Sacramento daily record-union. [volume] (Sacramento [Calif.]) 1875-1891, 1882-02-21
THE REPORT OF THE STATE PRIsoN
DIRECTORS.

Board OF Prison Directors, for the thirty
second fiscal year, ending June 80, 1851,
has been issued from the State Printing
Office. The report of the Directors is
somewhat curious document. Il appears
TO have been written as defense against
the report of the Special Commission
which sat last year, but the defense con-
sists principally in reference to the facts
that legislative committee in 1880 failed
to find any special ground for censuring
the prison administration that person
from the Department of Justice expressed
favorable opinion of the prison discipline
in a report less than two lines in length
and that Mr.. Lauren Crane, who was en-
ployed for no other purpose than to exam
inc the books of the prison, found tie
arithmetic Of the establishment correct.
The Directors do not seem to have grasped
the consideration that the quotations from
the reports which are favorable do not at
all settle the question as to the accuracy
OF the criticisms levelled at them by the
| Special Commission but their recourse to
this strange attempt at vindication-makes
It necessary to point out that the legisla-
tive committee could, in the nature of the
case, only make hurried and superficial
examination of the system that the re-
port Of the person from the Department of
Justice, being mere assertion, must go
for nothing that Mr. Crane was not au-
thorized to, and did not, report upon any
thing but the bookkeeping and accounts of
the p.ison azd that the only serious and
at all thorough investigation that has been
made into prison administration in Cali
fornia is that which was made by the Spe.
cial Commission.
1t must be further pointed out that the
report of the Special Commission was not
mere collocation of unverifed assertions,
but that all its conclusions were based upon
voluminous evidence and careful personal
examination. The evidence upon which
it rests has not been made public, save in
such loose and generally inaccurate fashion
as the ordinary newspaper reports fur
nisbed Should it ever become necessary
to print that testimony, however, the pub
lie will learn that the Commissioners were
almost culpably conservative il their find
ings, and that they gave the Directors the
benefit of the doubt in many cases in which
they should perhaps have exercised more
severity. There is, indeed, absolutely
nothing in the report before us which can
be regarded as an answer to the charges
made by the Special Commission. The
Directors seem rather disposed to avoid ar
gument upon these questions, and to put
their case upon the point of relative credi-
bility between the Special Commission and
the other investigators. Tlis is not wise
course for them to have taken, because, as
already indicated, there is extant ample
evidence in support of all the assertions of
the Special Commission, whereas the other
reports are based upon no serious inquiry
whatever, ami there is nothing to show for
them.
The Directors indeed try to make point
by showing that they have employed
skilled mechanics to set up the jute ma
chinery, but they are compelled to ac-
knowledge that they did this subsequent
to the inquiry of the Special Commission,
and the presumption therefore is that they
availed themselves of the criticism OF the
latter to rectify this one of their former
errors. They make feeble attempt to de-
fend themselves on the mileage question,
but in dong so they exhibit most amaz.
ing miacouception of their position and OBJ
legations, as we will proceed to show. They
say '' The Special Commission, in their
report to your Excellency, INDUCED in
ga somewhat detailed statement of the
" mileage and other expenses of the D-
"rectors, from the time of their appoint
"ment to the 3lst day of July, 1881, for
8" the purpose of showing Ito use their
town language the progression of legis.
g" lation towards converting these non.
&c sslaried positions into highly remuner-
SO alive offices, and for the apparent pur-
d" pose of showing that much of the trav.
81 cling of Directors was unnecessary,
"without any explanation or statement of
=" the heavy expenses necessarily paid out
"by the Directors in the discharge of their
official duties, or the serious personal losses
" resulting to each member Of the Board on
" account Of necessary absence from his
3" home and neglect Of his o,0n private bust
acss." Now in the sentence which we
have italicized the Directors very plainly
take the extraordinary position that they
ought TO be permitted to draw extra mile
age in order to compensate them for losses
to their private business.
This is a most amazing assumption on
their part. 1t would seem that they must
be incapable of comprehending the simplest
English sentences, for the law distinctly
provides that d" The members of the Board
shall receive no compensation other than
reasonable travelling and other expenses
"mcurred while engaged in the perform.
"auce OF official duties, to be audited as
"the Legislature may direct" The law says
nothing about compensation for losses in
their private business. 1t has nothing to
do with their private business. Aud it is
perfectly certain that they have no claim
upon the State for any such losses. If
therefore the Special Commission made no
reference to any such matter, it was be.
cause such reference would have been
irrelevant and absurd. 1t does not enter into
the question in any way, and it could only
have been dragged in as it has been by the
Directors, either because they are pheno-
menally ignorant of their own relations to
the State, or because they desired to con-
fuse and obscure the issue.
But one point more calls for comment,
and that is the obvious implication OF the
Directors that the Special Commission was
in some way biased against them. They