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An Astonishing Job
Source : The New York Times
Some six years ago, the State Legislature authorized the construction of a hospital to be called “The Hudson River State Hospital for the Insane,” to be built near Poughkeepsie. The intention was a good one. The lower part of the State, lying on either side of the Hudson River, and embracing some of the most densely-populated counties, was without adequate provision for the care of patients of this character. The purpose was that the State should furnish the building and the attendance, medical and otherwise, and the localities or persons sending the patients to the hospital should pay the cost of maintenance. The building was to accommodate 500 patients, was to be built by contract on plans and specifications approved by the Governor, Secretary of State, and Controller, and was estimated to cost, at the most, $800,000. The work was placed in the hands of nine managers, who have been pushing it gradually forward since 1867.
The methods adopted by these gentlemen, and the results they have obtained, are very remarkable. These were reposted to the State Senate last Winter by Hon. D. P. Wood, Chairman of the Committee on Finance. The managers have entirely disregarded the law by which they were authorized to act. The have altered the plans and specifications, they have done the work by days’ labor instead of by contract, and they have already spent nearly $1,200,000, though not more than one-third of the work is finished. At this rate the committee report that the hospital will cost not less than $3,000,000, and perhaps as much as $4,000,000.
Some of the details of the extravagance of the board are amazing. For instance, the first part of the work undertaken was the construction of a reservoir, into which the water was pumped from the river through an eight-inch iron pipe; from the reservoir the water was carried to the hospital by a twelve-inch iron pipe, the engine and machinery employed being on the scale of those used in supplying a neighboring city of 20,000 inhabitants. The cost of the reservoir was $100,000. Thirty thousand dollars was expended in blasting some rough rocks jutting into the reservoir, and the Superintendent gave as a reason for this that, if some of the patients were missing, they might want to rake the bottom of the reservoir to find the bodies, and with this the rocks would interfere.
Most of the rooms in the building are very small, only eight feet by ten; yet they are all divided by brick partitions, some of them sixteen inches in thickness. Nothing seems to have interfered with the managers’ whims and fancies. The floors are laid in yellow Southern pine, the most expensive of the flooring, fitted and cut in a way greatly to enhance the cost. The heating is arranged on a scale that, with only 150 patients, ten tons of coal per day is consumed. The mention of these items sufficiently explains the disappearance of $1,200,000 of the people’s money. The committee, in their report, after describing this state of things, exonerate the managers from any “misappropriation” of the money. If they mean by this that there is no evidence that the managers pocketed any portion of it, we are, of course, bound to accept the committee’s statement. They have investigated the matter. We have not. But the committee might have been more explicit. If expenditure of money by public agents in defiance of law, and for objects to which the law never appropriated it, is not misappropriation, then it would be interesting to know what would constitute that offense.
This loose use of words is calculated not only to mislead, but to confuse the popular ideas of what is censurable and what is excusable. The committee describe the managers as “excellent and accomplished gentlemen,” “Learned or distinguished in the professions or kinds of business in which they were engaged,” but not capable or vigilant in this case. The fact is, the managers were faithless public officers. We believe they received no pay for their services, but they were the more strongly bound to do their work carefully and thoroughly. The obligation was one not only of duty, but of honor, and really “excellent gentlemen” would have regarded it as having double force. The committee recommended that work on the building should be stopped until the plans and methods can be revised, and their execution be placed in competent hands with proper security for the completion of the hospital at a reasonable cost. But this the Legislature very strangely declined, and made a large appropriation for counting the work.
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