CONCERNING A MINOR REFORM IN INDIANA 743
Meager as were these first statistics, when the figures were put together and compared some very interesting facts were dis- closed. The first fact noticed was that the total of outdoor relief for the state was much larger than the similar total for some other states, notably than that of Ohio, which had a mil- lion more people, the amount given per capita of the total popu- lation being more than double that in Ohio. The second fact noticed was that the amount of relief given in different counties bore no apparent relation to other conditions of the counties. It was expected that the counties containing the larger centers of population would show the largest per capita cost ; that thriv- ing agricultural communities would show by far the lowest cost. But none of these things was apparent. The county whose poor relief was proportionately the most costly gave nineteen times as much per capita as that in which it seemed the least costly. Yet they were both agricultural counties with no large towns. It began at once to appear certain that not the presence or absence of large towns, nor the irregularity of employment in certain manufacturing industries, nor the varying habits of the people not these, nor any of them, was the chief cause in pro- ducing the varying effects shown, but chiefly, if not entirely, the cause was difference of administration. It seemed emphatically true that the counties which chose to manufacture paupers had many, and those which declined that industry had few.
The second annual report of the board presented an elabo- rate statement in the matter of poor relief. The expenditures of the counties were worked out into comparisons of total expense, of cost of the county asylum, the county orphans' home, and the outdoor relief, etc. When one county was shown to be giving to its poor no less than $1.07 per capita of its total popu- lation, the county paper pointed with pride to the liberality of the public officials. It need not be said that it was a pro- administration paper that did so.
Public attention was drawn slowly to the subject. In 1890 the state board called the first Indiana State Conference of Char- ities and Correction together. At this meeting the subject of outdoor relief elicited a long and interesting discussion. The
