USA > Connecticut > History of Connecticut, Volume II > Part 16
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For the disposal of garbage, not the improvement, but the develop- ment of a municipal system was needed. It was customary for garbage to be mixed with ashes and the removal of waste and ashes was long re-
725
THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
garded as the responsibility of the individual citizen.26 Clean-up cam- paigns were conducted in cities, such as New Britain, where a campaign to make the city "as clean as an Easter Lily" was launched in 1911 with leaflets and billboards in six different languages.27 Municipal neglect to make adequate provision for collection and disposition resulted, as in New Haven's tenement district, in piles of refuse "better imagined than described."28 Contractual arrangements entered into by towns resulted in infrequent service, the use of open barrels, wooden carts, and dumping in the suburbs to feed pigs, and hindered the development of a means for the proper disposition of garbage.29 As late as 1893, leaky box wagons could be seen strewing garbage through the streets of New Haven.30 The cremation of garbage was generally recognized as the proper method of disposing of refuse, but little headway was made toward this until well in the twentieth century.31
The problems plaguing the cities are further illustrated by the efforts to care for the indigent. With the influx of population to the cities and the fluctuation of a fluid economic society, there were many who needed relief.32 The state's responsibility was limited to those dis- charged from penal institutions and to others only during the first six months of residence.33 Not until 1907 was the state's responsibility broadened to include all residents who had not secured a settlement in a Connecticut town, although stringent settlement laws were reenacted in 1879. Until well into the twentieth century, a residence of several years was required for settlement, and, in addition residents who were not already inhabitants of the United States could gain a settlement only by the vote of the officials or inhabitants of a town.34 The indigent congregated in the cities, and, lacking a settlement elsewhere, were cared for when in need largely in almshouses.35
Each of the five cities owned their own almshouses, where contem- poraries accounted the care of the poor "proper" largely because of the systematized visits of ladies.35ª Yet, here the paupers, the insane, the feeble minded, and the diseased were mixed indiscriminately-the chil- dren with the adults. In Hartford and Waterbury, prisoners awaiting trial and in some instances sentenced offenders were also received. Except in Hartford and New Haven, the sexes were not generally separated.36 Also, there were countless numbers of "outdoor poor," those given aid,
726
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
but not institutionalized. These were described as a "great aggregation of misfortunes, incapacities, sorrows, miseries, diseases, vagrancies, vices, and crimes, breeding in and multiplying from generation to genera- tion." In 1882, Hartford alone supported 531 families, consisting of 622 adults and 799 children. The numbers on outdoor relief doubtlessly in- cluded the perennially unemployed and political hangers-on, for, when towns began to refer all persons asking for aid to the almshouses, the requests decreased noticeably. By the end of the century cities began to place their relief upon a systematized and business-like basis.37 Shortly after the turn of the century, trained social workers began to administer the charity departments of the large cities much to the consternation, it would seem, of the state officials.
The state liked to lessen its responsibility by "passing on" unfor- tunates to other jurisdictions. Sick persons were supplied with tickets home when they were in need of hospital attention. Whole families were shipped back to the place from which they came over protests that a little intelligent treatment would make them self-supporting and that "removal to their former residence would make them infinitely worse off in their economic status."38 Those locally dispensing aid for which the state was financially responsible were considered to be inclined, at times, to interpret the law liberally and to grant relief beyond the pe- riod strictly permitted. The attitude of the State Comptroller toward such practices is revealed in his direction to the Bridgeport Charities in the case of one Martin Bray to "have him placed on an express train not stopping between Bridgeport and New York" as soon as his condi- tion would permit. Also, instructions relative to one Harry Stevens were that if it were judged that the case was lingering "longer than was ab- solutely necessary" Stevens was "to be headed toward Niagara Falls."39
A concomitant of the inadequacy of the services for the relief of the poor was prostitution. In a single year, it was charged, over 2,000 un- employed women were turned away from the charity offices of the five largest cities. It was assumed that a great number of these turned to prostitution. It was held that "the unskilled laborer becomes a tramp; the unskilled woman, a prostitute."40 Dr. Thomas N. Hepburn, Secre- tary of the Connecticut Society of Social Hygiene, reported that in a city of 100,000 inhabitants hundreds of girls were sacrificed each year
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THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
for this purpose.41 Connecticut society chose to rely upon the force of law to eradicate the problem.42 No steps were taken to provide indus- trial and technical training for girls to fit them for industrial jobs. Connecticut was aware of the great wealth produced by the expanding industries, but was less sensitive to the social consequences in industrial
-
(Courtesy "Meriden Record-Journal"' )
MERIDEN-UNDERCLIFF HOSPITAL ADMINISTRATION BUILDING
development. The complacency, of which society was accused by Hep- burn, was, perhaps, its most astonishing feature.43
The lot of the indigent and the depraved was made endurable and its acceptance by the affluent and the influential made easier, perhaps, by the corner saloon. After 1872, when Connecticut repealed its prohibi- tory law, the sale of liquor in Connecticut was controlled under a li- cense law which gave a town the option of granting or refusing to its officials the right to issue licenses for the sale of spirituous liquors. With licenses ranging from $100 to $500 and all druggists, who could dis- pense liquor for medicinal purposes, paying only nominal fees, $64,460 were received from the beer and liquor licenses granted in the City of
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
Hartford in the year ending June, 1895. Saloons were apparently even more numerous in New Haven and Bridgeport.44 Waterbury was the only one of the five largest cities to choose prohibition under the op- tional law, voting against licensing in 1875 when evidence was sub- mitted to indicate that drunkenness and accompanying crimes had in- creased in Waterbury by 50 percent during the three years after the passage of the act as compared to the previous three years under the state-wide prohibitory law. A great outcry arose against the detectives who were hired to enforce prohibition and their lives and those of others who supported prohibition were threatened. Waterbury dis- avowed its prohibitory law after a year and a month.45
The Women's Christian Temperance Union and many local charity and religious organizations shifted from the support of tem- perance to the support of prohibition. They gained sufficient legislative support for a constitutional amendment prohibiting the sale of intoxi- cating liquors to pass in the General Assembly twice as required. The amendment, however, was not ratified by the people.46 The reformers next turned to the establishment of temperance restaurants, such as the "Wayside Inn" in Waterbury, which was designed to provide at cheap rates food and lodging and an attractive refuge for men from the temp- tations of the saloon.47 The saloon prevailed, however, as did most of the other social and health problems of the city.
It was electricity which directed urban living into the pattern of the modern city. In Hartford, the gas lights which had dotted the streets since 1849, were replaced with electric arc lights between 1883 and 1890. In other cities, however, lighting at public expense, remained a motley collection of arc, vapor, and gas lights until early in the next century.48 The standards for adequate lighting are indicated by the re- quest, tabled three times by the Hartford Aldermen, to install a gas light at the South Methodist Church where a portion of Main Street was "lighted in the best possible manner by two electric lamps, one two hundred feet distant and another four hundred feet distant."49 Incan- descent lighting had not been introduced by any of the Connecticut cities by 1890. Connecticut cities were, in fact, behind cities in other parts of the country, both as to the type of lighting and the number of lights per population. The only Connecticut city surpassing the 1890
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THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
national average of one lamp, paid for at public expense, to every 55 persons was New Haven, and its public lighting was almost entirely by gas.50 The first electric lights were installed by New Haven in 1890.51 Electricity was not applied to lighting as quickly as it was to transpor- tation.
DE WITT CLINTON.
Fourth of July EXCURSION.
THE CANAL BOAT DE WITT CLINTON, Will start from the Market . for Beach Port on Sa day morning (instead of Friday morning, as advertised, 6 o'clock, and return at sun-set. Passage, to and from, 50cts. Passengers to find th selves, except with cold water: that can be had at the ]
(Courtesy Conn. State Lib.)
FARMINGTON CANAL BOAT "DE WITT CLINTON," FROM A POSTER OF THE TIME
The introduction of electricity doomed the colorful horse-drawn railroads which had furnished transportation since the eighteen sixties. What might be called a system of transportation had been developed in Hartford and New Haven, when electrical trolleys were introduced in Connecticut cities in the last decade of the century.52 The General As- sembly of 1893 had recognized railways as a public highway to be reg- ulated for the benefit of the public and had provided that any extension of lines or alteration of motive power could be made only after public
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
hearings on the proposals and with the affirmation of the governing boards of the cities. The control of street railways was made the ex- clusive jurisdiction of the Mayor and Common Council, within the proviso that any railway which failed to exercise its charter within a specified time was to forfeit its rights. The possibilities of electrical powered trolleys caught the imagination of the public and the investor alike, and in 1896 the General Assembly incorporated 15 new street railways.53
Trolley building proceeded at a tremendous rate. "Wherever the state and the towns build a level road bed linking the communities," it was said, "the trolley builders are quick to take advantage of it."5ª De- spite the warnings of Mayor Joseph B. Sargent of New Haven relative to the dangers of monopolies, the New York and New Haven Railroad moved quickly to absorb the trolleys into its "water logged system" and fitted them into the grant alliance of railway, electrical, and insurance companies.55 The operation was so successful that the New York and New Haven's "creature," the Connecticut Company, was operating lines in all of the cities of the state by the nineteen twenties. The Con- necticut Company controlled 59 constituent companies, with a capital stock listed at 40,000,000 dollars, and had eliminated all but two inde- pendent companies.56
With few exceptions public utilities in Connecticut cities were privately owned from the beginning. Gas, electricity, and trolleys were developed in the five leading cities by private enterprise without excep- tion. The public water supply was developed in two of the five, in New Haven and Bridgeport, through contracts with private companies. The Bridgeport Hydraulic Company in 1857 assumed the contract of sup- plying water in that city after two other companies had failed in the attempt. Despite frequent complaints of the supply and quality of water, Bridgeport residents, in referendums in 1873, refused to author- ize the city to purchase the works.57 After a year of bickering, New Haven residents voted in 1854 in opposition to municipally owned water works, and the contract was granted to the New Haven Water Company. A new contract was entered into in 1891 which provided that "the city may buy the water company's property at any time, at a price to be fixed by arbiters . .. and that the water company will unite with
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THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
the city in procuring proper legislation by the next legislature for the transfer and payment of the property." No action was taken, however, by the next legislature.58 Thereafter, New Haven's Mayor Sargent be- came one of the most ardent advocates of municipal control of public utilities, although the New Haven Water Company demonstrated a hazard of dependence upon private ownership when it refused to reveal
(Courtesy Conn. Devel. Comm.)
HARTFORD
the specific sources of water for the various sections of the city to the City Health Officer, who was attempting to locate the cause of infectious disease.59
Sargent's admonitions indicated the public consciousness which, albeit a minority impulse, was emerging and which in the next century led to a measure of control of public utilities. Sargent reduced the issue to its simplest terms: "It is certainly better for the people to own and control these municipal monopolies than to be controlled by them." When he was inaugurated in 1891, he said: "All works of a public na- ture, carried on mainly within the bounds of a municipality and for the purpose of supplying the inhabitants with certain daily requirements of civilized city life, and requiring special rights of eminent domain to
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
distribute their products, should be owned and operated by the people, and in the sole interest of the people."
Investigation had revealed that the 38 municipally owned water works, out of the 46 in New England towns, all returned a profit to the municipality. Sargent believed that similar benefits would accrue from municipal ownership of other utilities. Public ownership of the pro- duction of illuminating gas and of its distribution to consumers had not been so popular as that of storing and distributing water. The Mayor believed this was because "the simplest processes of the produc- tion of gas have been concealed in mystery, to the great gain of the stockholders and cost of the public." The same reasons, Sargent held, had deterred the cities from producing their own electricity.
In applying his conviction with consistency to transportation, Sar- gent pointed out that the "whole people through their legislature, can permit the inhabitants of a municipality or locality to do on their pub- lic streets, whatever they can permit a private corporation to do, even to the extent of running cars by horse or other power. . . Indeed, he argued, "Permission by the Connecticut Legislature to private corporations to lay car tracks in streets and highways where they please, and to run their cars when and as they please, without particular refer- ence to the reasonable convenience and interest of the people but with a view to the greatest profit to the corporation, is an unjust usurpation of the natural rights of the people of a municipality or locality." The New Haven Mayor was aware of the many applications for charters for street railways in the 1890's and warned against excessive capitalization designed to justify high fares and to exact large dividends. He was of the belief that no charter should be granted without a clause permitting the public to resume the franchise at its fair value. "The whole people are entitled to the benefits of the constant discoveries of means for bet- ter and cheaper living," he exhorted, "and no long monopoly of them should be tolerated." Sargent pleaded "Let us take care of the rights and interests of the city and the people, both present and future."60
The idea of government as the inevitable regulator of rates, prices, and capitalization gained ground slowly in Connecticut. The construc- tion and operation of the street railways seemed to have been brought under more stringent control by the legislation of 1893, and in the same
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THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
year efforts were made to control the production and distribution of gas and electricity. Only those specifically authorized by the state could produce electricity. Moreover, the right to manufacture and distribute gas and electricity was specifically granted to the towns upon the ap-
(Courtesy Conn. State Lib.)
PLAINVILLE-LAST TROLLEY ON THE BRISTOL-PLAINVILLE LINE THE NEXT RUN WAS MADE BY BUS JULY 17, 1935
proval of two-thirds of the Common Council and a majority of the citizens voting.61 Few towns, however, exercised this privilege.
The private interests in which capital was concentrated assumed control of the government. Wealth and industry combined in 1907 to beat back an effort by Governor Woodruff to insure honesty in the financing of new trolley lines. It was charged that the Connecticut Com- pany had in fact paid only $155,000 of a tax assessed at $420,000 on the basis of its capital stock and outstanding bonds. A resolution proposed
734
HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
the appointment of a Commissioner to investigate the taxes imposed against the public service corporation, to ascertain whether the tax had been paid, and to report to the next General Assembly. The agents of the parent corporation, the New Haven Railroad, flooded the capitol. The Senate voted, without explanation, to defeat the resolution and left the public to suffer the evils of over-capitalization. Relevant to an understanding of the forces opposing this and other regulations is the fact that the insurance companies owned six and one-half millions of the stock of the railroad and its subsidiaries. It was reported that, when Lincoln Steffens was asked why he did not use his pen for reform in his own state of Connecticut, he replied that the "conscience of the people has become so completely deadened that I could not get any results."62 If true, the hesitancy of this muckraking editor, whose virulent pen had attacked many deeply ensconced special privileges, to attack the Connecticut problem indicates the strength of the forces aligned against the regulation of municipal utilities in Connecticut.
The plight of the cities as they failed to meet social challenges or to enact adequate regulatory measures is explained in part by their failure to achieve political influence commensurate with their population. Despite their loss of population, the rural towns held tenaciously to their political power. It was through the representatives of the small towns that the forces of wealth and industry withstood attempts to im- pose regulations, contrary to the tenets of laissez-faire theory, but neces- sary to the well-being of urban communities.63 Since the General Assembly was empowered to determine the charters of municipal gov- ernments, to extend their privileges, and to fix their limits, the repre- sentatives from the rural towns held the cities within firm control.64 When the Senate, "hypnotized by the Spirit of the Age," proposed to submit to a vote of the people a six million dollar bond issue for public improvements, the members of the House of Representatives, "the palladium of a people's liberties," "shook its fist in the face of the Pres- ent and the Future" and rallied to defend the old order.65 Thus the agents of special privilege controlled the state government and domi- nated politics to an extent that rendered equality of political oppor- tunity "to the last degree ridiculous in Connecticut."66
Action necessary to the growing cities was further impaired by the
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THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
duplication of town and city governments. As the cities expanded, they came more nearly to approximate the area of the ancient town. These towns on the fringes of urban settlement resisted efforts to consolidate the town and the city governments and continued to manage their
(Courtesy New Britain Chamber of Commerce)
NEW BRITAIN-NEW YMCA BUILDING
own affairs. The dual system of government entailed additional expense and caused friction. Eventually the necessity for cooperation in the pro- vision of services compelled consolidation, but not until the last decade of the nineteenth century were town and city governments combined in either Hartford or in New Haven.67 Only in 1960 did the consolida- tion of the town and city school systems of Middletown complete the elimination of dual government there.
Moreover, despite the influx of immigrants and the progressive decline of the percentage of old New England stock, members of the
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
latter still controlled city affairs and were bulwarks against innova- tion.69 Those in control were most reluctant to see the direction of public affairs pass to other hands. The power of this conservative group was diminished somewhat, however, by state laws which channeled cer- tain responsibilities in the hands of professionals, who were jealously independent. After a state law replaced the heterogeneous boards of health in every town, city, and borough with competent health officers charged with responsibility for sanitation, long overdue alterations in the sewerage systems were accomplished in many of the cities.70
The hesitation to alter the structure of city government to meet the needs of the growing cities is reflected nowhere more clearly than in the fiscal policies of the cities. The grand list not only failed to in- crease in proportion to the population as would have been expected, but throughout the seventies and eighties it remained essentially the same in the older cities of Hartford and New Haven and lagged far be- hind that of the newer cities of Bridgeport, Waterbury, and New Britain.71 The imbalance of the population and the grand list was less- ened somewhat by the end of the century. The 260 million dollar list of the five cities was about 100 percent greater than in the panic year of 1874. In the same time the population in the five cities had increased two and one-half times. Until near the end of the century there was a noticeable reluctance to fund bonds necessary for municipal improve- ments. As late as 1884, none of the cities had bonds outstanding in excess of 700,000 dollars, except Hartford, which had floated bonds to the amount of 1,000,000 dollars to locate the capitol there.
The demands for municipal improvements by the end of the cen- tury, however, not only forced the increase of the bonded indebtedness to an aggregate of over eight million dollars in the five cities, but neces- sitated an adjustment of the mill rate in Hartford and New Haven. The rate in New Haven was increased to 21 mills; and in Hartford, to 17. In each instance this represented an increase of almost 100 percent over the rate in 1884. The other cities met the increased demand for ex- penditure primarily through the growth in the grand list. Waterbury, for example, had a bonded indebtedness of only $47,500 and a rate of six mills at the end of the century as compared to a bonded indebtedness of $387,000 and a rate of 15 mills in 1884. During this period her grand
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THE GROWTH OF THE CITY
list had increased threefold to more than $28,000,000. The indebtedness of the five cities represented an average per capita indebtedness of $25.00, which, even in nineteenth century Connecticut, could not be interpreted as committing the next generations to bankruptcy.72
(Courtesy "Meriden Record-Journal"')
MERIDEN-THE BRADLEY MEMORIAL HOME
As the population increased buildings encroached upon park areas and in many instances the parks and squares of earlier periods were sub- divided into residence lots. The very increase in population added im- portance to parks, however. Hartford's largest park, identified since 1876 as Bushnell Park, was laid out in 1855 primarily as the result of the efforts of Horace Bushnell. As early as 1865, the Court of the Com- mon Council of New Haven requested an amendment to the city char- ter which would permit them to acquire lands outside the city. The agitation for more lands for recreational purposes increased, and, in 1880, New Haven acquired and set aside 350 acres on the New Haven- Hamden line for a park. During the decade additional facilities were established in the western part of the city, and in 1889 the Council voted $200,000 in bonds to support the park system.73 By the first dec-
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HISTORY OF CONNECTICUT
ade of the twentieth century, Connecticut was judged to have achieved an excellent park system. In 1910, for example, there were eleven parks in Hartford, ranging in size from 2.85 acres to the 663-acre Kenney Park, which was then the second largest in New England. Some of these parks, such as Bushnell, Colt, Riverside, had school gardens, and Goodwin boasted a public golf course.74 Indeed, one observer charged that Connecticut cities developed their parks and public buildings at the neglect of more pressing social problems.74a
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