Miss Monica Foley, was educated in the Boston schools, graduating from the Boston Academy of Notre Dame; is a member of the Massachusetts Bar and Secretary of the Massachusetts Association of Women Lawyers. She is a director of the Notre Dame Alumni Association of Boston, and is connected with the State Commission on Economy and Efficiency.
J. A. H.
In the suffrage campaign just closed so much was heard of the greatness of some of our states, including Utah and Nevada, Colorado and Wyoming, that one was tempted to inquire, "Is there no good now in Massachusetts?" It seemed passing strange that our Commonwealth, which had always been the leader in every great turning point of the policy of the nation, should have so signally failed that it ceased to exist as a model to be extolled; it was stranger still that her worthy record was ignored by her own sons and daughters. And yet the facts are that while we may hold high in memory the examples of those who have gone before us, we may also rejoice that the men of our own time not only uphold the best ideals and lofty purposes of our State, but are day by day working out her problems in such a way that her position is still secure as a pioneer in sane legislation, her laws are still models for all states (particularly woman suffrage states) her name is still cherished in the wildernesses where her sons are pioneers, still venerated on her own soil where her people stand at the gateways and welcome the oppressed.
Proud as we are of her traditions, glorying as we do in her present achievements, we are unafraid that the future will see her fall from her eminence, from the dignity which has always characterized her statehood and made her name a synonym for the best in government in the nation, our Commonwealth of Massachusetts.
While this paper deals almost wholly with the executive functions of the state, to make no mention of our judiciary would be to omit reference to one of the brightest pages of our history. Massachusetts law and Massachusetts judiciary decisions have always been and are now quoted and respected in the greatest courts of the country. This splendid system is being maintained at an annual cost exceeding $600,000.
Hand in hand with the establishment of a great judiciary system, Massachusetts has devoted herself to the highest ideals of human charity, and her enormous expenditures show that selfish materialism plays no part in her legislation. Year by year the calls for charity are more insistent, and year by year the State responds more generously. The State Board of Charity was first organized in 1863, and at the present time is an unpaid board of nine members, two of whom are women. The institutions under their supervision are governed by unpaid boards of seven members, two of whom are women, this latter being provided by law, except in the instance noted below. The institutions under the supervision of the board are the State Infirmary for the sick poor at Tewksbury, and the State Farm at Bridgewater for misdemeanants and insane criminals, both opened in 1854 and costing the state nearly $1,000,000 annually. The training schools for delinquent children are the Lyman School for Boys at Westborough (1848) and the Industrial School for Boys at Shirley (1909) and for Girls at Lancaster (1856) costing over $300,000 annually. The hospitals for consumptives are located at Rutland (1898), North Reading (1909), Lakeville and Westfield, both the latter being opened in 1910. Upon these suffering poor the State spends over a half million dollars each year. The Norfolk State Hospital at Walpole was opened in 1911 for inebriates and drug habitues. There are no women on this board of trustees, there being no women inmates of the hospital. There has also been located at Canton since 1907 a Hospital School for crippled children. A hospital for lepers has been maintained at Penikese Island since 1905.
Under the direction of the Board of Charity, aid is given mothers with dependent children, the support of poor babies is undertaken, and the tuition of poor children is paid. The board places the children in homes wherever possible—institutional life being approved only when necessary. Certain suffragists (of the Socialist persuasion) would give the children to the State under the new order. In 1914 the Board together with the institutions under their direction expended over three million dollars and cared for more than 7000 persons in the institutions alone. Is there anything here in the State's charity work which would make any woman other than proud of its record?
The State's care of her insane is under the direction of a paid board of three members, each hospital having a board of seven unpaid trustees, including two women. The hospitals for the insane are at Worcester (1833), Boston (Dorchester, 1839), Taunton (1854), Northampton (1858), Danvers (1878), Westborough (1886), Foxboro (1893) and Medford (1896), Gardner (1902.) There is a hospital for epileptics at Monson with schools for the feeble-minded at Waltham (1848), with a colony at Templeton since 1900 and a school at Wrentham (1907). In 1914 the State cared for over 14,000 of these unfortunates and expended over three and one-quarter millions of dollars for their maintenance.