Rensselaer Republican, Volume 21, Number 29, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 21 March 1889 — THE INSANE ASYLUM. [ARTICLE]

THE INSANE ASYLUM.

FULL REPORTOFTHE LECISLA* TIVE INVESTIGATING COMMITTEE. ‘ The HanafriMiu Strongly CondemnedCorruption and binrapince Boldly Charged—Arrest of Trustee Uapen for Embesalemeot.

iOn she last day of tne recent Indiana Legislature the joint committee appointed to investigate the Insane Asylum management, snbmitted their report. It was signed by five Democrats and four Republicans. The report s appended: » ' * After reciting the proceedings necessary for organization, the report details in brief thq salient points of the evidence as heretofore published. It then stated that the findings of the committee were based upon the evidence of the three trustees of the institution, the superintendent, the assistant superintendent, the assistant lady physician, the steward and book-xeeper, Dr. Fletcher, the forfner superintendent, Dr. F. M. Howard, former physician in the institution; the cashier of the Meridian National Bank, of Indianapolis, and the Treasurer of State. It then reads ap follows: ■ We find that the full amount appropriated for the maintenance, clothing and repairs at the hospital has been regularly drawn by the treasurer, Mr. Gapen. ’ That very often and during all the months in which said Gapen was in the employment of John E. Sullivan large sums of money, from SI,OOO to $8,500 each month, would notj be deposited in bank subject to payment of checks issued by said Gapen for'payment of bills allowed, but was loaned to John E. Sullivan and others, from time to time, without security, and in direct violation of law, while persons holding checks were compelled to wait the payment of same for the want of funds in bank. This - system was continued by the treasurer of the board through all the period he was in the employment of said Sullivan, until finally over $3,000 of the money received by Mr. Gapen from the State Treasury was carried off by said John E. Bullivan, leaving Mr. Gapen indebted to the fund in that sum, while the persons who furnished the goods and whose bills had been allowed are still holding the checks on the bank for the money, which they cannot draw because of his defalcation.

We find tjiat on Feb. 1, 1889, there were outstanding bills or unsettled accounts »of various persons and firms having claims against said hospital amounting in the aggregate to $17,694.98. These accounts have been running, some of them, since Nov. 1, 1888, the beginning of the present fiscal year, and a few have been carried over from the preceding year. We have had access to no books of the institution to show the receipts from Sroducts sold or from earnings at the ospital, but from the books of the State Treasurer we find the amount paid in by the institution to be for the fiscal year of 1887, $1,084.04, and for the fiscal year of 1888, $838.65. We also find that in some cases where goods were sold or disposed of to persons who had contracts for furnishing supplies, that the amount so taken was charged to said persons on account and deducted from bills instead of being paid into the State Treasury, as required by law.

A careful comparison and examination has been made of the bills oi several contractors allowed by the board for supplies with their contracts, and we find that the amounts purchased were much in excess of the amounts named in the contracts. This is especially noticeable in the contracts for butter, eggs, poultry, sugar, coffee and tea. A tabular statement of such comparisons by months from March, 1887, to January, 1889, inclusive, of supplies above named will be found in the statement of the experts, the requisition hooks of the hospital for the several months being uniform as to the amounts needed,while the amounts purchased vary largely from month to month. Our inference is that when it was to the interest of the contractor, either on account of-the reduced price of the goods purchased or the inferior quality of the goods accepted by such officers of the hospital whose duty it was to receive the same, a much larger amount would be ordered than the contract called for.

We also find that the board frequently failed to comply with the law ; n letting contracts for supplies, that when the bids did not suit the members of the board they refused to let the contract to any one, but authorized one of their number to make'the purchases, without any restrictions as to price, quantity or quality. _ * The frequency with which contracts were let to John E. Sullivan and others, especially where lower bids made by competing bidders wers-Jaajected, leads us to infer .{hat an unjust and unlawful discrimination and favoritism was indulged in by the board, which prevented competition in the sale of supplies to the hospital, and compelled the board to nay the highest price for inferior articles. The tabulated exhibits and report of the experts to this committee disclose the fact that a very few persons furnished the principal supplies for the hospital, and the evidence, we think, will show a part of these persons,' at least', Were in collusion with the board to thrust inferior goods on the asylum tat exorbitant prices. We think, also, that the amount of goods for which contracts were made monthly was ample to supply the institution, yet the bills show that monthly the board paid for a much larger amount of goods than thecontracts called for. The excess ip the one item of tea from March to December of 1887, wairtwo thousand two hundred pounds (2,200 lbs.), and the excess of sugar for the same time was 13,822 pounds, while the excess for coffee for the year 1888 was 14,324 pounds, and of tea for the same year, 3,047 pounds, and the excess of sugar for that year was thirty nine thousand eight hundred and twenty-fivb pounds (39,825 lbs.) and many other articles in the same proportion. We find that at the time of his appointment as trustee, P. M. Gapen gave bond in the sum»of 12,000, with Bamuel C. Hanna and Robert Browning, of Indianapolis, as sureties, and that «£&id Gapen has never filed any additional bond, and that.at least one of said sureties is now wholly insolvent, and that the other surety has failed financially since the execution of said bond, bat said surety, Mr. Browning, testified before this committee that he was now worth SIO,OOO over all his indebtedness. We find that said Gapen has unlaw-

fully appropiated to his own use several thousand dollars of the funds belonging to the hospital,- and by reason thereof he is a defaulter for overthree thousand dollars, and recommend that suit be instituteH.against him by the proper officer to recover said funds, and that the prosecuting attorney of Marion county cause such criminal proceedings against him as his offense justifies. We find that Dr. Galbraith, as superintendent, under the direction of the president of the board, Dr. Harrison, on two occasions loaned i SI,OOO out of the contingent funds in his handß belonging to the hospital, to John E. Sullivan, but that said sums were subsequently repaid to him. We also find that on three or four occasions State Treasurer Lemcke. at the request of Mr. Gapen, leaned money to John E. Sullivan, taking an order on Mr. Gapen ius treasurer, for said amounts, and that the amounts of said loanß were deducted from the sums subsequently drawn by Mr. Gapen as treasurer, and we condemn the practice as unlawful and recommend its discontinuance. We find that the plan of issuing supplies at the hospital is loose arid almost wholly without system. The amount distributed.is not based upon any estimate of the amount needed to ihpply the wants of the patients, jmt is determined wholly by the amounts called fer from time to time by various employes of the hospital. These supplies are not issued upon any requisition of the superintendent or other superior officer, but are issued whenever called for by the cooks or other persons calling for them, the requests beiDg sometimes in writing and sometimes verbal—no receipt being taken by the store-keeper for goods issued, and no sufficient precaution being taken to guarantee the safe delivery of the goods called for at the places in which they were claimed to be needed. The efficiency and economy of the present method depends wholly upon the honesty of the clerks and employes. No good business man would manage his private affairs in the loose manner in which this magnificent State charity is managed. Such a loose manner of doing business and keeping accounts makes it easy for collusion to take place, and for an extensive waste of supplies to occur, without giving any meanß of detecting the same. We find that J. H. Hall, the present steward and book-keeper, is wholly incompetent, and should be immediately removed, and a thorougly competent and unquestionably honest man be placed in tne position. We find that the management of the financial affairs of the hospital under the present board of trustees has been Very bad, and that the evidence preates a very sfrong suspicion that there has been corruption and dishonesty in the purchasing, ah*d‘ receiving of supplies. We find that the present superintendent, Dr. Galbraith,was selected with the express or implied understanding that he would not interfere with the board ahd their appointees in the purchase aud receiving of supplies, arid that he would not interfere with the appointments of said board, and with the express understanding that he would appoint Dr. Howard as a physician at the hospital, without himself knowing anything of the qualifications of said doctor for the position, and that as superintendent he has failed to exercise his proper authority in correcting and preventing abuses at the hospital, which, taken in connection with the fact that he half failed to adopt any proper system to regulate the amount of rations required to support the inmates of the Hospital, show him to be not qualified to discharge the duties of so responsible a position as superintendent of our greatest charitable institution. We find that the evidence does not support the accusations of immorality and intemperance made against Dr. Thomas, and exonerate him from said accusations. We find that the system of keeping the accounts in the store-room at the hospital is very defective and incomnlete, and that it is impossible to ascertain from them whether the goods which are claimed to have been purchased and received were actually used at the hospital. We recommend a radical change in the whole plan of keeping said accounts.

Your committee find that in October, 1887, P. M. Gapen, treasurer of the board of trustees, entered the employment of John E. Sullivan, is the produce business,at a salary of $25 per week, and continued in said employment until said Sullivan’s defalcation and flight, bis duties in such position being merely nominal, it being the evident paraose of said Sullivan in securing his services to also secure the use of the funds of the State, as well as an improper advantage in the matter of furnishing supplies to the hospital, and your committee believes from the evidence that both of said purposes were accomplished to the very great detriment of the institution, as after said employmenMaid Sullivan almost always secured the contract for furnishing' produce to the hospital, and the amounts paid him from month to month on said account continued to increase until the sums paid him monthly exceeded by over a thousand dollars the amount actually required to furnish the necessary supplv of produce to the hospital, and that the contract for the month of February, 1889, had been awarded *to said Sullivan shortly before his defalcation, and would, in the opinion of your commPtee.have been carried out in the usual way by said P. M.* Gapen, claiming to act as assignee of said Sullivan, bnt for the'interference of Mr. Burreli, one of the trustees, who caused said contract to be canceled. While the evidence discloses the fact that there are debts outstanding against the hospital amounting Ho over seventeen thousand dollars, claimed: to have been caused by an insufficiency in the appropriation, your committee beiieve that with an honest and economical management es the business affairs of the hospital the amount of funds received from time to time would have been ample to pay all proper and necessary expenses in carry on the hospital. Upon some matters mentioned in the evidence the coinmittee makes no finding, for the reason that, on account of the limited, time at their disposal, they were unable to complete their investigation upon said points, and it is possible that a fuller invest gation might have placed said matters in a different flight. All of which is respectfully submitted. T. E. Howard, E. G. Henry, Thos.E Shockhet, Wm. A. Brown, 8. A. Hates, . Geo. S. Pleasants, C. G. Conn, M- W. Fields. Without any discussion, the House adopted the report and ordered it spread

upon the journal, bat the Senate did not concur in it SO readily. Senators MornstOfiNjuid Barrett opposed ihe printing of the evidence. Their opposition was overcome, however, and the report adopted. Five thousand copies of the evidence will be printed and sent to the memhers of the committee /or distribution.