SUPPLEMENTARY
TO
THE BREVIER LEGISLATIVE REPORTS
VOLUME ELEVENTH.
Appropriation for the Soldiers and Seamen's Home, at
Knightstown ---- Debate in Continuation.
IN SENATE.
THURSDAY, May 6, 1809.[IN CONTINUATION-p. 169-FIRST COLUMN.]
Mr. Hess' bill [S. 246] to amend sections 4, 13 and. 15 of an act entitled "An act to establish a home for the maintenance of sick and disabled Indiana soldiers and seamen, and their orphans and widows," approved March 11, 1867, and supplementary to said act being the special order for this hour (ten o'clock a. m.)-
Mr. HADLEY said:
Mr. President: I had hoped that there was no necessity for any remarks on this bill. But from some remarks made by one or two Senators, I am induced to ask the indulgence of the Senate for few moments. The main features of this bill are but two: the one increasing the allowance for children from one and a half to two dollars a week ; and the second is giving the power to Trustees to indenture the children as fast as they can find good homes for them.
Now, Mr. President, we are professing to the world that we are doing a great work for humanity and charity in the way of maintaining a home for soldiers and their orphans at Knightstown. We have there a magnificent structure with lofty tower; with garnished walls, spacious halls and well furnished apartments, yet when we to and examine into that institution we find that we are half starving the inmates upon the coarsest provisions-upon an allowance of one dollar and a half a week. I hope the Senate will consider this matter one foment. An allowance of one dollar and a half for each inmate, and this includes their subsistence, their clothing, their fuel, their school books; the salaries of teachers and all subordinate employes of the Institution, which reduce the item of subsistence to about fifty cents per week; an amount that would not feed your horse or hog two days at the present high prices.I insist that it is a disgrace to the State of Indiana, to be making this pretence in the direction-in the way of charity-and yet starve the inmates of this institution upon this pititul allowance.
I insist that this institution must be abolished or we must make more liberal provisions. And we cannot abolish it; we must not abolish it. It is not a question of pleasure; it is not a question of expediency; but it is a question in which the honor of the State is involved. If these children had lost their natural protectors by natural causes, even then the State would be under moral obligations to protect and educate them, teach them agriculture and industry, and prepare them to be useful citizens; but, sir, these children deserve a preferred protection and a preferred sympathy from the State.
But a few years ago, sir, these children had happy and prosperous homes of their own; they had comfortable homes, and they had fathers to love and to provide for them, and to protect and shield them from the abuses of the world. They had fathers whose then ambition it was to inculcate into their young minds the principles of truth and humanity. Then they were happy and prosperous. But we had armies to raise and battles to fight. We had families to break up; fathers to sacrifice; children to orphanize; and the fathers of these children were the unfortunate victims of that war. These children are here to-day asking us for a mere pittance-asking us to furnish them with provisions and clothing and a school master. These orphan children whose plaintive voices are waited upon the breezes to this Capitol from more than twenty page: 324[View Page 324] poor houses in this State, are imploring us to reclaim them from the disgraceful and demoralizing associations of the poor houses. For the sake of the honor of the State and the cause in which their fathers died they are asking us to redeem them from that disgraceful state and give them a respectable home.
Is there a Senator here-is there a taxpayer in all the length and breadth of this State who will sit with his own happy family about him, and in the midst of his property, much of which has grown up out of the blood and bones of the soldiers; I say is there a man in all this State so hampered, so stingy, so ungrateful that he would decline to give the miserable pittance of eight cents-eight cents out of every thousand dollars of his property to furnish these two hundred orphans with homes at Knightstown? This is all they ask. They are not asking us to return them their fathers. They have been taken from them by the State. They are not asking us to make compensation for the great loss they have suffered, but simply for a home and a school master. If there is a man that has a single impulse of humanity about him, and persist in refusing to pay this-I say to him shame! shame!
Other States, Mr. President, have recognized their obligations to these children. The State of Iowa, sir, a State which has a much less population than we, and of course, fewer soldier's orphans than we, is to-day taking care of and educating eight hundred and thirty-three soldier's orphans at an expense to the State of more than eighty thousand dollars. The State of Ohio has an institution in every county in the State for the protection and education of these children. A little farther east, Pennsylvania is taking care of and educating three thousand four hundred and thirty-one soldier's orphans at an expense to the State of two dollars and sixty-five cents per week; which in the aggregate, amounts to about half a million of dollars. Here on our northern border is the State of Michigan;-that noble exemplar State-she is taking care of her soldier's orphans at an expense to the State of three dollars and a half per week. And, sir, is it possible that Indiana cares less for her soldiers than her neighboring sister States? Is it possible that we care less for our honor as a State? Is it possible that we have less respect for our obligation? Are we less able to pay, or less willing to pay? If any Senator says we are he does not feel aright the pulse of the people of Indiana.
Then, Mr. President, a little further. I will ask Senators, sir, to lay open the volumes yes, the volumes in which are recorded the one hundred pledges made to soldiers to induce them to leave their wives and children and go out into the army and fight the battles of their country. I ask Senators individually, and particularly those who did not go into the army to carry these questions home with them. A few years ago-in 1862-3 did you not like every body else, agree with your neighbor act with your neighbor in pledging your sacred honor to those soldiers that if they would go out into the war and leave you at home that their children-their wives and children should be protected and liberally provided for until they returned? Senators, don't you know these pledges were made? Don't you know if they had not been made our vast armies would not have been volunteers? Don't you know sir, if you had said to the soldiers that if they got killed in the army, their wives should go ragged and their children unfed; don't yon know that if you had said to them you would only allow their children the miserable pittance of one dollar and a half a week; don't you know if you had said these things, there would not have been money enough in all the counties to have paid out of the draft?
And now, sir, while these facts are so clear-so patent-I say again, the State cannot afford, through her legislators here to do such violence to her honor as to repudiate its obligation to these children before the grass has grown over the graves of their fathers. I do not believe, sir, that Senators are ready to do it. I do not believe, sir, that Senators will say here to-day by their votes that we owe nothing to these children-that we are not under special obligations to soldier's orphans. But, sir, if there should be such an one I say to such an one, Go first and commit to the flames every volume in which is recorded a history of the late war; for every such book will stand as a monument, more enduring than brass, to your infidelity to the soldiers.
A few months ago I had the pleasure in common with many of you to visit this home at Knightstown: and, sir, as I looked over the assembled children there, and saw their hair all combed so nicely, and their faces all so clean, and their garments all so neat and comfortable, with cheeks so red and eyes so bright, I thought I never had seen as large a company of children apparently so healthy, happy and cheerful. And, sir, I felt proud-proud, I say, to think that I was a citizen of the State, and a representative in a State that was so nobly and honestly discharging its duty in this matter. And when I had occasion in _the course of a few remarks addressed to these children, to refer to the fact that they were the wards of the State, and inasmuch as they had lost their fathers by war they should not thereby lose a home, their young hearts seemed to swell with gratitude and ambitition to become useful men and women. Now Senators, are you going to crush their young hopes before they are fully fledged? Are you going to cask page: 325[View Page 325] them out into the streets and highways to beg the street corners and at the church doors? Are you going to drive them into the poor houses, and have their young minds and hears corrupted by the vicious associations of these places? Sir, I will never believe it.
Then, again, it has been urged upon this floor that it is a bad thing to have these children congregated over there to raise them up in idleness? I wish to correct that impression. It is very far from the facts in the case. Instead Of raising these children in idleness we propose to teach them industry:-that is one the particular objects of the institution-not the commonest and meanest drudgery; but honorable labor-we propose to teach the boys lot only to learn from books, but take them into the fields and teach them how to plant potatoes and other vegetables; to chop wood, and do all the multifarious labors of the farm. And the little girls not only kitchen duties but to use the needle in making their own garments and garments for the boys. It is not founded in truth when it is said we propose to raise them in idleness.
Again, it has been urgued that the association of both sexes there was all wrong: that it would lead to evil consequences. I hurl back such charges as being a slander upon the reputation and character of those having the institution in charge. The State of Indiana does not propose to employ officers at that institution who would suffer any thing of the sort.
Then again, I will not occupy your time but one moment more. This matter has now assumed a tangible and matter of fact shape, and the question arises who are the friends of the soldier? The soldier has the right to command the votes of the Republican party. They have a right to command them, for the Republican party has always professed to be a friend of the soldier.
Mr. MORGAN (interposing.) I would like to ask the Senator if they have not the right to command the same thing of the Democratic party?
Mr. HADLEY. I will come to that in a moment if the Senator please. I was going to add that the soldiers have the right to corned the votes of the Republican party, for have always professed to be their friends. have voted with the Republican party - elected Republicans to office, and they have a right to command their votes. The Democratic party of this Senate has also professed to be friends of the soldier; and I have no doubt they are. There is no question in my mind that they feel as friendy and grateful towards the soldiers as the Republican party. It was manifested here at the last regular session when they desired to vote out of the public treasury one hundred thousand dollars to place worthless babules [certificates to be signed by the Governor and countersigned by the Adjutant General, commemorating the services and achievements of Indiana, in the late war of the rebellion] in the hands of every soldier in the State; and now I have no right to doubt but that they were acting in good faith. There is no question but they were acting in candor and sincerity, desiring to acknowledge the services soldiers had rendered to the State; and to-day comes an opportunity to verify that action. Then it was in a shape that no matter if it had carried, no monies could have been appropriated. To-day, if you pass this bill money will be appropriated. It will cost you something; it will cost your constituents something; and, allow me to assure you, the soldiers will receive it as a much higher compliment to take care of their comrades children than to place a worthless bauble in their hands that many would not care to carry from the post office. I call upon the army of two hundred thousand soldiers of the State of Indiana to witness the voting to-day upon this measure, and there find out who are their real friends. The test comes to-day; and I say it in no manner of threat, but I say I call upon them to witness because the stern facts present themselves to-day, and they cannot be avoided.
Mr. SHERROD. Mr. President: No man will go further than I to make provisions for the soldier's orphan where the necessity demands, but I am opposed to this bill on principle. I opposed the bill proposing an appropriation of money to the soldier's home last session and the session before the last. Now, sir, I do not want to consume the time of the Senate in making a speech, but I think we have gone far enough in this direction. The National Government has prepared liberally for the comfort of our disabled soldiers. I do not want to detail before the Senate the facts I have in connection with this soldiers' home, coming from our disabled soldiers who have been inmates of that institution. I refrain from it from the fact that I do not want such facts to go before the public. I oppose it on principle. I shall vote against the bill.
Mr. TURNER. Mr. President: By a resolution adopted this morning, and the special Joint Committee which visited the Dayton Home believing the National Home there to be the proper one for our soldiers, I have concluded, under these circumstances that I would not support this bill. As far as these children are concerned, I believe that in my section of the State not one single child has had any benefit of that Knightstown Home. In my County, we take care of them at home, and in handsome style. And we are not likely to derive any benefit from it in the future for the reason that these children do not like to be transported so far; and we want to take care page: 326[View Page 326] of our own little ones. And while taking care of them they belong to all of us; they are mine and yours and those of the citizens of every county in which they reside. While we are doing that we don't want to pay the expenses of taking care of the orphan children of three or four counties located in the vicinity of the Soldiers' Home.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. President: I thought it would not be necessary to say much in regard to this bill; but I want to refer to one thing mentioned by the Senator from Orange as he seemed to turn his main argument to the fact that the State had made an appropriation for this institution. Now I do not know but that it would be a wise proceeding on the part of this General Assembly even if we had no soldiers' orphans to carry out this thing instead of sending the unfortunate children of our State to the poor house where they are raised up in ignorance and have no moral influences thrown around them. If we had no orphans of soldiers in this State it would be a wise thing as far as the State is concerned, to have some place to send orphans to, where they would be trained morally and physically and educated and prepared for usefulness. Suppose we take a child who has been reared in a county house, (and I suppose my county has as respectable an one as any,) but is that child prepared for usefulness, or prepared to make a living when it comes away? Is it a fact that we propose to send the children of our soldiers, who have sacrificed their lives in defence of our country to the poor houses ? I would say that some of these children, and probably a considerable portion, have neither father nor mother. I was shown some of that class when I was up at the Home; and the resolution we have adopted this morning says that we will not receive any more soldiers there, but we will take the soldier's orphans. There we propose to take care of them; and when they get to a proper age see that they get respectable places. We propose to train them up to be useful and fit them to fill their places in the world. Public opinion thinks there is something not creditable in the idea of going into a poor house; and by sending these children up here they are saved from whatever discredit is attached to the inmates of our county houses. I hope we will not press this subject so as to look at it from a political stand point. If we profess a love for the soldier this is a good and practical way to carry it out.
Mr. TURNER. Mr. President: I did not wish my remarks to be comprehended in that way. There are four or five hundred soldier's orphans in the county where I reside, and probably one-fourth as many widows. There was but one instance that came under my knowledge where any went to the county poor house, and that was a choice in preference to coming to this soldier's home. And I wish to state that if they needed some place to go to; having provided for them as we have with a great large, fine house, under the best kind of superintendence; that nineteen out of twenty would make the choice to go upon that farm Under its management, and a liberal management it is, they would make it their choice in preference to going to this soldiers' home.
Mr. HAMILTON. Mr. President: I had no reference to his remarks, but I now have; and would like to ask the gentleman if it would cost that county any more to support this one up here than that institution in their own county?
Mr. TURNER. It will, for the reason that we carry on that establishment on a high scale upon a liberal scale and intend to for all time to come; and as a matter of course as we have arranged to provide for them the few that might make the choice to go here would not make that establishment any less expensive to us; and we would be paying our tax to support this establishment up here while taking care of our own orphans at home.
Mr. HAMILTON. I don't see that that answers the question. I am sure the smaller the parcels are divided out the larger the expense will be. I do not suppose that we are going to compel children to go to our home. I am told that there has already been some 200 applicants for admission, and they only await the assurance of the Legislature that they will be received. Having abandoned this institution in one sense, as a home for the soldier. there will be no other expense incurred by admitting the orphans than that incident to occupying the rooms and the expenses of taking care of them; and I think it too plain to call in question that it would cost less to have a large portion together than to parcel them out. Believing as I do that this measure will certainly prevail I do not feel like detaining you all. Two dollars and fifty cents a week is less than we maintain our own children at home.
Mr. HANNA. Mr. President: At the commencement of the regular session I gave some reasons against congregating children together and attempting to raise them in that way. I believe yet it is bad policy for the State to pursue that course in reference to these children. It is due from the State to extend protection to all its inhabitants; and that protection is extended by the enactment of just laws, and by providing channels of industry and just remuneration for labor; but whenever you undertake to single out a class of inhabitants, and say that class shall have special privileges above others, you do wrong. You have lived long enough to see soldiers and orphans homes, page: 327[View Page 327] but those in the revolutionarry war, and in the last war with Great Britain, and in the Indian lair, and in the war with Mexico had no such Institutions created for them;-this kind of Public provision was not made for them. It may be necessary in countries where the population overcrowds, to furnish channels of industry for certain classes, and it may be possibly done, but in a country like this whose wealth and vastness provides channels of industry for every inhabitant, I very much doubt the propriety of such institutions for any class. It is utterly impossible, and we can't shut our lives to to the fact, to provide soldiers' homes for all the orphans of the soldiers in the State, or all the destitute orphans; we can't do it. We would have to build a soldier's home in every county in the State to do it. If you build one here it becomes a local institution for the surrounding counties. The inhabitants of Daviess county will send none; and Sullivan county will send none, although we have a large number of that class. And why? Because the distance that intervenes is so great that the amount it would take to send them there would provide for them for half a year; and there are very few of these orphans but have relations either of consanguinity or affinity, who feel such an interest in their welfare as to provide some kind of a home for them.
Mr. HAMILTON (interposing. I would like to ask this question: While I think, as far as humanity is concerned, we owe to all orphans the duty of taking care of them; but are we not under some obligations to take care of that peculiar class who were made so by their father's falling in the defence of this country?
Mr. HANNA. If you undertake to draw a distinction I would draw a finer line and discriminate between the orphans of those who went into the army for money-for the purpose of robbing-and the men who went through loyalty.
Mr. HAMILTON. I will ask another question: Do I understand you to brand the soldiers with having gone for money?
Mr. HANNA. I don't brand any of them; but I know some went as substitutes--
Mr. HAMILTON. That is a small proportion.
Mr. HANNA. I do not know how many, but it is a line of distinction; and if the Senator wants to draw lines of distinction between orphans of any class let him draw it a little finer-in favor of the orphans of men who vent in out of patriotic motives. We have amongst us orphans of men who have offered UP their lives on railroad cars for the public good; but these kind of distinctions are pretty hard to draw. It is a pretty thing to talk about patriotism and all that kind of a thing.
There is the declaration of the Senator from Clinton [Mr. Hamilton.] He asked whether I would make a distinction or not; and he declares that there are hundreds of applicants turned away from the Soldier's Home because there is no certainty of an appropriation. We have appropriated ten or fifteen thousand dollars in a bill already passed; but you now propose to appropriate by indirection an indefinite sum-any sum those in authority there may see proper to draw.
Mr. HADLEY (interposing.) We have made no doubt ample appropriation, but under existing laws it can be drawn only at the rate of one dollar and a half a week.
Mr. HANNA. The effect of the bill will be this; suppose they take in: how, many? One or two thousand-
Mr. HADLEY (interrupting.) The institution would not accommodate more than two hundred and fifty.
Mr. HANNA. There is the injustice of the thing. You select out two hundred and fifty and all the others are turned away. Now the truth is that soldiers' Home is a flittering generality about which men make cheap popularity. You can't provide for one tenth or one twentieth of the soldiers orphan's in the State.
Mr. HAMILTON (interposing.) If I was a man of his size I would have broke down long ago carrying popularity. [Laughter.] I am not looking for that.
Mr. HANNA. It may break me down, but I am not seeking it. I never do any thing for popularity. I do what I think is right-what justice requires, and let the result take care of itself. The people look to these things to see where the right is. A poor, worthy citizen dies, and his wife is left a helpless widow with a lot of orphans, and you say "We have no charity to extend to you;" but here is another man on the other side of the way who dies and we take his children and take care of them. This is drawing a line of distinction that the people cannot draw. If you do inaugurate this system of taking care of orphans, you have got to inaugurate it upon a much larger scale than this. You have got to provide for more of them, or you cannot get my support. If you will go into statistics and show me how many destitute orphans there are in the State who ought to receive this protection and make provision for admitting all of them, then I will give it my support. But when you propose to support one out of every twenty and there we will stop; then I say that unjust discrimination does not meet with my approbation. But at the foundation lies an objection to congregating children together and undertaking to raise them up in great bodies.
Mr. GRAY. Does the General Government do right in making a distinction?
Mr. HANNA. I don't know what distinction page: 328[View Page 328] the General Government makes. But I suppose this Soldiers' Home was intended to be a temporary institution. It is for us to determine whether it shall be or not, and now is the time to determine it. For when once fastened upon us there is no getting rid of it. Whenever there is a leak in the public treasury; that leak never gets any smaller.
Mr. HADLEY. By the passage of this bill empowering the trustees to indenture these orphans as fast as homes can be found for them, they will go out very fast. I do not believe there are more than two hundred and fifty destitute soldier's orphans in the State.
Mr. HAMILTON. There is a class whose fathers and mothers are both dead. I made a great many war speeches, and pressed men to go to war, and pledged myself if they should be so unfortunate as to fall while standing between me and the enemies of the country, I would look after their children's welfare when they were not here; and I am here to fulfill that obligation.
Mr. CHURCH. Mr. President: There is no politics in this matter. This institution is on our hands and this bill is simply calculated to provide for what we have, on our hands now. I do not want to perpetuate this thing. I want to get rid of it as soon as we can. But these children are there, and the question is whether we shall disband them. The probability is that for two years to come we have got to have that institution; and the question comes up shall we give them enough to be respectable. I think we ought to vote upon it and while we must keep them running for two years, give them enough to keep it running respectably. I do not see any use for hifalutin. These children are now needing this thin The child that to-day needs help, in two years may be able to help itself. The soldier that died five years ago is not likely to have children under five years of age.
Mr. TURNER (interposing.) The Senator has correctly said that there is no politics in the matter. It is a mere matter of charity And the Senator is right when he says we are under obligations to take care of these children; but if the Senator will follow out his remarks and so amend the bill that this institution is to cease in two or three years there is not one of us that would have any objection to voting supplies to children now there.
Mr. CHURCH. I would have but little objection to having a thing of that kind in this bill. I would encourage the diminution of numbers all the time. But at the end of two years may we not judge as well as now about the necessity of this institution?-Four at the outside? This being the case, I believe the Senate has talked all they want to and I move the previous question.
The Senate seconded the demand for the previous question and under the operation thereof the bill passed by yeas 30, nays 10.
