1916] OF THE SENATE. 39

FARM FOR INEBRIATES.

The time appeared to me to have arrived when this State
should follow the lead of other States in adopting a more
humane method of treating non-criminal addicts to intoxicat-
ing liquors and drugs, and to segregate them from criminal
inebriates while under treatment.

I, therefore, on April 27, 1915, appointed a commission com-
posed of Dr. Nathan R. Gorter, then Commissioner of Health
of Baltimore City; Police Justices Charles R. Schirm and J.
Frank Supplee, Jr.; George R. McCleary, of the Federated
Charities, and Raymond E. Kennedy, of the Staff of a Balti-
more newspaper, to investigate and examine into the question
of establishing a farm for the treatment of inebriates, and to
report to the Governor.

This Commission discussed the question with Dr. Henry M.
Hurd and Dr. Adolf Meyer, of the Johns Hopkins Hospital,
and Dr. Edward N. Brush, Superintendent of the Shepherd
and Enoch-Pratt Hospital, and during the Conference of Chari-
ties and Corrections, held in Baltimore in May, 1915, con-
sulted with two of the delegates who are experts on the subject,
Dr. Erwin H. Neff, Superintendent of the Norfolk State Hos-
pital, at Norfolk, Mass., and Dr. O. F. Lewis, Secretary of
the New York State Prison Association; it also had a Com-
mittee visit the farm for inebriates at Norfolk, Mass., which
contains 1, 060 acres, and has about 700 inmates, where the
most advanced methods of treatment appeared to be in opera-
tion.

The Committee recommends the establishment of a farm for
inebriates in this State, and the adoption of the Massachusetts
plan for treatment, by colonizing the inmates according to their
more or less advanced habits, and combining medical treat-
ment with outdoor work.

For this purpose the Commission recommends the purchase
of a farm containing from 750 to 1, 000 acres of land with
improvements, easy of access to Baltimore, at a cost of not
more than $50, 000, allowing out of this sum an amount for
repairing, equipping and preparing for occupancy such build-