Word: van
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Dates: during 1940-1949
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...case thus far rests on technicalities. Public feeling does not however, and if the decision of the Griswold Commission is against Dr. Van Waters, unless important now evidence in introduced, most of Massachusetts is going to be ashamed and sorry to lose...
Governor Paul Dever's special commission has now taken over the Van Waters case, to the intense relief of the entire Commonwealth. For many months, the public has been treated to a vicious series of incredible attacks in the press upon a woman who is undoubtedly one of the greatest social workers in the United States. Following these attacks, Miriam Van Waters was dismissed on January 11 as superintendent of the Women's Reformatory at Framingham by her superior, Commissioner of Correction McDowell. She demanded --and got--a special hearing to clear her record, but under a strange sort...
...even in the recent procedure, the most serious of the charges against Dr. Van Waters was exploded. McDowell claimed that she condoned, or failed to halt immoral activities among the inmates. The evidence, however, proved not only that reformatory officials took all possible measures against homosexuality, but that Framingham's record on this point was outstanding, far better than that in other state institutions under McDowell's department...
With this most damning allegation laid to rest, the Commissioner's case narrowed to instances where Dr. Van Waters had "followed the spirit of the law, not the letter," to use her own words. In the 1932-1948 period, Dr. Van Waters had a free hand in running the reformatory. She treated inmates as students, not criminals; she slowly reintroduced them to society by means of broad indenturing in outside employment, outside education courses, and supervised visits to nearby towns. Her results were brilliant. As many former inmates testified, Dr. Van Waters had literally saved their lives. And as many...
Commissioner McDowell, who entered office a year ago, was not in sympathy with Dr. Van Waters' methods. He had been trained along more traditional lines: prisoners were criminals, not students at a boarding-school, and no laxity in observing the law could be condoned by calling it "Special treatment" or progressivism. Last June, he handed down a set of directives to Dr. Van Waters drastically curtailing her program. McDowell claimed that she violated some of these directives; yet the overwhelming evidence showed that she honestly attempted to carry them out. In a few piddling instances, there were good reasons...