Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5, Part 6

Author: Hart, Albert Bushnell, 1854-1943, editor
Publication date: 1927
Publisher: New York, States History Co.
Number of Pages: 922

USA > Massachusetts > Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5 > Part 6

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That Massachusetts is still maintaining its leadership among the states in meeting new problems by effective legislation is well illustrated by the fact that the Massachusetts act of 1923, providing that the operation of an automobile upon the public ways of the state by a non-resident should be deemed equivalent to an appointment of the registrar of motor vehicles as his attorney for service of process, was sustained by the United States Supreme Court and has been copied in twenty states.

UNIFORM STATE LAWS (1891-1930)

Massachusetts was among the first of the states to establish, in 1891, commissioners on uniformity of legislation through- out the United States. In 1889 the National Bar Association established a committee on uniform state laws, consisting of one member from each state. The first Massachusetts com-

STATE GOVERNMENT

missioners were appointed for two years. The life of the commission was extended under various acts until 1908, when it lapsed. New commissions for five-year terms were created in 1909, 1914, 1919 and 1924. In 1902, the membership was increased from three to five, to permit of two additional members, one representing the working classes and the other the manufacturers. This act further urged uniformity of legislation "making eight hours a legal day's labor through- out the United States."

The Commissioners on Uniform State Laws were finally constituted a permanent body by Chapter 200 of the Acts of 1924, appointed by the governor, with the advice and consent of the council, for five-year terms. They are required "to examine subjects upon which uniformity of legislation in the various states of the United States is desirable, but which are outside of the jurisdiction of the Congress of the United States," to "confer upon these matters with the commissioners appointed by other states for the same purpose"; to "consider and draft uniform laws to be submitted for approval and adoption by the several states"; and generally to "devise and recommend such other or further course of action as may tend to accomplish such purposes." Their annual reports disclose a remarkable record of constructive achievement. By 1928, Massachusetts, on their recommendation, had enacted the following uniform laws:

Uniform Negotiable Instrument Act, (1898)

Uniform Sales Act, (1908)

Uniform Warehouse Receipts Act, (1909)

Uniform Stock Transfer Act, (1910)

Uniform Bills of Lading Act, (1910)

Uniform Foreign Wills Act, (1911)

Uniform Desertion Act, (1911)

Uniform Child Labor Act, (1913)

Uniform Marriage Evasion Act, (1913)

Uniform Partnership Act, (1922)

Uniform Limited Partnership Act, (1923)

Uniform Fraudulent Conveyance Act, (1924)

Various other acts recommended by the national conference of Commissioners on Uniform State Laws would doubtless

From a photograph by Boris, Boston

CHANNING H. Cox

SUNDAY LAWS

have been adopted by Massachusetts had it not been found that Massachusetts legislation had already attained to the standard which they sought to make uniform. Instances of this creditable commentary on the leadership of Massachusetts in many fields of legislation are afforded by the Uniform Fiduciary Act; the Uniform Veterans' Guardianship Act; the uniform act for the extradition of persons of unsound mind; the proposed acts, four in number, relating to registra- tion, licensing, operation, and theft of motor vehicles; and the uniform child labor act. The commissioners were also instrumental in securing the passage, in 1929, of a declara- tory judgment act, in respect to rights under written instru- ments, though not the uniform act recommended by the na- tional conference.

SUNDAY LAWS (1904-1930)

With the exception of church disestablishment, no Massa- chusetts legislation more forcibly typifies emancipation from the tenets of puritanism than those relating to the "Lord's day." The word "Sunday" rarely appears in the statutes ; the chapter of the General Laws controlling activities on the day set apart for worship and respite from toil has always been entitled, "Observance of the Lord's Day." Were John Win- throp with us today, he could, without violating the laws de- signed to enforce the Fourth Commandment, attend for a price a Sunday-evening cinema, provided that it was duly licensed, "in keeping with the character of the day and not inconsistent with its due observance."

In 1900, it was lawful to hold and attend on the Lord's Day a concert of sacred music or an entertainment given by a religious or charitable society, the proceeds of which were to be devoted exclusively to a charitable or religious purpose, or a free open-air concert given in a common or other public place by a city or town or under license from the local authorities.

In 1904, the public conscience was somewhat shocked when the supreme court held lawful a licensed vaudeville entertain- ment at Revere Beach conducted under the auspices of a Jewish congregation in Boston, it appearing that only the

STATE GOVERNMENT

net proceeds were paid over to the synagogue for religious or charitable purposes. Doubtless the legislature did not in- tend to open the door for the giving of theatrical perform- ances for the diversion of the public on the Lord's Day. Probably no one thought it possible that a religious or chari- table society would give such an entertainment to obtain money for a charitable or religious use.

Governor Bates promptly sent a special message to the legislature and legislation was speedily enacted closing up the loopholes in the law.

Twenty-four years later the people of Massachusetts, by a vote of 803,281, adopted, under the initiative, an act authoriz- ing professional outdoor sports and games on the Lord's Day, conducted for the profit of their sponsors under public licensed regulation, in such cities and towns as accepted it. This act of direct legislation was preceded by another in 1920, providing for local option on licensed outdoor amateur Sunday sports and games, barring admission fees and the conducting of any collection or business enterprise.

PRESENT SUNDAY PRIVILEGES (1692-1900)

The General Court has, from colonial days, kept in force a general prohibition penalizing the keeping open of one's shop, warehouse or workhouse on Sunday, or the doing of any manner of labor, except works of necessity and charity. This provision, with its marginal citations, beginning in 1692, stands inviolate in the General Laws. The following section consists of almost an entire page, enumerating the dispensa- tions. Since 1900 the legislature has made lawful the follow- ing acts performed on Sunday : the sale of tobacco by news- dealers and others; the retail sale of cream, soda, confection- ery and fruit, and of ice cream and its delivery ; the digging of clams and the dressing of fish; unpaid labor on yachts and boats; amateur photography; the sale of catalogues of art societies ; the sale of kosher meat and of fish, fruit and vege- tables to meet religious requirements of our Jewish people ; the operation of motor vehicles and the sale of gasoline, oil and accessories for use in motor vehicles, aircraft and motor boats ; sale of meals to be eaten off the premises ; war-time cultivation

CIVIL SERVICE LAWS

of land and the raising of agricultural products ; retail sale of bread ; parades with music on memorial Sundays by organiza- tions of veterans and on Firemen's Memorial Sunday by organizations of firemen. The legislature has also authorized the police authorities to issue permits for the performance of necessary work on the Lord's Day in order to prevent serious loss, damage or suffering. Local authorities may license retail dealers in ice cream, confectionery, soda water, or fruit to keep open their places of business on Sunday.

CIVIL SERVICE AND THE MERIT SYSTEM (1884-1930)

In 1883 Congress passed the so-called Pendleton Act "to regulate and improve the civil service of the United States." The year following, Massachusetts enacted the first law "to improve the civil service of the commonwealth and the cities thereof ;" and at the same time established a State commission to administer the act. Massachusetts was the first State to establish a single commission with jurisdiction over municipal as well as State positions. The act of 1884 authorized the commission to make rules of general or special application, classifying offices in State and city service which were to be filled by competitive and noncompetitive examinations. County positions have never been included in the law. In 1894, towns of over twelve thousand population were author- ized to accept the act. In 1901 all towns having regular police and fire forces were authorized to accept the law as affecting such forces, and each year the legislature passes numerous acts extending the provisions of the civil service laws to specific officers in both cities and towns. In 1930, 39 cities and 52 towns were under the Civil Service Laws. When a town becomes a city, all classified positions automatically be- come subject to civil service. In 1930 over 42,000 persons were serving throughout the State in classified positions. In 1930 there were 69 employees in the office of the civil service commission.

EXTENSION OF THE CIVIL SERVICE LAWS (1887 - 1929)

The commission early adopted a conservative policy in ex- tending the classified service, requiring qualifications which

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could be ascertained by simple and uniform tests. In 1887 cities were authorized to make appropriations to defray the expense of administering civil-service rules. Extensions of the rules to city positions have frequently resulted on ap- plication of the cities themselves. In 1896 the law was amended in its application to the labor service, providing that it should not take effect in cities of less than 100,000 population except on acceptance by the mayor and city council.

From time to time, general legislation has been passed re- quiring certain technical positions to be classified; such as employees having charge of steam boilers, and of heating, lighting or power plants maintained by the State, sealers of weights and measures, and inspectors of plumbing. Certain officers and employees have been expressly exempted from the law; such as judicial and elective officers, department heads, officers elected by the legislature, including Senate and House counsel. Such exemptions are constantly being made.

PREFERENCES AND REMOVALS (1896-1911)

The veteran's preference, first established in 1896 and am- plified in 1919, has been a conspicuous feature of the merit system. The names of veterans of all wars, who pass an examination, are placed at the head of the eligible lists and must be certified for appointment before civilians. In 1922, disabled veterans capable of service were given a special preference ; and the law has since been sustained by the Su- preme Judicial Court. A legislative report found that of the total number of appointments since 1919, about half were of veterans.

The merit system had been established ten years before persons in the classified service were given any general security against dismissal. In 1904, legislation was enacted providing that no person therein should be removed or re- duced in rank or compensation, except for just cause, for written reasons, and providing a hearing. In 1911, a court review was provided. In 1890, the removal of police officers had been similarly regulated; and in 1894 the removal of veterans in the public service, whether under civil service or not, was restricted. The court appeal now available to prac-

RECORD OF PUBLIC CHARITIES

tically all in the classified service is ample guaranty against unjustifiable removal or demotion or other unwarrantable treatment.

RECORD OF PUBLIC CHARITIES (1863 - 1929)

The late Frank B. Sanborn, first secretary of the Massa- chusetts Board of State Charities, introduced his famous report on the public charities of Massachusetts, made to the Massachusetts Centennial Commission in 1876, with these words: "The record of public charity in . . . Massachusetts for a hundred years, if written out with appropriate detail of incident and development, would be one of the most im- portant chapters of our political and social history. For it would show by what steps, and in what inherited and tradi- tional ways, the noble spirit of the Puritan statesmen who founded Massachusetts has manifested itself in charitable methods, in public institutions, in the general habit and tendency of our population; until we have established in this little corner of the world, not, perhaps, the best system of public charity, but the best foundation and atmosphere for such a system that can be seen at the present time among a people so numerous and heterogeneous as ours, anywhere on the inhabited globe. And this is in due fulfilment of the philanthropic purpose declared by . . . John Winthrop, who, in 1629, before he departed from England to rule over his infant colony, proposed a new viewpoint in the matter of poor relief."

No series of public documents are more justly celebrated than those of the Massachusetts Board of State Charities. Governor Andrew appointed, as its third chairman, Samuel Gridley Howe, who served for five years. The Board of State Charities was established in 1863 on the recommenda- tion of a special commission (appointed in 1858) "to investi- gate the whole system of public charitable institutions of the Commonwealth." The underlying plan was that of "central- izing policy and decentralizing administrative detail." This supervisory system of public charities Massachusetts was first among the States to inaugurate. As early as 1639, there was established by statute that "most fundamental principle of

STATE GOVERNMENT

public aid in Massachusetts," which is that "responsibility for the relief of persons in distress lies upon the community where the distress is found." This principle still finds ex- pression in the opening section of Chapter 117 of the General Laws: "Every town shall relieve and support all poor and indigent persons lawfully settled therein whenever they stand in need thereof."

CHILD LEGISLATION (1890- 1929)

In 1675, following the descent upon Boston and other coast towns of persons rendered homeless by King Philip's War, the Province began its policy of aiding the unsettled poor, whence developed the class of State paupers. Poor relief has to this day continued to be for the most part of local function; but the State has continued to make reimburse- ment, at varying rates, for support accorded the "unsettled poor." In the closing years of the last and in the opening years of the present century, the State discarded the distinc- tion between settled and unsettled poor in respect to indigent insane and dependent children, and assumed their support regardless of settlement. An early accomplishment of the Board of State Charities was the establishment of the State Primary School at Monson and the concentration there of the children in the State almshouses. In 1887, the legislature provided that local overseers of the poor should place their children in families ; and in 1905 the State board was author- ized to do so at the expense of any delinquent town. By this and later legislation, almshouses throughout the State have been practically emptied of children. This system of placing its minor wards in families, with constant investigation and visitation by the Division of Child Guardianship (of the Department of Public Welfare, successor to the State Board of Charity), is known the world over as "the Massachusetts plan of child placement."

A more recent step to safeguard its dependent children was the establishment by the State in 1904, at Canton, of the Mas- sachusetts Hospital School for crippled children, followed in 1920 by provision for State minor wards of a hospital under the same board of trustees. The establishment of the

PRISON REFORM

Boston juvenile court and the enactment of the Juvenile Delinquency Law in 1906, providing for the separate handling of juvenile cases and the treatment of children under the age of seventeen as juvenile delinquents rather than as criminal offenders ; provision for the licensing and regulation of lying- in and maternity hospitals for the protection of infants, fol- lowing the prior regulation and licensing of boarding-houses for infants, in pursuance of the humane policy that, "wherever a child is born, in other than the parents' home, there the watchfulness of the state follows" (stated by Robert W. Kelso) ; and the enactment in 1913 of the law providing aid to mothers and their dependent children in order to keep the family intact-are more recent instances of the State's solicitude for its children.

POOR RELIEF

Perhaps the most outstanding feature of poor relief in Massachusetts in recent years is the change in the public attitude toward its recipients. "So great is the contrast be- tween the methods of olden times and the public opinion of to-day," writes Kelso, "that government is busy seeking to redefine its nomenclature of poor relief in milder phrase, and to profess, somehow, a complete denial of the existence of paupers." Thus, within a few years, the legislature has eliminated the word "pauper" from the statutes and has sub- stituted more humane descriptions : such as, "persons in need" and, for State paupers, "dependent persons who have no legal settlement." There is no longer a "State Board of Charity," but a "Department of Public Welfare." "Overseers of the poor" have become local "boards of public welfare"; "almshouses" have given way to "infirmaries," and the "work- house" is no more. Likewise the word "lunatic" has disap- peared from the statutes.

PRISON REFORM AND PENOLOGY (1847-1870)

Prison reform in Massachusetts, as in other States, has always had for one of its chief objects that "intelligent clas- sification which is the basis of modern treatment of law- breakers." Up to 1870 there had been no State control over

STATE GOVERNMENT

county penal institutions, other than the State laws requiring their establishment. When a board of prison commissioners was first established in that year, they were empowered to classify all prisoners in respect to sex, age, character, con- dition and offence and, to this end, to transfer prisoners between the county jails and houses of correction.

Prior to the establishment of county correctional institu- tions, convicts and persons held for trial-both male and female, the young and the old, hardened criminals and first offenders-were confined together in such inadequate and un- sanitary jails as the counties had provided. The only phase of the prison problem suggestive of classification was the con- finement of long-term convicts at the Charlestown State Prison, established in 1805.

Prior to the establishment of the first State board in 1870, the Board of State Charities, created in 1863, was required to investigate annually all places in which insane persons were confined. This subjected to State inspection county jails and houses of correction, in nearly all of which lunatics were detained. But no power of control was conferred upon the board.

NEW TYPES OF INSTITUTIONS (1847-1927)

The establishment in 1847 of the Lyman School for Boys, at Westborough, for the purpose of receiving delinquent boys under fifteen years, was followed in 1854 by the authorization of a similar institution for girls at Lancaster, called the In- dustrial School for Girls. Later came the Industrial School for Boys at Shirley (1908) for the commitment of delinquent boys over the age of fifteen years; the creation of the re- formatory for women at Sherborn, in 1874; the Massachu- setts reformatory for younger male offenders at Concord, ten years later; the prison camp at West Rutland in 1904, in order to furnish outdoor employment to male prisoners; the addition of the hospital section in 1907, to segregate and care for tubercular prisoners; and the use of the State farm for the confinement of convicted inebriates. All these reforms represent a slow but steady effort of the State to provide for the institutional classification of prisoners. Finally, the be- ginnings of the State prison colony at Norfolk under an act of

PRISON CONDITIONS

1927 (chapter 289), and the building of a custodial wall and buildings by the labor of prisoners, with a view to their use as a State prison, with the consequent future abandonment of the old State prison at Charlestown, will effectually re- move many obstacles to prison reform in Massachusetts.

PRISON CONDITIONS (1919-1930)

A special commission of 1919 characterized confinement in the "group of cell-blocks" that made up the State prison as a "cruel and unusual punishment." "For purposes of ref- ormation the facilities afforded are hopeless. If punishment is the basis, they are inhuman." It also empha- sized the impossibility of proper classification of the inmates at the reformatory for women, where used to be found "girls under twenty, comparatively young in crime, thrown by the nature of the housing quarters into contact with the psyco- pathic individual and the feeble-minded woman who has behind her decades of anti-social conduct-a record of prosti- tution, with its consequent promiscuous spread of venereal diseases, of illegitimacy and of crime." The facilities at the Massachusetts reformatory were also found ill-adapted to that "grouping of the inmates according to age, degree of offence, mentality or possibility of reformation" essential to the application of modern methods.

The commission found that the existence of 21 jails and houses of correction under 14 independent boards of county commissioners was the chief obstacle to making anything but punishment the object of confinement. The impossibility of adopting any comprehensive and unified system of penal administration with the control of over 34 correctional insti- tutions divided among 15 boards led to an insistent demand that those of the counties be consolidated under State control, just as the care of the insane had been consolidated in 1900. Governors urged this reform, and it was once endorsed by a plank in the State platform of the Republican party (1920). However, the movement has made no progress in the legisla- ture, and the counties are still in' control of their penal insti- tutions.

Years before, the State authorities had been empowered to transfer prisoners between State and county institutions.

STATE GOVERNMENT

In 1918 the physical examination of county prisoners, under specifications promulgated by the State health authorities, was required. In 1924 the legislature, impelled by an initia- tive petition, made mandatory the psychiatric examination of prisoners serving sentences of more than thirty days in all jails and houses of correction by psychiatrists of the State Department of Mental Diseases.

CRIMINAL PSYCHIATRY AND PENOLOGY (1904-1924)

Though the advocates of modern principles of penology failed to attain their goal in respect to classification, they have achieved much in the application of the science of psy- chiatry to the problems of the lawbreaker. In fact, Massa- chusetts is recognized as a leader in the "practical application of psychiatry to the penal machinery." In 1913, the munici- pal court of the city of Boston was the first adult court in the country to set up a psychiatric clinic.

In 1904 the legislature provided for the appointment by courts hearing criminal cases of two experts in insanity, to examine prisoners of doubtful sanity, with the possibility of commitment to a State hospital. In 1918, the presiding judge was authorized to request the Department of Mental Diseases to assign a member of a State hospital staff to examine into the mental condition of persons coming before the court. The most notable contribution of Massachusetts in the appli- cation of mental tests to prisoners on trial was the enactment of the Briggs Law in 1921, conceived by Dr. L. Vernon Briggs, making the mental examination of certain persons held for trial a matter of precedural routine. Under its pro- visions, all persons indicted for capital offences and certain others indicted for felony are required to be examined by the Department of Mental Diseases, and the report becomes admissible evidence. The act, perfected from year to year, is one of the many outstanding contributions of Massachu- setts to modern legislation, and has been the subject of much discussion throughout the country.

An account of the achievements of Massachusetts in the field of penology would be incomplete did it fail to take note of its well-conceived system of granting permits to be at

MENTALLY DISEASED

liberty, skilfully administered by its Board of Parole, which also serves the governor and council as an advisory board of pardons; of its recently instituted system of paying wages to prisoners engaged in the industries conducted in State penal institutions; of the establishment in 1906 of the Boston juvenile court, and provision for juvenile sessions in other courts; of the establishment of the indeterminate sentence, based upon the theory that modern punishment takes account of the offender as well as the offence; of its system of aid to discharged prisoners; of its provisions for departments of defective delinquents in penal institutions, with authority in the courts to sentence mental defectives thereto; and lastly of its notable system, of probation, whereof the history and results are ably set forth in the report of the Commission on Probation submitted to the General Court in 1924.

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Commonwealth history of Massachusetts, colony, province and state, volume 5, Part 6

Author: Hart, Albert Bushnell, 1854-1943, editor Publication date: 1927 Publisher: New York, States History Co. Number of Pages: 922

Author: Hart, Albert Bushnell, 1854-1943, editor
Publication date: 1927
Publisher: New York, States History Co.
Number of Pages: 922