UNIVERSITY UN STORA LIK B501496 J GOVERNOR'S MESSAGE. SPRINGFIELD, ILLINOIS, May 23, 1908. To the Honorable, the Forty-Fifth General Assembly: In relation to the investigation of the State charitable institutions just closed and to the report of the Investigating Committee made to your honorable body, I desire to submit for your consideration some of the reasons which have induced me heretofore and do induce me now to protest against the method of the investigation, the nature of the testimony which it has elicited, and the character of the report prepared by the committee ostensibly for the enlightment of your honorable body with relation to the present condition of the State charitable, penal and reformatory institutions. The work of the investigating committee was performed under the resolution adopted by your honorable body on January 14, 1908. As appears from the terms of the resolution, the committee was authorized to investigate cases of injury and of negligent, incompetent and improper conduct on the part of the employés of our State charitable institutions. The occurence which was the occasion for the passage of this resolution was the unfortunate accident to Frank Giroux, an inmate of the Asylum for Feeble-Minded Children. Before this occurrence, which immediately preceded the passage of the resolution, no discussion had arisen in the General Assembly or elsewhere in regard to the general merit or demerit of the present system of administering the charity service of this State. The committee selected to conduct the investigation began its work at the Asylum for Feeble Minded Children at Lincoln, where it conducted an inquiry into the circumstances surrounding the burning of Frank Giroux, on December 23, 1907, upon an insufficiently protected radiator, during an epileptic seizure. SOUGHT TO AID THE COMMITTEE. As it is stated at the outset of the report of the committee that the committee "has not had the encouragement, support and aid of the Executive in seeking to learn the true conditions of our State institu tions," I call the attention of your honorable body to the following facts: ake that that On the evening of January 16, 1908, the day before the hearing began at the Lincoln institution, Miss Julia C. Lathrop, a member of the State Board of Charities, and Mr. William C. Graves, its executive officer, appeared in Springfield before the committee appointed to m the investigation, for the purpose of tendering the services of board to the committee in the prosecution of its inquiries. At meeting, Miss Lathrop stated to the committee that the Board Charities had hoped for a joint meeting with the committee during day and further said "We simply understood that you sent notice our office, that there would be this meeting tonight, and, as indivi uals we came in to sit by, if we were invited, and learn what we mig as to the investigation, and certainly to proffer to you any assistan which we could give you in carrying out to the fullest extent the pu poses of this investigation, which is certainly at one with our own pur pose, to improve in every possible way the service for the wards of the State, and by every possible means to make evident their exact status and condition, and to conceal nothing which has any bearing upon any good or any unfortunate aspects which they may present to the public and to the patrons." In further proof of the falsity of this charge I desire to state that I personally instructed Mr. William C. Graves, executive officer of the State Board of Charities, and Mr. William B. Moulton, and Mr. Joseph C. Mason, President and Secretary respectively of the State Civil Service Commission, to accompany the committee and offer every facility their expert knowledge and their office records afforded to aid the committee in getting at the truth regardless of any consequences. Their efforts to assist were repelled. Finally Mr. Graves was able to get hearings for Dr. Frank Billings, president, and Miss Julia C. Lathrop, a member of the State Board of Charities, but the constructive work in the improvement of the State charitable institutions accomplished during my administration, of which they told, does not receive attention in the commitee's report. On the other hand the testimony of Mr. Graves, who was placed on the stand for the important purpose of showing that the committee was fair and that my criticism of its scandalous methods was groundless, is commented on at great length. Mr. Graves's testimony, however, plainly showed that the effort of the committee was to asperse the ad of he to d ht ice r |