Daily globe. [volume] (St. Paul, Minn.) 1878-1884, 1880-01-15

hand October /, 1877, were $43, 36701. The
disbursements for all purposes have been
439, 364 so; leaving balance Of cash on hand
Of oil funds Of $4,00311; detailed statement
Of which is shown in the report
The amount allowed by law for the support
Of this institution is $40 per capita per month.
The Trustees, finding that this amount was not
necessary for the support of the institution.
have, for the past eleven months, drawn on the
State treasury for only the rum of $685. per
were entitled to draw from the State been
drawn in full, their cash on hand would have
been 81, 5O0 So more than it is make special
mention of this action Of the board as worthy
not only of your consideration, but as an exam
pie Of regard for the financial interests Of the
state worthy of emulation and imitation by
other institutions. The management Of the
Home is excellent as to discipline, instruction
and financial economy. Considering the mis-
cradle class of buildings, tho results have been
most creditable, both to the Board of Trustees
and to the Superintendent and Matron.
The State has forty acres of ground, all but
eight acres of which, together with the build
ings, were q donation to the State by the Federal
Government With the exception Of four brick
cottages which have been erected by the Trustees
from the savings from support funds, all the
buildings are wooden and Of temporary char
acter, having been erected during the war for
use as barracks and drill rooms If this insti-
tuition is to be maintained, the General Assem-
bly, should make an appropriation Of an amount
sufficient to erect suitable cottages, inasmuch
as those now in use are in a dilapidated con-
dition, and will not dofor occupancy beyond the
present year.
With the limits necessarily prescribed in this
message, it is not possible to present, as the
merits Of the subject really demand, the actu-
ally existing urgency for Legislative action in
the interests of the dependent and INDECENT
children of Iowa. Careful attention to recently
developing facts has served to convince me
that the number and the needs Of such children
in this State are much greater than has been
Sixteenth General Assembly Of the law per-
hitting the admission Of other than the
orphans of Iowa soldiers to the Or
phans' Home has been followed by q
steady unfolding Of unmistakable evidence in
this direction. Your attention is particularly
invited to single development Of this fact. as
presented in the report Of the Superintendent
of the Orphans Home. From this it appears
that the benevolent intent of the General As
sembly as to INDECENT children has been trust
rated to the extent Of negativing the application
for admission to the Home made in behalf Of
many of such needy and presumably suffering
juveniles These applications were rejected
in almost every case only because the Boards
of Supervisors Of the respective counties upon
which these children are chargeable declined
to direct the placing Of such children in the
Home, where, under the existing law, the sup
port would be chargeable upon the counties
from which they might be received In other
words, the several Boards of Supervisors in
question have preferred that the INDECENT
children Of their county shall be either RENTED
to the tender mercies of the poor-house or
thrown upon the fitful charities of q world
whose benefactiOns in such relation are as
often harmful as helpful. These failures of
the respective Boards of Supervisors to
place the dependent children of their counties
in an institution wherein education, careful
training in good habits, regularity Of employ
ment in labor suited to capacity and age, and
association in groups approximating the family
relation would supplement mere provision for
clothing and fool, have certainly resulted from
a mistaken policy. ECONOMY" falsely 80
called, has melted to this. But the State may
well inquire whether it can afford to allow any
county to practice such ECONOMY" at its ex-
pense and to the future peril of the property
and lives Of its citizeus. No fact in social sci
ence is more clearly demonstrated than that
the criminal classes find their most numerous
and constant reinforcements from the ranks of
the neglected, and hence he certainly soon-to-
be vicious, children and youth. 1t is so much
cheaper 80 to care for the INDECENT children of
the State 80 that these may constantly be kept
under the influence of education, industry and
good morals, than to neglect them when chill
dren, and provide for them in poor-hOuses,
jails and penitentiaries when adults, that true
regard for the interests of the taxpayers must.
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criminals and you will find that with the
greater part of them, the moral perversity
which has caused their ruin dates from early
childhood" This assertion of one who, as an
associate member of the Parliamentary Com
mission on Prison Reform, had rare opportuni-
lutte truth attested by a mass of concurrent tes-
timony. Enough to say that not only the evil
dence given by careful investigation, but vast
array of statistical facts proves that, in the
words of the Cincinnati Prison Reform Con-
gross, in its declaration of principles, Pre-
ventive institutions, such an truant homes, in
dustrial schools, etc., for the reception and
danger of becoming such, constitute the true
field of promise in which to labor for the sup
preston Of crime"
The benefcence of an institution which cares
for, educates, and places in the highway to a
noble womanhood and useful manhood chill
6ren left dependent upon the State, has been
80 thoroughly demonstrated in the case Of our
own Iowa Orphans Home that single we'll
attested fact concerning results therein secured
merits particular mention here. This fact is
that, out Of the whole number of inmates of
that home during the past twelve years. only
5 per cent have failed to lead respected and
worthy lives.
Other States have fully demonstrated the
wisdom Of that philanthropy which gathers
into an aggregation of cottage homes, like our
Orphans Home. children who are neither
criminal, diseased, nor predetermined, but are
simply INDECENT and without proper homes and
care, and therein shelters, clothes, feeds, and
teaches them.
A single additional and startling fact earn
estly enforces the foregoing statements and
considerations. This is, that on the LIST day Of
October last there were, according to reports
received from County Auditors, no less than
twenty-six girls and forty four boys, over 5
years Of age, kept in poor-houses in sixteen
counties in this State. The attention of the
General Assembly is earnestly invited to a
consideration of the state of affairs in relation
10 Inc cOnuluOn OF lnQlSent cnlOren IN lowe
indicated BY that fact
1t is clearly my opinion that preventive will
obviate the necessity for a cure; therefore the
wants of the State, in the interest of wise
and true economy, demand such legislation as
will evermore prohibit the confinement Of
children over 9 years of age in any poor
house, and will require that in every case the
child destitute of proper parental or other care
on the part of relatives, or for whom no ade-
quate provision is otherwise offered, shall be
placed in the Orphans Home at the proper
charge of the county in which residence has
been legally established.
INSTITUTION OF THE DEAF AND DUMB
The Seventeenth General Assembly appro-
priated $40, 900 for the rebuilding Of the west
wing, of which s34, 322. 90 have been drawn and
expended, the balance-s5, 6770S-being I'M
drawn, and, according to the report Of the
Trustees, not needed. The $4,000 appropriated
for furniture has been drawn, andssl 800 OF
expended, leaving balance in the hands of
the Treasurer of s1O9.99. Therecepts from all
oourono for tho hioppio1 variod ipolu6;pp bol