WAUPACA POST

June 28, 1894

 

MARSTON’S LETTER.

 

            Capt. J.H. Marston, president of the board of trustees of the Veterans’ Home, in a letter which will be found on the second page, denounces the report of the investigating committee as false and slanderous.  In the opinion of the POST, Capt. Marston had much better have kept still.  When he accuses such men as E.D. Coe, J.J. Clawsen and John Meehan of being dishonest, he is going farther than good nature will permit.  He says that there have been forty investigations that reported the Home all right, and because this one found it radically wrong, it must be false.  There is a great deal of difference between an investigation and a casual survey of the Home.  When some friend of the board goes out there as a guest of the board, is taken around under the protecting wing of one of the board of the superintendent, is wined and dined at the state’s expense and sees only the magnificent site of the Home and the splendid plan of having separate cottages for the veterans, no wonder he is favorably impressed.  The sore spots are covered up, even as they used to be in the insane asylums and poor houses in England in the days of Charles Reade and Charles Dickens, and if, by chance, complaint was made by an inmate, a summary discharge or irksome work usually followed.  Never before the recent investigation, has there been any semblance of getting at the truth of the management of the Home.  Complaint has been made to the board of the ill-treatment of inmates by the superintendent and matron, but no attention has been paid to it, further than to make it so uncomfortable for the ones who dared to speak that they were forced to leave home. Capt. Marston has not been in ignorance of these complaints, but he thought more of the superintendent and matron, than he did of the people in their care, and has turned a deaf ear to all statements which, in any way, reflected upon them.

            Mr. Marston has been on the board for seven years without pay; why doesn’t he let someone else bear the burden now?  What is the reason he still insists upon keeping all the honor there is in it; let him stand aside and a man be put in his place.

            He objects because Mayor Owen Clerk, one of the foremost men of Stevens Point, assisted in getting evidence before the committee.  We claim that it was Mr. Clark’s privilege, as a citizen and taxpayer, to unearth any fraud, and bring to light any wrongs that he may know of, and particularly in the present case where he, as an old soldier, has a personal interest in having the Home managed as it should be, and not as a “family” affair.

            He also upholds the purchasing of supplies from the directors though the law expressly says it must not be done.  If the framers of that law only knew Capt. Marston’s opinion on the matter, how badly they would feel. His egotistical screed will not help the board’s side of the case.

 

*****

 

            On Monday morning A.B. Stearns, one of the inmates of the Veterans’ Home, was talking with a comrade on the street about the recent investigation, when an officer of the Home came up to Mr. Stearns and told him to keep still or he would be discharged from the Home inside of three months.  Is this a free country, or is it not?  Because a man is so unfortunate as to be an inmate of the Home, is he not to be allowed to say his soul is his own?  It has been threats of that import which have helped to keep the public and the Grand Army in ignorance of the true state of affairs at the Home for so long

 

*****

 

[Sentinel, June 26.)

            No action will be taken on the report of the committee appointed by Department Commander Watrous of the G.A.R. to investigate the Waupaca Home until it is seen what steps will be pursued by the Board of Trustees.  That body had done nothing as yet except to delegate A.J. Smith, of Amherst, to draft a new set of rules by which the home shall be governed.  Whether the new rules provide for the reforms demanded in the report will determine whether any further action shall be taken by the G.A.R. authorities regarding the management of he Home. If the report is ignored in its essential features a meeting of the Council of Administration of the G.A.R. will be called to take some action, the council having the authority of administer the affairs of the department between encampments.  Col. Watrous said yesterday afternoon that for the present he would do nothing but await the result of the next meeting of the Board of Trustees.  After that the question as to whether he would ask the Council of Administration to take some steps would have to be considered.  Mr. Smith left yesterday afternoon for his home at Amherst.  He refused to say what recommendations of the investigating committee would be followed in his work, and the other trustees refuse to voice their opinions on the subject.  From remarks some of them have made, however, it seems probable that the reports will be followed very closely in the revision of the rules.  Col. Woodnorth said yesterday that the report contained many falsehoods and was manifestly based on a one-sided investigation.  He admitted, however, that some of the conclusions reached by the committee were correct.  He asserted that the board in no way recognized the report in revising the rules, as some amendments are made every year.  The rules, he said, were framed for an institution of about fifty inmates, and the growth of the Home had necessitated new regulations from time to time.  Notwithstanding this fact it is supposed that the board will use the criticisms in the report as the basis of their amendments, the question being to what extent they will be observed.  The board will receive Mr. Smith’s report on the rules about the middle of July.

            Both Capt. Woodnorth and Mr. Smith said that the employees against whom objection has been raised will remain in office at least until the board had its meeting.  This may indicate that when the board gets together to revise the rules it will call for the resignations of some of the officials.  Capt. Caldwell, however, seems to have the endorsement of the most of the members, and he himself has no intention of resigning as superintendent of the Home.