South Bend news-times. (South Bend, Ind.) 1913-1938, 1915-02-14
HOUSE HEEDS CRY
Of INSTITUTIONS
AGAINST CUTS
Hearings Will Be He'd on Ap-
preparations Bill with View
to Granting Pleas Against
Institutional Starvation.

INDIANAPOLIS. Feb. 13.-After
= hearing before the house commit
Tee on ways and means. meeting
Jointly with the senate finance com
mittee, Friday afternoon the news be-
came public that Floor Leader John
Branaman OF the house had decided
20 hold hearings on the regular APP
preparations bin. which was intro
duced in the house Thursday for the
urst time In legislative history, with
out hearings having been held there
on. Rep. Jesse Eschbach had pro-
tested strongly against this method
OF Introducing the regular appropria-
tiOns bill, which carries the items for
maintenance and upkeep OF all the
state institutions and departments,
bat his wishes had been Over-ridden
by the majority leaders in the house
until the meeting Friday, when sew
eral members of boards Of trustees of
state institutions appeared TO make
the joint committee meeting one long
wall OF institutional starvation"
The cuts in the regular apprOpria-
tons this year made by the legis-
lative visiting committee were so
deep and are yet so raw that many
institutional heads have been threat
ening dire things. Ii now is the in
tentiOn OF leaders in the house to
amend the regular appropriation bill
ments are believed necessary.
The legislative visiting commit
tees report was used as the basis for
the regular appropriation bill and
three institutions last night 'Toared"
before the joint committee because Of
cuts in their maintenance funds. All
OF them declared, in effect, that such
cuts would mean the starvation of
the inmates of the institutions The
Indiana reformatOry, the woman's
prison and the Indiana girls school
were represented-and the howl
from each was loud and long.
For the two wOmen's institutions,
women members OF the boards of
trustees appeared to argue with the
board. From the girls school came
Mrs. John w. Kern, Mrs. Lew G. FL
lingham, Myrtle G. Jones, Frances
Beadle and DR.. KenOsha Sessions,
superintendent OF the institution.
The plea of the wives of the promi-
nent democrats was received with
apparent lack of intention TO change
the recommendation by the demo
cratic members of the joint commit
tee, though none of them said as
much. Sen. Yarling argued the point
that many of the girls. who enter the
school come from homes where poor
people live and that the majority of
the people Of the state are poor any
inmates of institutions should not be
given better care than the average
people of Indiana. The school trus-
tees argued that a cut of $4,000 an
nually in the maintenance had
brought per capita maintenance costs
up instead of lowering them. The
school was granted $4,000 mainte-
nance annually for the next two years
with an additional $500 per capita I'm
excess of PSI inmates during the next
two years. For the years 1913 and
1914 the maintenance granted was
$4,000.
PcytOn Tells story.
DR.. David G. PeytOn. superintend-
ent Of the Indiana reformatOry. was
the institutional representative how
ever. that brought the story OF insti-
tutiOnal starvation before the com
mittee The regular appropriation
bill because Of sudden shifts in the
population of the reformatory and
the committees provision for a. main
tenance fund annually of $4,000
with an excess Of 1920 per capita for
all over LOO inmates. would leave
the institution at the mercy of several
different kinds Of possible emergen-
cies DR.. Peyton told the board The
superintendent had asked for $780,