Mr. SAVAGE. I am not a psychiatrist. I am expressing an opinion about renting houses.

Doctor WHITE. Have you a house to sell?

Mr. SAVAGE. Yes; I have a house to sell now. But, at any rate, there are plenty of places for the superintendent to live, quite close to the hospital, very convenient, and I think we should repeal that part of the statute; and this part about the hazards I think is bunk.

Mr. SCHAFER. Let me ask one question, in conclusion: The gentleman who has just appeared as a witness, Mr. Savage, indicated that the superintendent was under bond and that the disbursing officer was under bond. How much bond does each one of those officers give?

Doctor WHITE. That is all changed now. That was the original law, and that law was passed when the superintendent was the disbursing officer. When I first went there I was disbursing officer, and I had to give quite a considerable bond. I do not know what it is now. Now, the disbursing agent has to give a bond, I think, of $50,000; and his deputy has a bond of $50,000. I have to give a small bond for funds.

Mr. SCHAFER. Are there any more witnesses who desire to testify? Mrs. DE MONTIS. Mr. Congressman Schafer, I will be glad to place extended remarks in the record if I may.

Mr. GOODWIN. It ought to be pertinent to the subject of this inquiry. We can not encumber these hearings with something that is entirely extraneous to the subject of the inquiry and the authority of the committee.

Mrs. DE MONTIS. Yes, Mr. Chairman; Doctor White himself brought in the commitment laws that they are trying to pass for the District of Columbia. I therefore referred to these commitment laws. He is using his institution to advocate laws which affect us. He brought that up. I simply repeated my side in regard to his statement about the laws. The laws he advocates are laws which encroach upon the constitutional rights to which we are entitled. (Thereupon, at 2.05 o'clock p. m., the subcommittee adjourned.)

ADDENDA

EXTENDED REMARKS OF DR. W. A. WHITE

In reference to the practice of allowing quarters, heat, light, household equipment, subsistence, and laundry service, including necessary maid service, to the superintendent and other employees of St. Elizabeths Hospital in the Interior Department appropriation bill for the fiscal year ending June 30, 1930, approved March 4, 1929, there is an amendment as follows:

"Provided further, That the practice of allowing quarters, heat, light, household equipment, subsistence and laundry service to the superintendent and other employees who are required to live at St. Elizabeths Hospital, may be continued without deduction from their salaries notwithstanding the Act of March 5, 1928 (45 Stat. 193) pending determination of the Personnel Classification Board in accordance with said act."

The question has been raised before the subcommittee of the Committee on Expenditures as to whether the so-called servants detailed for the official use of the employees would be included in such a provision. In the discussion on page 1892, of the Congressional Record of January 17, 1929, the Hon. Mr. Cramton, chairman of the subcommittee of the Appropriation Committee for the Interior Department, says:

"Four employees, including a cook and an assistant, are employed in the superintendent's quarters where they are not required to give their full time to his

services. Under the law these employees work only eight hours.

30 days' vacation and sick leave.

They have

These employees are not employed full time by the superintendent but devote their time when not so employed to other hospital duties."

"Mr. SCHAFER. Will the gentleman yield?

(6 Mr. CRAMTON. Yes.

"Mr. SCHAFER. Has the gentleman any information to indicate how much time they give to Doctor White's personal home and how much time they give to the patients?

"Mr. CRAMTON. I have not that information", etc.

Further on, Mr. Cramton says:

"No paid help is given to employees with the exception of the superintendent, and a maid four hours each day to the first assistant physician. These employees are all in custodial grade, regular qualified servants. For the other employees there is no help furnished except a maid four hours a day for the first assistant physician".

From the forgoing it will be seen that the question of employees, such as cooks, maids, etc., was discussed on the floor of the House of Representatives before that body acted on the amendment allowing quarters, heat, light, etc., without deduction from salaries. It would seem that any action taken by the House of Representatives with explanation as made by the Hon. Mr. Cramton would adopt any statement of explanation he made as to what would be included under such action.

In reference to the question raised about conference room being included in the number of rooms set aside for the superintendent, what Mr. Savage evidently meant was a board room. This is a room that is used by the board of visitors while at the hospital, but it is located in the same suite of rooms some of which are occupied by the superintendent. The statement says 19 rooms, but this seems to be an error. Altogether in this suite on the second floor of the Center Building there are not over 15 rooms and, as explained, all are not used for the superintendent's personal use.

In reference to the quantity of coal that is used at the hospital, the following figures in production will give you some idea of what may have been used for the year ending June 30, 1928. Among the many items are the following: Steam produced: 496,999,000 pounds.

Electric current generated: 2,832,204 kilowatt-hours.

Artesian water: 259,501,000 gallons.

Refrigeration and ice produced: 7,540 tons.
One and three phase motors operated: 300.

Quantity of shoes manufactured with motors used on machines operated by patients: About 10,000 pairs.

Brooms made: 480 dozen.

Brushes made: 3,000.

Meals served to patients from kitchens operated by steam produced from main power plant: 4,758,000.

EXTENDED REMARKS OF MARY E. HENAUGHAN

Hon. GODFREY G. GOODWIN,

AMERICAN EQUITY ASSOCIATION,
Washington, D. C., March 1, 1929.

House Office Building, Washington, D. C.

DEAR SIR: I testified at the hearing of the subcommittee of the House Expenditures Committee, investigating St. Elizabeths Hospital, of which you are chairman, yesterday.

At the hearing it was ruled that the witnesses might extend their remarks by giving same in writing to the reporter.

I wish to add to my remarks the statement that with reference to my testimony to the effect that certain official agencies in the District of Columbia were in collusion with the officials of St. Elizabeths Hospital in connection with the denial to certain persons of their civil rights and "railroading" those persons into St. Elizabeths Hospital, my impression that such collusion existed was strengthened from reading an article entitled "Strange Insanity in Washington, D. Č.,” published in Plain Talk magazine of February, 1928.

The article in question is embraced in pages 223 to 230 inclusive, of that magazine. I append hereto a copy of the magazine and request that the article mentioned be inserted in the record, as my authority for the statements which I made yesterday.

Yours very truly,

MARY E. HENAUGHAN.

STRANGE INSANITY IN WASHINGTON

By DONALD MCDOUGAL

[We didn't believe this article at all when it came to us from Mr. P. H. Skinner, member of the staff of the Washington Times, who writes under the pen name of McDougal. In fact, it irritated us, and we sent the thing to an investigator in Washington to check it up. Then descended upon us an avalanche of affidavits and court records-and from the other side only words. We rub our eyes and ask, "Who's looney now?"]

Mr. Avery C. Marks, managing editor of the Washington Times, called me up at the police court and gave me instructions for a new assignment.

"There's a wide difference of opinion," he said, "on the question of jury trials in lunacy cases. One side won't listen to anything that sounds like locking a man up without due process of law, no matter what he's charged with-whether murder or dementia precox; the other holds it's a cinch the doctor knows more about such things than any jury of laymen. A man may be crazy as a June bug and give no indication of it while he's on the stand. A day or two after he's released he goes out and kills some one.

According to reports, lunatics are being released wholesale from St. Elizabeths asylum on habeas corpus proceedings. More than 50 have been turned loose this year. There's a report that just the other day a man was released by the jury, and two hours afterwards he was caught prowling around the court with a revolver, intending to kill the judge. And more are being released every week.'

"

After spending a week or two getting oriented on the subject, I visited St. Elizabeths, the National Government's hospital for the insane, and requested a statement showing the number of patients released by jury trial over the doctor's protest since the beginning of the year. This was furnished me by Dr. Arthur P. Noyes, assistant superintendent of the institution.

Examination of the statement showed that of the 62 patients who had applied for habeas corpus relief, Dr. W. A. White, superintendent of St. Elizabeths, had held confined in the madhouse, for periods ranging from 6 months to 14 years, 42 citizens who, since their release by the jury, have conducted themselves normally.

Of these 62 patients, 24 claimed they had been illegally committed to the asylum and 38 claimed they were of sound mind. In each case Doctor White replied that the patient had been properly committed, and, furthermore, all were of unsound mind, dangerous to be at large, and should be held in custody. The court released 18 petitioners as of sound mind, while 22 were released because of illegal commitment. Doctor White assented to the release of two others, after the habeas corpus proceedings were instituted. Of the remaining 20 patients, 15 were remanded to Doctor White's custody and 5 cases are still pending at this writing.

Immediately upon their release, six of the illegally committed patients were seized in the corridor of the courthouse, at Doctor White's request, and charged by him with being dangerous lunatics, unfit to be at large. In each case the patient demanded a second habeas corpus hearing. As a result of these second hearings, one patient was declared by a jury to be of unsound mind, in one case the patient was discharged without lunacy hearing, one withdrew his petition, one case is still pending for lack of funds, one was declared of sound mind, and the sixth patient was freed without further opposition.

Thus the statement showed a total of 43 releases over the doctor's protest, 1 of the 42 having run the gauntlet twice.

Although the first of the 42 patients was discharged January 25, 1926, and the last on October 29, 1926, no depredations of any sort, beyond the ordinary cussedness of humanity, have developed as a result. For periods ranging from 11 to 20 months these 42 ex-patients have been mingling with their fellows every day, going about their business and indistinguishable from the general mass of citizens. The worst offense that I have been able to trace against any of them is a traffic court conviction for cutting a corner.

No conduct that would justify confinement was charged against any of these 42 ex-patients, as far as I was able to learn after questioning Doctor White, Doctor Noyes, Dr. D. Percy Hickling, head of the psychopathic ward of Washington's municipal hospital, District Attorney Peyton Gordon, and Assistant Corporation Counsel W. H. Wahly.

Investigation of the report about the man who was going to shoot the judge disclosed a propaganda story as artificially put together as any German atrocity concoction set up during the recent unpleasantness. Several other frontpage, banner headline scare stories rested on the same slippery foundation. All the Washington dailies joined the moon-baying. All of them believed the stories devoutly, and, in fact there was no apparent reason to do otherwise, for the reports were based on no less responsibility than the St. Elizabeths doctors themselves.

The fact was patent that with few exceptions all the crazy throat-cuttings, dynamitings, lust-clubbings and thrill murders we hear of so frequently are committed by persons whose sanity was never questioned up to the moment of the outbreak. But in regular lunacy cases, judges rendered decisions that were palpably not in accordance with the law; police made arrests that were palpably in violation of it, all in a panicky endeavor to outwit the lunatics.

Probably the newspaper reports of habeas corpus case number 1331 is the most fearsome of all the lot. Its bloodcurdling simplicity, the unnameable "something's-behind-you" feeling it leaves with the reader, marks it as a highly creditable piece of propaganda fiction.

In the following extract from a Washington daily of September 11, 1926, I substitute "John Doe" for the man's real name:

"John Doe, called, the most dangerous lunatic in St. Elizabeths Hospital, escaped yesterday at the District Supreme Court, and is at large in Washington. "Doe had been sent under heavy guard to the supreme court yesterday on writ to appear before Justice Hitz for a hearing on his status as an inmate of the asylum. It developed that Doe had been committed to the institution upon request of the War Department, although he had not been adjudged insane.

'Working on this technicality Richard Roe, former convict inmate at the asylum, discharged from there, after his sentence had expired, obtained a writ demanding Doe's release, according to Dr. Arthur Noyes, assistant superintendent of St. Elizabeths.

"Justice Hitz was about to release Doe, looking for his immediate rearrest for mental observation upon a legal course, when the man disappeared.

"When his escape was discovered, hospital authorities, fearing violence of the lunatics, immediately instituted a search. Up to midnight, police had been unable to locate the man.

The hospital authorities apparently were unnecessarily perturbed about the possible violence of the ex-patient. Doe has been living in New York City and Brooklyn since September 20, 1926, coming daily into contact with hundreds of people, and giving no offense to anyone.

A few inaccuracies in Doctor Noyes's story to the newspaper men are worthy of mention. Doe did not escape, but was released by the court, and walked out of the courtroom in full view of the judge, the bailiffs, the assistant prosecuting attorney, the two hospital attendants, and the spectators. Doe was not sent to the court "under heavy guard," but was accompanied, in a routine way, as were the other 61 petitioners, by two run-of-the-mine attendants.

Since the year 1855, when St. Elizabeths was established, the Secretary of War and the Secretary of the Navy have claimed and exercised the right to effect the incarceration of certain classes of persons by orders about the equivalent of the lettres de cachet of Louis XV. On the authority of such orders, which must bear a statement that the victim is in need of treatment for mental disorder, soldiers, sailors, and certain classes of civilian employees could be, and have been, seized and thrown into the locked wards of the institution, or into Howard Hall, an adjunct, there to remain until released by the committing authority or by death. And this without notice to the prospective prisoner that such order was contemplated; without court hearing or opportunity to prepare a defense. Later the Secretary of the Treasury exercised this valuable privilege; then the Secretary of the Interior. Of late years the Director of the Veterans' Bureau has claimed the right to order the incarceration of any beneficiary of the bureau, and in several hundred instances has effected such incarcerations, and men who, in 1917 and 1918 went overseas find themselves, six or seven years after their discharge, seized and locked up in this camouflage bastille. Women who enlisted as nurses or yeomen after being clear of the service for lo! these many years, now

find themselves operating sudsy machines in the hot laundry. Twenty persons have been killed by maniacal fellow patients and quick-tempered keepers in the last 10 years, according to a recent report on St. Elizabeths by the Comptroller General of the United States.

Altogether, some five or six million persons have acquired a sublegal status through this lettre de cachet arrangement; any of them may be sent to the asylum offhand, without notice or opportunity for court hearing. According to a statement made by Doctor White to this writer, one-half the 4,000 patients of St. Elizabeths are held on these lettre de cachet proceedings.

The case of Mrs. Margaret M. Roche, former war nurse, takes us through this bastille of the United States Government in a most instructive way. She gives assent to the use of her name in this article.

Honorably discharged from war service in 1920, Mrs. Roche, then Miss Heeney, was allowed compensation for disabilities incurred in the service. She continued her nursing activities, however, and in 1922 was assigned to the Veterans' Bureau hospital at Perry Point, Md., where several cases of influenza had developed.

One of her patients was the chief of the hospital's guards, David Roche. The wedding was celebrated in June, 1923. Two years later she contracted influenza herself, and becoming delirious, wandered out to the hospital campus. The hospital doctors pronounced her insane, and shipped her to Mount Hope Sanitarium. Within a few weeks the fever had run its course, the delirium had vanished, and Mrs. Roche realized where she was. She begged the doctors to find a place for her in Walter Reed Hospital, where, she understood, there was a ward for women patients. After several days of beseeching and pleading she was transferred to Washington. Never having visited the Capital before, she had no means of knowing that she had been consigned to St. Elizabeths instead of Walter Reed. Her case was diagnosed as dementia praecox and she was kept under close observation for two months. at the end of which time she was allowed at her husband's request to return to Perryville on parole.

At her husband's further request on April 20, 1926, she was finally discharged from the hospital as mentally competent. Being now legally qualified to transact business, she bought an automotile for $750, and at the suggestion of Mr. Roche signed a check for $1,000. Her compensation and 10 years savings, invested in stocks and bonds, amounted to about $6,000.

A few days after signing the check-May 4, 1926-Mrs. Roche was told by her husband that certain compensation due her was being held at St. Elizabeths, and that she was requested to call personally to receive it.

Her husband accompanied her as far as Baltimore, where he left her, agreeing to meet her on the return trip. He had business to attend to, he explained. At the last minute he reboarded the train, and, in a different coach, trailed his wife to Washington. From Union Station he followed her in a taxi to the hospital. From there he hurried to the Veterans' Bureau, whence he returned in less than 60 minutes with a lettre de cachet signed by Maj. Gen. Frank T. Hines, director of the bureau.

Meanwhile Mrs. Roche had called at the business office of St. Elizabeths and stated her errand. The officials evidently knew what was expected of them. She was detained, on various pretexts, until her husband arrived with the Veterans' Bureau order, when she was thrust into a ward and locked up. All her valuables were stripped from her, including the key to the strong-box containing her bankbooks, stock certificates, and a modest collection of jewelry. The key and other valuables were turned over to Mr. Roche, who bade his wife a fond good-bye through the bars, and left for Perryville.

The activities of Mr. Roche, as described above, are from a transcript of his own testimony, given with extreme reluctance, under cross-examination at a court hearing a year or so later.

Mrs. Roche was kept in the ward for 10 months, or until March 11, 1927, when she succeeded in communicating with a Washington attorney, George F. Curtis, who, after hearing her story, accepted her case in consideration of her promissory note for $500 in lieu of a cash payment-a detail of much importance to Mrs. Roche, all of whose funds were, by kindness of the hospital authorities, in custody of Mr. David Roche.

The habeas corpus proceedings immediately instituted by Mr. Curtis were fought tooth and nail by St. Elizabeths, the district attorney's office, the Veterans' Bureau, Mr. Roche, and-when the tide of battle seemed to be turning hopelessly against them-the corporation counsel's office and the municipal hospital.

At the close of the first day of the trial-which required three days-Justice Hitz addressed his prospective jurors thus: