V How Massachusetts Fosters Public Welfare
Monica Foley
Miss Monica Foley, was educated in the Boston schools, graduating from the Boston Academy of Notre Dame; is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and Secretary of the Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers. She is a director of the Notre Dame Alumni Association of Boston, and is connected with the State Commission on Economy and Efficiency.
J. A. H.
In the suffrage campaign just closed so much was heard of the greatness of some of our states, including Utah and Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming, that one was tempted to inquire, “Is there no good now in Massachusetts?” It seemed passing strange that our Commonwealth, which had always been the leader in every great turning point of the policy of the nation, should have so signally failed that it ceased to exist as a model to be extolled; it was stranger still that her worthy record was ignored by her own sons and daughters. And yet the facts are that while we may hold high in memory the examples of those who have gone before us, we may also rejoice that the men of our own time not only uphold the best ideals and lofty purposes of our State, but are day by day working out her problems in such a way that her position is still secure as a pioneer in sane legislation, her laws are still models for all states (particularly woman suffrage states) her name is still cherished in the wildernesses where her sons are pioneers, still venerated on her own soil where her people stand at the gateways and welcome the oppressed.
Proud as we are of her traditions, glorying as we do in her present achievements, we are unafraid that the future will see her fall from her eminence, from the dignity which has always characterized her statehood and made her name a synonym for the best in government in the nation, our Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
While this paper deals almost wholly with the executive functions of the state, to make no mention of our judiciary would be to omit reference to one of the brightest pages of our history. Massachusetts law and Massachusetts judiciary decisions have always been and are now quoted and respected in the greatest courts of the country. This splendid system is being maintained at an annual cost exceeding $600,000.
Hand in hand with the establishment of a great judiciary system, Massachusetts has devoted herself to the highest ideals of human charity, and her enormous expenditures show that selfish materialism plays no part in her legislation. Year by year the calls for charity are more insistent, and year by year the State responds more generously. The State Board of Charity was first organized in 1863, and at the present time is an unpaid board of nine members, two of whom are women. The institutions under their supervision are governed by unpaid boards of seven members, two of whom are women, this latter being provided by law, except in the instance noted below. The institutions under the supervision of the board are the State Infirmary for the sick poor at Tewksbury, and the State Farm at Bridgewater for misdemeanants and insane criminals, both opened in 1854 and costing the state nearly $1,000,000 annually. The training schools for delinquent children are the Lyman School for Boys at Westborough (1848) and the Industrial School for Boys at Shirley (1909) and for Girls at Lancaster (1856) costing over $300,000 annually. The hospitals for consumptives are located at Rutland (1898), North Reading (1909), Lakeville and Westfield, both the latter being opened in 1910. Upon these suffering poor the State spends over a half million dollars each year. The Norfolk State Hospital at Walpole was opened in 1911 for inebriates and drug habitues. There are no women on this board of trustees, there being no women inmates of the hospital. There has also been located at Canton since 1907 a Hospital School for crippled children. A hospital for lepers has been maintained at Penikese Island since 1905.
Under the direction of the Board of Charity, aid is given mothers with dependent children, the support of poor babies is undertaken, and the tuition of poor children is paid. The board places the children in homes wherever possible—institutional life being approved only when necessary. Certain suffragists (of the Socialist persuasion) would give the children to the State under the new order. In 1914 the Board together with the institutions under their direction expended over three million dollars and cared for more than 7000 persons in the institutions alone. Is there anything here in the State’s charity work which would make any woman other than proud of its record?
The State’s care of her insane is under the direction of a paid board of three members, each hospital having a board of seven unpaid trustees, including two women. The hospitals for the insane are at Worcester (1833), Boston (Dorchester, 1839), Taunton (1854), Northampton (1858), Danvers (1878), Westborough (1886), Foxboro (1893) and Medford (1896), Gardner (1902.) There is a hospital for epileptics at Monson with schools for the feeble-minded at Waltham (1848), with a colony at Templeton since 1900 and a school at Wrentham (1907). In 1914 the State cared for over 14,000 of these unfortunates and expended over three and one-quarter millions of dollars for their maintenance.
The reformatory and correctional work of the Commonwealth (other than exercised over the training schools) is under the direction of a board of five prison commissioners (two women), only the chairman being paid. Four institutions comprise this group; the State Prison at Charlestown since 1805, but first established in 1785; the Reformatory at Concord (1884); the Women’s Reformatory at Sherborn (1877); and the Prison Camp and Hospital at West Rutland, the camp being opened in 1904, the hospital in 1907. Massachusetts has the distinction of being the first state in the union to separate its women offenders from the men, by establishing the Sherborn Reformatory. No child is born at this institution. A mere man a few years ago, realizing the needless handicap an innocent child would suffer through life if born in a prison, petitioned the legislature to prevent the possibility. A law accordingly was passed, and these unfortunate women are placed in a state hospital until after their children are born. In 1914 over 1500 persons were cared for in our prisons at a cost of more than a half million dollars. Two boards of parole now study the histories of prisoners and recommend certain persons for parole, the men’s board in addition recommends persons to be pardoned to the governor and council.
In no other sphere of the State’s activities is the great throbbing heart of the Commonwealth shown with such poignant fervor as in the case of her unfortunates, and this phase of her work alone would entitle her to the homage of all our people—but she does not stop here. She dominates the educational field, and stands preeminent before the nation and the world for the superiority of her educational institutions.
Massachusetts has given abundantly to the great university at Cambridge, still endows freely the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and gives annually of her funds to the Worcester Polytechnic Institute, the Textile Schools at New Bedford, Lowell, and Fall River, and other independent industrial schools. She practically maintains the Agricultural College at Amherst, and gives to other agricultural schools, and also aids certain cities and small towns.
In aiding the deaf, dumb, and blind in 1914, Massachusetts spent over $200,000. In 1891 she opened a nautical school to train her young men in seamanship, navigation, and marine engineering. In 1839 Massachusetts founded the first Normal school in this country, and today ten of these schools are open throughout the State. In this line of endeavor in 1914 the State expended over one and one-half millions of dollars.
The Commonwealth maintains a Department of Health, established in 1869, expending in 1914 over $350,000. In Massachusetts also was passed the first pure food law in the country.
The Metropolitan Water Works have cost the State since 1901 over $50,000,000. Our park system is one of the finest in the world, and is maintained at an annual cost of over half a million dollars. In addition to the parks in the Metropolitan District, there are six other reservations throughout the State. These parks represent an outlay of over $20,000,000.
Our Homestead Commission was established to investigate defective housing conditions and study building and tenement house laws. Its members are unpaid, though the labor representative is reimbursed for any loss he may suffer from absence from his regular occupation.
It can truly be said that no State in the union shows such grateful and worthy appreciation to its veterans as does Massachusetts. In 1914 over $700,000 was given to the veterans of our Civil War and to certain of their dependent relatives, and to women army nurses. Under a special gratuities act of 1912 she gave each living veteran of the war the sum of $125, this one act alone costing over $500,000.
Among other of her good works, she appropriates each year $15,000 for the relief of injured firemen and families of firemen killed in the performance of their duty, and since the fund was established has expended $270,000 for this work. The State also provides under a contributory system for its employes.
Nowhere in the country are the people’s savings and insurance more zealously guarded than by Massachusetts, and here again she is leading the way in the savings bank life insurance legislation. The bank commission was established in 1838, the insurance commission in 1855, the savings bank life insurance board in 1907, these three departments costing in 1914 almost $200,000.
In dealing with her labor problems Massachusetts maintains a Department of Labor and Industries (1913) which investigates industrial conditions and enforces the labor laws; an Industrial Accident Board (1912) which enforces law compensating injured employes. These two boards together constitute a joint board for the prevention of industrial accidents and diseases. There is also a Board of Conciliation and Arbitration (1886) which mediates and arbitrates industrial disputes, and a Minimum Wage Commission (the first in the country), which investigates the wages of women and minors, and forms boards to recommend scales of wages in low paid industries. Over $200,000 was expended by these boards in 1914.
On encouraging farming and caring for her forests, fisheries, and game, was spent over $600,000 in 1914. This was distributed in many ways, some being in form of bounties to children and youths, to agricultural societies to encourage orcharding, poultry raising, for the purchase of forest lands, the prevention of forest fires, the propagation of wild birds and animals.
Preparedness was not overlooked, over half a million dollars being expended on the militia in 1914. On highways and harbors nearly a million dollars was spent.
Over a million and a quarter dollars was spent on public buildings, the total valuation of state properties being over $8,300,000, the State capitol and land itself being valued at over five and one-half million dollars.
This is the record of Massachusetts. The suffragists have shown wisdom in avoiding reference to these facts. They could not well do otherwise, however, since they are allied with those detestable groups in our midst who are preaching anarchy and revolution as a means to better government. Better government where? This record is one that the men of the State may well be proud of; it is a record that its women will continue to make possible by their non-partisan influence in government, by the training of its future citizens, by the teaching of those lessons of civic honesty and uprightness that make for national integrity as exemplified in the history of our Commonwealth of Massachusetts.