USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Fifty years of Boston; a memorial volume issued in commemoration of the tercentenary of 1930; 1880-1930, Pt. 1 > Part 13
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Even in the administration of the major functions of the city the Mayor was only primus inter pares. He appointed with the approval of the City Council the Police and Park Commissioners, but chose only one annually for a three-year term. The former could be removed by the Mayor or by a two- thirds vote of the City Council, while the latter were removable only by the Council. The Mayor acted concurrently with the City Council in the annual clection of the City Clerk. All other major officers were elected by the City Council and in most cases at its own discretion, except for the Street Commis- sioners, who were popularly elected, and the School Committee, composed of twenty-four persons, one third being elected annually by popular vote, includ- ing the votes of women. A large part of the administration was, therefore, independent of the Mayor's control and as a whole was extremely decentralized.
The personnel of the municipal departments was in turn controlled by numerous standing committees and joint standing committees of the two chambers of the City Council .* Enjoying almost complete independence from the whole body of the Council, partly because they were too numerous to be controlled and partly because each member belonged to a committee and deinanded the ordinary courtesies of "logrolling," these committees gave free play to special interests and the spoils system. Such a state of affairs was the inevitable result of a charter which created the institution of the municipal executive and gave it only nominal powers. Political power and leadership naturally gravitated into the hands of the party bosses. Inadequate budgeting and auditing powers and the absence of civil service rules left the unscrupulous committeemen more or less unlimited in their actions. Each committee prac- tically controlled the appropriation and expenditure of funds for its particular phase of the city's administration and thereby it dictated the policies of the department that came under its tutelage. There was not always harmony, because each chamber had its own set of committees, although the joint stand- ing committees did in some measure, perhaps, help to narrow the divergencies which tended to appear between two bodies exercising the same jurisdiction.
The organization of the administrative departments was of a type which had been suited to more simple conditions, but which was now rapidly out-
* There were ten standing and four special committees of the Board of Aldermen; three standing com_ mittees of the Common Council; thirty joint standing and uine special standing Committees of the Council - a total of fifty-six.
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growing its usefulness, and the number of the departments was too great. In 1880 there were about thirty-seven departments, of which some sixteen were headed by boards of three to twelve members, including the important depart- ments of police, streets, fire and water, in which centralization of responsibility, promptness and unity of action, and expertness are desirable .* The multiple- headed departments lessened efficiency, while the large number of separate departments and agencies increased expense because of the duplication of work. On the other hand, the board system, especially the unpaid boards, attracted to the public service a number of first-rate citizens who would not have been willing to devote all of their time to the city or to service for compensation. This type of organization, however, was not satisfactory for the management of the city's larger departments.
Mayor Frederick O. Prince had in 1879 expressed the opinion that only the more useful commissions should be retained and that the single-headed department was more effective in the dispatch of municipal business.t Four years later in 1883 Mayor Albert Palmer, in addressing the City Council, pointed out the defects of the administrative system with even more emphasis when he said: "The opinion widely prevails that some of them (the commissions) exercise a variety of incongruous powers, all of which ought not to be vested in the saine body; while in their multiplicity and the stereotyped adherence, in every case, to the trinitarian basis of construction, it is generally believed that there is employed a larger aggregate number of these officials, involving a correspondingly large addition to the salary list of the city, than is really neces- sary for the business-like conduct of the affairs thus divided and needlessly subdivided among them." **
As suminarized by the Finance Commission of 1907-09 in that part of its report devoted to municipal history, the chief defects of the government of the City of Boston in the early 80's were to be found in the fact that "there was no single person to hold responsible in the press or at an election for anything that was done; and the citizens felt themselves powerless to check the extravagance, waste and corruption which prevailed. The lack of executive power was the weakness of the system, and the difficulty was largely increased by the changed conditions which time, modern inventions, and a larger and more diversified population had brought about. By 1882 the functions of the Mayor had become, as the then incumbent of the office stated, merely advisory. He was little more than a figurehead for a system of Committee Government."tt
In spite of its obvious defects, Boston's administration in 1880 was in a somewhat more satisfactory condition than that of the other large cities of the
* The departments of the City of Boston in 1880 included the following: Assessors' Department; Bridges; Buildings; Common and Public Grounds; Commissioners of Public Parks; Ferries; Treasurer; Collector ; Auditor; Sinking Funds Commission; Fire Department; Fire-Aların Telegraph; Harbor Department; Health; City Registrar; Record Commissioners; Inspector of Milk; Cedar Grove Cemetery; Mount Hope Cemetery; Public Charitable Institutions; City Hospital; Overseers of the Poor; Public Buildings; Public Library; Inspectors of Provisions; Police Department; Paving Department; Superintendent of City Printing; School Committee: Sewers; Solicitor; Streets; Registrars of Voters; Water Department; Weights and Measures. Altogether there were about one hundred and five officers or members of boards in charge of the work of the departments.
+ City Documents, 1879, Volume I, Address of Mayor Prince, pages 15-25.
** City Documents, 1883, page 19.
it Boston Finance Commission Reports, 1909, Volume II, page 186.
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THE CITY GOVERNMENT
country. For example, Mayor Frederick O. Prince in his inaugural address on January 12, 1880, stated that "Boston occupies a high position among the cities of the country. It is in some respects regarded as a model city, as it receives constant applications for information touching its management of municipal matters and its administrative methods." "Although municipal extravagance has been sometimes charged, no allegation of corruption, so far as I know the facts, has ever been made against any Boston city official."* Also it should be borne in mind that the period from 1870 to 1900 was a time when municipal government was at a low ebb in the United States and when conditions were so bad as to cause James Bryce to make his often quoted observation in "The American Commonwealth": "There is no denying that the government of cities is the one conspicuous failure of the United States." (1889 edition, Volume I, page 608.) It is to the credit of the public officials and the citizens of Boston that in spite of a clumsy governmental system and lack of official responsibility, the city was free from such scandals and gross corruption as had existed a decade before in New York through the manipulations of the "Tweed Ring" and in Philadelphia under the "Gas Ring." There is no question, however, that in a period of rapid transition, when population and expenditure were growing by leaps and bounds and when orderly and efficient planning of administration was most needed, the existing governmental system of the City of Boston stood in the way of progress and made the financial burden on the taxpayers greater than it should have been.
THE MOVEMENT FOR CHARTER REVISION, 1880-84
As expenditures, municipal indebtedness, and especially the tax rate, which affected directly or indirectly the great body of citizens, increased, the defects of the governmental system became more apparent and there grew up a demand for reforin, especially for charter revision. Expenditures had become so alarm- ingly great and the tax rate so high that there was no alternative to a policy of reform.t As early as 1873 a Commission had been appointed to report on a possible revision of the charter, but, partly because of the elaborate nature of the scheme proposed and partly because of the indecision and hostility of the City Council, the report was never definitely acted upon by the Legislature. In 1880 Mayor Prince regarded charter amendment as an absolute necessity. "I should consider my official duties on this occasion imperfectly performed," he stated, "if I did not renew the recommendations of my last inaugural address touching a revision of the City Charter. It is generally admitted that impor- tant changes in this instrument are required by the great growth of the city and the consequent multiplication of its departments, with all their increasing
* City Documents, 1880, Volume I, Address of Mayor Prince, page 5.
t "It has been stated, and the statement appears to be fully sustained by the facts, that property, both real and personal, is more heavily taxed in Boston than in any other large city in this country," reported the Com- mission appointed in 1884 to consider the need for charter revision. "The rate of $17 on a thousand for the present year exceeds by about 8 per cent the highest rate in any previous year, namely, $15.80 in 1865, the year following the war. During the last thirty years, covering the period since the revision of the City Charter, the population has increased from 140,000 to about 400,000, or 190 per cent. The valuation of real and personal property has increased from $227,000,000 to $682,648,000, or 200 per cent. The expenditures of the city have increased from $2,135,000 to about $12,000,000, or 450 per cent." The Commission pointed out that the per capita appropriations for current expenses of the City of Boston for 1884 were $27.30 as compared with $16.76 for New York, $11.67 for Baltimore and $10.16 for Philadelphia. (Boston City Documents, 1884, Document 120.)
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FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
business. It is a piece of patchwork, wanting in unity, consistency and logical harmony. Diversity of opinions as to the character of the needed changes has alone prevented action thereon."*
Finally in 1884, the movement for reform culminated in the appointment of a Commission, composed of the chairman of the Board of Aldermen, the president of the Cominon Council, and three members selected by the Mayor, to consider the advisability of revising the city's charter .; The investigations of this Commission brought clearly to public attention the weaknesses of the city government that have already been mentioned and emphasized the unduly heavy taxation of property. Although many remedies were suggested, the Commission concluded that there was "substantial agreement upon the following points, viz., that the executive should be separated from the legislative de- partment; that the power and responsibility of the executive should be increased; that the number of departments, and especially the number of heads of de- partments, should be reduced; and that the work of the different departments should be so arranged as to secure concert of action. The experience of other large cities has shown that the only way to secure 'greater economy and efficiency' is to separate and define the powers and duties of the legislative and executive departments so that the people can fix the responsibility for inefficiency or a misuse of the public money, and be able to apply directly and effectively the remedy which the ballot gives them." **
In order to apply the above-mentioned principles, the majority report of the Charter Commission recommended a Mayor with large executive powers, a unicameral Council elected by wards, an executive council of department heads appointed by the Mayor alone, a two-year term for the Mayor and the Council, and the consolidation of most of the executive departments under a few heads. The Commission argued that a greater appointing power would develop more clearly the responsibility of the Mayor and was not liable to abuse, since the Civil Service Act of 1884 applied to subordinate positions in the several departments. The sweeping proposals of the Commission, which were intended to be far-reaching and penetrating in their effect on the city's government, met with widespread public approval, but the Council declined to take action on the report. In 1885, however, a committee of citizens was organized which drafted and presented to the Legislature a compromise measure combining a few of the recommendations of the charter commission of the previous year with ideas of its own. The bill served as a basis of the "Charter Amendments of 1885," which were enacted by the General Court (chapter 266 of the Acts of 1885) and put into effect without reference to the voters.
THE CHARTER AMENDMENTS OF 1885 - THE SEPARATION OF LEGISLATIVE AND EXECUTIVE POWERS AND THE EMERGENCE OF THE PRINCIPLE OF EXECUTIVE RESPONSIBILITY
The charter amendments of 1885, which were brief and covered only about five pages, did not remake the organic law of the city. Their principal effect was to separate more distinctly the executive from the legislative powers
* Boston City Documents, 1880, pages 66-67.
t Bugbee, J. M., The City Government of Boston, 1887, pages 34 et seq .; Sprague, H. H., City Government - in Boston, 1890, pages 39-53.
** Public Documents, 1884, Volume III, No. 120.
4
MAYORS OF BOSTON, 1879-18SS
FREDERICK O. PRINCE
SAMUEL A. GREEN
AUGUSTUS P. MARTIN
ALBERT PALMER
HUGH O'BRIEN
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FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
and to concentrate the former more largely in the hands of the Mayor. All . the exccutive officers and boards were brought under the Mayor's general supervision and were made directly accountable to him rather than to the Board of Aldermen or the City Council. The Mayor was further given the appointing power, limited by the confirmation of the Board of Aldermen, for all offices except the City Clerk, the Clerk of Committees, the City Messenger, and those elected by the people. The power of removal of his appointees for assigned causes was his alone. Contracts exceeding $2,000 in amount required his approval. In addition, he was given the item veto power over loan bills and appropriation orders. He retained the qualified veto power over acts of the School Committee. Finally, all his connections with the Board of Aldermen or the School Committee as member or presiding officer were definitely severed. The Council remained a bicameral body, but an act of 1884 (chapter 250) provided for the election of the Aldermen from districts instead of at large, on the ground that each section of the city would thus have a rep- resentative on the Board and that interest in municipal affairs would be increased by bringing issues closer home. The new charter provisions also prohibited the City Council generally and its committees in particular from inter- fering with the conduct of executive and administrative officers, especially with the making of contracts, the employment of labor and the purchase of materials.
The charter amendments of 1885 marked the emergence of the principle of executive responsibility, but left much to be done. In the first place, the power of the Mayor was not so much strengthened as at first appeared. He lost some of liis legislative powers but his appointments were still subject to the confirmation of the Board of Aldermen. Secondly, the power of the City Council was weakened, but its committees continued for some time to investigate the city's administration, much to the annoyance of the Chief Executive .* Also no penalty was attached to the provision prohibiting the Council from interfering with the administrative affairs of the city, with the result that it became a dead letter. Thirdly, although departments were prohibited from exceeding their appropriations and various other financial limitations were enacted, adequate internal financial control remained yet to be developed. Finally, despite the concentration of responsibility, the principle of integration was apparently unknown. The administrative or- ganization continued largely the samet; single heads of departments held office for only one year. The earlier objections to the multiplicity and overlapping of departments still remained valid. The existence of a number of popularly elected offices served only to weaken the relative position of the Mayor. If the executive and legislative functions were more clearly separated, the separa- tion did not in all cases redound to the Mayor's benefit.
THE EXTENSION OF STATE CONTROL
At about the same time that the charter of the city was undergoing revision, the Legislature passed certain acts which extended the scope of state control. The most important of these was an act of 1885 (chapter 323), creating
* City Documents, 1887, Volume I, Address of Mayor Hugh O'Brien, pages 45-46.
t Ibid., 1889, Volume 1, Address of Mayor Thomas N. Hart, pages 7-9.
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a State Board of Police, consisting of three citizens of Boston appointed by the Governor and the Council, which took over the administration of the Police Department. The city was required to pay on requisition of the state board any expenses which it might incur, and the only power retained by the city in connection with police administration was the right of the Mayor to assume control of the force in case of emergency. The transfer of the Police Depart- ment to a state board was made not so much on account of the general record of the Police Department, but rather because of the opposition of those citizens interested in temperance legislation, who felt that the Police Department had been too lax in the enforcement of regulations governing liquor licenses. The same Legislature that established state control over the municipal Police Department also enacted the first law fixing a tax limit for the city, thus setting up another form of state interference. This legislation limited the rate of taxation for inunicipal purposes to $9 on every $1,000 of the average valuation for the preceding three years, at which figure it remained until 1900. The Legislature at the same session also reduced the debt limit from three to two and one half per cent of the valuation until January 1, 1887, and thereafter to two per cent. None of these acts was made subject to acceptance by the City Council or the voters. It should be pointed out, however, that the finan- cial restrictions were enacted by the Legislature on request of the Reforin Association and of Mayor Hugh O'Brien who, becoming tired of being held responsible for the increase of expenditures and indebtedness and for a financial policy which he could not adequately control, turned to the General Court for legislative restraint.
INTRODUCTION OF MERIT SYSTEM
The governmental reorganization of 1885 was greatly aided by the intro- duction during the same year of the merit system. By an act of 1884 (chapter 320) the Legislature had provided that appointments to practically all subor- dinate positions in the City of Boston and other cities of the Commonwealth should be made from eligible lists prepared by the State Civil Service Commis- sion as the result of competitive examinations. Boston was, therefore, one of the first large cities in the country in which the merit system was applied, New York having established the plan only one year earlier. In fact, the Massa- chusetts Civil Service Law was the third statute of its kind passed in the United States and was enacted only one year after the Pendleton Act, which estab- lished the merit system in the national government. Civil service not only increased the efficiency of municipal administration in Boston and reduced somewhat political influence over appointments, but it also, in the opinion of Mayor Nathan Matthews, Jr., afforded protection to "the heads of depart- ments against the pressure of individual office-seekers, politicians and political committees. Without this protection, the difficulty of conducting the city business under the present charter, which concentrates all the executive business in the Mayor and heads of departments, would be increased to such an extent as to make the office of the Mayor almost untenable; and it was a fortunate thing for the city government that the civil service principle was introduced simultaneously with the charter amendments of 1885." *
* The City Government of Boston, Valedictory Address, January 5, 1895, page 119.
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FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
THE EXTENSION OF MUNICIPAL FUNCTIONS AND THE GROWTH OF ADMINIS- 1
TRATION, 1885-1909
During the period from 1885 to 1909, the chief developments were (1) the gradual extension of municipal functions; (2) the consolidation or reor- ganization of some of the existing departments on the one hand and the addition of new departments on the other; (3) changes in political structure by lengthen- ing the term of the Mayor to two years and by experimentation with various methods of electing members of the Board of Aldermen; (4) the reduction in the size of the School Committee; (5) a still further increase in state control; (6) an increase in municipal expenditure and debt; and (7) toward the end of the period a growing dissatisfaction with the city government, culminating in a widespread demand for complete charter revision.
As the burdens of administration increased and new functions were added, the problems of departmental organization, which had attracted considerable attention before 1885, became increasingly acute. So far as existing functions were concerned, consolidation and integration were characteristic of the period, while on the side of newly created functions differentiation and even decentrali- zation were the rule. Practically every mayor from Hugh O'Brien in 1885 to George A. Hibbard in 1909 recommended departmental integration of some sort. Opposed to the mayors and other leaders who favored consolidation of depart- ments were the forces of inertia, the desire of the politicians to keep open as many political appointments as possible, and the more laudable but questionable theory that a separate department for each important activity insured greater expertness and interest in the performance of that special activity. The result of these two conflicting tendencies was, as already indicated, a movement toward consolidation and reorganization at one time and in the opposite direction on the next occasion, rather than a systematic planning of the administrative organization as a whole. Also, there was the additional obstacle that most departments could not be reorganized without action by the State Legislature.
One of the first steps toward administrative reorganization was the abolition by legislative act in 1889 of the unwieldy Board of Directors of Public Institu- tions with its twelve members and the substitution therefor of a Commission of Public Institutions consisting of three paid officers. At the beginning of the administration of Nathan Matthews, Jr., in the early 90's, the Sewer, Bridges, Cambridge Bridges, and Sanitary Police Departments were consolidated with the Street Department under a single superintendent; the Board of Directors of East Boston Ferries was also abolished in favor of a single superintendent, and the Department for the Inspection of Wires was abolished as a separate depart- ment and placed under the jurisdiction of the Board of Fire Commissioners, with the result that by 1895 there were five fewer departments than in 1890. "These reductions and consolidations," wrote Mayor Matthews, "have been productive of excellent results, and, as frequently suggested to the City Council, indicate the value of further changes tending to a simplification of the machinery of government and a concentration of responsibility. Among these changes are the substitution of single superintendents or commissioners for the Board of Commissioners of Public Institutions, the Board of Fire Commissioners, and the Boston Water Board. The work of the Fire Department is purely executive in
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character, that of the other two departments nearly so. The office of Water Registrar should either be made a subordinate division of the Department of Water Works, or consolidated with the Collecting Department. The Inspectors of Milk and Vinegar and of Provisions might be made subordinate officers of the Board of Health, which has general charge of all matters relating to the public health; and Mount Hope Cemetery could also be placed in charge of this Board." *
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