The bill dealing with drunkenness provides that in every city having a population of over 50,000 the common council or city council may determine that there shall be a local board of inebriety, to consist of five persons, appointed by the mayor, two of whom shall be physicians, and one of whom, if practicable, shall have had experience in social or charitable subjects. This board of inebriety, or one of its field officers, may direct the dismissal of any complaint charging a person with intoxication or the use of any habit-forming drug. If the complaint be not dismissed and the accused be found guilty, the court may release the person so convicted under the supervision of a field officer of the board of inebriety for a period of from six months to one year. The court may impose conditions upon the person supervised and upon the violation of any of these conditions further penalties may be imposed. If the accused be sentenced to hard labor in a jail or house of correction, fifty cents for each day’s work shall be paid over for the support of his wife or minor children.
The chief objection raised to this bill is that the State of Minnesota does not yet require such boards of inebriety, and that the work which it would do can be accomplished through an extension of the probation system.
The proposed commission on causes of poverty would consist of five citizens of the state, three of whom must be experts in social, charitable, or sanitary matters, and two of whom must be lawyers. The duties of the commission would be “to investigate causes of, or factors in, promoting undesirable living conditions, ill health or pauperism, such as poor and unsanitary housing, overcrowding in tenements, methods of dealing with minor offenders and juvenile delinquents, and such other kindred subjects as the
commission may elect.” It shall also study the adequacy of the present laws of the state on these subjects, the experience of other states and countries, and shall frame laws embodying the results of its investigations. Thus the bill aims to “eliminate the causes of poverty instead of dealing only with the effects.” The members are to be unpaid except for reimbursement of travelling expenses. A salaried secretary may be employed. The bill appropriates $6,000 for the purposes of the commission, whose report must be submitted to the legislature on or before January 15th, 1913.
The purpose of the proposed state labor colony for tramps, vagrants and deserters is thus stated by the Associated Charities: “To make useful citizens out of tramps and beggars, instead of the rounders from jail to jail, and city to city, created by the present system. To eventually eliminate tramps and beggars and vagrants, which has been largely accomplished in Germany, Holland, Belgium and Switzerland and to a considerable extent in Massachusetts.”
Detention, humane discipline and instruction are to be the functions of the colony. Any court may, in lieu of other lawful commitment, commit to the colony any male over twenty years of age who shall have been adjudged by such court to be a tramp or vagrant, or a deserter of a wife or child in necessitious circumstances. The sentence must be indefinite in length and parole or discharge may be made at any time after commitment, except that in no case may detention exceed two years.
The colony is to be under the supervision and management of the state board of control. Its buildings are to be designed for not less than three hundred inhabitants, and $100,000 is appropriated for the purchase of a site and the erection of buildings. Educational and industrial training are to be provided for.
The problem of wife desertion is declared
to be an extremely serious one in Minnesota. The new bill aimed at this evil is based largely on the “model law of the District of Columbia,” as well as upon a study of every desertion law in the United States. It follows also recommendations of the commission on uniform state laws. The bill makes a misdemeanor of any desertion of, wilful neglect of, or refusal to provide for, a wife or a legitimate or illegitimate child under 16 years of age, in necessitous circumstances. In case of conviction it provides for a fine of not more than $100, or imprisonment at hard labor for not more than ninety days, or for both. The court may direct the fine to be used for the support of the wife or child.
Some prominent features of the law, which are declared to be advantages over the present law, are as follows: It provides specifically that when a deserter of a destitute family is sentenced to confinement, he shall be employed at hard labor. This tends to prevent desertion, saves the value of the man’s labor to the community, braces him up and makes him a more useful citizen who is more likely to support his family after release.