The Evening statesman. [volume] (Walla Walla, Wash.) 1903-1910, 1903-10-15


In each county, and erect poor houses
thereon for the use and support of the
poor. The inherent power of the
state to provide for the poor is plen-
ary: and the enactment concerning
poor houses is only a partial fulfill
of many various modes adaptable to
the effectuatiOn of the object of pub
ic charity to one class of her desti-
tute population. The power delegated
to the county courts by Article 10,
chapter q, is as comprehensive as
that OF the state herself before the
delegation, and might have been exc
cuted in various modes without poor
houses. The chief object of the act
authorizing the county court to pur-
chase land for maintaining poor
houses may be presumed to have been
to remove doubt whether, without
such special legislation, they would
have had power to buy and tax the
people for such land. But the mere
authority is not compulsory, and
power to provide for the poor in
other modes.
In many of the counties there is
yet no poor-house; and even where, as
in Fayette, a poor-house has been pro-
vided, it may leave out of it's pre-
cincts some classes of poor to We pro-
vided for in other ways, and who
should not be rightly cared for in
such society as that Of a poor-house
Foundlings and orphans, with unde-
veloped character, are not fit subjects
for such a place as the Fayette poor
house." organized and managed as it
it. 1t is the public interest to main
tain, train, and educate that class of
the poor, so as to make them moral
and useful citizens, to bless rather
than, as ignorant and demoralized
nuisances, to curse society.
1t is the prominent duty of the
county court to provide efficiently for
that class. This has not been nor
can ever be done by a poor-house,
which is the mere refectory and
wOrkhOuse. The erection of a poor
house in Fayette has not either eX-
hauster the powers or fulfilled one
hair of the value of the trust COM
mitted to the county court for the ben
eft of the poor of all characters and
ages. The most interesting and hope
full class are unprovided for in the
poorhouse, which only helps to re-
lieve the county of the burden of sup
porting the most hopeless class. But
maintenance and moral improvement
of another class will rescue them
from degradation, and by the Access
sions of their cultivated faculties in
crease the wealth and power of the
commonwealth.
The object Of the trust confded to
the county courts as curators of the
poor is twofold: First, to save from
starvation a hopeless and pestilent
class of adult poor; and second, to
maintain and take care of poor in
fants, and mould them for the benefit
of society as we'll as for their own
welfare. The first care for the ami
NAL the last more for the moral be-
ing. Food, raiment, and shelter fur
nished by a poorhouse supplies the
physical wants, but the mental and
moral requires careful tutelage
neither contemplated nor possible in
a mere poorhouse. To incarceate an
orphan girl of promise, only five years
old, in the walls Of a 'poorhouse,"
would be not only a perversior but
Dissertation of the sacred trust to
tahe care of her and rear her to proper
womanhoOd. The guardian care of in
divIdual curation and tutelage, Or OF
such an asylum as that of the appel
lant's, is indispensable to the fulfill
ment of the trust of the comfy court
in all such cases. A pOOrhOuse, which
is the receptacle of the most degraded
poor Of all colOrs, can never fulfill
that great trust. There is undoubtea
power to adapt the means to the end:
and as TO the class of poor not proper
ly provided for by the poorhouse,
the county court Of Fayette has all the
power to apply the proper means
which county courts, where there are
no pOorhOuses could exercise. The
trust is imperative, the power COM
mensurate with the end, and the poor
house not fulfilling that entire end.
the county court may and must, to
some extent, supply the deficit by
other and more BETTING means. as it
has hitherto habitually done.
Why should we doubt that it might
organize and sustain an asylum like
that Of the appellant, where minor Or
phans have been so trained as to be
respectable, moral, and useful men
and women, instead of degraded
Wretches that they might have been?
We can see no grounds for doubt.
And the power to do the whole work
involves and necessarily implies the
ancillary power to help private char
lty to secure the same end in a mode
far less burdensOme to the treasury
of the county
If all classes be consigned to the
same institution. the welfare of the
mil clio