The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1895-05-30
CHASE FOUND GUILTY.

The Majority Report Recommend that the
Warden be Removed.
The report of the Warden Chase in
vestigation committee has been complet-
ed and will be filed with Governor Nor
rill tomorrow morning.
The report contains four documents.
The majority report is signed by all the
members of the committee except Rep
resentative T. P. Wilson of Barber coun-
ty, the Democratic member.
Senator Parker, the chairman of the
committee, in addition to signing the re-
port of the majority, submits a separate
statement in which he says Kansas is
behind other states along the
line of prison reform, and
recommends that the appointment of
warden and other penitentiary officials
be taken out OF politics.
Senator Taylor also signs the majority
report and submits a separate statement
concurring in the recommendations
ing some of his reasons for signing the
majority report.
Senator Taylor says the only reason
other wardens have not been convicted
on the same charges that Chase is that
they have never been prosecuted.
The majority report signed by Sena-
tors Taylor and Parker and Representa-
tives Bone and Caldwell finds Warden
Chase not guilty of using profanity in
the presence of convicts and not guilty
of the charges in relation to Lou Will
liams
He is found guilty of Furnishing prison
ers with instruments not authorized by
law, but which had been used by all
former wardens, also of assaulting Judge
Mcdonald, the ex-member of the state
board of pardons, but the charge that he
aided prisoners to escape their fuu legal
sentence is declared not proven.
He was found guilty of having paid
officers for time when they were not ac
| tnalIy on duty, but all other Wardens had
| done the same.
lie is declared guilty of having his
daughter on the pay rolls as keeper"
while she was acting as his clerk. but
all other wardens had done the same.
He is acquitted of using state money,
but found guilty of using supplies from
the state farm and getting meat from the
state store at less than aCtial weight
He was found guilty of making his
son superintendent of the mine, when he
had had no experience as a miner.
He is convicted of suDjecting prison
ers to punishment in the insane ward
''too low and degraded to be named in
any public document and too wicked to
be tolerated in this enlightened COM
munity."
He is found guilty of being negligent
about the business part of the institution
and the committee agrees with the re-
port of the state accountant in regard tC
the practices of the storekeeper and
book-keeper
The committee found that all the en-
ployes of the penitentiary except seven
or eight had contributed one per cent OF
their years salary to a fund to assist
Warden Chase for his defense before the
committee.
The signers of the majority report rec
ommend that Warden Chase be removed
Representative Wilson in his minority
report concurs with the majority on all
the points in which he is found not
guilty, and he acquits him of all
responsibility on the others, putting the
blame on the legislature for not having
looked after the penitentiary more close
ly. Mr.. Wilson recommends that Chase
be reinstated.