The Topeka state journal. [volume] (Topeka, Kansas) 1892-1980, 1908-02-19
TO BRANCH OUT.
Board of Control Plans for Ex.
tension of Asylums.
Hundreds of Insane and Feeble
Minded i'm Poor Houses.
STRIKE AT THE ROOT.
Would Make State Responsible
for All,
Will Cost a Great Deal of
Money.

contemplating the erection of Inn
mense additions to the present state
hospitals for the insane, and the pres
ent school for feeble minded at Win
field. the state board of control Is try
ing to make a census of all the feeble
minded people of Kansas who are not
now confined in the state asylums.
To do this, each county clerk in the
state has been requested by the board
to send in a statement showing the
number of feeble minded shut up in the
poor farms of Kansas.
1t is expected that the census will
show that there are thousands Of un-
fortunates in charge Of the various
counties who, under existing laws, can
not be given place in the state asylums.
The present law, and the law under
Which the state has been operating
from the outset, contemplates that no
harmless and incurable insane shall be
kept in the state hospitals. These hos
pitals are supposed to be only for the
curables, or the dangerous and violent
patients. So the state board of control
has been obliged, to make room for the
curables and dangerous class, to re-
quire hundreds of idiots and feeble
minded people to be put into the county
poor farms.
It is now the purpose of the board Of
control to strike at the root of this
whole system by making the state re-
sponsible for the care of all feeble
minded, whether they are durable or
not. AS a matter of fact, the harmless
and feeble minded patients are usually
incurable, and must be taken care of
at public expense, either the county ex-
pense or the state expense. There is
not a county in the state which has
proper facilities for taking care Of such
cases. and the result is that in many
cases the unfortunates do not receive
the right kind of care. The board Of
control wants to take all such cases out
of the poor farms, and place them
where they belong-in the state hospi-
/ tails.
This will involve he expenditure of
probably several hundred thousand
dollars in new buildings and wards for
insane. The exact amount OF room
needed can. be told when the board OF
control gets its reports from the va
rious county clerks. The board will
then go before the legislature and ask
for sufficient appropriation to put the
state in shape to take over all such
cases and provide proper care for
them.
In the state of illinois, a similar In
vestigation was made of the condition
of inmates of poor farms, and some
horrible disclosures resulted concern
ing the treatment Of inmates. Cribs,
chains. leg-irons and other similar de-
vices were used for restraining the
feeble minded and the result of the
disclosures was the immediate adop-
ton by the state of state care for all
feeble minded. While the board of
control does not anticipate that any
such condition will be found to exist
in Kansas they want to be prepared
to state the exact facts concerning
needed accomm odations for the feeble
minded now scattered among the poor
farms of the state.
It is known that in many of these
poor farms feeble minded women are
confined, who are irresponsible moral
", and who become mothers of flleg-
itfmate children. not once. but many
times and almost invariably the child
is also mentally deficient These cases
can not be properly guarded in a
county poor farm.