SECOND ANNUAL REPORT

OF THE

STATE CHARITIES AID ASSOCIATION

To the State Commission in Lunacy:

The Board of Managers of the State Charities Aid Association respectfully submits, on behalf of the association, its Second Annual Report.

The most important contribution made by this association to the welfare of the dependent insane, during the past year, is to have secured, in the Revised Constitution of the State of New York, the recognition of the principle that henceforth all insane persons are to be protected by the State; a principle for many years recognized by the Legislature, but not until now incorporated into the organic law. Furthermore, the official body, already entrusted by the Legislature with the oversight of the insane, viz., the State Commission in Lunacy, has been made permanent through constitutional enactment; while the duplication of its powers and duties with those of the State Board of Charities, the source of much confusion and friction in the past, has been abrogated by the provisions of the new Constitution, thus leaving all responsibility for State supervision of the insane solely with the commission.

The preparation of an amendment covering these points, among others, and the efforts made to secure its adoption by the Constitutional Convention, continued through the entire summer, comprise the greater part of our work for the dependent insane since our last annual report was submitted.

A brief retrospect of the successive steps taken by the State to establish and extend supervision, through State officers appointed

for the purpose, over all charitable and eleemosynary institutions, including those for the insane, may be of interest in this connection.

It was not until the year 1867 that the Legislature established the "Board of State Commissioners of Public Charities," imposing upon it the duty of visiting, at least once in each year, all the charitable and correctional institutions of the State, excepting prisons, receiving State aid; and, once in every two years, all city almshouses and county poorhouses. (Laws of 1867, chapter 951.) Thus, for the first time in the history of the State, public insane asylums were open to the inspection of a State official body.

In 1873, six years later, the field of inspection covered by this board, whose name was then changed to the "State Board of Charities," was extended to include all charitable institutions not maintained by public funds. The board was authorized to visit and inspect "any charitable, eleemosynary, correctional or reformatory institutions in this State, excepting prisons, whether receiving State aid or maintained by municipalities or otherwise." (Laws of 1873, chapter 371.) Here, for the first time, private insane asylums are brought under the supervision of the State.

Meanwhile, the increasing number of insane persons and their miserable condition in the poorhouses, had repeatedly been forced upon the attention of the Legislature. It became necessary to delegate to one officer the special and sole duty of supervising their interests. A State Commissioner in Lunacy was accordingly appointed, in 1873, at first as a member ex-officio of the State Board of Charities, reporting to the board; but later, in 1874, withdrawn from the board, and required to report directly to the Legislature. For many years there was but one Commissioner in Lunacy, burdened by ever-increasing duties and without adequate power to enforce reforms. Finally, in 1889, the present State Commission in Lunacy, of three members, with vastly increased powers and duties, was established by the Legislature. It is this commission, as at present organized, which has received constitutional recognition in the Revised Constitution, recently adopted by the people, in November, 1894.

The value of unofficial volunteer inspection has also been recognized by the Legislature. The New York Prison Association is authorized to visit prisons and jails, and the State Charities Aid Association to visit State and county charitable institutions, including asylums for the insane. The former reports to the Legislature, the latter to the State Board of Charities and to the State Commission in Lunacy. One section of the Revised Constitution is designed to protect these volunteer associations in their rights of visitation and inspection. (Article VIII of the Constitution, section 13.)

It may have been noticed that the words "except prisons have twice appeared in the above short summary of legislation designed to provide State supervision for public institutions. It is an extraordinary fact that there has been, up to this time, no legislation in this State for placing the State prisons, county jails and penitentiaries under a State supervisory board, although these institutions contain at present 10,000 inmates.

One more legislative oversight remains to be noticed. When, in 1874, the office of a single State Commissioner in Lunacy was created independently of the State Board of Charities, the duty of inspecting the dependent insane was not transferred by the Legislature from the board to the commissioner, as it should have been, but was left as the duty of both. Equally, when, in 1889, the State Commission in Lunacy, consisting of three members, was established, the same mistake was repeated. The State Board of Charities, charged with the duty of visiting 50,000 inmates of charitable institutions, was also required by law to inspect in addition, the 15,000 inmates of insane asylums, thus duplicating the work of another State body, which had been established for this express purpose, and creating naturally much friction.

To substitute for these tangled conditions, of omission and duplication of work, a system of State supervision, which should cover all the institutions of the State; should classify them into their natural divisions of charity, lunacy and correction; should provide for each division a State official body, responsible solely for the thorough inspection of the institutions of its own division; this, for many years, had seemed to us a reform much to be desired.

The Constitutional Convention of last summer fulfilled its promise, and made possible the realization of the hopes of many reformers. Our association had the honor of being asked by the chairman of the Committee on Charities to send to him, at Albany, for the consideration of his committee, any amendment we might wish to see incorporated into the Constitution of the State. Gladly and promptly we responded to this request, and at once prepared an amendment, designed to establish one comprehensive system of State supervision for all the charitable, eleemosynary, reformatory and correctional institutions in the State.

This amendment, after many changes and vicissitudes, was ultimately adopted, in its original form and language, by the Convention, by the decisive vote of 114 to 17. Beyond giving constitutional, instead of legislative recognition to the State Board of Charities and State Commission in Lunacy, its principal provisions were: 1. The creation of a State Commission for Prisons, thus providing State inspection, by an official board, for prisons, jails and penitentiaries, until now without any such supervision (the Superintendent of State Prisons, being an executive officer, is, naturally, not in a position to pass judgment on his own administration). 2. The withdrawal, from the State Board of Charities, of the duty of inspecting insane asylums, this being a duplication of the work of the State Commission in Lunacy. 3. The placing of all the idiot asylums of the State under the supervision of the State Board of Charities, one of these being up to this time under that of the Commission in Lunacy. 4. Giving the Governor power, not heretofore possessed, of removing any member of the board or commissions, for cause, an oppor tunity having first been given him to be heard in his defense.

As to the vexed questions which arose concerning the division of the field, i. e., whether reformatories should be classified as under the Commission for Prisons or the State Board of Charities, whether idiot asylums should be under the Lunacy Commission or the Charities Board, whether insane criminals should belong to the Prison Commission or the Lunacy Commission, the association took the position that, as philanthropists and physicians held honest differences of opinion upon these subjects, it