The Oklahoma charities commissioner whose administration has secured
the return of a million dollars to Indian orphans under incompetent
or dishonest guardians.
]
The legal department conducted under Kate Barnard, the commissioner, by
Dr. J. H. Stolper, has taken up a vast number of Indian orphan cases.
The results have been positively surprising. The legal department has
not failed in one single case. The entire amount of money wrested from
incompetent or dishonest guardians and returned to orphans has been
nearly $950,000. The value of the land is not stated but it is probably
several times as much as that of the actual cash returned. The number of
minors represented in the report is 1,373 and the number of cases 1,361.
These were tried out in thirty-six different county courts. The cost of
handling this enormous amount of legal work as well as all the legal
work in the office was less than $6,000 which covers the salary of the
general attorney, that of one stenographer and the necessary travelling
expenses.
The commissioner suggests that, as there seems to be some difficulty in
appropriating sufficient money for the support of her office, she should
be allowed to charge a uniform fee of $5 for each case of the kind which
is undertaken, that fee going to the support of the Department of
Charities and Correction. At present no fees are charged from any of the
minors.
Beside acting as next friend of orphan children, the general attorney of
the commission has been for a year or more acting as public defender. It
seemed to the Legislature that there was as much need of a public
defender as of a public prosecutor and accordingly, at the last
Legislature a law was passed creating the office. This the governor
vetoed, but his veto was not in time to defeat the bill. However, the
question of the salary was not taken up and Dr. Stolper, attorney for
the commissioner, was appointed public defender and has been doing the
work. A number of interesting instances of miscarriage of justice which
the public defender has been able to remedy are given in the report.
The report gives the usual account of inspection of institutions both
state and county and shows that the commissioner with her very limited
office and inspection force was able to do much more work than would be
expected. On the whole it seems as though the plan of a single headed
commission is a success in the state of Oklahoma.