Vermont phÅ“nix. [volume] (Brattleboro, Vt.) 1834-1955, 1896-12-04
A Congressional Investigation in LeRv-
enworth, Kansas.

ehWOELng
For two or three weeks past a special
congressional investigating committee, of
which Gen. w. W. Grout of the Second
Vermont district is the chairman, has been
taking testimony at Leavenworth, Kansas,
in regard to charges which are made against
the management of the National Soldiers
Home located in that city. The evidence
was completed last Saturday and the Leav-
enworth Times of Sunday gives a sum-
mary of the main points established by the
investigation. These appear to be, in sub
stance, that the Home has been run as
sort of annex of Kelley cure. In the
language of the Times "the governor of
the Home has unduly used his power and
influence to utilize the Home for the pro-
motion of the business of the Kelley league,
at pecunary profit to himself and the
league. The United States government,
without its own consent, has been main
tanning this great institution to force and
persuade old men to take the Kelley pre-
| scription. Whiskey belonging to the
United States government was taken from
the hospital stores and used in the Kelley
institute without payment being made to
the government. While Governor Smith
drew his salary as governor of the Home,
he also received a salary of $1,000 as presi-
lent of the Kelley league. He made it his
principal business to propagate Keeleyism.
Persons who were not legitimate members
Cf the Home were received, lodged and
| boarded there at government expense, and
they were there solely for the purpose of
taking tne Kelley cure and left the Home
as soon as the treatment was completed
"On the one hand intimidation has been
used among the members of the Home to
compel converts, and in repeated instances,
the alternative has been presented to the
veteran: The gate or the Kelley cure. On
the other hand favoritism has been rife
with the same object. Kelley men have
been placed in positions of advantage and
honor out of all proportion to their num-
bers in the membership of the Home.
"The Soldiers Home under Governor
Smiths direction has gone very largely in
to two contrary businesses: One of them
is beer-selling on an extensive scale, with
out limit as to the amount sold to individ-
uals, short of palpable intoxication; the
other is the alleged curing of inebriates by
the Keeley remedy"
Some of the evidence reads very much
like that which has been so recently print
ed here in Vermont:
brutality, rudeness, violence of man.
ner, in some cases of an extreme charac-
ter, were proved on the part of Governor
Smith. The officers were treated with
| harshness. In several instances it was
demonstrated that there was real cruelty in
the treatment of the old soldiers Men who
defended this country at the risk of their
lives were placed in strait jackets, their
feet strapped, made to sleep on the stone
floor of a dungeon, had their mouths gag
ged. By the governors orders they were
placed in the insane asylum, without ex
animation by a surgeon, and were released
from the insane asylum without a sur.
geon's certificate. This brutality was gen
eral The police appointed by the COVER
nor were so cruel that on one occasion Col
Cooke, as manager, had to step in over the
governor, and remove some of them.
"The evidence on all these points has
been clear and strong, and in most
of them has not been disputed by the de.
fence. The report of the committee can
not fail to embody them, and Congress will
no doubt act accordingly"
The Times gives the committee the
credit of having performed their work with
great patience and thoroughness and witt
a laudable determination "to avoid all de
lusions and Establishments" 1t adds, in q
separate paragraph, that
"People in this vicinity will not have the
impression hereafter that congressional
commissions of one sort or another are only
junketing tours. The investigating com
mittee here has done the hardest and most
persistent work, resting only when th'
stenographers' powers were exhausted
Congressman Grout especially has been in
defatigable in his endeavors to make the in
vestigation thorough"
The testimony taken was very volumi
nous. When printed it will make bool
of between 1900 and 20O0 pages.