Page:American Journal of Sociology Volume 11.djvu/785

 A DECADE OF OFFICIAL POOR-RELIEF IN INDIANA 769

became a law, 17 and experts said it was the most advanced piece of legislation for official poor-relief on the statute-books of any state. It was the first instance of the enactment of charity- organization principles into law and of their application to an entire state. It provided for the investigation of each case; for securing the help of friends and relatives of the poor ; for giving transportation to no one unless sick, aged, injured, or crippled, and then only in the direction of his legal residence, if he was unable to show that he could be cared for elsewhere ; for co-opera- tion with existing relief societies; and for a report to the board of county commissioners when the aid given a person or family reached $15, or when relief, irrespective of the amount, extended over a period of three months, in order that the approval of the board might be had before additional relief was given.

A significant provision of this law of 1899 required that when- ever a board of county commissioners desired to make an allow- ance to poor persons, as permitted under the law of 1852, it could do so only by entering an order requiring the overseer of the poor to furnish the relief needed, and the overseer was directed to enter upon his record a report of all relief so furnished. How- ever, there was passed, at a later date of the same session of the legislature, a "county reform act," 18 one clause of which pro- hibited the board of county commissioners granting relief to any person not an inmate of some county institution. This was inter- preted in many counties as not permitting the board of commis- sioners to make to the township trustees the advancement of funds required by them as overseers of the poor. Several local courts ruled on the question, all of them against the contention. To prevent any further misunderstanding, the legislature of 1901 specifically made it the duty of the county council to appropriate, and the board of county commissioners to advance, the money necessary for the relief of the poor in the several townships of each county.

One provision of the 1899 law, that which limited the aid a trustee might give without the consent of the county commis- sioners was quite generally misunderstood, many trustees inter-

Ibid., p. 354. "Acts of 1899, p. lai.