Guild: State Supervision of Charities 



9 



later. One of the boards is administrative or fiscal, the 

 other is supervisory. These States are California, Colorado, 

 Illinois, Minnesota, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, 

 Ohio, Oklahoma, Rhode Island, South Dakota, Tennessee, and 

 Vermont. 



In the duties and powers of boards in the same State there 

 is also wide discrepancy. The prison commission may be ad- 

 ministrative, the charity board supervisory. There may be 

 a dual system over the charities, while in the same State the 

 prison commission may be supervisory and the lunacy com- 

 mission administrative, as is the case in New York. 



Moreover, there is considerable difference in the scope of 

 the authority of all of these boards. Some may be strictly 

 confined to the supervision of State institutions, while others 

 may have power of inspecting and investigating local and 

 county institutions and even private charity organizations. 

 Some may be given duties which emphasize the fiscal side of 

 the institutions, while others may be specifically forbidden to 

 interfere in any way with the administration of the institu- 

 tions. 



In a few States, the boards have control or supervision of 

 certain groups of institutions located close together. Such 

 is particularly the case in Rhode Island. Certain States, 

 including Minnesota, Rhode Island, South Dakota, and Ver- 

 mont, have special State boards of visitors to State institu- 

 tions, while many of the southern and western States with 

 well developed county systems supplement the work of the 

 State boards with boards of county visitors or county boards 

 of charities.^° 



In the main, however, certain tendencies may be noted. 

 The larger States, which have several institutions in the same 

 class, that is, several hospitals for the insane or several peni- 

 tentiaries, tend to divide the work of charity supervision by 

 placing a separate board over such institutions. There is no 

 such tendency in most States, either because the area of the 

 State is small, or because there are but one or two institu- 

 tions in the same class, so that one board can cover the whole 

 State satisfactorily. Each State usually has some one prob- 

 lem predominating, — the care of paupers, children, insane, 

 or criminals, and such a State tends to develop a board whose 



1" Indiana and South Carolina are good examples. 



