Henderson Daily Dispatch

TO PROBE INSANE HOSPITAL FURTHER
Legislative Committee Plans Further Visit to Morganton Shortly.
Daily Dispatch Bureau,
In the Sir Walter Hotel
Raleigh, March 19.--A legislative committee on insane asylums is planning to go to Morganton soon, perhaps this week-end, again to investigate conditions there. The probe, begun some time ago, has been largely lost sight of because of the sensational chain gang probe.
There is a great difference of opinion in the legislature as to the cause of alleged bad conditions in the Morganton State hospital for the insane. Some members of the General Assembly believing that a change in management and rules would go a long way toward relieving what is admitted to be an unsavory state of affairs. Other legislators believe that the condition is caused primarily because of drastically-reduced appropriations for the institution.
Legislative sentiment for an insight into the Morganton institution was crystallized a few weeks ago when Miss Edith Davis, a nurse at the hospital appeared here before the joint House and Senate Committee on Insane Asylums. So impressed were committee members that they had her tell the joint appropriations committee her story. She related that nurses at Morganton receive $21 a month, that they work 15 hours a day, that they have no social privileges. She further related that on many cold days this winter that there was little or no fire and that nurses and inmates went about the institution wrapped in blankets in an effort to keep warm. Several committee members were observed to be weeping during her simple recital.
Dr. McCampbell, for 40 years superintendent of the hospital at Morganton, appeared the next day before the committee. He said that rules regarding inmates and attendants had not been changed during his tenure in office and declared that he did not see how the Raleigh hospital (Dix Hill) apparently operated in a more efficient manner.
Total expenditures for the Morganton hospital last year were $251,163. An appropriation of $324,265 for the institution is contained in the appropriations bill. The increased allotment has not yet been approved by the legislature.