FLORENCE YESTERYEARS: 104 years ago
OCTOBER 14, 1898
Dr. C.H. Whetmore, superintendent of the Topeka insane asylum, sent his resignation to Gov. Leedy. Dr. Whetmore charges that members of the state board of charities have been on a protracted drunk for 15 months, that the so-called drug store in the asylum is really a joint where the officials carouse and resort to all kinds of debauchery, that some of the assistant physicians are not graduated doctors but are quacks, and were appointed in payment of debts Leedy owed them.
A letter written by Dr. C.H. Whetmore, superintendent of the state asylum for the insane, who resigned Saturday, says his assistants were incompetent, that the board of charities drank the supply of stimulants in the drug room, that Sen. Jumper has been on a protracted debauch for 15 months, and women patients have been insulted. "We tried," said P.H. Dolan, treasurer of the board of charities, "but Whetmore was a man of such violent temper that we had to depend a great deal on his subordinates. He must have got wind of what we planned to do, for he went to the Republican camp where he was told he would get a year's salary from them for quitting us right away and raising a row."
