. 133, Employment Certificate
Standards.
3 See Documents 1, 2, and 3.
4 See Document 4.
170
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
171
allowed or on the specialization of treatment that might be developed
would have met with a different response, no one can say. That the
need was universal and that state resources were proving inadequate,
were points established by the record of her observations in all parts
of the country.
Her plan as set out in the memorial given here contemplated the
division among the states of five million acres of the public land. In a
second memorial she asked for ten million for the insane and two and
a half million for the deaf.¹
It is a measure finally enacted April 22, 1854, which President
Pierce vetoed.2 In his veto, he dwelt rather on the question of power
than on that of policy. The importance of his emphasis on the ques-
tion of power lies in the fact that the difficulty of securing action over-
riding a veto based simply on considerations of policy would probably
be much less than that of securing a reversal when the question of
power has been raised. The debate in the Senate following the veto
indicates the hopelessness of rebuttal on that point.3
It has been pointed out, that neither in the land-grant bill of Doro-
thea Dix nor in the early acts providing for the establishment of institu-
tions of learning in agriculture and the mechanic arts in the states was
provision made for the setting up of national standards or for continu-
ous supervision. Only with the later acts providing for research in the
field of agricultural education and in those providing for the sharing of
costs between the federal and the state (and possibly the locality as
well) are methods of control elaborated.4
(
* See Congressional Globe (Thirty-first Congress, 1st sess., Sept. 17, 1850), p.
1839; (Sept. 24, 1850), p. 1957; (Sept. 26, 1850), p. 2005; (Thirty-second Congress,
1st sess., Feb. 5, 1852), p. 469; (May 24, 1852), p. 1455; (June 7, 1852), p. 1529;
(July 21, 1852), p. 1859; (Thirty-third Congress, 1st sess., Feb. 9, 1854), p. 389;
(April 25, 1854), p. 985.
2 See Document 5; see also Tiffany, Life of Dorothea Lynde Dix, chaps. xv, xvi,
xvii.
3 See Documents 5 and 6.
4 See below, Part III, Sec. V, Document 3, Massachusetts v. Mellon, 262 U.S.
408; also Document 6B, "The Maternity and Infancy Act and Its Administration."
EARLY FEDERAL AID AND DOROTHEA DIX'S EFFORT
Federal Aid for the Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb
A. FEBRUARY 22, 1819¹
Mr. Terry, from the committee to which was referred the petition
of the Connecticut Asylum for the education and instruction of deaf
and dumb persons, made a report, which was read. Then Mr. Terry
reported a bill in behalf of the Connecticut Asylum for teaching the
deaf and dumb; which was twice read, and ordered to lie on the table.
The report is as follows:
"That an association of a number of citizens of the State of Connect-
icut was formed in the year 1815, for the purpose of establishing a
school for the instruction of the deaf and dumb. Finding great num-
bers of this unfortunate description of persons in our country without
education, and without any attempts being made to give them the
education which they are capable of receiving, and actuated by a be-
nevolent desire to rescue them, as far as practicable, from their state
of ignorance and degradation, and to fit them for social intercourse
and happiness, the associates, by voluntary contribution, raised a sum
of money sufficient to defray the expense of sending the Reverend
Thomas H. Gallaudet to Europe, for the purpose of learning the modes
of instruction practised there. Mr. Gallaudet went to England, to
Scotland, and to France. In London, he did not find a disposition in
the teachers to communicate instruction so readily as the benevolence
of his mission seemed to entitle him to expect; but he had the good
fortune to meet there the Abbé Sicard, the principal of the institution
for the instruction of the deaf and dumb at Paris, a gentleman distin-
guished for talents, benevolence, and devotion to the interests of these
unfortunate persons. The Abbé assured him that, if he would go to
Paris, every facility should be afforded him of acquiring a knowledge
of their modes of instruction; which assurances he found fully realized
upon going there. The Abbé kindly took him into the school, and ex-
plained to him everything relating to their modes of instruction and
-
I.
¹ Extract from Annals of Congress (Fifteenth Congress, 2d sess., 1818-19),
II, 1329-30. See also Harry Best, The Deaf, and Proceedings of the Association of
Teachers of the Deaf.
172
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
173
management; but Mr. Gallaudet found that the time which his ar-
rangements would permit him to spend in Paris would be much too
short to enable him to acquire the knowledge necessary for an accom-
plished instructor; and having become acquainted with Laurent Clerc,
a pupil of the Abbé, and for eight years an assistant instructor, he en-
gaged him to come to this country as an instructor in the school about
to be established in Connecticut. They arrived here in August, 1816,
and Mr. Clerc is still an assistant to Mr. Gallaudet in the Connecticut
Asylum. The Legislature of Connecticut, in May, 1816, incorporated
the said associates by their aforesaid name. There are at present in the
school more than fifty pupils, from the States of New Hampshire,
Massachusetts, Vermont, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York,
Pennsylvania, Maryland, Virginia, and Kentucky, who are taught by
five instructors, and who pay $200 per annum, each, for tuition, board,
washing, and lodging. The institution is open for the reception of pu-
pils from every part of the Union; but its funds (which have arisen al-
most entirely from voluntary contribution) are too small to admit of its
becoming extensively useful; they are not sufficient even to erect the
buildings necessary for the accommodation of the present number of
pupils.
"Considering that this institution is calculated not only to afford
instruction to the deaf and dumb who are to be found in all parts of our
country but also to qualify teachers for other schools which may be
established in other parts of the Union, and considering that it is the
first attempt of the kind in the United States, and that it has been
raised to its present condition by the care and at the expense of charit-
able individuals, most of whom had no particular interest in its success,
the committee are of opinion that it is worthy of the patronage of Con-
gress, and that the prayer of the petition ought to be granted; and for
that purpose they report a bill."
B. MARCH 1, 1819¹
I,
The House next agreed, on motion of Mr. Terry, by the casting
vote of the Speaker, to take up the bill for the benefit of the Connecti-
cut asylum for the deaf and dumb, (granting to it a donation of six sec-
tions of the public lands).
Mr. Terry briefly adverted to the humane object of this institution,
its general and extensive utility, the number of unhappy objects who
¹ Extract from Annals of Congress (Fifteenth Congress, 2d sess., 1818–19), II,
1427-28.
1
174
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
were already receiving the benefits of the asylum, etc. The bill was
also supported by Mr. Harrison, who agreed in opinion as to its general
utility-there being numbers of the unfortunate beings for whose bene-
fit it was intended, scattered through many of the States, if not all, etc.
The bill was opposed by Mr. Bassett, who deemed the institution
entirely a local one, not deserving, more than any other local object,
the expenditure of national funds on it. He sympathized with the sub-
jects in the institution, but it was not a charitable one, as the rich alone,
he understood, received the benefits of the asylum; and he was unwill-
ing to tax the poor for their support; and it was furthermore a prece-
dent which might hereafter be regretted when too late. He moved the
commitment of the bill.
Mr. Terry replied that the institution was strictly charitable, as
it was almost exclusively used for the benefit of the indigent.
Mr. Poindexter was unwilling to vote a donation of the public
lands for this object; a similar donation had beer refused to the indi-
vidual States for the benefit of a university, etc.
Mr. Pitkin replied to the opponents of the bill at some length, and
supported the humanity and extensive usefulness and benign effects
of the institution.
The motion to commit the bill was lost; and the question being on
a third reading, the debate became more extensive-it being supported
by Messrs. Orr, Terry, Colston, and Mercer; and opposed by Messrs.
Bassett and Barbour; the last named gentleman moving the indefinite
postponement of the bill, which was negatived-ayes 43, noes 60, and
the bill was then ordered to be engrossed for a third reading to-day.¹
2. The New York Deaf and Dumb Asylum²
The House then resolved itself into a Committee of the Whole,
(Mr. Taylor in the chair), on the bill granting a township of public
land to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in the city of New York.
Mr. Meigs, of New York, said, it was doubtless proper that he, as
the chairman of the committee who reported this bill, should give some
account of the reasons for that report. The State of New York, in the
year 1818, incorporated the institution, at the request of several benev-
olent gentlemen, and among them the learned and amiable Dr. Mit-
["The bill entitled 'An act in behalf of the Connecticut Asylum for teaching
the deaf and dumb,' was read a third time and passed, March 3, 1819” (ibid., I, 282).]
2 Extract from Annals of Congress (Sixteenth Congress, 1st sess., 1819-20,
January 7, 1820), I, 882–91.
I
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175
chill. The institution immediately commenced its labors, and had con-
tinued to exert itself, with slender means, in the very interesting cause
of the deaf and dumb. It now had under its protection more than fifty
children, the greater part of whom had made surprising progress in the
acquisition of information. But what is still more remarkable, by the
happy exertion of benevolent skill, many of these unfortunates have
been taught to speak, and, very latterly, as I am informed by Dr. Mit-
chill, they have been made to hear. So great has been the success of
the kind and intelligent directors of the deaf and dumb, that I am per-
haps justified in saying that it promises to become an institution for
curing the deaf and dumb. The present application to the Government
would not be made on the plea of charity. It is, perhaps, not a province
of this Government to give alms. But it is made on the ground that
this nation regards knowledge as the basis of its strength. I will call the
attention of the Committee to the case of the Asylum at Hartford,
which received last year from the national munificence a grant pre-
cisely similar to the one contained in the present bill. I feel satisfied
that nothing is required more from me than this brief statement which
I have made, to induce the Committee to make this appropriation of a
small portion of our immense landed estate for so good and humane
purposes.
Mr. Clay (Speaker) said he regretted, exceedingly, that he felt
himself obliged to object to a bill which was recommended to the con-
sideration of the House by the worthy gentleman from New York,
(Mr. Meigs), and especially as it was a bill with such a benevolent
object. Waiving the question, whether, after the liberal endowment
by Congress of the Connecticut Asylum, the wants of society required
(which he doubted) another institution for the deaf and dumb; he must
think that, if we made any grant, it would be better to make it directly
in money rather than land. It was desirable that Congress should re-
tain the monopoly of the sale of the public lands, because they could
better regulate the manner in which they should be brought into the
market, and could count with more certainty upon the produce of the
revenue from that source. It was particularly desirable to avoid the
competition of large landholders, whether corporations or individuals.
This bill proposes a grant of a township, with certain privileges of se-
lection and location. It might be fairly estimated, considering those
privileges, as worth about one hundred thousand dollars. The object,
no doubt, of the New York institution, was, to bring it into market;
and it would consequently tend to supply the demand for public land
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to the amount of the grant. It would abstract so much from the public
revenue; and ought therefore to be considered, as in effect it was, a
grant of so much money. And he hoped, if the honorable gentleman
pressed the passage of the bill, that he would move an amendment, to
substitute money for land. Mr. Clay really thought that it was high
time that we should begin to husband the public resources. With an
empty exchequer, we ought to review the causes which have led to it,
and examine if there had been no extravagant profusion on the part of
Government. He thought the House was imperiously called upon to
pause. He repeated the expression of sincere regret which he felt in
interposing any objection to the bill; but he must move to strike out
the first section of it.
Mr. Randolph observed that he was opposed to this bill for another
reason, which had great weight on his mind, and ought to have on that
of every member from Virginia and Kentucky—it was, that the pro-
visions of the bill were opposed to the letter and spirit of that contract
to which the States of Virginia and Kentucky were parties, inasmuch
as it permitted this location to be made on any of the public lands of
the United States. The State of Virginia, Mr. Randolph feared, stood
on this floor, as elsewhere, not in the most enviable light; she was often
held up—it was a proud and enviable distinction as a target for the
shafts of political calumny. It was for others to enjoy the bounty of
this House; it was for her to receive law, sheer law, when she could
make out a color of title. For one, Mr. Randolph said, he most earnest-
ly hoped she would never appear at this bar, or on this floor, in the
attitude of supplication; though it would require the art of a political
professor in classification and nomenclature, to adduce any reproach
instituted against her; and, notwithstanding the manifest violations
of the contract by which she ceded the territory out of which three of
the largest States of the Confederacy have been formed, she has still
been most loyal. She had never done even what she might have done;
she had never issued warrants or furnished squatters or settlers for this
territory. She gave it for the general purposes of the Confederacy—not
to be cut up into seigniories held in mortmain, but for the public bene-
fit of the Union. This bill, Mr. Randolph continued, was at direct vari-
ance with the contract of cession of the territory which comprises
the States of Indiana, and Illinois, and the territory northwest of them.
With regard to the grant to the school at Hartford, the usefulness of
it could not enter into the view which he had taken of this subject, nor
justify the present donation. If we go on by precedents, we shall lose
EARLY EFFORTS. AT FEDERAL AID
177
sight of the Constitution, instead of looking to it-looking to it as a
constitution of delegated powers-a jealous, guarded delegation of au-
thority.
Mr. Foot, of Connecticut, knew of no power but delegated power,
and would not participate in the exercise of any other. He also entered
his protest against legislating by precedents; whenever we shall be
governed by them, he said, we shall be in the fair road to despotism.
But, even on the principle of precedent, the present bill could not be
decided by the example of the donation to the Hartford Asylum. That
was the first institution of the kind established in the country; they
had sent to Europe for professors to introduce the system of teaching
the deaf and dumb, and to instruct others, who might carry the bene-
fits of the art into other parts of the Union; it was on this account that
the grant was made. In the Hartford Asylum, too, not a third part of
the pupils belonged to the State of Connecticut; its benefits embraced
the afflicted of many other States; and it had peculiar claims to the aid
of the Government.
Mr. Livermore, of New Hampshire, made a few remarks against
the bill. He expressed great respect for the object of the bill, but he did
not feel himself at liberty to bestow on it the property of the nation.
Mr. Warfield, of Maryland, was also opposed to the bill, not being
willing to appropriate the public land to such objects. If it was proper
to divert the public funds to such a purpose, let it be done by a vote of
money out of the Treasury, and not in this way. He respected the in-
stitution for which this donation was asked; he rejoiced that the asylum
of Connecticut had succeeded even beyond the expectations of its
friends; but it was no reason for going on and bestowing the property
of the nation on all who asked it.
Mr. Holmes, of Massachusetts, said that, when humanity called, it
was a credit to the House to listen; but his object now was to inquire
what was his duty. At the last Congress, either from gratitude for
being sent here, and from joy at having got well out of a war, or from
some other impulse, we made a grant to the surviving soldiers of the
Revolution; like sailors from a long voyage, just paid off, who give
money to every one they meet, with this difference they give their
own money, we the money of the people. He, like others, had been led
away, and gave his vote to the relief of the Revolutionary soldiers. He
had, however, voted against the grant to the Hartford Asylum, be-
cause he saw it would lead to other applications for similar grants.
This was one of them. It would be better, he thought, to attend to re-
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
plenishing the Treasury than to vote away the public funds on every
object that asks them. If we go on in this way, said Mr. Holmes, if we
are not deaf to calls like this, our constituents will be struck dumb at
such conduct.
And deaf, I hope, to all our apologies for it, said Mr. Randolph,
who rose for the purpose of extending a remark of Mr. Holmes; and
would take the liberty to insinuate to Mr. Meigs, that it was very easy
to be wise and generous at other people's expense. In reference to the
afflicted beings for whose benefit this bill was urged, Mr. Randolph
said he should be sorry if any gentleman had the misfortune to possess
the same experience as himself. If there was anything which he under-
stood, it was this. But he asked if this case came within the Constitu-
tion. The Committee had been told of armies, and the expense lavished
on the pomp and circumstance of war. On looking at the Constitution,
he found power given to raise and support armies, but discovered noth-
ing about supporting the deaf and dumb. Mr. Randolph asked the
friends of this bill to show him the authority for it from the States—
point it out in the deed of gift from the people. Was it necessary-not
according to the old-fashioned meaning of that word, but according to
the modern acceptation-was it necessary to carry into effect any other
power? They had just as much right to make the office of President
hereditary; to pass a septennial act for the meeting of Congress; or do
any other unauthorized act, as to make this grant, if not found in the
Constitution. As to being ashamed to refuse this grant, after passing
others which Mr. Meigs had referred to, let the galled jade wince. Mr.
Randolph said his withers were unwrung; he had nothing to do with it.
But, because the House had been betrayed into one act which the Con-
stitution did not justify, were they, for that cause, to go on in the
same course? Was it any reason why they should not attempt reform,
or look at the Constitution for authority on any other occasion? Mr.
Randolph repeated that this was a Government of delegated powers.
and of limited authority; and it was the bounden duty of every mem-
ber to inquire if there was any authority for this grant, either expressly
or as necessary to carry other powers into execution, etc. If there was
not, it would be just as proper for a jury to give a verdict contrary to
the evidence, as to vote for this bill without authority from the Con-
stitution.
VA
Mr. Barbour, of Virginia, expressed his satisfaction that the motion
had been made by the Speaker. He felt certainly no hostility towards
an institution which must, in its nature, excite the sensibility of every
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
179
man. But was that to induce the House to vote this grant? The public
domain, Mr. Barbour argued, was a public fund, intended to relieve
the burden of taxation on the people. He adverted to the probability
that the Government would have to borrow money this year; pass this
bill, and it would present the spectacle of a Government borrowing
with one hand and giving away with the other. By granting the public
lands to the institutions of one State, Mr. Barbour maintained that it
operated an injustice on the other States, inasmuch as it diminished
their proportions in the public lands, which belonged equally to all.
It was time to make a pause, a solemn pause, in voting away these
gratuities. He referred to the immense expenditure which had become
necessary by yielding to feeling, and passing the act for the relief of the
Revolutionary soldiers; that act was the offspring of feeling, and it had
involved the nation in an expense of three millions of dollars a year—
a sum more than half the interest of the whole national debt for one
year. That act, however, heavily as it pressed on the Treasury, was
the more justifiable on account of the important services and the suf-
ferings of the objects of it. Should the present grant be made to the
New York asylum, it must be given to charitable institutions in other
States. If all the States received equally, it would diminish the pro-
portion of all alike in the public lands, and it would be no peculiar
benefit to either; the House must therefore act unequally or act use-
lessly. Mr. Barbour said feeling and sympathy were bad guides in
public conduct; when anything was asked in the name of justice, there
are rules by which to decide correctly and uniformly; but, when they
legislated on the score of charity, they would act according to impulse;
one Congress would be guided by feeling, and another perhaps by pre-
cedent, etc. This was a dangerous mode of proceeding. But this grant
was advocated in the name of knowledge, which is the basis of liberty.
If for the promotion of knowledge, Mr. Barbour said, why did New
York apply to this House; why not rely on her own resources?
Virginia, with less resources than New York, had established a system
of public education, for which she might with as much propriety, ask
of this House a similar donation of public land. Mr. Barbour said he
felt, as a man, for the unhappy class of beings who were the objects of
the bill; he would drop tears for their affliction, but he could not give
his support to this bill; it would be inconsistent with his ideas of public
duty; he could not give to one what he could not to all; it would not
be right to do so.
Mr. Meigs again rose. He had flattered himself, he said, it would
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S
be utterly unnecessary for him to trouble the Committee again upon
this occasion. But, when he found that this bill had had the misfortune
to call forth the hostility of such able and eloquent gentlemen as the
Speaker of this House and the gentlemen from Virginia, it became his
duty, feeble as he was, to speak for those whose mouths God had shut.
Would to Heaven, said he, that this necessity did not exist! Would to
Heaven, that each of the silent innocents whose cause I am thus called
on to advocate was able to speak in the fine and commanding tones of
the honorable Speaker. Sir, I have no intention to appeal to the hu-
manity of this Committee; I mean to move them, if I can, by far differ-
ent considerations. Knowledge is power; and I call upon this Govern-
ment to afford, for purposes of instruction in all that constitutes knowl-
edge to a most interesting portion of the community, some small pit-
tance of those vast resources which heretofore have been consecrated,
if I may so express myself, to the naval, military, and domestic expense;
to the destroying arts of war, and the maintenance of civil splendor.
And I now hope that the Speaker, whose talents have done his country
much service in one war, in its conduct, and still more eminently in the
happy peace, in concluding which he had the far greater glory to be
instrumental; and that the honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr.
Barbour), who, with the Speaker, may have recorded a hundred votes
for warlike purposes, will now, for once at least, record their votes for
an appropriation in aid of the propagation of knowledge. He said that,
when he cast his eyes upon the architectural splendor by which he was
· surrounded; when he saw that even a thing to hold candles had cost
this nation treasure enough to give, perhaps, one whole year's tuition
to the unfortunate persons who were the objects of this bill; when he
remarked the beautiful but expensive marble figure of History just
erected in this Hall, he could not refrain from hoping that she would
not, among her first acts, have to record that this nation rejected the
silent prayer of the deaf and dumb for a few acres of our boundless ter-
ritories to enable them to know, while she votes the lavishment of mil-
lions for devastating war and domestic pomp. Let it be now deter-
mined, said he, that it is the opinion of this honorable body that knowl-
edge is power, and that for such an end as its universal diffusion there
is no expense which could be deemed profusion. I wish, with profound
sincerity, that instead of one or two statesmen, eloquent and able, like
the Speaker and the honorable gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Ran-
dolph), there were one hundred thousand; and, instead of a handful of
philosophers, holding all science within a small and mysterious bound,
a hundred thousand of these, too, in our free land.
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
181
¡
Mr. Meigs said he had declared that he would not make any appeal
to the humane feelings of the Committee; but he had a right to say
that, although France had reaped many a triumph by battle upon the
land, and England many upon the sea, yet it might be possible their
benevolent institutions would outlast, in the memory and affections of
mankind, every military or naval glory which they had gained; for who
was ignorant of, who was there that did not admire the mild benevo-
lence of the Paris institution for the teaching and protecting the deaf
and dumb? Society everywhere adopted them as its children; they
were everywhere pitied, and ought, if they did not, to find every power
their friend and guardian. Sir, if I wished to make an attempt upon
the feelings of this House, instead of lifting my voice, I would bring
here in front of the Speaker's seat the sixty children, and I should be
then sure that, without voices, their intelligent features, their spark-
ling eyes, and their amiable demeanor, would command, irresistibly,
the hardest heart in this House to lean to their cause. The honorable
member from Virginia, (Mr. Randolph), has discovered that, in truth,
we have no power, under the Constitution of these United States, to
make a grant for the purposes contained in this bill. I regret that,
under that clause of the Constitution upon which he has just com-
mented: "that Congress shall have power to make all laws necessary
for the purpose of carrying into execution," etc., we really have no
authority to establish and maintain systems of instruction. I have
seen that the learned Judges of the Supreme Court of this land have
maintained the Constitutional existence of a bank; and that Horten-
sius, by most able and conclusive reasoning, although in a different line
of direction, has arrived at the same happy conclusion; and I must ex-
press my regret and astonishment together, that this famous clause of
the Constitution has the magical strength to bear so vast a bank, and
is yet too feeble to raise a common school.
I have wished that it might be considered necessary and proper to
spread instruction, and diffuse far and wide knowledge, without which
our Constitution itself, and still less our statutes, could not long be
maintained. I feel, said Mr. Meigs, that, under the powerful opposition
of such gentlemen as the Speaker of this House, whose talents alone
are sufficient, if exerted, to destroy mightier matters than this poor
little bill; of the gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Randolph), whose geni-
us and experience are always ready to be poured out by his eloquence;
and of the other gentleman from Virginia, (Mr. Barbour), whose abili-
ties also are competent to greater things-this bill will fail of its pas-
sage. If this must be its fate, I at least shall have the satisfaction to
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
record my vote, among the first which I give in this House, for a grant
of a few acres of our immense public estate for the noble purpose of in-
struction. And I shall at least not be alarmed at the idea of exhausting
our resources upon the deaf and dumb; for, thank God, the number is
small, perhaps not exceeding one thousand in the whole United States.
I was pleased to hear the gentleman from Virginia last up, (Mr. Bar-
bour), declare the wise munificence of his native State in endowments
for literary purposes; for he has enabled me to enjoy the proud satis-
faction of stating to this committee the fact, that the State of New
York has likewise been nobly munificent to learning; that she has ap-
propriated to that end more than two millions of dollars; that eleven
hundred thousand dollars of this sum constitute the fund for the sup-
port of common schools; and that, last year, more than two hundred
thousand children received the benefit of this admirable fund. Glorious
rivalry, said Mr. Meigs, in which even these who are last and least must
rejoice in the success of the other members of the Confederacy.
Mr. Clay rose again to remark, that the whole of the deaf and
dumb in the United States, at least all those incompetent to support
themselves at an asylum by their own estates, might be educated at
the Connecticut asylum, now in successful operation. He therefore did
not think an additional asylum for the deaf and dumb necessary; but
even supposing that another institution were necessary for the Ameri-
can community, was it proper that it should be fixed at New York,
which was not more than one hundred miles from the asylum at Hart-
ford; and least of all would it be proper to locate it in a place so expen-
sive as New York? If another institution was to be encouraged, let it
go, Mr. Clay said, into the interior, among a class to which the gentle-
man from Pennsylvania, (Mr. Forrest, a member of the Society of
Friends), belongs, whose frugal, regular, and industrious habits, and
simplicity of character, suited them to the management of such things;
but not, he repeated, establish it in a large city remarkable for its
expensive and luxurious habits, etc. These reasons, Mr. Clay thought,
might fairly be adduced in addition to the others which had been justly
urged against the bill; and he must still hope, notwithstanding the elo-
quent manner in which the bill had been supported by the gentle-
man from New York, (Mr. Meigs), that his own motion would pre-
vail, and the first section be stricken out.
Mr. Gross, of New York, said he clearly perceived that the Com-
mittee was prepared to reject the bill; but he could not resist the in-
clination which he felt to make some remarks on the extraordinary ob-
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
183
jections which gentlemen had raised against its passage. The bill, he
said, had called forth not only the wit, but also the acrimony of gen-
tlemen, to a degree quite unexpected, and in his opinion altogether un-
justified by any circumstances which had attended its progress. Gen-
tlemen might with some show of propriety call the prayer of the peti-
tioners selfish, but he could not perceive in what point of view it ap-
peared ridiculous. They asked a portion of the public lands for the
purpose of aiding them in the education of the deaf and dumb. Was
this a proper subject of merriment? The honorable gentleman from
Connecticut, (Mr. Foot), thought we had no Constitutional right to be
generous. This, Mr. Gross said, might be true or false, without throw-
ing much light on the subject before the Committee. The only import-
ant inquiry is, has Congress the power to dispose of the public lands?
The gentleman saw no evil in the donation to Connecticut; but he
seemed to apprehend the destruction of our liberties by the proposed
grant. Wherein, Mr. Gross asked, consists the wonderful difference be-
tween the two cases in point of principle or result? Why, sir, in the
Connecticut asylum were to be found some pupils from without the
State. But, unfortunately for the honorable gentleman, the difference
was only imaginary, and did not exist in point of fact.
The honorable Speaker, said Mr. Gross, thinks that the city of New
York is an expensive place, and consequently not well calculated for
the education of persons of any description. He paints the splendor of
the drawing-rooms of the merchants of that great city with the hand
of a master and with the accuracy of one well acquainted with his sub-
ject. But, sir, said Mr. Gross, although extravagance is visible among
the rich and gay, economy may also be found among its inhabitants.
We are not to inquire into the customs of the fashionables, but into the
prices of rents and provisions, in order to decide on the propriety of
the location. For the cheapness and variety to be found in its markets,
New York has no rival. It is also said that it is partiality to grant lands
to one State and not to another. For my part, said Mr. Gross, I am
willing that a similar grant should be made, for a similar purpose, to
every State in the Union. He doubted, he said, whether we could apply
public lands to a better purpose, and he believed he was not alone in
so thinking.
The honorable gentleman from Massachusetts, (Mr. Holmes),
Mr. Gross said, could not restrain his propensity to be witty on this
occasion. He had fancied the people of the United States struck dumb
at the enormity of the unheard of provisions of this bill. It would be
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well for the honorable gentleman, said Mr. Gross, if his constituents
were both deaf and dumb; for, if they spake at all, they must exclaim
against the parsimony of their Representative.
On the whole, Mr. Gross said, he considered the object of the pro-
posed donation as one worthy the patronage of the United States; that
the cheapness of provisions in the city of New York, and the facility of
intercourse which it enjoyed with all parts of the Union, rendered it the
most eligible of any place for an institution of the kind, and that, by
the grant of the land proposed, it would experience much benefit, with-
out affecting, in the least, the Treasury of the United States. For these
reasons he would vote for the bill and against the amendment.
Mr. Rhea also offered some remarks, not heard, in opposition to
the bill.
The Committee of the Whole agreed to strike out the first section;
which decision the House affirmed by a large majority, and of course
the bill was rejected.
3. The Kentucky Deaf and Dumb Asylum
A. MAY 4, 1824¹
Mr. Moore, of Kentucky, from the committee appointed on the
memorial of the Trustees of the institution for the instruction of the
deaf and dumb in the State of Kentucky, made a report on the said
memorial, accompanied by a bill for the benefit of the said institution;
which was read twice, and committed to a Committee of the Whole.
The report is as follows:
"Your committee entered upon the investigation of the subject re-
ferred to them, deeply impressed with the conviction that the great
object of human legislation is to promote the happiness, as well as the
security of the species. Its legitimate sphere extends beyond the erec-
tion of fortresses, the creation of military and naval armaments, fiscal
arrangements, the punishment of public crime, and the reward of pub-
lic virtue; and it is, when it interposes its benignant power in behalf of
those domestic institutions, which are formed to alleviate the ills which
originate in the infirmity of our nature, that its advantages are most
generally felt and acknowledged by the mass of society. In the infancy
of nations, indeed, institutions of this character are so limited in num-
ber and extent, as to claim but little attention, because the necessity
¹ Extract from Annals of Congress (Eighteenth Congress, 1st sess., 1823–24), II,
2542-44.
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
185
of them is less obvious and imperative. But, as wealth, refinement, and
population increase, bringing in their train a melancholy series of casu-
alties and anomalies, the necessity of some provision for human infir-
mity becomes more apparent, and charity finds a rapidly expanding
area, in which she may exercise her godlike propensities. For evidence of
this truth, we may appeal to the universal history of civilized nations,
as well as to the annals of those States of our Commonwealth, which
have made the most rapid progress in population. If institutions, pre-
cisely similar to that to which the attention of your committee has been
called, are less numerous, and of more recent origin, than other recep-
tacles of human misfortune, these circumstances may be attributed,
partly, to the relative paucity of cases, partly to an amiable weakness,
which has prevented parents from banishing their children, thus affect-
ed, from the cheering comforts and endearments of home and kindred,
and partly to the incredulity which has so long prevailed on the subject
of any effectual alleviation which the skill of man could devise and
apply. The influence of these causes has, however, been, for some time,
diminishing. The fame of the philanthropic Abbé de L'Epée, has
reached the utmost limits of the civilized world, and humanity tri-
umphs in the conviction that, even in cases which come so entirely
home to the 'bosoms and business' of mankind, the imperfections of
our nature may be, in some degree, at least, corrected by the skill and
perseverance of science and of art. Entertaining these general views,
your committee admit neither difficulty nor hesitation, in applying
them to the case which has been referred to their consideration.
"The Kentucky institution for the tuition of the deaf and dumb,
appears to your committee to have strong claims on the protecting
benevolence of Congress. It is the only institution of the kind existing
in all that vast and fertile range of country which lies west of the Alle-
ghany chain of mountains. Institutions of this description, can never,
for reasons which we deem sufficiently obvious, become so general, even
in the diminished ratio of the number of persons for whose benefit
they are founded, as those which have for their object the instruction
of the more favored, and, happily, far more numerous portion of our
species. Your committee, therefore, believe, that the National Legis-
lature would pursue a wise policy in adopting as its own, and cherishing
by its protecting care, a few establishments of this kind, already in
successful operation. Applications have already been made for the ad-
mission of pupils, from many of the circumjacent States; nor have such
applications been made in vain. Kentucky, forgetting her inability, in
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the zeal and fervor of her philanthropy, has placed the unfortunate
sons of her sister States upon an equal footing with her own. The aid
solicited by the petitioners is a boon asked, not for a single member of
the Confederacy, but for a whole section of country rapidly increasing
in population and resources, and justly entitled to the attention of
Congress. The deaf and dumb asylum was incorporated and endowed
by the Legislature of Kentucky, in 1822, and went into operation in
the Spring of the following year. At the late session of that body, a
most respectable committee, composed of two members of the Senate,
and four of the House of Representatives, was appointed to visit and
examine the institution. In their report they say that they 'remained
in Danville, and visited the asylum on two successive days, and were
greatly gratified in witnessing the progress made by the pupils, whose
facility and correctness in comprehending the signs made by the
teacher, and in expressing their ideas, exceeded any thing that could
have been anticipated by the most sanguine friends of the institution.
All those who had been instructed for four months in the asylum, wrote
good hands, spelled correctly, etc.' And the committee, after noticing,
in the highest terms of approbation, the administration of the institu-
tion, concluded by recommending it 'to the continued and extended
patronage of the Legislature.' The number of pupils, at that time,
was fourteen; five more were expected in a few days, and it was antici-
pated that, in the course of the present year, the whole would amount
to forty. The trustees have ascertained that more than one hundred
and thirty persons in Kentucky needed the benefits which that insti-
tution alone could confer, and of these more than one-third could re-
ceive them only from public munificence. It is believed that the num-
ber of cases in the adjacent States will bear a like proportion to their
population. Under these circumstances the following resolution passed
both Houses of the Kentucky Legislature: 'Resolved, That a respect-
ful memorial from the Legislature be transmitted to the Congress of
the United States, on behalf of the Kentucky Institution for the tuition
of the deaf and dumb; soliciting their attention to the petition of the
trustees of said institution for the aid of the National Legislature.'
From some cause, unknown to us, the memorial thus ordered, was nev-
er presented by the committee appointed to prepare it. Your com-
mittee find that the principle and policy of extending relief to institu-
tions of this character, have been recognised by the Congress of the
United States, in a grant made to the Connecticut asylum, and in that
case they discover a strong precedent to justify the passage of a bill for
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
187
the benefit of the Kentucky asylum. They, therefore, beg leave to re-
port a bill.
B. MARCH 10, 1826¹
Mr. T. P. Moore, of Kentucky, moved to postpone all the orders of
the day before the bill "for the benefit of the Asylum for teaching the
Deaf and Dumb of Kentucky," and the bill was taken up, in Commit-
tee of the Whole:
The bill having been read, Mr. Moore, addressed the committee as
follows:
MR. CHAIRMAN: In recommending to the committee the bill for
the benefit of the Asylum for teaching the deaf and dumb in Kentucky
—in urging a measure which will effectually extend the patronage of
the Nation to that benevolent institution-I am sensible that I present
a subject not calculated to kindle the zeal of politicians, nor in any
manner to rouse those stormy feelings which serve to augment the force
of declamation, and to deepen and prolong the course of debate.
It is not a proposition to erect a fortification, or to construct a
canal: to lavish millions in removing mountains from the land, or up-
rearing towers in the sea; to push discoveries through the ices of the
poles, or form alliances on the verge of the equator. No, Mr. Chair-
man; the cup that I present to the lips of the committee contains a
draught of pure benevolence; no poisonous drug lurks at its bottom; no
dangerous spirit sparkles on its top. It is innocent and salubrious, and
wherever there is a taste for justice and humanity, it must be palatable.
It is now an axiom amongst all reflecting men, that the diffusion
of knowledge is the surest support, as well as the highest duty, of good
government; and it is a maxim, I believe, among American Statesmen,
that, as our Government is thoroughly popular and representative,
the universal education of its citizens is essential to its perfection and
stability. The justice of this position cannot be disputed, nor can its
application to the interest of that afflicted portion of the community in
whose behalf I appeal be denied. They have a claim of right upon their
fellow citizens to be elevated to the rank of intellectual beings; to find
their proper place upon the scale of society; to enter into the world of
thoughts and reflection; to have their capacities invigorated; their
passions impelled; to be enabled to sympathize with their fellow crea-
tures; to love their country; to adore their God; and to share in all the
¹ Extract from Congressional Debates (Nineteenth Congress, 1st sess., 1825-26),
cols. 1600-1604.
188
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
varieties of suffering and beatitude of which human destiny is com-
posed. It would be neither equitable, nor politic I apprehend, to con-
fine the blessings of education to youths of the highest promise. The
sum of knowledge, like the great lamp of Heaven, while it shines on
the mountains, must pour its beams into the lowest valleys. The whole
surface of national intellect is to be visited by light; and if the reflection
of man is to imitate the wisdom of his Creator, the gloom of humility
and misfortune should not be permitted to obstruct the penetration of
its genial influences. These general remarks, I indulge the hope, will
dispose the committee to consider that the public patronage, and pri-
vate beneficence, of Kentucky, which have been so long, and so liber-
ally exerted in this interesting service of humanity, should no longer
remain without their encouragement and assistance. The means de-
rived from these sources have been employed (as will be rendered ap-
parent by a perusal of the documents connected with this application,
all of which have been printed and placed on each member's table),
to the very best advantage in the establishment and conduct of the
Asylum at Danville.
In the year 1822, the Legislature of Kentucky incorporated and
endowed the Asylum for teaching the Deaf and Dumb, and located it at
Danville, a central point in the State, combining as many general and
local advantages for the site of such an institution, as any spot which
could have been selected in the Western Country. They threw open
its doors to the whole Deaf and Dumb population of the adjacent
States, and placed it under the control of a Superintending Committee,
who have employed competent teachers, purchased ground, buildings,
etc., and whose vigilant and enlightened devotion to the interests of
the institution have been demonstrated by the rapid progress of the
pupils confided to their care. The judicious management of the Asy-
lum has led to a constant increase of its numbers; but this philanthropic
institution is without adequate means to sustain an augmentation of
its numbers. It has struggled on to this time by the aid of private char-
ity, and the endowments made by Kentucky; but it would be improper
to conceal the fact, that the Legislature cannot afford further assist-
ance. The People of Kentucky have done much for the cause of litera-
ture and humanity-they are generous—their soil is rich—but they
are remote from market, and their moneyed concerns embarrassed—
and it cannot be denied that the various States, and the entire popu-
lation of the Valley of the Mississippi, are dependent on this single in-
stitution for the means of this particular instruction; and in its present
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
189
condition it cannot completely answer the wants of Kentucky. Ex-
perience has proven, both in Europe and America, that the instruction
of the Deaf and Dumb can only be usefully and successfully imparted,
in institutions regularly established, and superintended by competent
teachers. The estimates which have been made in Europe and America
lead to the conclusion, that in any given mass of population, one out of
every two thousand is Deaf and Dumb; and it may therefore be fairly
inferred, that unless the Asylum at Danville is enlarged, about one
thousand of our fellow citizens now living must pass from youth to
death, in a state of torpor and ignorance. Let gentlemen who are not
alive to the importance of the subject, conceive this number of unfortu-
nate wretches collected. This misery amassed, these specimens of mis-
fortunes assembled together, could any exhibition of human degrada-
tion exceed it in horror? Does not the mind shrink and startle at the
very conception? And does the conception surpass the reality? The
diffusion of this calamity, though it may conceal, does not diminish it.
It is immeasurable, indescribable, and cannot be exaggerated by fancy
or equalled by fiction. To remove all this distress, and to furnish the
means of preventing it in all time to come, will require of Congress but
a small expense of thought, and a few acres of land. An appropriation
which would hardly suffice to complete the capital of a Corinthian
column, will effect this great purpose of wisdom. The expense of that
clock, to count the fleeting hours of the day, will erect this lasting mon-
ument of Philanthropy. Nay, Sir, the money expended upon the frivo-
lous embellishment connected with it, graven upon inanimate stone,
will kindle into thought and awake to rapture thousands of spell-
bound and inert intelligences. I cannot believe that this useful bounty
will be withheld, especially as the Asylum of Connecticut received a
donation from Congress in the year 1819, of a township of land, from
which it has derived a handsome revenue, and has been rendered per-
manently useful, and which sanctions by precedent this application.
But, Mr. Chairman, the bill on your table is freed from all the objec-
tions which have been urged against the appropriation to the Connecti-
cut Asylum; it is restricted to the location of the land in one tract, and
it is designed for the benefit of the indigent deaf and dumb. It is to
alleviate the sad condition of that class of our fellow-creatures, whose
bereavement is a part of the vast machinery of eternal wisdom. To
reclaim from native insertion their rich, though hidden faculties; and,
by uniting the virtues of earth with the omnipotence of Heaven, to con-
stitute man a fellow laborer with the Deity himself, in the delightful
190
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
office of ennobling humanity. The heart, at best, is but seldom a fit
lawgiver; yet, in such a cause as this, its impulses may be safely trust-
ed: for it is the cause of oppressed and suffering indigence, and it ap-
peals with cheering hope to those generous sympathies with which, on
this floor, it needs no advocate. It may not, Mr. Chairman, be improp-
er to add, that we of the West, with a liberal spirit, have voted thou-
sands annually to erect light-houses, clear beaches, etc., on the Atlantic
frontier, which, although some of them are national in their character,
and indirectly beneficial to us, yet it will not be denied, that, by furn-
ishing profitable employment to the citizens on the sea-board, it dif-
fused comfort and happiness, and that appropriations from the Public
Treasury fall light and seldom upon the West.
But I will not so far undervalue the force of the subject, or under-
rate the wisdom, humanity, and intelligence, of the Committee, as to
believe they will reject the bill, which, as Chairman of the Committee,
I have been instructed to report. Memorials from the Asylums of New
York and Pennsylvania have been referred to the Committee, no doubt
for the purpose of offering amendments to this bill. Although I should
be deeply mortified at the failure of the bill for the benefit of the Ken-
tucky Asylum, and would feel under many obligations to the gentle-
men having charge of the New York and Pennsylvania memorials, if
they would not encumber this bill with amendments; yet, if they
should deem it their duty, I cannot vote against them, because I am
persuaded Congress could not make a more beneficial appropriation to
any object.
Mr. Condict moved to amend the bill, by inserting in it a provision
for the benefit of the incorporated asylum of New Jersey.
Mr. Condict said, that he made this motion in pursuance of the re-
quest of a joint resolution of the two Houses of the New Jersey Legis-
lature; but, as the nature of the subject was obvious, and familiarly
known, he forebore to offer any remarks in support of the motion.
Mr. Buchanan thought, from the statement of the gentleman from
Kentucky, there could hardly be a doubt as to the propriety and hu-
manity of following the precedent set, in giving a township of land to
the asylum for the deaf and dumb in Connecticut. At the proper time
he should agree to the proposition of his friend from New Jersey, but
at present he considered the cases quite different. This application
had been before the House for three sessions; it had been referred to a
Committee, and that Committee had made two reports; and this asy-
lum at Danville has been in successful operation for several years.
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
IQI
He trusted this bill would pass on its own merits. The State he repre-
sented, Mr. Buchanan said, had also a similar asylum, but, for his part,
he did not feel it his duty to embarrass the progress of this bill, by offer-
ing an amendment in favor of that asylum, though he knew it to be in
successful operation.
Mr. Mallary said, it was sometimes the practice to embarrass the
progress of a bill, by offering an amendment, entirely differing in its
object, though he could not believe the gentleman had that object in
view, in the present instance. He could not ask for New Jersey what
he would be unwilling to give to Kentucky. He presumed the gentle-
man was favorable to the principle of the bill, but he thought there was
no necessity for the gentleman from New Jersey to press his claims in
behalf of his State, as it had a tendency to embarrass the passage of the
bill. It would be best to present it, meritorious as it was, disconnected
with that of any other State.
Mr. Cambreleng said he thought it right to state, that he had in-
tended to offer an amendment to this bill embracing two institutions
in favor of which a bill was introduced last session of Congress; but
not wishing to embarrass the bill, in which he took great interest,
he did not do so. Petitions from New York and Pennsylvania, on the
subject, were now lying on the table; and after the bill got into the
House, he should move that both these petitions be referred to a Select
Committee, that their merits might be examined. He hoped, therefore,
the gentleman from New Jersey would withdraw his motion, and refer
it to the same Committee.
Mr. Wurts said, a memorial had been presented during the present
session, in behalf of the institution established in Pennsylvania, for
the deaf and dumb, and he had prepared an amendment to include that
institution; and he believed he could show, if an appropriation was
made anywhere, for such a purpose, it should be made there also; but,
in accordance with the views entertained by the gentleman from New
York, he should not offer it. He believed, with the gentleman from
Kentucky, that they could not make an appropriation for an object
which was more valuable than the one now under consideration. He
did not say this lightly, having been a director of an institution of this
kind for some time, and being well convinced of the benefits which
flowed from it. He should vote for the bill without amendment, under
the conviction that this House would do, in other parts of the Union,
that which it had done in the Eastern States, and which he hoped it
would do, in the valley of the Mississippi.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The amendment was rejected.
Mr. Vinton moved the following amendment, viz.: to strike out
the words "or a tract of land equal thereto"; which was agreed to.
Mr. Thompson, of Ohio, moved further to amend the bill, so as to
except from the grant of land section number 16; which was also agreed
to.
Mr. McCoy said, he did not know where this township was to be
taken from. A good portion of the land which the United States pre-
tend to claim, was ceded for special purposes, to pay the debts of the
Nation. He recollected, some few years ago, this House did, in one of
their fits of humanity, grant to the asylum in Connecticut a township
of land. They were immediately after applied to by the State of New
York, and next session the House took a stand, and refused to grant it;
and now New Jersey, and Pennsylvania, and New York, are all pre-
pared again each to ask for a township of land. This House was gather-
ing up a kind of legislation it would be impossible for them to get along
with, and soon the People of this country would be unable to build a
school house, unless this Government gave them the money. He should
forbear making any more comments on the bill-he was opposed to it,
although he supposed it would pass, as it seemed to be a favorite.
The bill was then ordered to be engrossed, and read a third time
to-morrow.
The House adjourned.
C. MARCH II, 1826¹
The bill "for the relief of the Deaf and Dumb Asylum in Kentucky"
having had its third reading, and the question being "Shall it pass?"
Mr. McCoy said, he had rather the bill would not pass, for several
reasons, which he would endeavor briefly to state. The first was, that
the House has no power to pass such a bill, unless it was to be found in
that part of the preamble of the Constitution which relates to the "gen-
eral welfare," or unless it is to be found in a message of the late Presi-
dent of the United States, which allows Congress to appropriate money
for any purpose under heaven, at the pleasure of the Government.
Besides this he had a great and strong objection to the policy of the
measure. The Government of the United States is a great landholder;
it has much land in the market-a great deal more than it ought to
have at any one time. If you pass this bill, you bring a new land com-
¹ Extract from Congressional Debates (Nineteenth Congress, 1st sess., 1825–26),
col. 1609.
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
193
pany into the market, who will have their lands to dispose of; for the
land you are granting will certainly be sold; and, as you give to one
State, you cannot with justice withhold from another; so you will have
twenty-three more land companies soon in the market, with each its
township to dispose of. Besides this, there is a bill on your table which
sets apart a large portion of the public lands for the purposes of educa-
tion in each State. Here, then, are to be twenty-four more companies.
This course of proceeding will, it must, break down your sales of the
public lands. These companies will undersell you, do what you will.
I had rather, therefore, if a bill must pass, pay the money at once, and
keep your lands in your own hands. But as I know very well that no
observations of mine will influence the House to change its determina-
tion, I ask only that the yeas and nays may be taken on this question.
The House sustaining the call, the yeas and nays were ordered ac-
cordingly.
Mr. Scott rose to correct an erroneous impression under which the
worthy member from Virginia labored, respecting the bill, which pro-
poses to grant lands to the different States for the purpose of education.
He seems to fear the creation of many land companies, and thinks this
bill will give away the lands to the States, for them to bring into the
market. It proposes no such object; it only proposes, that after the
United States themselves shall have sold their lands, the net proceeds
of a certain part of them shall be given to the different States for the
purposes of education; it therefore contains nothing which can preju-
dice the General Government as a landholder; its appropriation rests.
on your sales; it presupposes that you sell your lands, and does not
prevent the sale.
Mr. McCoy replied that he stood corrected; he had not so under-
stood the bill, but was glad to find he had been in an error.
The question on the passage of the bill was then taken by yeas and
nays, and decided in the affirmative.
So the bill was passed, and sent to the Senate.
D. MARCH 28, 1826¹
The Senate then proceeded to the consideration of the bill granting
a township of the public lands for the benefit of the incorporated Ken-
tucky Asylum for teaching the Deaf and Dumb.
Mr. Cobb objected to the bill on principle, as an unconstitutional
¹ Extract from Congressional Debates (Nineteenth Congress, 1st sess., 1825–26),
cols. 371-72.
194.
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
grant of common property for a partial or local purpose, and argued
against the bill on that ground, Whereupon;
A debate of wide extent, and considerable duration, ensued on the
merits of the bill, and validity of the objections made to it by Mr.
Cobb and on some of its details. The bill was supported by Messrs.
Rowan, Johnson, of Kentucky, Benton, Barton, Eaton, Holmes, Lloyd,
Mills, Edwards, Hendricks, and King.
Mr. Barton, in the course of the discussion, moved (for the purpose
of obviating some objections, as well as to render the bill more perfect)
an amendment, in substance providing that the land to be granted
should be sold under the direction of the President of the United
States, as other lands of the United States are, and the proceeds ap-
plied to the benefit of the Kentucky Asylum for educating the Deaf
and Dumb of the several States.
This was opposed and supported by various gentlemen on various
grounds; and
Mr. Hendricks intimated that he should move an amendment to
confine the location of the land to one of the territories of the Union,
as it would be prejudicial to the interest of any State, to have the loca-
tion, according to the terms of the grant, made in a State.
To unite the views of both these gentlemen, and embrace their ob-
jects in a more acceptable form to himself, Mr. Johnson, of Kentucky,
(the other amendment being withdrawn for the purposes), moved an
amendment that the land should be sold in five years, and be located in
a Territory; which amendment was agreed to.
Mr. Dickerson then moved to amend the bill further, by inserting
a provision for a like grant of land to the Institution in New Jersey,
for instructing the Deaf and Dumb; which motion he made pursuant
to instructions from the Legislature of New Jersey.
This amendment was opposed by Messrs. Rowan, Mills, Benton,
and Johnson, of Kentucky; not from hostility to the object, but on the
ground that it was irregular and improper to engraft on a bill a new
measure, substantially by way of amendment, which had not been
regularly introduced, and previously examined.
Mr. Benton, in particular, placed his opposition emphatically on
this ground.
Mr. Dickerson maintained the propriety of the course he had pur-
sued, and was supported by Mr. Cobb, who saw no difference between
the two cases, though he was opposed to both.
Mr. Dickerson's amendment was negatived without a division.
7
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
195
The question being on the engrossment of the bill,
Mr. Cobb rose, and delivered an argument of some length against
the constitutionality of this grant.
Mr. Reed, of Mississippi, replied in extenso to Mr. Cobb, both to
his general doctrines relative to the disposition of the public domain,
and to the argument that this grant was for a local object.
Mr. Chandler, in a few remarks, took the side of Mr. Cobb.
The question on ordering the bill to be engrossed and read a third
time,¹ was then decided in the affirmative, as follows:
YEAS.-Messrs. Barton, Benton, Clayton, Dickerson, Eaton, Ed-
wards, Findlay, Hendricks, Holmes, Johnson of Kentucky, Kane,
King, Lloyd, Marks, Mills, Noble, Reed, Robins, Rowan, Ruggles,
Sanford, Seymour, Thomas, White, Willey, Williams, Woodbury-27.
NAYS.-Messrs. Branch, Chandler, Chase, Cobb, Harper, Hayne
—6.
4. Memorial of Dorothea L. Dix²
Your memorialist respectfully asks permission to lay before you
what seem to be just and urgent claims in behalf of a numerous and in-
creasing class of sufferers in the United States. I refer to the great and
inadequately relieved distresses of the insane throughout the country.
Upon the subject to which this Memorial refers, many to whose
justice and humanity it appeals are well-informed; but the attention.
of many has not been called to the subject, and a few, but a very few,
have looked upon some features of this sad picture as revealed in pri-
vate dwellings, in poor-houses, and in prisons.
I "An Act to Provide for the Location of the Two Townships of Land Reserved
for a Seminary of Learning in the Territory of Florida, and to Complete the Loca-
tion of the Grant to the Deaf and Dumb Asylum of Kentucky" (approved January
29, 1827), chap. 8, 4 Ü.S. Statutes at Large, 201 (Nineteenth Congress, 2d sess.).
"SEC. 3. And be it further enacted, That the incorporated Deaf and Dumb Asy-
lum of Kentucky shall have the power, under the direction of the Secretary of the
Treasury, of locating so much of the township of land granted to the said institution,
as had been taken by the claims of those who are entitled to the right of pre-emption
in the territory of Florida, under the provisions of the act aforesaid; which shall be
located in sections upon any unappropriated and unreserved lands in either of the
territories of Florida or Arkansas; which said tracts, when so located, shall be dis-
posed of by the corporation of said Deaf and Dumb Asylum, agreeably to the pro-
visions of an act passed the fifth of April, one thousand eight hundred and twenty-
six, entitled “An act for the benefit of the incorporated Deaf and Dumb Asylum of
Kentucky."
2 Extract from Memorial of D. L. Dix Praying a Grant of Land for the Relief and
Support of the Indigent Curable and Incurable Insane in the United States, June 23,
1848 (U.S. Thirtieth Congress, 1st sess., "Senate Miscellaneous Document No. 150").
196
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Your memorialist hopes to place before you substantial reasons
which shall engage your earnest attention, and secure favorable action
upon the important subject she advocates.
It is a fact, not less certainly substantiated than it is deplorable,
that insanity has increased in an advanced ratio with the fast increas-
ing population in all the United States. For example, according to the
best received methods of estimate five years since, it was thought cor-
rect to count one insane in every thousand inhabitants throughout the
Union. At the present, my own careful investigations are sustained by
the judgment and the information of the most intelligent superintend-
ents of hospitals for the insane, in rendering the estimates not less than
one insane person in every eight hundred inhabitants at large, through-
out the United States.
There are, in proportion to numbers, more insane in cities than in
large towns, and more insane in villages than among the same number
of inhabitants dwelling in scattered settlements.
Wherever the intellect is most excited, and health lowest, there is
an increase of insanity. This malady prevails most widely, and illus-
trates its presence most commonly in mania, in those countries whose
citizens possess the largest civil and religious liberty; where, in effect,
every individual, however obscure, is free to enter upon the race for
the highest honors and most exalted stations; where the arena of com-
petition is accessible to all who seek the distinctions which acquisition
and possession of wealth assures, and the respect accorded to high
literary and scholastic attainments. Statesmen, politicians, and mer-
chants, are peculiarly liable to insanity. In the United States, there-
fore, we behold an illustration of my assertion. The kingdoms of West-
ern Europe, excepting Portugal, Spain, and the lesser islands depend-
ent on Great Britain, rank next to this country in the rapid develop-
ment of insanity. Sir Andrew Halliday, in a letter to Lord Seymour,
states that the number of the insane in England has become more than
tripled in the last twenty years. Russia in Europe, Turkey, and Hun-
gary, together with most of the Asiatic and African countries, exhibit
but little insanity. The same is remarked by travellers, especially by
Humboldt, of a large part of South America. Those tracts of North
America inhabited by Indians, and the sections chiefly occupied by the
negro race, produce comparatively very few examples. The colored
population is more liable to attacks of insanity than the negro.
This terrible malady, the source of indescribable miseries, does in-
crease, and must continue fearfully to increase, in this country, whose
-
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
197
free, civil, and religious institutions create constantly various and mul-
tiplying sources of mental excitement. Comparatively but little care is
given in cultivating the moral affections in proportion with the intel-
lectual development of the people. Here, as in other countries, forcible
examples may be cited to show the mischiefs which result alike from
religious,¹ social, civil, and revolutionary excitements. The Millerite
delusions prepared large numbers for our hospitals; so also the great
conflagrations in New York, the Irish riots and firemen's mobs in
Philadelphia; and the last presidential elections throughout the
country levied heavily on the mental health of its citizens.
Abroad, discontents in Scotland, civil and religious; agitations in
Wales, social and civil; wide-spread disturbances in the manufacturing
and agricultural districts of England; tumultuous and riotous gather-
ings in Ireland-all have left abiding evidence of their mischievous in-
fluence upon the records of every hospital for the insane. France, too,
unfolds a melancholy page of hospital history. Subsequent to the
bloody revolution which marked the close of the eighteenth century,
the hospitals for the insane were thronged, showing that where the
effect of exalted mental excitement failed to produce insanity in the
parents, it was developed in the children, and children's children-a
fearful legacy, and sure!
The political disturbances which convulsed Canada, several years
since, were followed by like results.
In law, idiots are ranked with the insane. I have remarked,
throughout our country, several prevailing causes of organic idiocy; of
these the most common, and the most surely traced, is intemperance
of parents, and the marriage and intermarriage of near relatives and
kindred. Abounding examples exist on every side throughout the land.
In calculating the statistics of mental aberration, from the best
authorities, it is found impossible to arrive at exactly correct results;
approximation to facts is all that can be attained.
•
There is less maniacal insanity in the southern than in the north-
ern States, for which disparity various causes may be assigned. Two
leading causes, obvious to every mind, is the much larger amount of
¹ I wish to mark carefully the distinction between true religion and extravagant
religious excitements. The one is the basis of every virtue, the source of every
consolation under the manifold trials and afflictions which beset the path of every
one in the course of this mortal pilgrimage; while that morbid state which is created
by want of calm, earnest meditation, and self-discipline, by excessive demands upon
the physical strength, by protracted attendance upon excited public assemblies, is
ever to be deprecated. . .
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
negro population, and the much less influx of foreigners, in the former
than in the latter.
•
Our hospitals for the insane are already receiving a vast population
of uneducated foreigners; and most of these, who become the subjects
of insanity, present the most difficult and hopeless, because the least
curable cases. Take for example the following records, which are gath-
ered from the city hospitals for the insane poor, passing by for the pres-
ent all the State and general hospitals:
In 1846, the Boston City Hospital for the insane poor received 169
patients; 90 of whom were foreigners, 35 natives of other States, and
44 alone residents of the city. Of the 90 foreigners, 70 were Irish. The
New York City Hospital for the insane poor, on Blackwell's Island,
which went into operation in 1839, had, in the autumn of 1843, about
300 patients. Of 284 adm .cted the following year, 176 were foreigners,
viz.: 112 Irish, 21 English, 27 Germans; and besides these were 38 na-
tives of New York. On the first of January, 1846, there were in the in-
stitution 356 patients, of whom 226 were foreigners. In January, 1847,
there were 410 insane patients, 328 of whom were freigners. The cost
to the city of supporting this institution, in 1846, was $24,179.67.....
Allowing at the present time 22,000,000 inhabitants in the United
States, (which is below the estimated number,) and supposing only one
in every thousand to be insane or idiotic, we have then 22,000 to take
charge of; a majority of whom are in needy or necessitous circumstan-
ces. Present hospital provision relieves (if we do not include those insti-
tutions not considered remedial) less than 3,700 patients. Where are
the remainder, and what is their condition? More than 18,000 are un-
suitably placed in private dwellings, in jails, in poorhouses, and other
often most wretched habitations.
Dr. Kirkbride, who has carefully reviewed this subject, writes as
follows: "In regard to whole numbers, my own inquiries lead me to be-
lieve that one in every six or seven hundred inhabitants would be a
nearer approximation to correct estimate than one in every thousand,
which has heretofore been assumed as the common rule." According
to the latest Parliamentary returns taken with the report of the Metro-
politan Commissioners on Lunacy, which give the number of all classes
of insane in the hospitals of England and Wales, it is ascertained that
in these two countries "there is one insane pauper to every one thou-
sand inhabitants alone."
The liability of communities to insanity should not, I suppose, be
estimated by the number of existing cases at any one time; for insanity
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199
does not usually hasten the termination of life. Take for example Mas-
sachusetts, New York, and Virginia, where are found so large numbers
of established, long-existing cases. These are counted again and again,
every year, every five, or every ten years. A fairer test of the liability
of communities to insanity is to be found in the occurring cases in cor-
responding given periods.
There are twenty State hospitals, besides several incorporated hos-
pitals, for the treatment of the insane, in nineteen States of the Union,
Virginia alone having two government institutions of State and incor-
porated hospitals. . . . .
Well organized hospitals are the only fit places of residence for the
insane of all classes; ill-conducted institutions are worse than none at
all. The New York City Hospital for the Insane, and the State hospi-
tals of Georgia and Tennessee, cannot take present respectable rank as
curative or comfortable hospitals.
Tennessee State Hospital, at Nashville, was opened in 1839. Ac-
cording to an act of the legislature the present year, this hospital is to
be replaced by one of capacity to receive 250 patients. In the old hos-
pital are 64 patients. Boston City Hospital for the indigent, which has
150 patients, and Ohio State Hospital at Columbus, were severally
opened in 1839. The latter has been considerably enlarged, and has
now 329 patients. Maine State Hospital, at Augusta, 1840, patients
130. New Hampshire State Hospital, at Concord, was opened in 1842,
and has 100 patients. New York State Hospital, at Utica, was estab-
lished in 1843, and has since been largely extended, and has 600 pa-
tients. Mount Hope Hospital, near Baltimore, 1844-45; has 72 insane
patients. Georgia has an institution for the insane at Milledgeville,
and at present 128 patients. Rhode Island State Hospital opened,
under the able direction of Dr. Ray, early in 1848. New Jersey State
Hospital, at Trenton, 1848. Indiana State Hospital, at Indianapolis,
will be opened in 1848. State Hospital of Illinois, at Jacksonville, will
be occupied before 1849. The Louisiana State Hospital will be occupied
perhaps within a year.
I repeat that these institutions, liberally sustained as are most of
them, cannot accommodate one twelfth of the insane population of the
United States which require prompt remedial care.
It may be suggested that though hospital treatment is expedient,
perhaps it may not be absolutely necessary, especially for vast numbers
whose condition may be considered irrecoverable, and in whom the
right exercise of the reasoning faculties may be looked upon as past
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hope. Rather than enter upon a philosophical and abstract argument
to prove the contrary to be the fact, I will ask permission to spread be-
fore you a few statements gathered, without special selection, from a
mass of records made from existing cases, sought out and noted during
eight years of sad, patient, deliberate investigation. To assure accuracy,
establish facts beyond controversy, and procure, so far as possible,
temporary or permanent relief, more than sixty thousand miles have
been traversed, and no time or labor spared which fidelity to this im-
perative and grievous vocation demanded. The only States as yet un-
visited are North Carolina, Florida, and Texas. From each of these,
however, I have had communications, which clearly prove that the
conditions of the indigent insane differ in no essential degree from those
of other States.
I have myself seen more than nine thousand idiots, epileptics, and
insane, in these United States, destitute of appropriate care and protec-
tion; and of this vast and most miserable company, sought out in jails,
in poorhouses, and in private duellings, there have been hundreds, nay,
rather thousands, bound with galling chains, bowed beneath fetters
and heavy iron balls, attached to drag-chains, lacerated with ropes,
scourged with rods, and terrified beneath storms of profane execrations
and cruel blows; now subject to jibes, and scorn, and torturing kicks—
now abandoned to the most loathsome necessities, or subject to the vilest
and most outrageous violations. These are strong terms, but language
fails to convey the astounding truths. I proceed to verify this assertion,
commencing with the State of Maine. I will be ready to specify the
towns and districts where each example quoted did exist, or exists still.
In B—, a furious maniac confined in the jail; case doubtful from
long delay in removing to an hospital; a heap of filthy straw in one cor-
ner served for a bed; food was introduced through a small aperture,
called a slit, in the wall, through which also was the sole source of ven-
tilation and avenue for light.
Near C―, a man for several years in a narrow filthy pen,
condition loathsome in the extreme.
chained;
In A—, insane man in a small damp room in the jail; greatly excit-
ed; had been confined many years; during his paroxysms, which were
aggravated by every manner of neglect, except want of food, he had
torn out his eyes, lacerated his face, chest, and arms, seriously injured
his limbs, and was in a state most shocking to behold. In P-, nine
very insane men and women in the poorhouse, all exposed to neglect
and every species of injudicious treatment; several chained, some in
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201
pens or stalls in the barn, and treated less kindly than the brute
beasts in their vicinity. At C-, four furiously crazy; ill treated,
through the ignorance of those who held them in charge. 47 cases in
the middle district, either scattered in poorhouses, jails, or in private
families, and all inappropriately treated in every respect; many
chained, some bearing the marks of injuries self-inflicted, and many of
injuries received from others. In New Hampshire, on the opening of
the hospital for the reception of patients, in 1842, many were removed
from cages, small unventilated cells in poorhouses, private houses, and
from the dungeons of county jails. Many of these were bound with
cords, or confined with chains; some bore the marks of severe usage by
blows and stripes. They were neglected and filthy; and some, who yet
remain in remote parts of the State, through exposure to cold in incle-
ment seasons, have been badly frozen, so as to be maimed for life. De-
tails in many cases will not bear recital.
In New Hampshire, a committee of the legislature was named in
1832, whose duty it was to collect and report statistics of the insane.
Returns were received from only one hundred and forty-one towns: in
these were returned the names of one hundred and eighty-nine persons
bereft of their reason, and incapable of taking care of themselves; nine-
ty men and ninety-nine women. The number confined was seventy-six,
twenty-five of whom were in private houses, seven in cells and cages, six
in chains and irons, and four in the jails. Of the number at liberty, many
had at various times been confined. Many of the facts represented
by this committee are too horrible to repeat, and would lead many to
the belief that they could not be correct, were they not so undeniably
authenticated. The committee remark that from many towns no re-
turns had been made, and conclude their Report with the declaration
“that they could not doubt that the numbers of the insane greatly ex-
ceeded the estimates rendered."
Where were these insane? "Some were in cells or cages; some in
outbuildings, garrets, or cellars; some in county jails, shut up with
felons and criminals; some in almshouses, in brick cells, never warmed
by fire, nor lighted by the rays of the sun." The facts presented to
this committee not only exhibit severe unnecessary suffering, but
utter neglect, and in many cases actual barbarity.
Most of the cases reported, I could authenticate from direct in-
vestigation. .
The [New Hampshire] committee of 1836 conclude their Report as
follows:
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Neither the time nor the occasion requires us to allude to instances of
the aggravated and almost incredible suffering of the insane poor which have
come to our knowledge. We are convinced that the legislature require no
high wrought pictures of the various gradations of intense misery to which
the pauper lunatic is subjected; extending from his incarceration in the cold,
narrow, sunless, and fireless cell of the almshouse, to the scarcely more hu-
mane mode of "selling him at auction," as it is called, by which he falls into
the hands, and is exposed to the tender mercies, of the most worthless of
society, who alone could be excited by cupidity to such a revolting charge.
Suffice it on this point, your committee are satisfied that the horrors of the
.present condition of the insane poor of New Hampshire are far from having
been exaggerated; and of course they find great unwillingness on the part of
those having charge of them to render correct accounts, or to have these
repeated to the public.
The Report of the nine trustees for the hospital, for 1847, states,
that from authentic sources they are informed that "in eight of the
twenty-four towns in Merrimack county, having an aggregate popula-
tion of twelve thousand, there are eighteen insane paupers; part sup-
ported upon the town-farms, and part set up and bid off at auction
from year to year, to be kept and maintained by the lowest bidder."
According to the data afforded above, there must be in the State several
hundred insane supported on the poor-farms, or put up at auction,
annually.
In Vermont, the same neglect, ignorance, and sometimes brutal
severity, led to like results. Dr. Rockwell, his assistant physicians, and
the whole corps of hospital nurses, bear accordant testimony to the
sufferings of patients formerly brought to that institution from all
parts of the State; and many even now arrive under circumstances the
most revolting and shocking, subject to the roughest treatment or the
most inexcusable and extreme neglect.
I have seen many of these afflicted persons, men of hardy frames
and women of great capacity for endurance, bowed and wasted till
almost all trace of humanity was lost in groveling habits, and injuries
through severities and privations, which those cannot comprehend
who have never witnessed similar cases of misery.
Not many counties, if indeed any towns or parishes, but have their
own tales of various woe, illustrated in the miseries of the insane.
In the eighth annual Report of the Vermont hospital for 1844 is the
following record, which being a repetition in fact, if not almost literal
expression of my own notes, I adopt in preference:
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203
One case was brought to the hospital four and a half years ago, of a man
who had been insane more than twelve years. During the four years previous
to his admission he had not worn any article of clothing, and had been caged
in a cellar, without feeling the influence of a fire. A nest of straw was his
only bed and covering. He was so violent that his keeper thought it necessary
to cause an iron ring to be riveted about his neck, so that they could hold him
when they changed his bed of straw. In this miserable condition he was
taken from the cellar and conveyed to the hospital. .
Examples here, as in every State of the Union, might be multiplied
of the insane caged and chained, confined in garrets, cellars, corn-
houses, and other outbuildings, until their extremities were seized by
the frost, and their sufferings augmented by extreme torturing pain.
In all the States where the cold of winter is sufficient to cause freez-
ing of the human frame by exposure, I have found many mutilated.in-
sane, deprived either of the hands or the feet, and sometimes of both.
In Massachusetts we trace repetition of like circumstances. . . . .
Attempts to cultivate the higher faculties of these creatures, seem-
ingly the merest animals, have been successfully adopted to a moderate
extent in France, Germany, and Switzerland, and in the United States
the subject has been discussed. Dr. Ray, of the Rhode Island Hospital,
not long since visited a school for idiots which has been established at
the Bicêtre, near Paris. He writes, that "as early as the year 1828,
Femes¹ made the first attempt in France to develop the powers of
idiots, which attempt has resulted in the present school of Voisin, and
which exhibits to the astonished spectator a triumph of perseverance
and skill in the cause of humanity, that does infinite credit to the heart
and understanding of that gentleman." This testimony is supported
by Dr. Conolly, who, visiting the hospitals near Paris, said, "I was
conducted to a school exclusively established for the improvement of
these cases, and of the epileptic, and nothing more extraordinary can
well be imagined." Dr. Hayward, of Boston, who visited, last year, the
schools for idiots above referred to, expresses the opinion that the great
benefits to the unfortunate classes whose good they are designed to pro-
mote can hardly be appreciated, and that no pains should be spared to
establish similar institutions in the United States.
• A small volume entitled Essays upon Several Projects, by Daniel de Foe, Lon-
don, 1702, contains this remarkable passage: "The wisdom of Providence has not left
us without examples of some of the most stupid natural idiots in the world who have been
restored to their reason, infused after a life of idiotism; perhaps, among other wise
ends, to confute that sordid supposition that idiots have no souls.”
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I visited the poor house in W—. In a cage, built under a wood-
shed, fully exposed to all passers upon the public road, was a miserable
insane man, partially enveloped in a torn coverlet. "My husband,”
remarked the mistress of the house, "clears out the cage and puts in
fresh straw onçe a week; but sometimes it's hard work to master him.
You see him now in his best estate!"
In the adjacent town, at the poorhouse, was a similar case; only,
if possible, more revolting, more excited, and more neglected. There
were also other persons there in different stages of insanity.
In a county jail not distant was a man who had been confined in a
close apartment for many years; a wreath of rags invested his body
and his neck; he was filthy in the extreme; there was neither table, seat,
nor bed; a heap of noxious straw defiled one corner of the room.
One case more must suffice for this section: I would that no others
could be adduced even more revolting than are these so briefly referred
to. In G―, distant from the poorhouse a few rods, was a small wooden
building, constructed of plank, affording a single room; this was un-
furnished, save with a bundle of straw. The occupant of this comfort-
less abode was a young man, declared to be incurably insane. He was
chained, and could move but a little space to and fro; the chain was
connected to the floor by a heavy staple at one end-the other was at-
tached to an iron collar which invested his neck-the device, it seemed,
of a former keeper. In summer the door was thrown open, but during
winter it was closed, and the room was in darkness. Some months after
I saw this poor patient, and after several individuals also had witnessed
his sufferings, the authorities who directed the affairs of the poorhouse
reluctantly consented that he should be placed under the care of Dr.
Bell. The man who was charged to convey the patient the distance of
rather more than forty miles, having bound and chained him (I have
the impression that, by the aid of a blacksmith, he was released at this
time from the torturing iron ring) conveyed him as far as East Cam-
bridge, arriving at dusk. Instead of proceeding with the patient at
once to the hospital, which was distant less than a mile, in Somerville,
he chained him for the night to a post in the stable. After breakfast he
was released and carried to the hospital in a state of much exhaustion.
While the careful attendants and humane physician were busied in
removing the strong bands which chafed his limbs, and lacerated the
flesh in many places, he continually endeavored to express his grati-
tude-embracing them, weeping, and exclaiming, "Good men! kind
men! Ah, good, kind men, keep me here."
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205
After some months of careful nursing, he was so much improved
that strong hopes were entertained of his complete restoration. These
were crushed by an absolute decision of the overseers of 'the poor, re-
manding him to his old prison. Remonstrance was ineffectual. The
last account stated an entire relapse, not only to the former state,
but to a still more hopeless condition. He had become totally idiot-
ic.
•
Of the most miserable neglects in the case of large numbers carried
for successive years to the Hartford Retreat, Drs. Brigham, Woodward,
and Butler can, even now, bear sad testimony; and to the observations
of medical men may be added the evidence of that good man and true
friend of sufferers, Rev. T. H. Gallaudet.
Rhode Island has nearly or quite four hundred insane, idiots,
and epileptics. About 90 recently are receiving the benefit of hos-
pital care, under the enlightened administration of Dr. Ray. In no
State, however, have I found more terrible examples of neglect and
suffering, from abuse or ignorance, than existed there in the year
1843, and some cases in 1845-47. In the jails were many pining in
narrow, damp, unventilated dungeons. In the poorhouses were many
examples of misery and protracted distress. In private families these
conditions were less frequent; but the suffering, through ill-directed
aims at securing the patients from escape, was in many instances
equally revolting and shocking. Here, as in the five States first re-
ferred to, hundreds of special cases might be cited, did time per-
mit.
•
New York, according to the census of 1840, had 2,340 idiots and
insane. I am convinced that this estimate was below the certain num-
ber by many hundreds. In 1841, the Secretary of State reported 803
supported at public charge. In 1842, the trustees of poorhouses esti-
mated the number of insane poor then confined in the jails and poor
houses at 1,430. In 1843 I traversed every county in the State, visiting
every poorhouse and prison, and the insane in many private families.
The hospital for the insane at Utica was opened in January, 1843, and
during the year received 276 patients, all with the exception of six
being residents of the State of New York. On Blackwell's island were
above 300; at Bloomingdale more than 100: 26 were at Bellevue. Be-
sides these, I found, chiefly in the poorhouses, more than 1,500 insane
and idiots, 500 of whom were west of Cayuga bridge. In the poorhouse
at Flatbush were 26 insane, not counting idiots; in that at Whiteplains
were 30 insane; at Albany between 30 and 40; at Ghent 18; in Greene
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*
county 46. In Washington county poorhouse, besides "simple, silly,
and idiotic," 20 insane. Nearly every poorhouse in the State had, and
still has, its "crazy house," "crazy cells," "crazy dungeons," or "crazy
hall;" and in these, with rare exceptions, the inevitable troubles and
miseries of the insane are sorely aggravated.
At A-, in the cell first opened, was a madman. The fierce com-
mand of his keeper brought him to the door, a hideous object; matted
locks, an unshorn beard, a wild, wan countenance, disfigured by vilest
uncleanness; in a state of nudity, save the irritating incrustations de-
rived from that dungeon, reeking with loathsome filth. There, without
light, without pure air, without warmth, without cleansing, absolutely
destitute of everything securing comfort or decency, was a human be-
ing-forlorn, abject, and disgusting, it is true, but not the less of a
human being-nay more, an immortal being, though the mind was
fallen in ruins, and the soul was clothed in darkness. And who was
he-this neglected, brutalized wretch? A burglar, a murderer, a mis-
creant, who for base, foul crimes had been condemned, by the justice
of outraged laws and the righteous indignation of his fellow-men, to
expiate offences by exclusion from his race, by privations and suffer-
ings extreme, yet not exceeding the measure and enormity of his mis-
deeds? No; this was no doomed criminal, festering in filth, wearing
wearily out the warp of life in dreariest solitude and darkness. No, this
was no criminal—“only a crazy man." How, in the touching language
of Scripture, could he have said: "My brethren are far from me, and
mine acquaintance are verily estranged from me: my kinsfolk have
failed, and my familiar friends have forgotten me: my bone cleaveth
unto my skin and my flesh. Have pity upon me, have pity upon me,
for the hand of God hath touched me!"
I turned from this sickening scene only to witness another more
pitiable. In the far corner of a damp, dark dungeon on the right was a
human creature “a woman dreadful bad," said the attendant, who
summoned her in harsh tones to "come out:" but she only moved fee-
bly amidst the decaying mass of straw, uttering low moans and cries,
expressive both of physical pain and mental anguish. There she lay,
seemingly powerless to rise. She, too, was unclothed; and in this dun-
geon, alone, in want, and pain, and misery; no pure air, no pleasant
light, no friendly hand to chafe the aching limbs, no kind voice to raise
and cheer, she dragged out a troubled existence. I know nothing of her
history; whether forsaken by able kindred, or reluctantly given over
to public charity by indigent parents, or taken in, a wandering, dement-
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207
ed creature. I only know that I found and left her reduced to a condi-
tion upon which not one who reads this page could look but with un-
mitigated horror. Do you turn with inexpressible disgust from these
details? It is worse to witness the reality. Is your refinement shocked
by these statements? There is but one remedy; the multiplication of
well-organized hospitals; and to this end, creating increased means for
their support. In the same poorhouse, in the "crazy cellar," were men
chained to their beds, or prostrate on the ground, fettered, and painfully
confined in every movement. There were women, too, in wretched,
unventilated, crowded rooms, exhibiting every horrible scene their
various degrees of insanity could create.
In B—, the cells in the crazy cellar admitted neither light nor pure
air.
In T—, the cells for the insane men were in a shocking con-
dition.
In A-, were above twenty insane men and women in the poor-
house, mostly confined with chains and balls attached to fetters. “By
adopting this plan," said the master of the poorhouse, "I have given
them light and air, preventing their escape; otherwise I should have to
keep them always in the cells." A considerable number of women,
mostly incurables, were "behinds the pickets," in an out-building;
there was a passage sufficiently lighted and warmed, and of width for
exercise. There was no classification; the noisy and the quiet mutually
vexed each other. One woman was restrained by a barbarous apparatus
to prevent rendering her clothes: it consisted of an iron collar investing
the throat, through which, at the point of closing in front, passed a small
bolt or bar, from which depended an iron triangle, the sides of which
might measure sixteen or eighteen inches. To the corners of the hori-
zontal side were attached iron wristlets: thus holding the hands con-
fined, and as far apart as the length of the base line of the triangle.
When the hands and arms were suddenly elevated, pressure upon the
apex of the triangle, near the point of connexion at the throat, produced
a sense of suffocation; and why not certain strangulation, it was not
easy to show.
-
Not distant from the poorhouse I found a woman in a private
dwelling, supported by two invalid sisters; she was in the highest state
of phrensy, and nearly exhausted the patience of love in those who
toiled laborously for her and their own scanty maintenance. She had
once been transferred to the poorhouse; but patience was never there
exercised in behalf of the unruly; and bearing the marks of harsh blows,
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she was taken again by her sisters, to share "the little they could earn
so long as they or she should live."
In E-, the insane, as usual, were unfitly disposed of. To adopt
the language of a neighboring farmer, "those damp dreary cells were
not fit for a dog to house in, much less for crazy folks.”
At R-, and M-, and L-, and B-, were repetitions of the like
dismal cells-heavy chains and balls, and hopeless sufferings. After
my visit at L-, I found one of the former inmates at the hospital in
charge of Dr. Brigham. He bore upon his ankles the deep scars of fetters
and chains, and upon his feet evidence of exposure to frost and cold.
In B—, several idiots occupied together a portion of a most com-
fortless establishment. One gibbering, senseless creature was the mother
of an infant child.
At A—, the most furious were in narrow cells, which were neither
cleaned, warmed, nor, ventilated. In O— was an insane man, so shock-
ingly neglected and abused that his limbs were crippled, so that he
could neither stand nor walk; he was extended on a miserable dirty
pallet, untended and little cared for.
At E—, the insane were confined in cells crammed with coarse,
dirty straw, in the basement, dark and damp. "They are," said the
keeper, "taken out and washed (buckets of water thrown over them)
and have clean straw, once every week.”
In H-, were many furiously crazy. Several of the women were
said to be mothers of infants, which were in an adjoining room pining
with neglect, and unacknowledged by their frantic mothers.
I pass over hundreds of desperate cases, and quote a few examples
from my notes in New Jersey; altogether omitting Canada, East and
West, as being without the limits of the United States; though corre-
sponding examples with those in New York were found in almost every
direction. In 1841, there were found in New Jersey, upon a rather cur-
sory survey, two-hundred and fifty-two insane men, one hundred and
sixty-three insane women, and one hundred and ninety-six idiots, of both
sexes. I traversed the State in 1844; the numbers in every county were
increased, and their miseries were also increased. Sixty patients had
been placed in the hospitals in New York and Pennsylvania, but hun-
dreds still occupied the wretched cells and dungeons of almshouses,
and of prisons. In the winter of 1845 several froze to death, and several
perished through severe exposure and alarm at a fire which consumed
a populous poorhouse. At S-, of eight insane patients, several were
heavily chained, and two were furiously mad.
!
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209
In one poorhouse was a man who had been chained by the leg for
more than twenty years, and the only warmth introduced into his cell
was derived from a small stovepipe carried through one corner.
""
On a level with the cellar, in the basement room, tolerably decent
but bare of comforts, lay upon a narrow bed a feeble, aged man, whose
few gray locks fell tangled over the pillow. As I entered he addressed
one present, saying, "I am all broken up-broken up!" "Do you feel
much weaker, Judge?" "The mind, the mind is going—almost gone,'
responded he, in tones of touching sadness. This feeble, depressed old
man, in a lone room in the poorhouse-who was he? I answer as I was
answered. In his young and vigorous years he filled various offices of
honor and trust in his county. His ability as a lawyer raised him from
the bar to the bench. As a jurist he was distinguished for uprightness,
clearness, and impartiality. He was also judge of the orphan's court,
and was for many years a member of the legislature. He was somewhat
eccentric, but his habits were always correct. I could learn nothing re-
membered to his discredit, but much which commends men to honor
and respect. He had passed the meridian of a useful and active life.
The property, honestly acquired, on which he had relied for com-
fortable support in his declining years, was lost by some of those fluc-
tuations in monetary affairs which so often procure unanticipated re-
verses. He became insane: soon, insanity took the form of furious
mania: he was chained, "for safety;" and finally, for greater security,
committed to the county jail-a most wretched place dreary, damp,
and unfurnished. Time passed: a more quiet state supervened. He
was placed at board in a private family, till the remnant of his once
sufficient property was consumed, and then he was removed to the
poorhouse. Without vices and without crimes, he was at once the vic-
tim of misfortunes and the prey of disease. A few months subsequent
to my visit the almshouse was consumed by fire. The inmates barely
rescued, were hastily removed, and such cares rendered as the emer-
gency demanded. Fires were kindled in the court house, and a portion
of the poor removed thither. Of this number was Judge S. His pallet
was laid within the bar, below the bench where he had once presided.
The place perhaps revived painful memories; he was conscious of his
condition; spoke of his trials; languished a few days; and, in the good
providence of God, was then released from the pains and afflictions of
this mortal life, and, it is believed, passed to that state of existence
where all tears are wiped from all eyes, and where troubles are un-
known.
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In P—, the cells in the cellar for the insane were in a most wretched
condition. In M—, the insane, and many imbeciles, were miserably
housed, fed, and clothed. In the vicinity of the main building was one
of brick, containing the poor cells, from eight to nine feet square. A
straw bed and blanket on the floor constituted the furniture, if I ex-
cept the ring-bolts and iron chains for securing the patients. In P—, I
found the insane, as usual, ill provided for. One madman was chained,
clothed only with a straight jacket, laced so as to impede the motion
of the arms and hands: cold, exposed, and offensive to the last degree,
his aspect, wild and furious, was as shocking as his language was coarse
and blasphemous. Such care was bestowed as the keepers of the poor-
house best could render; but an hospital alone could afford fit treat-
ment for one so dangerous and so unmanageable.
In Y— were above thirty insane: those in the basement of the
poorhouse occupied cells of sufficient dimensions, being fourteen by
ten, and ten feet high; hobbles and chains in use. The physician esti-
mated the number of insane in the county at more than one hundred,
and added that cases of exceeding neglect and suffering often came to
his knowledge. Sufficient provision in hospitals might save thousands
of honest citizens from becoming a life-long burden to themselves and
others, through permanent insanity. In this county above one hun-
dred insane were found; there probably were other cases. In the poor-
house at G-the insane were exposed and suffering; the basement cells
measured eight by eight feet, and eight feet high. Chains, hobbles, and the
miscalled “tranquilizing chain,” were in use. There were more than for-
ty insane in the county.
In C-, above twenty insane and idiots in the poorhouse; one was
chained near the fireplace of a small room; a box filled with straw was
near, in which he slept. Above 60 insane and idiots in this county. In
B-I found nearly forty; some chained, others confined in narrow cells.
In S―, several insane in the jail; one, heavily ironed, had been in close
confinement there six years—another for eleven months. In this coun-
ty the insane and idiots were estimated to be 76 in 1840. I heard of
more than 100. One woman has for months wandered in the woods and
fields in a state of raving madness.
In G, several cases in the jail; one chained: above forty in the
county.
In N-, in the jail, two madmen in chains; no furniture or decent
care. One was rolling in the dust, in the highest excitement: he had
been in close confinement for fifteen years. On one occasion he became
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
211
exasperated at the introduction of a drunken prisoner into his cell, who
perhaps provoked him. No one knows; but the keeper, on entering,
found the insane man furious, covered with the blood of the other, who
was murdered and mutilated in the most shocking manner. Another
insane man had been in confinement for seven years, and both are to
this day in the same prison. In the poorhouse were above twenty in-
sane and idiots; four chained to the floor. In the adjacent county were
above fifty insane and epileptics; several cases of misery through brutal
usage, by "kicks and beating," in private families.
In W- were seven very crazy, and above twenty simple, insane,
and idiotic. One, who was noisy, was in a small building in a field. The
condition of all was degraded and exposed. In P, the insane in the
jail were subject to great miseries. Many in the county were harshly
confined; some wandering at liberty, often dangerous to the safety of all
they met. The twelve counties next visited afforded corresponding
examples. The nine next traversed had fewer insane, and fewer, in pro-
portion to whole numbers, in chains. In H-, one case claimed special
sympathy. Adjacent to a farm house was a small shanty, slightly con-
structed of thin boards, in which lies an old feeble man, with blanched
hair, not clad either for protection or decency; "fed," as said a poor
neighbor very truly, "fed like the hogs, and treated worse." He is ex-
posed to the scorching heats of summer, and pinching cold of the incle-
ment winter; no kind voice cheers him, no sympathizing friend seeks
to mitigate his sufferings. He is an outcast, a crazy man, almost at the
door of his once cheerful, comfortable home. I pass by without detail
nearly one hundred examples of insane men and women in filthy cells,
chained and hobbled, together with many idiots and epileptics wander-
ing abroad. Some were confined in low, damp, dark cellars; some wast-
ed their wretched existence in dreary dungeons, deserted and neglected.
It would be fruitless to attempt describing the sufferings of these un-
happy beings for a day even. What must be the accumulation of the
pains and woes of years, consigned to prisons and poorhouses, to cells
and dungeons, enduring every variety of privation-helpless, deserted
of kindred, tortured by fearful delusions, and suffering indescribable
pains and abuses. These are no tales of fiction. I believe that there is
no imaginable form of severity, of cruelty, of neglect, of every sort of
ill-management for mind and body, to which I have not seen the insane
subject in all our country, excepting the three sections already defined.
As a general rule, ignorance procures the largest measure of these
shocking results; but while of late years much is accomplished, and
212
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
more is proposed, by far the largest part of those who suffer remain un-
relieved, and must do so, except the general government unites to as-
sist the several States in this work.
In Maryland, large numbers are at this hour in the lowest state of
misery to which the insane can be reduced. At four different periods I
have looked into the condition of many cases, counting hundreds there.
Chains, and want, and sorrows, abound for the insane poor in both the
western and eastern districts, but especially in the western.
In Delaware, the same history is only to be repeated, with this
variation: as the numbers are fewer, so is the aggregate of misery less.
In the District of Columbia, the old and the new jails, and the alms-
houses, had, till very recently, their black, horrible histories. I wit-
nessed abuses in some of these in 1838, in 1845, and since, from which
every sense recoils. At present, most of these evils are mitigated in this
immediate vicinity, but by no means relieved to the extent that justice
and humanity demand.
In Virginia, very many cases of extreme suffering now exist. The
most observing and humane of the medical profession have repeatedly
expressed the desire for additional hospital provision for the insane.
Like cases of great distress to those in Maryland and Pennsylvania
were found in the years 1844 and '45. In every county through which I
passed were the insane to be found sometimes chained, sometimes
wandering free. In the large, populous poorhouse near R― were spec-
tacles the most offensively loathsome.. Utter neglect and squalid
wretchedness surrounded the insane. The estimate of two thousand
insane idiots and epileptic patients in this State is thought to be below
the actual number. The returns in 1840 were manifestly incorrect.
In the Report upon the Western State Hospital of Virginia, at
Staunton, for the year 1847, Dr. Stribling feelingly remarks upon the
very insufficient means at command for the relief of the insane poor
throughout the State.
North Carolina has more than twelve hundred insane and idi-
ots.
South Carolina records the same deplorable abuses and necessities
as New York. I have found there the insane in pens, and bound with
cords and chains, and suffering no less than the same class in States al-
ready referred to at the north, except through exposure to the cold in
winter, the climate in the southern States sparing that aggravated
misery..
Georgia has, so far as I have been able to ascertain, fewer insane,
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
213
in proportion to population, than either North or South Carolina, but
there is not less injudicious or cruel management of the violent cases
throughout the State; chains and ropes are employed to increase se-
curity from escapes, in addition to closed doors, and the bolts and bars
which shut the dreary cells and dungeons of jails and other recepta-
cles.
In Tennessee the insane and idiot population, as in Kentucky, is
numerous and increasing. The same methods of confinement to cabins,
pens, cells, dungeons, and the same abandonment to filth, to cold, and ex-
posure, as in other States.
In Kentucky I found one epileptic girl subject to the most brutal
treatment, and many insane in perpetual confinement. Of the idiots
alone, supported by the State at a cost of $17,500.62, in indigent pri-
vate families, and of which class there were in 1845 four hundred and
fifty, many were exposed to severest treatment and heavy blows from
day to day, and from year to year. In a dreary block-house was con-
fined for many years a man whose insanity took the form of mania.
Often the most furious paroxysms prevented rest for several days and
nights in succession. No alleviation reached this unhappy being; with-
out clothes, without fire, without care or kindness, his existence was
protracted amidst every horror incident to such circumstances. Chains
in common use.
In Ohio, the insane population, including idiots, has been greatly
underrated, as I am fully satisfied by repeated but interrupted in-
quiries in different sections of the State. The sufferings of a great num-
ber here are very distressing, corresponding with those referred to in
New York and in Kentucky. Cells and dungeons, unventilated and
uncleansed apartments, severe restraints, and multiplied neglects, abound.
Michigan, it was stated, had sixty-three insane in 1840. I think it a
moderate estimate, judging from my investigations, reaching no fur-
ther north than Jackson and Detroit, that the number in 1847 exceeded
two hundred and fifty. I saw some truly afflicted and lamentable cases.
Indiana, traversed through its whole length and breadth in 1846,
exhibits the usual forms of misery wherever the insane are found; and
of this class there cannot be, including idiots and epileptics, less than
nine hundred. I found one poor woman in a smoke-house, in which she
had been confined more than twenty years. In several poorhouses the in-
sane, both men and women, were chained to the floors, sometimes all in
the same apartment. Several were confined in mere pens without cloth-
ing or shelter; some furious-others for a time comparatively tranquil.
214
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The hospital now about to be opened, when finished, will not receive
to its care one patient in ten of existing cases.
Illinois, visited also in its whole extent in 1846, has more than four
hundred insane, at the most moderate estimate.
•
In Missouri, visited in 1846 and 1847, multiplied cases were found
in pens, in stalls, in cages, in dungeons, and in cells; men and women
alike exhibited the most deplorable aspects. Some are now dead, others
still live only to experience renewed troubles of mind, and tortures of
the flesh.
Let these examples suffice; others daily occur. Humanity requires
that every insane person should receive the care appropriate to his
condition, in which the integrity of the judgment is destroyed, and the
reasoning faculties confused or prostrated.
*
Hardly second to this consideration is the civil and social obliga-
tion to consult and secure the public welfare: first in affording a pro-
tection against the frequently manifested dangerous propensities of the
insane; and second, by assuring seasonable and skilful remedial cares,
procuring their restoration to usefulness as citizens of the republic, and
as members of communities.
Under ordinary circumstances, and where there is no organic lesion
of the brain, no disease is more manageable or more easily cured than
insanity; but to this end, special appliances are necessary, which can-
not be had in private families, nor in every town and city; hence the
necessity for hospitals, and the multiplication, not enlargement, of such
institutions. The citizens of many States have readily submitted to
increased taxation, and individuals have contributed liberal gifts, in
order to meet these imperative wants. Hospitals have been construct-
ed, and well organized. The important charge of these has been in most
instances confided to highly responsible and skilful physicians-men
whose rank in morals and in intellect, while commanding the public
confidence, has wrought immeasurable benefits for hundreds and thou-
sands of those in whom, for a time, the light of reason had been hidden.
But while the annual reports emanating from these beneficent in-
stitutions record eminent successes in the cure of recently developed
cases, the provision for the treatment of this malady in the United
States is found wholly insufficient for existing necessities, as has been
already demonstrated in preceding pages.
To confide the insane to persons whose education and habits do
not qualify them for this charge, is to condemn them to a mental death
The keepers of prisons, the masters of poorhouses, and most persons in
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
215
private families, are wholly unacquainted with bodily and mental
diseases, and are therefore incapable of the judicious application of
such remedial measures, moral, mental, and medical, as are requisite
for the restoration of physical and mental health. Recovery, even of
recent cases, not submitted to hospital charge, is known to be very
rare; a fact readily demonstrable by examples, and by figures, if neces-
sary. It may be more satisfactory to show the benefits of hospital
treatment, rather than dilate upon the certain evils of prison and alms-
house neglects or abuses, and domestic mismanagement.
Under well-directed hospital care, recovery is the rule-incurable
permanent insanity the exception.
TABLE I
SHOWING THE DURATION OF INSANITY BEFORE ADMISSION
TO THE HOSPITAL
Less than one year..
From one to five..
• U
•
five to ten.
ten to twenty..
twenty to thirty.
thirty to forty.
Unknown.
• ·
•
•
Total
280
181
86
71
3∞
23
8
36
1833
48
20
27
31
I2
3
I2
1834
56
29
""
14
8
∞4HO
оннг
I
1835
6
49
37
17
6
I
I
1836
54
37
13
II
2 2
6
1837
757
38 5
73
58
15
15
4
I
5
The tables [I and II], prepared from the records of one hospital,
afford a single illustration of the views above advanced, and show the
duration of insanity before the admission of the 280 patients received
in five consecutive years.
An author of profound research and high intellectual endowments,
in a work which was first published some years since in several foreign
languages, and has since been reproduced in this country, states that
"the general certainty of curing insanity in its early stage is a fact which
ought to be universally known, and then it would be properly appre-
ciated and acted upon by the public.
But the cure alone, manifestly, is not the sole object of hospital
care; secondary indeed, but of vast importance, is the secure and com-
fortable provision for that now large class throughout the country, the
incurable insane. Their condition, we know, is susceptible of ameliora-
tion, and of elevation to a state of comparative comfort and usefulness.
Insanity prevails, in proportion to numbers, most among the edu-
cated, and according to mere conventional distinctions, in the highest
216
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
classes of society. But those who possess riches and a liberal compe-
tency are few, compared with the toiling millions; therefore the in-
sane who are in necessitous circumstances greatly outnumber those
whose individual wealth protects them usually from the grossest ex-
posures and most cruel sufferings.
I have seen very many patients who had been confined for years in
stalls, cages, and pens, and who were reduced to the most abject moral,
physical, and mental prostration, removed to hospitals, divested of
TABLE II
SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE CURABILITY OF A GIVEN NUMBER OF
CASES HEALED AT DIFFERENT PERIODS OF INSANITY,
AS INTRODUCED TO HOSPITAL CARE
Less than one year's duration.
Men..
Women.
Men..
Women.
From one to two years' duration.
Men..
Women.
•
From two to five years.
·
•
Men.
Women.
•
From five to ten years
.
•
Men..
Women.
From ten to fifteen years.
.
·
•
• •
·
•
· ·
•
• •
Total
Cases
232
94
109
.76
56
•
Total of
Each Sex
123
109
49
45
65
44
40
36
35
32
21
Cured or
Curable
IIO
100
31
32
18
18
54
2 H
I
Not Cured
or
Incurable
13
9
18
13
47
26
35
32
33
20
chains, fetters, and filthy garments; bathed, clothed, nursed, and nour-
ished with careful kindness; whose improvement was, according to con-
stitution and the nature of the disease, more or less rapid, and who in a
few months became the most able laborers, under constant direction,
upon the hospital farm, in the gardens, shops, and barns; and while
these labors engaged the men, the women were no less busily occupied
in the washing and ironing rooms, in the seamstress and dress-making
apartments, and about various household daily recurring labors. These
might never recover the right exercise of reason-might never be able
to bear the excitements of society and the vicissitudes of life abroad;
but they can, subject to judicious direction, be as cheerful and com-
fortable as the malady permits; occasional recurrence of paroxysms
sometimes disqualifying them from the exercise of ordinary employ-
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
217
ments. A few examples may not be without interest. A young man
who for ten years had been confined in an out-building of a poorhouse,
in Rhode Island, who was chained and neglected, by the interposition
of a visitor was released and removed to the McLean Asylum, in
Massachusetts. In a few weeks he recovered the use of his limbs, so as
to adopt a little voluntary exercise. Gradually he improved so as to
follow the gardener; at first merely as an observer, but after a time as
an efficient laborer, always cheerful and ready for employment; but he
was never restored to mental health. In the same institution a young
lady, insane for several years, and classing with the incurables, sup-
ports her own expenses by the use of her needle, making the most taste-
ful and beautiful articles, which find a ready sale. Many besides are
employed variously; several draw very beautifully, observing the pro-
portions and rules of art with great exactness.
In 1836, a raving maniac was conveyed to the State Hospital; he
refused to be clothed, committed every sort of extravagance, and
months passed before he was sufficiently composed to address him-
self to any useful employment. Gradually, however, he resorted to the
carpenter's shop, amused himself with the tools, but finally applied to
useful work, and, with few intervals, has since been able to accomplish
a large amount of productive labor.
Another patient, who was confined nearly four years in a county
prison, had several violent paroxysms: his mind is never entirely free
from delusions: he speaks of his excitements-knows he is insane, and
unsafe to be at large; is now ordinarily quiet, pleasant, and good tem-
pered. He is an ingenious mechanic; makes correct observations on
common things, but exhibits strange fancies and delusions upon all
spiritual concerns. He labors diligently and profitably most of the time.
I do not recollect a more satisfactory illustration of the benefits of
hospital care upon large numbers of incurable patients, brought under
improving influences at one and the same time, than is afforded in the
first opening of the hospital for the insane poor at South Boston. Prior
to 1839, the insane poor of Suffolk county were confined in a receptacle
in rear of the almshouse; or rather all those of this class who were furi-
ously mad, and considered dangerous to be abroad upon the farm
grounds. This receptacle revealed scenes of horror and utter abomina-
tion such as language is powerless to represent. These wretched crea-
tures, both men and women, exhibited cases of long standing, regarded
past recovery, their malady being confirmed by the grossest misman-
agement.
218
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The citizens were at length roused to a sense of the enormity and
extent of these abuses, matched only, it is believed, (except in individ-
ual cases,) by the vile condition of the English private madhouses, as
thrown open to the inspection of Parliamentary commissioners, within
the last thirty years. The monstrous injustice and cruelty of herding
these maniacs in a hall filled with cages, behind the bars of which, all
loathsome and offensive, they howled, and gibbered, and shrieked, and
moaned, day and night, like infuriated wild beasts, moved the kindling
sensibilities of those heretofore ignorant or indifferent. The most san-
guine friends of the hospital plan expected no more for these wretched
beings than to procure for them greater decency and comfort; recovery
of the mental faculties, for such as these, was not anticipated.
The new buildings were completed, opened, and a system of disci-
pline adopted by Dr. Butler, the results of which I witnessed with pro-
found interest and surprise. The insane were removed, disencumbered
of their chains, freed from the remnants of foul garments, bathed,
clothed, fed decently, and placed by kind nurses in comfortable apart-
ments. Remedial means, medical and moral, were judiciously applied.
Behold the result of a few months' care, in their recovered physical
health, order, general quiet, and well-directed employments. Now, and
since, visit the hospital when you may, at neither set time nor season,
you will find this class of incurable patients exercising in companies or
singly, reading the papers of the day, or books loaned from the library;
some busy in the vegetable, some in the flower gardens, while some are
found occupied in the washing and ironing rooms, in the kitchen and in
the sewing rooms. Less than one-sixth of those who were removed
from the almshouse recovered their reason; but, with the exception of
three or four individuals, they regained the decent habits of respectable
life, and a capacity to be useful, to labor, and to enjoy occupation.
No hospital in the United States but affords abundant evidence of
the capacity of the insane to work under direction of suitable attend-
ants, and of recovery from utter helplessness to a considerable degree of
activity and capacity for various employments.
I have seen the patient attendants, in many institutions, persevere
day by day in endeavors to rouse, and interest, and instruct the de-
mented in healthful occupations; and these efforts after a time have
found reward in the gradual improvement of the objects of their care,
and their acquisition of power to attend to stated healthful labors.
While the interests of humanity, those first great obligations, are
consulted by the establishment of well regulated hospitals for the in-
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
219
sane, political economy and the public safety are not less insured. The
table [III] exhibits the advantage of largely extended and seasonable
hospital care for the insane. I am indebted chiefly to the reports of
Drs. Woodward and Awl for these carefully prepared records.
TABLE III
SHOWING THE COMPARATIVE EXPENSE OF SUPPORTING OLD AND RECENT CASES
OF INSANITY, FROM WHICH WE LEARN THE ECONOMY OF PLACING PATIENTS
IN INSTITUTIONS IN THE EARLY PERIODS Of Disease; FROM THE REPORT of
THE MASSACHUSETTS STATE HOSPITAL, FOR 1843 (BY DR. WOODWARD)
No. of Old
Cases
27
2.
8
•
12.
18.
19.
· ·
21.
•
•
•
319.
347.
367.
400.
425.
431.
435.
488.
•
•
•
27.
44.
45.
102.
133.
176.
209
223.
260.
278...
·
· 帽
​•
·
• •
·
·
•
•
•
•
• •
•
•
·
•
·
•
Total..
Present
Age
69
48
60
47
71
59
39
47
56
60
53
44
55
39
50
47
49
53
3∞ O
CAA ACC
58
40
43
48
36
55
37
Time
Insane, in
Years
28
согн
17
21
25
34
18
16
16
26
25
25
13
20
16
20
16
IO
IO
14
I 2
14
13
13
15
17
454
Total Expense,
at $100 a Year
before Entering
the Hospital,
and $132 a Year
Since; Last
Year $120
No. of
Recent
Cases
Dis-.
charged
$3,212.00
1,622
2,004.00 1,624
1,625
2,504.00
2,894.00 1,635
3,794.00 1,642
2,204.00
55
I,993.00
36
I,643
1,645
63
I, 994.00 I,649 22
2,982.00 1,650
2,835.00 1,658
2,833.00 1,660
I,431.00 1,661
2,486.00 1,672
1,964.00 1,676
2,364.00 1,688
2,112.00 I,690
1,424.00 1,691
I,699
$54,157.00
Present
Age
1,705
I,706
33
30
34
51
23
245
42
36
2 I
19
40
23
23
55
I, 247.00
I,644.00
I, 444.00
1,644.00 I, 709
2,112.00 1,715
1,412.00 1,716
35
1,712.00 1,728 52
17
19
I, 912.00
1,737
30
23
37
30
24
Time
Insane in
Weeks
7
20
32
28
40
14
36
40
28
14
16
27
II
23
I I
27
20
28
17
IO
IO
40
48
55
33
635
Cost of Support
at $2.30 per
Week
$16.10
46.00
73.60
64.40
92.00
32.20
82.80
92.00
64.40
32.20
36.80
62.10
25.70
52.90
25.70
62.10
46.00
64.40
39. 10
23.00
23.00
92.00
IIO.40
126.50
75.90
$1,461.30
It will be said by a few, perhaps, that each State should establish
and sustain its own institutions; that it is not obligatory upon the gen-
eral government to legislate for the maintenance of State charities, by
supplying the means of relief to individual sufferers; but may it not be
demonstrated as the soundest policy for the federal government to
assist in the accomplishment of great moral obligations, by diminishing
220
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
and arresting wide-spread miseries which mar the face of society,
weaken the strength of communities?
and
Should your sense of moral responsibility seek support in prece-
dents for guiding present action, I may be permitted to refer to the
fact of liberal grants of common national property made, in the light
of a wise discrimination, to various institutions of learning; also to ad-
vance in the new States common school education, and to aid two sem-
inaries of instruction for the deaf and dumb, viz.: that in Hartford,
Connecticut, and the school at Danville, in Kentucky, &c.
But it is not for one section of the United States that I solicit bene-
fits, while all beside are deprived of direct advantages. I entertain no
sectional prejudices, advance no local claims, and propose the advance-
ment of no selfish aims, present or remote.
I advocate the cause of the much suffering insane throughout the
entire length and breadth of my country: I ask relief for the east and
for the west, for the north and for the south; and for all I claim equal
and proportionate benefits.
I ask of the Senate and House of Representatives of the United
States, and with respectful but earnest importunity, assistance to the
several States of the Union in providing appropriate care and support
for the curable and incurable indigent insane.
I ask of the representatives of a whole nation, benefits for all their
constituents. Annual taxation for the support of the insane in hospitals
is felt to be onerous, both in the populous maritime States, and in the
States and Territories west of the Alleghanies. Much has been done,
but much more remains to be accomplished, as I have endeavored to
demonstrate in the preceding pages, for the relief of the sufferings and
oppressions of that large class of the distressed for whom I plead, and
upon whose condition I am solicitous to fix your attention.
I ask for the people that which is already the property of the peo-
ple; but possessions so holden, that it is through your action alone they
can be applied as is now urged.
The whole public good must be sought and advanced through those
channels which most certainly contribute to the moral elevation and
true dignity of a great people.
Americans boast much of superior intelligence and sagacity; of
power and influence; of their vast resources possessed and yet unde-
veloped; of their free institutions and civil liberty; of their liberally
endowed schools of learning, and of their far-reaching commerce: they
call themselves a mighty nation; they name themselves a great and wise
people. If these claims to distinction above most nations of the earth
EARLY EFFORTS AT FEDERAL AID
22I
!
are established upon undesirable premises, then will the rulers, the
political economists, and the moral philosophers of other and remote
countries, look scrutinizingly into our civil and social condition for
examples to illustrate the greatness of our name. They will seek not
to measure the strength and extent of the fortifications which guard
our coast; they will not number our vessels of war, or of commerce;
they will not note the strength of our armies; they will not trace the
course of the thousands eager for self-aggrandizement, nor of the tens
of thousands led on by ambition and vain glory; they will search after
illustrations in those God-like attributes which sanctify private life,
and in that incorruptible integrity and justice which perpetuates
national existence. They will note the moral grandeur and dignity
which leads the statesman to lay broad and deep the foundations of
national greatness, in working out the greatest good for the whole peo-
ple; in effect, making paramount the interests of mind to material
wealth, or mere physical prosperity. Primarily, then, in the highest
order of means for confirming the prosperity of a people and the dura-
tion of government must be the education of the ignorant, and restoring
the health and maintaining the sick mind in its natural integrity.
I will not presume to dictate to those in whose humane dispositions
I have faith, and whose wisdom I cannot question.
I have approached you with self-diffidence, but with confidence in
your impartial and just consideration of the subject submitted to your
discussion and righteous effective decision.
I confide to you the cause and the claims of the destitute and of the
desolate, without fear or distrust. I ask, for the thirty States of the
Union, 5,000,000 acres of land, of the many hundreds of millions of
public lands, appropriated in such manner as shall assure the greatest
benefits to all who are in circumstances of extreme necessity, and who,
through the providence of God, are wards of the nation, claimants on
the sympathy and care of the public, through the miseries and dis-
qualifications brought upon them by the sorest afflictions with which
humanity can be visited.
5. President Pierce's Veto of Miss Dix's Bill'
To the Senate of the United States:
The bill entited "An act making a grant of public lands to the
several States for the benefit of indigent insane persons," which was
¹ Extract from Congressional Globe (Thirty-third Congress, 1st sess., May 3,
1854), pp. 1061-63.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
presented to me on the 27th ultimo, has been maturely considered, and
is returned to the Senate, the House in which it originated, with a state-
ment of the objections which have required me to withhold from it my
approval.
In the performance of this duty prescribed by the Constitution, I
have been compelled to resist the deep sympathies of my own heart in
favor of the humane purpose sought to be accomplished, and to over-
come the reluctance with which I dissent from the conclusions of the
two Houses of Congress, and present my own opinions in opposition
to the action of a co-ordinate branch of the Government, which pos-
sesses so fully my confidence and respect.
If, in presenting my objections to this bill, I should say more than
strictly belongs to the measure, or is required for the discharge of my
official obligation, let it be attributed to a sincere desire to justify my
act before those whose good opinion I so highly value, and to that
earnestness which springs from my deliberate conviction, that a strict
adherence to the terms and purposes of the Federal compact, offers the
best, if not the only, security for the preservation of our blessed in-
heritance of representative liberty.
The bill provides, in substance:
First. That ten millions of acres of land be granted to the several
States, to be apportioned among them in the compound ratio of the
geographical area, and representation of said States in the House of
Representatives.
Second. That wherever there are public lands in a State subject to
sale at the regular price of private entry, the proportion of said ten
millions of acres falling to such State, shall be selected from such lands
within it; and that to the States in which there are no such public
lands, land scrip shall be issued to the amount of their distributive
shares, respectively; said scrip not to be entered by said States, but
to be sold by them, and subject to entry by their assignees, provided
that none of it shall be sold at less than one dollar per acre, under pen-
alty of forfeiture of the same to the United States.
Third. That the expenses of the management and superintendence
of said lands, and of the moneys received therefrom, shall be paid by
the States to which they may belong, out of the treasury of said
States.
Fourth. That the gross proceeds of the sales of such lands, or land
scrip so granted, shall be invested by the several States in safe stocks,
to constitute a perpetual fund, the principal of which shall remain for-
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223
ever undiminished, and the interest to be appropriated to the mainte-
nance of the indigent insane within the several States.
Fifth. That annual returns of lands or scrip sold shall be made by
the States to the Secretary of the Interior, and the whole grant be sub-
ject to certain conditions and limitations prescribed in the bill, to be
assented to by legislative acts of said States.
This bill, therefore, proposes that the Federal Government shall
make provision to the amount of the value of ten millions of acres of
land, for an eleemosynary object within the several States, to be admin-
istered by the political authority of the same; and it presents, at the
threshold, the question, whether any such act, on the part of the Fed-
eral Government, is warranted and sanctioned by the Constitution,
the provisions and principles of which are to be protected and sustained
as a first and paramount duty.
It cannot be questioned that if Congress have power to make pro-
vision for the indigent insane without the limits of this District, it has
the same power to provide for the indigent who are not insane; and
thus to transfer to the Federal Government the charge of all poor in all
the States. It has the same power to provide hospitals and other local
establishments for the care and cure of every species of human infir-
mity, and thus to assume all that duty of either public philanthropy, or
public necessity to the dependent, the orphan, the sick, or the needy,
which is now discharged by the States themselves, or by corporate in-
stitutions, or private endowments existing under the legislation of the
States. The whole field of public beneficence is thrown open to the
care and culture of the Federal Government. Generous impulses no
longer encounter the limitations and control of our imperious funda-
mental law. For, however worthy may be the present object in itself,
it is only one of a class. It is not exclusively worthy of benevolent re-
gard. Whatever considerations dictate sympathy for this particular
object, apply, in like manner, if not in the same degree, to idiocy, to
physical disease, to extreme destitution. If Congress may and ought
to provide for any one of these objects, it may and ought to provide
for them all. And if it be done in this case, what answer shall be given,
when Congress shall be called upon, as it doubtless will be, to pursue a
similar course of legislation in the others? It will, obviously, be vain
to reply that the object is worthy, but that the application has taken
a wrong direction. The power will have been deliberatively assumed,
the general obligation will, by this act, have been acknowledged, and
the question of means and expediency will alone be left for considera-
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
tion. The decision upon the principle, in any one case, determines it
for the whole class. The question presented, therefore, clearly is upon
the constitutionality and propriety of the Federal Government assum-
ing to enter into a novel and vast field of legislation, namely, that of
providing for the care and support of all those, among the people of
the United States, who, by any form of calamity, become fit objects of
public philanthropy.
Kat
I readily, and I trust feelingly, acknowledge the duty incumbent on
us all, as men and citizens, and as among the highest and holiest of our
duties, to provide for those who, in the mysterious order of Providence,
are subject to want and to disease of body or mind, but I cannot find
any authority in the Constitution for making the Federal Government
the great almoner of public charity throughout the United States. To
do so would, in my judgment, be contrary to the letter and spirit of
the Constitution, and subversive of the whole theory upon which the
Union of these States is founded. And if it were admissible to contem-
plate the exercise of this power, for any object whatever, I cannot avoid
the belief that it would, in the end, be prejudicial rather than beneficial
to the noble offices of charity, to have the charge of them transferred
from the States to the Federal Government. Are we not too prone to
forget that the Federal Union is the creature of the States, not they of
the Federal Union? We were the inhabitants of Colonies distinct in
local government one from the other, before the Revolution. By that
Revolution the Colonies each became an independent State. They
achieved that independence, and secured its recognition by the agency
of a consulting body, which, from being an assembly of the ministers of
distinct sovereignties, instructed to agree to no form of government
which did not leave the domestic concerns of each State to itself, was
appropriately denominated a Congress. When, having tried the ex-
periment of the Confederation, they resolved to change that for the
present Federal Union, and thus to confer on the Federal Government
more ample authority, they scrupulously measured such of the func-
tions of their cherished sovereignty as they chose to delegate to the
General Government. With this aim, and to this end, the fathers of
the Republic framed the Constitution, in and by which the independ-
ent and sovereign States united themselves, for certain specified objects
and purposes, and for those only, leaving all powers not therein set
forth as conferred on one or another of the three great departments,
the legislative, the executive, and the judicial, indubitably with the
States. And when the people of the several States had, in their State
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225
conventions, and thus alone, given effect and force to the Constitu-
tion, not content that any doubt should, in future, arise as to the scope
and character of this act, they ingrafted thereon the explicit declara-
tion that: "The powers not delegated to the United States by the
Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the
States respectively, or to the people."
Can it be controverted that the great mass of the business of Gov-
ernment that involved, in the social relations, the internal arrange-
ments of the body-politic; the mental and moral culture of men; the
development of local resources of wealth; the punishment of crimes in
general; the preservation of order; the relief of the needy, or otherwise
unfortunate members of society, did, in practice, remain with the
States; that none of these objects of local concern are, by the Constitu-
tion, expressly or impliedly prohibited to the States, and that none of
them are, by any express language of the Constitution, transferred to
the United States? Can it be claimed that any of these functions of
local administration and legislation are vested in the Federal Govern-
ment by any implication? I have never found anything in the Consti-
tution which is susceptible of such a construction. No one of the enu-
merated powers touches the subject, or has even a remote analogy to
it. The powers conferred upon the United States have reference to
Federal relations, or to the means of accomplishing or executing things
of Federal relation. So, also, of the same character are the powers
taken away from the States by enumeration. In either case, the powers
granted and the powers restricted were so granted or so restricted only
where it was requisite for the maintenance of peace and harmony be-
tween the States, or for the purpose of protecting their common inter-
ests, and defending their common sovereignty, against aggression
from abroad or insurrection at home.
I shall not discuss the question of power sometimes claimed for the
General Government, under the clause of the eighth section of the Con-
stitution, which gives Congress the power "to lay and collect taxes,
duties, imposts, and excises, to pay debts, and provide for the common
defense and general welfare of the United States," because if it has not
already been settled upon sound reason and authority, it never will be.
I take the received and just construction of that article, as if written
to lay and collect taxes, duties, imposts, and excises, in order to pay
the debts, and in order to provide for the common defense and general
welfare. It is not a substantive general power to provide for the wel-
fare of the United States, but is a limitation on the grant of power to
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
raise money by taxes, duties, and imposts. If it were otherwise, all the
rest of the Constitution, consisting of carefully enumerated, and cau-
tiously guarded grants of specific powers, would have been useless, if not
delusive. It would be impossible, in that view, to escape from the con-
clusion, that these were inserted only to mislead for the present, and
instead of enlightening and defining the pathway of the future, to in-
volve its action in the mazes of doubtful construction. Such a conclu-
sion the character of the men who framed that sacred instrument will
never permit us to form. Indeed, to suppose it susceptible of any other
construction would be to consign all the rights of the States, and of the
people of the States, to the mere discretion of Congress, and thus to
clothe the Federal Government with authority to control the sovereign
States, by which the States would have been dwarfed into provinces or
departments, and all sovereignty vested in an absolute consolidated
central power, against which the spirit of liberty has so often, and in so
many countries, struggled in vain. In my judgment you cannot, by
tributes to humanity, make any adequate compensation for the wrong
you would inflict by removing the sources of power and political action
from those who are to be thereby affected. If the time shall ever arrive
when, for an object appealing however strongly to our sympathies, the
dignity of the States shall bow to the dictation of Congress, by con-
forming their legislation thereto, when the power, and majesty, and
honor of those who created shall become subordinate to the thing of
their creation, I but feebly utter my apprehensions when I express my
firm conviction that we shall see "the beginning of the end."
Fortunately, we are not left in doubt as to the purpose of the Con-
stitution, any more than as to its express language, for, although the
history of its formation as recorded in the Madison papers, shows that
the Federal Government, in its present form, emerged from the conflict
of opposing influences, which have continued to divide statesmen from
that day to this, yet the rule of clearly defined powers, and of strict
construction, presided over the actual conclusion and subsequent adop-
tion of the Constitution.
•
I cannot but repeat what I have before expressed, that if the several
States, many of which have already laid the foundation of munificent
establishments of local beneficence, and nearly all of which are pro-
ceeding to establish them, shall be led to suppose, as they will be,
should this bill become a law, that Congress is to make provision for
such objects, the fountains of charity will be dried up at home, and the
several States, instead of bestowing their own means on the social
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227
wants of their own people, may themselves, through the strong temp-
tation, which appeals to States as to individuals, become humble sup-
pliants for the bounty of the Federal Government, reversing their true
relation to this Union.
Having stated my views of the limitation of the powers conferred
by the eighth section of the first article of the Constitution, I deem it
proper to call attention to the third section of the fourth article, and
to the provisions of the sixth article, bearing directly upon the question
under consideration; which, instead of aiding the claim to power exer-
cised in this case, tend, it is believed, strongly to illustrate and explain
positions which, even without such support, I cannot regard as ques-
tionable.
The third section of the fourth article of the Constitution, is in the
following terms: "The Congress shall have power to dispose of, and
make all needful rules and regulations respecting the territory or other
property belonging to the United States; and nothing in this Constitu-
tion shall be so construed as to prejudice any claim of the United
States, or of any particular State." The sixth article is as follows, to
wit: that "All debts contracted and engagements entered into, before
the adoption of this Constitution, shall be as valid against the United
States under this Constitution as under the Confederation."
For a correct understanding of the terms used in the third section
of the fourth article, above quoted, reference should be had to the his-
tory of the times in which the Constitution was formed and adopted.
It was decided upon in convention on the 17th September, 1787, and by
it Congress was empowered to "dispose of," etc., "the territory or other
property belonging to the United States." The only territory then be-
longing to the United States, was that then recently ceded by the sev-
eral States, to wit: by New York in 1781, by Virginia in 1784, by Mas-
sachusetts in 1785, and by South Carolina in August, 1787, only the
month before the formation of the Constitution. The cession from
Virginia contained the following provision:
That all the lands within the territory so ceded to the United States, and
not reserved for, or appropriated to, any of the before mentioned purposes,
or disposed of in bounties to the officers and soldiers of the American Army,
shall be considered a common fund for the use and benefit of such of the
United States as have become, or shall become members of the Confedera-
tion or Federal Alliance of the said States, Virginia included, according to
their usual respective proportions, in the general charge and expenditure,
and shall be faithfully and bona fide disposed of for that purpose and for no
other use or purpose whatsoever.
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Here the object for which these lands are to be disposed of, is clearly
set forth; and the power to dispose of them granted by the third sec-
tion of the fourth article of the Constitution, clearly contemplates
such disposition only. If such be the fact, and in my mind there can be
no doubt of it, then you have again, not only no implication in favor of
the contemplated grant, but the strongest authority against it.
Furthermore, this bill is in violation of the faith of the Govern-
ment, pledged in the act of January 18, 1847. The nineteenth section
of that act declares,
That, for the payment of the stock which may be created under the pro-
visions of this act, the sales of the public lands are hereby pledged; and it is
hereby made the duty of the Secretary of the Treasury to use and apply all
moneys which may be received into the Treasury for the sales of the public
lands after the first day of January, 1848, first to pay the interest on all
stocks issued by virtue of this act; and secondly, to use the balance of said
receipts, after paying the interest aforesaid, in the purchase of said stocks.
at their market value, etc.
The debts then contracted have not been liquidated, and the language
of this section, and the obligations of the United States under it, are too
plain to need comment.
I have been unable to discover any distinction, on constitutional
grounds, or grounds of expediency, between an appropriation of ten
millions of dollars, directly from the money in the Treasury, for the
object contemplated, and the appropriation of lands presented for my
sanction. And yet, I cannot doubt, that if the bill proposed ten millions
of dollars from the Treasury of the United States, for the support of
indigent insane in the several States, that the constitutional question
involved in the act would have attracted forcibly the attention of Con-
gress.
I respectfully submit, that, in a constitutional point of view, it is
wholly immaterial whether the appropriation be in money or in land.
The public domain is the common property of the Union, just as
much as the surplus proceeds of that, and of duties on imports remain-
ing unexpended in the Treasury. As such, it has been pledged, is now
pledged, and may need to be so pledged again for public indebtedness.
As property, it is distinguished from actual money chiefly in this
respect: that its profitable management sometimes requires that por-
tions of it be appropriated to local objects, in the States wherein it may
happen to lie, as would be done by any prudent proprietor to enhance
the sale-value of his private domain. All such grants of land are, in
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229
fact, a disposal of it for value received; but they afford no precedent, or
constitutional reason, for giving away the public lands. Still less do
they give sanction to appropriations for objects which have not been
intrusted to the Federal Government, and therefore belong exclusively
to the States.
To assume that the public lands are applicable to ordinary State
objects, whether of public structures, police, charity, or expenses of
State administration, would be to disregard, to the amount of the value
of the public lands, all the limitations of the Constitution, and con-
found, to that extent, all distinctions between the rights and powers of
the States, and those of the United States. For if the public lands may
be applied to the support of the poor, whether sane or insane, if the dis-
posal of them and their proceeds be not subject to the ordinary limita-
tions of the Constitution, then Congress possesses unqualified power
to provide for expenditures in the States by means of the public lands,
even to the degree of defraying the salaries of Governors, judges, and
all other expenses of the Government, and internal administration
within the several States. The conclusion from the general survey of
the whole subject is, to my mind, irresistible, and closes the question,
both of right and of expediency, so far as regards the principle of the
appropriation proposed in this bill. Would not the admission of such a
power in Congress to dispose of the public domain, work the practical
abrogation of some of the most important provisions of the Constitu-
tion? If the systematic reservation of a definite portion of the public
lands (the sixteenth section) in the States, for the purpose of educa-
tion, and occasional grants for similar purposes be cited as contradict-
ing these conclusions, the answer, as it appears to me, is obvious and
satisfactory. Such reservations and grants, besides being a part of the
conditions on which the proprietary right of the United States is main-
tained, along with the eminent domain of a particular State, and by
which the public land remains free from taxation in the State in which
it lies, as long as it remains the property of the United States, are the
acts of a mere land-owner, disposing of a small share of his property in
a way to augment the value of the residue, and in this mode to encour-
age the early occupation of it by the industrious and intelligent pioneer.
The great example of apparent donation of lands to the States,
likely to be relied upon as sustaining the principles of this bill, is the re-
linquishment of swamp lands to the States in which they are situated;
but this, also, like other grants already referred to, was based expressly
upon grounds clearly distinguishable in principle from any which can
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be assumed for the bill herewith returned, viz.: upon the interest and
duty of the proprietor. They were charged, and not without reason,
to be a nuisance to the inhabitants of the surrounding country. The
measure was predicated, not only upon the ground of the disease in-
flicted upon the people of the States which the United States could not
justify, as a just and honest proprietor, but also upon an express limi-
tation of the application of the proceeds, in the first instance, to pur-
poses of levees and drains, thus protecting the health of the inhabi-
tants, and, at the same time, enhancing the value of the remaining
lands belonging to the General Government. It is not to be denied that
Congress, while administering the public lands as a proprietor, within
the principle distinctly announced in my annual message, may some-
times have failed to distinguish accurately between objects which are
and which are not within its constitutional powers.
After the most careful examination, I find but two examples in the
acts of Congress which furnish any precedent for the present bill, and
those examples will, in my opinion, serve rather as a warning than as an
inducement to tread in the same path.
The first is the act of March 3rd, 1819, granting a township of land
to the Connecticut asylum for the education of the deaf and dumb.
The second that of April 5th, 1826, making a similar grant of land
to the Kentucky asylum for teaching the deaf and dumb.
The first more than thirty years after the adoption of the Constitu-
tion, and the second more than a quarter of a century ago.
These acts were unimportant as to the amount appropriated, and,
so far as I can ascertain, were passed on two grounds: first, that the
object was a charitable one, and secondly, that it was national. To
say that it was a charitable object, is only to say that it was an object
of expenditure proper for the competent authority; but it no more
tended to show that it was a proper object of expenditure by the Unit-
ed States than is any other purely local object appealing to the best
sympathies of the human heart in any of the States. And the sugges-
tion that a school for the mental culture of the deaf and dumb in Con-
necticut, or Kentucky, is a national object, only shows how loosely this
expression has been used when the purpose was to procure appropria_
tions by Congress. It is not perceived how a school of this character is
otherwise national than is any establishment of religious or moral in-
struction. All the pursuits of industry, everything which promotes the
material or intellectual well-being of the race, every ear of corn or boll of
cotton which grows, is national in the same sense; for each one of these
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231
things goes to swell the aggregate of national prosperity and happiness
of the United States; but it confounds all meaning of language to say
that these things are "national," as equivalent to "Federal," so as to
come within any of the classes of appropriation for which Congress is
authorized by the Constitution to legislate.
It is a marked point in the history of the Constitution, that when it
was proposed to empower Congress to establish a university, the prop-
osition was confined to the District intended for the future seat of
Government of the United States, and that even that proposed clause
was omitted in consideration of the exclusive powers conferred on Con-
gress to legislate for the District. Could a more decisive indication of
the true construction and the spirit of the Constitution in regard to
all matters of this nature have been given? It proves that such objects
were considered by the convention as appertaining to local legislation
only, that they were not comprehended, either expressly or by implica-
tion, in the grant of general power to Congress, and that, consequently,
they remained with the several States.
The general result at which I have arrived is the necessary conse-
quence of those views of the relative rights, powers, and duties of the
States and of the Federal Government which I have long entertained,
and often expressed, and in reference to which my convictions do but
increase in force with time and experience.
I have thus discharged the unwelcome duty of respectfully stating
my objections to this bill, with which I cheerfully submit the whole
subject to the wisdom of Congress.
6. The Senate Debate on the Veto¹
MR. BROWN: The President, in the outset of the message, admits
that this is a measure of great humanity, and one which commends it-
self to the warmest sympathies of his heart. I am glad he said so, be-
cause I apprehend that the sentiment will find a response in the heart
of every American citizen, of every friend of humanity, whether he re-
sides north or south, east or west. The President says that eleemosy-
nary objects or purposes are not among those which are provided for
in the Constitution. So they are not in express terms; but does Con-
gress never legislate upon any subject in regard to which it has not been
expressly authorized to legislate? If not, I want to know where we get
our authority to legislate for school purposes? The President makes an
Extract from Congressional Globe (Thirty-third Congress, 1st sess., May 3,
1854), pp. 1063, 1065-66, 1069.
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argument to show by implication that we have the power to do that.
All the grants that have been made from time to time for school pur-
poses are sanctioned by the Constitution, according to his construction
of it; and yet, sir, you may read the instrument from one end to the
other, and find no specific power to make grants for school purposes.
If the President will point to the clause which authorizes grants of land
to colleges, I will show him the clause which authorizes the grant pro-
posed in this bill.
But, says the President, if we legislate for the benefit of the insane,
where are we to stop? Are we to carry our benevolence so far as to leg-
islate for the protection of all other indigent or unfortunate classes?
This, you will see at once, is not an argument which can touch the ques-
tion of power, but it is simply an argument which reaches the question
of the exercise of power. If you have authority to do this, it may fol-
low that you have the power to do something else; but it does not fol-
low that because you do this, you ought therefore to do something else.
If you have the power to make an appropriation of land for the pro-
tection and benefit of the indigent insane, it may follow that you have
the power to make an appropriation of land for the protection and ben-
efit of the indigent who are not insane. But if you exercise the power in
the one case, it does not necessarily follow that you must exercise it in
the other.
The President seems to think that in this matter the States will be
brought to bow to the authority of Congress. I do not think so. When
my State and yours, Mr. President, (Mr. Bright occupying the chair)
accepted donations of land for school purposes, for common schools, and
for schools of a higher grade, did it ever enter into your head or mine
that our States were thereby humiliated, and were bowing as paupers,
and beggars, and mendicants, to the authority of Congress? No sir;
we felt that we were receiving a part of that which belonged to us, that
we were not beggars but that Congress was giving its assent to our ex-
ercising exclusive jurisdiction over a part of that which belonged to us
in common with our fellow-citizens of all the States.
The President seems also to be apprehensive that if we go on legis-
lating in this way, we shall dry up all the sources of benevolence in the
States, and that the people of the States, instead of taking care of their
indigent insane, their poor, their blind, and their lame, will habitually
look to Congress for the protection of those classes. I think not. With
as much justice might you say that, if you receive land from the Gov-
ernment for the education, in part, of your children, this will induce the
States to look to Congress for the means of educating all the children.
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Did it ever enter into your mind, sir, when Congress granted your State
the sixteenth section of land in each township for school purposes, that,
by the State accepting it, you were in danger of becoming mendicants,
begging Congress to make appropriations for the education of all the
children in your State? I apprehend there is no more danger of our be-
coming beggars at the footstool of Congress for the support of our indi-
gent insane, our indigent blind, and our poor of every class, if we ac-
cept a grant like this, than there has been that we should become beg-
gars of Congress to educate all our children, because, in days gone by,
we accepted aid from Congress to educate a part of them. .
MR. DIXON: I am no latitudinarian in the construction of the Fed-
eral Constitution, and perhaps would go as far as any Senator on this
floor in maintaining the constitutional rights of the States, and of keep-
ing separate and apart the powers which properly belong to the Feder-
al Government and those justly appertaining to the States. But I can-
not understand how it is that, if the Federal Government can exercise
the constitutional power of making a grant of lands for one benevolent
object, it may not do it for another. It has appropriated lands for
roads and canals; it has donated, in effect, a large amount of the public
lands to assist a State in paying off her public debt; it has appropriated
lands to educational purposes in the States in which the lands lie; it has
given them to States within which they do not lie for similar purposes;
it has appropriated large sums of money to the building of marine hos-
pitals in different States, to minister to the wants and comforts of the
unfortunate and wretched class of citizens described in the different
acts making the appropriations. It has given, time and again, large
sums of money, and large portions of the public lands, for other pur-
poses—some benevolent and some speculative, and all without any
express grant of power under the Federal Constitution; and now, when
we are about to vote away thousands and thousands of acres of the
public domain to all such as may settle on them, whether they be citi-
zens or foreigners, we are gravely told by the President that a grant, by
Congress, of a portion of this same public domain, for an object the
most humane and the most benevolent, and which appeals most strong-
ly to the sympathies of every heart capable of feeling for the misfor-
tunes of the most unhappy of mankind, is interdicted by the spirit of
the Constitution, and a violation of the rights and an encroachment on
the sovereignty of the States.
•
MR. BELL: I do not mean to cite the occasional appropriations
which have been heretofore made of the public lands with a view to
rely upon them; such, for example, as the township of land to Connecti-
234
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
cut to found an institution for the instruction of the deaf and dumb in
1819,—and a similar appropriation to Kentucky at a subsequent period
in 1826. Take out all these occasional appropriations, exclude them
entirely from the argument, throw them aside as being irregular, and
what do we find? I may say here, in passing, that such appropriations
as these constitute a very small, and almost invisible fraction of the
enormous amount of the public land which has been appropriated. I
have not examined the reports or public documents from the Depart-
ments in relation to the subject, but I know it is said that a hundred
millions of acres of the public lands have heretofore been appropriated
—not sold, and the money paid into the Treasury; but this large quan-
tity of land has been given to the States in which the lands lie for the
purposes of education, and for the purpose of aiding them in the con-
struction of works of internal improvement. It was only a few years
ago, as you know, sir, that we appropriated seven hundred and fifty
thousand acres of land, with scarcely any debate or controversy in the
Senate, for the construction of a canal around the falls at the Sault St.
Mary—to overcome obstructions in the straits, between Lake Huron
and Lake Superior.
The great mass of these appropriations has been for the support of
internal improvements, and for laying the foundations of a system of
schools and education in the new States. Then again they have re-
ceived large grants of swamp lands; but take them out of view, regard
them as not constituting one of the items about which the old States
should complain; suppose they should amount to twenty or thirty mil-
lions of acres, still there would remain sixty or seventy-five millions of
acres which have been voted away for the general purposes which I
have enumerated-for internal improvements and educational pur-
poses in the new States.
I say, that taking out of the calculation altogether the swamp lands,
and the Connecticut appropriation in 1819, and the Kentucky appro-
priation in 1826, and similar appropriations, there still remain sixty or
seventy millions of acres which it is contended have been improperly
appropriated. This is the great national fund, as I understand, which
gentlemen say has been wasted. The Senator from Georgia said this
message is an attempt to ingraft a new principle upon which these pub-
lic lands are hereafter to be appropriated, and it is therefore that he
urges and others urge that a pause in the legislation of the country is
to be made, and that we are at liberty now to consider whether we will
not reform the practice of the Government, and its former course in
relation to the public lands.
PART II
THE PERIOD 1863-1917
·
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART II
It became evident from President Pierce's veto in 1854 that the
work in the philanthropic field was to be done by the states, not by the
federal government, and the establishment of a central state super-
visory authority was anticipated before the passage of the Massa-
chusetts Act of 1863. The prison inspectors of New York, although
holding a constitutional office, were required to organize as a board;¹
the New York State Board of Emigration Commissioners has been
described as a true welfare authority,² and the need of supervision of
the various state charitable institutions was urged both in Massa-
chusetts and in New York.
However, the Massachusetts act was followed only slowly by other
states. Not until 1867 did Ohio and New York, the next states to
create boards, take action. They were followed in 1869 by Illinois,
North Carolina, Pennsylvania, and Rhode Island; in 1871 by Wiscon-
sin and Michigan; and in 1873 by Kansas and Connecticut.
It will be noticed that, in these first statutes, provision was made
for a continuous, lay, unpaid board, generally supervisory in character,
with some administrative duties, but, except in the case of Rhode
Island, not given direct responsibility for the conduct of the institutions
whose boards of trustees in general remained, as before, accountable for
the selection of the staffs, the framing of policy, and the expenditure
of public funds.
This form of organization, the continuous, unsalaried board com-
posed of members whose terms expired at different times so that
theoretically, the membership was never renewed all at once, was
supposed to supply both stability and continuity and that opportunity
for deliberation and discussion necessary when powers so nearly legis-
lative in character in the outlining of policy, possibly the drafting of
rules and regulations, representing the interests of the state as a whole,
were to be exercised.
I See above, Part I, Sec. II, Document 12.
2 See Edith Abbott, Proceedings of the National Conference of Social Work at the
Forty-ninth Annual Session, Held in Providence, p. 463. For documents illustrating
the work of this earliest public-welfare commission see the preceding volume in the
"Social Service Series," Edith Abbott, Immigration: Select Documents and Case
Records (Chicago, 1924), PP. 42, 140, 144, 164, 172, 177, 182.
237
238
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The continuous board was also supposed to safeguard the institu-
tion when the trustees of an institution are under consideration or the
central board, when that is being considered, from partisan interfer-
ence. Little information has been assembled as to the extent to which
these boards have been free from partisan manipulation so far as
personnel is concerned. The discussion in the reports and at the Na-
tional Conference of Charities and Correction, now the National Con-
ference of Social Work, contain many references to the baleful influ-
ence of partisanship on the actual administration, and a later section¹
is devoted to that subject. An examination of the history of the
membership either of the boards of trustees or of the state boards of
charities and correction will probably bear out the statement that the
method of overlapping terms, that is, of the continuous board, will,
in the absence of any political crisis, serve the purpose of securing con-
tinuity; but, in a time of political excitement, no administrative device
can protect the service from partisan interference.2
Another question to which attention should perhaps have been
called at an earlier point is that of classifying the welfare organization
with those divisions of the government that are recognized or pre-
scribed or regulated by the constitution. That is, should the welfare
authority be regulated by the constitution or should the legislature
be left free to abolish or to alter it. In the Constitutional Convention of
New York of 1867, there was a Committee on Charities and Charitable
Institutions. This Committee handed in both a majority and a mi-
nority report. Both reports recommended the adoption of an article
providing for a Board of Commissioners of Charities, very much after
the terms of the act already passed by the legislature of that year.3
The difference between the two reports had to do largely with the
degree to which the constitution should restrict the legislature, and
especially with the recommendation prohibiting public aid to sectarian
institutions. In the Constitution of 1894 in New York there was in-
serted an article (Art. VIII) providing for a State Board of Charities
and for a Commission in Lunacy;5 and in an amendment to the con-
stitution adopted in 1925 the reorganization of the state government
is authorized, and the Board of Control and Departments of Charities,
3 See below, Sec. I, Document 6.
4 New York State Constitutional Convention, 1867–68, Documents of the Con-
vention, Vol. IV, No. 105, "Minority Report of Mr. Livingston from the Committee
on Charities and Charitable Institutions."
I Section IV.
2 See below, p. 293.
5 Part II, Sec. II, Document 22.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART II
239
A
Mental Diseases, and Correction are enumerated. In a number of
states,¹ however, the constitutional provision stands clearly in the way
of reorganization, and since the number of unsettled questions in this
field is very great, it is highly important that the legislature be left.
free to readjust the administrative divisions in accordance with the
dictates of increasing experience. The subject was put as follows by
Mr. Homer Folks, at the time when the New York Constitution was
being reconsidered in 1915:
The ever recurring question in relation to constitutional provision is,
what shall be put into the constitution and what shall be left to the legisla-
ture? This involves the question as to whether, on the whole, state adminis-
tration tends to be too flexible or too inflexible. Things put into the constitu-
tion become inflexible. A close study of the operation of certain administra-
tive agencies of the state for a period of over twenty years leads me to feel
that the greater danger is that of inflexibility, inelasticity and tradition,
rather than their opposites. Although the legislature at any time during the
past twenty years could have reorganized the state commission in lunacy or
the state board of charities, changing them from a paid to an unpaid body
or from a small board to a large board, it has not done so in either case. Both
these organs of government, in fact, have had a continuous history since
their original establishment. In general, therefore, I should be inclined to
say, whenever in doubt as to the wisdom of making a given matter perma-
nent, leave it to the legislature.2
In the first three sections, then, of Part II an attempt is made to
set out the following subjects: (1) the organization, structure, powers,
and duties of the central boards that were created during the period
1863–73; (2) the response by the boards ot the situation as they found
it, their analysis of the problem, and their experience in attempting to
set up supervisory relationships with the institutions; and (3) the de-
velopment in which two issues were involved: (a) the relative value
of a large number of unpaid part-time officials as compared with that
of a small number of full-time salaried officials and (b) the place of
supervision in the scheme when that supervision is intended rather
for purposes of general reassurance to the public than as a device in
efficient administration.
But there are other questions of importance from the point of view
1 For example, the reorganization attempted in 1921 in Nebraska (Compiled
Statutes, 1922, p. 2249) could be only partial, since certain officers were named in the
Constitution, Art. IV, Sec. 19.
2 "Folks, Charitable and Correctional Institutions and Public Health," Pro-
ceedings of the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, V (1914–15), 447;
240
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of the later development. The first is that of honest and capable ad-
ministration, which is discussed here under the subject of public pur-
chasing, and of the effort to distinguish true from false economy.
There are also problems of the civil service and classification of the pub-
lic personnel. Such subjects may seem to belong to the general field of
competent government rather than particularly to that of public wel-
fare. However, the proportion of the state's expenditures devoted to
these objects was so great and the public officials and public employees
making up the staff of these institutions¹ were relatively so numerous
that the discussion of these matters cannot be separated from the
general problem of charitable organization. One section is, therefore,
devoted to partisan interference;² one to the attempted classification
of the public organization;3 and one to purchasing, efficiency, and
economy.4
Attention should also be given to the method of treatment ap-
plicable to each group of wards under the care of the state. While, as
has been pointed out, it is obviously impossible both to discuss at
length the principles of sound public organization and to set out in full
the recognized practice in dealing with each of these groups, it is also
obvious that such material as is supplied by these documents must be
examined in the light of sound methods of treatment in each field of
interest. And on the views held with reference to those questions of
method will perhaps depend the view held as to the appropriate scope
or range of authority to be exercised by the public agency whose power
and duties are being examined. With reference to the range of au-
thority, for example, attention may be called to the fact that within
the scope of the Massachusetts board's authority were at first in-
cluded the prisons (i.e., corrections), the state almshouses (the desti-
tute), the hospitals for the insane (mental diseases), the care of
dependent children, and the reception of aliens into the common-
wealth.
To the Ohio board was given the whole system of public charitable
and correctional institutions of the state.5
To the New York and Illinois boards were assigned all charitable
¹ The related fields of education and health developed no such costly state
agencies. Moreover, the education and medical care of the destitute were often
classed under charity rather than under education or health.
2 Section IV.
3 Section V.
4 Section VI.
5 So with North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, Wisconsin, Michigan,
Connecticut, and Kansas.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART II
241
and correctional institutions, excepting the state prisons receiving state
aid, and county and city almshouses.
On this subject of the range of authority, with reference to the
groups of persons to be cared for, there has been and still is great diver-
gence of opinion. This is illustrated by the statutory changes that have,
for example, been brought about in Massachusetts. There the follow-
ing authorities have been created since the Act of 1863 providing for
the Board of State Charities: in 1869 a State Board of Health was cre-
ated; in 1879 the State Board of Health was merged with the State
Board of Charities to make the Board of Health, Lunacy, and Charity;2
in 1879 a separate Prison Commission was established;3 in 1886 a
Board of Health was re-established and a separate Board of Lunacy
and Charity created;4 in 1898 the Board of Insanity was made a sepa-
rate authority. It will appear below that in 1919, when the state gov-
ernment was departmentalized, there were set up departments of
health, corrections, mental diseases, and public welfare.
5
.2
In New York, the state board never had the prisons under its
jurisdiction and was soon deprived of responsibility for certain aspects
of the lunacy problem. In Illinois, the destitute, deaf, blind, insane,
and feeble-minded were from the beginning under the state board, and,
in 1917, the correctional institutions were placed in the same depart-
ment. It is to be noted that this step was not one recommended by the
Committee on Efficiency and Économy and was in 1914 said by Mr.
Homer Folks to be against the general consensus of opinion in populous
states. Mr. Folks said:
Perhaps some may wish to raise the question as to whether there should
continue to be the three separate bodies. If so, we shall find that the trend of
experience in the more populous states is strongly in favor of such division.
The enormous task devolving upon each of these three bodies and the sharp
differences between the main features of their work would seem to be prac-
tically conclusive in favor of the continuance of three separate boards for
these three distinct purposes, rather than the merging of their duties into
one enormous agency.7
¹ Attention has been called to the creation in 1851 of the Board of Alien Com-
missioners. There had been since 1837 a State Board of Education.
2 Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the Year 1879,
chap. 291.
3 Ibid. (1879), chap. 294.
4 Ibid. (1886), chap. 101.
5 Ibid. (1898), chap. 433.
'See below, Part III, Sec. I, Document 6.
7 "Charitable and Correctional Institutions and Public Health,” Proceedings of
the Academy of Political Science in the City of New York, V (1914–15), 439.
242
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Another question to which frequent reference must be made has to
do with the nature of the authority that should be set up-whether
visitorial, inspectorial, and generally supervisory, or an agency of con-
trol with power of immediate administration. To this subject con-
siderable space is devoted in the following pages.
The helplessness and inarticulate character of many of the patients
in the institutions, the relatively large sums of money spent in com-
parison with other items in the state budget,' the innumerable oppor-
tunities for petty graft and for the influence of partisan political mo-
tives to prevail, all indicated the necessity of resorting to every known
method for removing these agencies and institutions as much as possible
from the ordinary political practices. The relative uncertainty with
reference to much of the work, the pioneer character of many of the
undertakings, and the lack of popular understanding and public
knowledge these were among the reasons for the vehement, almost
militant, opposition on the part of some of the leaders to any step
looking toward direct control and administration of the institutions
by the central board. The persistent demand that a central supervisory
authority should be provided for, even when a single administrative
agency had been developed in place of the various boards of trustees of
institutions, was grounded in the belief that honest, efficient, skilled,
unselfish service for these wards of the state could be assured only on
the basis of understanding and consent and never as the result of com-
pulsion.2
The tendency toward increase in the power of these boards was,
however, inevitable. The motive may sometimes have been political
and selfish, but the argument from increased efficiency and direct re-
sponsibility, even if possibly specious,³ was convincing.
Before calling attention, however, more at length to the question
of the power conferred on these boards, attention should be directed
to the composition of these early boards. In the number of members
they varied. The Michigan and Kansas boards had three members.
Those of Massachusetts, Ohio, North Carolina, Illinois, Pennsylvania,
and Connecticut had five each. That of Rhode Island was six, and of
New York eight in number. More often the members were appointed
by governor and Senate (Massachusetts, New York, Illinois, Michigan,
Pennsylvania, Kansas, Rhode Island), but Wisconsin and Ohio left
the selection to the governor and North Carolina to the legislature.
2 See Sec. III, Documents 3 and 8.
I See Sec. II, Document 2.
3 See Sec. III, Documents 2 and 5.
INTRODUCTORY NOTE TO PART II
243
As to the qualifications of members, in New York and Rhode
Island each member represented a political unit; in New York, a judi-
cial district; in Rhode Island, a county. Connecticut required the pres-
ence of two "ladies" with the three "gentlemen" on the board. Gener-
ally there was no specific qualification required, and the nomination
was in the governor's discretion.
The name of the authority varied so that no name was adopted by
more than two states. In Massachusetts and Ohio the authority was
called the Board of State Charities; in North Carolina and Pennsylva-
nia it was the Board of Public Charities; and the words "public chari-
ties" were in the names of the New York (State Commissioners) and
Illinois (Board of Commissioners of) authorities. Rhode Island alone
of these states used the word "corrections," while Wisconsin had the
idea of "reform" (State Board of Charities and Reform); and Michigan
spelled the whole purpose out in the title, Board of State Commission-
ers for the Supervision of Charitable, Penal, Pauper, and Reformatory
Institutions.
Provision was expressly made in some cases for the appointment of
an executive officer—a secretary, and in some cases, for another official.
In Massachusetts, for example, the "visiting agent" succeeded to the
power of the Alien Commissioners. In other cases, the power to set up
a visiting or clerical staff was interpreted as incidental to the perform-
ance of the duties imposed by the act.
These officials were selected in various ways. In Massachusetts
they were appointed in the same way in which the members of the
board were appointed, i.e., by the governor and Senate. In New York,
Illinois, Pennsylvania, Wisconsin, Rhode Island, and Michigan, the
board was authorized to appoint such an officer; while in Ohio, North
Carolina, Connecticut, and Kansas, the power to appoint was implicit
in the requirements that the board should visit institutions and report
on their observations and their suggestions.
In all these states, and in general, the boards were unpaid boards,
being reimbursed for actual expenditures.
The powers granted were, except for Rhode Island, those of visita-
tion and supervision. The members were under a duty to obtain infor-
mation and therefore had the right to enter, to examine books and
papers, to receive complaints, to suggest modifications, and to report
to the governor or to the legislature.
In addition to these duties there were sometimes certain adminis-
trative functions, such as that of admitting or of transferring patients,
244
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
as in Massachusetts; and, in the case of Rhode Island, of administering
the institutions.
It is not possible because of lack of space to review the history of
all the state boards, as their powers have developed from those of super-
vision to those of control and administration. The successive statutes
as they were enacted are given for only one state, Massachusetts;
but summaries of the successive statutes in New York and one or two
others are given in footnotes in order that a clearer notion of the de-
velopment may be had. There is likewise given below a summary of
the statutes as they had been enacted in the different states in 1913¹
and in 1923.2
It remains to note one or two other points to which attention should
be called. One is suggested by the documents in Section VII—namely,
the result of a difference of opinion and of policy when the authorities in
two states are concerned. Obviously, since there is no superauthority,
either there is an impasse or agreement must be reached by consent.
There is also the question of the relation between the central authority
and the local jurisdiction, the county, the town, or the city, or between
the central authority and the private charitable agency, especially one
that receives public money. For various reasons, which will be dis-
cussed at greater length in another place, it appears that the interrela-
tions between the central authority and the state institutions could
develop more simply and rapidly than those between the central board
and the local authorities. It will appear, in fact, that except so far as
the local authority has been gradually deprived of functions for which
it had previously been responsible little change has occurred in the
situation until a very recent date. During the past ten or fifteen years,
great energy has in a number of places gone into the development of
county welfare work, especially in the fields of health and of child wel-
fare. Because of its recent development discussion of these subjects is
postponed to Part III.³
Taken from U.S. Bureau of the Census, Summary of State Laws Relating to
the Dependent Classes. See Part II, Sec. I, Introductory Note, p. 245.
2
Compiled from the session laws of the various states. See Part III, Sec. I,
Introductory Note, p. 557.
3 See Part III, Sec. II.
SECTION I
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The documents in this section relate to the statutes of those states
in which central authorities were created during the decade 1863–73.
A considerable body of fact with reference to their character, organiza-
tion, and powers has been stated in the note introducing this Part as a
whole. A few further considerations will facilitate the work of the stu-
dent in examining the documents in this section.
It will be observed that the notes accompanying the statutes at-
tempt to summarize the changes in the structure of the authority at
first set up. It may not be out of place to call attention here to the
great difficulty in tracing the sequence of events in the various jurisdic-
tions and to point out what an enormous gain could be experienced by
the creation of some national agency equipped to collect, organize, and
publish the reports from the welfare authorities in the different states.
In order to have accurate information as to the actual development it is
necessary to examine (1) the statutes dealing with the authority in-
cluding the appropriations made for its support, (2) the action of the
appointing power, (3) the proceedings of the board, (4) the actual or-
ganization of the staff, (5) the response of the institutions, and (6) the
methods used by the authority to secure its ends. With these questions
in mind, the statutes cited in this section become illuminating and sug-
gestive. They are, however, obviously incomplete until examined in
the light of Sections II and III. However, attention may be called to
the fact that the movement toward the establishment of these authori-
ties while not swift was steady, and, in 1913, when the United States
Census summarized the state laws dealing with the dependent classes,
there were only ten states which had not created a central authority.¹
Of the thirty-eight which had passed laws, two² had single-headed
These were Alabama, Delaware, Georgia, Idaho, Mississippi, Nevada, New
Mexico, South Carolina, Texas, and Utah. Delaware had a Tuberculosis and a
Blind Commission, and Texas had a State Bureau of Child and Animal Protection.
2 Oklahoma provided in its constitution for a commissioner of state charities;
New Jersey had a commissioner of charities and correction. Alabama had an in-
spector of jails, almshouses, and cotton mills; and Kentucky had an inspector of
institutions in addition to a state board, so are not counted here.
245
246
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
authorities; and thirty-six had boards varying in number from three
to twelve. Of these, twenty-one were supervisory in character and
with one exception bore a name indicating the charitable scope of their
work.' Nine² had boards of control, and in six³ there had been adopted
the plan of two boards, one salaried and executive, known generally as
the Board of Administration, and the other unsalaried and supervisory,
known generally as a Charities Commission.
In the following section, then, the statutes suggest the various
aspects of the problem which still presents itself in some parts of the
country. Just what is the scope of the work assigned to the authority,
as to the groups and classes of persons cared for, varies from state to
state and from period to period. Obviously both before and after the
creation of the special authority, the governor remains the executive
head, responsible for the administration of the laws. The report of the
governor of Rhode Island just at the time at which the legislature was
setting up the new board4 illustrates the possibility of a comprehensive
view of the situation through his annual message. It will be brought
out at a later point that the resumption by the governor of these re-
sponsibilities is not yet beyond the range of possibility.5 In these early
acts, the interesting points are (1) the scope of the work, (2) the extent
to which administrative duties were assigned, (3) the degree to which
the element of control entered in, as for example, when the New York
statute prescribed a penalty in case officials of institutions refused to
give the information requested.
¹ Arkansas, Colorado, Connecticut, Florida (Board of commissioners state insti-
tutions); Indiana, Louisiana, Maine, Maryland (state aid and charities); Massachu-
setts, Michigan, Missouri, Montana (charities and reform); New Hampshire, New
York, North Carolina, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee,
Virginia, Wyoming.
2 Arizona, Iowa, Kansas, Kentucky, New Hampshire, North Dakota, Washing-
ton, West Virginia, and Wisconsin.
³ California, Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, Ohio, and Vermont.
4 Sec. II, Document 9.
5 See pp. 502 and 505.
❝ Sec. I, Document 6, A, par. 4.
A
THE CREATION OF STATE BOARDS
OF STATE CHARITIES
I. The Massachusetts Board of State Charities¹
SECTION 1. The governor, with the advice and consent of the coun-
cil, shall appoint five persons, who, together with the general agent
and secretary hereinafter mentioned, shall constitute the board of state
charities. One of the persons so appointed shall hold office for one
year; one of them for two years and one for three years; one for four
years and one for five years, unless sooner removed. Appointments
to fill vacancies, caused by death, resignation or removal before the
expiration of terms, may be made for the residue of such terms by
the governor and council; and all appointments to fill vacancies caused
by expiration of terms shall be made in the same manner.
SEC. 2. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall appoint some suitable person as general agent of state charities,
who shall hold his office for three years, unless sooner removed. He
shall be a member of the board of state charities, ex officio, and shall,
subject to the control and direction of the said board, oversee and con-
duct its out-door business, especially the examination of paupers and
lunatics, to ascertain their places of settlement and means of support,
or who may be responsible therefor; the removal of paupers and luna-
tics to their usual homes; the prosecution of cases of settlement and
bastardy; the collection of emigrant head-money and the bonding of
suspicious persons, and all and singular the duties now devolved by law
upon the superintendent of alien passengers² for the city of Boston.
SEC. 3. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall appoint some suitable person to be secretary of the board of state
charities. He shall hold his office three years, unless sooner removed.
He shall keep an accurate record of the proceedings of the board and
shall perform such clerical service as they may require. He shall, under
the direction and control of the board, examine the returns of the sev-
I "An Act in Relation to State Charitable and Correctional Institutions, April
29, 1863," Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the
Year 1863, chap. 240.
[See above, Part I, Sec. II, Documents 13 and 14.]
247
248
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
eral cities and towns in relation to the support of paupers therein, and
in relation to births, deaths and marriages, and he shall prepare a series
of interrogatories to the several institutions of charity, reform and cor-
rection, supported wholly or in part by the Commonwealth, or the sev-
eral counties thereof, with a view to illustrate in his annual report the
causes and best treatment of pauperism, crime, disease and insanity.
He shall also arrange and publish in his said report all desirable infor-
mation concerning the industrial and material interests of the Com-
monwealth, bearing upon these subjects, and shall have free access to
all reports and returns now required by law to be made; and he may
also propose such general investigations as may be approved by the
board. He shall be paid, annually, the sum of two thousand dollars
and his actual traveling expenses.
SEC. 4. The board of state charities shall be provided with suitable
rooms in the state house. They shall hold meetings on the first Wed-
nesday of every month. They may make such rules and orders for the
regulation of their own proceedings as they may deem necessary. They
shall investigate and supervise the whole system of the public chari-
table and correctional institutions of the Commonwealth, and shall
recommend such changes and additional provisions as they may deem
necessary for their economical and efficient administration. They
shall have full power to transfer pauper inmates from one charitable
institution or lunatic hospital to another, and for this purpose to
grant admittances and discharges to such pauper inmates, but shall
have no power to make purchases for the various institutions. They
shall receive no compensation for their services except their actual
traveling expenses, which shall be allowed and paid.
SEC. 5. The board of state charities shall annually prepare and
print for the use of the legislature a full and complete report of all their
doings during the year preceding, stating fully and in detail all ex-
penses incurred, all officers and agents employed, with a report of the
secretary and general agent, embracing all the respective proceedings
and expenses during the year, and showing the actual condition of all
the state institutions under their control, with such suggestions as
they deem necessary and pertinent.
SEC. 6. The board of commissioners in relation to alien passengers
and state paupers, and the office of superintendent of alien passengers
in the city of Boston are hereby abolished, and the duties now required
by law to be performed by the incumbents of said offices shall be per-
formed by the secretary and general agent herein provided for, subject
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
249
to the control and direction of the board of state charities. No com-
pensation shall be allowed for this service except actual traveling ex-
penses.
SEC. 7. The general agent shall be paid annually the sum of two
thousand dollars in full for all his services, and his actual traveling
expenses. The general agent and secretary, subject to the approval of
the board, may employ such assistants, and incur such expenses as they
may deem necessary, within the limits of the annual appropriations;
and the balance of appropriations already made for the alien com-
missioners and the superintendent of alien passengers, remaining unex-
pended on the first day of October, eighteen hundred and sixty-three,
shall be held subject to the requirements of the board.
SEC. 8. The secretary and general agent shall respectively give
bond to the treasurer of the Commonwealth, with sufficient sureties,
for the faithful performance of their duties, in such sums as may be
required in their commissions.
SEC. 9. The expenses of the lunatic hospitals for the support of
lunatics not having known settlements in this state committed thereto,
shall be paid by the Commonwealth at the same rates charged for
other lunatics residing therein, not exceeding two dollars and twenty-
five cents a week for each lunatic.
2. Health, Lunacy, and Charity¹
SECTION 1. The state board of health, the board of state charities,
the boards of trustees of the state reform school and the state industrial
school, the boards of inspectors of the state primary school, the state
almshouse, and the state workhouse, the advisory boards of women to
the inspectors of the state almshouse and of the state primary school,
and to the trustees of the state reform school, and the visiting agency
created by chapter three hundred and fifty-nine of the acts of the year
eighteen hundred and seventy, are hereby abolished.
SEC. 2. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall appoint nine persons, who shall constitute a state board of health,
lunacy and charity. They shall hold their offices for five years: Pro-
vided, That the terms of office of the nine first appointed shall be so ar-
ranged that the term of one shall expire in five years, and the terms of
two in four, three, two years, and one year respectively; and the va-
1"An Act to Create a State Board of Health, Lunacy and Charity, April 30,
1879," Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the Year
1879, chap. 291.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
cancies so created, as well as all vacancies occurring otherwise shall be
filled by appointment or re-appointment by the governor and council.
SEC. 3. The board shall have all the powers and duties and may
exercise all the functions of the boards abolished by section one hereof,
and of all their bureaus and agents, including the agency thereby abol-
ished, except as hereinafter provided; and said board may assign any
of its powers and duties to agents appointed for the purpose, and may
execute any of its functions by such agents, or by committees appoint-
ed from and by said board.
SEC. 4. Said board shall have general supervision over all the state,
charitable and reformatory institutions mentioned herein, including
the state lunatic hospitals, the state almshouse, the state workhouse,
the state primary school, the state reform school, and the state indus-
trial school for girls. And said board may, when directed by the gover-
nor, assume and exercise the powers of the boards of trustees of said
institutions, in any matter relating to the management thereof, ex-
cepting the trusts herein mentioned.
SEC. 5. Said board shall act as commissioners of lunacy with power
to investigate the question of the insanity and condition of any person
committed to any lunatic hospital or asylum, public or private, or re-
strained of his liberty by reason of alleged insanity, at any place within
this Commonwealth; and shall discharge any person, so committed or
restrained, if in their opinion such person is not insane, or can be cared
for after such discharge, without danger to others, and with benefit to
such person. And the members of said board, in person or by agents,
shall visit and inspect every private asylum or receptacle for the insane
within the Commonwealth, at least once in every six months.
SEC. 7. Said board, with the consent of the governor, shall appoint
such officers as are necessary, and fix their compensation, within the
limits of the annual appropriation. Said board shall be provided with
rooms at the state house, and shall hold meetings each month on a day
fixed by said board, and at such other times as may be needful. The
board shall make its own by-laws, and shall make a report of its doings
to the governor and council, on or before the thirty-first day of Decem-
ber in each year, such report being made up to the thirtieth day of
September inclusive. It shall embody in its report a properly classi-
fied and tabulated statement of the receipts and expenses of said board
and of each of the several institutions named in this act for the said
year, and a corresponding classified and tabulated statement of their
estimates for the year ensuing, with its opinion as to the necessity or
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
25I
expediency of appropriations in accordance with said estimates; but
this provision shall not apply to estimates for the ordinary expenses of
lunatic hospitals. Said report shall also present a concise review of the
work of the several institutions herein named for the year preceding,
with such suggestions and recommendations as to said institutions,
and the charitable, reformatory, and health interests of the state, as
may be deemed expedient. The members of said board and the mem-
bers of the boards of trustees of the state institutions herein named
shall receive no compensation for their services; but their travelling
and other necessary expenses shall be allowed and paid; and no person
employed by the board shall be a member thereof.
SEC. 8. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall appoint a board of seven trustees, two of whom shall be women,
who shall have charge of the government of the state reform school
at Westborough, the state industrial school for girls at Lancaster, and
the state primary school at Monson; and shall be known as the Trus-
tees of the State Primary and Reform Schools. They shall hold office
five years: Provided, That the terms of the seven first appointed shall
be so arranged that the term of two shall expire in one year, two in two
years, one in three years, one in four years and one in five years; and
the vacancies so arising, as well as vacancies otherwise occurring, shall
be filled by appointment or re-appointment by the governor and coun-
cil. And no person employed by the board and receiving compensation
shall be a member thereof. Said board of trustees shall be a corpora-
tion, for the purpose of taking, holding, and investing, to themselves
and their successors, in trust for the Commonwealth, any grant or de-
vise of lands, and any gift or bequest of money or other personal prop-
erty, made for the use of the institutions of which they are trustees, or
either of them; and they shall succeed to the trusts and powers hereto-
fore held or acquired by the boards of trustees, and the treasurers of
the state reform and the state industrial schools, and said board of
trustees shall have the powers and perform the duties of the trustees
and inspectors of the institutions named in this section, except as other-
wise provided in this act.
SEC. 9. The governor, with the advice and consent of the council,
shall appoint five persons, including two women, who shall be known
as the Board of Trustees of the State Almshouse, and who shall have
the powers and perform the duties now had and performed by the in-
spectors of said almshouse. They shall hold office for three years; but
of the first appointed, two shall hold office for three years, two for two
252
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
years and one for one year; and all vacancies so occurring as well as
vacancies otherwise arising shall be filled as above by appointment or
re-appointment. And a like board of five shall be appointed and com-
missioned as above, and shall be known as the Board of Trustees of
the State Workhouse, and shall have all the powers, and perform all
the duties now had and performed by the inspectors of said work-
house, and make all rules and regulations for the government of the
same. And no person employed by either board shall be a member
thereof.
SEC. 10. The superintendents and physicians of all the state in-
stitutions herein named, except the lunatic hospitals, shall be elected
annually and their compensation fixed by the board of trustees having
charge of each institution respectively, said compensation having first
been approved by the governor and council; and the other officers shall
hereafter be appointed, and their compensation fixed by the superin-
tendents with the approval of the trustees: Provided, That the
amount paid for such salaries shall not exceed in the aggregate the sum
appropriated by the legislature for the purpose. The officers of the
state lunatic hospitals shall be appointed and paid as they now are.
SEC. 11. All laws applying to the boards, bureaus and agencies
hereby abolished shall apply to the board created by section two of this
act. All acts and parts of acts inconsistent herewith are hereby re-
pealed.
3. A Prison Commission'
SECTION 1. The governor, with the advice and consent of the coun-
cil, shall, as soon as may be after the passage of this act, appoint five
commissioners of prisons, two of whom shall be women, whose terms
of office shall expire as provided in this section. On the first Wednesday
of July in each year, the term of office of the senior member of the
board, as they stand arranged in the list of their appointments, shall
terminate, and the name of the person appointed to fill the vacancy
shall be placed at the bottom of the list; and other vacancies may at
any time be filled, and the name of the person appointed substituted in
the list for the remainder of the vacant term. No member of the board
of commissioners of prisons shall receive any compensation; but the
actual personal expenses of any member while engaged in official duties
I Extract from "An Act to Establish a Board of Commissioners of Prisons,
April 30, 1879," Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in
the Year 1879, chap. 294.
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253
shall be allowed and paid. No member of the board of commissioners
of prisons shall be concerned or interested, directly or indirectly, in any
contract, purchase, or sale, made on account of any prison in the Com-
monwealth.
SEC. 2. The commissioners of prisons shall elect a secretary, who
shall be their executive officer, and shall hold his office during their
pleasure. He shall perform or superintend the work prescribed in this
act, and such other duties as the commissioners may require. He shall
receive from the treasury an annual salary, payable in the manner pre-
scribed by law, of two thousand dollars, and his necessary expenses in-
curred in the performance of his official duties. The secretary of said
board shall not be ex officio a member thereof, but the board may,
whenever they deem it necessary, elect one of their members secretary
pro tempore, who may in the absence of the secretary perform the duties
of that officer.
-
SEC. 3. The commissioners of prisons shall, as far as practicable,
classify all prisoners held under sentence in all the jails and houses of
correction in the state, or that may be committed thereto at any time
hereafter, having reference to sex, age, character, condition, and of-
fences and in such a manner as to promote the reformation, safe cus-
tody, and economy of support, of the prisoners, and the separation of
male and female prisoners; and for this purpose may remove prisoners
from one jail to another jail in the same or in any other county, and
from one house of correction to another in the same or in any other
county; and the said prisoners shall serve the remainder of their terms
of sentence in the prisons to which they shall be so removed from
time to time.
SEC. 4. The commissioners of prisons may remove from time to
time female prisoners held under sentence in any jail or house of cor-
rection in the Commonwealth, the work-house at Bridgewater, or in
the house of industry at Deer Island, to the reformatory prison for
women, or therefrom to any of the aforesaid institutions, where the
said prisoners shall serve the remainder of their terms of sentence.
SEC. 5. Upon the application of the county commissioners of any
county, the commissioners of prisons may cause any person confined in
any house of correction under sentence imposed for any offence men-
tioned in section twenty-eight' of chapter one hundred and sixty-five
¹ [These sections have to do with rogués, vagabonds and other idle and dissolute
persons and other misdemeanants of that general character who go about begging,
etc., and provide for commitment of such to the work-house.]
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of the General Statutes, and chapter two hundred and thirty-five of
the acts of the year eighteen hundred and sixty-six, to be transferred
with the mittimus to the state work-house, there to be kept during the
remainder of the sentence in the same manner as if such person had
been originally committed thereto; and the transfer shall be made in
the manner prescribed in sections seven, eight, and nine of this act.
The commissioners of prisons shall have the same power to discharge
any persons so removed as is now vested in the county commissioners.
SEC. 6. The county from which any person is removed under the
provisions of section five of this act shall pay for his support such sum
per week as may be fixed by the board of state charities, and all moneys
so received shall be paid into the state treasury in the manner now pro-
vided by law.
SEC. 7. Any officer authorized to serve criminal processes in the
county from which a prisoner is sentenced or removed under the pro-
visions of this act may serve the process by which such prisoner is com-
mitted or removed to any other county, or to the reformatory prison
for women, or to the state work-house.
SEC. 8. All the costs and expenses of the commitment and removal
of any prisoner under this act shall be paid by the county from which
such prisoner is removed, and shall be taxed and allowed in the same
manner as other criminal costs are now taxed and allowed. . .
SEC. 10. The commissioners of prisons shall from time to time pre-
pare rules and regulations, consistent with the laws of the state, for the
direction of the officers of each of the jails or houses of correction in dis-
charge of their duty, the government, employment, and discipline of
the convicts, and the custody and preservation of the public property;
and they shall cause authentic copies thereof to be laid before the gov-
ernor and council, who may approve, annul, or modify the same. All
jailers of jails, masters or keepers of houses of correction, county com-
missioners, and the directors of public institutions in the city of Boston,
shall continue to have and exercise the same powers and duties in refer-
ence to said jails and houses of correction that they now have, except
so far as is otherwise provided in this act; but they shall not make any
rules and regulations inconsistent with the rules and regulations estab-
lished by the commissioners of prisons under this act.
SEC. 11. The commissioners of prisons, or one of them, shall visit
all the jails and houses of correction in the state once in six months,
and oftener if they see fit, for the purpose of inspecting the books and
all the concerns of said jails and houses of correction, and ascertaining
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
255
whether the laws, rules, or regulations are duly observed, the officers
competent and faithful, and the convicts properly governed and em-
ployed; and for this purpose shall have all the powers in respect to such
jails and houses of correction that the county commissioners or the di-
rectors for public institutions in the city of Boston now. have as in-
spectors of prisons in their several counties.
SEC. 12. The commissioners of prisons shall have the general su-
pervision of the state prison and of the reformatory prison for women,
and shall make all necessary rules and regulations, consistent with the
laws of the Commonwealth, for the government and direction of the
officers of the said prisons in the discharge of their duties, the govern-
ment, employment, discipline, and instruction of the convicts therein,
and the custody and preservation of the property connected with said
prisons. And they shall have placed in each of the institutions herein
named a lock letter-box, accessible to the inmates, the key of which
shall be kept by the commissioners, and every inmate shall have the
right to deposit therein any communication in writing under seal, ad-
dressed to the commissioners or any member of the board. They shall
also make such regulations in regard to the rations, clothing, and bed-
ding of the convicts in said prisons, as the health, well being, and cir-
cumstances of each convict may require; but all diet, rations, clothing,
beds, and bedding shall be of good quality, and in sufficient quantity
for the sustenance and comfort of the convicts; and said bedding shall
include mattress, blanket, and pillow. No intoxicating liquors shall be
furnished to the convicts. Said commissioners, with the warden of the
state prison, and with the superintendent of the reformatory prison for
women, respectively, shall cause provision to be made in said prisons or
their dependencies for keeping the convicts therein employed in some
useful labor suited to their respective capacities. As soon as may be
after the establishment of any rules or regulations in regard to said
prisons, as provided in this section, the commissioners of prisons shall
cause authentic copies thereof to be laid before the governor and coun-
cil, who shall approve, annul, or modify the same.
M
SEC. 13. The deputy-warden, and all other officers of the state pris-
on except the assistant watchmen, shall be appointed by the warden,
subject to the approval of the commissioners of prisons, and shall hold
their offices during the pleasure of the warden and said commissioners.
The assistant watchmen shall be appointed by the warden, and shall
hold office during his pleasure. The warden shall immediately report
to the commissioners of prisons all appointments made by him.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 14. The commissioners of prisons, or one of them, shall visit
the state prison and the reformatory prison for women at least once in
each month; and said prisons shall be visited by a majority of the board
of commissioners once in three months, and oftener if they think neces-
sary, for the purpose of inspecting the books and all the concerns of the
prisons, and ascertaining whether the laws, rules, and regulations relat-
ing to the said prisons are duly observed, the officers competent and
faithful, and the convicts properly governed and employed. The full
board of commissioners shall also visit said prisons semi-annually, and
make a thorough examination thereof.
SEC. 16. Every officer of the state prison holding his place at the
pleasure of the warden of the state prison and the commissioners of
prisons, and every officer and employee of the reformatory prison for
women holding a position at the pleasure of the superintendent of said
prison and said commissioners, shall, if found unfaithful or incompe-
tent, or known to use intoxicating liquors as a beverage, be by them
forthwith removed. In case of a disagreement between said warden or
said superintendent and the commissioners of prisons in relation to the
removal of any such officer or employee, the subject may be referred
to the governor and council, who may make such removal.
SEC. 17. All books and documents relating to the concerns of the
state prison and the reformatory prison for women shall at all times be
open to the examination of the commissioners of prisons, who shall
semi-annually carefully examine said books, and compare them with
the vouchers and documents relating thereto. They may employ an
expert accountant to make an examination of said books, vouchers,
and documents, if at any time they deem such an examination neces-
sary.
•
THE REFORMATORY PRISON FOR WOMEN
SEC. 23. All officers and employees of the reformatory prison for
women, except the superintendent, treasurer and steward, and chap-
lain, and physician, shall be appointed by the superintendent, subject
to the approval of the commissioners of prisons, and shall hold their
offices during the pleasure of the superintendent and said commis-
sioners.
SEC. 24. The commissioners of prisons shall be authorized to em-
ploy, and determine the compensation to be paid to the engineer, the
farmer, the gatekeeper, the stablemen, if any, and other necessary male
servants or hired laborers of the reformatory prison for women; which
compensation shall be paid by the treasurer of said prison.
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257
SEC. 25. The commissioners of prisons shall have the same power
of discharging persons confined for any cause in the reformatory prison
for women that county commissioners have of discharging prisoners
from houses of correction. There shall also be vested in said commis-
sioners of prisons all the powers in relation to the reformatory prison
for women (which are not by the provisions of chapter three hundred
and eighty-five of the acts of the year eighteen hundred and seventy-
four given to the superintendent, and treasurer and steward) that
county commissioners have in relation to houses of correction.
SEC. 26. The keepers of jails, and masters of houses of correction,
and the superintendents of houses of industry and work-houses, shall,
whenever a female is committed to the prison under their respective
charge, forthwith transmit to the secretary of the commissioners of
prisons such an abstract of the mittimus on which she is committed as
the said commissioners may prescribe.
*/
REPORTS
SEC. 33. The commissioners of prisons shall annually, in the first
week of the month of January, make to the legislature a full and com-
plete report of their doings during the year preceding, stating fully
and in detail all expenses incurred, and showing the actual condition
on the thirtieth day of September of the state prison, the reformatory
prison for women, and the jails and houses of correction in all the coun-
ties of the state, the number of inmates in each, with such suggestions
and recommendations as they may deem proper. Said report shall em-
brace statements which shall be made to them by the warden of the
state prison, and the superintendent and the treasurer and the steward
of the reformatory prison for women, of the general condition of said
prisons, the amount of liabilities and of outstanding claims, giving the
names of debtors and creditors, the sums due to or from each, and time
when payable. It shall also contain detailed accounts of the expendi-
tures for the said prisons for the year ending on the thirtieth day of
September; the cost of all changes made in the buildings of said pris-
ons; the names, position, pay, and allowances of the several officers
and employees; the amount received for the labor of prisoners; the
names of contractors for whom the labor was performed; a copy of all
contracts for the labor of prisoners in said prisons; the kinds of labor;
the number of days, and pay per day, of each prisoner; the average cost
of the support of each inmate; the number of volumes in the libraries in
said prisons; and such other facts in relation to said state prison and
C
258
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
said reformatory prison for women as they deem proper. They shall
also present in said report estimates of the sums which will be required
to meet the expenses of said prisons for the following year, specifying
in detail the amount for salaries, for subsistence, for clothing, for bed-
ding, for fuel, for repairs, and for incidentals, together with the prob-
able income of each prison from labor and from all other sources.
SEC. 34. The power and authority given to the warden and in-
spectors in section forty-three of chapter one hundred and seventy-
nine of the General Statutes, and the power and authority given to,
and the duties required of, the inspectors of prisons, in the several
sections of said chapter not repealed by or incorporated in this act, are
hereby transferred to the commissioners of prisons.
SEC. 35. The board of inspectors of the state prisons, the commis-
sioners of prisons, the agent for discharged convicts, and the advisory
board of women to said commissioners, are hereby abolished.
4. Health Separated from Lunacy and Charity
SECTION 1. The governor with the advice and consent of the coun-
cil shall appoint seven persons who shall constitute the state board of
health. The persons so appointed shall hold their offices for seven
years; provided that the terms of office of the seven first appointed
shall be so arranged that the term of one shall expire each year. All
vacancies on said board, whether occurring by expiration of term, or
otherwise, shall be filled by the governor with the advice and consent
of the council.
SEC. 2. The board shall be provided with rooms at the expense of
the state and shall hold meetings each month on a day fixed by itself,
and at such other times as may be needful. It shall make its own by-
laws, and shall make a report of its doings to the governor and council
on or before the thirty-first day of December in each year; such report
being made up to the thirtieth day of September inclusive.
SEC. 3. The board shall elect a secretary, who shall be the execu-
tive officer and shall hold office during the pleasure of the board. He
shall perform or superintend the work prescribed by law for the state
board of health, and as directed by the board, and such other duties as
the board may require. He shall not be ex-officio a member of the
¹ Extract from "An Act to Establish a State Board of Health, March 24,
1886,” Acts and Resolves Passed by the General Court of Massachusetts in the Year
1886, chap. 101. Lunacy and Charity were separated in 1898. See below, Part III,
Sec. I, Document 6. See Acts of 1898, chap. 433.
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
259
board, but the board may, whenever it shall be deemed necessary,
elect one of the members secretary pro tempore who may in the ab-
sence or disability of the secretary perform the duties of that officer.
The secretary shall receive from the treasury an annual salary of twen-
ty-five hundred dollars and his necessary travelling expenses incurred
in the performance of official duties. No member of the board shall re-
ceive any compensation; but the actual personal expenses of any mem-
ber while engaged in the duties of the board shall be paid from the
treasury, after they have been audited by the board. All other neces-
sary expenses arising in the secretary's office or from the discharge of
the duties of the board shall be paid out of the treasury in the same
manner as those of the different departments of the government.
SEC. 5. The board heretofore known as the state board of health,
lunacy and charity shall be hereafter called the state board of lunacy
and charity, and shall have and exercise all the powers and duties here-
tofore had and exercised by the state board of health, lunacy and char-
ity, except such as are by the force and effect of this act prescribed for
the state board of health.
·
SEC. 6. When this act shall take full effect, the employment of all
officers and other persons then in the service of the health department
of the state board of health, lunacy and charity, shall cease and deter-
mine.
SEC. 7. This act shall take effect so far as the appointment and
qualification of members of the board and the election of a secretary
are concerned, upon its passage; and in all other respects shall take
effect the first day of June next.
5. The Ohio Board¹
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the General Assembly of the State of
Ohio: That the governor shall appoint five persons, who shall consti-
tute the board of state charities; two of the persons so appointed shall
1 "An Act in Relation to State Charitable and Correctional Institutions, April
17, 1867,” General and Local Laws and Joint Resolutions Passed by the General As-
sembly of the State of Ohio, LXIV (1867), 257–58.
It should be noted that there were in Ohio at this time nine institutions:
three asylums for the insane, a school for the deaf and dumb, a school for the blind,
and a school for the idiotic. There were a penitentiary, a reformatory, and a house
of refuge. The year before (1866) county homes for dependent children had been
authorized (see Homer Folks, The Care of Destitute, Neglected and Delinquent
Children, and General and Local Laws of the State of Ohio, LXIII [1866], 45–46).
No appropriation was made for the expenses of the board, and its work was made
260
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
hold office for one year, two of them for two years, and one for three
years, unless sooner removed. Appointments to fill vacancies caused
by death, resignation or removal before the expiration of terms, may
be made for the residue of such terms, in the same manner as original
appointments, and all appointments to fill vacancies caused by the
expiration of terms shall be made in the same manner.
SEC. 2. The board of state charities shall be provided with suitable
rooms in the state house. They shall hold meetings on the first Wednes-
day of every month. They may make such rules and orders for the
regulation of their own proceedings as they may deem necessary. They
shall investigate the whole system of the public charitable and correc-
tional institutions of the state, and shall recommend such changes and
additional provisions as they may deem necessary for their economical
and efficient administration. They shall receive no compensation for
their services except their actual traveling expenses, which shall be
allowed and paid.
SEC. 3. The board of state charities shall annually prepare and
print for the use of the legislature, a full and complete report of all their
doings during the year preceding, stating fully and in detail all expenses
incurred, all officers and agents employed, with a report of the secre-
tary and general agent, embracing all the respective proceedings and
expenses during the year, and showing the actual condition of all the
state institutions under their control, with such suggestions as they
may deem necessary and pertinent.
possible only by the volunteer services of Rev. A. G. Byers, chaplain of the State
Penitentiary. The board was abolished in 1872 and reorganized in 1876 on the
recommendation of Governor Rutherford B. Hayes, then serving his third term
(see for a history of the early activities of the board the Fifteenth Annual Report
[1890] and the Twenty-fifth Annual Report [1900]). In 1911 there was created the
State Board of Administration, a salaried board of four persons besides a fiscal
supervisor and a secretary, while the State Board of Charities, increased in 1913 to
nine in number, continued to exercise supervisory or advisory functions until 1921,
when the Department of Public Welfare was created (see W. H. Allen, Report on
One Head for Four in Administering Welfare Institutions, submitted to Ohio General
Assembly Joint Legislative Committee on Administrative Reorganization, 1920;
Laws of Ohio (1921), p. 106; and below, Part III, Section I, Document 11).
With the early work of the board is associated especially the name of Gen.
Roeliff Brinkerhoff (born June 28, 1828, died June 4, 1911), a lawyer, a man of
affairs of French Huguenot and Dutch descent, a brigadier-general in the Union
Army. He became a member of the board in 1878 and served thirty-three years.
He was president of the National Conference of Social Work in 1879. See Recollec-
tions of a Lifetime, by General Roeliff Brinkerhoff (Cincinnati, 1900).
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261
6. The New York Board of Commissioners of
Public Charities
A. A SUPERVISORY STATE AUTHORITY¹
SECTION 1. Within thirty days after the passage of this act, the
Governor, by and with the consent of the senate, shall appoint eight
persons, one residing in each judicial district of the State, to be called
and known as the board of State commissioners of public charities.
SEC. 2. One of the persons so appointed shall hold his office for one
year, one for two years, one for three years, one for four years, one for
five years, one for six years, one for seven years and one for eight years,
as indicated by the Governor on making the nominations; and all ap-
pointments thereafter, except to fill vacancies, shall be made for eight
years.
SEC. 3. Before entering upon their duties, the said commissioners
shall respectively take and subscribe to the constitutional oath required
1“An Act to Provide for the Appointment of a Board of Commissioners of
Public Charities, and Defining Their Duties and Powers, May 23, 1867," Laws of the
State of New York (1867), chap. 951.
The problem before the New York Board was in volume and in complexity
more serious and difficult than was the case in any other state. Attention has been
called to the demand for a state authority in the field of charities and to the recogni-
tion of the immigration problem and of the prison problem as requiring separate
administrative agencies (see above, Part I, Section II, Document 18).
Two courses of development should be mentioned: (1) the elaboration of other
agencies for control and supervision without abolishing the Boards of Trustees of the
state institutions and without eliminating the State Board.
In 1873 there was created the salaried position of Commissioner in Lunacy,
who was replaced in 1889 by a salaried Commission in Lunacy of three, to whom
increased powers were given. In 1894 the Fiscal Supervisor was also authorized to
require reports from the institutions. After 1894 the State Board of Charities, the
State Board of Lunacy, and a re-created Commission of Prisons were permanent
constitutional bodies.
The multiplication of agencies for control was said to result in delay and con-
fusion for the institutions (see Section III, Document 9), and the action of the board
was itself inadequate to safeguard the very interests for whose protection it was
created (see summary of Commissioner Strong, Part II, Section III, Document 13,
and Fairlie, Centralization in New York, "Columbia University Studies," Vol. IX,
No. 3.
2. The development of a great private society intended to amplify and extend
the powers of the State Board, namely, the State Charities Aid Association, which
reported to the State Board of Charities and, after 1898, to the State Board of
Lunacy, presents an extremely interesting illustration of co-operation between
public and private organizations. (See page 296.)
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of other State officers, which shall be filed in the office of the Secretary
of State who is hereby authorized and directed to administer such oath.
The said commissioners shall have power to elect a president out of its
own number, and such other officers and agents as it may deem proper,
and to adopt such by-laws and regulations for the transaction of its
business and the management of its affairs as it may consider expedient.
SEC. 4. The said commissioners shall have full power at all times to
look into and examine the condition of the several institutions which
they may be authorized by this act to visit, financially and otherwise;
to inquire and examine into their methods of instruction, and the gov-
ernment and management of their inmates; the official conduct of
trustees, directors and other officers and employees of the same; the
condition of the buildings, grounds and other property connected there-
with, and into all other matters pertaining to their usefulness and good
management; and for these purposes they shall have free access to the
grounds, buildings and all books and papers relating to said institutions;
and all persons now or hereafter in any manner connected with the
same, are hereby directed and required to give such information, and
afford such facilities for inspection, as the said commissioners may re-
quire; and any neglect or refusal on the part of any officer or person
connected with such institution, to comply with the requirements of
this section, shall subject the offender to a penalty of two hundred
and fifty dollars, to be sued for and collected by the said commis-
sioners, in their name of office.
đaja
SEC. 5. The said commissioners, or some one of them, are hereby
authorized and required, at least once in each year, and as much oftener
as they may deem necessary, to visit all the charitable and correctional
institutions of the State, excepting prisons, receiving State aid, and as-
certain whether the moneys appropriated for their aid are or have been
economically and judiciously expended; whether the objects of the
several institutions are accomplished; whether the laws in relation to
them are fully complied with; whether all parts of the State are equally
benefited by said institutions, and the various other matters referred
to in the fourth section of this act; and report in writing to the legis-
lature, at the opening of each annual session of the same, the result of
their investigations, together with such other information and recom-
mendations as they may deem proper.
SEC. 6. The said commissioners, or some one of them, shall also,
at least once during the first two years of their appointment, and also
at least once during each two years thereafter, visit and examine into
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263
the condition of each of the city and county alms or poor-house, and
shall possess all the powers relative thereto, as mentioned in the fourth
section of this act; and shall report to the legislature, in writing, the re-
sult of their examination, in connection with the annual report above
mentioned.
SEC. 7. Whenever any charitable or correctional institutions, sub-
ject to the inspection herein provided for, require State aid for any
purpose other than their usual expenses, the said commissioners, or
some or one of them, shall inquire carefully and fully into the ground
of such want, the purpose or purposes for which it is proposed to use
the same, the amount which will be required to accomplish the desired
object, and into any other matters connected therewith; and in the
annual report of each year they shall give the result of such inquiries,
together with their own opinions and conclusions relating to the whole
subject.
SEC. 8. The said commissioners, or any one of them, are hereby
authorized to administer oaths and examine any person or persons in
relation to any matters connected with the inquiries authorized by this
act.
SEC. 9. The said board of commissioners shall have power and they
are hereby authorized to appoint a clerk, who shall hold his office dur-
ing their pleasure, with a salary not exceeding fifteen hundred dollars
per annum, who shall, when required, act as an accountant, from time
to time, as they may have occasion to investigate the financial or other
affairs of any of the institutions affected by this act, or the accounts or
official conduct of any of their officers; and when acting as such ac-
countant, he shall, in addition, be allowed his actual traveling ex-
penses.
SEC. 11. The said commissioners, or some or any one of them, shall
attend upon the sessions of the legislature whenever any committee
of either house shall require their attendance. . .
SEC. 13. The said commissioners shall receive no compensation
for their time or services, but the actual expenses of each one of them,
while engaged in the performance of the duties of their office, and any
actual outlay for any necessary aid or assistance required in examina-
tions or investigation, on being made out and verified by the affidavit
of the commissioner making the charge, shall be paid quarterly by the
Treasurer, on the warrant of the Comptroller, out of any moneys in
the treasury not otherwise appropriated, and the clerk of the board
shall be paid in like manner.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 14. No member of the board of said commissioners shall be,
directly or indirectly, interested in any contract for building, repairing
or furnishing any of the institutions which by this act they are author-
ized to visit and inspect, nor shall any trustee or other officers of any
of the institutions embraced in this act, be eligible to the office of com-
missioner hereby created.
B. POWER GIVEN THE BOARD TO APPOINT COUNTY BOARDS
OF VISITORS'
SECTION 8. The said board shall have power, by a resolution to be
entered on its minutes, subject to such terms and regulations as it may
prescribe, to designate three or more suitable persons in any county to
act as visitors, in said county, of the several poor-houses and other in-
stitutions therein, subject to the visitation of the board, in aid of and
as representatives of said board, except such institutions as have a
board of managers appointed by the State; and all officers and others in
charge of such institutions shall admit to said institutions all such per-
sons so designated, upon a production of a copy of such resolution,
certified by the president or secretary of said board, to visit, examine,
and inspect the grounds and buildings of every institution, and every
part thereof, and all its hospitals and other arrangements, and to have
free access to all its inmates. Any officer, superintendent or person in
charge of any such institution, who shall refuse to admit any person
so designated, or shall refuse to give said visitors all requisite facilities
for the examination and inspection as herein provided for, shall be
subject to a penalty of two hundred and fifty dollars for each refusal,
which penalty may be sued for and recovered in the name of the people
of the State, by the attorney-general, and the sum so recovered shall
be paid into the treasury of this State.
7. Illinois Board of Commissioners of Public Charities²
SECTION 1. That within ten days after the passage of this act, the
governor, by and with the consent of the senate, shall appoint five
• Extract from "An Act Further to Define the Powers and Duties of the Board
of State Commissioners of Public Charities, and to Change the Name of the Board
to the State Board of Charities, May 21, 1873," Laws of the State of New York
(1873), chap. 571.
2 “An Act to Provide for the Appointment of a Board of Commissioners of
Public Charities, and Defining Their Duties and Powers, April 9, 1869," Public
Laws of the State of Illinois (1869), pp. 63–66.
No extended comment is made on the Illinois statute. See below, Part II,
Section III, Document 10, for the comments of the Committee on Efficiency and
Economy; Part III, Section I, Document 1, for the law of 1917; and Part III,
Section I, Document 3, for the comment of Mr. Wright, One Man Control.
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
265
persons, to be called and known as "The Board of State Commissioners
of Public Charities." One of the persons so appointed shall hold his
office for one year, one for two years, one for three years, one for four
years, and one for five years, as indicated by the governor in making
the appointments; and all appointments thereafter, except to fill
vacancies, shall be for five years. In case of any vacancy occasioned
by the removal from the state by any such person so appointed, or
death, or resignation, or non-acceptance of the office, or removal from
office by the governor, by any such person so appointed, the governor
shall immediately fill such vacancy; and all appointments made by the
governor when the senate is not in session, shall be valid until the next
session of the senate.
SEC. 2. Before entering upon their duties, the said commissioners
shall respectively, take and subscribe the constitutional oath required
of other state officers, which shall be filed in the office of the secretary of
state, who is hereby authorized and directed to administer such oath.
The said commissioners shall have power to elect a president out of
their number, and such other officers and agents as they may deem
proper, and to adopt such by-laws and regulations for the transaction
of their business, as they may consider expedient.
SEC. 3. The said commissioners shall have full power, at all times,
to look into and examine the condition of the several institutions, which
they may be authorized by this act to visit, financially and otherwise; to
inquire and examine into their methods of instruction, and the govern-
ment and management of their inmates, the official conduct of trustees,
directors, and other officers and employees of the same; the condition
of the buildings, grounds, and other property connected therewith,
and into all other matters pertaining to their usefulness and good man-
agement; and for these purposes they shall have free access to the
grounds, buildings, and all books and papers relating to said institu-
tions; and all persons now or hereafter connected with the same are
hereby directed and required to give such information, and afford such
facilities for inspection, as the said commissioners may require.
SEC. 4. The said commissioners, or some one of them, are hereby
authorized and required, at least twice in each year, and as much oftener
as they may deem necessary, to visit all the charitable and correctional
institutions of the state, excepting prisons receiving state aid, and as-
certain whether the moneys appropriated for their aid are or have
been economically and judiciously expended; whether the objects of
the several institutions are accomplished; whether the laws in relation
10
266
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
to them are fully complied with; whether all parts of the state are
equally benefited by said institutions, and the various other matters
referred to in the third section of this act; and report, in writing, to the
governor, by the fifteenth of December, annually, the result of their
investigations, together with such other information and recommen-
dations as they may deem proper; and the said board of public chari-
ties, or one of them, shall make any special investigation into alleged
abuses in any of said institutions, whenever the governor shall direct,
and report the result of the same to the governor.
SEC. 5. The said commissioners, or one of them, shall also, at least
once each year, visit and examine into the condition of each of the city
and county alms or poor houses, or other places where the insane may
be confined, and shall possess all the powers relative thereto, as men-
tioned in the third section of this act; and shall report to the legislature,
in writing, the result of their examination, in connection with the
annual report above mentioned.
SEC. 6. Whenever any charitable or correctional institutions, sub-
ject to the inspection herein provided for, require state aid for any pur-
pose other than their usual expenses, the said commissioners, or some,
or one of them, shall inquire carefully and fully into the ground of such
want, the purpose or purposes for which it is proposed to use the same,
the amount which will be required to accomplish the desired object,
and into any other matters connected therewith; and in the annual
report of each year they shall give the result of such inquiries, together
with their own opinions and conclusions relating to the whole subject.
SEC. 7. The said commissioners, or any one of them, are hereby au-
thorized to administer oaths, and examine any person or persons, in
relation to any matters connected with the inquiries authorized by
this act.
SEC. 8. The said board of commissioners shall have power, and they
are hereby authorized to appoint a clerk, who shall hold his office dur-
ing their pleasure, with a salary not exceeding dollars per annum,
who shall, when required, act as an accountant, from time to time, as
they may have occasion to investigate the financial or other affairs of
any of the institutions affected by this act, or the accounts or official
conduct of any of their officers; and when acting as such accountant
he shall, in addition, be allowed his actual traveling expenses.
SEC. 9. The number of the board of trustees of the "Hospital for
the Insane," the board of directors of the "Illinois Institution for the
Education of the Deaf and Dumb," the board of directors of the
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267
"Institution for Educating the Blind," and the board of trustees of
the "Soldiers' Orphans' Home," respectively, shall, immediately after
the passage of this act, be, by the governor, reduced to three.
SEC. 10. The said commissioners, or some, or any one of them, shall
attend upon the session of the legislature, whenever any committee of
either house shall require their attendance.
SEC. II. Said board of commissioners shall be furnished by the
secretary of state with the necessary blank books, blanks, and sta-
tionery.
SEC. 12. The said commissioners shall receive no compensation for
their time or services, but the actual expenses of each one of them,
while engaged in the performance of the duties of their office; and any
actual outlay for any actual aid and assistance required in examinations
and investigations, on being made out and verified by the affidavit of
the commissioners making the charge, and approved by the governor,
shall be paid quarterly by the treasurer on the warrant of the auditor of
public accounts, out of any moneys in the treasury not otherwise ap-
propriated; and the clerk of the board shall be paid in like manner.
SEC. 13. No member of the said board of commissioners shall be,
directly or indirectly, interested in any contract for building, repairing
or furnishing any of the institutions which, by this act, they are au-
thorized to visit and inspect; nor shall any trustee or other officer of
any of the institutions embraced in this act be eligible to the office of
commissioner, hereby created.
SEC. 14. The governor is hereby authorized to remove any of the
trustees and directors of any of the institutions named in the ninth
section of this act, whenever, in his opinion, the interests of the state
require such removal; and in case of removal, he shall communicate to
the legislature the cause of such removal.
SEC. 15. No two members of the aforesaid boards of trustees or
directors of said institutions shall be residents of the same county, nor
shall more than one trustee or director aforesaid reside in the county
where said institutions shall be respectively located. The principal of
the "Institution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb," shall con-
tinue to be, ex-officio, a member of the board of directors of that in-
stitution.
268
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
8. The North Carolina Board¹
SECTION 1. The General Assembly of North Carolina do enact: That
the General Assembly shall, immediately on the ratification of this
act, proceed by concurrent vote to select five electors who shall be
styled the Board of Public Charities of the State of North Carolina.
One of the persons so elected shall hold office for one year; one for two
years, one for three years; one for four years, and one for five years,
the term to begin the first of July, 1869. Appointments to fill vacan-
cies in this Board, caused by resignation or removal from the State,
death, or from any other cause, may be made for the residue of such
term by the Governor.
SEC. 2. The Board of Public Charities shall hold regular meetings
on the first Tuesday in January, April, July and October, and as often
besides as they may deem needful. They shall make such rules and
orders for the regulations of their own proceedings as they may deem
proper; they shall investigate and supervise the whole system of the
charitable and penal institutions of the State, and shall recommend
such changes and additional provisions as they may deem needful for
their economical and efficient administration. . . . .
SEC. 3. The general condition of the State as effected by crimes,
vagrancy and pauperism, shall also come under the view of the Board,
and it shall be their duty to report, to the General Assembly, when in
their judgment, it may become needful for the erection of the several
reformatory institutions, whose organization is provided for in article
eleven of the Constitution.
1 "An Act Providing for a Board of Public Charities, and Prescribing the
Duties Thereof, April 10, 1869," Public Laws of the State of North Carolina (1868–
69), chap. 170.
The constitution of 1868 had contained (Art. XI, Sec. 6) a provision to the
effect that competent legislation should provide for the construction and super-
intendence of state penal institutions, county jails, and city police stations; secure
the health and comfort of prisoners; and see to it that male and female prisoners
should never be confined in the same cell. The statute enacted in 1869 placed the
power of appointing the Board of Public Charities in the legislature with the power
to fill vacancies between sessions of the legislature in the governor. The legislature
made no elections after 1873, and the board ceased to meet. In August, 1889, during
the interval between sessions, the governor filled the vacancies, and the board was
reorganized and continued to operate until 1919, when the statute was redrafted
and the present elaborate system inaugurated (see Seventeenth Proceedings of the
National Conference of Charities and Correction [1890], p 339). See Laws of the State
of North Carolina (1917), chap. 170; ibid. (1919), chap. 46; U.S. Children's Bureau
Publication No. 107, p. 44.
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269
SEC. 4. The Board shall also give special attention to the causes of
insanity, defect or loss of the several senses, idiocy, and the deformity
and infirmity of the physical organization. They shall, beside their own
observation, avail themselves of correspondence and exchange of facts
of the labors of others in these departments, and thus be able to afford
the General Assembly data to guide them in future legislation for the
amelioration of the condition of the people, as well as to contribute to
enlighten public opinion and direct it to interests so vital to the pros-
perity of the State.
SEC. 5. Personal visits may be required by the Board, of one or
more of its members, or otherwise, to make careful investigation into
the condition of the several County Jails and alms-houses, and the
treatment of their unfortunate inmates, and report on these points, so
that the provisions of section six, article eleven, of the Constitution
may be enforced.
SEC. 6. Whenever the Board shall have reason to believe that any
insane person, not incurable, is deprived of proper remedial treatment,
and is confined in any alms-house or other place, whether such insane
person is a public charge or otherwise, it shall be the duty of said Board
to cause such insane person to be conveyed to the State Asylum, there
to receive the best medical attention. So also, it shall be their care
that all the unfortunates shall participate in the charities of the State.
5
SEC. 7. The Board may require the superintendent, etc., of the
several charitable and penal institutions of the state to report to them
of any matter relating to its inmates, their manner of instruction and
treatment, with structure of their buildings, and to furnish them any
desired statistics at their command.
►
SEC. 8. The Board of Public Charities shall annually prepare and
submit to the General Assembly a complete and full report of their
doings during the preceding year, showing the actual condition of all
the State institutions under their control, with such suggestions as
they may deem necessary and pertinent, which they shall print.
SEC. 9. This Board shall make a special report to the General
Assembly of 1870, on the cause of crimes, pauperism, etc.
270
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
9. The Pennsylvania Board
A¹
SECTION 1. Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives
of the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania in General Assembly met, and it is
hereby enacted by the authority of the same: That the governor, with the
advice and consent of the Senate, shall, as soon as practicable after the
passage of this act, appoint five commissioners, who, together with the
general agent and secretary hereinafter mentioned, shall constitute a
board of public charities; one of the persons so appointed shall hold
office for one year, one for two years, one for three years, one for four
years and one for five years, unless sooner removed; appointments to
fill vacancies caused by death, resignation or removal before the expira-
tion of terms, may be made for the residue of such terms, by the gover-
nor, subject to the consent of the Senate, and all appointments to fill
vacancies caused by expiration of terms shall be made in the same man-
ner, and shall be for the period of five years each.
SEC. 2. The commissioners, before entering upon their duties, shall,
respectively, take and subscribe the oath required of other state offi-
cers, which shall be filed in the office of the secretary of the common-
wealth, who is hereby authorized and directed to administer said oath;
they shall have power to elect a president out of their own number, to
appoint a general agent and secretary, and to adopt such regulations
for the transaction of the business of the board and the management
of its affairs as they may deem expedient.
SEC. 3. The said board shall be provided with a suitable room in
the State Capitol, in which it shall hold its meetings, and it shall meet
therein at least once in every three months; the time for such regular
meetings to be fixed at the time of its organization; the commissioners
shall receive no compensation for their services but their actual travel-
I "An Act to Create a Board of Public Charities, April 24, 1869," Laws of the
General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania (1869), No. 66.
The development in Pennsylvania has been unlike that in any other state, in
that a portion of the board, three in number, increased by two—a physician of
ten years' practice and a lawyer, a member of the bar of five years' practice-be-
came a committee on lunacy. Only in 1915 a Prison Commission was created from
among the inspectors of the state prisons. Until 1915, one authority covered the
field with a committee specialized to lunacy. In 1921 a department was created,
and in 1922 the statute was amended. The names connected with the early ad-
ministration of the board are Dr. Diller Luther, Cadwalader Biddle, and Dr.
Henry M. Wetherill, secretary of the Committee on Lunacy for a number of
years.
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271
ing and other necessary expenses, which shall be paid by the state
treasurer, upon the certificate of the auditor general.
SEC. 4. The general agent and secretary of the board of public
charities shall hold his office for three years, unless sooner removed; he
shall be a member of the board ex-officio, and it shall be his duty, sub-
ject to the control and direction of said board, to keep a correct record
of its proceedings, perform such clerical services as it may require, over-
see and conduct its out-door business, visit all charitable and correc-
tional institutions in the state at least once in each year, except as
hereinafter provided, and as much oftener as the board may direct,
examine the returns of the several cities, counties, wards, boroughs
and townships in relation to the support of paupers therein, and in rela-
tion to births, deaths and marriages; and he shall prepare a series of
interrogatories, with the necessary accompanying blanks, to the several
institutions of charity, reform and correction in the state, and to those
having charge of the poor in the several counties thereof, or any sub-
division of the same, with a view to illustrate, in his annual report, the
causes and best treatment of pauperism, crime, disease and insanity;
he shall also arrange and publish in his said report all desirable informa-
tion concerning the industrial and material interests of the common-
wealth bearing upon these subjects, and shall have free access to all
reports and returns now required by law to be made; and he may also
propose such general investigations as he may think best for the ap-
proval of the board. He shall be paid annually the sum of three thou-
sand dollars and his actual traveling expenses.
SEC. 5. The said commissioners shall have full power, either by
themselves or the general agent, at all times, to look into and examine
the condition of all charitable, reformatory or correctional institutions
within the state, financially and otherwise, to inquire and examine into
their methods of instruction, the government and management of their
inmates, the official conduct of trustees, directors and other officers
and employees of the same, the condition of the buildings, grounds and
other property connected therewith, and into all other matters per-
taining to their usefulness and good management; and for these pur-
poses they shall have free access to the grounds, buildings and all
books and papers relating to said institutions; and all persons now or
hereafter connected with the same are hereby directed and required to
give such information and afford such facilities for inspection as the
said commissioners may require; and any neglect or refusal on the part
of any officer or person connected with such institution to comply.
272
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
with any of the requirements of this act, shall subject the offender to a
penalty of one hundred dollars, to be sued for and collected by the gen-
eral agent, in the name of the board.
SEC. 6. The said commissioners, by themselves or their general
agent, are hereby authorized and required, at least once in each year,
to visit all the charitable and correctional institutions of the state re-
ceiving state aid, and ascertain whether the moneys appropriated for
their aid are or have been economically and judiciously expended;
whether the objects of the several institutions are accomplished; wheth-
er the laws in relation to them are fully complied with; whether all
parts of the state are equally benefited by them, and the various other
matters referred to in the fifth section of this act; and in their annual
report to the legislature, to embody the results of their investigations,
together with such other information and recommendations as they
may deem proper.
SEC. 7. The said board shall also require their general agent, at
least once in every two years, to visit and examine into the condition
of each of the city and county jails or prisons and alms or poor houses,
and shall possess all the powers relative thereto, mentioned in the fifth
section of this act, and shall report to the legislature the result of the
examination, in connection with the annual report authorized by this
act.
SEC. 8. It shall be the duty of all persons having charge or over-
sight over the poor in any city or county of this state, or in any sub-
division thereof, and all persons having charge or control of county
jails or prisons or work-houses, and of all other persons having charge
or control over any other charitable, reformatory or correctional in-
stitution, not now by law required to make an annual report of the
condition of the same, to make report, annually, to the said general
agent, at such time and in such manner as he shall prescribe, of such
facts and statements concerning the same as he may require; and all
charitable, reformatory and correctional institutions now required by
law to make annual reports, shall hereafter make and transmit the
same to the said general agent on or before the first day of January in
each year; and all such institutions now receiving or that may hereafter
desire to receive state aid, shall annually give notice to the said general
agent, on or before the first day of November in each year, of the
amount of any application for state aid they may propose to make, and
of the several purposes to which such aid, if granted, is to be applied.
SEC. 9. Whenever any such institution shall thus give notice of
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273
asking for state aid, the general agent shall inquire carefully into the
ground of such request, the purpose or purposes for which the aid is
asked, the amount which will be required, and into any matters con-
nected therewith; and in the annual report the result of such inquiries
shall be given, together with the opinions and conclusions of the board
thereon.
SEC. 10. The several members of said board are each hereby au-
thorized to administer oaths in examining any person or persons, rela-
tive to any matters connected with the inquiries authorized by this act.
SEC. II. No member of said board shall be interested directly
or indirectly in any contract for building, repairing or furnishing any
institution, which by this act they or any one of them are authorized
to visit or inspect; nor shall any trustee or other officer of any of the
institutions embraced in this act, be eligible to the office of commis-
sioner or general agent hereby created.
SEC. 12. The board of public charities shall annually prepare and
print, for the use of the legislature, a full and complete report of all
their doings during the year preceding, stating fully in detail all ex-
penses incurred, all officers and agents employed, with a report of the
general agent and secretary, embracing all the respective proceedings
and expenses during the year, and showing the actual condition of all
charitable and correctional institutions within the state, with such sug-
gestions as the board may deem necessary and pertinent; and the said
general agent and secretary is hereby authorized to prepare the neces-
sary blanks and forward the same, in good season, to all institutions
from whom information or returns may be needed, and to require a
prompt return of the same, with the blanks properly filled.
SEC. 13. The said board may at its discretion, if the general agent
shall be unable by press of duties to conduct the correspondence of
the board, appoint a corresponding secretary, at a salary not exceeding
one thousand dollars per annum, who shall conduct the correspondence
of the board, and perform such other clerical duties as may be required
of him.
BI
SECTION 1. Be it enacted, &c.: That the Board of Public Charities
shall have the supervision over all houses or places in which any person
of unsound mind is detained, whenever the occupant of the house, or
• Extract from "An Act Relative to the Supervision and Control of Hospitals
or Houses in Which the Insane Are Placed for Treatment or Detention, May 8,
1883," Laws of the General Assembly of the State of Pennsylvania (1883), No. 18.
I
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
person having charge of the lunatic, receives any compensation for the
custody, control or attendance, other than as an attendant or nurse,
and also of all houses or places, in which more than one such person is
detained, with or without compensation paid for custody or attend-
ance.
SEC. 2. There shall be three additional members added to the
Board of Public Charities, one of whom shall be a member of the bar
of at least ten years' standing, and one a practising physician of at
least ten years' standing. The three additional members shall be ap-
pointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate, after the pas-
sage of this act, for a term of five years, or upon any vacancies occur-
ring by death or resignation, for the unexpired term of such appoint-
ment, or on expiration of term of service, and the Governor upon suffi-
cient cause may, in his discretion, remove any member from the office.
SEC. 3. The Board shall appoint a committee of five, to act as the
committee on lunacy. The two professional members appointed under
this act, shall be members of that committee; and three members shall
constitute a quorum. The committee shall choose a chairman and secre-
tary to serve for the current year, and annually thereafter in Novem-
ber. The secretary shall receive an annual salary of three thousand
dollars, with necessary incidental expenses to be accompanied with
proper vouchers, payable quarterly by the State Treasurer, and he*
may be removed at the pleasure of the Board of Public Charities.
SEC. 4. The committee on lunacy herein provided for, shall exam-
ine, for themselves or through their secretary, and report annually to
the board, on or before the first day of November, into the condi-
tion of the insane in this State, and the management and conduct of
the hospitals, public and private almshouses, and all other places in
which the insane are kept for care and treatment or detention: and it
shall be the duty of the officers and others respectively in charge there-
of, to give such committee and their secretary, at all times, free access
to the insane, and full information concerning them and their treat-
ment therein.
SEC. 5. The said committee on lunacy are empowered and required
to execute, through themselves or their secretary, all the provisions of
this act which pertain to their office as set forth therein; and shall di-
rect their secretary accordingly, and shall also, with the consent of the
board, make such other rules and regulations for their own govern-
ment, and that of their secretary, as are not inconsistent with the pro-
visions of this act.
G
G
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SEC. 6. The report of the said committee on lunacy, shall be pub-
lished annually with that of the Board of Public Charities.
10. The Rhode Island Board'
SECTION 1. The Governor, with the advice and consent of the Sen-
ate, shall appoint six persons, two from the county of Providence, and
one from each of the other counties, who, together with the secretary
hereinafter mentioned, shall constitute the "Board of State Charities
and Corrections." One of the persons so appointed shall hold office for
one year, one for two years, one for three years, one for four years, one
for five years, and one for six years, unless sooner removed. Appoint-
ments to fill vacancies caused by death, resignation or removal before
the expiration of terms, may be made by the governor for the residue
of the term; and all appointments to fill vacancies, caused by the
expiration of terms, shall be made by the governor with the advice and
consent of the senate, and shall be for the term of six years. Said board
with the exception of the secretary, shall receive no compensation for
their services, but shall be paid their necessary traveling expenses, out
of the State treasury.
SEC. 2. Said board are hereby authorized to appoint some suitable
person as secretary, who shall by virtue of his office, be a member of
said board, and shall hold his office during the pleasure of said board,
and shall perform such duties as may be required of him by said board.
SEC. 3. Said board shall also appoint some suitable person as super-
intendent of State Charities and Corrections, who shall hold his office
during the pleasure of said board. He shall under the directions of said
board, have the general charge and superintendence of the business of
said board; especially the examination of paupers and lunatics, to as-
certain their place of settlement and means of support; or who may be
responsible therefor; the removal of paupers and lunatics to their
homes or places of settlement; and shall have the like powers and au-
thority as is now by law conferred upon the overseers of the poor.
SEC. 4. A State workhouse, a house of correction, a State asylum,
for the incurable insane, and a State almshouse are hereby established
in the town of Cranston, and the farm owned by the State, in said town,
is hereby set apart as a location for the institution aforesaid, and
said farm shall be under the control and management of the board of
State Charities and Corrections.
"An Act to Establish a Board of State Charities and Corrections, May 28,
1869," Acis and Resolves of the State of Rhode Island (1869–70), chap. 814.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 5. Said board shall have the entire charge and control of said
workhouse, asylum for the incurable insane, house of correction and
almshouse, and may appoint such assistants in the management thereof
as they shall deem necessary, and shall fix their compensation and also
the compensation of the secretary and superintendent, and may make
all rules and regulations for the government of all said institutions, in-
cluding all contracts for the labor of the inmates thereof. Said board
shall have the same power to bind out any of the inmates of said work-
house during the minority of such inmates, as is now by law vested in
overseers of the poor over children that come under their charge. Said
board shall also have power to discharge at any time, any of the in-
mates of said institutions.
SEC. 6. All persons who may have actually abandoned their wives
or children, without adequate support, leaving them in danger of be-
coming a public charge, or who may neglect to provide according to
their means, for the support of their wives or children, or who being
habitual drunkards, shall abandon, neglect or refuse to aid in the sup-
port of their families; all idle persons, who being of doubtful reputation
and having no visible means of support, live without employment; all
sturdy beggars who apply for alms, or solicit charity; all persons wan-
dering abroad, lodging in station houses, out-houses, market places,
sheds, stables or uninhabited buildings, or in the open air, and not giv-
ing a good account of themselves; all persons who go about from place
to place to beg or to receive alms; all common prostitutes, drunkards
and night-walkers; lewd, wanton, and lascivious persons in speech or
behavior, common railers and brawlers; all persons who neglect all
lawful business and habitually misspend their time by frequenting
houses of ill-fame, gaming houses or tippling shops; all common cheats,
vagrants or disorderly persons; shall, on conviction of either of the
aforesaid offences by a justice of the peace, be sentenced to said State
workhouse for a term not less than six months, and not more than
three years. The complaints, in such cases, shall be made by the super-
intendent of State Charities and Corrections, the chief of police, city
marshall, or such other officers as the town or city councils may ap-
point, or by the overseer of the poor in the town or city in which the
offence is committed, and neither of said persons or officers shall be
required to give surety for costs on any complaint made under the pro-
visions of this section; and any persons convicted of any of the offences
named in this section, by a justice of the peace, may appeal therefrom
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in the same manner as is now by law provided for appeals from justices
of the peace in criminal cases.
SEC. 7. Any person who shall have been convicted of intoxication
under such circumstances as to amount to a violation of decency, three
times within six months, or who shall be proved to have been thus in-
toxicated three several times within six weeks, shall be deemed a com-
mon drunkard within the meaning of this act.
SEC. 8. The master or other person having the charge of any vessel
arriving at any time within this State, with passengers on board from
any country out of the United States, shall, and if from any port in
any other part of the United States, shall, if required by the said super-
intendent, within 24 hours after the arrival of such vessel, make report
in writing under his hand to said superintendent, of all such passengers,
their names, nation, age, character and conditions, so far as shall have
come to his knowledge.
SEC. 9. Every such master or other person who neglects or refuses
to make such report, or shall knowingly and wilfully make a false re-
port, shall for each offence forfeit the sum of one hundred dollars, to be
sued for and recovered by the said superintendent to the use of the
State.
SEC. 10. The owner, master or person having charge of any vessel
arriving at any place within this State with passengers on board, who
have within six months previous to such arrival come into the United
States from any country without the United States, shall within 36
hours of such arrival, if required by said superintendent, give to the
State a bond with security to the satisfaction of said superintendent
with condition that no such passenger shall become chargeable to the
State within one year after his arrival.
SEC. II. Any owner, master or person having charge of any such
vessel who shall when required, neglect or omit to give such bond,
shall forfeit five hundred dollars, to be sued for and recovered by the
said superintendent to the use of the State.
SEC. 12. Said board may require any railroad company located
wholly or in part within this State, or the owner of any steamboat
landing within the State, and any agent or person employed by them
to make returns of the names, sex, ages, and nativity of any class of
passengers brought into this State upon their railroad or steamboat,
and service of the order requiring such returns, may be made by such
person as shall be authorized by said board by leaving an attested copy
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
thereof with the treasurer of said railroad company, or at any depot
or ticket office of said railroad company, or with the owner, master or
other person in charge of such steamboat.
SEC. 13. Such company or owner, master or person, in charge of
such steamboat, upon whom said order shall have been served, shall
forfeit twenty dollars for every day's neglect to make such return after
said order has been served to be recovered by said superintendent to
the use of the State.
SEC. 14. In lieu of the bond required by the tenth section of this
Act, the superintendent of State Charities and Corrections may receive
from such owner, master, or person in charge of any vessel arriving as
aforesaid, such sum, not less than two dollars, as is in his judgment
sufficient to cover the risk incurred by the State in allowing any such
passenger to be landed; and the names of all such passengers shall be
certified upon the back of the report.
SEC. 15. Any railroad company or owners of steamboats, whose
officers or servants shall bring into the State any poor person, shall be
liable for all expenses incurred by the State for the relief and support of
such poor person, during twelve months after his being brought into
this State, to be recovered by an action on the case in the name of said
superintendent, to the use of the State, and said companies or owners
shall, upon the written order of said superintendent, return such poor
person to the place from which they brought him.
SEC. 16. The several cities and towns in this State may, at their
own expense, send to the State almshouse, to be maintained at the
expense of the State, all paupers who may fall in distress therein, not
having a legal settlement therein, but who have become chargeable to
such city or town.
SEC. 17. Any city or town may, at their own expense, send to said
State almshouse such paupers as have a legal settlement in such city
or town, upon such terms as may be agreed on by such city or town and
the Board of State Charities and Corrections.
SEC. 18. Any lunatic, having no legal settlement in this State, who
is supported as a pauper by the State, or by any town in this State, and
who, in the opinion of the Board of State Charities and Corrections, is
incurably insane, shall be sent by said board to the State asylum, for
the incurable insane, there to be maintained at the expense of the State.
SEC. 19. The said board are hereby authorized to receive into said
asylum, from any city or town, any person having any legal settlement
in said city or town, who in the opinion of said board is incurably in-
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279
sane, upon such terms as may be agreed upon by such city or town and
said board.
SEC. 20. All sums paid by the State, or by any city or town, for the
support of any pauper may be recovered of any of the kindred obligated
by law to maintain such pauper, or of the place of his legal settlement,
if any such within the State shall be ascertained.
SEC. 21. On application of the trustees of the Providence reform
school, the said board may cause any inmate of said reform school,
whom said trustees deem incorrigible or unfit persons to remain in said
school, to be transferred with the mittimus to the State workhouse,
there to remain until the expiration of the term of the sentence stated
in the mittimus, and any person sentenced to said workhouse, escaping
or attempting to escape, may be pursued and reclaimed, and upon con-
viction thereof shall be punished by imprisonment in said workhouse
for not less than six months, in addition to the previous sentence.
SEC. 22. The Board of State Charities and Corrections shall an-
nually make a full report of all their doings to the general assembly,
on or before the second week of the January session.
II.
The Wisconsin Board¹
SECTION 1. To the end that the administration of public charity
and correction may be conducted upon sound principles of economy,
justice and humanity, and that the relations existing between the state
and its dependent and criminal classes may become better understood,
there is hereby created a state board of charities and reform.
"An Act to Organize a State Board of Charities and Reform, March 23,
1871," General Laws Passed by the Legislature of Wisconsin in the Year 1871, chap.
136.
The creation of a State Board had been recommended by the governor (Fair-
child) in 1870, and a bill to create such a board had passed the lower house of the
legislature. There were at the time six state institutions—for the blind (1850), deaf
and dumb (1852), State Prison (1852), for the insane (1860), an industrial school for
boys (1860), a soldiers' orphans' home (1866). For the management of each of these
except the prison, there existed a Board of Trustees of five or seven members ap-
pointed by the governor, while the prison was under the direction of an executive
elected every two years. In accordance with recommendations offered by the State
Board in their first Report, the legislature provided in 1872 (Laws, chap. 66) for a
uniform system of accounting, and in 1873 replaced the elective head of the State
Prison by a Board of Trustees appointed by the governor. Other recommendations
urged by the board during the first decade of its existence bearing on the conduct of
the state institutions were (1) the establishment of an industrial school for girls,
(2) industrial provision for the incurable insane, (3) the establishment of an in-
stitution for the feeble-minded, (4) the establishment of a state school for dependent
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 2. The said board shall consist of five members, who shall be
appointed by the governor and shall hold their offices for the term of
five years and until their successors are appointed and qualified, except
that at the first appointment, the term of one member shall be fixed
for one year, of another for two years, of another for three years, of
another for four years and of the other for five years. When any va-
cancy shall occur in the board by resignation, death or any other cause,
the governor shall appoint a new member to serve for the residue of the
unexpired term.
SEC. 3. The board shall meet in the office of the secretary of state
within sixty days after their appointment, to organize and to transact
such other business as may be necessary to carry into effect the pro-
visions of this act. They shall afterwards meet in October on or be-
fore the 15th day, and in January on or before the 10th day of each
year; and they may hold such other meetings as they may decide upon.
boys, and (5) a law requiring county clerks to supply information asked for by the
board.
In 1881 a change was made in the management of the state institutions. The
boards of trustees were abolished and for them was substituted a Board of Super-
vision of five members appointed by the governor. The Board of Charities and Re-
form was continued, but it was now responsible for the supervision of the local
institutions and agencies, and for the state institutions there was substituted an
administrative authority (Laws of Wisconsin [1881], chaps. 233 and 298). In 1883
its power of visitation of state institutions was restored to the Board of Charities
and Reform (ibid. [1883], chap. 26), but there were evidently wide differences
of opinion between the two boards; and the Board of Supervision, which was in
fact a board of administration, was chiefly concerned with questions of finance and
economy, and, while no central purchasing agency was set up, the board claimed
that by strict supervision and careful planning, considerable reduction in cost was
secured without the sacrifice of the patients' interests. In 1891, however, the two
boards were abolished, and a State Board of Control of Reformatory, Charitable,
and Penal Institutions was substituted for the two (Laws of 1891, chap. 221). This
board consisted of six (later five) salaried members ($2,000) who were to devote
their entire time to the work of the board. They administered the state and super-
vised the local institutions, visited private agencies, licensed child-placing agencies,
and served as commissioners in lunacy. A central purchasing scheme was set in
operation in 1898. Note should also be taken of the creation in 1915 of a Board of
Public Affairs (Laws [1915], chap. 606) consisting of the governor, the secretary of
state, the president of the senate, the speaker of the house, the chairman of the
finance committees in the senate and house, and nine members appointed by the
governor to secure uniformity and accuracy in accounting, efficient management in
pecuniary matters, and to recommend a budget.
Attention should also be called to the development of a co-operative relation-
ship between the state and the counties in the care of the chronic insane. To this,
I
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SEC. 4. The board shall appoint a qualified elector as secretary,
whose duty it shall be to keep the records and books of the board, to
prepare such papers, to make such visits and to engage in such re-
searches and investigations as may be required of him by the board.
He shall hold his office for three years, unless sooner discharged by the
board.
SEC. 5. It shall be the duty of the board to investigate and super-
vise the whole system of the charitable and correctional institutions
supported by the state or receiving aid from the state treasury, by per-
sonal visits to such, making themselves familiar with all matters neces-
sary to be understood in judging of their usefulness and of the honesty
and economy of their management; and it shall also be their duty to
recommend such changes and additional provisions as they may deem
necessary for their great economy and efficiency.
SEC. 6. It shall be the further duty of the board to commence and
to conduct a course of investigation into the condition of poor houses in
the state, personally visiting and inspecting them from time to time,
ascertaining how many persons of each sex are therein maintained, at
attention will be called in the discussion of local agencies (see below, Part III, Sec.
II, Document 1).
Among the names associated with the early work of the board in Wisconsin are
those of Willard Merrill, William C. Allen, Hiram H. Giles, Andrew C. Elmore,
Mrs. Mary E. B. Lynde, who were active in the National Conference of Charities
and Correction as well as in the state. A conference with officials from Illinois and
Michigan held in Chicago May 14, 1872, at which there were five representatives
from Wisconsin, four from Illinois, and two from Michigan, may be looked on as
one of the origins of the National Conference of Social Work (see Proceedings of
N.C.C.C. [1882], p. 10; and Sparling, "State Boards of Control," Annals of the
American Academy, XVII [1901], 74). See also Part III, Sec. V, Document 2.
The question of the substitution of boards of control for boards of supervision
will frequently arise. See below, Part II, Sec. III, Document 8, for conclusions
drawn from a comparative study, in which the Iowa and the Indiana systems as
well as that of New York are reviewed.
The following careful statement with reference to the Minnesota experience
may perhaps also be considered here. In that state a State Board of Corrections and
Charities was created in 1883 (Laws [1883], chap. 127) composed of six members for
three-year terms. In 1901 that board was abolished, and a Board of Control was
created (ibid. [1901], chap. 122). In 1907 a Board of Visitors was re-established
(ibid. [1907], chap. 441]).
"The experience of Minnesota is especially illuminating in showing the exact
place of the Board of Control. It is only a substitute for separate boards of trustees.
Its function is chiefly financial. The men who secure appointments as members of
boards of control have nearly always been men of business rather than philanthropic
•
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
•
what cost, and under what circumstances, as to health, comfort, and
good morals; how many insane persons are therein confined, and
whether such arrangements are made for their care as humanity de-
mands; also how many idiotic persons are therein supported; also how
many poor children the said poor houses contain, and what provision
is made for their suitable care and education. They shall also collect
statistics as to the number of the poor who are supported or relieved
by towns or otherwise at the public expense, outside of poor houses,
the cost at which such support or relief is furnished, and any other im-
portant facts therewith connected. They shall also inquire to what
extent the provisions of the law in regard to binding out poor children
are complied with; and in general they shall seek to collect such facts
as may throw light upon the adequacy and efficiency of existing pro-
visions for the support and relief of the poor, and any causes operat-
ing to increase or diminish the amount of pauperism in the state, or to
place the burden of relieving it where it does not properly belong.
experience. If the separate boards of trustees need the assistance of a state board
of charities, even more does the board of control need the assistance of a state board
of visitors.
"There is not a single superintendent of any public institution in the state of
Minnesota who has received his appointment as a political reward. There is no
superintendent who was ever active in either local or party politics. The public
does not know and does not care what the political affiliations of these men are. It
is the habit of the special advocates of the Board of Control to assume that this
state of affairs has been brought about by a body which has had the management
for the past six years. Nothing could be farther from the fact. There has been but
one new appointment to the superintendence of any institution since that board
came into existence, and the men who have charge of the institutions were men
brought up under the influence of the State Board of Charities and Correction. The
spirit of the institutions still retains the influence of those days. It would be equally
wrong to say that the State Board of Charities deserves all the credit for the freedom
of Minnesota institutions from the baleful influence of party politics. It is rather
the result of that rising tide of public virtue which was manifest in 1883 in the
establishment of the Board of Charities and which is represented throughout the
state by the large body of public-spirited men and women educated through state
conferences of charities and otherwise, who regard the duties of a state as a philan-
thropic person too sacred to be invaded by the hands of the spoiler. So firmly en-
trenched in the judgment and affection of the leaders of the people in both parties
is the Minnesota system of regarding efficiency as the paramount virtue in super-
intendents, that it is hardly conceivable that any administration, however drunk
with the pride of power or however ambitious for partisan gain, would dare to
attempt to set it aside” (Samuel G. Smith, "The Minnesota System in the Manage-
ment of Public Charitable and Correctional Institutions," American Journal of
Sociology, XIV, 217–18).
}
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→
SEC. 7. It shall be the further duty of the board to commence and
to conduct a course of investigation in regard to jails, city prisons,
houses of correction and other places in the state in which persons con-
victed or suspected of crime, or any insane persons are confined, as-
certaining by visit or otherwise, their sanitary condition, their arrange-
ment for the separation of hardened criminals from juvenile offenders
and from persons suspected of crime or detained as witnesses, also
whether any useful employment is furnished for prisoners, whether the
insane are treated with due regard for humanity, and what efforts are
put forth for the reformation of criminals; and in general, they shall
endeavor to ascertain for the information of the legislature, any im-
portant facts or considerations bearing upon the best treatment of
criminals and the diminution of crime.
3
SEC. 8. The board shall have full power at all times to look into
and examine the condition of the institutions and establishments re-
ferred to in this act, to inquire into and examine their methods of treat-
ment, instruction, government and management of their inmates, the
official conduct of trustees, managers, directors, superintendents and
other officers and employes of the same, the condition of the buildings,
grounds and other property connected therewith, and into all other
matters pertaining to their usefulness and good management, and for
these purposes they shall have free access to all parts of the grounds
and buildings, and to all books and papers of said institution and es-
tablishment; and all persons now or hereafter connected with the same
are hereby directed and required to give, either verbally or in writing,
as the board may direct, such information and to afford such facilities
for inspection as the board may require.
SEC. 9. On or before the first day of December in each year, the
board shall present to the governor a report of their proceedings and of
their expenses under this act. Said report shall contain a concise state-
ment of the condition of each of the charitable and correctional insti-
tutions supported by the state, or receiving aid from the state treasury,
together with their opinion of the appropriations proper to be made
for each for the following year. It shall also embody the results of their
investigations during the year, in regard to the support of the poor
and the treatment of criminals, and shall also contain any information,
suggestions, or recommendations which they may choose to present
upon the matters by this act assigned to their supervision and examina-
tion. Three thousand (3,000) copies of this report shall be printed by
the state printer, in the same manner as those of the state officers are
printed, for the use of the board and of the legislature.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
SEC. 10. All members of the board and the secretary of the board
are hereby prohibited from being interested, directly or indirectly, in
any contract or arrangement for building, repairing, furnishing or pro-
viding any supplies of either of the institutions placed under their super-
vision.
SEC. 11. The members of the board shall receive no compensation
for their services rendered under this act. Upon filing with the secre-
tary of state sworn statements of the amount of expenses actually and
necessarily incurred by them in carrying out the other provisions of
this act, they shall have the amount of said expenses refunded to them
from the state treasury, and the secretary of state is hereby authorized
and required to draw his warrant upon the state treasury for the
amount of expenses so incurred and proven. The secretary of the board
shall receive for all services rendered by him under this act, $1,200 per
annum, payable upon the warrant of the board, quarterly, from the
state treasury; his actual and necessary traveling expenses incurred in
performing his duties shall be refunded in the same manner as those of
the members of the board. And there is hereby appropriated out of
any money in the treasury not otherwise appropriated, a sum sufficient
to comply with the provisions of this act.
SEC. 12. Hereafter the board of trustees of the Soldiers' Orphans'
Home, of the Institution for the Education of the Blind, and of the In-
stitution for the Education of the Deaf and Dumb, and the board of
managers of the Industrial School for Boys, shall consist of five mem-
bers each, who shall be appointed by the governor for terms of three
years each, except that his first appointments under the authority of
this section shall be so arranged that in each board two members shall
be appointed for one year, two for two years and one for three years.
So much of previous acts relating to the aforesaid institutions as au-
thorizes their present trustees or managers to hold their offices, is
hereby so far repealed that said trustees and managers shall go out of
office so soon as their successors are appointed and qualified; and the
persons appointed under authority of this section are hereby declared
to be the legal successors to their respective offices, and entitled to
receive from their predecessors all funds, books and papers belong-
ing to the aforesaid institutions respectively.
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285
12. The Michigan Board¹
SECTION 1. The people of the State of Michigan enact: That within
fifteen days after the passage of this act, with the advice and consent
of the Senate, the Governor shall appoint three suitable persons, resi-
dents of the State, to be called and known as "The Board of State
Commissioners, for the general supervision of Charitable, Penal, Pau-
per, and Reformatory Institutions," who shall hold their office respec-
tively for the period of two, four, and six years, as indicated by the
Governor in making the appointments, and all appointments there-
after made, except to fill vacancies, shall be for the period of six years.
Any vacancy occurring in said board, by reason of removal, resigna-
tion, or otherwise, shall be filled by the Governor, the appointment in
any case thus made to be subject to ratification or rejection by the
Senate at the first regular session following such appointment. The
Governor may remove any member of said board for misfeasance or
malfeasance in office.
SEC. 2. Before entering upon the discharge of their duties, each of
the said Commissioners shall take and subscribe before the Secretary
of State, who shall file the same in his office, the constitutional oath of
office. The said Commissioners shall have power to appoint a secre-
tary, not of their number, whose duties they may prescribe and whose
salary they may establish and determine.
SEC. 3. The said Commissioners, by one of their number, or by
their secretary, shall, at least once in each year, visit and examine into
the condition of each and every of the city and county poor-houses,
county jails, or other places for the detention of criminals or witnesses;
and the said board, or a majority thereof, with their secretary, shall at
least once in each year, visit and examine the Reform School, State
Prison, Detroit House of Correction, and State and county asylums
for the insane, and the deaf, dumb, and blind, and for the purpose of
ascertaining the actual condition of the institutions, by them or by
either of them visited, the method of instruction, government, or man-
agement therein pursued, the official conduct of the superintendents or
other officers and employes in charge thereof, or connected therewith,
the condition of the buildings, grounds, or other property thereunto
belonging, and the facts as to all other matters in any manner pertain-
I “An Act to Provide for the Appointment of a Board of Commissioners for the
General Supervision of Penal, Pauper, and Reformatory Institutions, and Defining
Their Duties and Powers, April 17, 1871," General Acts of the State of Michigan
(1871), No. 192.
हुन
286
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ing to the usefulness and proper management of the institutions, poor-
houses, and jails above named. They, or either of them, and their
secretary, shall have free access thereto at any and at all times, and
shall have authority to administer oaths and examine any person or
persons in any way connected with or having knowledge of the con-
dition, management, and discipline of such institutions, jails, or poor-
houses, as to any matters or inquiries not contrary to the purposes or
provisions of this act.
SEC. 4. The said Commissioners shall receive no compensation for
their time or services, except as hereinafter particularly provided; but
the actual expenses of each of them, while engaged in the performance
of their duties under this act, and any actual outlay for stationery,
office rent, or any necessary aid or assistance required in examinations
or investigations, on being fully stated in account and verified by the
affidavit of the Commissioner or Commissioners making the charge,
and approved by the Governor, shall be paid quarterly by the State
Treasurer on the warrant of the Auditor General, out of any money in
the treasury not otherwise appropriated; and, the secretary of said
board shall be paid in like manner: Provided, That the entire expense
of said board or commission, including their compensation for services,
as required by the seventh section of this act, and the salary and
traveling expenses of the secretary, shall not exceed the sum of $3,000
per annum.
SEC. 5. No member of said board, or their secretary, shall be either
directly or indirectly interested in any contract for building, repairing,
or furnishing any institution, poor-house, or jail which by this act they
are authorized to visit and inspect; nor shall any officer of such insti-
tution, jail, or poor-house be eligible to the office of Commissioner
hereby created, nor shall any two members of said Board be residents
of the same county.
SEC. 6. On or before the first day of October, in the year 1872, and
in each second year thereafter, the said board shall report in writing to
the Governor, fully, the result of their investigations, together with
such other information and recommendations as they may deem prop-
er, including their opinions and conclusions as to the necessity of fur-
ther legislation to improve the condition and extend the usefulness of
the various State, county, and other institutions by them visited; and
the said Commissioners, or either of them, shall make any special in-
vestigation into alleged abuse in any of the institutions which by this
act they are authorized to visit, whenever the Governor shall so direct,
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
287
and report the result thereof to him at such reasonable time as he shall
prescribe. And whenever any abusive treatment of those confined in
any of said institutions shall come to the knowledge of said Commis-
sioners, which, in their opinion, requires immediate attention and re-
dress, they shall forthwith report the facts of such abusive treatment
to the Governor, with such recommendations for the correction of the
same as they shall deem proper.
SEC. 7. And the said board, in addition to the duties above pre-
scribed, shall make a thorough examination of all the penal, criminal,
or other laws of the State relating to the penal or reformatory institu-
tions by them to be visited, or in any wise relating to the custody and
punishment of criminals, and the care and confinement of the county
poor and pauper insane, for the purpose of a revision of such laws by
the Legislature at the first regular session following the passage of this
act; and to accomplish this end, said board shall collect together all
acts and parts of acts in any manner appertaining to the control, pun-
ishment, and reformation of criminals, and to the care and custody of
the county poor and pauper insane, and shall report the same fully to
the Governor, on or before November first, 1872, together with such
revision, amendments, and suggestions for the improvement thereof,
as to such board shall be deemed necessary and expedient; the report
thus made to be submitted to the Legislature by the Governor. And
each of said board, for the time actually required and expended in the
discharge of his duties under this section, shall be entitled to demand
and receive such reasonable compensation as shall be approved by the
Governor, and which shall be paid in the manner heretofore provided
for the payment of their actual traveling and other necessary expenses:
Provided, That said board shall not perform the duties provided in this
section if any law shall be enacted at this session of the Legislature
authorizing the same work by any other board or commission.
SEC. 8. Nothing in this act shall be construed as impairing the
authority or interfering with the duties of the board of inspectors of
the State Prison and the board of control of the Reform School, or with
the duties of the board of control, trustees, commissioners, or inspec-
tors of any other charitable, penal, or reformatory institution of this
State.
288
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
13. The Kansas Board¹
SECTION 1. The State institutions of learning shall each and all be
governed by a board of regents, composed of seven persons, of whom
one shall be ex-officio, and the remaining six shall be appointed by the
Governor with the advice and consent of the Senate. The one holding
office ex-officio shall be the chancellor or president.
SEC. 2. The Governor shall appoint for each of said institutions of
learning, in the year 1873, six regents, of whom two shall hold their
position for a term of one year ending April 1, 1874; of whom two shall
hold their position for two years, ending April 1, 1875; and the remain-
ing two for three years, ending April 1, 1876; and their successors shall
each and all hold office for the term of three years, expiring on the first
days of April in the years thereafter.
SEC. 3. The asylum for the blind, the asylum for the deaf and
dumb, and the asylum for the insane, shall each be directed and con-
trolled by a board of trustees, consisting of six persons, who shall be
appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate.
SEC. 4. The Governor shall appoint in the year 1873, six members
of the board of trustees for the asylums for the blind, deaf and dumb
and insane of whom two for each shall hold their office for one year end-
ing April 1, 1874; two for two years, ending April 1, 1875; and two for
three years, ending April 1, 1876, and their successors shall each and
all hold their positions for the term of three years, the terms ending on
April 1, of the succeeding years.
SEC. 5. In case of any vacancy occurring in any of the boards of
regents or trustees hereinbefore provided for, the appointments made
to fill such vacancy shall be only for the unexpired term.
SEC. 6. In the appointment of regents and trustees, under this act,
except for the Leavenworth normal school, there shall not be at any
time more than two members appointed from any one county of the
State, nor shall any appointee, as referred to in this section, be vested
with the right to participate in the control of more than one institution
governed by the provisions of this act.
"An Act Entitled an Act to Provide for the Appointment of Regents and
Trustees, for the Control of the Public Institutions of the State, and Defining
Certain Powers Thereof, March 6, 1873,” Laws of the State of Kansas (1873), chap.
135.
See also Laws (1876), chap. 130; ibid. (1899), chap. 29; ibid. (1901), chap. 353,
or General Laws, par. 6521 f.; Laws (1905), chap. 475, or General Laws, par. 7085 f.
1
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
289
SEC. 7. The said boards of regents and trustees shall within thirty
days after official notice of their appointment, assemble at the different
institutions designated under their appointment, and immediately pro-
ceed to organize their respective boards for their first fiscal year by the
election of a president, vice-president, treasurer and secretary, and the
adoption of such rules and regulations as may be essential to an intelli-
gent and successful administration of the affairs entrusted to their
care and responsibility. The said boards of regents and trustees shall
convene in regular session at least twice a year, and in such special ses-
sions as the exigencies of their duties may require; they shall annually
make a detailed report to the Governor of all receipts and disburse-
ments of moneys, general status and condition of the institutions, ac-
companied with reports and statements furnished by the officers, prin-
cipals and superintendents thereof.
SEC. 8. Regular or special meetings of any board of regents or
trustees may be called by the secretary on the order of the president,
or written petition of two members of the board. Four members of any
board of regents or trustees shall constitute a quorum for the transac-
tion of business.
SEC. 9. The compensation of regents and trustees shall be three
dollars per diem, and mileage at the rate of ten cents per mile for actual
distance traveled by the most practicable and direct route.
SEC. 10. The board of state house commissioners shall consist of
six persons, duly qualified electors of the State of Kansas, who shall be
appointed by the Governor, by and with the advice and consent of the
Senate, in the year 1873, of whom two shall hold office for one year,
ending April 1, 1874; two for two years, ending April 1, 1875; and two
for three years, ending April 1, 1876, and their successors shall hold
office each for the term of three years from the expiration of the terms
of the first six respectively. All vacancies occurring shall be filled as
provided in section six, and their compensation shall be the same as
provided in section ten of this act.
SEC. II. Whenever any vacancy or vacancies shall occur in any
board of regents, trustees or commissioners hereinbefore provided for,
at a time when the legislature is not in session, the Governor shall ap-
point some person or persons to fill such vacancy, but such appoint-
ment shall not continue longer than the third week after the next ses-
sion of the legislature convenes.
SEC. 12. There shall be a commission of three citizens of the State
of Kansas appointed by the Governor and confirmed by the Senate,
290
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
who shall hold their office for the term of three years, and who shall be
in no wise connected with either of the institutions herein named, who
shall be a visiting committee, to make at least two visits in each year
to the following State institutions: The State Penitentiary, the Insane,
Deaf and Dumb and Blind Asylums, the State University, the State
Agricultural College, the State Normal Schools at Emporia and Leav-
enworth. They shall each have power to administer oaths and send for
persons and papers to examine into the financial condition and the
general conduct of said institutions, and they shall make a report to the
Governor in writing at the end of each fiscal year of the financial con-
dition and the general conduct of each of said institutions, their neces-
sities and requirements, and such other recommendations as they may
deem best for the proper conduct of said institutions, and for the public
good. They shall receive for their services the sum of three dollars per
day, and ten cents for each mile traveled by the most direct and practi-
cable route.
SEC. 13. All boards of regents and trustees as are herein designated,
shall be empowered as boards of control, with full and complete powers
to adopt and enforce all necessary rules and regulations required under
the law for the Government of said institutions. They shall make all
appointments of officers, principals, teachers and employees which
may be required for the practical and economical management thereof.
SEC. 14. All parts of acts in conflict with the provisions of this act,
be and the same are hereby repealed.
14. The Connecticut Board¹
SECTION 1. There shall be a board of charities, consisting of three
gentlemen and two ladies, appointed by the governor of the state,
whose duty it shall be to visit and inspect all institutions in this state,
both public and private, in which persons are detained by compulsion
for penal, reformatory, sanitary or humanitarian purposes, for the
purpose of ascertaining whether the inmates of such institutions are
properly treated, and (except in cases of detention for crime upon legal
process) to ascertain whether any of such inmates have been unjustly
placed or are improperly held in such institutions, with power to exam-
ine witnesses and to send for persons and papers, and with full power
to correct any abuses that shall be found to exist; Provided, however,
That no measures for the correction of any such abuses shall be taken
which are in conflict with any personal rights, or with any rights or pow-
ers conferred upon any such institution by statute, or act of incorpora-
1 “An Act Establishing a Board of Charities, July 1, 1873,” Public Acts Passed
by the General Assembly of the State of Connecticut in the Year 1873, chap. 45.
THE CENTRAL AUTHORITY
291
tion. And provided further, That in the correction of such abuses said
board shall act, so far as practicable, through the persons in charge of
such institutions, and with a view to sustaining and strengthening their
rightful authority; and, whenever any measures shall be taken which
do not receive the assent of the persons in charge of such institutions,
such action shall be taken at a meeting of the board, at which at least
four members shall be present, or shall be directed by a written order,
signed by a majority of the board. And an appeal may be taken from
any action of the board by the persons in charge of such institutions
to the governor of the state.
SEC. 2. Every such institution shall be visited by the board, or
some member of the board, frequently and at their discretion, and in
the case of the state prison, reformatory schools and insane asylums,
as often as once a month, and, so far as practicable, by one gentleman
and one lady of the board; and no previous notice of such visits shall
be given, or allowed to be given, to the persons in charge of the institu-
tion so visited; and it shall be the duty of the board, at every visit so
made, to offer to the inmates of such institution an opportunity for
private conversation with some member of the board. And any com-
munication directed to any member of said board, by any inmate of
said institutions, shall be forwarded to the post-office by the persons in
charge, without inspection or delay.
SEC. 3. The duties of the board hereby constituted are to be limited
to the supervision of the physical and moral welfare and personal rights
of the inmates of such institutions, and the right of authoritative super-
vision in these respects, now conferred by law upon any other board or
boards, shall cease.
SEC. 4. Said board shall make an annual report to the governor of
the state, of any facts with regard to the institutions inspected by
them, which they shall deem it important to have laid before the pub-
lic, with any suggestions that they shall think proper, for additional
legislation with regard to such institutions.
SEC. 5. The governor shall have power to remove any member of
the board at his discretion, and it shall be his duty to remove any mem-
ber found to be incompetent or unfaithful.
SEC. 6. There shall be allowed to the members of the board their
actual traveling and other necessary expenses; and each member of
the board shall certify, under oath, to the comptroller of public ac-
counts, the number of days he or she has served, and the amount and
items of his or her expenses; and the comptroller is hereby authorized
to draw his order on the treasurer of the state, for the amount so due.
¡
SECTION II
INTRODUCTORY NOTE
The early reports of these newly created boards contain invaluable
material concerning the conditions prevailing in the institutions and
agencies with which their new duties brought the members into con-
tact. There are, for example, enumerations and classifications of the
institutions then in existence, with descriptions of their equipment,2
estimates of their resources, comments on their methods of procedure
and standards of work,³ and suggestions for change,4 that enable the
student to realize something of the undertaking to which the members
of the board were putting their hands.
The work assumed at once three aspects: that reflected by the re-
lationship of the board (1) to the state institution, (2) to the local
authority and in particular to the local authority giving relief under
the Poor Law or maintaining the jail, and (3) to the private institu-
tions, especially those receiving public subsidies.
It must be admitted that the influence of the central board on the
local authority, whether the county, the town, or the city, has been
relatively slight. During the past decade a very great effort has been
put forth toward the organization of the county and the establishment
of some relationship of stimulation, co-operation, perhaps control. This
has been especially noticeable in the field of child welfare, and can
therefore receive relatively little attention here. And questions of the
relation of the central board to the local authority have demanded
special sections, which for various reasons have seemed better dealt
with in Part III.6
5
With reference, too, to the relationship of the state board to the
1 Documents 1, 3, 5, 6.
2 Documents 8, 9, 11.
Ι
3 Documents 10, 22.
4 Documents 4, 11, 12, 14, 15.
5 Attention is especially called to the publications of the U.S. Children's Bureau
dealing with the movement toward setting up of child-welfare commissions in the
various states; see, for example, No. 131, State Commissions for the Study and
Revision of Child-Welfare Laws, for the development of child-welfare bureaus; and
especially for the development of county child-welfare work, see No. 107, County
Organization for Child Welfare and Protection.
❝ See below, Part III, Secs. II and III.
292
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
293
private charitable effort, it has seemed best to assign a section to that
topic and to include that section in Part III.¹
In the remaining sections of Part II, then, the documents will have
chiefly to do with the relationship between the state board and the
state institutions.
Perhaps the first subject to which attention should be given is the
general stability and character of the governing body of the institutions
with whom the state board had to deal. Unfortunately, little material
has been assembled concerning the personnel of these boards.
The facts with reference to the appointment of the trustees of the
Kankakee State Hospital for the Insane, which was established in 1877,
and illustrated the possibility of departing from the earlier architectural
pattern,2 have been brought together for the purpose of discovering,
if possible, the extent to which the accepted structure of these boards
enabled them to resist partisan pressure.3 Between 1878 when the
institution was established, and 1909, when the boards of trustees
were abolished in Illinois, the appointments were as follows:4
Year
1878
1880.
1882.
1884.
1886.
1888.
1890.
1892.
1894.
1896.
1898..
1900
1902
• •
•
·
•
·
•
•
•
1904
1906..
1908..
·
•
Trustees
H. Clough, W. F. Murphy, Wm. Reddick
H. Clough, W. F. Murphy, Wm. Reddick
E. B. McCagg, John L. Donovan, Wm. Reddick
E. B. McCagg, John L. Donovan, Wm. Reddick
E. B. McCagg, John L. Donovan, Lemuel Milk
E. B. McCagg, John L. Donovan, Lemuel Milk
E. B. McCagg, John L. Donovan, W. W. Todd
E. B. McCagg, John L. Donovan, W. W. Todd
Edmund Sill, J. W. Orr, F. D. Radeke
Edmund Sill, J. W. Orr, F. D. Radeke
Len Small, G. T. Buckingham, J. F. Magee
Len Small, G. T. Buckingham, Almet Powell
Len Small, W. E. Murphy, Almet Powell
Len Small, P. Whalen, Almet Powell
B. E. Sunny, A. M. Jones, C. E. Robinson
B. E. Sunny, A. M. Jones, Henry H. Troup
Superintendent
R. S. Dewey
R. S. Dewey
R. S. Dewey
R. S. Dewey
R. S. Dewey
R. S. Dewey
S. V. Clevenger
Clark Gapin
Clark Gapin
W. G. Stearns
J. C. Corbus
J. C. Corbus
J. C. Corbus
J. L. Greene
J. F. WenGlesky
See below, Part III, Sec. IV.
2 See Document 12.
³ See Mildred Evelyn Buck, The Illinois Eastern State Hospital for the Insane
(Kankakee State Hospital), 1877–1909, with Special Reference to Standards of Archi-
tectural Construction (Master's thesis, Graduate School of Social Service Administra-
tion, University of Chicago, 1926). See below, p. 451.
4 The data given may not be exact, as they indicate rather the number of years
each name appeared in the biennial reports of the institution than the years actually
served. Owing to resignation and in some cases to death, some of these appoint-
ments were made in the middle of a biennial period, so that the actual service of a
few men was either greater or less than the period indicated.
294
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
·
It will be noticed that there were four distinct periods in this series,
each of which is marked by an entirely new board. The first period,
during which there was uninterrupted Republican administration in
Illinois, dates from the founding of the institution in 1877 until 1893,
when a Democratic governor was elected for the first time since the
Civil War; the second, 1893-97; the third, a return to the Republican
domination, 1897-1905; and the fourth, a change within the Republi-
can party itself, lasting two terms, until the Board of Administration
was founded and all separate boards of trustees of institutions were
abolished.
Two things should be noted with reference to the first period: (1)
the frequent reappointments so that terms of office were longer than
the period prescribed by the statute authorizing the institution and
consequently a board that is practically permanent; and (2) the con-
tinuity in the office of the medical director of the hospital and of his
staff. It was claimed that politics had no influence on the management;
but there was an equal number of employees from each political party.
In the second period, there was a political change in the appoint-
ing power, and it was discovered that possession of the office of member
on the board of trustees availed nothing without the sanction of the
party in power; consequently, there were resignations of all members
whose terms were unexpired, resulting in appointments of entirely new
boards from the party in power. The same thing happened in 1897 and
in 1905. As to the officers of the institution itself, in the first seven
years of the ten-year period of change, beginning in 1892, there were
five superintendents, and three and two-thirds sets of trustees, while at
the time of the 1900 election it was stated that among the four hundred
employees of all classes there were not more than a dozen left who had
been there under the first superintendent, Dr. Richard S. Dewey. A
skilled alienist had been replaced as superintendent by a general prac-
titioner, and the chief of staff was now a village doctor.
In the same way, at the Illinois State School for the Feeble-Minded,
in 1893, when Governor Altgeld took office, a new board replaced the
former board, and again in 1897, when Governor Tanner succeeded
Governor Altgeld. These changes in the board were reflected in
changes in the staff. The situation has been described as follows:
Governor Altgeld, a Democrat, took up his duties in January, 1893, and
on April 6, 1893, there were changes made in the personnel of the administra-
tive body at Lincoln. A new board of trustees was organized. Up to this
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
295
time the trustees had held office, usually, throughout the regular six-year
term, and had often been re-appointed so that no radical and complete change
had taken place in the personnel of the local board. Although there had been
changes, there had never been a time prior to 1893 when all three members
of the board were new men.
The staff of the school was also changed. Dr. Fish resigned in April,
1893, and Ambrose M. Miller, M.D., was appointed as the new superintend-
ent. New persons also filled the offices of clerk, secretary, storekeeper, and
farmer. Dr. Miller continued in office only two and a half years, and in
October, 1895, was succeeded by Dr. Joseph W. Smith of Mt. Sterling,
Illinois. This was the second change of superintendents during the adminis-
tration of Governor Altgeld.
In January, 1897, Governor Tanner, of the Republican party, suc-
ceeded Governor Altgeld, and more changes in administration took place.
An entirely new board of trustees was appointed by the new governor;
Dr. Joseph Smith resigned as superintendent, and Dr. W. L. Athon took
his place.
The policy of Governor Altgeld in causing such changes is stated in his
message to the General Assembly as follows: "The policy adopted at the
beginning of the administration, in the matter of making appointments,
when other things were equal, was to give preference to men who were
politically in sympathy with this administration. . . . . This applied to su-
perintendents of institutions as well as to boards." The results of the Altgeld
administration under such a policy were described by Governor Tanner after
he had come into office as being unfortunate, for the treasury was empty,
payments to the State institutions had not been made of appropriations
due them; and the property of the institutions was run down and out of re-
pair.
•
New policies adopted by the institution during the years from 1877 to
1897 had been the gradually increasing leniency in admitting epileptics, al-
though against the original wishes of the trustees; and a change in the method
of purchasing supplies and in the payment of bills, under the program of
economy of Governor Altgeld. . . . . Changes in business management were
made in 1893 by holding a meeting of trustees at the end of every month to
audit bills before they were paid. Formerly all bills had been audited at
quarterly meetings, which meant that most of them had already been paid
and that the trustees were therefore unable to do anything except to sanction
them. The institution began to purchase the bulk of all supplies by com-
petitive bids instead of at regular wholesale houses as before, and all goods
were weighed and examined by the storekeeper when first received to see
that they complied with the requirements made in accordance with the
samples submitted. Then goods were issued by the storekeeper only on req-
296
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
uisitions approved by the superintendent, and a record was kept of every-
thing thus issued.¹
Of the trustees of the Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home the same
thing may be said.
Between 1877 and 1893 and between 1897 and 1909 the personnel
of the Board changed but little. There were some resignations, as in 1908
when one of the trustees was elected to Congress. Occasionally the governor
removed a trustee. General Bloomfield, the resident trustee, was removed
in 1881 because of a controversy with the superintendent, and was replaced
by another trustee of the same political faith. The governor made some re-
appointments so that several trustees remained on the Board for ten or eleven
years. The act which provided for a six-year rotating term did not, however,
function in the years when the state political administration changed. In
1893 the new Democratic governor appointed two new members on the
Board, although the terms of office of the members supplanted did not
terminate until 1895 and 1897 respectively. Four years later, in like manner,
the Republican governor appointed a board of all new members. None of
the trustees of Democratic affiliations continued to serve. The records do
not state how the governors managed to secure the resignations of the trus-
tees of opposite political faith.²
Besides the question of the character of the boards of trustees and
their attitude to the new authority, there was the question of the actual
volume of work, the need to be met by the new agency.
This was especially interesting in New York, where the work ap-
peared at once as too great to be carried out successfully by the public
authority, so that a private agency, the State Charities Aid Association,
was organized to supplement the state board. That organization³
sought and obtained from the legislature the grant of certain public
powers, such as the right of visitation,4 and was laid under the duty of
making an annual report to the state board and later to the Lunacy
Commission as well.
There then arose the question of the nature of the relationship
between the central board and the board of trustees of the institution.5
Did the institution welcome the assistance of the new authority? Was
¹ Elizabeth C. Davis, State Institutional Care of the Feebleminded in Illinois
(Master's thesis, Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of
Chicago, 1926), pp. 39 ff.
2 Alice Channing, The Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home (Master's thesis, Gradu-
ate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, 1926), pp. 21-22.
3 See Document 20, B. 4 See Document 20, A. See also above, p. 261, footnote.
5 See Documents 11 and 22.
•
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
297
the central board to advise or supervise, or was it to control? And
what were the administrative devices by which either relationship was
to be maintained?
These devices were (1) visitation,¹ (2) power to call for reports, a
power not always acknowledged by the institution,' the right to ask
special information,3 the authority to prescribe forms and to establish
uniform accounting systems. When control replaced supervision, the
board of trustees of the institution were in some states done away with,
and the powers of the state central board were enlarged to include:
(1) the selection of personnel, (2) the direction of purchasing, and (3)
the general oversight of the administration.
Attention may at this time be directed to the personnel of these
state boards. The great figure, perhaps, in the early Massachusetts
development was that of Dr. Samuel Gridley Howe,4 whose services
in the Greek struggle for freedom give a romantic quality to his biogra-
phy. In his report, the Second Report of the Massachusetts Board, is
found one of the great declarations of the recognition of human rights
and the basis for sound service to the needy.5 Frank B. Sanborn' served
the board as its secretary from 1863 until 1868, and was a member of
the board from 1870-76. With his work in this office is to be considered
his work in connection with the American Social Science Association,
the American Prison Association, and as editor of the Springfield Re-
publican.
On the New York board sat in the early days William Pryor Letch-
worth, and with his contributions to the annual reports should be
noted his Homes for Homeless Children, his treatise on The Care and
Treatment of Epileptics, as well as his contributions to the Proceedings
of the National Conference. With him were associated the elder Theo-
dore Roosevelt, Mrs. Josephine Shaw Lowell, the sister of one and the
widow of another hero of the Civil War, a student of economics and
industry as well as of political organization, a social worker who
I See Documents 21 and 22.
3 Document 21.
2 Document II.
1801-1876.
5 Documents 3 and 4. See the Letters and Journals of Samuel Gridley Howe (ed.
by his daughter, Laura E. Richards, with notes and a Preface by F. B. Sanborn;
Boston, 1906-9); see also F. B. Sanborn, Dr. S. G. Howe, the Philanthropist (New
York, 1891).
6 1831-1917.
7 See Josephus N. Larned, Life and Work of William Pryor Letchworth, Student
and Minister of Public Benevolence (New York, 1912).
298
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
was also a social reformer of the first rank.¹ Mrs. Lowell was not the
only woman finding an opportunity for service on these boards. Mrs.
Leonard in Massachusetts, Mrs. Lynde in Wisconsin, Julia C. Lathrop
at a later day in Illinois, and others made their contributions to the
state and national conferences on these subjects.
With the early work of the Illinois board is especially associated
the name of Frederick H. Wines, the son of the great prison reformer,
E. C. Wines. He served as secretary of the Illinois board from 1869
to 1892, from 1896 to 1898, and from 1909 to 1912 was statistician of
the new Board of Administration. From 1898 to 1909 he was with the
United States Census. He was one of the original members of the Na-
tional Conference, and was president in 1883. He was secretary of the
American Prison Association from 1881 to 1890, and the president of
the International Conference that met in Chicago in 1893. He was a
member of the British Royal Statistical Society, and was first editor
of the Institution Quarterly, founded by the State Charity Commission-
ers of Illinois in 1912.
A word may be said here on the subject of the conference as an im-
portant agency of public opinion. If the attainment of a nation-wide
program was to be sought, it must be by agreement. From the earliest
days, then, the boards visited one another, counseled together, and
finally found in the two great organizations, the National Conference
and the American Prison Association, a platform from which dec-
larations might be made or discussions shared.²
It is hoped that, from the documents in this section, the reader
can get an idea of the complexity and volume of the undertaking in
each state to bring something like order out of a chaos of public good
will.
* See W. R. Stewart, Philanthropic Work of Josephine Shaw Lowell (New York,
1911).
2 See Document 7, "The Declaration of Principles of the Prison Association in
1870." See also below Part III, Sec. V, Documents 1 and 2.
F
THE SITUATION AS THE NEW BOARDS
FOUND IT
I. Classification of Massachusetts Charities
A¹
The charitable and correctional institutions directly under the
control of the State, are eleven in number, namely:
1. The Rainsford Island Hospital...
2. The State Prison at Charlestown.
3. The State Lunatic Hospital at Worcester.
4. The State Reform School at Westborough.
5. The State Lunatic Hospital at Taunton.
6. The State Almshouse at Bridgewater.
7. The State Almshouse at Tewksbury.
8. The State Almshouse at Monson..
• •
9. The State Industrial School at Lancaster.
10. The State Lunatic Hospital at Northampton.
II. The School Ship Massachusetts..
12. The Massachusetts General Hospital.
13. The Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind.
14. The Massachusetts School for Idiots....
All in Boston
The second three are:
•
Both the last are in Boston.
D
·
B2
RECOMMENDATIONS
•
•
Besides these, there are three others partially under State Control,
and three more which are aided by the State. The first are:
•
•
Date
1736
1805
1830
1846
1851
1852
1852
1852
1854
1855
1859
15. The American Asylum for the Deaf and Dumb, Hartford, Conn.. 1817
16. The Massachusetts Eye and Ear Infirmary..
1824
17. The Washingtonian Home
1811
1829
1848
After a careful study of our charitable and correctional institu-
'tions, so many, so various, and so variously governed, we have come
to the following general conclusions:
• Extract from First Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of State Char-
ities, January, 1865, p. 8.
2 Ibid., pp. xli-xlii.
299
300
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
I. That the State ought not to establish any more institutions to
be exclusively supported from the public treasury, but rather, when
new necessities arise, provide for them by assisting private charity, or
the municipal organizations.
II. That the institutions now existing ought to be made more uni-
form in their management, more active in their co-operation, and more
economical in their system of purchases, and the whole detail of their
financial transactions.
III. That in order to secure this end they should be brought into
closer relations with a central Board of Control and Inspection, similar
to that established in New York, separate from the city government,
for the management of the public institutions of that city.
IV. That there should be a separate Inspector or Board of In-
spectors for all the prisons in the Commonwealth, with power to effect
economy in the expenditures and reform in the discipline therein.
V. That there should be provision made for annual reports to the
Legislature of the private and municipal institutions of charity and re-
form, and an effort made to methodize the private as well as the public
almsgiving.
2. Organization and Cost of the Board¹
The Board consists of five commissioned members, who receive no
compensation for their services, although they are reimbursed for their
travelling and incidental expenses incurred in the public service; and
two members, ex-officiis, the Secretary and the General Agent, who
have salaries fixed by law. The Secretary superintends the clerical busi-
ness of the Board, keeps its records, and conducts its correspondence;
he keeps registers of the inmates of the institutions, prepares the sta-
tistical tables published in the reports, and conducts such general in-
vestigations as the Board may propose or approve, into the causes of
and the methods of treating pauperism, insanity, and crime. It is the
duty of the General Agent to oversee and conduct most of the outdoor
business of the Board; he is Superintendent of Alien Passengers for the
city of Boston; he visits the institutions wherein State paupers are sup-
ported, for the purpose of finding out what has been their past history,
and where they belong; and all matters relating to settlements and re-
movals are under his charge.
Neither the Board nor any one of its departments has ever expend-
¹ Extract from Fifteenth Annual Report of the Board of State Charities of Massa-
chusetts (1878), pp. xvi-xviii.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
301
ed, in any one year, more than the amount of its own appropriation.
During the fifteen years of its existence, the expenses of its commis-
sioned members, reimbursed by the State, have averaged only five
hundred and twenty dollars per annum, and the total expense of the
Board proper has been less than a thousand dollars a year. During the
first five years the total expense of all its departments averaged only
about twenty-two thousand dollars per annum. In 1869 and 1870 the
appropriation to the General Agent's department was increased to
meet the requirements of additional legislation, and the same is true
with respect to the years 1877 and 1878. In 1869 the Visiting Agency
was established by statute, for attendance on courts in the interest of
juvenile offenders, and for exercising a supervision over all the children
maintained wholly or in part by the State, or who have been or may be
indentured or placed out under provision of law. The expenses of
this Agency are heavy, requiring an annual average appropriation of
about sixteen thousand dollars. Table I shows the cost of the Board
and of the various departments, year by year, from 1864 to 1878 in-
clusive:
··
1872..
1873.
1874.
7,989.17 12,306.78
1864...$ 957.66$ 7,576.24$ 11,505.00
1865... 943.66 7,834.71 II,300.98
1866.. 2,030.61
1867. 1,978.21
1868.. 1,150.24
1869..
493.63
1870... 676.89
1871..
540.38
•
•
•
·
14,421.94
364.39
1,478.39
972.15
14,445.27
17,515.10$ 3,252.94 6,118.12
20,069.65
20,069.65 4,447.36
13,152.22 47,013.07
17,477.64 4,487.09 14,585.39 46,443.51
9,353.OI
15,329.77 44,077.86
9,462.80 13,431.47 5,343.91
9,488.18 12,733.898,317.32
8,589.25 12,262.58
16,797.97 47,907.42
922.24
•811.93
1875..
1876..
9,437.43 16,973.77 48,185.27
8,796.49 15,146.33 45,421.93
8,624.33. 15,055.57 45,648.02
8,558.12 12,109.06
967.91
8,008.79 12,991.42
1877... 723.92 7,500.71 15,544.00 9,209.72 15,079.49 48,057.84
1878... 656.54 7,605.68 17,169.25 9,784.98 15,499.05 50,715.50
$13,933.79 $125,564.83 $215, 284.03 $71,701.57 $146,552.61 $573,036.83
•
Expenses of
the Board
•
··
TABLE I
EXPENSE OF ADMINISTRATION
Expenses,
Secretary's
Office
509.91
570.06
Expenses,
Expenses,
Expenses, Ac-
General Agent's Account Sick count Visiting
Department State Poor
Agency
7,491.18
8,003.67
9,436.37
8,666.95
··
•
Total
€
$20,038.90
20,079.35
22,690.95
25,369.72
24,571.33
36,816.16
Regarding the foregoing figures, it should be said that all those for
1864 cover a period of fifteen months, beginning with October, 1863.
The expenses of the Board in 1866, 1867, and 1868 include what was
paid on account of rent and fuel for outside rooms, occupied by the
302
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Board during the remodelling of the State House. The Visiting Agency
expenses of these three years, and a portion of those for 1869, were in-
curred by an officer of the Board, who visited and looked after children
in families, by its orders.
3.
The Volume of Work¹
Our Commonwealth contains within her borders about 4,000 per-
sons towards whom she constantly stands in the relation of parent and
guardian. She feeds, clothes, lodges, controls and directs them. She
has invested two and a quarter millions dollars for eleven establish-
ments, called institutions, into which she has gathered these, her 4,000
children and wards; and she employs nearly 500 persons to take care of
them, teach them, train them, and govern and direct them. She ex-
pends nearly $500,000 annually for this work, and is called upon every
year for more and more. This sum does not include the money which
she pays to institutions conducted by corporations, to which she makes
a yearly allowance of more than $50,000. Nor does it include the coun-
ty and municipal establishments.
These institutions were built up at different periods, according to
the wants of the day, as the streets of our capital were laid out, neither
upon any uniform system, nor with an eye to future necessities. They
were located at different places, as momentary convenience required,
though sometimes, unfortunately, pecuniary considerations out-
weighed more important ones. They were put in charge of certain
agents, or special boards of directors, independent of each other, and
having no relations with each other, according to the custom and spirit
of our political and social institutions.
These agents and officials have, in many respects, common duties,
common purposes and common interests; nevertheless, they have no
system of communication, and no unity of action; and the only place
to which all resort is the office of the State's Treasurer.
The institutions have many common objects, some of which, cer-
tainly, could be accomplished better by united than by separate action.
All the inmates are to be fed; and they require nearly a million pounds
of meat, several thousand barrels of flour, and many thousand dollars'
worth of groceries and other articles. They have all to be warmed, and
require about 6,000 tons of coal. They have to be clothed; and the
houses have to be kept furnished and in repair. Each one of them has
¹ Extract from Second Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of State Char-
ities, January, 1866, pp. ix-xiii.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
303
to send agents frequently to Boston, or other markets, to purchase sup-
plies, and, perhaps, they are sometimes obliged indirectly to compete
with each other, to the advantage of the seller.
It was clear to thinking persons that all this could be done, with
more economy of money and time, by a regular commissariat. All the
staples could be bought at wholesale; meats on the hoof; flour at the
mills; coal at the mines, and the smaller articles by some regular system
in the respective neighborhoods. This at least is the way in which a
military force, stationed at different points, would be supplied; and it is
the way, too, which any shrewd business man would adopt, if he
were called upon to supply his operatives at different stations. Besides,
there are certain objects common to all the institutions; others com-
mon to groups of them; and it is obviously of the first importance to
co-ordinate all the establishments, so as to make them work har-
moniously to one great purpose and end.
There should be strict accountability, even to the minutest details
and to the last cent; and of course, a uniform system of accounts adopt-
ed, which could be easily examined, compared and settled at the treas-
ury, or some central agency.
In all the Institutions a variety of persons are employed, who
ought to have a certain natural and acquired fitness for their respective
offices; and there should be some uniform method of ascertaining
whether they possess it or not.
The persons employed ought to be paid at certain rates, and these
should be adjusted, as nearly as possible, by a common standard.
In all, there is to be government, order, discipline and industry.
The principles which underlie these should be well considered and
clearly set forth; and the daily duties of officers ought to have some uni-
formity in the different branches of the service.
In all of them the inmates who are capable of work ought to be em-
ployed at labor, in such manner as will give the greatest return of
profit, and lighten the burden of their support. In certain groups labor
should be as constant and severe as the bodily health and well-being
of the inmates will bear, so as to deter the idle and vicious. In others,
it should be as constant and diligent as may be without impeding the
cure of mental or bodily disorders. In others still, as constant and as
hard as is consistent with instruction, training and reformation.
Moreover, the product of all this labor should be, if possible, co-
ordinated and turned to the most profit. For instance, chairs, tables
and other furniture are constantly made at the State Prison; chairs are
304
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
bottomed at the Reform School; and shoes made at some of the alms-
houses; and the profit on most of this work goes to the contractors or
purchasers. On the other hand, similar articles are constantly needed
at the eleven State Institutions and the profit on their purchase is
given to a dealer.
Again, some of the State Institutions raise more produce than they
need, and sell the surplus to a dealer, who gets his profit on the pur-
·chase; while the other institutions purchase similar articles, and give
the profit to a seller.
It would not be a violent stretch of imagination to suppose that
chairs made at the prison are sometimes bought by a State Institution
in the country; while some of the produce of its farm is bought at the
prison; the profit of the double operation, of course, being reaped by
dealers.
No matter if the instance chosen to illustrate the idea of co-ordi-
nate labor is not a happy one, it shows the principle. At any rate the
direction and disposition of all this manual force and mechanical skill—
in a word, the labor of the 4,000 persons at the charge of the State-
should be regulated with a view to a common end.
Again, in every one of the State Institutions, all facts connected
with the condition and wants of the class of persons which it contains
should be carefully noted and recorded; their nativity, parentage, and
peculiarities of body and mind; their general education and habits of
life, and the results thereof; their powers of labor, of endurance, of ca-
pacity for resisting disease and destructive agencies; their peculiar dis-
orders; their mortality, longevity, and the like. In order to draw all the
useful inferences from these facts, there should be a uniform system of
observation; a regular series of questions; a well digested method of
record; and, of course, an office in which they could be tabulated and
the correct inferences drawn, so as to show the comparative condition,
cost, productiveness, and the like, of the different classes in different
localities.
In hardly one of these respects were the institutions of our Com-
monwealth such as they ought to be, and might easily have been; and
yet there was so much common sense and ability in their general man-
agement, and so much diligence, fidelity, and frugality in their admin-
istration, that great good was manifested in their results; and the
public, therefore, did not stop to ask if this good could not be much
greater and at less cost.
Finally, however, it began to be seen that if there could be some
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
305
agency to collect all the valuable facts learned by the observation and
experience of the many able and honest men who were acting without
concert at various points, and to compare the results obtained in vari-
ous institutions at home and abroad, valuable knowledge might be ob-
tained which would tend to promote economy, to prevent mistakes, to
rectify errors, and, in a word, increase the good results of so much effort
by making all pull in one direction toward one common end.
Above all, it was seen that such an agency might consider carefully
the causes which create such great numbers of dependents; might as-
certain the social conditions which affect these numbers; and when
those conditions are such as can be modified by legislation, appeal to
the legislature; when they are such as can be modified only by the peo-
ple, then appeal to the intelligence and moral sense of the people.
4. Principles of Treatment¹
THE FAMILY SYSTEM
In providing for the poor, the dependent, and the vicious, especially
for the young, we must take the ordinary family for our model. We
must, in a general view of them, bear in mind that they do not as yet
form with us a well marked and persistent class, but a conventional,
and, perhaps, only a temporary one. They do not differ from other
men, except that, taken as a whole, they inherited less favorable moral
tendencies, and less original vigor. Care should be taken that we do
not by our treatment transform the conventional class into a real one
and a persistent one.
In providing for them we are to consider that although there exists
in them, as in all men, a strong gregarious instinct, out of which grows
society, there are yet stronger domestic instincts out of which grows
the family, and upon which depend the affections and the happiness
of the individual. We cannot make the gratification of one instinct
atone for the disappointment of the others. No amount of instruction
and mental culture compensates for stunted affections; no abundance
of society compensates for poverty of domestic relations; and the
denial of these to the dependent poor, especially to the young, can only
be justified by stern necessity. The family has been called the social
unit. It is indeed the basis without which there will be no real society,
but a multitude of individuals who harden into selfishness as they grow
¹ Extract from Second Annual Report of the Massachusetts Board of State Char-
ities, January, 1866, pp. xlv-xlvi, xliv-xlv, xli-xliv.
306
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
older. By means of the affections growing out of the family, the in-
dividual is divided into many; and the interests of others are felt to
be his own.
God not only "set the solitary in families," and made "blood thick-
er than water," but seems to have ordained that the natural institu-
tion of the family, growing out of kindred, and long familiar inter-
course, must be at the foundation of all permanent social institutions,
and that by no human contrivance should any effectual substitute be
found for it. But the family instinct craves a permanent homestead;
and the lack of that is one of the greatest evils of poverty.
If we look through history we shall find that none of the attempts
to imitate the family, upon a large scale, have been successful, and that
most of them have been disastrous failures. They require separation of
sexes, and this involves a train of evils. Large numbers of one sex, liv-
ing together permanently as a family, constitute an unnatural com-
munity, which necessarily tends to a morbid condition. Armies, and
still more, navies, show this in some degree; but where the congregation
is closer and longer continued, as in monasteries, nunneries, knight-
hood-militant, shakerism, and other establishments on like foundation,
the evil effects are multiplied and intensified. The public history of such
establishments shows this plainly; and enough is known of their secret
history to prove that, if it were openly written, it would cause a shudder
in the minds of the poor.
The institution of the Sisters of Charity, that rare and beautiful
flower of the Romish church, forms no exception; for the essence of the
evil, to wit, intensifying selfishness, and making one's own good,
whether here or hereafter, the chief aim of life, is counteracted in the
Sisters by their blessed occupation, which calls them into the walks of
men, and makes them sharers of human interests, sorrows and joys,
contrary to the very principle of selfish isolation which underlies most
of such establishments.
GENERAL PRINCIPLES OF PUBLIC CHARITY
In considering what measures ought to be taken for the care and
treatment of the dependent and vicious classes, we are to bear in mind
several principles.
Ist. That if, by investing one dollar, we prevent an evil the cor-
rection of which would cost ten cents a year, we save four per cent.
2d. That it is better to separate and diffuse the dependent classes
than to congregate them.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
307
3d. That we ought to avail ourselves as much as possible of those
remedial agencies which exist in society,—the family, social influences,
industrial occupations, and the like.
4th. That we should enlist not only the greatest possible amount of
popular sympathy, but the greatest number of individuals and of
families, in the care and treatment of the dependent.
5th. That we should avail ourselves of responsible societies and
organizations which aim to reform, support, or help any class of de-
pendents; thus lessening the direct agency of the State, and enlarging
that of the people themselves.
6th. That we should build up public institutions only in the last
resort.
7th. That these should be kept as small as is consistent with wise
economy, and arranged so as to turn the strength and the faculties of
the inmates to the best account.
8th. That we should not retain the inmates any longer than is
manifestly for their good, irrespective of their usefulness in the insti-
tution.
PROVISION FOR DISABLED SOLDIERS
There is, indeed, danger at this very moment that the earnest de-
sire of the people to show their gratitude to those who carried the coun-
try triumphantly through the war, may lead to the formation of insti-
tutions upon unsound principles, which may prove to be nuisances,
and cumber the field of charity in the next generation.
We cannot be too grateful for the services rendered; too reverent
of the memories of our dead heroes, or too tender and generous to those
survivors who need sympathy and aid. But we must remember that
the warmer is the public heart, the more need of right direction for its
impulses. Many of our soldiers may need homes, but such homes as we
ourselves need; and a great institution, with its congregation of one
sex, with its necessary discipline, and its monotonous life, never
was and never can be such a home as our deserving veterans ought to
have.
Better the poorest hut in a retired hamlet, with its single family
gathered round the hearthstone, where,
The broken soldier, kindly bade to stay,
Sits by the fire and talks the night away,
than a showy building, set upon a hill, with its corps of officials, its
parade of charity, and its clock-work and steam for doing domestic
308
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
work so thoroughly that it is robbed of all its old and endearing asso-
ciations. Unless some as yet undiscovered method is found to check
the evil tendencies of all institutions which congregate persons of one
sex, and substitute artificial for real family influences, soldiers' homes,
or asylums, or refuges, will be likely to share the fate of like institutions
in older countries. They will degenerate like the Invalides and the
Quinze Vingts in France, and the Greenwich Hospital in England; and
a succeeding generation will be occupied, as is the present generation
abroad, in correcting their evils or cutting at their roots.
There is danger, indeed, that our institutions may not start under
as favorable auspices as did some of the foreign ones. They were at
first filled with well deserving veterans who had been actually wound-
ed, or blinded, or disabled in war. But the signs already portend that
into ours will press hardly any respectable Americans, few deserving
foreigners, but a multitude of "bounty-jumpers and shirks," who want
to eat but not to work.
Another danger is the very abundance of means of endowing such
institutions; for there is not only the exhaustless treasure of the peo-
ple's gratitude and the people's purse, but there are funds in hands of
the government, derived from forfeitures, fines, unclaimed pay, and
the like, which can be applied with seeming propriety to such purposes.
Besides, at this moment, there abound unemployed men who think
they can do something better than work. Some of these aspire to honor,
and some to office, and they will seek to connect themselves as patrons,
or as officers, with institutions likely to have temporary popularity.
If the unreasoning impulse to build up special homes for soldiers is
not followed with great caution, a large part of these funds will be in-
vested at the outset in lands and buildings; a part of the remainder will
be spent in keeping them in order; and a larger part in paying a costly
corps of officers and retainers; leaving a small portion only for the im-
mediate benefit of the soldiers. Better far, even as an economical meas-
ure, would be some well devised plan by which the money could go di-
rectly to the soldier, to be spent, or saved, or even wasted, at his will.
Besides, the natural desire of the deserving soldier, disabled in the
war, is with few exceptions, to be at or near his old home and among
his old associates; and the people should have him there, and no where
else; not only for his happiness but their own good; that he may go
about among them, wearing his orders of merit-his honorable scars
to keep alive in their hearts the feelings of patriotism and of gratitude.
Better have 500 maimed veterans stumping about the towns and
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
309
villages of Massachusetts, living partly on their pension and partly
by their work, than shut up in the costliest and best structure that art
could plan or money build.
Among the establishments of this kind which have already sprung
up in various parts of the country, some are under the guidance of men
who are not only earnest and honest, but wise and practical; and they
will, for a time, keep down the unfavorable tendencies; but their vigi-
lance and care cannot be always enjoyed, while the tendencies are in-
nate, and will crop out sooner or later. In some of the establishments,
or homes, they have not begun to do so; but in others they are already
painfully visible.
In whatever is done we must not favor the creation of a separate
class, but encourage the fusion of the soldier with general society. We
must not lessen self-respect, or reluctance to accept direct aid, either
in the soldiers themselves or in their widows and children, but merely
help them to help themselves.
The Board would encourage every popular impulse leading to
thought and care for our fellow-men of whatever class; and these re-
marks are inspired by the wish of making the present sympathy for
the soldier productive of the most good and the least evil.
5. New York Classification of Charities¹
We have made the following classification of charitable institutions,
not purely on scientific grounds, but rather as demanded by the act
under which the Board is organized, and as possessing practical con-
venience:
Division I. State Charities
Division II. Local Charities of Counties and Municipalities
Division III. All other charities receiving State aid
;
DIVISION I
The subdivisions under the general title of "State Charities" are:
1. Institutions for the Insane
2. Institutions for the Blind
3. Institutions for the Deaf and Dumb
4. Institutions for the Idiots
5. Institutions for the Inebriates
6. Institutions for the reformation of Juvenile Delinquents
• Extract from Second Annual Report of the Board of State Commissioners of
Public Charities of the State of New York (1868), pp. xii-xiii.
310
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
DIVISION II
The subdivisions under the title of "Local Charities of Counties
and Municipalities" are:
1. County and town poor houses
2. Almshouses created by special law
DIVISION III
The subdivisions under the title of "all other charities receiving
State aid," are:
1. Orphan asylums and houses for friendless persons
2. Hospitals
3. Dispensaries
4. Charity week-day schools
It should be observed that the defect of this classification is that it
separates subjects which would naturally be grouped together. Thus
the State institutions for the blind, idiotic and insane are reviewed
separately from those established for the same class of persons by the
cities and counties. So again there are cases in the second and third
class that are separated, which would, according to the nature of the
institutions, be united. This incongruity is, however, outweighed in
our judgment by the practical convenience of the classification we have
adopted.
It may not be out of place to add that there is a large number of
charitable institutions in the State which receive no State aid, and over
which we have no power of inspection. We hope to present these in a
tabular form in a succeeding report.
6. Efficiency in Public Charity¹
GENERAL REMARKS
There are some observations of a general nature affecting the
proper conduct and efficiency of our charitable institutions, which we
desire to group together here.
I. This Report shows that there is a great diversity in the organiza-
tion of the institutions which we have undertaken to describe. Some
are private corporations with the power of self-perpetuation; others
are controlled by boards appointed at regular intervals by the Gover-
nor and Senate; others still are managed by trustees elected by stock-
¹ Extract from Second Annual Report of the Board of State Commissioners of
Public Charities of the State of New York (1868), pp. xlvi-xlix.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
311
holders voting either in person or by proxy. Even institutions of the
same class have these diversities of organization. Is there any good rea-
son for these distinctions or have charters been granted haphazard,
and to gratify the wishes of the promoters of the necessary legislation?
Is there some plan which is better than any other, or is it more expedi-
ent to introduce diversity of systems? These inquiries are suggested as
worthy of consideration, without any present attempt to answer them.
II. There is room for serious inquiry whether public buildings are
not too costly in some instances. The sentiment seems somewhat prev-
alent that the excellence of a public institution is to be measured by
the palatial character of its buildings, and their outward show and dec-
oration, rather than by the amount of the results achieved. This
large expenditure operates injuriously as it often deters the public from
providing all the conveniences really necessary for the weaker classes
in the community. It may be suggested that the plan of public build-
ings should be submitted, before their erection, to a supervisory
board. There is, moreover, another objection to great costliness in
public buildings, which is of paramount importance. They often be-
come the most serious impediments to reform. They are constructed,
perhaps, on some false or imperfect theory. Time develops their de-
fects so that they become patent to all, and yet they stand unchanged.
The State authorities hesitate to make the sacrifice necessary to cor-
rect their deficiencies or dislike to acknowledge a mistake which makes
so much expenditure useless. Should it appear wise hereafter to aban-
don our present system of prison discipline, will not the structures at
Sing Sing and Auburn prove to be obstacles in the way? Or, suppose
that the proposition now so extensively broached that the "congregate
plan" of charitable institutions is vicious in theory and indefensible in
practice, is established, will not the vast expenditures already incurred
in buildings be a serious impediment to the general introduction of
the family system? While the whole topic of charitable administration
is still so unsettled, it would seem to be the dictate of prudence and
sagacity to avoid all unnecessary expenditures.
III. There are some considerations concerning the sites of chari-
table institutions too important to be overlooked. This subject has been
partially anticipated in connection with our reference to an asylum for
the insane. There are some institutions which are advantageously
placed in the country. Among these may probably be ranked reform
schools, especially when they are conducted on the so-called family
plan. Others again should be situated near a large city. This would
1
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
appear to be the case with an asylum for the blind. This class of per-
sons are confined to a few avocations, some of which are of a character
requiring much skill, such as musical composition and instruction in
music. Their success in this difficult department with severe competi-
tion depends greatly upon the excellence of the instruction received.
This can be furnished nowhere so well as in the vicinity of a large city,
where the best talent can be procured for the time required at a moder-
ate expense. This whole subject should be carefully considered, as it
seems to us not simply with a regard to beauty of location or as a com-
promise with contending sections of the State, but rather with an eye
to the best interests of the beneficiaries of the charity.
IV. Closely allied to the last suggestion is the inquiry whether it is
for the interest of the State to take into account the gift by a city or
town of a few thousand dollars or of a parcel of land in fixing the situa-
tion of charitable institutions. The sum received is commonly compara-
tively small and of little consequence when compared with the perma-
nent interests of the charity. In fact, gifts of this kind are in general a
positive injury, as they bring the State under an implied obligation
not only to place but to continue the Institution in a locality unsuited
to it. It would seem to comport with the dignity of a great State to
establish its public institutions on wholly independent grounds with-
out any influence from local interests, at the same time encouraging its
public spirited citizens to contribute their time and money to their de-
velopment and support. The other plan suggests the appearance, if
it does not show the reality, of a trifling barter, in which the best inter-
ests of the charity are exchanged for a consideration of no practical
value.
V. Another suggestion is derived from an error of administration,
to which we would prefer not to allude, did it not fall within the path
of our duty. But as medicine advances, through pathology, so charity
takes new steps forward after a study of failures in administration. It
is of the highest importance that the managers of our charitable insti-
tutions should be selected by the appointing power without any refer-
ence to political considerations. There should be no factions of a party
nature among such trustees.
We are aware of the difficulty under which the Executive labors in
making suitable selections for local appointments. We are, also, aware
of the temptations to reward a political friend with a post of honor,
when no more substantial compensation for party service can be ren-
dered. But we believe that these difficulties may be surmounted, and
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
313
that such temptations should be steadfastly resisted. It is our convic-
tion that our State institutions will only achieve their highest success
when every consideration of a party nature is rigorously excluded in
making appointments to their boards of trust.
VI. Another suggestion is, that the managers of charitable institu-
tions do not always have in mind the fact that the utmost impartiality
and freedom from self interest should prevail in the purchase of sup-
plies and in other branches of institutional management. This may be
one of the damaging results of the idea that certain localities have a
claim to the establishment of such an institution in their midst-a
claim which may be secretly, if not openly, urged on account of the
pecuniary benefit to be derived from large contracts. The duty of
the Managers is plain, and needs no enforcement. We would recom-
mend the enactment of a law that no director or manager of a chari-
table institution shall be directly or indirectly interested in the purchase
of supplies, or shall profit, in any manner, by the pecuniary manage-
ment of the charity with which he is connected.
VII. We would raise the question whether it would not be advisa-
ble that the appropriations for State charitable institutions should al-
ways be presented to the Legislature through this Board? Very much
time and money are expended by their officers in urging upon the Legis-
lature the wants of the institutions. Should this suggestion be ap-
proved, a general appropriation bill might be presented, having the
sanction of this Board, which might require a written and verified
statement from the Managers that the expenditure is necessary, to be
placed on file, and which might, in addition, direct personal examina-
tion of the case to be made and reported by the secretary or a referee.
7. Declaration of Principles Promulgated at Cincinnati,
Ohio, 1870, as Adopted by the National
Prison Congress'
I. Crime is an intentional violation of duties imposed by law,
which inflicts injury upon others. Criminals are persons convicted of
crime by competent courts. Punishment is suffering inflicted on the
criminal for the wrongdoing done by him, with a special view to secure
his reformation.
¹ Proceedings of the National Prison Association, 1870, p. 541; found in con-
venient form in Charles R. Henderson, Prison Reform (Russell Sage Foundation,
Correction and Prevention, Vol. I), pp. 39-45-
314
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
II. The treatment of criminals by society is for the protection of
society. But since such treatment is directed to the criminal rather
than to the crime, its great object should be his moral regeneration.
Hence the supreme aim of prison discipline is the reformation of crimi-
nals, not the infliction of vindictive suffering.
III. The progressive classification of prisoners, based on character
and worked on some well-adjusted mark system, should be established
in all prisons above the common jail.
IV. Since hope is a more potent agent than fear, it should be made
an ever-present force in the minds of prisoners, by a well-devised and
skilfully applied system of rewards for good conduct, industry and at-
tention to learning. Rewards, more than punishments, are essential to
every good prison system.
V. The prisoner's destiny should be placed, measurably, in his
own hands; he must be put into circumstances where he will be able,
through his own exertions, to continually better his own condition. A
regulated self-interest must be brought into play, and made constantly
operative.
VI. The two master forces opposed to the reform of the prison sys-
tems of our several states are political appointments and a consequent
instability of administration. Until both are eliminated, the needed re-
forms are impossible.
VII. Special training, as well as high qualities of head and heart, is
required to make a good prison or reformatory officer. Then only will
the administration of public punishment become scientific, uniform
and successful, when it is raised to the dignity of a profession, and men
are specially trained for it, as they are for other pursuits.
VIII. Peremptory sentences ought to be replaced by those of inde-
terminate length. Sentences limited only by satisfactory proof of ref-
ormation should be substituted for those measured by mere lapse of
time.
IX. Of all reformatory agencies, religion is first in importance,
because most potent in its action upon the human heart and life.
X. Education is a vital force in the reformation of fallen men and
women. Its tendency is to quicken the intellect, inspire self-respect,
excite to higher aims, and afford a healthful substitute for low and vi-
cious amusements. Education is, therefore, a matter of primary impor-
tance in prisons, and should be carried to the utmost extent consistent
with the other purposes of such institutions.
XI. In order to the reformation of imprisoned criminals, there
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
315
must be not only a sincere desire and intention to that end, but a seri-
ous conviction, in the minds of the prison officers, that they are capable
of being reformed, since no man can heartily maintain a discipline at
war with his inward beliefs; no man can earnestly strive to accomplish
what in his heart he despairs of accomplishing.
XII. A system of prison discipline, to be truly reformatory, must
gain the will of the convict. He is to be amended; but how is this pos-
sible with his mind in a state of hostility? No system can hope to
succeed which does not secure this harmony of wills, so that the pris-
oner shall choose for himself what his officer chooses for him. But, to
this end, the officer must really choose the good of the prisoner, and
the prisoner must remain in his choice long enough for virtue to become
a habit. This consent of wills is an essential condition of reformation.
XIII. The interest of society and the interest of the convicted
criminal are really identical, and they should be made practically so.
At present there is a combat between crime and laws. Each sets the
other at defiance, and, as a rule, there is little kindly feeling, and few
friendly acts, on either side. It would be otherwise if criminals, on
conviction, instead of being cast off were rather made the objects of a
generous parental care; that is, if they were trained to virtue and not
merely sentenced to suffering.
XIV. The prisoner's self-respect should be cultivated to the ut-
most, and every effort made to give back to him his manhood. There
is no greater mistake in the whole compass of penal discipline than its
studied imposition of degradation as a part of punishment. Such im-
position destroys every better impulse and aspiration. It crushes the
weak, irritates the strong, and indisposes all to submission and reform.
It is trampling where we ought to raise, and is therefore as unchristian
in principle as it is unwise in policy.
XV. In prison administration, moral forces should be relied upon,
with as little admixture of physical force as possible, and organized per-
suasion be made to take the place of coercive restraint, the object being
to make upright and industrious freemen rather than orderly and obe-
dient prisoners; moral training alone will make good citizens. To the
latter of these ends, the living soul must be won; to the former, only
the inert and obedient body.
A
XVI. Industrial training should have both a higher development
and a greater breadth than has heretofore been, or is now, commonly
given to it in our prisons. Work is no less an auxiliary to virtue than
it is a means of support. Steady, active, honorable labor is the basis
316
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
of all reformatory discipline. It not only aids reformation, but is essen-
tial to it. It was a maxim with Howard, "make men diligent and they
will be honest❞—a maxim which this congress regards as eminently
sound and practical.
XVII. While industrial labor in prisons is of the highest impor-
tance and utility to the convict, and by no means injurious to the la-
borer outside, we regard the contract system of prison labor, as now
commonly practiced in our country, as prejudicial alike to discipline,
finance and the reformation of the prisoner, and sometimes injurious
to the interest of the free laborer.
XVIII. The most valuable parts of the Irish prisons system-the
more strictly penal state of separate imprisonment, the reformatory
stage of progressive classification, and the probationary stage of natural
training—are believed to be as applicable to one country as another—
to the United States as to Ireland.
XIX. Prisons, as well as prisoners, should be classified or graded
so that there shall be prisons for the untried, for the incorrigible and
for other degrees of depraved character, as well as separate establish-
ments for women and for criminals of the younger class.
XX. It is the judgment of the congress, that repeated short sen-
tences for minor criminals are worse than useless; that, in fact, they
rather stimulate than repress transgression. Reformation is a work of
time; and a benevolent regard to the good of the criminal himself, as
well as to the protection of society, requires that his sentence be long
enough for reformatory processes to take effect.
XXI. Preventive institutions, such as truant homes, industrial
schools, etc., for the reception and treatment of children not yet crimi-
nal, but in danger of becoming so, constitute the true field of promise
in which to labor for the repression of crime.
XXII. More systematic and comprehensive methods should be
adopted to save discharged prisoners, by providing them with work and
encouraging them to redeem their character and regain their lost posi-
tion in society. The state has not discharged its whole duty to the
criminal when it has punished him, nor even when it has reformed him.
Having raised him up, it has the further duty to aid in holding him up.
And to this end it is desirable that state societies be formed, which shall
co-operate with each other in this work.
XXIII. The successful prosecution of crime requires the combined
action of capital and labor, just as other crafts do. There are two well
defined classes engaged in criminal operations, who may be called the
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
317
capitalists and the operatives. It is worthy of inquiry, whether a more
effective warfare may not be carried on against crime by striking at
the capitalists as a class, than at the operatives one by one. Certainly,
this double warfare should be vigorously pushed, since from it the best
results, as regards repressive justice, may be reasonably hoped for.
XXIV. Since personal liberty is the rightful inheritance of every
human being, it is the sentiment of this congress that the state which
has deprived an innocent citizen of this right, and subjected him to
penal restraint, should, on unquestionable proof of its mistake, make
reasonable indemnification for such wrongful imprisonment.
XXV. Criminal lunacy is a question of vital interest to society;
and facts show that our laws regarding insanity, in its relation to crime,
need revision, in order to bring them to a more complete conformity to
the demands of reason, justice and humanity; so that, when insanity
is pleaded in bar of conviction, the investigation may be conducted
with greater knowledge, dignity and fairness; criminal responsibility
be more satisfactorily determined; the punishment of the sane criminal
be made more sure, and the restraint of the insane be rendered at once
more certain and more humane.
XXVI. While this congress would not shield the convicted crimi-
nal from the just responsibility of his misdeeds, it arraigns society it-
self as in no slight degree accountable for the invasion of its rights and
the warfare upon its interests, practiced by the criminal classes. Does
society take all the steps which it easily might to change, or at least
to improve, the circumstances in our social state that lead to crime; or,
when crime has been committed, to cure the proclivity to it generated
by these circumstances? It cannot be pretended. Let society, then, lay
the case earnestly to its conscience, and strive to mend in both particu-
lars. Offenses, we are told by a high authority, must come; but a special
woe is pronounced against those through whom they come. Let us
take heed that that woe fall not upon our head.
XXVII. The exercise of executive clemency in the pardon of crimi-
nals is a practical question of grave importance and of great delicacy
and difficulty. It is believed that the annual average of executive par-
dons from the prisons of the whole country reaches ten per cent of their
population. The effect of the too free use of the pardoning power is
to detract from the certainty of punishment for crimes, and to divert
the mind of prisoners from the means supplied for their improvement.
Pardons should issue for one or more of the following reasons: viz., to
release the innocent, to correct mistakes made in imposing the sentence,
i
318
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
to relieve such suffering from ill-health as requires release from in-
prisonment, and to facilitate or reward the real reformation of the
prisoner. The exercise of this power should be by the executive and
should be guarded by careful examination as to the character of the
prisoner and his conduct in prison. Furthermore, it is the opinion of
this congress that governors of states should give their respective
legislatures the reasons, in each case, for their exercise of the pardoning
power.
XXVIII. The proper duration of imprisonment for a violation of
the laws of society is one of the most perplexing questions in criminal
jurisprudence. The present extraordinary inequality of sentences for
the same or similar crimes is a source of constant irritation among
prisoners, and the discipline of our prisons suffers in consequence. The
evil is one for which some remedy should be devised.
XXIX. Prison statistics, gathered from a wide field and skilfully
digested, are essential to an exhibition of the true character and work-
ing of our prison cystems. The collection, collation and reduction to
tabulated forms of such statistics can best be effected through a na-
tional prison discipline society, with competent working committees
in every state, or by the establishment of a national prison bureau,
similar to the recently instituted national bureau of education.
XXX. Prison architecture is a matter of grave importance. Pris-
ons of every class should be substantial structures, affording gratifica-
tion by their design and material to a pure taste, but not costly or
highly ornate. We are of the opinion that those of moderate size are
best, as regards both industrial and reformatory ends.
XXXI. The construction, organization and management of all
prisons should be by the state, and they should form a graduated series
of reformatory establishments, being arranged with a view to the in-
dustrial employment, intellectual education and moral training of the
inmates.
XXXII. As a general rule, the maintenance of penal institutions,
above the county jail, should be from the earnings of their inmates, and
without cost to the state; nevertheless, the true standard of merit in
their management is the rapidity and thoroughness of reformatory
effect accomplished thereby.
XXXIII. A right application of the principles of sanitary science
in the construction and arrangements of prisons is a point of vital im-
portance. The apparatus for heating and ventilation should be the
best that is known; sunlight, air and water should be afforded accord-
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
319
ing to the abundance with which nature has provided them; the rations
and clothing should be plain but wholesome, comfortable, and in suffi-
cient but not extravagant quantity; the bedsteads, bed and bedding,
including sheets and pillow cases, not costly but decent, and kept clean,
well aired and free from vermin; the hospital accommodations, medical
stores and surgical instruments should be all that humanity requires
and science can supply; and all needed means for personal cleanliness
should be without stint.
XXXIV. The principle of the responsibility of parents for the full
or partial support of their criminal children in reformatory institutions
has been extensively applied in Europe, and its practical working has
been attended with the best results. It is worthy of inquiry whether
this principle may not be advantageously introduced into the manage-
ment of our American reformatory institutions.
XXXV. It is our conviction that one of the most effective agencies
in the repression of crime would be the enactment of laws by which the
education of all the children of the state should be made obligatory.
Better to force education upon the people than to force them into
prison to suffer for crimes, of which the neglect of education and conse-
quent ignorance have been the occasion, if not the cause.
XXXVI. As a principle that crowns all, and is essential to all, it is
our conviction that no prison system can be perfect, or even successful
to the most desirable degree, without some central authority to sit at
the helm, guiding, controlling, unifying and vitalizing the whole. We
ardently hope to see all the departments of our preventive, reformatory
and penal institutions in each state moulded into one harmonious and
effective system; its parts mutually answering to and supporting each
other; and the whole animated by the same spirit, aiming at the same
objects, and subject to the same control; yet without loss of the advan-
tages of voluntary aid and effort, wherever they are attainable.
XXXVII. This congress is of the opinion that, both in the official
administration of such a system and in the voluntary co-operation of
citizens therein, the agency of women may be employed with excellent
effect.
8. The Needless Cost of Public Buildings¹
This class of charities crowds upon the attention of public men a
question which becomes every day more pressing: How shall our pub-
¹ Extract from Theodore W. Dwight, "The Public Charities of the State of
New York," Journal of Social Science, II (1870), 73.
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
lic buildings be constructed? Shall they be palatial structures, like the
Inebriate Asylums at Binghamton, which rivals in its luxurious finish
the best of our city mansions, or shall they be cheaply constructed with
a view to rigid economy? Without stopping to discuss this question, it
is enough for the present to suggest that, whatever architectural beauty
may be demanded by our growing cultivation, we should never lose
sight of the principle that the chief consideration must be the greatest
good of the greatest number. A most serious mistake is committed if a
splendid home is provided for a few-far superior to that which the
same members of the same class in society possesses-while the many
remain neglected and destitute. It may be conceded that there are
charitable institutions which properly require elegant and tasteful
structures, but it is insisted that large expenditure for such reasons is
out of place in building for the use of insane paupers. If all of this class
were provided for as in the Willard Asylum, an expenditure of more
than two millions of dollars would be immediately required. Let the
buildings be comfortable, plain, and adapted to their wants. There is
an opportunity for some skilful architect to render an essential service
to the State by devising a plan for asylums of this kind, which shall be
at once simple, convenient, in good taste, and comparatively inexpen-
sive. The suggestion may be ventured that there might be established,
in connection with the existing lunatic asylums of this kind, a pauper
branch or division, under the general care of the Superintendent and
Board of Managers. Many of the harmless insane might be placed in
private families of respectable character, who might be required to
make periodical returns of their condition to the Managers. Thus for
a comparatively small expenditure the whole of this class might re-
ceive suitable care from the State, and be altogether withdrawn from
the counties where they are now, with few exceptions, utterly neg-
lected.
9. Review by the Rhode Island Governor¹
I beg leave to submit the following "Report" relating to the State
Beneficiaries at the various institutions for the care of the Insane, and
for the education of the Deaf, Dumb, Blind and Idiotic in our own
State as well as in the States of Massachusetts, Connecticut and Ver-
mont.
¹ Governor Seth Padelford, "Report on the State Beneficiaries: Deaf, Dumb,
Blind, and Insane, Made to the General Assembly at Its January Session, 1871,”
Acts and Resolves of the State of Rhode Island (1871), Appendix 7.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
321
The total expenditures for the support of persons belonging to,
and sent from, Rhode Island for the past year are as follows:
At the Butler Hospital for the Insane..
At the State Lunatic Asylum, Taunton, Mass.
At the State Lunatic Asylum, Worcester, Mass.
At the Vermont Asylum, Brattleboro, Vt...
Supported in private families in this State
• •
•
Total for the Insane..
For the education of the Blind, at the Massachusetts Institu-
tion, Boston. . . . .
For the education of the Deaf and Dumb, Hartford..
For the Idiotic, at the Institution, Boston.
$ 9,530.77
225.00
648.90
2,750.68
130.00
$13,285.35
$ 2,400.00
738.21
300.00
Total for the Deaf, Dumb, Blind and Idiotic........ $ 3,438.21
In the summer I visited the Vermont Institution for the Insane at
Brattleboro', where the State has supported twenty-four patients,
male and female, during the year 1870. Some of these have been there
fifteen years. I saw all of these patients, who appeared to be well taken
care of, and made as comfortable as circumstances would admit. The
institution contains upwards of five hundred patients, is pleasantly
situated near the town of Brattleboro', and is surrounded by extensive
grounds. A more healthy spot could not well be found or one better
adapted for the care of the insane. In October last, two of the patients
supported by this State made their escape and have not since been
heard from.
All the patients at this institution from Rhode Island have re-
cently been removed to the State Farm.
:
I also visited the Massachusetts State Lunatic Asylum, at Wor-
cester, where we had at the beginning of the year eight patients. One
was admitted during the year. All these patients have been transferred
to the State Farm.
At the State Lunatic Asylum at Taunton, Massachusetts, where
they had been several years, we had three patients, who have also been
removed to the State Farm.
The indigent insane, as you are aware, have been supported as far
as possible at the Butler Hospital in Providence, but with its limited
accommodations it has only been able to accommodate about two-
thirds of the insane of the State, the remainder have been sent to the
institutions before mentioned. It is an institution, too, for the cure of
A
322
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
the insane, and its usefulness would be greatly checked if it were filled
with paupers, incurably insane.
It hardly seems necessary to enter into any particulars regarding
this excellent and well-managed institution, with which many of you
are well acquainted. It is visited weekly by a committee whose duty
it is to see every inmate. My visits to it have afforded me great satis-
faction. The annual reports of the Trustees, which are accessible to all,
convey all the information that may be desired.
At the beginning of the year 1870, the State had ninety patients
at the Butler Hospital, of which number fourteen were supported in
part by their friends. The remainder, seventy-six in number, come
under the class of paupers, and are supported in part by the State, and
in part by the towns to which they belong.
During the past year, eighteen new patients have been admitted to
this Hospital, and fourteen have been discharged. Of the latter, some
were sent out of the State by the Commissioners of State Charities,
some had improved, and others were removed by their friends.
During the month of December, all the pauper patients were trans-
ferred to the State Farm, except three. These were retained at the
Hospital, as they were recent cases of insanity, had been there but a
few days and required medical treatment. Two other patients have
been admitted there since the beginning of the year, who it is expected
will soon recover and be discharged.
There now remain at the Hospital sixteen patients.
Beneficiaries supported in part by their friends...
Indigent Insane, recent cases.
•
·
16
5
1
Total..
I visited the American Asylum, at Hartford, a few weeks since, in
company with the Secretary of State, on which occasion we were pres-
ent at the examination of many of the classes, particularly those in
which were the pupils from Rhode Island. Those who had been at the
institution several years showed great proficiency in their studies,
quite as much, indeed, as children in possession of all their faculties.
We had at the beginning of the year five pupils at this institution.
Since that time two who had been there six years have graduated, and
three new pupils have been admitted, making the present number
six. It is evident from our census returns that there are many deaf and
dumb children of a proper age to be admitted to this excellent institu-
tion who are growing up in ignorance, who are a great burden to their
21
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
323
parents and who will eventually find their way to our poorhouses.
With few exceptions (and these are cases where other faculties are
wanting) all who have been educated at the American Asylum from
Rhode Island, are not only able to earn their own living, but several
are enabled to earn sufficient for their own support and to contribute
towards the support of their parents. One young man, who, besides
being deaf and dumb, has but one arm which he can use, earns $15 a
week or $780 a year, being more than his father, an able-bodied man,
with the use of all his faculties can earn.
A few weeks after our visit to Hartford the excellent Superintend-
ent of this Institution, the Rev. Collins Stone, was accidentally killed
within the streets of that city, when crossing a railway. Many of the
members of the General Assembly will remember the visits of this gen-
tleman to Providence, to exhibit his pupils before them, for the pur-
pose of extending a knowledge of the institution over which he pre-
sided, and the great advantages furnished to the deaf and dumb. He
had been for many years connected with the American Asylum, and
was considered a most efficient officer. His son, who for several years
was a professor here, and more recently the head of the Michigan
State Institution for the Deaf and Dumb, has just been appointed to
the place made vacant by the death of his father.
We visited the Perkins Institution for the Blind, at South Boston,
where the State had, at the beginning of the year, seven pupils. Three
have since been admitted. . . .
The report of the Superintendent of this institution on the general
conduct of these pupils is very satisfactory. Those who have been
some time at the institution have made great progress in their learning,
and stand high in their respective classes. The highest point which can
be attained on the class roll is ten. Three reached this point, while the
average of the eight pupils who had been under instruction more than
a year was 91%. I doubt whether any school in the State can exhibit
a higher average than this. Three of the scholars, John Vars, John
Pengally, and Miss Brownell, all of Newport, are reported by Dr.
Howe, the Superintendent of the Institution, as persons of uncommon
merit and promise. John Vars is one of a small class selected to receive
a classical education, provided funds can be raised either from public
or private sources to defray the expense. He has been at the Institu-
tion seven years, which is the full term that pupils can be supported at
the expense of the State. It is to be hoped that an effort may be made
by the people of his native city to give him a classical education. Miss
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PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Brownell is a proficient performer on the piano, and is now able to earn
her living by teaching music.
At the Massachusetts School for Idiotic and Feeble-minded Youth,
in Boston, is the unfortunate child, Emma Ray, who is deaf, dumb and
blind. No faculty has yet been developed in her with certainty. There
are, however, indications that sounds have, on some occasions, been
perceptible to her; and it is hoped that within a year or two, if dormant
faculties exist, they will be recognized, so that an effort may be made
for their development.
IO. Pauper and Destitute Children'
The board has heretofore, in its reports to the legislature, referred
to the pauper and destitute children of the state, and submitted its
views and recommendations as to the best methods of providing for
their care. Its inquiries having, however, been restricted to public in-
stitutions, the information thus obtained has not been as full as de-
sired. The last legislature by section 7, act chapter 571, before re-
ferred to, authorized these inquiries to be extended so as to include pri-
vate institutions, and also directed the board to furnish in tabulated
statements the number of such children in the several counties of the
state, with such particulars as might be deemed proper.
The board took measures at an early day to collect the information
contemplated, and directed the secretary to conduct the inquiries. A
form for returns as to the names, sex, age, parentage, social, physical
and mental condition of this class of children, the causes of pauperism
or destitution, and the length of time they had severally been a public
charge, with proper instructions, was sent, on the 1st of October last,
to the resident officers of the various institutions of the state having
the custody of this class of persons, with a request to give the informa-
tion thus desired. Answers were furnished by most of the institutions
promptly. Others were addressed repeatedly before any response could
be obtained, and a few institutions have failed to make the report re-
quired by the statute. The returns have been analyzed and tabulated
under the direction of the secretary, and the results are given in
Table I.
It will be thus seen that there were fifteen thousand six hundred
and sixty-eight (15,668) pauper and destitute children under the pro-
I Extract from Seventh Annual Report of the State Board of Charities of the State
of New York (1874), pp. 39–44.
1
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
325
tection of the various charitable institutions of the state, October 1,
1873, of whom nine thousand and fifty-nine (9,059) were males, and
six thousand six hundred and nine (6,609) females. .
While the number is large of those who, by reason of constitutional
infirmity, have an unusual claim upon our sympathies—a claim which
in many instances will continue to exist through the remainder of their
lives-yet by far the greater part, as will be observed of these unfortu-
nate wards of society, possess an average measure of intelligence and
are capable subjects for educational training. When we remember that
TABLE I
STATEMENT SHOWING THE NUMBER AND SITUATION OF THE PAUPER AND
DESTITUTE CHILDREN OF THE STATE OF NEW YORK, OCTOBER 1, 1873
Situation
In county poor-houses.
In city alms-houses
•
·
In orphan asylums and homes of the friendless.
In hospitals.
·
In institutions for the blind.
In institutions for deaf and dumb.
In institutions for idiots..
Total.....
D
•
In houses of refuge and reformation.
In institutions for the care of foundlings and home-
less infants..
•
•
•
•
•
Male
377
240
3,807
659
2,835
852
4
229
56
9,059
Female
267
131
3,932
375
716
972
5
178
33
6,609
Total
644
371
7,739
1,034
3,551
1,824
9
407
89
15,668
all these are growing up, under the influences by which they are sur-
rounded, to become members of society in a few years, and numerous
enough to affect its moral condition, a feeling of very grave responsi-
bility must arise in the minds of all who have any part in the public
guardianship to which they are committed.
In the year 1868 when statistics relating to pauper and destitute
children were first gathered by this board, it was found that there were
one thousand two hundred and twenty-two (1,222) under sixteen years
in the several county poor-houses of the state. The general condition
of these was very deplorable. Exposed to the most degrading associa-
tions, the innocence of childhood soon became corrupted with a taint
which no subsequent moral or religious training could efface. In many
of the poor-houses separate departments for the children were provided
and teachers employed to give them instruction; but it soon became
apparent that this promising arrangement accomplished nothing ex-
cept to show that an evil which it was hoped would have been cured
326
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
had only been covered up. The schools were generally small, the hours
of study brief, and the enervation which pervades the very atmosphere
of a poor-house had so destroyed all ambition in the minds of the
pupils, that the best efforts of the most capable teachers seemed to be
well nigh thrown away.
The examination of the poor-houses in 1868, demonstrated that
these institutions could not be made a fit place for the rearing of chil-
dren, and the efforts of the board were early governed by that conclu-
sion. Keepers and superintendents of the poor were earnestly urged to
place children out in respectable families, and otherwise suitably to
provide for them elsewhere than in the county poor-house. The boards
of supervisors of the various counties have also been urged, by per-
sonal appeal or through the press, to take action in the same direction.
The subject is one which the board and its officers have never lost sight
of, in their periodical visits to the county institutions, and it has been
presented by them whenever occasion afforded. The result thus far is
that in a considerable number of counties, all the children over two
years of age have been removed to asylums, or otherwise suitably pro-
vided for, by authority of the board of supervisors, upon terms gen-
erally not exceeding the cost of their maintenance in the county poor-
houses.
As before stated the number of children under sixteen years in the
various county poor-houses in 1868, was one thousand two hundred and
twenty-two (1,222). In 1869, the returns show that it was reduced to
nine hundred and twenty (920); in 1870, to seven hundred and ninety-
two (792); in 1871, to six hundred and seventy-five (675); in 1872, to
six hundred and seventy-nine (679); and in 1873, to six hundred and
forty-four (644). Since then (October 1, 1873), all the children in the
Erie county poor-house have been removed and placed in homes or
asylums, thus reducing the number in the poor-houses to five hundred
and seventy-nine (579).
But this number is still too large. While a considerable portion of
these are infants, idiots or other defectives, for whom no other public
provision is made, a great number, it will be seen, are intelligent and
need proper care to fit them for their duties in life.
There can be no question that the county poor-house is an entirely
unsuitable place in which to rear and educate children. Degrading and
vicious influences surround them in these institutions, corrupting to
both body and soul. They quickly fall into ineradicable habits of idle-
ness, which prepare them for a life of pauperism and crime. Their
moral and religious training is, in most cases, entirely neglected, and
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
327
their secular education is of the scantiest and most superficial kind.
Self-respect is, in time, almost extinguished, and a prolonged residence
in the poor-house leaves upon them a stigma which clings to them in
after years, and carries its unhappy influences through life. If the
cases in which helpless children are cast upon the charity of the county
for support, by the death of father or mother, are distressing, the case
of the child born in the poor-house, and who is doomed to remain in it
until he becomes old enough to understand his position, is still more so.
Every child needs a home-a family home and nothing can fully
supply its place. Whatever temporary provision is made for poor chil-
dren, to whom no home is left, the ultimate object should be to place
them, as early as possible, in families. This result can readily be ac-
complished, if the county authorities set about the work in earnest,
and it is gratifying to notice a general interest in the subject.
A very large proportion of the idiot children in the county poor-
houses belong to the unteachable class. These are frequently subjected
to inhuman treatment from those about them, who cannot recognize
that their very helplessness entitles them to the greatest kindness.
Every consideration of humanity, therefore, requires that this class
should be removed to a separate asylum. It is believed that separate
provision should also be made for epileptics and paralytics, so as to se-
cure to them the supervision and care which their helpless condition
demands.
II. Power of the Pennsylvania State Board to Obtain Reports¹
The results of our efforts, thus far, to obtain these necessary "re-
turns" have not been satisfactory. In some instances, even the State
institutions, technically so called, have furnished incomplete and even
inaccurate responses; while from county prisons and almshouses, the
information given to us, upon such questions as we have addressed to
them, is meagre and unsatisfactory to the last degree. The chief cause
of this inability to give correct returns lies in the fact that no well de-
vised method of recording them is in use in most of the institutions.
The records of many of these county charities are no more like the
system which the act of the Legislature would make necessary to fur-
nish material for the reports which it exacts, than are the loose and de-
tached memoranda, which constitute the entire book-keeping of some
careless tradesman, like the exact system of entries and balances by
which the accomplished merchant preserves a perfect knowledge of his
* Extract from First Annual Report of the Board of Commissioners of Public
Charities of the State of Pennsylvania (1870), pp. x-xi, xviii.
328
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
business, and protects himself from the possibility of undiscoverable
errors.
Prefacing thus far our Report of the work of the Commission during
its first year, the Board will state what they conceive to be their powers
and their duties. The former are as full and authoritative as can be
desired for the performance of the latter. They are solely, however, of
a visitorial character. They open the doors of all the charitable, re-
formatory and correctional institutions in the State to the inspection of
the Commission, and expose, also, all the books and papers relating to
the institutions to our observation and criticism. This is a large grant
of power, but it is given solely with a view to impart information to the
Legislature. It delegates to us no executive authority, and we would be
the last to question the wisdom of so conservative an omission. It is
true that many cases of obvious abuse have come to our notice, which
we could have redressed, and which it would have been wise to redress,
without delay or hesitation; but on the other hand, the promptings of
a quick sympathy or the natural love of authority might lead to wrongs
of a different, but of an equally hurtful character, with the abuses
which might have been suppressed. When the wisdom which maturity
insures, shall have been acquired, it may be well to invest the Commis-
sion with such judicious executive authority as may be necessary to
realize the purposes of the act, under whose sanctions we exist.
We are able to express with confidence the conviction that the
public mind was prepared for the work of this Commission, and has
fully recognized its importance. With a single exception, the numerous
institutions of the Commonwealth have received us with cordial wel-
come, and have, in many instances, in advance of our approach,
stepped forward to open to us their resources of information for the
purposes of our organization. We are not only glad, but proud to be
able to say that jealousy of fancied precedence, apprehension of sup-
posed interference, or other unworthy suspicion, has not interposed
to thwart the humane, the wise, the philanthropic motives which in-
fluenced the Legislature to create the Board of Public Charities.
12. The Attitude of the Trustees of Institutions to the State Boards¹
The knowledge of specialists is so much more minute and extensive
than that possessed by occasional students of the same subject, that
¹ Letter from Rev. F. H. Wines, secretary of the Illinois State Board, to Mr.
F. B. Sanborn; on "Hospital Building for the Insane," Proceedings of the Fifth
Annual Conference of Charities (Cincinnati, 1878), pp. 143–50.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
329
one who is not a physician, and not a superintendent, may properly
hesitate to come in conflict with the superintendents of our American
hospitals for the insane, especially upon points with regard to which
there is a general agreement among them.
The internal and external life of these institutions is, however, so
far distinct, that persons on the outside may have even a clearer per-
ception of their relations to governments and to tax-payers, than the
superintendents themselves. The public, if it is not competent to pass
upon the questions of medical treatment, involved in the care of the
insane, is nevertheless able to judge of results. The ordeal of criticism
through which the hospitals are now passing does not arise from any
want of confidence in the medical skill or integrity of purpose of the
gentlemen by whom they are managed, nor from any lack of apprecia-
tion of the great work achieved by them during the past half-century.
On the contrary, the controversies which have arisen, respecting the
care of the insane in this country, are, for the most part, non-medical,
and therefore not beyond a layman's province or powers; while, on
the other hand, they relate to the future and not to the past develop-
ment of our hospital system.
The Association of Medical Superintendents of American Hospitals
for the Insane,¹ a close corporation, is committed to a certain rigid,
almost inflexible type of hospital building (which I need not describe),
characterized by two prominent peculiarities, viz., uniformity, verging
upon monotony, and the ease with which each individual patient may
be subjected to any degree of restraint approved by the judgment of
the medical officer in charge. The positions taken by the Association
are: that the care of its insane citizens is properly the function of the
State; that the State should make provision for all its insane; that the
only qualified advisers of the State in this regard are the superintend-
ents and ex-superintendents of hospitals; that the type of building
recommended by the Association is the best and only correct type; and
that, for all the insane of every State in the Union, buildings of this
class should be erected. It is true that a division of opinion exists even
within the Association itself, as to some of these positions; but we need
not delay here to speak of it.
I
* [In this letter is expressed at a relatively early date the view with reference
to the general question of hospital buildings for the insane that was partially em-
bodied in the Kankakee Institution. For a full statement on this, see Mildred E.
Buck, The History of the Kankakee Hospital for the Insane (Master's thesis in the
Graduate School of Social Service Administration, University of Chicago, 1926).]
330
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The Association has gone still further, in the adoption of that fa-
mous resolution, in which it is announced that "any supernumerary
functionaries, endowed with the privilege of scrutinizing the manage-
ment of the hospital, even sitting in judgment on the conduct of attend-
ants and the complaints of patients, and controlling the management,
directly by the exercise of superior power, or indirectly by stringent
advice, can scarcely accomplish an amount of good sufficient to com-
pensate for the harm that is sure to follow." A resolution, the obvious
inference from which is, that the gentlemen who express this opinion
either fear hostile criticism on the part of the "supernumerary func-
tionaries" referred to, or else feel themselves to be above criticism.
I certainly do not desire to see a single symptom of antagonism be-
tween the Conference of Charities and this Association, but rather the
most cordial good-will and co-operation, in every thing which concerns
the welfare of the insane. But I know of no other body capable of call-
ing public attention to the weak points in the Association's position,
and of formulating a more carefully considered statement of opinion,
in such a manner as to influence future legislative action, on the part
of the several States represented officially in the Conference.
The inconsistency between the declaration of the Association, in
1851, that "the highest number that can with propriety be treated in
one building is two hundred and fifty, while two hundred is a preferable
maximum,” and the declaration, in 1866, that "the enlargement of a
city, county, or state institution for the insane
may be properly
carried to the extent of accommodating six hundred patients," is so
glaring that it has to be admitted. The explanation of this change of
front is obscurely intimated in the clause appended to the latter of the
two declarations, which is in these words: "embracing the usual pro-
portion of curable and incurable insane in a particular community."
This expression, pressed to its fullest extent, would mean that as many
of the incurably insane in a given territory should be cared for in hospi-
tals as of the more recent of curable cases, relatively to the whole num-
ber of each class. It is a little doubtful whether this is what the Associa-
tion meant to say. But there can be no doubt that allusion is intended
to the fact that, in 1851, the Association had only curable cases in its
mind, and that the character of our institutions has been changed since
then, so that they are now not only hospitals, but asylums as well. The
great majority of the insane, now in hospitals, are cases of long stand-
ing, chronic, and absolutely beyond all rational hope of recovery.
But the deliverance of the Association on the construction of hos-
•
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
331
pitals for the insane, which, in 1871, it re-affirmed "in the most em-
phatic manner," was also adopted and published in 1851, twenty-seven
years ago. The whole number of insane then under treatment in hospi-
tals, in a single year, did not probably much, if at all, exceed eight
thousand: the present number must be between thirty thousand and
forty thousand. This increase is attributable in but slight measure, if
at all, to the supposed increase of insanity; but to the much greater
proportion of chronic cases retained in custody than used to be the
practice a quarter of a century ago. The inquiry naturally arises, If
the nature and use of these institutions has been so greatly modified
by the lapse of years, is it not possible that the time has come for a new
deliverance on the part of the Association on the construction of hos-
pitals, as well as on the proper number to be treated in a single insti-
tution? There certainly appears to the mind of a non-medical man to
be some inconsistency between the admission, twelve years ago, (when
the change was less marked than it now is), that such a modification
had taken place, and that the proper maximum therefore required to
be re-stated, and the position that no modification of the plan of con-
struction is necessary or even desirable.
I have already said that upon this subject the Association is not a
unit. The oldest members dissent from some of the propositions more
recently enunciated; while the youngest members do not cordially
assent to all "the former declarations." The modesty so becoming to
youth, and the reverence which we, as well as they, must feel for the
Nestors of the profession, induce a respectful silence upon their part.
The youngest men of all, the assistant physicians, many of whom are
much less conservative, are excluded from the Association by its con-
stitution.
Neither does the Association coincide upon all points with the
opinions held by the same profession in foreign lands. The entire body
is waging a bitter warfare against the English doctrine of manual, as
opposed to mechanical, restraint; or, as the English alienists would
probably put it, of non-restraint vs. restraint. It is equally opposed
to the British system of "commissioners in lunacy"; at least, I infer so
from the language of the resolution quoted in full above.
A knowledge of these facts renders it doubtful whether "the au-
thority of the source" from which the proposition, so emphatically
re-affirmed, comes, is so unquestionable as the Association itself sup-
poses. Nor is this remark made in any spirit of disrespect.
The Association has said (1866) that "every State should make
332
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
ample and suitable provision for all its insane"; which is almost a nec-
essary corollary from its assertion, in 1851, that "it is improper, ex-
cept from extreme necessity, as a temporary arrangement, to confine
insane persons in county poorhouses or other institutions, with those
afflicted or treated for other diseases, or confined for misdemeanors.”
With both these declarations the Conference of Charities will, I think,
fully agree. The proposition that "insane persons considered incurable,
and those supposed curable, should not be provided for in separate
establishments," admits of more argument, but has weighty reasons in
its favor. By ample and suitable provision for all the insane of any
State, we must understand provision for all insane persons, curable or
incurable, who have no homes, or whose presence at home would be
incompatible with the physical or mental welfare, either of the patient
or of his near relatives or friends, or would be such a financial burden
as to reduce his family to pauperism, if compelled to maintain him.
The Association has also said that "the attempt to abandon en-
tirely the use of all means of personal restraint is not sanctioned by
the true interests of the insane." A cautious and safe utterance this,
beyond all question, with which no sensible person is likely to disagree.
But I have searched in vain for any expression as to the proper limit of
restraint, of modes of restraint, or the class of persons requiring re-
straint, or for any caution against the abuse of restraint. The practice
of superintendents in the use of restraint varies indefinitely, and to
such an extent as to indicate a wide range of variation in the conception
of the nature of insanity, and its effect upon character. This variety
of sentiment is shown in details of hospital construction, in the amount
of apparatus for restraint on hand, in the freedom in its application
allowed to attendants, in the degree of personal liberty granted to
patients, in the character of the records kept, in the conversation and
manner of superintendents themselves, and in the very atmosphere of
the several hospitals. Il va sans dire, that the noblest natures incline
to the largest freedom.
It needs no argument to prove that the amount of restraint re-
quired in individual cases is almost infinitely various. There are per-
sons, undoubtedly insane, who require no restraint whatever, and
others need very little or only occasional restraint. The proportion of
such cases is larger among the chronic insane than among those whose
insanity is of recent origin. Hence the average amount of necessary
restraint diminishes in proportion as the number of chronic, imbecile,
demented insane retained in our institutions increases. It would seem
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
333
therefore as if, with the introduction of this class into the hospitals,
some modification would naturally follow of the plan of construction,-
some diminution in the severity of the type. The question, as it lies
in my own mind, is not, whether the wards shall be detached from each
other; whether cottages, as they are called, shall be built; so much as
it is, whether the amount of restraint shall be graduated according to
the individual requirements of each person or class of persons provided
for; whether every inmate shall receive and enjoy the largest amount
of personal freedom of which he is capable; and whether the principle
of graduated restraint shall find expression in the building itself. Grad-
uated restraint ought, in my judgment, to be provided for, recognized,
impressed upon the mind of every officer and employee, by the very
organization of the wards, whether under one roof or several. It is not
possible to determine to what extent restraint may be safely lessened,
nor the proportion of insane persons in any given hospital who can be
trusted, under proper oversight, in wards not locked, with windows not
barred, until trial of this method has been made,—any more than it
was once possible to say whether it would be safe to take off the chains
in which lunatics were formerly bound. Some patients can be so trust-
ed, as all experience shows. Such patients should be so trusted, whether
many or few; and the principle that "the more you trust, the more you
may," will undoubtedly be found true.
It has been objected to this view, that patients capable of so large
a degree of liberty are not fit subjects for a hospital, and it has been
said that they ought to be at home. But what if they have no home, ex-
cept a county poorhouse? Thousands of them have none. If discharged
from the institution, what becomes of the principle that the State alone
can care for them properly? What if they have homes, but cannot live
at home? What if, although harmless, they yet require medical over-
sight and treatment? This objection is almost thoughtless.
The detached ward or "cottage" has been objected to on many
grounds, most of which are very largely imaginary. In spite of the ad-
herence of the Association to its propositions, a number of superin-
tendents have built for themselves such cottages, or have made use of
old buildings for this purpose; and scarcely in a single instance have
the fears expressed by the body of superintendents been realized in
practice. The patients who occupy them uniformly testify to their
appreciation of them. The superintendents testify that they have no
trouble with patients in these cottages. But it is said that they are
selected patients. Certainly they are; no one has ever suggested that
334
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
all patients or even a majority of patients could safely live in cottages.
But why not carry the principle of selection farther? Why not vary
the type of cottages, allowing more freedom in some, in others provid-
ing more of the paraphernalia of restraint? Why not introduce a type
intermediate between the hospital proper and the ordinary private
dwelling? Why not try the experiment of a nearer approach to ordi-
nary life, on a larger scale than has yet been done?
There seems to be no inherent difference between a detached ward
and one not detached, except that the former is more accessible from
the open air, and can be made more homelike in appearance, and ad-
mits of the patients seeing the processes of life, such as they are accus-
tomed to see at home, going on around them. A detached ward can be
locked, if necessary; bars can be placed on the windows, if necessary;
but there is smaller need of locks and bars where needless causes of
irritation are removed. The proportion of attendants may be the same
in detached wards; the superintendent and his assistants can visit
them just as often; neither the attendants nor the patients are any less
responsible to discipline, but rules are more easily enforced, on the con-
trary, when they are most conformable to the natural inclinations of
those who have to obey them. Add to this, that the very variety of
arrangement and furnishing possible in detached wards affords addi-
tional opportunity for the exercise of that great instrumentality for
discipline in hospitals for the insane, transfers from one ward to an-
other. Patients who are not capable of conforming to the rules may be
re-transferred to the hospital proper; and an outbreak in the night (an
event of exceedingly rare occurrence among the better class of patients)
can be provided for by arranging for seclusion in each cottage. Not a
convenience or comfort found in any hospital ward which cannot be
provided in a detached building; but many can be furnished which are
not furnished in hospitals.
It is said that cottages involve more labor than is required in hospi-
tals on the present plan. The answer to this is that more labor can be
obtained from patients themselves, living in cottages.
It is said that they cost more for construction. The very reverse is
true. It may cost more to supply them with water, gas, and necessary
sewerage; and to heat them, if heated by steam, which is not necessary;
but this extra cost is more than compensated by the absence of those
expensive basements underground, and immense attics, and thick
walls, &c., necessitated by the architectural requirements of the mam-
moth buildings in which the American people keep their insane. In-
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
335
deed, a principal reason for trying the experiment of detached wards
is, that the construction of our present hospitals is so enormously cost-
ly; and legislatures and tax-payers do not feel that they can afford to
spend money as lavishly upon chronic pauper patients, as they can
afford well to do where the hope of recovery exists. The Association of
Superintendents professes to desire that all the insane of a State shall
be cared for in properly organized and managed hospitals; and yet the
principles and policy which it advocates are driving the chronic insane
back into county jails and poorhouses, simply because they persist in
their adherence to "propositions," framed to meet an entirely different
condition of public sentiment of affairs.
It is said that they will cost more for maintenance. I reply, first,
that this is not yet proven; and, second, that the cost of maintenance
properly includes a reasonable percentage on the original outlay. If the
cost of construction can be sufficiently reduced, the cost of maintenance
will be less, even if the cash expenditure is slightly more. The differ-
ence can be but trifling, in any event; and the Association itself has
said, in substance, that no necessary expense for the reasonable com-
fort and well-being of the insane "can be deemed either misplaced or
injudicious."
We hope to try this experiment in Illinois; whether we shall or not,
remains to be seen. It will depend on the action taken by the General
Assembly. If tried and successful, as we trust it may be, it will mark
an era in the treatment of the insane in this country.
I should have liked to add a few words on the subjects of moral
treatment of insanity, and supervision of insane hospitals; but have
exhausted my own time and your patience.
13.
Benefits of Centralization¹
One of the best results which has accrued by the placing of all in-
stitutions under the management of one board, is the harmony of feel-
ing and interests now prevailing between the state and county institu-
tions. Under the old system one board controlled the state and the
other the county institutions. These boards were constantly clashing
with each other upon questions of authority and as a result a spirit of
hostility existed, not only between the two boards, but between the in-
stitutions themselves, extending even to the subordinates engaged by
¹ Extract from Second Biennial Report of the State Board of Control of Wisconsin
Reformatory, Charitable and Penal Institutions, for the Two Fiscal Years Ending
September 30, 1894, pp. 1-4.
336
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
备
​each management, and as a result no end of ill feeling existed between
the two classes of institutions, intended by the law and good judgment
to work in harmony together. Under the single management all are
working for the unfortunate classes committed to their care.
•
There are in Wisconsin seven state institutions, twenty-two county
asylums, four semi-state institutions, forty-nine poor houses, sixty-
eight jails, one hundred and ninety-eight police stations and fifty pri-
vate and benevolent institutions under the control or supervision of
this Board.
The greater part of the time of the Board is required with the man-
agement of the seven state institutions, over which it has entire control,
its duties with the other institutions being visitorial and advisory, the
business management being vested in the local authorities.
To manage these institutions successfully requires industry and
close study. A knowledge of the character and value of them can only
be obtained by repeated visits and most thorough inspections. The
experience thus received makes possible intelligent judgment on ques-
tions constantly arising bearing upon the management of the institu-
tion and the welfare of the inmate.
•
When this Board first assumed its duties, nearly four years ago, a
majority was imbued with the popular idea that "to the victor belongs
the spoils," but after a short experience it was found that while that
theory might be proper in the distribution of offices with large salaries
and no special requirement, it was not a success where the salaries were
small and the requirements exacting. The salaries paid employees in
the public institutions of Wisconsin are smaller than in similar institu-
tions in nearly every other state. For that reason many valuable em-
ployees are taken from our institutions by alluring offers from institu-
tions elsewhere. The Board, so far as has been in their power with the
money at their disposal, have recognized special merit by slightly in-
creasing salaries.
14. The Kansas Authority¹
This Board was created by the legislature of 1873. It is composed
of five members, three of whom constitute a quorum. The members
are appointed by the governor, with the advice of the senate, and hold
their offices for a term of three years. At the time the Board was cre-
¹ Extract from Tenth Biennial Report of the Board of Trustees of the State Char-
itable Institutions of the State of Kansas, for the Two Years Ending June 30, 1896,
pp. 3-4.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
337
ated, the Insane Asylum, at Osawatomie; the Blind School, at Kansas
City, Kansas; and the Deaf and Dumb School, at Olathe, were placed
in its keeping. Previously these institutions had been in charge of local
boards. Since then the Insane Asylum at Topeka; the Reform School
for Boys, at North Topeka; the School for Idiotic and Imbecile Youth,
at Winfield; the Industrial School for Girls, at Beloit; and the Soldiers'
Orphans' Home, at Atchison, have been established and the Powers of
the Board extended to them.
By the law creating this Board, it is not only a board of control,
but is a board of inspection as well. It makes the purchases for the
various institutions, as far as possible, at semi-annual lettings, to which
the widest competition is always invited; and, through the officers in
immediate charge of the various institutions, it oversees all business
transactions, and has a general supervision of all the property which
the state has acquired for their successful management. This property
is carefully invoiced at least every six months and all discrepancies ad-
justed as by law provided.
In addition, at the Board's monthly visitations, it inspects the
various institutions, and advises with the officers in charge as to re-
pairs, improvements, the proper care and keeping of the inmates, and
the general supervision of the institution in their charge.
The biennial period which closed June 30, 1896, has been a very
satisfactory one in all the institutions under the supervision of this
Board. There has been no unusual calamity to mar their work or any
great amount of sickness to worry the relatives or friends of the in-
mates.
Your present board assumed the management of these institutions
April 1, 1895. To improve the discipline and give better results to the
state, it was necessary to make many changes in those in immediate
charge of the institutions and the working force under them. In these
changes it has been the policy of the Board to secure the best possible
service for the money expended, and the improved condition in the
discipline of the different institutions, and the better results accom-
plished, justify fully the changes which have been made.
It would seem that the time has arrived in Kansas when the state
charitable institutions should be divorced from politics. Men capable
of managing one of our insane asylums, and who have made the care
and treatment of the insane a study, are not readily found, and when
they are, their position should not be subject to the vicissitudes of par-
tisan politics. The attendants, or working force, in these institutions
338
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
should be selected just as the merchant, the farmer or the manufacturer
selects his help, with qualification, adaptability and experience as the
test. The same is true of the other state institutions. Those who secure
and hold their positions through what is termed "influence" seldom
contribute to the better discipline or successful management of an
institution.
15. The Organization of Kansas Authority
This Board, under the law as at present constructed, has in its
charge eight of the great institutions of the state, namely: Insane Asy-
lum, at Topeka; Insane Asylum, at Osawatomie; Institution for the
Education of the Deaf and Dumb, at Olathe; Soldiers' Orphans' Home,
at Atchison; Institution for the Education of the Blind, at Kansas City,
Kansas; Reform School for Boys, at Topeka; Industrial School for
Girls, at Beloit; and Asylum for Idiotic and Imbecile Youth, at Win-
field.
Since the legislature of 1897 practically abolished the board of pub-
lic works, this Board performs all of the duties of that board, so far as
they relate to these institutions.
Under the law, this Board is, first, a board of control, having full
power to establish all rules, elect all officers and employees, make all
purchases, and generally conduct all business transactions; second, a
board of inspection, and, under the law, visits each institution at least
once a month, and, with the advice of those in immediate charge, ar-
ranges for repairs and improvements, and everything pertaining to
the immediate wants necessary for the proper care and comfort of the
inmates.
The property of each institution is carefully invoiced every six
months, and in this manner a complete accounting is made.
In assuming the management of these institutions, on April 1,
1897, your Board found that, owing to the inefficiency or carelessness
of those in charge, many of the institutions were in bad repair and were
not being conducted in a manner conducive to the health and welfare
of the inmates.
In view of the fact that the people of Kansas, through their repre-
sentatives, the legislature, have been very liberal in providing means,
and have from time to time made liberal appropriations for improving
¹ Extract from Eleventh Biennial Report of the Board of Trustees of the State
Charitable Institutions of the State of Kansas for the Two Years Ending June 30,
1898, pp. 3-4.
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
339
and adding to the efficiency of these institutions (notably in the case
of the Soldiers' Orphans' Home, also at the Deaf and Dumb Institu-
tion), the failure to accomplish the results aimed at can only be charge-
able to one of two things-incompetency or negligence on the part of
those in control.
It is with pardonable pride that this Board is able to report at this,
the close of the biennial period, June 30, 1898, that by the exercise of
great care and good judgment in placing broad-gauged, competent,
honest and conscientious men and women in immediate charge of the
various institutions, and supplying them with bright, intellectual help,
and by the exercise of good business judgment in expending the means
which the people of Kansas have so liberally supplied, we have been
able to raise the standard, to perfect the discipline, and to in every way
improve and better the condition of the unfortunate inmates.
In this connection we desire to state that it is the fixed opinion of
this Board that Kansas people are eminently qualified to take care of
Kansas institutions, and acting upon this conviction we have not found
it necessary to go outside the state for a single officer. The marked im-
provement in each and every institution more than justifies our faith
in the intelligence and capabilities of the people of our great state.
Perhaps no state in the union has advanced more rapidly in popu-
lation, in wealth, in intelligence and in the magnitude and extent of
her institutions than Kansas. The laws governing these institutions
have hardly kept pace with their advancement. They have been
amended from time to time, and an attempt has been made to make
them fit each new condition. We feel that existing conditions demand
an entire revision, in order that they may meet the present require-
ments.
16. Orders Issued by the Wisconsin State Board of Control'
ORDER NO. I
OFFICE STATE BOARD OF CONTROL
MADISON, WIS., APRIL 26, 1898
way
For the purpose of establishing and more clearly defining the func-
tions of the Superintendents and Wardens of the several State Charita-
ble, Penal and Reformatory Institutions governed by the Board of
¹ Extract from Fifth Biennial Report of the State Board of Control of Wisconsin
Reformatory, Charitable and Penal Institutions for the Two Fiscal Years Ending
September 30, 1900, pp. 31–36.
340
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Control, and the officers and employes therein, their relations to each
other and to the Board of Control, and the tenure of their respective
offices, the following order is promulgated for the information and
guidance of all concerned:
First-Superintendents, wardens, stewards and general matrons
shall be appointed directly by the Board of Control.
Second-The following officers shall be appointed by the Board
upon the nomination of the proper superintendent or warden: Chap-
lains, physicians, and assistant physicians, principals and teachers of
schools, assistant wardens and stewards, head engineers, and agents
at the State Public School and the Industrial Schools for Boys.
The superintendent or warden may suspend any of the officers
mentioned in this paragraph, and may remove any of them except the
assistant warden, principal of schools, chaplain and the agents above
mentioned, promptly reporting to the Board such removal, or suspen-
sions, and the causes therefor.
Third. Each superintendent or warden shall appoint, and in his
discretion may remove, all other subordinate officers, and all employes,
not officers, in his institution. The superintendent or warden shall
monthly report to the Board, with his estimate for the ensuing month,
all changes of subordinate officers during the past month, and the dates
of such changes.
Fourth. The regular term of office of each officer or person men-
tioned in paragraphs No. 1 and 2 shall be one year from July 1st next
after appointment. The nominations required in paragraph No. 2
shall be submitted to the Board May 20th in each year. Appointments
to fill vacancies terminate on July 1st, next after they were made, and
nominations therefor shall be submitted to the Board as soon as prac-
ticable after the vacancy occurs.
Fifth. Superintendents and wardens are charged with the duty of
giving all subordinates in their respective institutions affected by this
order timely notice of its contents.
ORDER NO. 2
OFFICE STATE BOARD OF CONTROL,
MADISON, WIS., JANUARY 3, 1900
A careful examination of the law fixing liability for the expense of
the care and maintenance of the insane in the State Hospital and Coun-
ty Asylums seems to lead to the following conclusions:
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION 341
I
The only statute giving the State a right of action against indi-
viduals for such expense is Section 6049, R.S. It applies alike to all.
persons committed as insane whether inmates of a State Hospital or a
County Asylum, but it only reaches the case of an inmate who has an.
estate sufficient to pay. for his or her maintenance, the cost of which
must not exceed $3.00 per week. The judge has the power in his dis-
cretion to refuse to charge the estate for the cost of maintenance of the
owner, even though sufficient for that purpose, if such owner has a
parent, wife or child dependent upon such estate for future support.
If a proceeding is instituted under the above section, whether by
State or County authority, it should be prosecuted before the judge in
behalf both of the State and County, and his order for the payment
should probably be in the name of the State and County, although per-
haps action in behalf of each might be allowed.
II
Pursuant to Section 600, R.S., the sums charged any county for
maintaining a patient in the State Hospital, chargeable to it, may be
collected by such county, by suit, out of the property of the patient, or
from any person legally bound to support such patient. The State
has no interest in, or concern with, any such proceeding. It is merely
designed to reimburse the county for its expenditures for maintaining
such patient in the State Hospital.
III
If an insane person resident of and chargeable to any given county
maintained in the asylum of some other county, it seems quite certain
that the county so chargeable may recover, in like manner, the sums
legally paid by it for such maintenance, out of the estate of such insane
person, or from any person legally liable for his or her support.
If the patient is maintained in the asylum of the county chargeable
for his maintenance the recovery should be limited to $3.00 per week
for such maintenance, and in addition thereto, the cost of clothing,
necessarily furnished such insane person by the county.
IV
If the county collects a sum equal to $1.50 per week for the main-
tenance of such insane patient no part of the expense of his mainte-
nance can properly be charged to the State. If less than $1.50 per week
342
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
be so collected the State is chargeable only for the difference between
the sum collected and $1.50 per week.
V
Under the provisions of Section 604d, and 604e, R.S., the State is
not chargeable with the $1.50 per week specified in Section 604d for
the care of an insane inmate of any county asylum who is a resident of
the county maintaining such asylum, "whose support is not properly a
public charge."
The support of any such inmate is not properly a public charge:
(1) If some responsible person within the reach of the process of our
courts is liable therefor, as in the case of a wife or minor child of a re-
sponsible husband or father; or (2), if such inmate has a father, mother
or child in like manner amenable to the process of our court of sufficient
ability under Section 1504, R.S., to maintain and care for such inmate,
or (3) if such inmate has an estate sufficient under Section 6049, R.S.,
to defray the cost of his or her maintenance and care.
This paragraph applies only to the maintenance of insane inmates
of a county asylum who are residents of, and chargeable to the county
maintaining such asylum.
VI
For the purpose of protecting the State from being charged for the
support of insane persons for whose maintenance it is not legally
chargeable, county asylum trustees are required to certify in their re-
ports upon which State allowances, under Section 604d, R.S., are
claimed, that after diligent inquiry they believe no such claim is made
therein on account of any insane person, whose support is not properly
a public charge under the laws.
Each board of trustees will also report to this Board the name of
each inmate in their asylum, and in the State Hospital, chargeable to
their county, for whose maintenance in whole or in part their county
has been reimbursed during the time covered by their report, and the
amount thus recovered on account of each such inmate.
VII
In determining whether some responsible person is liable, or may
by legal proceedings be made liable, for the support of an inmate of any
county asylum who is a resident of the county maintaining such asy-
lum, or whether such inmate has a sufficient estate to pay for his or her
own maintenance, this Board does not insist upon nor desire the appli-
cation of any rigid rules in favor of the State. In making such deter-
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
343
:
mination the officials of the asylum should consider the nature of the
property of the person sought to be charged, its productiveness and
the probable income which may be derived from it, the size and reason-
able cost of maintaining the family of the owner and all other condi-
tions which may reasonably be supposed to effect the liability of the
owner to support such inmate. The mere fact that the cost of such
support can be collected by legal proceedings against some person does
not, of itself, necessarily prove that such person ought to be charged
with the maintenance of such inmate and the State thereby relieved
of such charge. All that the Board requires is that the asylum officials
exercise a discriminating and just discretion in making their classifica-
tions of the inmates of their asylums who are residents of their county.
Such is believed to be the true intent and spirit of the statute in that
behalf.
VIII
Under Section 604f, for all inmates of a county asylum whose sup-
port is not chargeable to the county maintaining such asylum, the State
pays such county $3.00 per week each and the amount necessarily ex-
pended for clothing them. The liability to pay this sum, and the lia-
bility of counties to refund to the state a portion of it, does not depend
upon the question (as in the former paragraph) whether or not the ex-
pense of the support of such patient is properly a public charge. The
obligation of the State is absolute to pay the stipulated sum for each
patient of that class, and it is equally absolute that the county charge-
able with the maintenance of any such inmate shall refund to the State
$1.50 per week, and the amount necessarily expended for clothing him
or her.
ORDER NO. 3
COUNTY ASYLUMS FOR THE CHRONIC INSANE-DIRECTIONS CONCERNING
THEIR MANAGEMENT IN CERTAIN PARTICULARS
OFFICE STATE BOARD OF CONTROL
MADISON, WIS., APRIL 5, 1900
Although the County Asylums for the Insane are erected, organ-
ized and managed by county authority, are primarily maintained by
the respective counties, and, properly speaking, are county institu-
tions, yet because the State contributes largely toward the support of
all the inmates therein and has the necessary authority to prescribe
proper care and treatment of such inmates (each of whom is a ward
of the State) such asylums are also in a large sense State, or quasi-
State institutions.
344
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
The State exercises its functions in respect to these asylums chiefly
through the agency of this Board. In the discharge of its duty in that
behalf this Board has from time to time requested county asylum
officials to adopt certain policies and methods of procedure in their
respective asylums for the purpose of improving the condition and pro-
moting the welfare of the inmates thereof. Such requests have the
force of orders made by authority of the State, and must be so regarded.
This Board has also decided to give some additional directions concern-
ing the management of such asylums. These, with the directions here-
tofore given, are briefly as follows:
I
Asylum physicians should not be selected and contracts for the
medical care of the insane awarded upon competitive bids. The Trus-
tees should appoint some competent physician and fix his salary. The
selection should be made with the care and consideration that might
reasonably be expected in the selection of a family physician.
The asylum physician should visit the asylum at least twice in each
week. At each visit he is expected in addition to attending to the sick
inmates to examine the sanitary condition of the asylum and grounds
and the condition of the patients, their health, diet, clothing and clean-
liness, the work required of them and any other condition affecting
their welfare and comfort. He will advise and direct the Superintend-
ent as to which of the patients should be required to labor and the kinds
and amount of work each working patient is able to perform. At each
visit to the asylum the physician shall enter in a book, furnished by
the Superintendent, the date of his visit, the name, age, and malady of
each patient treated by him, the treatment prescribed and the name of
each patient he has advised the Superintendent should not be required
to labor. At least once in each month the physician should also enter
in said book statements of the sanitary condition of the institution,
and the general condition of the patients in respect to matters herein
mentioned. He is invited to enter therein any suggestions he may
think proper to make for the improvement of the institution and the
promotion of the welfare of the inmates. Such report book should be
properly ruled and the required entries affecting individual patients
should be made under the following heads:
Date of Visit
Name of Patient Age
Malady Treatment
Remarks
THE STATE BOARD AND THE INSTITUTION
345
Patients excused from labor may be named in the second column or
under the head of "Remarks." A separate portion of the book may be
set apart for the monthly report above mentioned.
II
Each County Asylum shall have upon its staff of employes a fe-
male night attendant who shall be constantly on duty during each
night in the apartments occupied by the female inmates. Such attend-
ant shall make a daily report to the Superintendent, to be written in a
book provided by him for that purpose, stating the name of each pa-
tient who was sick or disturbed during the night, the nature of her sick-
ness or cause of her disturbance and what was done for her relief; and
stating also any unusual occurrence in the female apartments during
the night. The Superintendent should see that this rule is faithfully
complied with. The reports of the physician and female night attend-
ant shall be kept by the Superintendent for the inspection of all per-
sons entitled to see them.
III
The Trustees of each County Asylum are required to employ and
keep on duty a competent night watchman at their institution through
each night during the whole year.
When it is considered that each of these institutions is inhabited
by from one hundred to one hundred and fifty, and more, irresponsible
persons, many of them prone to mischief, and nearly all incapable of
self preservation in case of fire or other peril, it seems absolutely neces-
sary to their proper protection that some intelligent man in full pos-
session of his faculties be with them and upon the grounds of the insti-
tution constantly.
IV
Regulations for ascertaining the amounts chargeable for clothing
furnished by the Trustees of any County Asylum to the inmates there-
of, a portion of whose maintenance is charged to counties other than
that in which such asylum is situated, or wholly to the State, pursuant
to Section 604f, R.S.
1. An accurate account shall be kept of the clothing furnished each
such inmate and the same shall be charged to the proper county, at
the actual cost thereof. The asylum authorities are expected to use
reasonable diligence to make purchases of such clothing in the cheapest -
available market.
"
346
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
2. Clothing accounts made pursuant to Section 604f, R.S., must be
verified by the affidavit of the proper Superintendent (or in case of his
inability, by a Trustee) substantially in the following form:
STATE OF WISCONSIN
COUNTY
SS.
}
being first duly sworn, deposes and says that he is the Super-
intendent (or a Trustee) of the
County Asylum for the Chronic
Insane and has the keeping and custody of its accounts for clothing furnished
the inmates therein, that the above and foregoing statement of clothing
account charged to other counties, or to the State is accurate and just, that
the value of such clothing so chargeable necessarily furnished each inmate
of said asylum during the fiscal year ending Sept. 30th.
and the sums
necessarily expended therefor are correctly stated therein and that no part
of such sums has been paid or previously audited.
>
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
370
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
124
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].
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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
•
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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
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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.
634
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
672
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.
674
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
678
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.
680
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.
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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.]
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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
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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.
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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
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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.
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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.
<la
f) That the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers, and
all that pertains to the same, is hereby placed under the jurisdiction
and made a part of the Department of Public Welfare. The Board of
Managers of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers is
hereby abolished; and the authority, powers, and duties conferred and
imposed by law upon said board shall be held, exercised, and per-
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
761
formed by the Secretary of Public Welfare: Provided, That all officers
of the National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers shall be appoint-
ed solely by the President, when practicable, from the retired list of
the United States Army, and they shall perform their duties under the
general direction of the Secretary of Public Welfare.
g) That the authority, powers, and duties conferred and imposed
upon the Secretary of the Interior by chapter 5 of the Revised Statutes,
as amended, with relation to the Columbia Institution for the Deaf,
shall be held, exercised, and performed by the Secretary of Public Wel-
fare; and the Secretary of Public Welfare shall be ex officio a director of
the Columbia Institution for the Deaf, in addition to the directors
whose appointment has heretofore been provided by law.
SEC. 5. That the official records and papers now on file in and per-
taining exclusively to the business of any bureau, office, or branch of
the public service which is transferred by this Act to the Department
of Public Welfare, or which is abolished by this Act and its authority,
powers, and duties transferred to the Department of Public Welfare,
together with the furniture, equipment, and other property now in use
in such bureau, office, or branch of the public service, are hereby trans-
ferred to the Department of Public Welfare.
SEC. 6. That the Secretary of Public Welfare shall have charge, in
the buildings and premises occupied by or appropriated to the De-
partment of Public Welfare, of the library, furniture, fixtures, records,
and other property pertaining to it or hereafter acquired for use in its
business. Until other suitable quarters are provided, the Depart-
ment of Public Welfare shall occupy the buildings and premises now
occupied by the bureaus, offices, and branches of the public service
which are by this Act transferred to or included in said department, or
which are abolished by this Act and their authority, powers, and duties
transferred to said department. The officers, clerks, and employees
now employed in or under the jurisdiction of any bureau, office, or
branch of the public service which is by this Act transferred to or in-
cluded in the Department of Public Welfare, or which is abolished by
this Act and its authority, powers, and duties transferred to said de-
partment, are each and all hereby transferred to said department at
their present grades and salaries. All laws prescribing the work and
defining the duties of the several bureaus, offices, and branches of the
public service which are by this Act transferred to the Department of
Public Welfare, or which are abolished by this Act and their authority,
powers, and duties transferred to said department shall, so far as the
762
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
same are not in conflict with the provision of this Act, remain in full
force and effect until otherwise provided by law.
SEC. 7. That all authority, powers, and duties now held, exercised,
and performed by the head of any executive department in and over
any bureau, office, officer, or branch of the public service which is by
this Act transferred to the Department of Public Welfare, or which is
abolished by this Act and its authority, powers, and duties transferred
to said department, or in and over any business arising therefrom or
pertaining thereto, or in relation to the duties performed by and au-
thority conferred by law upon such bureau, office, officer, or branch of
the public service, whether of an appellate or revisory character or
otherwise, shall hereafter be vested in and exercised and performed by
the Secretary of Public Welfare.
SEC. 8. That the Secretary of Public Welfare is hereby given power
and authority to make, subject to the approval of the President, such
changes in the organization of the bureaus, offices, or other branches
of the public service by this Act transferred to or included in the De-
partment of Public Welfare as may be essential to economical and effec-
tive administration; and he is hereby authorized and empowered to
reorganize or consolidate, with the approval of the President, any of
the bureaus, offices, or other branches of the public service under his
jurisdiction, and to set up such divisions, offices, and districts as may
be required to carry out the provisions of this Act: Provided, That any
action taken under the provisions of this section, with the reasons
therefor, shall be specially reported to Congress at each regular
session.
SEC. 9. That the Secretary of Public Welfare shall make annually,
at the close of each fiscal year, a report in writing to Congress, giving
an account of all moneys received and disbursed by him and his de-
partment, describing the work done by the department, and making
such recommendations as he shall deem necessary for the effective per-
formance of the duties and purposes of the department. He also shall
make from time to time such special investigations and reports as may
be required of him by the President or either House of Congress, or as
he himself may deem necessary and urgent.
SEC. 10. That this Act shall take effect July 1, 1921, but appoint-
ments to offices herein created may be made prior to that date, to take
effect July 1, 1921.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT 763
8. President Harding's Plan for the Reorganization
of the Executive Departments¹
MR. WALTER F. BROWN
Chairman Joint Committee on the
THE WHITE HOUSE
WASHINGTON, February 13, 1923
Reorganization of Government Departments,
Washington, D.C.
MY DEAR MR. BROWN:
I hand you herewith a chart which exhibits in detail the present organi-
zation of the Government departments and the changes suggested after nu-
merous conferences and consultations with the various heads of the executive
branch of the Government. The changes with few exceptions, notably that
of co-ordinating all agencies of national defense, have the sanction of the
Cabinet. In a few instances, which I believe are of minor importance, the
principle of major purpose has not been followed to the letter, in order to
avoid controversies which might jeopardize reorganization as a whole.
Permit me to repeat what I have said to the members of the Joint Com-
mittee on Reorganization that I regret deeply the delay in placing our sug-
gestions in your hands. It has been caused solely by the difficulty which has
been encountered in reconciling the views of the various persons charged with
the responsibility of administering the executive branch of the Government.
With the earnest hope that the suggestions submitted may be of mate-
rial assistance to the committee in performing its most important task, I am,
Very truly yours,
WARREN G. HARDING
OUTLINE OF THE REORGANIZATION PLAN RECOMMENDED BY
THE PRESIDENT AND THE CABINET
SUMMARY OF RECOMMENDATIONS
The outstanding recommendations are as follows:
I. The co-ordination of the Military and Naval Establishments under a
single Cabinet officer, as the Department of National Defense.
II. The transfer of all nonmilitary functions from the War and Navy De-
partments to civilian departments-chiefly Interior and Commerce.
III. The elimination of all nonfiscal functions from the Treasury Depart-
ment.
IV. The establishment of one new department-the Department of Educa-
tion and Welfare.
¹ Extract from "Senate Document 302," U.S. Sixty-seventh Congress (4th sess.)
764
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
V. The change of the name of the Post Office Department to Department
of Communications.
VI. The attachment to the several departments of all independent estab-
lishments except those which perform quasi-judicial functions or act as
service agencies for all departments.
THE MORE IMPORTANT CHANGES, BY DEPARTMENTS
STATE DEPARTMENT
a) The Bureau of Insular Affairs is transferred from the War De-
partment to the Department of State.
TREASURY DEPARTMENT
a) The General Accounting Office, now an independent establish-
ment, is transferred to the Treasury Department.
b) The following bureaus, now in the Treasury Department, are
transferred to other departments, as noted:
Bureau or office
Bureau of the Budget..
General Supply Committee..
Public Health Service..
Coast Guard.
Supervising Architect's Office.
* A Bureau of Purchase and Supply is proposed, to be an independent establishment. It would
assume the functions now performed by the General Supply Committee.
•
Transferred to
Independent establishment
. Independent establishment*
. Education and Welfare
Commerce, Defense†
.Interior
•
†The Coast Guard is now composed of the former Revenue Cutter and Life Saving Services
(consolidated by the act approved January 28, 1915). It is proposed that the Revenue Cutter Serv-
ice shall be transferred to the Naval Establishment (Department of Defense) and the Life Saving
Service to the Department of Commerce.
DEPARTMENT OF THE INTERIOR
a) The Interior Department is given two major functions: The
administration of the public domain and the construction and main-
tenance of public works. The subdivisions of the department are
grouped accordingly under two Assistant Secretaries.
b) The educational and health activities of the department, in-
cluding the Bureau of Education, Indian Schools, Howard University,
the Columbia Institution for the Deaf, St. Elizabeths Hospital, and
Freedmen's Hospital, together with the Bureau of Pensions, are trans-
ferred to the new Department of Education and Welfare.
c) The Bureau of Mines¹ and the Patent Office are transferred to
the Department of Commerce.
I
¹ Except the Government fuel yards, which is to become a part of the proposed
Bureau of Purchase and Supply (independent).
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
765
D
d) The nonmilitary engineering activities of the War Department¹
are transferred to the Department of the Interior, as is also control over
the National Military Parks.
e) The Supervising Architect's Office is transferred from the Treas-
ury Department to the Department of the Interior.
f) The Bureau of Public Roads is transferred from the Department
of Agriculture to the Department of the Interior.
g) The functions of the Federal Power Commission, an independ-
ent establishment, are transferred to the Department of the Interior.
DEPARTMENT OF JUSTICE
a) The solicitors of the several departments, now nominally under
the control of the Department of Justice, are transferred to the depart-
ment to which they are respectively attached.
b) The Office of the Alien Property Custodian, now an independent
establishment, is transferred to the Department of Justice.
c) The administration of United States prisons is transferred from
the Department of Justice to the Department of Education and Wel-
fare.
•
DEPARTMENT OF LABOR
a) The functions of the Women's and Children's Bureaus, except
such as relate to women and children in industry, are transferred to the
Department of Education and Welfare.
DEPARTMENT OF EDUCATION AND WELFARE
a) This is a new department, to have four major subdivisions,
each in charge of an Assistant Secretary, as follows:
Education
Health
Social Service
Veteran Relief
b) Existing bureaus and offices to be transferred to the Depart-
ment of Education and Welfare are as follows:
From the Department of the Interior:
Bureau of Education
Indian schools
Howard University
From the Department of Labor:
Women's Bureau (part)
From the Treasury Department:
Public Health Service
¹ See (b) under War and Navy Departments, above.
St. Elizabeths Hospital
Freedmen's Hospital
Bureau of Pensions
Children's Bureau (part)
*
766
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
From the War Department:
Soldiers' Home
From the Department of Justice:
Office of the Superintendent of Prisons
Independent establishments:
Smithsonian Institution¹
Federal Board for Vocational Education
National Home for Disabled Volunteer Soldiers
Columbia Institution for the Deaf
Veterans' Bureau
INDEPENDENT ESTABLISHMENTS
a) To the greatest possible extent, the existing independent
establishments have been placed under the administrative supervision
of some department. Only those remain which are quasi-judicial in
character, necessitating a board or commission form of organization,
or which perform a service function for all branches of the Govern-
ment. These are as follows:
Commissions, boards, etc.: Civil Service Commission; Shipping Board,
Emergency Fleet Corporation; Tariff Commission; Interstate Com-
merce Commission; Federal Trade Commission; Federal Reserve Board;
War Finance Corporation; Coal Commission; Railroad Administration;
Railroad Labor Board; World War Foreign Debt Commission
Service bureaus and offices: Bureau of the Budget; Government Printing
Office; Bureau of Efficiency; Bureau of Purchase and Supply, Govern-
ment Fuel Yards.
9. A National Conference Committee Proposes a
Federal Bureau²
The ever-admirable preamble to the national constitution sums up
the objects of its establishment. After naming the irreducible elements
of government,—"justice," "domestic tranquillity," and "the common
defence,"―it proposes "the general welfare." This phrase, ambiguous
in terms, has been held to import the general well-being of the states as
¹ There is some doubt, considering the legal character of the Smithsonian In-
stitution, whether it can be incorporated in a Government department. Its func-
tions, however, are in harmony with those of the proposed Department of Educa-
tion and Welfare, and the propriety of its inclusion therein is unquestioned, if it can
legally be accomplished.
2 Extract from William W. Folwell, Fred H. Wines, and Robert W. Hebberd,
"Report of the Committee on Legislation," Proceedings of the National Conference
of Charities and Correction at the Twenty-eight Annual Session (Washington, D.C.,
1901), pp. 113-17.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
767
politically united, not of the people socially and distributively. Con-
gress is not authorized to assume in the states those general police
powers which secure the health and safety of the people and promote
their culture. The protection of person and property, the family rela-
tions, the education of the young, highways, the public health, and the
care of unfortunates are under the guardianship of and a charge upon
the states. May the rights of the states to exercise all such powers and
fulfil the obligations accordant therewith forever remain undiminished!
For a hundred years and more the several states have been en-
gaged in legislation in regard to unfortunates. There is an enormous
mass of statutes and ordinances relating to the punishment of crimes
and misdemeanors, the care of the poor and infirm, the cure or custody
of the insane, the idiotic, the inebriate, and the epileptic, and the
education of defectives, to say nothing of accompanying "judge-made
law." Under these laws innumerable experiments in administration
have been made. Thousands of penal and charitable institutions dot
the map, and an army of people do faithful service therein. These exist
and serve in state groups, and present all varieties of organization and
efficiency. There is a wilderness of systems, experiments, precedents,
records, statistics, all waiting, for what? You have anticipated the
obvious answer. For collection, discussion, arrangement, and diffusion.
"Wanted, then,” we may advertise, “a clearing-house of charities and
corrections for these United States, so long disunited in regard to these
great interests."
Assembled under the shadow of the national capitol, may it not
be both timely and appropriate for the Conference to inquire whether
there is not a special field within which the national government may
beneficently act without trespassing upon the domain of state activity?
The foundation for the answer to such a question has already been
laid by the establishment of a policy consistent with the principle just
announced of national co-ordination of state activity. A few examples
will sustain this proposition.
Our great fundamental industry, agriculture, had been so devel-
oped, chiefly through the applications of science, by the middle of the
last century that demands came from many quarters for a central
agency, which should collect and distribute a huge mass of facts and
truths known to exist, but practically inaccessible. This call, repeated
and intensified, sounded above the war-drums of the civil war. A tardy
Congress, by act of May 15, 1862, established the Bureau of Agricul-
ture, declaring its object to be "to acquire and diffuse. . . . useful
768
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
information on subjects connected with agriculture in the most general
and comprehensive sense of that word." The subsequent history and
present status of this bureau are known to all.
The great struggle referred to was barely over when another inter-
est of universal concern developed under state auspices, was demand-
ing the beneficent interference of the national government in a similar
way. By a law approved March 2, 1867, the Bureau of Education was
created. The phrasing of the act is interesting, . . . . "to collect facts
and statistics showing the condition and progress of education in the
several states, and to diffuse . . . . information respecting the organi-
zation and management of schools and school systems, and methods.
of teaching." The splendid series of publications emanating from the
Bureau of Education, already indispensable to every student of peda-
gogy, bears ample testimony to the wisdom of Congress, and to the
intelligence and industry of the gentlemen who have been charged
with its administration.
It is a curious fact worth momentary notice that our first Commis-
sioner of Education in these annual reports undertook to collect facts
relating to the insane, the idiotic, and the deaf, dumb, and blind, and
argued in the body of his first report that the culture, if not the main-
tenance, of these classes falls legitimately within the province of his
bureau.
A few years later Congress was constrained to respond to a third
call loud and clear for the same kind of service, and the Bureau of
Labor was brought into being by act of June 27, 1884.
The function of this bureau as fixed by the law is to "collect in-
formation upon the subject of labor, its relation to capital, the hours
of labor, and the earnings of laboring men and women, and the means
of promoting their material, social, intellectual, and moral pros-
perity." The contributions of this bureau, soon elevated into a de-
partment of the government, need no eulogy.
Further examples are unnecessary. In the instances cited we find
the same phenomena,―a vast interest of universal concern; state and
local initiative and administration; a wide and deep felt need of co-
ordination by means of a central bureau, and Congress under its
constitutional power to promote the general welfare, creating the
necessary bureaus. In all the cases, state initiative is not discouraged,
but supplemented and assisted. It may be added that the national
government is the only possible agency for such service. No other
organization has the means, the motive, the prestige, or the power.
PROPOSALS FOR A NATIONAL DEPARTMENT
769
The argument of this report may now be rapidly concluded. That
there is an appropriate field for national action promotive of general
welfare will not be questioned. That such action has become tradi-
tional, resulting in an established policy, is not open to debate.
This Conference does not need to be informed that in the province
of charities and corrections lies a vast, disordered mass of facts, experi-
ments, successes, and failures, which need to be collected and mar-
shalled for general use. Your committee, therefore, beg leave to an-
nounce it as their conclusion that there ought to be established here at
the seat of the national government a Bureau of Charities and Cor-
rections, with powers and functions substantially the same as those
intrusted to the Departments of Agriculture, Labor, and Education
(as it ought to be). To collect and diffuse information relating to chari-
ties and corrections would be the comprehending purpose of such a
bureau. To elaborate before this body a scheme of details would be
altogether superfluous, and to embody one in a statute should not be
thought of. Let the general authority be given, particular subjects for
investigation and report will present themselves spontaneously and in
such number and variety that great discretion will be needed to pre-
vent dissipation of effort and resources. Such propositions as the
regulation of the inter-migration of paupers and criminals and the
maintenance of a central office for the identification of criminals by
the Bertillon method present themselves immediately.
One suggestion, however, may without impertinence be ventured,
that the collection, interpretation, and publication of statistics should
from the outset be the leading specialty. The lack of trustworthy
figures in the field of charities and corrections is known and felt by all
who are conversant with it. Our highest authority in criminology has
been obliged to state publicly that we have no statistics of crime of
much value. Of judicial statistics we have in our country none. The
case can be little better in any other quarter of the field. The inade-
quacy of the figures of the best of the federal censuses, based as they are
on inquiries made at the end of a census year, and not on contemporary
registration, is recognized and deplored by statisticians.
It would naturally become the office of the contemplated bureau
to take the leading part in reforming the methods of observation,
record, and return in all the statistical specialties within its province.
Its obvious principle of action would be to invite the co-operation of
state, local, and private agencies.
The success which has attended the corresponding work of the
770
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Bureau of Education is sufficient warrant for expecting like friendly
contributions. Under American circumstances and temperament,
attempts to compel the co-operation of agencies constitutionally
independent would prove abortive. So dominant is the importance of
the clearing-house feature of the proposed national bureau that it
might be well if little else were undertaken in its earlier years. It would
be easy to dissipate its resources on a multitude of investigations which
immediately suggest themselves to any one who allows his mind to
play around the subject.
Your committee, therefore, find in favor of a bureau rather than a
Board of Charities and Corrections, or a "Board of Control."
While suggesting a limited and modest extension of the general
welfare policy of the national government, your committee are aware
that they are proposing a new step in a constitutional development
which was never in the minds of the framers of our organic law,
which ought soon to enter the consciousness of the people.
but
It is an elementary theorem of plane geometry that through any
three points in a plane not in a straight line a circumference can be
drawn. In fact, the circle so bounded exists as a conception, whether
the curve be physically drawn or not.
When Congress successfully created the bureaus of Agriculture,
Education, and Labor, it drew a charmed circle within which an in-
definite number of similar intelligence offices may be instituted. One
of them is the subject of present consideration.
In an ideal view of our Constitution as developed, the leading office
of the national government should in the good time coming be the
promotion of the general welfare by maintaining a great clearing house
of information of common interest to the people. An intelligent and
interested application of this ideal would hasten its possible realization
INDEX
INDEX
Able-bodied, relief of, 22, 28, 676
Account-keeping, 136, 365, 390, 415,
503, 557
}
Administration: of first federal Child
Labor Law, 752; of Maternity and
Infancy Act, 757; of public-welfare
activities, principles of, 7, 8
Administrative authority, relation of, to
supervisory authority, 560
Administrative boards, unpaid or ex
officio, 557
Administrative de'vices and power of
central board, 242, 297, 372
Administrative m'achinery: institution-
al, úy, 508, 509; of poor relief, English,
26
Advertisement for bids, in purchasing,
524
Advisory functions of central board,
297, 368, 370, 558, 559
After-care in child-placing, standards of,
704
Alabama, central authority, 245, 502,
557
Alien Commission, Massachusetts, 135,
140
Alien passengers, in Massachusetts, 129,
248
Alien paupers, 532, 534, 544, 547
Aliens, 68, 240
Almshouses, 10, 17, 34, 36, 37, 38, 39,
240, 628; in Massachusetts, 69, 130,
135, 142, 406; in Michigan, 630; in
New York, 55, 66, 351, 665; see also
Poorhouses
Altgeld, Governor, of Illinois, 294, 295
American Association of Superintend-
ents of the Insane, 636
American Asylum for the Deaf and
Dumb, Hartford, 104, 128, 142, 177,
322; see also Connecticut Asylum for
the Deaf and Dumb
American Prison Association, 298, 549
Apprenticeship of children, 18, 20, 56,
164
Appropriations: for buildings and re-
pairs, 517, 521; for state institutions,
313; state, to private agencies, 735
Architecture: prison, 318; of public
buildings, 293, 329, 635, 748; see also
Buildings
Arizona, central authority, 246, 396, 557
Arkansas: budget procedure, 507; cen-
tral authority, 246, 558
Auburn State Prison, New York, 119,
161, 311
Auctioning of poor; see under Poor
Beggars and begging, 42, 47, 50, 51, 60;
regulation and restriction of, 19
Bidding off paupers to lowest bidder,
153, 641, 643; see also Poor
Bi-partisan board, Ohio, 612, 613
Black, Governor Frank S., 446
"Black" Law, 444, 446
Blind, institutions for, 14, 68, 125, 142,
164, 323, 362, 407, 660
Board form of organization, 9, 69, 555,
612; efficiency of, 6; see also Ad-
ministrative boards; Commissioners,
boards of; Control, boards of; Inspec-
tors, boards of; Managers, boards of;
State boards of charities; Trustees,
boards of
Boarding-out of paupers, Minnesota,
643
Boston City Hospital for the Insane
Poor, 198, 199, 217
"Bread-money," 22
Brinkerhoff, Gen. Roeliff, 260, 508, 509
Budget system, state, 503, 506, 560; in
Illinois, 570, 574, 575; in New Jersey,
588
Buildings, public, 572, 748; construction
of, 416; cost of, 311, 319, 506, 508, 510
Byers, Rev. A. G., 260
California: prisons, 530; public-welfare
authority, 246, 502, 505
California Department of Public Wel-
fare, 557, 558, 713
California State Board of Prison Direc-
tors, 623
California State Highway Commission,
623
773
774
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Canada, paupers imported via, 532, 533,
537
Canfield, George F., 378
Central authority, 70, 237, 502, 557; and
the city, 662-707; names of, 243, 246;
relation of, to local authority, 244, to
private charitable agency, 244, to
state institutions, 244, 606, 609
Central boards, 147. 238; membership
of, 242; organization of, 239; power
of, 242; see also State boards
Centralization, state, 170, 381, 606, 609;
benefits of, 335; as against local, 9;
and the problem of divided responsi-
bility in New York, 392
Chace, George I., 368
Charitable institution, definition of,
within meaning of Constitution, 720;
see also Private charitable institu-
tions; State charitable institutions
Charities, department of, proposed for
New York, 423; see also State boards
of charities
Charities and corrections, federal bureau
of: proposed, 766; statistics of, 769
Charity, public, definition of, 5
"Charity," when is a "charity" a, 719
Charlestown State Prison, Massachu-
sets, 603; housing conditions in, 621
Chicago Department of Public Welfare,
662
Chicago State Hospital, 453, 454
Child care, 507; agencies for, 695; city
department for, 666; Cook County,
660; Massachusetts, 404; national
standards of, 629; New York, 422,
677, 678, 687, 690
Child guardianship, division of, Massa-
chusetts, 599
Child Hygiene, state bureaus of, 757
Child labor laws, 740, 741, 742, 752
Child-placing: New York City, 692;
standards of, 664, 694; see also
Placing-out
Child welfare, 292; county, 244, 292,
628, 659; and the merit system, 462;
standards, 740
Child Welfare League of America, 629,
739
Children: commitment of, to institu-
tions, New York, 671, 677, 680; delin-
quent, 14, 68, 113, 127, 164, 316, 319,
712, 748, statistics of, 750; dependent,
240, 406, Cook County, 660, New
York, 420, 422, 667, 680, 689, 711,
statistics of, 750; destitute, 748; in
institutions, California, 713, Penn-
sylvania, 691; in jails, Massachusetts,
59; in poorhouses, 667, New York,
154, 155, 157, 325, in workhouses, 25;
pauper, 47, 169, Illinois, 642, Michi-
gan, 631, New York, 41, 324; wards
of the state, Massachusetts, 301;
weakminded, Massachusetts, 126; see
also Apprenticeship, Deaf and dumb,
Illegitime Orphan Asylums
Children under Institutional Care, 1923,
750
Children's Bureau., U.S.; see United
States Children's Bureau
Church and state, 729; see also Sectarian
institutions
City: almshouses, 331; and the central
authority, 662-707; department, crea-
tion of a, 55; large number of paupers
in, 41; public-welfare authorities, 662
Civil Administrative Code, 557
Civil service, 240; abroad, 455, 469;
county, 653; federal, and classifica-
tion, 493; in Illinois, 447, 453; in New
York City, 679; partisan interference
with, 427-64
Civil-service appointments, 457
Civil service commission: Illinois, 446;
municipal, 485; and reclassification,
470; standards for appraising, 467
Civil service examinations, 429, 687,
688; exemption from, 681
Civil service laws, 386, 427, 463; fed-
eral, 427, 502; Illinois, 451, 502
Civil service methods and procedure, 9;
compared with business methods,
455
Civil service reform, 465, 506; in Illinois
455; in New York, 443
Classification: in the absence of true,
482; argument for, 472; basic princi-
ples of, 486; of charities, New York,
309; and the civil service, 465, 467,
475, 493; of employees, 463; of the
judicial and county service, 652; of
positions, 457, 482; of prisoners, 165,
314; of prisons, 316; of public person-
nel, 240; in the public service, 465-501
Classification authority, sample defini-
tion framed by, 479
Codification: of administration organi-
zation, 558; of laws, 503
Colonial institution for the insane, 73
INDEX
775
Colorado: civil service in, 428; pretends
to departmentalize, 559, 604; prisons,
530; public-welfare authority in, 246,
502, 505, 557
Colorado Advisory Board of Pardons,
606
Colorado Auditor of State, 526
Colorado Board of Charities and Correc-
tions abolished, 604
Colorado State Department of Charities
and Corrections: created, 604; sup-
port recommended, 605
Colorado State Purchasing Department,
526
Commissions on economy and efficiency,
503, 557
Conference: as an agency of public
opinion, 298, 739, 747; of New York
and Massachusetts, 534-48; see also
National Conference
"Congregate plan" of charitable institu-
tions, 311
Connecticut, 15; poorhouses, 52; public-
welfare authorities, 237, 240, 242, 246,
557
Connecticut Asylum for the Deaf and
Dumb, federal aid for, 172, 175, 177,
182, 183, 186, 189, 192
Connecticut State Board of Charities,
290
Constitutional Convention, New York
(1867), 238
Constitutional limitations: on federal
development in welfare, 3, 224-34,
741; on state, 4, 238, 239
Constitutional right: of state board to
lay down rules for private institutions,
713; of visitation, 362
Constitutionality of Maternity and
Infancy Act, 749
Constitutions, state: and subsidized
institutions, Illinois, 725; New York,
720; Pennsylvania, 729; regulation of
welfare authority, 4, 238, 239
Control, Board of, 6, 281, 379, 383, 502,
557
Control character of central boards, 242,
244, 246, 297, 335, 336; movement to,
from supervision, 365-426
Convict labor on state highways, 623
Convicts, insane, 158. See also Criminal
insane
Cook County v. Chicago Industrial School
for Girls, 728
Cook County Bureau of Public Welfare,
659
Cook County Juvenile Court, 725
Co-operation between state depart-
ments, 555, 560; Massachusetts, 619;
California, 623
Correction, houses of; see Houses of
correction
Corrections, 240, 424, 507, 602; see also
Penal institutions
Cost, 506; accounting, 503, 592; of ad-
ministration of state institutions, 606;
of departmentalization, 560, 575
Cottage system, insane asylums, 333
County: administration, 739; alms-
houses, New York, 351; asylums for
the insane, Wisconsin, 340, 343;
boards, 264, 644, 645, 653, 661; care
of insane paupers under state supervi-
sion, 635; child-welfare work (see
under Child welfare); government,
628; institutions, Michigan, 630, Wis-
consin, 335; jail, a plea for the aboli-
tion of, 645 (see also Jails); organiza-
tion, 652; poorhouses, Wisconsin, 346;
public welfare, 657, 659; service,
classification in, 652; system of out-
door relief, Minnesota, 642; welfare,
latter-day problems of, 628-61; wel-
fare work, 244, 555
Court control of private charitable
agencies, 556
Courts, 662, 671, 677, 680; see also
Juvenile courts
Crime, 313; reduction of, 666, 671;
sources of, 535; statistics of, 769;
wave, Massachusetts, 619
Criminal insane, 158, 317, 410
Criminal law: administration, local
character of, 739; reform, in Ken-
tucky, 90, in Pennsylvania, 76
Criminals: care and treatment of, 68;
classification of, 314; in New York,
674, 676; reformation of, 442
Deaf and dumb, education of, 14, 15,
68, 220, 529, 660, 761; in Connecticut,
15, 104, 128, 142, 170, 172, 175, 177,
322; in Kentucky, 14, 15, 98, 170; in
Massachusetts, 104; in New York,
164, 174; in Paris, 172, 181; in Rhode
Island, 322
Delaware: central authority, 245, 557;
insane in, 212; poorhouses of, 53
Delinquency, statistics of, 750
776
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Delinquent children; see under Children
Department of public welfare; see
County Department, Departmentali-
zation, Federal Department, State
Department
Departmentalization, of state govern-
ment, 241, 555, 557-627; perils of, 606
Dependency, statistics of, 750
Dependent children; see under Children
Dependent classes, treatment of, 306,
666, 670
Destitute, care of, 240, 507; see also
Poor
Dewey, Dr. Richard S., 294, 450, 451
Dietary revision and standards, New
York City, 504, 513, 514, 522
Dietitian, institutional, 381
District of Columbia: Board of Public
Welfare, 558; insane in, 212
Dix, Dorothea Lynde, 3, 15, 170, 171,
739; Memorial 195; veto of Miss
Dix's bill, 221, debate on, 231
Dwight, Theodore W., 54, 319
Economy, in public administration, 240,
295, 300, 366, 505, 508, 641; com-
missions, 401, 503, 557; and efficiency
movement, 507, 560; sound, and cen-
tralized purchasing, 502-28; true, 504,
nature of, 517, versus retrenchment,
514
Education of deaf and dumb; see Deaf
and dumb
Efficiency, 240; committees, state, 607,
608; expert, attack on Massachusetts
Board, 401
Elmira Reformatory, 672
Employees: changes in, New York City,
680; number of, in state hospitals,
353; recruiting and controlling, 477;
qualifications for state, 487
Employment of paupers, 37, 47
Employment problems, analysis, 476
Epileptics, hospital for, 521
Expenditures, state: for administrative
purposes, Illinois Department of
Public Welfare, 575; for charity, 740
Eye and Ear Infirmary, Massachusetts
Charitable, 127, 142
Family system, 305, 311
Federal aid, 739; early efforts at, 170-
234
Federal authority, 9, 237; stimulates
state activity, 752; see also National,
United States
Federal Board for Vocational Educa-
tion, 760
Federal Bureau of Charities and Correc-
tions proposed, 766
Federal Department of Public Welfare,
proposals for, 8, 15, 245, 503, 739–70
Feeble-minded, 68, 615, 660; schools for,
126, 142, 324
Felony, persons convicted of, 68, 76
Fernald, Dr. Walter E., 689
Financial control, 573
Fiscal Supervisor: Department of Pub-
lic Welfare, Illinois, 574, 575, 576; of
State Charities, New York, 392
Florida Board, 246, 557
Folks, Homer, 239, 241, 259, 694
Foreign paupers, 532, 534, 544, 547
Foreigners, insanity among, 198
Gallaudet, Thomas H., 104, 172, 205
Georgia: central authority, 245, 557;
insane, 199, 212
Giles, H. H., 281, 635, 748
Government Research Conference Com-
mittee on Civil Service, 467
Governor in relation: to central board,
246, 247, 249, 430, 505; to public
welfare department, 607, 609, 611;
responsibility in Administrative Code,
574
Grants, public, 708, 725, 741; see also
Land grants
Great Britain Committee on Transfer of
Powers, 7
Great Britain Machinery of Govern-
ment Committee, 6
Great Britain Royal Commission on the
Civil Service, 455
Great Britain Royal Commission on the
Poor Laws (1909), 17, 18
Hagerty, J. E., 606
Harding, President, plan of reorganiza-
tion, 742, 763
Hartford Asylum for the Deaf and
Dumb, 104, 128, 142, 177, 322
Head money, 533, 543
Health activities, county, 244, 658
Health department, state, 708
Hening's Statutes at Large, 73
INDEX
777
4)
Hospital accommodations in poor-
houses, in Michigan, 632; in New
York, 151
Hospital industries, 351, 360
Hospitals: private, 406, 708, 731, 732,
733, 734; public, 1, in Michigan, 632,
in New York City, 670, 676, 677; see
also Insane, hospitals for
Houses: of correction, 20, 60, 371; of
industry and employment, 37, 38, 43,
50, 51; of reformation and refuge,
New York, 164
Howe, Dr. Samuel Gridley, 125, 297
Idaho, public-welfare authority in, 245,
557, 607
Idiots, institutions for, 142, 162, 327, 632
Illegitimacy, 407, 740
Illinois: budget procedure, 506; county
farms, 640; expenditures in, 561;
insane in, 199, 214, 448, 453, 577,
578 (see also Kankakee); merit system
of, 450; organization for purchase of
supplies, 505, 522; partisan interfer-
ence, 427, 428; public-welfare prob-
lems, 570; reorganization of govern-
ment in, 507; state institutions, 394,
571, 577, politics in, 450
Illinois Board of Administration, 294,
395, 453, 522, 577, 726; cost of ad-
ministration under, 575
Illinois Board of State Commissioners
of Public Charities, 237, 240, 241, 242,
243, 246, 298, 367, 373; creation of,
264; reports of, 383, 385, 446, 447,
450, 640, 641; suggests its own aboli-
tion, 383
Illinois Civil Administrative Code, 507,
557, 607, 611; text of, 562
Illinois Civil Service Association, 451,
452
Illinois Civil Service Commission, 446
Illinois Committee on Efficiency and
Economy, 241, 455, 507; recommen-
dations of, 394
Illinois Department of Finance, 566,
570, 573
Illinois Department of Public Welfare,
13, 557, 563, 564, 569, 570, 573, 607,
611
Illinois Department of Public Works
and Buildings, 568, 573, 579
Illinois Eastern Hospital for the Insane;
see Kankakee
Illinois Soldiers' Orphans' Home, 296
Illinois State Charities Commission,
395, 397
Illinois State Hospital for the Insane,
Jacksonville, 199, 578
Illinois State Immigrants Commission,
428
Illinois State School for the Feeble-
Minded, 294
Illinois State Training School for Girls,
Geneva, 725
Immigrant:
commissions, 428, 663;
problems of, 662
Indenture of children, 56, 137, 158, 164,
712
Indiana: insane in, 199, 213; jail rules,
650, 651; public-welfare authority in,
246, 367, 418, 557
Indoor relief, 25; in Minnesota, 643; in
New York, 44
Industrial: program of New Jersey De-
partment, 594; schools, 142, 412, 669,
725
Industries, director of, 381
Inebriates, institution for, New York,
167
Insane: care and treatment of, 1, 3, 10,
15, 68, 170, 195-234, 329, 504; city
hospitals for, in Boston, 198, 199, 217,
in New York City, 198, 199, 670, 673,
674, 677, 678, 679; colonial institution
for, in Virginia, 73; Cook County,
660; cost of, 340, 350; and Dorothea
Dix's Memorial, 195; hospital build-
ing for, 328, 359; occupation for (see
Occupational work); restraint, 331,
332, 360; and social service, Massa-
chusetts, 615; state of, in 1848, 195
Insane, state hospitals and institutions
for, 198, 199, 321, 329, 529; civil
service in, 448, 453, 459; plans of, 636;
politics in, 441; special conditions in
affecting rate of pay, 461; standards
of construction, 511, of maintenance,
511; suggestions for visitors to, 359;
see also under names of states, insane;
names of hospitals; Lunatic asylums
Insane convicts, provision for, 158; see
also Criminal insane
Insane paupers: county care of, espe-
cially in Wisconsin, 631, 635; in
Massachusetts, 111, 112, 198; in New
York, 155, 198, 320; in Rhode Island,
321
:
Insane in poorhouses: New Jersey, 209,
210; New York, 150, 151, 205
778
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Insanity: curability of, 214; in Great
Britain, 198; hospital care of, 216,
217
Inspectional power of state board, 242;
Kansas, 336; New York State, 357,
687, 737; New York State Charities
Aid Association, 358
Inspectors of prisons, 69, 85, 97, 117,
161
Inspectors, boards of, of public charita-
ble institutions, Massachusetts, 139,
140, 146, 148
Institution Service, Massachusetts De-
partment of Mental Diseases, 615
Institutional care of dependent children,
711, 750
Institutional resistance to supervision,
New York, 737
Institutional service employees, 514;
civil-service problems, 459; proba-
tionary period, 460; service records,
461; transfers, 461
Institutions; see Blind, County, Deaf
and dumb, Insane, Municipal, Private,
State, also names of institutions
Intemperance, 167; as cause of pauper-
ism, 37, 41, 641
International Association for the Promo-
tion of Social Science, 745, 746
Interstate: marketing of prison goods,
Pennsylvania, 551; relations of public-
welfare officials, 244, 529-51; services,
104, 170, 173, 177, 185, 188, 320, 529
Iowa, public-welfare authority in, 246,
367, 379, 380, 396, 418, 557
Jacksonville State Hospital, Illinois,
199, 578
Jail rules, Indiana, 650; state control of,
65I
Jails, county, 10, 17, 628; evil conditions
in, 646; insane in, 210; of Massachu-
setts, 58, 60; need of records in, 634;
of New York, 165; a plea for the
abolition of, 645
Judicial service, classification of, 652
Justices, power of, in ordering relief, 19,
20, 21, 22, 26
Juvenile Court: Act of Illinois, 727;
standards, 740; statistics, 749
Juvenile delinquency, statistics of, 750
Juvenile delinquents: institutions for,
750; of Massachusetts, 410, 411, 412;
of New York, 164; see also Children,
delinquent; Reform schools; Reforma-
tories
Juvenile Training Division, Massachu-
setts Department of Public Welfare,
599
Kankakee State Hospital for the Insane:
architecture, 293, 329, 635; Board of
Trustees, 293, 294, 503; politics in,
293, 294, 451, 452
Kansas, insane in, 517
Kansas Board of Administration, 246,
373, 557; reports of, 517, 521
Kansas Board of Trustees of the State
Charitable Institutions, 237, 240, 242,
243; creation of, 288; organization of,
336, 338
Kansas Penitentiary, Oklahoma prison-
ers in, 529
Kelso, Robert W., 366, 401
Kentucky: insane in, 14, 101, 213; re-
form of criminal law and provision for
a state penitentiary, 68, 90
Kentucky Board, 245, 246 557
Kentucky Institution for the Deaf and
Dumb, 15, 68; creation of, 98; federal
aid for, 184
Kentucky Lunatic Asylum, 14, IOI
Labour-rate system, 24
Land-grant bill: of Connecticut, 173;
Dorothea Dix, 171, 221, 222−34; of
Kentucky, 189; of New York, 174
Land grants, 195, 739; Connecticut, 220.
230, 234; Kentucky, 220, 230, 234
Lathrop, Julia C., 298, 385, 452
Law of settlement; see Settlement
Leonard, Mrs. Clara T., 298, 435
"Less eligibility,” 16, 365
Letchworth, William Pryor, 297, 537,
539, 711, 747, 748
Letchworth Village, Board of Managers
of, 392, 398, 457
Lincoln State School for the Feeble-
minded, 294
Local authorities, 4, 9, 13, 16, 17, 244;
relation of, to boards of state charities,
292; see also City, County, Town
Local character of early welfare organi-
zations and of law-enforcing agencies
18-67, 226, 739
Lodging-houses, 662
INDEX
779
Louisiana board, 246, 557
Louisiana State Hospital for the Insane,
199
Lowell, Mrs. Josephine Shaw, 297, 298,
443, 536, 537, 539, 543, 545, 546, 663,
666, 673
Lunatic asylums: of Kentucky, 14, 101;
of Massachusetts, 109, 110, 123, 142,
146, 147; of New York, 158; see also
Insane hospitals
Lunatics in poorhouses, New York, 150,
151; see also Insane
Lying-in hospitals, Massachusetts, 406
Lynde, Mrs. Mary E. B., 281, 298, 748
Maine: care of the insane in, 199, 200;
public-welfare authority in, 246, 557
Managers, boards of, of state institu-
tions, 457; New Jersey, 584, 585; New
York, 164, 392, 398, 457
Maryland: children in institutions in,
691; insane in, 212; public-welfare
authority in, 246, 557
Massachusetts, 14, 17, 244, 354, 370,
529; alien passengers, 129, 248; child-
placing, 691, 692; deaf and dumb, edu-
cation of, 68, 104; government de-
partmentalization, 595, further re-
commended, 601; government re-
organization, 507, 557; insane in, 109,
IIO, 125, 203, 412, 413, 615; institu-
tion for delinquent youth, 68, 113;
non-resident poor, 529, 532-48; parti-
san interference in, 427; poorhouse
system, 52; poor laws, 30; public
charities, classification of, 299, general
view of, in 1850, 123; state institutions
(see under State institutions); transfer
of paupers to New York, 534, 536
Massachusetts Asylum for the Blind,
142
Massachusetts Board of Commissioners
of Alien Passengers, 129, 248
Massachusetts Board of Commissioners
of Prisons, 241, 347, 349; creation of,
252
Massachusetts Board of Parole, 620
Massachusetts Board of State Charities,
13, 237, 241, 373, 536, 708; creation
of, 247; membership of, 242, 243, 300;
organization and cost of, 300; reports,
297, 299, 300, 305; volume of work,
302; see also Massachusetts State
Board of Charity; Massachusetts
State Board of Health, Lunacy, and
Charity
Massachusetts Charitable Eye and
Ear Infirmary, 127, 142
Massachusetts, Department of Correc-
tion, 616, 618, 619; creation of, 597;
recommendations concerning, 602
Massachusetts Department of Mental
Diseases, 615, 616, 622; creation of,
596; divisions of, 615-18; duties of,
600; recommendations concerning,
603
Massachusetts Department of Public
Health, 601, 618
Massachusetts Department of Public
Welfare, 557, 607; creation of, 598;
recommendations concerning, 601,
604
Massachusetts Reformatory Prison for
Women, 257, 349, 620
Massachusetts School for Idiotic and
Feeble-minded Youth, 324
Massachusetts State Board of Charity:
duties and functions of, 240, 403;
resists attack of efficiency expert, 401;
see also Massachusetts Board of State
Charities; Massachusetts State Board
of Health, Lunacy, and Charity
Massachusetts State Board of Health,
241; creation of, 258
Massachusetts State Board of Health,
Lunacy, and Charity, 241, 546; crea-
tion of, 249; jurisdiction of, 430
Massachusetts State Board of Insanity,
241, 408, 409
Massachusetts State Board of Lunacy
and Charity, 241
Massachusetts State Farm, 410
Massachusetts State Infirmary, 407, 409
Massachusetts State Prison, 105, 107,
347
Massachusetts State Reform School,
113, 114, 118
Maternity and infancy care, 741, 742,
757; constitutionality of act, 749
Medical service, 1; and civil service in
Illinois, 453; see also Hospitals
Medical Superintendents of American
Hospitals for the Insane, Association
of, 329
Mental diseases, 507
Mental hygiene, 739, 740; commission
and department proposed for New
York, 423, 424
Mental Hygiene Division, Massachu-
setts, 615
780
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Merit system, 379, 384, 427, 428, 441,
457, 467; and child welfare, 462; in
Illinois, 450
Michigan: budget procedure, 507; coun-
ty institutions, 630; insane in, 213
Michigan Board of State Commissioners
for the Supervision_of_Charitable,
Penal, Pauper, and Reformatory
Institutions, 237, 240, 242, 243, 246,
373, 418, 630, 634; creation of, 285
Michigan State Welfare Department,
557, 607
Minnesota: development in, 282; poor
relief in, 642
Minnesota Board of Visitors, 281
Minnesota State Board of Control, 246,
281, 379, 380, 396, 558
Minnesota State Board of Corrections
and Charities, 281, 373, 642
Mississippi, 245
Missouri: insane in, 214; state boards,
246, 558
Montana board, 246, 557
Municipal institutions, 300, 675, 678
National: agency, need of, 245, 556; de-
partment of public welfare, proposals
for, 739-70; organizations, 740 (see
also names of organizations); program
and proposals for a federal depart-
ment, 739-70; statistics of dependen-
cy and delinquency 750; see also
Federal
National Association for the Promotion
of Social Science, British, establish-
ment of, 743
National Committee for Mental Hy-
giene, 739
National Committee on Prisons and
Prison Labor, 530, 549, 550
National Conference of Charities, 238,
366, 412; Committee of, proposes a
Federal Bureau, 766; proceedings of,
328, 354, 368, 373, 374, 378, 379, 439,
443, 508, 509, 635, 645, 666, 766
National Conference of Social Work,
298, 427, 739, 740; origin of, 281, 747;
proceedings of, 462, 606
National Prison Association, declaration
of principles of (1870), 313
National Probation Association, 629,
739
Nebraska, 246, 418, 557, 607; reorgani-
zation in, 239, 507
Nevada, 245
New Hampshire: insane in, 199, 201;
poorhouses of, 52; state board, 246,
396, 557
New Jersey: insane in, 199, 208; state
institutions and non-institutional
agencies, 549, 585, 586, 587
New Jersey Asylum for Deaf and Dumb,
190, 191, 192, 194
New Jersey Commissioner of Charities
and Corrections, 502, 582, 584
New Jersey State Board of Charities
and Corrections, 245, 582; members
of, 583; powers of, 584, 586, 587
New Jersey State Department of Insti-
tutions and Agencies, 529, 557, 558;
creation of 582; four-year summary
report, 590
New Mexico, public-welfare authority
in, 245, 557
New York Board of State Commission-
ers of Public Charities: creation of,
261; powers and duties of, 264; report
on classification of charities, 309; re-
port on efficiency in public charity,
310; see also New York State Board
of Charities
New York City: insane, 674, 677, 678,
679; public institutions of, 675, 678
New York City Board of Police, 676
New York City Bureau of Municipal
Research, 398
New York City Commissioners of Chari-
ties and Correction, 537
New York City Conference of Charities
and Correction, 692
New York City Department of Alms
and Penitentiary, 55
New York City Department of Correc-
tion, 514
New York City Department of Public
Charities, 381, 662, 686; and Civil
Service Commission, 681; creation of,
62; development of social service in,
692; early history, 665; Mrs. Lowell's
report on, 673, State Charities Aid
report on, 678; supervision of insti-
tutions by, 690; work of, 689
New York City Hospital for the Insane,
199
New York City Municipal Civil Service
Commission, 470, 664, 687, 688
New York City Workhouse, 64, 676,
678
INDEX
781
New York Constitutional Convention
(1867), 238
New York Deaf and Dumb Asylum,
federal aid for, 174, 190, 191, 192
New York Fiscal Supervisor of State
Charities, 261, 392, 420
New York House of Refuge, 164
New York Juvenile Asylum, 713
New York Probation Commission, 740
New York Society for the Prevention of
Cruelty to Children, 719
New York State, 13, 14, 17, 244; ad-
ministration in, 367; charitable organ-
ization in, 1857, 149; insane in, 169,
205, 350, 511; policy of institutional
care for dependent children, 711; poor
(see Poor, Poor laws); prison in-
spectors, 69, 237; state institutions
(see State institutions); supervision
of state prisons, 119; state welfare
agencies in, 261
New York State Board of Charities, 240,
241, 242, 243, 246, 296, 297, 373, 392,
418; co-operation with State Charities
Aid Association, 354, 356, 357; pro-
posals for reorganization of, 419; rela-
tion of, to Massachusetts Board on
treatment of non-resident paupers,
529, 532-48; in relation to New York
City Department, 663, 664, 686; in
relation to private institutions, 708,
711, 713, 714, 719; report on pauper
and destitute children, 324; reports,
381, 425, 514, 532, 673, 678, 737;
work of, 425
New York State Board of Classification,
392
New York State Charities Aid Associa-
tion, 239, 261, 296, 350, 359, 367, 386,
663, 674, 695, 748; public powers
given to, 358; relation to State Board,
354, 356, 357; work of, 354
New York State Civil Service Commis-
sion, 392, 485; investigates the New
York Municipal Civil Service Com-
mission, 681
New York State Department of Public
Welfare, 557
New York State Hospital Commission,
42I
New York State Hospital for the Insane,
199, 205
New York State Legislature Senate
Committee on Civil Service: Report
(1916), 459, 460, 461, 472, 475, 476,
477, 479; Report (1917), 482, 485,
652
New York State Commission in Lunacy,
261, 353, 504, 511
New York State Commission of Prisons,
261, 392
New York State Commissioners of Emi-
gration, 237, 533, 537, 543, 544
New York State Conference of Charities
and Correction, proceedings of, 381,
694
New York State Legislature Senate Report
of an Investigation of the Municipal
Civil Service Commission, 681
New York State Legislature Special
Joint Committee on Taxation and
Retrenchment, 657
New York State Reconstruction Com-
mission on Retrenchment and Re-
organization (1919), 423
New York State School for the Blind,
362
Non-resident and alien paupers, 20, 529,
532-48; conference on, Massachusetts
and New York, 534; effect of confer-
ence on, 548; transferring of, from
Massachusetts to New York, point of
view of New York, 534, of Massachu-
setts, 546
North Carolina, insane in, 212
North Carolina State Board of Public
Charities, 237, 240, 242, 243, 246, 557;
creation of, 268
North Dakota, public-welfare authority
in, 246, 396, 557
Nurses, training schools for, 357, 428,
448
Occupational work for insane, 218, 571,
578, 637: see also Hospital industries
Officials, public-welfare, 243; interstate
relations of, 529–51
Ohio, 246, 418; bi-partisan board, 612,
613; insane in, 199, 213; public insti-
tutions of, 14, 199, 259, 396, 509, 510,
610, 613; reorganization law, 610, 611,
613
Ohio Board of Administration, 260, 610,
611
Ohio Board of State Charities, 237, 240,
242, 243, 607, 610, 611, 642; creation
of, 259
Ohio Commission for the Blind, 610,
611
782
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Ohio Department of Public Welfare,
260, 557, 607; duties of director of,
613; organization, 610; recommenda-
tion of director of, 612; review of work
by director of, 610
Ohio State Board of Clemency, 610, 611
Ohio State Hospital for the Insane, 199
Oklahoma, 225, 502, 529, 557
Oregon, 557
Orphan asylums, 155, 728; in New York,
157, 711; state-aided, 713
Outdoor relief, 10, 17, 22, 25, 36, 37, 44,
152, 628; town system of Ohio, 642
Overseers of poor, 20, 26
Pardon of criminals, 317
Pardons Board, Colorado, 606
Paris institutions: for deaf and dumb,
172, 181; for insane, 203
Parish: employment, 24; system, Eng-
lish, 534
Parochial: relief, 20, 34; responsibility,
739
Partisan interference with the civil serv-
ice, 238, 240, 427-64
Partisan politics, 242, 282, 293, 312, 337,
503, 509, 529, 559; see also Politics
"Passing on" process, 534
Pauper children; see Children, pauper
Pauper expenditures: of Massachusetts,
31, 38, 134, 139; of New York, 42
Pauper laws: of Massachusetts, 30; of
New York, 535; see also Poor laws
Pauper statistics, in Massachusetts, 137
Pauperism: causes of, 37, 41, 535, 641;
prevention of, 748; reduction of, 670;
in United States, 42; in Wisconsin, 644
Paupers: able-bodied, 22, 28, 676; in
Illinois, 640, 660; importation of, from
Europe, 532; insane (see Insane pau-
pers); in Massachusetts, 129, 134; in
Michigan, 632, 633; in New York, 355,
356, 357; non-resident (see Non-
resident and alien paupers)
"Pay as you go" system of payments,
506
Penal institutions: of Illinois, manage-
ment of, 396, 575; of Massachusetts,
620, 621, 622; see also Corrections,
Penitentiaries, Prisons
Penal laws, reform of: in Kentucky, 90;
in Pennsylvania, 76
Pendelton Act, 427
Penitentiaries, 90, 529; see also Penal
institutions
Pennsylvania, 13; children in institù-
tions of, 691; development in, of
public-welfare agencies, 270; gover-
nor, appropriations, 736; imprison-
ment of persons convicted of felony,
68; insane hospitals, 273; poorhouses,
52; subsidized institutions in, 729
Pennsylvania Asylum for Deaf and
Dumb, 190, 191, 192
Pennsylvania Board of Commissioners
of Public Charities, 237, 240, 242, 243,
246, 373; creation of, 270; power to
obtain reports from state institutions,
327
Pennsylvania Department of Welfare,
529, 530, 557; authorized to market
prison goods outside the state, 531,
551; policy of, 626; view of the field,
626
Pennsylvania Prison Commission, 270
Perkins Institution for the Blind, Bos-
ton, 125, 142, 323
Personnel, 240, 462, 467; professional,
555; selection of, 297
Personnel Classification Board, 493
Philadelphia Jail as a convict prison, 76
Pierce, President, veto of Miss Dix's bill,
3, 15, 171, 237, 739; text of, 221;
Senate debate on the veto, 231
Placing-out system, 712; of orphan chil-
dren, 158; of pauper children, 326;
standards of, 694
Political appointments, 314, 369, 608,
609
Political dominance of civil service com-
missions, 467, 468; see also Partisan
interference
Politics, in management: of county
institutions, 647, 652; of state institu-
tions, 314, 376, 379, 385, 439, 444.
463; see also Partisan politics
Poor: adult, New York, 689; auctioned,
24, 35, 44; bidding off to lowest
bidder, 153, 641, 643; compulsory pro-
vision for, 29, 32, 33, 34, 35, 44, 45;
employment of, 37, 47; farmed out,
23, 35, 44, 46; impotent, 18, 25, 32;
non-resident, 529, 532-48; permanent,
New York, 40; Province of Massa-
chusetts, 71; relief and settlement of,
in New York, 39; state, in Massa-
chusetts, and their care, 131; tem-
porary in New York, 40; voluntary
provision for, 29
INDEX
783
Poorhouse records and reports: in In-
diana, 656; in Michigan, 634
Poorhouse rules, in Indiana, 656
Poorhouse system, 43, 44, 51
Poorhouses, 34, 36, 153, 346; of Illinois,
640; insane in (see Insane in poor-
houses); of Michigan, 630, 634; of
Minnesota, 643; of New York, 43, 150,
169, 325, 355, 358
Poor laws, 13, 45, 365, 662; before and
after 1601, 18-29; English, 31, 34,
influence of, 16; legacy of, 54; of
Massachusetts, 30; of New York, 39,
54, 169, 356, 422, 535
Poor rates, English, 45
Poor relief: Cook County, 660; county
system of New York, 658; county
system of Wisconsin, 644; in Minne-
sota, 642; mixed system of Wisconsin,
645; public supervision of, by Massa-
chusetts State Board, 406; town sys-
tem of Ohio, 642, of Wisconsin, 644
Poor-relief expenditures: England, 21,
31; see also Pauper expenditure
Positions, manner and methods of es-
tablishing, 476
Prevention, 627
Prison architecture, 318
Prison authorities, central, 319; co-
operate with state highway authori-
ties, California, 623
Prison discipline, 315
Prison industries, 349, 350, 529, 549–51;
national view of the problem of, 549;
regional conferences on, 530, 550; see
also Prison labor
Prison inspectors, 161; Kentucky, 97;
New York, 69, 119; Philadelphia Jail,
85
Prison labor, 316, 594; Kentucky, 95;
Massachusetts, 106; New Jersey, 594;
Philadelphia Jail, 81; see also Convict
labor, Prison industries
Prisons, 14, 240; insane convicts in, 159;
state prisons, Massachusetts, 105,
107, 347, 602, New York, 119; see also
Penal institutions
Prison reform, 314, 645; in Massachu-
setts, 107
Prison statistics, 318
Prison uniforms, 516
Prisoners: discharged, 316; examination
of, Massachusetts, 615, 616; New
York City, 678; psychiatric examina-
tion of, Massachusetts, 615, 616, 620,
622; reformation of, 619, 621
Private charitable institutions or agen-
cies, 1, 5, 238, 244, 300, 556; for chil-
dren, New York, 690; Illinois, 725;
Massachusetts, 405; New York, 168,
711, 713,719, 737; Pennsylvania, 729,
735; and state board, 292, 708-38;
see also Hospitals, private
Private society in relation to central
board, 261, 426
Promotion, system of, in civil service,
475, 489
Province poor, 71
Psychiatric examination of prisoners,
Massachusetts, 615, 616, 620, 622
Psychopathic Institute at Kankakee,
448, 454
"Public," meaning of, 5
Public aid to private institutions, 238,
244, 710
Public buildings, needless cost of, 311,
319
Public charitable institutions; see Coun-
ty institutions, Municipal institu-
tions, State institutions
Public charity: definition of, from legal
standpoint, 5; efficiency in, 310; gen-
eral principles of, 306
Public economies, Massachusetts, 134
Public Health Service, 429, 759, 760
Public social services, Great Britain, 2, 7
Public-welfare council, proposed for
New York, 424
Public-welfare departments: city, 662;
county, 657, 659; Federal (see Federal
Department); state, 555-627
Public-welfare work, importance of, 1
Purchasing, public, 136, 240, 297, 300,
302, 303, 313; centralizing of, 502,
505, 506; emergency, 524; joint, 391;
methods of, 295, 531
Purchasing departments or schemes,
state: Colorado, 526; Illinois, 522,
579; Utah, 527; Wisconsin, 280
Qualifications: of members of central
board, 243; for state employees, 487
Quincy, Josiah, Remarks on Poverty,
Vice and Crime, 57; Report of 1821,
20
784
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Rainsford Island Hospital, Massachu-
setts, 133, 135, 136, 139, 142, 148
Records, 365; in child-placing, 706; of
Indiana county poorhouses, 656; of
Michigan county institutions, 634;
securing of, from local authorities,
656; standardization of, 752; systems
of, 365; uniform, 304, in institutions
for children, 750
Reform schools: of Massachusetts, 113,
114, 127, 142; of New York, 164
Reformatory institutions, 371, 646; of
Illinois, 396; of New York, 671, 672
Reformatory Prison for Women, Massa-
chusetts, 257, 349, 620
Regional organization of states for the
use of products of prison industry,
549-51
Registration-area plan for statistics, 752
Relief, 365; of the able-bodied, 22, 28;
non-resident, 20; see also Indoor relief,
Outdoor relief, Paupers, Poor relief
Religious liberty, 726, 727
Reports of state authorities, 248, 257,
296, 354, 365, 390, 503, 559; of Indiana
county poorhouses, 656; lack of
public, 4; of Michigan_county_poor-
houses, 634; of Pennsylvania Board,
327; power of central board to call
for, 297; securing from local authori-
ties in Indiana, 656; standardization
of, 752
Requisitions, handling of, 576
Rhode Island, 557; insane, 205; insane
hospital, 321, 322; poorhouses, 52
Rhode Island State Board of State
Charities and Corrections, 237, 240,
242, 243, 246, 373; creation of, 275
Rhode Island State Hospital for the
Insane, 199, 203
Roundsman system of outdoor relief, 23
Salaries, 138, 473, 487, 612, 653, 654;
federal, 493; standardization, 491
Sanborn, Frank B., 297, 328, 373, 431,
747, 748
Savings in centralized purchasing, 526,
528
Schuyler, Louisa Lee, 355
Sectarian private agencies and institu-
tions, 238, 668, 669, 709, 710, 726, 729
Settlement, law of, 14, 21, 534, 535, 542,
700; in England, 545; in Massachu-
setts, 71, 131, 406, 545, 547, 604; in
New York, 39, 43, 46, 47, 51, 547; in
Wisconsin, 644
Sicard, Abbé, 172
Sing Sing Prison, 119, 311
Social histories: prisoners, 618, 620;
juvenile delinquents, 750
Social Hygiene Board, U.S. Interdepart
mental, 760
Social investigator group, in civil service.
479
Social science, historical sketch of, 743
Social service: and the care of the
insane, Massachusetts, 615; develop-
ment of, New York City, Department,
681, 692; functions of, county, 658,
659
Social Service Division, Massachusetts
Department of Mental Diseases, 615,
618
Soldiers homes, 307, 536, 760
South Carolina: insane in, 212; public-
welfare authorities of, 245, 557
South Dakota, public-welfare authori-
ties of, 246, 396, 557
Spoils system, 440, 443, 450
State authorities, 1, 4, 9; see also Con-
trol, board of, State boards, State de-
partments
State boards of charities, 144, 244, 245,
606, 747; administrative powers of
365; advisory powers of, 373; annual
report of, 248; creation of, 245; duties
of, 242, 248, 368; functions of, 368,
373; inspectional powers of (see In-
spectional power); and the institution,
292-364; interstate relations of, 532-
48; membership of, 237, 238, 247;
powers of, 245, 297, 373; and private
charitable institutions or agencies,
708-38; qualification of members of,
369; relation to local authority, 292,
335; relation to private institutions,
292; relation to state institutions, 292,
293; should be retained, 607, 609;
structure of, changes in, 245; sum-
mary of statutes creating, 244, 245,
557; supervisory character of, 239,
243, 244, 246, 281, 297, 402, 418, 420,
589; volume of work of, 296; see also
under names of different states
State bureaus of child hygiene, 757
State departments of public welfare,
507, 557, 607; see also under names of
different states
State expenditures, 561
INDEX
785
State government, reorganization of, 507
State initiative, bureaucratic stifling of,
741, 742
State institutions and agencies, 628; ad-
ministration of, 394, 398, 508, 509;
establishment of, 13, 14, 68–169; fiscal
control methods of, 386; in Illinois,
394, 450, 571, 577; in Kansas, 336,
338; management of, 310, 339, 508,
511; in Massachusetts, 123, 134, 142,
299, 302, 321, 404; in New York, 164,
310, 355, 382, 392, 398; in Ohio, 14,
199, 259, 396, 509, 510, 610, 613;
relation of, to boards of charities, 292,
293; in Rhode Island, 321, 322; sites
of, 311; supervision of, 387, 404, 713;
resistance to supervision, 737; in Wis-
consin, 279, 335, 339; see also Man-
agers, boards of; Trustees, boards of,
of state institutions; Penal institu-
tions; names of institutions.
State welfare organization, relation to
city welfare work, 555; to county wel-
fare, 555; to private agencies, 556
States' rights, 224-34
States' use system, 550
Statistical reporting, 749, 750
Statistics, 741; of charities and correc-
tion, 769; of crime, 769; of expense of
administration, Massachusetts, 301;
juvenile court, 750; of pauper chil-
dren, 325, 326; of paupers, Massachu-
setts, 137; of prisoners, Massachuetts,
616, 619; prospect of better, 750; uni-
formity of, needed, 748, 749
Strong, Charles H., 261, 419, 691
Subsidies, state, principles of granting,
in Pennsylvania, 735
Subsidized institutions, 292, 708-38;
and New York City Department, 689;
in Pennsylvania and the constitution,
729
Summary of State Laws, 244, 245, 557
Supervision, 9; in child-placing, stand-
ards of, 701; movement from, to con-
trol, 365-426
Supervisors, county board of, 653
Supervisory authority, state, 70, 142,
237, 242, 558, 559; relation to ad-
ministrative authority, 560; see also
State boards, supervisory functions;
State institutions, supervision
Supervisory boards, 374. 502, 557, 558
Supplies for institutions: purchasing of,
Illinois, 522; receiving of, 525
Sweet, Governor William E., 428, 530,
559, 605
Taxes, 18, 40, 220, 225, 503
Tennessee: central authority, 246, 558;
insane, 199, 213
Texas board, 245, 557
Titles in civil service, 486; multiplicity
of, 653; unnecessary, 474
Town: administration, 739; system of
outdoor relief, 642, 643
Tramps, 539, 542
Transportation of paupers, 546, 548; see
also Alien passengers
Trustees, boards of, of state institutions,
6, 69, 237, 281, 293, 365, 366, 367, 368,
370, 374, 391, 502, 503, 558; in Illinois,
293, 294, 296, 383, 384, 503, 575; in
Massachusetts, 110, 118, 142, 146,
147; membership, 238; in New York,
162, 362, 392; in Ohio, 610; relation-
ship to central board, 238, 296, 328,
362; unsalaried, 14, 15; in Wisconsin,
280
Trustees of county insane asylums, Wis-
consin, 344
Unemployment, 662
Uniform Law Commissioners, 740
United States Bureau of the Census,
170, 739, 750
United States Children's Bureau, 170,
429, 629, 739, 740, 752; and first
federal Child Labor Law, 752; juve-
nile court statistics, 749; maternity
and infancy, 757
United States Congressional Joint Com-
mission on Reclassification of Salaries,
493
United States Constitution and land
grants to institutions, 178, 181, 192,
193
United States Public Health Service,
429, 759, 760
United States Women's Bureau, 429
Unmarried mothers, after-care of, 407
Unsalaried boards, 237, 239, 243, 418;
see also Volunteer
Utah, central authority, 245, 558
Utah Department of Finance and Pur-
chase, 505; report of progress, 527
786
PUBLIC WELFARE ADMINISTRATION
Wines, E. C., 298
Wines, Frederic Howard, 298, 328, 374,
645, 766
Wisconsin, 418; care of the insane, 280,
340, 629, 637; development of public-
welfare agencies in, 279; state institu-
tions in, 279, 335, 339; substitution of
control for supervision, 366, 629
Wisconsin Board of Public Affairs, 280
Wisconsin State Board of Charities and
Reform, 237, 240, 242, 243, 644; crea-
tion of, 279; on care of insane, 637,
638; rules for, 639
Vacations of public employees, 490
Vermont: insane in, 202, 321; state
board, 246, 557
Vermont Hospital for the Insane, 202,
321
Villard, Henry, 743
Virginia: insane in, 14, 212; poorhouses
of, 52; state board of, 246, 557
Visitation, constitutional rights of, 362
Visitorial power of New York State
Charities Aid Association, 296, 358
Visitorial power of state boards, 242,
243, 297 368,; Massachusetts, 110;
New Jersey, 589; New York, 357, 362;
Wisconsin, 336
Volunteer part-time service of board
members of institutions, 6, 9, 69
Volunteer service in civil-service exami-
nations, 687
"Wards of the state," 68, 221, 240, 242,
320, 504, 606; see also Dependent,
Poor, Deaf and Dumb, etc.
Warner, Amos G., 13, 58
Washington state board, 246, 396, 557
"Welfare," meaning of, 5, 6; see also
Child welfare, Public welfare
West Virginia Board of Control, 246,
396, 557
Widows' Pensions, 692
[
Wisconsin State Board of Control of
Reformatory, Charitable and Penal
Institutions, 246, 280, 380, 396, 558,
644; duties of, 335; orders issued by,
339
Wisconsin State Board of Supervision,
373
3436-1
Women, Reformatory Prison for, Mas-
sachusetts, 257, 349, 620
Workhouse, 21, 29, 37, 50, 152; New
York City, 64, 676, 678; relief, 25;
test, 21
Wright, Henry C., 264, 367, 386, 413,
419, 505, 558, 573
Wyoming State Board of Charities, 246,
396, 557
Yates, J. V. N., 54
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