USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5 > Part 10
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BRIDGES AND TUNNELS (1890-1930)
The important place of bridges in the cost of running the city of Boston may be gathered from the number of bridges. The city wholly maintains 62. One large division of the Pub- lic Works Department has exclusive charge of the bridges and two municipal ferries ; and the cost of maintenance of this division approximates $400,000 annually, exclusive of the cost of operation. The bridges across the Charles above tide- water include several large and expensive structures between Boston and other cities-built and maintained at joint cost.
The Legislature of 1929 passed an act authorizing the con- struction by the city of Boston of a tunnel under Boston Harbor, connecting East Boston with the city itself. This enabling act was accepted by the Mayor and the City Council shortly after it was approved by the Governor; and work will shortly be started on the project. The cost, estimated at $16,000,000, will be paid by the city ; but it is expected that the tolls will eventually amortize the cost, as in the case of the Holland Tunnel in New York. The East Boston Tunnel
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will doubtless give great relief to the traffic congestion now existing on the routes to the North Shore.
THE PARKS (1875 -1930)
To the public parks our citizens turn for their recreation and our children for their health. Civilization advances in proportion as we are able to raise the children of one genera- tion on a plane of health and vigor a little higher than that on which their parents stood. No taxes are levied, no public money is spent, with greater public approval than the contri- butions to that end. In most sections of Boston, the only safe places where a child may play are those furnished directly by the municipality.
Not until 1875 did Boston begin to develop a park system. In that year the voters accepted an act authorizing the city to establish a system of parks; and two years later the Back Bay Fens were purchased. For the next sixteen years, until Mayor Matthews' first administration, although more than $6,000,000 had been spent on parks, there was practically nothing to show for the expenditure. Much of the work was still under construction, and a policy of spending too little each year had been adopted. At the instigation of Mayor Matthews, larger appropriations were made and completed parks rapidly came into existence.
Today Boston has as fine a system of public parks and playgrounds as any city in the country. Twenty four parks covering 2,652 acres, to say nothing of many public baths and gymnasia are located throughout the city. In fact, the first municipal gymnasium in the United States, so far as is known, was opened in East Boston in 1897. The total valua- tion of city properties dedicated to recreation, is more than $69,000,000, which is far in excess of that of any other city in this country, except New York.
Included in Boston's park system is the Arnold Arboretum, sometimes referred to as the tree museum of Harvard Univer- sity, containing extensive collections of such trees and shrubs as will live in this climate.
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FIRE AND POLICE SERVICE
FIRE AND POLICE SERVICE (1895 -1927)
The control of the Fire Department of Boston was in the hands of three commissioners until 1895, when this inefficient system gave place to one commissioner with complete control. The department has been the victim of political agitation both at the State House and at City Hall, supposedly in the in- terest of the firemen. Associations have been formed for the purpose of securing from the State Legislature, by means of political influence and intimidation, unreasonable privileges, which the city authorities properly refused to grant.
For many years a social club within the department, called the Russell Club, has been utilized to secure additional privi- leges for its members. The cost of maintaining the fire depart- ment rose rapidly, though the work of the men grew no harder. Mayor Curley in 1916 granted them one day off in three, which added almost $200,000 to the cost of the department. The firemen also successfully agitated for the two-platoon system, which provided for two distinct shifts of firemen, and naturally made necessary a substantial increase in the working force. During Mayor Curley's second administration, the high pressure pumping system, completed in 1921, resulted in a substantial reduction in fire insurance rates.
The original transfer of control of the police from city to state, came about in 1885, when the Governor received au- thority to appoint a Board of Police consisting of three citizens of Boston from the two principal parties. The idea underlying the new law was that, by making the commission- ers state appointees, they would not be so liable to political influence on the part of the City Council. It was however, but another step away from local self-government.
State interference in the policing of the city, a matter, after all, of purely local concern, has been resented by most of the Mayors of Boston. Mayor Matthews in his valedictory said : "The Board of Police should be abolished; the police force should be restored to the control of the city, and placed in charge of a chief or superintendent appointed by the Mayor, and responsible through him to the people of the city; and the license granting powers of the Board [referring to liquor Licenses] should then be vested in a special license board . . .
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The transfer of a purely local concern, such as the police force of a city, to the control of the Commonwealth is a violation of the principle of local self-government and a constant source of irritation to the people. The gain in efficiency, if any, is not commensurate with the breach of principle involved."
The three-commissioner system in police affairs did not work out well; and in 1906 by an act of the Legislature, the work of the department was turned over to a single commis- sioner appointed by the Governor.
THE PUBLIC HEALTH (1876-1930)
The first business of any city is the protection of the public health. The development of public health measures has made such rapid strides of late years that the protection given the City of Boston in quite recent times, seems astoundingly in- adequate. With the better understanding in recent years of modern health work, the morale of those in charge has become considerably higher.
The decrease in the death rate in Boston from almost 30 in 1,000 in the late seventies, to 14 in 1,000 in the nineteen- twenties evidences some increase in efficiency in health work; and it may also be attributed in some degree to the splendid hospital facilities, both municipal and otherwise now enjoyed by the citizens of Boston.
A very important contribution to the public health, the watering of streets, did not receive the attention of the muni- cipal authorities until Mayor Matthews' administration. Theretofore all watering had been done by private contractors under special agreements with house owners.
Under Mayor Matthews a special street watering system was inaugurated, to develop a systematic method of watering the streets at public expense. Not until 1900 did the city as- sume the entire cost of this service.
The Health Department continued under the guidance of three commissioners until 1914 when it was placed in charge of one executive, the Health Commissioner, who is required to be a qualified physician and expert in sanitation,-a long step forward in the direction of increased efficiency.
To what importance the Health Department has grown may
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THE POLICE STRIKE
be more clearly seen by mentioning its various divisions, such as Medical, Child Hygiene, Sanitary, Food Inspection, La- boratory, Quarantine, Vital Statistics, Records and Accounts, and the head of each division must be specially qualified for the work in his own particular field.
THE POLICE STRIKE OF 1919
The Boston police strike had its origin in the attempt of the Boston police as a body to affiliate with the American Federation of Labor. The crisis in the early evening of Sep- tember 19, 1919, was thus described by Mayor Peters in an official statement to the City Council: "In ordinary times the responsibility for maintaining order in Boston does not fall upon the elected officials of the city, but in case of riot or tumult the Mayor is invested with certain emergency powers. In the course of the recent strike of patrolmen, when such riot and tumult occurred, I exercised my authority promptly, and as I believe, effectively. At an early stage of the difficulty I appointed a Citizens' Committee which labored earnestly but ineffectually to get the police to give up their affiliation with the American Federation of Labor and not to strike. On Monday September 8th, it became clear that a strike was im- pending and that unless prompt measures were taken, the lives and property of citizens were in danger. That evening in company with members of the Citizens' Committee, I saw the Governor and urged him to intervene, pointing out to him that I had no authority to act.
"On Tuesday about noon, believing that as Mayor of Bos- ton I was entitled to know what provision had been made by the State officials for the preservation of law and order in the city in case of a strike, I consulted the Police Commis- sioner. Mr. Curtis (the Commissioner) said that he had the situation well in hand, had made adequate provisions for any emergency and assured me there was no occasion for alarm. I asked him whether it would not be wise to have the State Guard mobilized in order that sufficient forces might be on hand in case of an emergency. Police Commissioner Curtis stated in no uncertain terms that he did not wish their aid at that time.
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"The Governor also pointed out to me plainly that no one had any authority to interfere with the Police Commissioner.
"I had no alternative but to give the Police Commissioner a chance to demonstrate whether he had adequately provided for the situation. The events of that night demonstrated that he had misjudged it. As early as possible the following morning, Wednesday, I took over the control of the Police Department, ordered out those state troops located within the city of Bos- ton, and requested the Governor to order out an additional 3,000 men. The Adjutant General was notified over the tele- phone that he would shortly receive orders calling out the State Guard and asking him to proceed in accordance with this information. At the same time the commanding officers of the 10th Regiment, the First Motor Corps and the cavalry troop were called to my office and they immediately notified the officers of their regiments that their organizations were to be mobilized. The first of the troops were on the streets by four o'clock that afternoon, and by Thursday morning order had been restored. Thursday afternoon the Governor (Coolidge) assumed control of the State Guard."
It should be said that during the major portion of the period covered by this chapter, the history of the police force of Boston has been clean and efficient, with the exception of the blot of the strike of 1919.
In 1890 the cost of maintaining the police department was one million dollars. In 1928 it was almost five million dollars, with every indication of increasing cost. The annual increases have been due not only to conditions within the department but also to increasing public needs. Under an act of 1907, an addition of 100 men to the force was necessary to give the men one day in fifteen off from duty. From time to time there have been increases in pay, not only made necessary but reasonable because of the increased costs of living, while the needs of additional men for traffic control have placed a real strain on the personnel of the department.
PROGRESS OF CITY GOVERNMENT IN MASSACHUSETTS (1890-1930)
In his American Commonwealth Lord Bryce states that it is his opinion that our municipal governments are the least
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PROGRESS OF CITY GOVERNMENT
successful of our governmental agencies of democracy. In this he is undoubtedly correct; but city administration has been faced also with the most difficult problems. City ad- ministrations are not only brought in more direct contact with the citizens, but spend a larger amount of the citizens' money than either the nation or the state.
Between 1910 and 1920 the population of the United States as a whole increased 15 per cent. The population of the sixty principal cities of our country showed an increase during the same time of 25.7 per cent. The ten largest cities of the coun- try contain a seventh of the total population. Everything points to a continued relative increase in the population of our cities as compared to the country as a whole. This means that the problem of municipal government will be of ever in- creasing importance in the government of our country.
A municipal government is no such problem as the ordinary corporation. The purpose of the ordinary business corpora- tion is to make money : the problem of the municipal govern- ment is to spend it. The task of municipal government is not only to govern fairly and to administer to the people without favor, but it is also affirmatively to help the people with their various problems. The scientific city budget, with moneys all accounted for in detail and contracts awarded on merit and not by favor, is well installed and will be improved and ex- tended.
Children in our schools should be taught what our govern- ment means, and in what its strength lies. They should be brought up to realize that democracy is not simply a form of government from which benefits can be taken, such as free- dom of action, freedom of religion, protection of property, and those other great advantages which we have; but that it can survive only if the citizens recognize that they owe it duties as well.
The growth of our cities has been rapid. The develop- ment of municipal government has been slow and will at times seem to halt, and often we cannot help but feel, when we see the selection of some unfortunate choice as adminis- trator of one of our cities, that municipal government is going backward. While progress is intermittent and better govern-
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ment meets periods of discouragement, a survey of our cities for the past twenty-five or thirty years shows on the whole that their government has improved; and that we have evolved a form of municipal administration reasonably efficient and responsive to the people's will. Boston has kept pace in this progress and we trust that in the future she will continue to make her contribution to a higher standard of municipal ad- ministration in our country.
SELECT BIBLIOGRAPHY
BOSTON-CITY COUNCIL .- Documents of the City of Boston (Boston, 1834 and later years)-The mayor's messages and annual reports of the administrative departments are published as a collection annually.
BOSTON-STATISTICS DEPARTMENT .- Boston Statistics (Boston, 1915 and later years).
BOSTON-STATISTICS DEPARTMENT .- Boston Year Book (Boston, 1924- 1925)-For the years 1923-1924, 1924-1925.
BOSTON-STATISTICS DEPARTMENT .- Municipal Register (Boston, 1841 and later years)-City Document No. 36.
CURRAN, MICHAEL PHILIP .- Life of Patrick A. Collins, with Some of his most Notable Public Addresses (Norwood, Mass., Norwood Press, 1906).
Goos, T. G .- "James M. Curley of Boston" (National Municipal Review, 1926, Vol. XV, pp. 253-259).
HUSE, CHARLES PHILLIPS .- The Financial History of Boston from May 1, 1822, to January 31, 1909 (Harvard Economic Studies, Vol. XV, Cambridge, Harvard Univ. Press, 1916).
KOREN, JOHN .- Boston, 1822-1922 (Boston, 1913)-The story of its gov- ernment and principal activities during one hundred years.
McCAFFREY, GEORGE H .- Boston Looks over its Charter (National Mu- nicipal Review, 1924, Vol. XIII, pp. 131-151).
MATTHEWS, NATHAN .- The City Government of Boston (Boston, 1895). MUNRO, WILLIAM BENNETT .- "Peters of Boston; A Reform Mayor who Did not Fail" (National Municipal Review, 1922, Vol. XI, pp. 85- 88)
PETERS, ANDREW JAMES .- Greater Boston. An Appeal for the Federation of the Metropolitan Cities and Towns (Boston, 1919).
QUINCY, JOSIAH .- "Municipal Progress in Boston" (Independent, 1900, Vol. LII, pp. 424-426).
WHITE, JAMES A .- "Who Will Administer' the New Boston Charter ? Mayor George A. Hibbard" (New England M'agasine, New Series, Vol. XLI, pp. 608-613).
WOMEN'S MUNICIPAL LEAGUE OF BOSTON .- Citizen's Handbook: a Collec- tion of the Laws and Ordinances Governing the Citizen in Every- day Life (Boston, 1917).
CAMBRIDGE
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Courtesy of the Bostonian Society of Boston
MAP SHOWING ACCRETIONS OF TERRITORY
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CHAPTER IV
BENCH AND BAR IN MASSACHUSETTS (1889-1929)
BY ROBERT GRANT Judge of Probate for the County of Suffolk (1893-1922)
STATUS OF THE LEGAL PROFESSION
The forty years covered by this title were conspicuous for the effect of the growth of population and rapidly mounting infusion of foreign blood on the composition of the bar and the ability of the courts to handle a set of fresh problems, due partly to new mechanisms of industry and transit, partly to change in social attitudes. Peculiarly applicable to the awakened legal consciousness of the Massachusetts of this period is a passage from the paper "The Causes of Popular Dissatisfaction with the Administration of Justice" by Roscoe Pound, then of Lincoln, Nebraska, before the American Bar Association in 1906: "Justice, which is the end of law, is the ideal compromise between the activities of all in a crowded world."
There was no dearth of eminence at the Massachusetts bar. Yet Sidney Bartlett of Boston, who died in 1889 in his ninety-first year and was engaged in active practice until a few days before his death, had virtually no successor as the leader of that bar by acclaim in the old-fashioned sense, though Wil- liam Gordon Russell and Richard Olney, both of Boston, each had some claim to that dignity. This title became merged in the recognition that each of a number of lawyers throughout the Commonwealth was entitled to be thought of as not infe- rior to his fellows. This signified no falling off either in legal sagacity or acumen. On the contrary the problems resulting from the large affairs of intensive industrialism and a ten- dency to congregate in cities called for a more alert and re- sourceful order of ability than ever before, and made the law a more arduous if more remunerative profession.
The attorney practising alone or with a single associate,
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usually his junior, found himself in competition with large firms averaging twenty members and occasionally over fifty, equipped for every legal emergency. Simultaneously the lawyer who did his work with his own pen or the aid of a single clerk became archaic from the advent of the telephone and stenographers able to transfer the spoken word to a type- writer.
If the Massachusetts Bar has lost caste it is for reasons partly within and partly independent of itself. Among the former should be mentioned the uncertainty, delay, and ex- pense of legal procedure ; the injustice of deciding cases upon points of legal practice, which are the simple etiquette of jus- tice; and the flagrant tendency to treat the judge as a merc umpire before whom counsel may fight out their differences at any length, as if to score as in a game were the true goal of litigation, instead of to present the real issue in the shortest time.
STANDARDS OF ADMISSION TO THE BAR
Chief among the reasons for the alleged deterioration of the bar, for which the bar is only indirectly responsible if at all, have been the low educational requirements fixed for aspirants for membership. They have resulted in the ad- mission of an increasingly large proportion of candidates of inferior quality during the period covered, especially since 1915, in which year the legislature prescribed that an appli- cant for admission to the bar "who has fulfilled for two years the requirements of a day or evening high school or a school of equal grade, shall not be required to take any examination as to his general education," provided he has passed the writ- ten test as to his legal knowledge set by the Board of Bar Examiners. This criticism, which is not accepted by every- body, will be considered further under the heads of Legal Education and Law Schools in Massachusetts. Commenting on the situation, as it sees it, the Judicial Council of Massa- chusetts in its Second Report (1926) remarks: "So far as we know there are no educational standards which must be maintained throughout the state in the evening high schools and, consequently, the clause which we have quoted .
From a photograph by Baro, Boston
RICHARD OLNEY
From a photograph by Blank and Stoller, N. Y.
Courtesy of James M. Morton, (Jr.)
JAMES M. MORTON
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means that there shall be no measurable standard of education whatever. This means that Massachusetts ranks very low among the States of the Union in respect to the educational requirements for admission to the bar, far below Kansas, Nebraska, Oklahoma, Montana, South Dakota and most of the other states. . . Raising the standards might place ob- stacles in the way of deserving young men who are too poor to obtain a proper preliminary education. This does not take into account the public interest, and overlooks the patent fact that it is the people in humble circumstances who suffer most from untrained lawyers."
THE BAR (1889-1929)
The population of Massachusetts in 1890, according to the State census of that year, was 2,238,943. The Decennial Census of 1925 reports a total of 4,144,305, an increase of nearly one hundred per cent during the approximate limits of the forty years under consideration. From the Federal Cen- sus of 1880 it appears that there were 1984 lawyers in Massa- chusetts, four of whom were women. Yet in Lelia J. Robinson's case (131 Massachusetts Reports 376, decided September, 1881) it was held that under existing statutes "an unmarried woman is not entitled to be examined for admis- sion to the bar as an attorney and Counsellor." This restric- tion was removed, however, by Statutes of 1882, Chapter 139. By 1890 the number of lawyers in the State had risen to 2589. The State Census of 1915 showed a total of 4,906, inclusive of judges and justices, and of these attorneys 47 were women. The last exact figures appear in the Federal Census for 1920, since which there has been no official tabula- tion either national or State of the numbers of the profession. Those figures show a total of 4954, of whom 4851 were male and 103 female attorneys. It would further seem from inquiry of the clerk of the Supreme Judicial Court of the Common- wealth that there must be at present (1928) well over 5000 members of the Massachusetts bar, of whom 200 are women.
Even more rapid than the growth in general population and in the membership of the bar has been the change in the racial origins of each.
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RACE ELEMENTS IN THE BAR
The ascertainable proportion of the foreign-born to the total population almost doubled between 1850 and 1915 as shown by the 1915 Census of Massachusetts : 83.5 per cent native and 16.5 per cent foreign born in 1850, in comparison with 68.8 per cent and 31.2 per cent in 1915. "The largest foreign born element in our population next to those of Irish birth were the natives of Russia,-including those born in Finland and Lithuania, but excluding those born in Russian Poland,-numbering 123,450, and the next largest were the Italians who . . . have increased 141.6 per cent in ten years and now number 122,129."
The effect of these foreign groups on the composition of the bar has become increasingly significant. Prior to 1889 the lawyers of the Commonwealth, except for a considerable number of Irish extraction, were of the so-called native stock, and their characteristics might be said to have been homogene- ous. The admission to the bar of capable and trustworthy representatives of Italian, and a little later of Jewish, birth or extraction provided litigants, who were newcomers and unable to speak English, with the means of protection, and their pioneer advisers with a remunerative livelihood. This service speedily encouraged imitation and then competition, partly to meet a genuine need and partly from racial pride. Ambition among the most quick-witted of each group to be- come lawyers kept pace with its growth to numerical im- portance, so that today every element of the population formerly classed as alien, including besides the groups already enumerated Armenians, French Canadians, Greeks and Sy- rians, is represented at the bar and gaining in representation. In order of numbers of the attorneys of foreign extraction the descendants of the Irish still stand first, the Jews now stand second, and the Italians third. At the same time this influx of the foreign-born has interfered with neither the leadership nor the prosperity of the older and established legal firms. Nor do the citizens of foreign extraction by any means universally have recourse to attorneys of their own blood.
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