PENNSYLVANIA 8 99 



board of public charities, by hospitals which maintain both medical and surgical staffs and 

 give lectures on mental diseases. For indigent patients treated in such wards the state pays 

 $2 a day. A state commission appointed in 1911 is to report on the condition of the feeble- 

 minded and epileptic in the state and on the advisability of their being segregated. The 

 legislature appropriated 25,000 for the state miners' hospital near Shamokin (and $60,000 

 to complete buildings); $94,500 for the similar hospital at Hazleton; $24,000 for that at 

 Blossburg; $21,000 for that at Mercer; $180,000 for that at Fountain Springs; $2,900,000 for 

 the care and treatment of indigent insane; $87,500 for improvements at the south-eastern 

 insane hospital (Norristown) ; $250,000 for buildings for the Philadelphia institution for the 

 feeble-minded; $277,500 for the eastern Pennsylvania institution for feeble-minded and 

 epileptics at Spring City (and $280,000 for building) ; and large sums to many private charities, 

 hospitals, etc. The state has purchased 5,000 acres (mostly farming land) in Centre county, 

 for a new western penitentiary; at the end of 1912 construction work had not begun. Phila- 

 delphia has begun an experiment, on the Byberry tract, in farming for the mildly insane. 



History. The most interesting tendency in the politics of the state in 1911-12 

 was a movement towards reform, the force of which was affected by quarrels between 

 state politicians and also by the establishment cf the National Progressive party. In 

 1910 a Keystone Independent party nominated two Democrats and two Republicans 

 for the major state offices. The Republican state ticket was elected, but its candidate 

 for governor, John Kinley Tener (b. 1863; a professional baseball player in 1886 and 

 1888-90; a representative in Congress in 1909-11) received only 415,611 votes 10382,127 

 for the Keystone candidate, William H. Berry (b. 1852; Democrat; state treasurer in 

 1906-10). The Democratic candidate, Webster Grim (b. 1866; state senator since 1903), 

 had only 129,395. 



In the municipal elections of 1911 (November 7) Rudolph Blankenburg (b. 1843) 

 defeated by 4,495 votes George Howard Earle (b. 1856), a lawyer who had been chosen 

 at the Republican primaries (September 30) over William S. Vare, whose brothers had 

 been state senators and city contractors implicated in the charges against the previous 

 (Republican) administration of Mayor John Edgar Reyburn. The other Republican 

 nominees were elected. In the Democratic-Keystone fusion primaries Blankenburg, 

 a manufacturer and philanthropist, had defeated D. Clarence Gibboney, president of 

 the Philadelphia Law and Order Society and in 1910 candidate of the Keystone-In- 

 dependents for lieutenant-governor. In Pittsburg a fusion candidate was elected 

 judge of the common pleas court. Socialists were elected to office in New Castle, 

 Wheatland and Pymatuning (township). 



An attempt was made to reorganise and purify the Democratic organisation in 

 1911. James McClurg Guffey (b. 1839) was replaced as state chairman of the party 

 by George Wilkins Guthrie (b. 1848), who had been mayor of Pittsburg in 1906-09; 

 and Vance Criswell McCormick (b. 1872), mayor of Harrisburg in 1902-05, was promi- 

 nent in the reorganisation. 



In the presidential campaign of 1912, Roosevelt carried the Republican primaries 

 (April 13) and delegates-at-large were instructed for him by the state convention 

 (May i). In the primaries, at the Republican national convention, until the delegation 

 " bolted '' (June 19), and in the campaign after his nomination by the National Pro- 

 gressive party, he had the support of E. A. van Valkenburg, editor of the Philadelphia 

 North American, and of William Flinn, a contractor of Pittsburg, and a political rival of 

 Boies Penrose (b. 1860), Republican, United States senator since 1897. Penrose was 

 attacked on the alleged ground that he was an agent in the U. S. Senate of the Standard 

 Oil Company, and an attempt was made to discredit the candidacy of Taft because he 

 was supported by Penrose. Roosevelt secured control of the state party organisation 

 to such a degree that Flinn proposed that electors pledged to him should be put on the 

 ballot as Republicans. This was not done, but on the official ballot there were 8 

 electoral tickets, the Roosevelt electors appearing thrice, under the headings Roosevelt 

 Progressive, Bull Moose and Washington: 1 This was, of course, of some advantage 

 to Roosevelt, and he carried the state (38 electoral votes), receiving a popular vote 

 of 444,426, to 395,619 for Woodrow Wilson, 273,287 for Taft, and 80,915 for Debs, 



1 A state organisation of Progressives was called the Washington party. 



