They found him amenable. As far as Oglesby was concerned, they could take as long as they liked with their investigation; he was not planning to do anything with the committee’s report. Because he’d carefully perused the formal resolutions that had established the committee and concluded “no action on my part”16 was required. All he had to do, officially, was to take receipt of the finished study. After that, nothing. It was his duty only “to retain the custody of [it] until the meeting of the next General Assembly.”17
Which was in 1869: more than a year away.
In the meantime, he was going to sit on it. Life would continue just as before at the asylum, with McFarland at the helm—no matter what the committee had recommended.
What possible reason might Oglesby have had for sitting on the report for a year? It should not be forgotten that he and McFarland were close friends. So close, in fact, that Oglesby was known to write to the doctor, on behalf of other men, to ask him to retain women a little longer at the hospital. Both were on terms close enough to call in favors. Earlier that year, McFarland had written to Oglesby to do just that, seemingly asking him to intervene in the inquiry. But Oglesby had responded that the general assembly’s resolutions “clearly [say] that the whole subject shall be under the control of the investigating committee…I can have nothing to do with their action.”18
Yet the governor added, “It will be my duty to receive any [report?] they may choose to make…[and] in so far as I shall be able to act upon the matter, you may rest assured that every opportunity will extend to you to vindicate yourself.”19
Delaying publication for over a year would certainly give McFarland that chance. In the meantime, as far as the public was concerned, the investigated doctor would be left to continue in his role. Almost by default, he would seem faultless.
Elizabeth Packard had waited years for the asylum to be investigated. She’d waited years for the secrets behind the barred windows to be revealed. But it seemed, thanks to the governor’s intervention, she would be waiting a little while longer yet.
As for General Fuller, he was reported to toe the official line. Though journalists from at least five different newspapers waylaid him at his hotel in Springfield on December 5, begging him to release the report, he emphatically refused. He gave no reason as to why, being “exceedingly mysterious on the subject.”20 But perhaps he felt uncomfortable revealing that the powers that be were opposed to publication.
At last, he escaped the clamoring reporters and retired to his room. He was staying at the Leland, a fabulous five-story hotel on the northwest corner of Sixth and Capitol. It had opened only that January with a ball deemed “the social sensation of the season”21 and had already become a favorite watering hole of the prominent men of the city.
Yet Fuller struggled to take pleasure in his surroundings, luxurious as they were.
“She would take them by the hair of the head and lift them on the seat…”22
“She would often shove them back against the wall and choke them…”23
“One eye was black, and one side of her face was very much bruised…”24
“A straight jacket was placed upon them [and] their heads plunged under the water as long as it was safe to leave them…”25
Testimony about the abuse the patients had suffered. Testimony he had heard himself. Testimony that perhaps haunted him that December night—voices calling out to him, even though the governor had called for silence.
Could he really leave the patients to this terrible fate for another year?
Could he really countenance what could be conceived as a cover-up?
Could he really let the doctor get away with it?
Fuller had close connections with the Chicago Tribune…
Perhaps it was time to call in a favor of his own.
“There is something not merely mysterious but inexplicable in Gen. Fuller’s conduct in forthwith rushing up to the Chicago Tribune office,” the Illinois Daily State Journal later wrote. “After his precautions to have [the report] kept secret, we can scarcely reconcile his conduct with what would be expected from a sane man.”26
But perhaps a sane man, dedicated to justice and humanity, whose name was a synonym for “honor, integrity and fair dealing,”27 might just have decided that the maddest course of action was not to publish the report. Perhaps this sane man now decided to speak out. Whatever his reasons, whether selfish as some said or public-spirited as his reputation suggests, Fuller acted against the wishes of both his boss and the trustees.