Freeland tribune. (Freeland, Pa.) 1888-1921, 1898-11-03

large proportion of these are connected
with the educational, charitable, penal
and reformatorv institutions of the
state. All of them must sooner or later
pony up in some way to the machine,
either by money contribution, lip SER
vice or repressing what they know
and feel and would like to tell. Refusal
to do this in any direction is regarded
as threatening the appropriations for
that direction next due. For many of
these places, even where neither SAL
ary or perquisites attach, there Is al
ways warm competition, and in such
cases the machine steps in and, regard
less of the local situation or the
equities, determines the contest in ia
vor of those who are likely to prove
most subservient to its behests.
There are III homes, hospitals. asy-
lums, aid societies, missions, etc., or
ganized and controlled by the state,
or managed by private corporations
and receiving state aid, to which ap-
propriations were made by the last
legislature. These are exclusive of the
deaf and dumb and blind schools, the
institutions for the training of feeble
minded, etc. In many localities these
institutions are looked upon as of such
Importance that the men chosen to rep
resent such localities are expected to
make sure of the appropriations for
them at whatever sacrifice. Urged by
their two or three thousand officers,
managers directors and employees and
depending upon the machine as the
sole arbiter in the appropriation COM
mittees, these poor legislators are often
forced to choose between voting con-
scientiously and losing the appropria-
tions or voting with the machine and
getting them. Thus even the chari-
ties of the state. the sick and the Grip
pied are made. unconsciously, TO con-
tribute to the maintenance of a ras-
cally gang at the head of the states
affairs and their constituencies robbery
of the taxpayers.
Mr.. Wanamaker said in his speech at
Phoenixville, May 81: Politics con-
trolls the appointment of trustees of
state institutions; politics controls the
management of state institutions. The
needs of overcrowded asyums and I'M
healthy hospitals count as naught
against the request of the man with the
political pull and who can deliver state
delegates" And he might have added
that the controllers and officers of the
institutions not under control of the
state, but receiving state aid. for the
most part are but in a degrees less the
servitors of the machine.
The appropriations are notoriously
inadequate for the support of the state
institutions, notably the insane asy-
lums. The payments for the insane
were :73S, $50 ia 1896 and $ES7 ,544 in 1897.
The appropriations were 1920, 800 for 1897
and s7l7,70 for 1898, but of the former
5000 900 was for deficiency in the ap-
preparations for 1895, and $S3,9 in 1897
and like amount in 1893 was for an
extension of the reservoir and new
buildings for the Harrisburg institu-
ton. The committee on lunacy of the
board of public charities has been for
several years insisting that new
asylum for the INDECENT insane be
built for management under homeo-
pathic auspices, that hospital speci-
ally devoted to the treatment of
epilepsy be erected and that the chron-
fcs who do not require active medi-
ral treatment, nursing and special
care" should be taken from the hos
pitfalls and put in an asylum by them
selves. They further recommend that
encourage counties. municipalities. etc.,
to build institutions for the care of
their own insane by the offer of a
fixed sum, say 81 per week, paid out
of the state treasury, for each patient
supported therein. Wisconsin has
pursued this plan with highly salts
factory results for 16 years. the per
capita cost per patient being $175 per
in,
sylvania. Notwithstanding the fact
that all the insane hospitals are seri-
ously and even dangerously overcrowd-
ed. hundreds of beds having to be made
up at nights in the corridors and taken
down in the morning, the legislature
has persistently ignored all these rec
concentrations, excepting when in 1895
they passed an act looking to county
care for patients, which was so loaded
down with provisos and impossible re-
quirements as to be wholly imperative.
1t was owing to the extravagant ap-
propriations for party and factional
purposes that, as Mr.. Wanamaker said
in his Phoenixvilie speech: "At the last
session of the legislature the appro-
priations committee was obliged to re-
fuse actual maintenance for many of
tHe most deserving nOSlltdlS Ol tlie
state. Yet this same committee, under
orders, passed for Senator Coyle, of
Schuylkill. Quay lieutenant an ap-
preparation of $4,000 for the main
tenance of the American Hospital as
socation, of Mahanoy township, which
was an imaginary institution of Sena-
tor Coyle's, without capital, without a
building, or without even site upon
which to build one. This fraud was
fortunately discovered by Governor
Hastings, who vetoed the nefarious
scheme"
And yet as showing how even the
state board of charities itself is COM
PEELED to pose as apologists for the
machine, the secretary OF the board
said in his report jan 1, 1897 (see report.
page 81: "At the session of the legis-
lature of 1895 we earnestly urged that
provision be made for both the insane
and criminal classes. Bills for these
purposes were presented to the legis-
lature, but unfortunately, owing to the
financial depression of the treasury,