Evening star., 1946-12-07
Study in Contrasts

It would be mistake to pass snaI
judgment on Budget Officer Fowler's
ingenious proposal regarding st
Elizabeth's Hospital. The burden o1
proof should rest on those who con-
tend it is impracticable or illogical
In its parklike grounds, its fine
buildings of brick and stone and its
extraordinarily high standards, St
Elizabeth's Is one of the best insti-
tutions in the United States. But
q short drive from its heights to the
lowlands along the Potomac offers
brutal contrast. There we find
the Districts Home for the Aged and
Infirm. Understaffed, ugly, over
crowded. There is constant battle
there to maintain even superficial
cleanliness. The buildings are old
and worn, offering little more than
shelter for the human wreckage
that sorrow and misery have de-
posted there.
Proximity sharpens this contrast.
Yet it is repeated elsewhere in
Washington. We find it in the mis-
named correctional" institutions to
which we consign children. And
why the contrast? The money main
tanning st. Elizabeth's high stand
ards comes in the main from the
same source that supports municipal
institutions-the unrepresented local
taxpayer. Why do we give the
mentally i'll the best care available
anywhere and ruthleSsly send chill
dren, who might lead useful lives,
and the old and inf1rm, whose lives
are nearly over, to such utterly de-
grading surroundings as the Indus
trial Home School or Blue Plains?
The answer is that st. Elizabeth's
gets the money to maintain its
standards by simply ordering the
District to pay the cost. A letter to
the Commissioners from the Budget
Bureau is enough to raise an addi-
tional $2,272,000 a. year. Compare
that process with the long months
of talk, hearings and debate neces-
sary to give Washington school
teachers salary increase costing
less than half as. much. Imagine
the standards that might be main
tained at local institutions if all
that was required to raise them
would be a letter informing the
Commissioners that the per capita
cost would increase so or 100 per
cent after such and such date!
The people who run st. Elizabeth's
are Federal officials, indirectly re-
sponsible to the American voters.
The people who run the municipal
government are responsible to Con-
gress, many of whose members do
not give hoot for the people OF the
District who pay the taxes but have
no vote. st. Elizabeth's has pri-
ority claim on local revenue, fixing
the cost of local patients committed
there. The cost is high, for the
standards are high. But the cost
has no relation to the Districts
ability to pay.
The National Government itself
seems to be abandoning st. Eliza
beth's. Army and Navy patients
are no longer being maintained
there. Five-sixths of the patient
population now come from and are
charged to the District. The re-
mainder are such Federal wards as
Virgin Islanders, Federal prisoners,
citizens without State residence,
members of the Coast Guard. The
Public Health Services plans for a
great mental research institution,
to be located near Washington and
already authorized by Congress,
seem to bypass st. Elizabeth's
entirely.
In these circumstances, MIR. Fowler
raises the question of why st. Eliza
beth's, already predominantly local
in it's services, should continue to be
a Federal institution. He does not
propose lowering standards at the
hospital, although that well might
follow. He proposes an equalization
of standards, by utilizing some of
st. Elizabeth's three hundred and
sixty-three acres of land and some
of it's fine buildings for the institu-
tional care of other wards OF the
District than the mentally ILL.
There are defects in the plan. But
they are no more glaring in logic
or application than the disgraceful
contrast between the manner in
which local funds are spent on one
class of dependent citizens and the
way they are not spent on another.