POLITICS IN PUBLIC INSTITUTIONS 225
non-partisan management of this hospital." And all the replies received from those connected with the state institutions agree in saying that the prevailing sentiment and influence now support the merit system. Yet it must be remembered that it was only by the most vigorous efforts on the part of the friends of the merit system that some of the leaders of the dominant party in the last legislature (1897) were dissuaded from taking a long backward step in this regard. This possibility still exists, and to ignore it is to incur a danger. The vigilance of the friends of non-partisan control cannot be relaxed.
The following suggestive statement by Mr. Alexander Johnson of the way the merit system should be administered is of value, as calling attention to a possible danger.
It is possible to carry out some details of the merit system in a way to make the naanagement of an institution extremely difficult. For instance, when a board of complaint can exist in an institution, composed of three subordinate employes, to whom other subordinates, who may be discharged for incompetence, may make their complaint, and to whom the head of the department must give reasons which are satisfactory for discharging an insubordinate or incompetent official, it is evident that discipline cannot be maintained as it must be in an institution where large numbers of feeble and helpless inmates are cared for. I have been informed that such a board of complaint or supervision exists in the post-office department of this city. I can only say that it would be impossible to conduct an institution for feeble- minded, a hospital for the insane, or a state's prison upon any such basis. Nothing is more necessary than that the superintendent shall have the peremptory power of removal of any of his subordinates, although it is also necessary that the reasons for the exercise of such power shall be stated in writing to a board of trustees, or some other body which is superior to him.
Miss Mary T. Wilson, president of the Indiana State Conference of Charities, writes :
I believe I have seen more harm come from personal favoritism and nepotism during the years of my connection with public institutions than from political preferences. This phase of the matter might be considered with great profit. Nothing so destroys the discipline of an institution as these two causes. Politicians have put no more incompetent persons on our pay-rolls than have clergymen and other good citizens who push an applicant through sympathy or other sentimental reasons. The merit sys- tem, honestly and conscientiously carried out, is the best safeguard against political influence and the no less harmful one of personal favoritism.
Our conclusion must be that of one of the superintendents: "I
