WAUPACA POST

June 28, 1894

 

COMMENT.

 

            Below will be found extracts from various papers, commenting on the report of the investigating committee. More will be printed next week.  This morning’s Sentinel contains a letter from Captain Marston, defending the board of trustees, which will also appear next week.

(Sunday’s Sentinel.)

            Whether the report of the special committee appointed by Department Commander Watrous of the G.A.R. to investigate the management of the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home is adopted or rejected at the next encampment, it will result in the adoption of a new set of rules for the government of the Home and the conduct of the superintendent.  The Board of Trustees of Waupaca Home held a meeting here Saturday and decided upon that course, A.J. Smith of Amherst, the lawyer member of the board, being appointed a committee of one to draft a new set of rules.  There were present:  Capt. Marston, president, of Appleton; A.J. Smith of Amherst, Maj. R.N. Roberts of Waupaca, A.O. Wright of Madison, Col. J.H. Woodnorth of Milwaukee, Otis Chase of Oshkosh and Col. J.A. Watrous of Milwaukee, the last named being an ex-officio member of the board.  Although the meeting was held the next day after the publication of the Investigating Committee’s report in The Sentinel and the findings of that body were the chief subject of discussion, the session was a regular one. The board met behind closed doors at the St. Charles Hotel, none but members being present.  Capt. Columbus Caldwell, the superintendent of the Home was in the room for a time, but after objection had been raised to two reporters being present one of the trustees demanded that Capt. Caldwell be excluded also, and he was obliged to leave.  At 2:30 o’clock in the afternoon, and after a few unimportant routine matters were disposed of the report of the special committee was taken up for discussion.  The board has no power to pass upon the report, and no official action was taken concerning it, but it formed the basis for many proposed changes in the system by which the Home is conducted and many of the ideas in it will be incorporated in the new rules.

NEW REGULATIONS CALLED FOR.

            After the report had been talked about at a considerable length President Marston put a motion to have a committee appointed to frame new regulations for the Home and rules governing the superintendent, which was carried, A.J. Smith being named as the trustee to do the work.  He will have his report prepared by July 15, and it is expected that a special meeting of the board will be called for about that time to receive it.

            The meeting of the board was entirely secret, and it lasted until 12:30 o’clock at night, a recess of about an hour being taken for supper.  Considerable spirit was shown in the discussion of the report, Col. Woodnorth and Capt. Marston being particularly bitter in their denunciation of it.  What recommenda-tions made by the special committee will be carried out is not known, but it is expected that by the time the report is laid before the encampment most of the reforms advocated in it, so far as the trustees are concerned, will be made, and that there will then be little ground left for further censuring the board.  There will probably be a short session of the board today to finish the business of the meeting.

NO REMOVALS YET

            The members of the board declined to say whether any changes would be made in the staff of the Home, but it is considered probable that at least some of the committee’s recommendations in that regard will be heeded.  It is also reasonably certain that hereafter supplies for the Home will be purchased by contract after bids are called for and that the trustees who have enjoyed an exclusive privilege will no longer continue to hold it.  The trustees, however, were very reticent, but from all that could be learned they do not intend to remove Supt. Caldwell or his wife, who is matron, certainly not at once and perhaps not at all.

SUPT. CALDWELL INDIGNANT.

            Capt. C. Caldwell, superintendent of the Wisconsin Veterans’ Home, is in the city, with the board of trustees of the Home.  “That report,” he said, “is a tissue of falsehoods from beginning to end.  The trouble with the investigation was that it was one-sided.  The committee refused to give us even a fair show or listen to the witnesses we wanted to have examined.  The investigation lasted seven days, and every day but one was given up to hearing evidence for he prosecution.  The management went to the committee and asked for the privilege of putting on the witnesses we had.  The reply was: ‘Well, we’ll hear six or seven of your people and then will go home – we want to get away.  Put on a few witnesses and you’ll be all right.’  The result was that they spent a few hours listening to evidence favorable to our side, and then left for their homes without hearing more than the smallest part of what we had to submit.  The evidence against the management came almost wholly from a few old, disgruntled spirits – you’ll always find them in an institution of that sort.  If we had been given a chance to put on the 150 witnesses we had, and which we expected would be heard, we would have refuted every charge that was made about cruelty and maltreatment of inmates.  I have been in this business for fifteen years and have made a special study of handling people, and know just how they should be treated.  That’s where this committee is weak. Three men were selected who had never had any experience in the management of large bodies of people.  They go up to the home for a few days, and after a hasty examination presume to say that they know more about how such an institution should be run than I, who have studied the question for years. I was in the same regiment in the war with Ed Coe, and I reminded him of the fact that I had handled all the way from one company to 300 to 400 men, and had since then done little else, while he was writing in his office.

ADMIRED BY ARMY OFFICER.

            “The Home has been inspected dozens of times by impartial judges and in every case admiration has been expressed for he manner in which it is conducted.  A committee from Michigan looked it over some time ago to get points for their own institution, and pronounced it in perfect condition.  Officers of the regular army who have inspected every establishment of the kind is the United States say it is in the best condition and the best managed Home in the country.  The people at the Home and at Waupaca are very generally indignant over the report, and as soon as we have an opportunity we will show all the charges have been false.”

 

 

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            The Woodnorth idea of evidence appears to be that when ten witnesses swore that they caught the accused in the act of stealing, he could clear himself by bringing 100 to swear that they did not see it. – Journal.

 

 

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            Lack of space prevents the POST from printing comments of the press of the state, interviews with members of the committee, and other interesting things in connection with the investigation and its report.  They will be published next week, and the week following.  The POST means to have the public understand the situation at the Veterans’ Home, whatever the cost.