IV.

State Supervision and Administration of Charities and

Correction.

REPORT OF THE COMMITTEE.

Recent reports from nearly all the states give the following noteworthy news touching this topic.

In New York State last year, we recall, the governor recommended the abolition of the State Board of Charities and the creation in its place of a board of three, two of them busy state officials ex-officio, with one new salaried officer; but the measure, early introduced in the legislature, met with wide-spread and effective opposition, and was dropped. This year the same executive proposed that the boards of managers of all the state hospitals for the insane and of all the state charitable institutions be abolished, the powers of the managers of the eleven insane hospitals to be vested in the State Commission in Lunacy, and the powers of the managers of the thirteen charitable institutions to be vested in one state superintendent of charities. The insane hospitals were already under the sole supervision of the commission, almost under its control, the hospital attorneys being appointed by it, and no repairs or improvements or estimates for supplies and expenditures being made without its approval. The charitable institutions, if under the control of one man, would still be subject to the supervision of the State Board of Charities. The one man would be recommended by the board to the governor. For each of the institutions or hospitals local boards of visitors would be appointed to make frequent visits and reports. The objection of the governor to the existing system was, briefly summed up, that it resulted in waste of money and unnecessary duplication of institutions and officials. To the suggested changes strong opposition was made by representatives of a number

of prominent charitable agencies, under the lead of the State Charities Aid Association. The opposition claimed that real economy would not result from the change, and that boards of managers for the various institutions and hospitals were of the greatest value, representing much intelligent and faithful service for the inmates and the public. The plan of the one official to control the charitable institutions was dropped, but that for the complete control of the insane hospitals by the Commission in Lunacy was made a law. board of visitors has been or is to be appointed for each hospital. The office of "Fiscal Supervisor of State Charities" was created, in whose hands are placed the power of control over the expenditures of the state charitable institutions and the State School for the Blind and the Elmira Reformatory, which had been exercised through a bureau of the state comptroller's department. The supervisor is to hold office for five years, and be paid $6,000 yearly, besides necessary expenses. His duties include careful examination into the physical condition and financial management of each of the institutions twice a year at least, with reports to the governor twice and to the legislature once a year. Monthly estimates for expenses must be submitted to him, and he may revise them. He may arrange with the boards of managers for purchase of staple articles by joint contract. By the same law creating this supervision each board of managers of these same institutions, in addition to its duties as previously prescribed, is required to inspect its institution by a majority of its members, and make a detailed report in duplicate to the governor and the State Board of Charities at least once a month. Also, plans for unusual repairs or improvements at the state charitable institutions and the School for the Blind must be approved by the governor, the comptroller, and the president of the State Board of Charities, or two of them.

In Virginia a provision of the new constitution changes the method of managing the state hospitals for the insane. Each of these institutions has been under the general control of a board of directors, consisting of nine men appointed by the governor by and with the consent of the Senate, the terms of office being three years, three going out every year. These boards had the power of appointing the superintendent, assistant officers, and employees of their respective hospitals. The new constitutional law provides for a board of three for each institution appointed by the governor, their

terms of office being six years. Each board has immediate supervision of its institution. The boards of all the four hospitals constitute together a general board of control. They serve without pay. The general board appoints the superintendents, the special board appoints the assistant officers, the superintendents appoint all the employees of their respective institutions. The terms of the officers have been increased from two to four years. A commissioner is provided for, to be selected by the governor for a term of four years. He is ex-officio chairman of the general board and special boards. His duty is chiefly to give a general oversight to the finances, expenditures, and to see that the accounts of the various institutions are kept according to some uniform system. These changes were made with the aim of removing the affairs of the insane hospitals as far as possible from partisan influences. In Alabama the second hospital for the insane, whose establishment was authorized last year, to be for the negro insane, has been placed very naturally under the board of trustees who have been administering well the first state hospital.

In Maryland the Board of State Aid and Charities has made its first report to the legislature. This board was created chiefly to take the place of the hurried hearings by the legislative committees on applications of institutions for state aid. The hope was that it might be able to bring about some true economy. Its report, suggesting on the whole a decrease in institutions aided and in the total sum appropriated, showed little effort to get at principles which might govern action and little discrimination based on thorough knowledge of institutions. It was empowered to visit, and given a secretary and enough money to do much educational work had it been so disposed. Its members were men of prominence and affairs, but they had given comparatively little thought to details of charitable work. Their report was practically disregarded, no institutions being dropped from the list of former beneficiaries and fourteen being added, with an increased sum total. In North Carolina the board of three examiners, provided for by law last year, will this autumn begin their work of reporting to the governor and assembly on the financial management of state institutions, the disposition of the last appropriations, and the immediate needs. No state "board of control" has been established during the year. The Minnesota board took office August 1. There has been

some talk, chiefly in the state-houses, of the need of such boards in New Jersey, Kentucky, Missouri, Nebraska, and California. A bill introduced in the Kentucky legislature to provide one was not supported by members or by the public. In New Jersey the retiring governor advocated the creation of such a board in his last message to the legislature; but no action was taken upon it, and the suggestion was generally regarded with disfavor.

No supervisory state board of charities has been established this year. In Virginia an effort was made to have one provided under the new state constitution; but the condition which would have been attached, that no salaried officers could be employed, made the action inadvisable, as hindering future possible development by legislation. Friends of progressive charity work in Louisiana, California, and Oregon, are working for supervisory boards. From New Hampshire come, perhaps, the most cheering words in the growth of public appreciation of the work of a recently established state board.

Of movements for enlarging the power of state boards of supervision, the most interesting one is that in Ohio, where a bill has been introduced in the legislature providing for the appointment of a state agency under the board for placing out children from the county homes. This is especially significant, because the Ohio board has stood year by year as the exponent of a board working wholly by education, through advice and persuasion; but the example of the results accomplished by the Indiana state agency for placing children has evidently persuaded the Ohio board that executive power sometimes is very useful in bringing local officials to adequate action for the improvement of opportunities for good work. In Massachusetts the State Board of Charity, which by recent legislation now publishes annually a report of all charitable corporations in the state, based on written returns from them, asked this year for legislation to allow it to visit these institutions, with the purpose of informing the public of their work. A number of leading charity workers urged the importance of such action, and a bill was favorably reported by the joint legislative committee; but opposition developed, and the matter was referred to the next General Court. The Board of Charities and Correction of South Dakota has been required to investigate at least once a year, and to report to the governor the work of the Children's Home Society of that state. This law was suggested by the superintendent of the society, with

the feeling, as he put it, that a state should be protected against bogus charities as much as from bogus insurance companies. The Iowa Board of Control, not at its own suggestion, has been empowered and instructed to have under inspection all private institutions in which children are received for the purpose of being cared for and put out in families, and to prescribe certain rules for their conduct. The State Board of Charities and Correction of Colorado, under a law passed last year, is now charged with the duty of issuing or withholding licenses to all private charities which have the custody of persons, and is now gathering preliminary reports on forms issued by it. In North Carolina a private sanitarium for the insane, recently opened, has been placed by statute, which applies to any similar institution which may be established, under the direct supervision of the State Board of Charities, which is to inspect it semiannually, and from which it must have a license.

Of the work done in Cuba under our military occupation, which has just ended, three points of exceeding interest should be noted. here. Under the system laid down by the military governor, with the advice, on the spot, of the ablest adviser, probably, whom he could call upon, Mr. Homer Folks, now the commissioner of charities of Greater New York City, the Department of Charities of Cuba has exercised a reasonable supervision over all charitable institutions, public or private; has, secondly, withdrawn gradually all subsidies from the state to private institutions, in order that the private foundations shall keep their activities within the limits of their own resources, and that the resources of the state's treasury shall be used as far as possible for adequate care of the classes of persons for whom the state undertakes to care directly; and, thirdly, in the exercise of the doctrine of cy-près, which was embodied in the Spanish Beneficencia Law of 1875, has suppressed eight institutions whose purposes, once useful perhaps, had become unnecessary, and has attached their endowments to more vigorous and needed institutions. We may note also that in Porto Rico the law which went into effect only a year ago, which gives the control of those few general public charitable institutions, all at San Juan, to one director of charities, requires him or his agent to inspect the institutions at least once in two months, together with one member of the executive council and a citizen of the island, designated by the governor. Once a year an inspection is to be made by the