still more complicated form, when the most of us will be in our graves, the advantages of such an alliance to both the parties to it are too palpable to need elucidation. It is in the hope of effecting it that we have sought and accepted the invitation so generously extended to us by the faculty of Yale University and the citizens of New Haven; and we trust that the event will vindicate the motives and the action of the Conference.

FREDERICK HOWARD WINES, Chairman,
CLARENCE SNYDER,

JOHN R. ELDER,

GEORGE B. WATERHOUSE,

H. C. WHITTLESEY,

ANNE B. RICHARDSON,

M. A. HOUSeholder,

STEPHEN SMITH, M.D.,

Committee.

BOARDS OF CONTROL.

BY CLARENCE SNYDER,

OF THE WISCONSIN STATE BOARD OF CONTROL.

IS A STATE BOARD OF CONTROL WITH FULL EXECUTIVE POWER PREFERABLE TO A STATE SUPERVISORY BOARD WITH NO EXECUTIVE POWER?

Since the year 1881 Wisconsin's charitable, reformatory, and penal institutions have been controlled by a single board having full executive powers. The first centralized board sustaining this relation to the institutions was composed of five members, who were required by law to devote all their time to the work. Each was paid a yearly salary of $2,000, with reimbursement for all actual and necessary expenses incurred.

Concurrently there existed a supervisory body called the State Board of Charities and Reform, the members of which, five in number, received per diem compensation and expenses. Such duties were imposed upon this Board as are generally supposed to fall

within the province of a State board of charities of average powers in the States where such organizations exist. Ample authority to visit, inspect, hold investigations in, and report upon State institutions was possessed by this Board; and it was required to visit and introduce reforms in the management of various county institutions. To carry into effect its suggestions in reference to jails and county insane asylums, it might withhold State aid from the latter, and by condemnatory proceedings make it unlawful to confine prisoners in the former. In many ways it was a power for good, and its members were well known for their grasp of the problems of the day relating to the several charities then demanding attention. It was always represented at this National Conference; and, indeed, to it belongs a large share of the honor of originating the idea from which grew the first National Conference of Charities and Correction.

The two boards referred to were not always in harmony; and, following the political upheaval of 1890, this fact was seized as one of the reasons for the legislation following, by which both boards were abolished and a single board created to take their place. This is known as the State Board of Control. It has both executive and supervisory powers, inheriting, as it does, all the functions of the boards it superseded. It is charged with the work of maintaining and governing seven State institutions. It must inspect annually (and in some cases much oftener) all the county insane asylums, poorhouses, private and benevolent institutions, jails, and police stations in the State.

This Board probably has more enlarged powers than any other in the United States, and its duties are correspondingly more numerous and exacting.

Our institutions are unfortunately not yet free from partisan influences. Changes in board members and superintendents for party reasons still go on, and it is impossible to predict when that desired era of civil service reform will come wherein questions of political stripe and religious faith do not enter.

Little more than a month has elapsed since the enactment of a law changing the number of members of the Board from six to five; and on April 15 the present Board was appointed, three members of which are new to the work, though all experienced in business and public life. Three days later they entered upon their duties. One

feature of the new law is commended in some quarters, but in others is looked upon as an undesirable innovation. Under it a man or woman may be appointed by the governor to investigate any institution matter concerning which he or the public want information; and the person so appointed becomes for the time a committee of charities sitting in judgment for the purposes of a report upon the Board of Control and all the acts of said Board or the persons appointed under it.

Happily, the legislature of 1895, partisan as were its motives, did not disturb the principle of consolidation in the management of State institutions. The law has twice been tinkered, but there still remains a centralized executive board.

Wisconsin is one of the best States in the Union. It is probably freest from all forms of disorder. Its people have thrift and contentment to an extent not elsewhere surpassed. In higher education it has made remarkable progress, and in all the sociological problems to which the National Conference addresses itself Wisconsin has an intelligent and growing interest. Experiments tried in Wisconsin in the government of State institutions cannot be without some value; and I have therefore thought it well at the outset to give this brief account of our system, a system which is accepted as having many points of advantage over that wherein separate boards of trustees govern State institutions, supervised by a State agency shorn of executive powers.

The question before us is one of system. It is my purpose to endeavor to show that a State Board of Control with full executive powers is preferable to a State Supervisory Board with no executive powers. It would be difficult to prove that under all circumstances and in all conditions the Wisconsin idea is best; but my faith is unshaken that the principle in some form is everywhere applicable, and that, when it is applied, it will give beneficent results.

Let us for a moment consider the time-honored form of separate, unsalaried boards and State supervising agencies of the kind General Brinkerhoff had in mind, and spoke approvingly of at Nashville last year. Under such a system the board meets fortnightly, monthly, or quarterly. The members generally draw no salary, in some cases not even their expenses being allowed; and it is unusual for them to perform the labor required, to become familiar with the accounts and the articles purchased, and critically examine all de

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tails of the immediate conduct of the institution. To do all this is
a business in itself, takes a great deal of time, and encroaches upon
the effort men must give to the pursuit of other ambitions. This is
not saying that the best possible management is not sometimes seen
under this system; for, out of the hundreds of boards of trustees all
over the United States, some are doing excellently,- perhaps better
than would be possible under a centralized system. Where, how-
ever, there is one board doing its best and reaching a high mark,
there are many whose work is perfunctory and inefficient.
find local evils, nepotism chargeable to trustees or superintendents,
an undue amount of trading with some business friend of a trustee
or other officer, and altogether too many purchases made of local
merchants, when purchases should be made of wholesale merchants
Under such conditions the institution
at the commercial centres.

Here we

maintained at State cost is really a local enterprise, existing for the benefit of the townspeople. Local trustees seldom do anything to disturb the impression that the function of the institution is to serve the immediate community. These are no imaginary evils. Inquire closely into the affairs of the institutions managed by separate boards, and, I care not how vigilant is the supervision of the State Board of Charities, you will find in nine cases out of ten a failure in some important branch of administrative work.

In Wisconsin, long before the passage of the law of 1881, it was generally known that the management of the State institutions was much too expensive, and in some cases grossly inefficient.

At one institution blooded cattle were purchased at fancy prices ($1,000 having been paid for one animal), from which to raise beef; sixty dollars were paid for a dog; curios in the book line and rare pictures were bought at long prices; and in other respects the management was such as to overtax not only the property of the citizen, As a cure for these evils, the present sysbut his patience as well. tem was devised.

The State Board of Supervision (which was the first Wisconsin board of control with executive powers) in its reports made comparisons upon a per capita basis between the average expense of maintaining the institutions under its care for the eight years immediately preceding the time it took charge (1881) and for the three, five, and seven years after it assumed control, showing the following results: decrease in expense for first three years, $197,703-54, or

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an average per year of $65,901.18; for five years, $377,558.60, or an average per year of $75,511.72; for seven years, $552,080.12, or an average per year of $78,868.57.

The history of investigations of institutions in other States—such, for instance, as the late inquiry into the affairs of a great hospital for the insane in the Empire State abounds in serious faults that could hardly have existed had an efficient paid board, giving all its time to the work and conversant with all the details of management, been in control.

A consolidated board going from one institution to another constantly, comparing methods and conditions, must, if it be composed of fairly intelligent men, hit upon a plan and regulations for all which will result in a marked saving of money and an increase in efficiency. In no other way can uniformity in business methods for State institutions be secured. Such a board, familiar with pressing necessities where they exist, is able to intelligently recommend to the legislature such appropriations as will be fair and just; and its recommendations will be looked upon with less suspicion than the demands of institution lobbyists who crowd the committee-rooms in advocacy of bills for separate institutions. the institution which is represented by the best talkers gets the most Under such a system money, without reference to the expressed views of a supervisory agency having no executive power. who is dissatisfied with the report of the Board of Charities will Some sophisticated lobbyist. argue that the gentlemen who compose it, not being in actual charge of the institution, do not really know its needs, and, if he be clever enough, will get the committee and the legislature to agree with him. in this contention.

Economical administration, the use of money so that every dollar expended produces the most possible for the definite object in view, the expenditure of money in such manner as to command the approval of the solid tax-paying element, are among the highest objects to be pursued by all managers of institutions. No injury to the cause of public charity officially administered can be deeper than that which accrues through departures from a common-sense business policy. When the public is able to justly criticise such management as being wasteful, punishment follows swiftly, but unfortunately falls hardest upon the dependent, insane, and criminal classes, for which the institutions exist.