The Advocate and news., 1898-01-12
THE CHARACTER OF THE STATE BOARD
OF CHARITIES.


Some time ago the Kansas City Jour
nal published a Topeka dispatch which
stated that President w. L. Brown, Of
the Board of Charities, had been in
Volved In drunken row at the Ma
tional hotel in which considerable hotel
furniture had been pitched into the
street. 1t was untrue, and the Journal
printed the following correction:
The affair at the hotel took place just
az related in the Journal Of yesterday, ex-
cept as to the men engaged In 1t. The
furniture was thrown from the room Of a
man named Brown, which accounts for the
connection of the name Of w. l.. Brown
with the disgraceful circumstance The
man who had the rooms is a Chicago
travelling man by the name of Bestor G.
Brown and he formerly lived in Topeka.
It was supposed that he was the crockery
thrower, but yesterday afternoon we'll
Known clerk in the Santa Fe general Of
fees came to Topics and related that 1t was
he who threw out the furniture and that
Brown was innocent. According to this
clerks story he had considerable liquor
aboard and while visiting Brown in his
room an impulse seized him to pitch the
furniture into the street and he gave 1t
play.
This was great injustice to Mr..
Brown, and its correction deserves pub
licatlon, even though, as was the case
with this paper, no attention was paid
to the original story. OF all men serv-
ing the people in State Offices none
shouldbe treer from reproach than those
in whose hands is placed the welfare of
the State charitable institutions. The
insane and feeble minded and the erring
and unfortunate young are charges Of
the State whose keeping should be most
zealously watched. Men to whom is
delegated authority over the charitable
institutions should bemen Of strict honor
and integrity against whose character
nothing can be said Politics should
not at all enter into their appointment,
nor should the State Board of Charities
ever have the least taint of suspicion
about its methods or its members.
Mr. Brown Is to be commended for his
prompt demand for the retraction of the
libel, for his official position required
this action. He owes it to himself and
to the Board to go further than this.
Charges Of a serious nature have come
forward recently, not only from leading
Populist newspapers but also from prom
inent men in the party, and these
charges, even If only half true, proclaim
the utter unfitness of majority Of the
Board to hold their positions. They are
not Of a nature which should receive ex-
tended display in reputable newspaper,
but they seem to be more than mere
rumOrs. They are not partisan political
stories, emanating from the opposition
press; they come from Mr.. Browns
party brethren, and they are deserving
of more consideration than was due the
Kansas City Journals dispatch. Mr..
Brown should clear the matter up. He
and several other members of the Board
are in position where no good can be
done by a mere defiance, If the charges
made against them-of the nature Of
which they are certainly aware-be un-
just and false they owe it to their ap-
pointees as well as to the State and to
themselves to show that the members
of their party are mistaken. If the
charges are true these members Of the
Board cannot get down and out too
quickly 1t Is easy to tell the truth, If
the truth is favorable, or to keep quiet,
and the columns of the Advocate and
News are open to the Board.
And, for the good name OF the State,