The Hawaiian star. [volume] (Honolulu [Oahu]) 1893-1912, 1904-04-05
OF
BOARD OF HEALTH
DIR. COOPER is ASKED TO REMAIN
THE BOARDS VIEWS.

The Board of Health held a meeting
yesterday afternoon and the matter of
DR.. Cooper's accepted resignation as
president was discussed. DR.. Cooper
was advised by members of the Board
to continue as a member and stated
that he would arrive at a decision in
the matter later and notify the Board.
There was a disposition to criticize the
Governors treatment of DR.. Cooper as
hasty and abrupt, in suddenly accept
ing the resignation.
The following statement prepared by
DR.. w. H. Mays, was adopted as cor
rectly stating the Boards position:
In view of the financial stress, the
Board of Health set to work in a most
loyal spirit to reduce it's estimates
down to the figure mentioned by Gov
ernor Carter, and has come within
few thousand dollars of doing so. If
the item of $4,000 for the Kalaupapa
store had been omitted, as the Board
advised, our estimates would have
reached below the proposed limit. The
money for the upkeep of the Kalau-
papa store is in no sense an asset of
the Health Department. 1t is handed
us by the Government, passed on to
the store, and returned by the store to
the Government. A gives money to B,
B turns it over to c, and hands it
back to A again. What has this to do
with the running expenses of the
Health Department? The fact is, this
idea of the Government conducting
general merchandise store is wrong. 1t
should be dropped, and some merchant
allowed to start a store there to stand
on its own bottom.
1.-The Legislative appropriation for the
Health Department for the twelve
month is $4,000 Deducting the Ka-
laupapa store item it is only $685., OOO
This amount has been reduced As per
cent; for instance, a straight cut Of
about 20 per cent has been made in
the salary of every employee. With
this we have so managed that both the
Government Physicians and the Free
Dispensary have been retained.
have been strongly opposed to looping
off the Government Physicians, who,
for what is often a trifling pittance
from this Board, attend to the destitute
sick throughout the Islands. The
natives, as a rule, are poor living from
hand to mouth, and to leave them with
out medical help seems to me almost a
criminal proposition. So with the Free
Dispensary here in town. With the
hospitals all closed against them, what
are the destitute poor to do? At the
Dispensary they can get medical ad-
vice and medicine free.
I'm my opinion we do not go far
enough in fulfilling our duties towards
the aborigines of these Islands, whom,
it is no exaggeration to say, we have
supplanted. In the Great West, the
Federal Government began thirty years
ago to issue regular rations and blank
cts to the Indians, whose lands and
our people had taken
of. 1t is part of the White
Mans Burden that our nation has
borne and is still bearing.
To some extent the same obligation is
owing here to the people whose coun-
try we have taken. Shall we then en-
terrain the proposition to deprive them
even Of medical aid when sick and dy-
ing? feel certain that this Board will
never consent to the abolition of either
of these two institutions.
"The Health Department has cut its
estimates As per cent. What have 9TH
er Departments done? Which Depart
ment is most entitled to point with
PRIDE" as the phrase goes, to its zeal
in the work Of retrenchment? The
Board OF Education, which receives a
larger appropriation than we do, has
made a reduction of about 10 per cent.
The Treasury Department has cut
about S2 per cent. The judiciary De-