can go before a magistrate, and if they substantiate their charge against the person, that person is deemed to be a vagrant.

Q. Wouldn't the effect be precisely the same if the Commissioners discharged that person and he should then come up and roam about the city?

A. No; because he would come back right away.

Q. Supposing they asked him to go to work and he refused and they discharged him, and he should then apply again for admission at Long Island, and should go to the Commissioners' office and say that he had no visible means of support, couldn't they under that statute complain of him to the magistrate of the city as a vagrant?

4. No; because he said he had no visible means of support. He would say that he was not living without any visible means of support that he was liable to die, and that he came upon the town for help to keep him alive. That is the trouble. Here we have an honest set of paupers in this city, men who from some misfortune, some sickness, some trouble, have come upon the public charge; and I say it is not right that those persons should be taken down to the island and be kept there with a class of vagrants-men who go around the city doing nothing, and who, if you ask them to do any work, demand their discharge, come up here to the city, and then go right back again. I say that those people should be complained of as vagrants.

Q. Then, you believe in the classification of the people in this institution ?

A. I believe in a classification that will keep the honest poor from contamination with the criminal poor.

Q.

Yes, sir.

A. I do, most certainly.

Q. And from your experience and knowledge of the public institutions, is any such policy as that in existence?

A. I don't know. I don't think there is. I don't see how under the law it can be done. I say that frankly.

Q. But you think it should be in existence ?

A.

I don't see how any man can question it.

Q.

You believe in a thorough classification of that kind? A. I do, thoroughly.

Q. (By Mr. BRANDEIS.) How do you account for the failure of that bill to pass?

A. Oh, I acconut for it in various ways. I don't know much about it. It is very easy to excite sympathy and to say: "Here is an effort to take a poor person and carry him down to the island and compel him to work, and subject him to rigorous treatment."

Q. Well, as a matter of fact, that didn't happen, did it ?

A. Well, I don't know. I had done my duty in the matter, I thought. I had gone as far as I thought I was called upon to. I went before the committee and said that I thought they ought to have the power, and that I thought it was a good thing for the city that they should have that power, and gave them my reasons; and, having secured the committee's report upon it, with that, as with all other bills up in the Legislature, my actual connection with it ceased.

2. But it is not a bill that you should despair of having passed at all ?

A. I don't see how anybody can object to it. All the Overseers of the Poor can do is simply to say to a person, "You shall do certain work;" and they cannot do that unless the official physician certifies that the work they require of him is proper and suited to his age, strength, and capacity. Well, now, I don't see how anybody can say that a person, no matter whether he is a pauper or anybody else, whether he is under the city's charge, or in the house of a friend, if he is there to be taken care of, should object to doing anything that a

reputable physician says is "suited to his age, strength, and capacity," if he is honest. Anything else, Mr. Chairman?

The CHAIRMAN. That is all Mr. Bailey.

Mr. REED. Mr. Chairman, I have sent for General Donohoe, and I suppose he will be here in a minute.

The CHAIRMAN. The committee will take a recess, then, until General Donohoe arrives.

(The committee took a recess at 8.39 P.M. until 8.47 P.M.)

MICHAEL T. DONOHOE. Resumed.

Q. (By Mr. BRANDEIS.) General Donohoe, you have brought with you the books which will enable you to answer the questions which I put to you, have you not?

A. I did not. I will explain why to you, if you wish. After I got a bite to eat, I have been ever since picking out the bills and the amounts expended for the pump and those matters which you spoke to me about, and the reservoir; but I have not got through with it, as they have to be picked out very carefully. I have to be very careful in respect to some of the charges, as, for instance, a bill for cement which I have in mind now. A portion of that cement was used for the foundations, and a part of it was used for the reservoir. I was at work upon it when they sent the messenger and said the committee wanted me here ; and so I got my record book and came back. I can answer in a general way as to what the lump sum of the cost will be, as far as I went, if that will answer.

Q. Can you give it with substantial accuracy?

A. Yes, I think so.

2. Now, will you tell us in regard to the fire appliances at Rainsford Island — what the cost of those was that have been put in since the Board of Visitors called attention to there need?

A. I haven't got to Rainsford Island.

Q. You hadn't got there?

A. No, sir. I was on Long Island, altogether. I didn't touch Rainsford Island.

Q. Then probably I had better postpone examining you until you have got those amounts.

4. Well, in that case I shall have the book-keeper do it, as he can do it a little more readily than I can. I am not the book-keeper, and it is a little more trouble for me than it will be for him.

Q. But you will be able to bring the books with you?

A. I don't think there will be any objection. They are making a draft now, but I think I can.

Mr. BRANDEIS.-We are willing to ask the questions of the bookkeeper, if he would prefer it. The book-keeper can be here to assist him.

Mr. REED. What kind of a book is it, general?

The WITNESS. Well, we have a journal and ledger. We find out from the ledger account whom we got materials from, and then a reference to the journal gives the particulars.

Mr. REED. — Then you have two books that you have been at work

on P

The WITNESS. Yes, sir- three. Some of these things were paid for out of our regular appropriation. Those expenditures would show on what we term our Bill Book.

Mr. BRANDEIS. Well, I should like to have those three books here, then, general.

The WITNESS.- Very well, sir.

Q. (By Mr. RILEY.) How are your records made- you may sit down, if you wish.

I don't quite understand you.

Q.

Well, you produce a book of records here and you read from it. A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, I would like to know how that is made up?

A.

That is made up at the time of the meeting. At the time that any vote is passed or whenever I am notified that any paper is to be placed on file, I put it dowu upon a small book; and then that is read to the Board and copied into this and signed by me as the record.

Q.

That is, whenever the Board is in session, you are present?

A. Well, not always.

Q. Well, how can you get the record?

4.

Q.

A.

Q. A.

The Board is always in session - continuance session.
At midnight?

If they go there.

Wonderful word that word “if."

Well, so far as adjournment is concerned, the Board has never adjourned since it was formed. Since the Commissioners organize every year there is no sine die adjournment.

Q. They do have meetings at which they transact business, do they not?

A.

Q.

A.

Q.

A.

Q.

Or if I am absent, somebody else is.

You don't mean to say the meetings are going on all the time? A. The business is going on all the time, which forms a part of the record.

Q. The business of this world will never stop-not even when you and I are gone. We won't even be missed, I am afraid. Now, the meetings are not going on continuously, are they?

Q. Very well. Now, when the Board has a meeting for the transaction of business, are you present?

A. When I am in town, and not on my vacation or sick, or something of that kind; yes.

Q.

you?

And when you are not there, is there anybody to substitute for

A. They select a secretary pro tem. when I am away.

Q.

And when you are not there, you write down the record of the meeting?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, that is written in a small book, isn't it?

Q. Well, whether a book or a sheet of paper, it is preserved, of

Q. So that the original entries, of course, you haven't The original entries you don't keep ?

A. No, sir, not as a rule.

Q. Now, when the meeting is over, what do you do with the memorandum ?

A. I take it out to my desk and put it into the small book, if I have put it on a piece of paper, as I said.

Q. Well, when you get it on to the small book, what next?

A. Then the next time that they call for a reading of the records

what might be termed "executive sessions" I go in and read those records.

Q. What do you read from the small book?

A. Yes, sir.

2.

A.

Of course you read from the small book?
Yes, sir.

2. Because those are the records?

A. Those are minutes of the last meeting.

Q, You read from the small book because that is the record of the last meeting?

A. I read from the small book, being the minutes of the last meeting or meetings.

A.

You use the word “ minutes," and I use the word "records; and possibly we mean the same thing.

4. Probably we do.

Q. Do we?

A. Probably we do.

"

Q. Then you read from the small book because that is the book that contains the record?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. That being so, why shouldn't that book be preserved?

A. With the reading of the records, it sometimes happens at some meetings that the records are changed in that book. Some member might object. They might say that the record was not exactly right, or that I didn't take up the sense of the vote or of the expression which was used; and it is corrected there in that book.

Q. That is, the records are changed by a vote of the Board?

A. Certainly. When the question comes on their approval, they are either approved or disapproved or changed to their approval.

Q. Let us see if we both understand the law relating to such records alike. (Reading:)

The records of the proceedings of every Board shall be made upon the day of the meeting by the secretary thereof, and be read and approved at the next meeting, and shall give the names of the members present at the meetings, and their votes and proceedings thereat.

You understand this law, of course?

A. Yes, sir.

Q. Now, you complied with it?

A.

tions.

I comply with the orders of the Commissioners of Public Institu

Q. Well, what I am asking now is, if, as secretary of the Commissioners, you comply with this provision of law ?

4. I read the records whenever the Commission requires me so to do.

Q. Still, I must press my question. Do you comply with this provision of law?

Mr. PROCTOR.

The WITNESS.

He has nothing to do with the compliance with it. I was just about to say what the gentleman did that my duty is to do that which the Commissioners of Public Institutions instruct me to do. If they want the records read twice or three times a day, I will read them and take care of them; if only once a month, that is their matter and not mine.

A. Now, again I press my question: Do you comply with this provision of law?

A. I can answer you no further or any different than I have.

Q. Cannot you say yes or no?

A. I shall not say yes or no.

Q. In response to my question you refuse to answer by yes or no?

A. I have answered you

that I read the records whenever the

Commissioners of Public Institutions ask me.

Q. That is not just the question which I asked you. If there is any doubt about your position and mine, I will put it again. Have you complied with this provision of law?

4. I have complied with every request and provision that the Commissioners of Public Institutions ever asked me to do.

Q. I didn't ask you that. Have you complied with this simple provision of law?

The CHAIRMAN. - That is a proper question, Mr. Donohoe, for you to

answer.

Ald. LEE. — Why don't you ask him if the Board met every day in executive session. I think that is the first question you should ask him. Mr. RILEY. - We differ. Will you be kind enough to answer?

The WITNESS.-I have no desire to qualify anything about the records, but I have always

Q. (By Mr. RILEY.) Will you be kind enough to say whether you have always complied with this simple provision of law?

A. That is for the Commission to say. That question will be answered by them.

Q. Have you complied with this simple provision of law?

A. I have answered that question all I am going to, without any disrespect to you or the committee.

Mr. PROCTOR. - Mr. Chairman, it seems to me that the Commission must appoint their clerk or secretary, and it is not for him to answer any such question as that. The Commissioners must answer that question. He obeys their orders, and he certainly has no other duty. The ordinance applies to the Board "Every officer and hoard in charge

of a department" is what it says.

Mr. RILEY. — You have learned something, have you?

Mr. PROCTOR. I haven't from you.

Mr. RILEY. — I am afraid it would be hard to teach you anything. Mr. PROCTOR. — Oh, I shouldn't try to learn anything from you. The CHAIRMAN. - This section 13 says that " The records of the proceedings of every board shall be made upon the day of the meeting by the secretary thereof, and be read and approved at the next meeting. General Donohoe has stated that he was secretary of this Board of Commissioners of Public Institutions. The ordinance states several things which the secretary of every Board shall do as a part of his duties. The question which Mr. Riley has asked is, "Has that provision of law been complied with ;" and it seems to the Chair that it is a perfectly proper question to ask.

Mr. PROCTOR. Mr. Chairman, may I be heard one moment? General Donohoe has stated the facts. Now, that is all General Donohoe can state.

Q. (By Mr. RILEY.) General, when you were inducted into office, you were sworn, were you not?

A. I was.

Q. Did you understand that your oath was to obey the Commissioners, or to obey the law?

4. To perform my duties

Q. According to the law?

A. According there was no " according to law" about it.

Ald. LEE. To the best of your ability.

The WITNESS. To the best of my ability.

Q. Don't you think you were sworn to perform your duties according to the law?

A. I made no thought about it at all. I took the oath to perform the duties prescribed for me to the best of my ability.

Q. According to law?