StarBulletin.com

Back in the Day: July 5, 1922


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POSTED: Saturday, July 04, 2009

”;Back in the Day,”; appearing every Sunday, takes a look at articles that ran on this date in history in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin, Hawaii's oldest continuously published daily newspaper. The items appear verbatim, so don't blame us today for yesteryear's bad grammar.

Insane asylum hard pressed to house patients

Congestion at the Oahu hospital for the insane, and an imperative need for additional building there, either of a temporary or permanent nature, in order to properly accommodate the patients, brought up at the governor's cabinet meeting this morning the necessity for the development by departments of the territorial administration which control public institutions of a broad building plan which will cover existing needs and at the same time make allowances for future growth.

From time to time during the past few years the problem of providing a new site for the hospital for the insane, together with an entirely new plant, has been discussed as the need for the change became more and more apparent. It has been discussed both by the cabinets and by the legislatures; but no definite action has been taken, and nothing definite is being considered now, unless, perhaps, the erection of buildings which could relieve congestion on the present site.

“;My feeling is,”; Governor Farrington explained this morning, “;that every person in charge of a public institution of institutions should have developed a broad building plan covering present necessities and make allowances for future growth; that is, every public school area in the territory, for example, should have a building plan proper so that the various persons who take charge will always have something to build to. The old theory has been to build a building when the money was obtained. There has been no design, either of grounds or of adequate buildings, and up to the time when money for building became available, the plans or ideas were carried in the back of someone's head. Consequently, if that head changed, the plans suffered.”;