1914 State Administration
Charities
There is no uniform or centralized system of charities in the State. Assistance is given to benevolent institutions
in a haphazard, irregular way, although a Board of State Aid
and Charities with incomplete powers has a limited supervision of these institutions.
Almshouses and Trustees of the Poor
There are alms-houses and trustees of the poor in every county and in Baltimore City which come under state law.
In 1906 the name of these " institutions for the care and custody of the
indigent poor" was changed to "county homes." The trustees of the poor are county (or city) officers.
It is unlawful for them to retain in a county home for a period longer than ninety days any child between three
and sixteen years of age, unless such child is an un-teachable idiot or is otherwise incapacitated for labor or
service.
Such children are to be placed in respectable families or in educational institutions or homes for children. It
is the duty of the trustees of the poor, personally or through some appointed
person, to visit children so placed at least every six months, and to make inquiry into their treatment and welfare.
Board of State Aid and Charities.
A Board of State Aid and Charities was instituted in 1900. It is an unpaid board, composed of seven members, appointed
for terms of two years, by the governor; at least two of them must
be from the counties, and not more than four of them may be reappointed. They appoint a salaried secretary. The
board is given the power of investigating the condition and management of all public or other charitable institutions
receiving state aid. It reports to and makes recommendations to the General Assembly. The secretary conducts the
actual work of investigation and is subject to orders from the Senate Finance Committee and the Ways and Means
Committee of the House of Delegates. Pauper and vagrant children are not to be brought into the State without the
consent of this board. With only powers of investigation and advice, it will be seen that this body in no way approaches
an organ of centralization and coordination of benevolent efforts in the State. We shall examine in detail, first,
the work of this board and, after that, the various groups of institutions which are under its supervision. The
present board seems to be well constituted, free from political influence, and energetic in
doing the best within its powers. It recently issued the Seventh Biennial Report of the Board of State Aid and
Charities, which includes a complete account of all the various branches of state charity in Maryland, based on
a new and thorough investigation, and much of the information in the following pages is obtained from this report.
Organization of the New Board.
The present Board of State Aid and Charities was appointed in April, 1912, and organized May 27, 1912. Section
4 of Article 88A of the Code of Public General Laws, which outlines the duties of the board, reads in part as follows:
It shall investigate and consider the whole system of state aid to public and other institutions receiving state
aid in this State.
To this end it shall have power to make an investigation at any time into the condition and management of any institution
financially aided by this State, and may demand such information, statistical or otherwise, as it may desire from
the officers, directors or employees of such institution, or it may direct such an investigation to be made by
a committee of its members or by its secretary; within one week after the convening of every regular session of
the General Assembly it shall furnish to the Chairman of the Finance Committee of the Senate, and of the Ways and
Means Committee of the House of Delegates, a printed report of the condition of all the institutions receiving
financial aid from the State and shall further make such recommendations as to the appropriations for such institutions
as may seem wise and for the best interest of this State, giving the reasons for such recommendations as fully
as may be practicable.
There are at the present time one hundred and twenty- two institutions receiving money from the State. These institutions
are scattered from one end of the State to the other, and range from a day nursery with nine or ten children in
attendance up to the State Hospital for the Insane with 1500 patients.
The work of the board has called for the supervision of an expenditure of some $4,000,000 of state money during
the last two years, and the probabilities are that this sum will increase rather than diminish. The State last
year appropriated $1,389,187.72 for the maintenance of charitable institutions alone. This sum is equivalent to
about fourteen cents on the tax rate with the present taxable basis, or a little less than half the State's income
from direct taxes.
Although this board is given authority to investigate institutions, it is not given the power to summon witnesses
or administer oaths. It is also charged with the duty of recommending a system for state aid, and yet it is given
no organic connection with the other departments of the state government, knowledge of whose workings is absolutely
essential to any proper system. Furthermore, just what organizations come under the jurisdiction of the board is
doubtful under the present law, and there is no definite statement as to where its duties stop and those of other
departments of the state government, such as the Board of Education, begin.
Principles on which State Aid Should be Given
There apparently has never been any systematic basis for the state appropriations for charitable purposes. This
fact was fully recognized by the previous boards, and they proposed certain legislation establishing such a basis,
which, however, was not passed. After a general review of the problem of state aid to charitable and correctional
institutions, the board in its Seventh Biennial Report lays down the following principles as fundamental: that
no appropriation should be granted for any purpose unless either the community is thereby protected from danger
or harm or the work is necessary to guarantee the future welfare of the State; that until the State is in a position
to perform a service for all of a certain class of people, it has no right to perform it for special individuals
or arbitrary groupings of individuals; that it owes to the people for whom the service is directly performed a
duty to see that they get the very best treatment it can give to them: that it is under obligation to the taxpayer
to see that these
services are secured for the least amount of money, whether the instrumentality used be public or private. In order
to carry out these principles, the report continues, it will be necessary that the lump system of appropriations
be done away with, and the State should enter into contracts with institutions doing work for it by which these
institutions will be paid on a per capita basis according to the quality and quantity of work they actually do.
We now have on our statute books a section which prohibits the use of state money for building purposes unless
it is specifically appropriated for this purpose. The State should go further and require that the title of all
buildings provided for from state appropriations should vest in the State, or that the State should be given a
lien which will prevent the property from ever being used for any purpose other than that for which the money is
appropriated.
State Aided Institutions Under the Supervision of the Board.
The general hospitals constitute one of the most complex problems with which the Board of State Aid and Charities
has to deal.
There are twenty-four of these institutions to which the State gives aid, located so as to cover practically the
entire State, and ranging in size from the hospital at Leonardtown with about fifteen beds to the Mercy Hospital
in Baltimore with its average of three hundred patients.
Two of these hospitals are state institutions, namely, the Miners' Hospital at Frostburg and the Home and Infirmary
of Western Maryland at Cumberland.
The others are private institutions over which the State has absolutely no control. Some of these cater largely,
to the wealthy, and provide a very much more expensive grade of service than is needed by the people generally.
Furthermore, the standards of efficiency in these hospitals vary from the best to some that the board considers
hardly passable. The financial control and administration of some are exceedingly good, while in others there is
evidence of extravagance.
The Board of State Aid and Charities is of the opinion that at least one half of the cost of treating patients
in hospitals should be borne by the local communities, and in a
bill, tentatively framed, it has provided that one half the cost of the hospital treatment be charged to the county
or the city, as the case may be, from which the patient comes.
Consideration of the problems presented by the special hospitals may be divided into three classes: first, problems:
The problems connected with the proper adjustment of financial arrangements between the State, the City of Baltimore,
and the privately administered hospitals are discussed in detail in the Seventh Biennial Report
THE INSANE
Laws for the care of the insane in Maryland are found as far back as 1826. The insane of the pauper class, that
is, those without means of self-support and without relatives or friends to keep them, formerly were committed
to the county or city almshouses or to hospitals by the county commissioners in the counties, and by the "supervisors
of city charities of the department of Charities and Corrections " in Baltimore City.
If these officers were uncertain as to the sanity of a person, they might take the matter to court, and have it
decided by a jury.
If the person concerned or his relatives or friends demanded this examination, it had to be made. The local trustees
of the poor received insane persons committed to their respective alms- houses and charged the county or city,
as the case might be, for their support. By laws of 1904 and 1908 it was provided that after January 1, 1911, all
dependent insane residents of the State were to be charges of the State, and such persons who were then in local
almshouses and asylums were to be removed to state insane hospitals. For furthering this purpose a special lunacy
commission was appointed by the governor, of which he was a member ex officio, which reported to the next legislature
on amendments and other measures deemed necessary for the care and treatment of the insane, including plans for
the enlargement of the existing state insane hospitals or the creation of new ones.
This system of state care of the indigent insane was never put fully into effect, and a seeming abandonment of
it is found in an act of 1910 which provided that for each patient in any state insane institution who was from
a county or the City of Baltimore, the county or city, as the case might be, must pay the State $100 for board,
care, and treatment, and that the remainder of the expense should be borne by the State. This leaves the matter
in a rather confused and unsatisfactory condition.
Efforts are being made, and with increased success, to provide for the state care of all indigent insane. While
the existing state hospitals have never become of the capacity to accommodate all such indigent insane, they are
being enlarged and added to, and it would seem that in time the provisions of the acts of 1904 and 1908, which
have never been repealed, will be carried out. Under the present system of state care of the insane, "reimbursing
patients," who pay partly for their own care, may be admitted to insane hospitals, but no one can be committed
who has, through relatives or friends, any means of complete support.
Involuntary commitments to insane institutions cannot be made without certificates, not over thirty days old, from
two qualified physicians who were not related to the person examined and were not connected with the institution
to which it is proposed to make the commitment, and who have made separate examinations and found it necessary
that the person be committed to such institution.
Those in charge of an asylum which is authorized to hold in custody insane persons may appoint employees as policemen,
who, under orders, may pursue, arrest, and return escaped inmates. The Lunacy Commission, which will be discussed
later, is vested with coroners' powers in regard to deaths in asylums. It may at its discretion transfer violent
patients from county institutions to state hospitals, at the expense of the county, or may transfer chronic cases
from state hospitals to county institutions. The superintendent or chief medical officer of an asylum may parole
or discharge except in cases of criminal insane.
In 1910 the Lunacy Commission was given power to appoint a board of five "visitors," without pay, for
each county asylum and almshouse. These persons must be residents of the respective county, and two must be women;
all members have the power of inspection and recommendation, and they are to make monthly reports of their visits.
The personnel of these boards may be changed by the commission at pleasure.
The board of directors of the Penitentiary or of the House of Correction may summon the Lunacy Commission to examine
and pass upon the sanity of a convict, and if the commission finds him insane it makes complaint to a criminal
court of the county or city, which orders his removal to an insane asylum, at state expense.
Regarding the expense connected with the care of the state insane, the counties and Baltimore City, as before stated,
must pay $100 for each person sent to a state insane hospital, the remaining expense being paid from the state
treasury. The cost of keeping the patients is certified by the superintendents of the institutions to the comptroller,
who collects the proper proportion from the counties. This expense is met by the county by taxation. If it remains
unpaid, it is recovered by action by the attorney-general; and if it remains unpaid after a levy of taxes in the
county, a rate of one per cent interest per month is charged the county. If it is found that a patient is not a
proper charge against any particular county, he becomes completely a state charge. Debts of the county for the
support of an insane person in a state hospital are made charges against the estate of that person if he has no
heirs; but no real property of the estate may be sold for this purpose during his lifetime, and no personal property
may be sold after five years, except by order of a proper court. If so sold, the proceeds must be invested safely
for the benefit of the insane person.
There was recently organized a Mental Hygiene Committee, which is a private institution, and which has been doing
effective work in the prevention of insanity and in the after-care of patients from insane institutions. A number
of well-known scientists are members of the committee. It has been urged that state aid be extended to this very
valuable work.
Lunacy Commission.
-Since 1886 there has been a Lunacy Commission in Maryland,17 with supervision of all public and private institutions
for the insane. It consists of four commissioners appointed by the governor, who, together with the attorney-general,
serve for terms of four years; the governor is a member ex officio. They receive no pay but are allowed expenses.
At least three of them must be from Baltimore City; two must be graduate physicians of some recognized medical
college and must have had five years' practice; one of these must have had two years' experience in treatment of
the insane; and no member is to have any pecuniary interest in any insane institution or in the supplies for or
treatment of its inmates. The commission appoints a secretary, who is a qualified physician with at least two years'
experience in mental diseases, and who receives a salary of $2500 and is allowed $2500 a year for conducting the
work of the commission. Meetings are held monthly, and also at any time at the request of two members. There are
regular semi-annual meetings, which the several boards of managers of the various state hospitals for the insane
and feebleminded are required to attend, for the purposes of " consultation and more harmonious and effective
administration." The commission is charged with the " custody, treatment, and cure of the insane."
The powers and duties of the commissioners are as follows :
They are to investigate and supervise all insane institutions, public and private, in the State, including an inspection
of treatment, sanitation, diet, and records.
The secretary, or one member at least, is to visit every such institution at intervals of not less than six months.
Visits may be made at any time, day or night; and on these visits
patients are to be given the opportunity to talk privately with the visitor. Furthermore, every inmate of an asylum
must be allowed correspondence with the Lunacy Commission, as well as with one person not a member of the commission.
They are to encourage scientific research by publishing bulletins of the scientific and administrative work done
by officers of such institutions. If they find a person whom they believe to be improperly detained, they may,
through the state's attorney, bring the matter into court.
They may also visit sanatoriums and hospitals, public and private, to discover if any insane persons are held there
contrary to the law. All officers of both of these classes of institutions are bound to give them free access and
any information desired. They are empowered to summon witnesses, administer oaths, and take testimony in cases
to determine whether or not a person is wrongfully detained, and to present offenders to the grand jury. From this
the managers of the institution may appeal as from cases before a justice of the peace. The commission makes annual
reports to the governor, which include reports that they have required from institutions under their supervision,
together with recommendations. The reports of institutions to them must contain records of each patient, accounts
of all accidents that have occurred, and all restraints used.
By act of 1910 the commission was divided into hospital district committees. All private institutions for the insane
must obtain licenses from the Lunacy Commission; but this does not include any state or incorporated institution
in the counties except where a county almshouse receives insane persons from another county for pay. The application
for such a license must contain all plans and details of the proposed institution, number of patients to be accommodated,
and so on.
The license may be refused, in which case appeal may be taken to the courts.
Insane Hospitals.
- There are five state insane hospitals:
the Maryland Hospital for the Insane, or Spring Grove State Hospital, at Catonsville;
the Springfield State Hospital at Sykesville;
the Hospital for the Negro Insane of Maryland, or Crownsville State Hospital;
the Maryland Asylum and Training School for the Feeble Minded, or Rosewood State Training School, at Owings Mills;
the Eastern Shore State Hospital.
The first four of these institutions, according to their reports, had a total of about 2821 patients on October
1, 1913.
Generally it may be said that the governor appoints the managing boards of these institutions and that they are
efficiently conducted by well trained physicians.
A central purchasing committee recently established will probably cause greater economy in the buying of supplies.
In 1910 a loan of $600,000 was created for their benefit, and $100,000 of this was set aside for the Crownsville
negro hospital, constructed after that date.
Similarly, in 1912 the sum of $200,000 out of a total insane hospital loan of $800,000 provided for the building
of the new Eastern Shore State Hospital, which was the result of a demand for a hospital for the accommodation
of insane patients from the Eastern Shore.
Still greater support, however, is needed, according to the reports of these institutions and of the Lunacy Commission,
and it seems only proper that Maryland, having undertaken a system of state care of its indigent insane, should
give aid sufficient to provide adequate accommodations for all of that class of its inhabitants. The organization
of the system of state insane hospitals is good. The Lunacy Commission has only supervisory and not controlling
authority over the insane hospitals, but this seems wise in the case of institutions conducted by experts and maintained,
to a considerable extent, as completely separate institutions.
CORRECTIONS
The correctional and penal institutions in Maryland are various reformatories, the House of Correction, and the
State Penitentiary.
These will be considered in the order named.
Reformatories.—The following correctional, state-aided institutions have a semi-, or perhaps, more correctly, a
pseudo-state character. Some of them have on their governing boards members appointed by the governor; all are
authorized to receive inmates on commitment from the state courts.
(1) The House of the Good Shepherd, for white girls under eighteen, must report annually to the governor.
(2) The House of the Good Shepherd, for colored girls, is conducted like the one for white girls.
(3) The House of Reformation, for colored boys. Two members of a board of sixteen managers are appointed by the
governor. The board must report to the General Assembly.
(4) The House of Refuge, for white male children. Four members of a board of twenty-four managers are appointed
by the governor. The board must report to the General Assembly.
(5) The House of Refuge, female. Ten out of thirty directors are appointed by the governor, with the consent of
the Senate.
(6) The Industrial Home for Colored Girls. Two out of eleven managers are appointed by the governor. The board
must report to the General Assembly.
(7) St. Mary's Industrial School for Boys, for orphan and destitute boys. The governor appoints every two years
three persons to the board of trustees.
The House of Correction
The Maryland House of Correction, established in 1874, was reorganized by act of 1884 and was placed under the
control of a board of managers constituted as follows: the governor, the comptroller, the attorney-general, and
the treasurer, for the time being ex officio members, and nine other members appointed by the governor with rotating
terms of office, so that three of them go out of office every two years. This board has all power of making rules
and regulations, appointing officers and employees, and so on, for the running of the institution. There are specific
enumerations of persons who may be sent to the House of Correction, but the general rule is that "whenever
any person may be convicted in any of the courts of this State for any crime or misdemeanor, who is liable under
existing law to be sentenced to imprisonment for a period not less than two months and not exceeding one year,
such court may, in its discretion, sentence such person to be confined in said house of correction, instead of
other place of confinement." In addition to many faults in the method of conducting the House of Correction
with which it is not possible to deal in this study, such as cruel punishment, unsanitary conditions, and so on,
there is one evil which may be considered administrative in character. This is the system of contract labor, which
in the Maryland Penitentiary has been so strongly condemned.
The system should be abolished.
The Maryland Penitentiary.—The State Penitentiary is managed by a board of six directors, who are appointed,
two every two years, by the governor, with the consent of the Senate, and who receive two dollars a day for time
spent in fulfilling their duties. These directors annually appoint a warden, whom they may discharge, and who receives
$4000 per year, allowance for subsistence, and occupancy of a residence at the Penitentiary. The warden appoints,
subject to the approval of the board, an assistant warden, a physician, and a matron, and deputies, guards, and
other employees, whose compensation is determined by the board of directors.
No person officially connected with the Penitentiary may be interested in any way in any sale or purchase by or
for the institution, although the directors may authorize the payment of officers in goods, work, or manufactures
of the Penitentiary. The directors are authorized to enter into contract for the employment of the convicts and
for the sale of manufactures in the institution. The directors are required to make special financial reports to
the comptroller, and general and financial reports every month and every year to the governor, who transmits them
to the legislature; in addition to this, the criminal court of Baltimore must, at each term, charge the grand jury
to inquire into the conduct and management of the Penitentiary, and must direct a number of grand jurors, not over
six, to visit and examine it.
Criticism.
—The Maryland Penitentiary has long been a very profitable institution, but in a recent investigation which was
made by the Maryland Penitentiary Penal Commission, appointed by the governor in 1912, the institution was found
to be corrupt in management. According to the report of the commission made on February 4, 1913, many evils were
found there, the worst of which, from an administrative point of view, was the existence of graft among those in
charge. The commission recommended important changes in the entire state penal system. The contract system of labor,
it said, though profitable, should be abolished, and there should be substituted either the " state use "
system, by which the State manufactures goods for its own institutions, or the " state account" system,
by which the State goes into the open market with the products of its own penal industries. The determination upon
one or both of these systems should be made after an investigation of local conditions, including local markets,
and so on. In addition to following these suggestions of the commission, it may be remarked that the system of
convict labor on state roads, which has been used in other States, notably Colorado, with benefit to both the State
and its prisoners, might be found to be suited to Maryland conditions. The commission recommended that all county
jails - which, incidentally, it describes as "abominable " - and all city jails "be abolished as
places of final sentence, and be
maintained purely as places of detention for those awaiting trial." It urged some better supervision of the
reformatories of the State and the abolishment of duplication of work by them. Most important of all, the commission
recommended that the boards of directors of all state penal institutions be abolished, and that there be created
instead a central board of five " prison inspectors " to be appointed by the governor and to serve without
pay, but to have a high-grade, high-salaried secretary. This board should have complete charge of all state penal
institutions.
In 1912 the governor appointed a large Penal System Commission, composed of representatives of various state offices
and state and other institutions, who were given the
power to investigate all institutions where persons are detained for violation of the laws of the State. This commission
reported on February 16, 1914, urging changes similar to those advocated by the Maryland Penitentiary Penal Commission.
It recommended the creation of a State Board of Control to assume management of the State Penitentiary and the
House of Correction, and in addition the establishment of an Advisory Board of Parole to assist the governor in
the exercise of his powers of pardon and reprieve and to put into force a proposed indeterminate sentence system.
Some reorganization of the state penal system, based on the recommendations of these commissions, should, and probably
soon will, be effected. If the penal institutions of the State are to be coordinated and controlled properly, they
must be put under the management of a central board with complete authority over all of them.
Source: Donaldson, John L.; STATE ADMINISTRATION IN MARYLAND 1914; Baltimore; 1916
