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 18
Note: The text from this book was generated using artificial intelligence so there may be some errors. The full pages can be found on Archive.org (link on the Part 1 page).
Part 1 | Part 2 | Part 3 | Part 4 | Part 5 | Part 6 | Part 7 | Part 8 | Part 9 | Part 10 | Part 11 | Part 12 | Part 13 | Part 14 | Part 15 | Part 16 | Part 17 | Part 18 | Part 19 | Part 20 | Part 21 | Part 22 | Part 23 | Part 24 | Part 25 | Part 26 | Part 27 | Part 28 | Part 29 | Part 30 | Part 31 | Part 32 | Part 33 | Part 34 | Part 35 | Part 36 | Part 37 | Part 38 | Part 39 | Part 40 | Part 41 | Part 42 | Part 43 | Part 44 | Part 45 | Part 46 | Part 47 | Part 48 | Part 49 | Part 50
On this point the Commission of 1896 spoke as follows:
"A system of metropolitan control which permits the Legislature, representing the entire Commonwealth, to tax the people of the district not for state but for local purposes, and then, having deprived them of all but a fractional voice in the levying of the tax, decrees that the money shall be spent by those whom the payers of the tax have no
i
125
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
voice in appointing and over whom they can exercise no control, is not a system which can be reconciled with the American political methods. That good work has been done under it is not an argument in its defense."
In March, 1904, a bill for a Metropolitan District Planning Board was introduced, but it did not pass. The same thing occurred in 1906. In 1907 a Commission on Metropolitan Improvements was authorized. They studied the question of rapid transit and of highway development and made recom- mendations.
The report of this Metropolitan Improvements Commission of 1909 not only dealt with local transit facilities but urged a system of freight terminals which would permit the rapid interchange of freight. Greater Boston should be regarded as a terminal district. They recommended a consolidated Met- ropolitan District Commission and, as an adjunct thereto, the creation of a Metropolitan District Council composed of the responsible executive officials of the various communities. The Legislature of 1909 created a joint board to reconsider and carry out, as far as possible, recommendations of the Com- mission, but little actual progress was made at that time. In 1911 the Legis- lature provided for the appointment of a Metropolitan Plan Commission. The report of this Metropolitan Plan Commission, published in 1912, included a bill providing for a Planning Commission of five persons, three appointed by the Governor and two by the Mayor of Boston. Further study was made in 1914, and in 1915 a Terminal Commission was appointed which made a report in 1916. Nothing, however, was accomplished.
In the census of 1920 a study was made of metropolitan districts in the United States. Boston was the only great city in which the suburban territory of the metropolitan district had a decided preponderance of population over the central city.
In 1922 the Boston Chamber of Commerce strongly urged the appointment of a Metropolitan Planning Board. This was finally authorized by the Legisla- ture in 1923, as a division of the Metropolitan District Commission.
In 1930 Mayor Curley of Boston, who had already introduced a Greater Boston bill in 1924, invited a number of citizens of the metropolitan district to consider a plan for governing the metropolitan area. This commission reported a plan for a federated government by giving the control of the district activities, which had been in the hands of the Commonwealth, to a new city, called Metro- politan Boston, which should manage the existing district activities, thus returned to the self-government of the district, and should leave the constituent cities and towns unchanged in function and in form of government. This plan, based on Mr. Baxter's suggestion, differed from his plan in two important particulars: It left both the county governments and the city and town govern- ments unchanged and affected only the district government. This plan did not win approval. Another bill is now pending before the Legislature of 1932. This measure provides for a referendum vote on the plan in the whole district. If approved, it will still leave the local governments intact but will turn over the functions of the present state commission, as well as those of the Transit Com-
-
126
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
mission and the Port Authority, to a commission of four, appointed by a metro- politan council. wlio will be elected by the people of the cities and towns.
To sum up, the metropolitan water and sewerage systems, parks, beaches and boulevards are administered as units by a state commission; but the feder- ated city, of broader.scope, which many favor, has not yet been able to win the necessary support among the public bodies concerned. Agitation, however, in behalf of some form of partial consolidation continues and may eventually be crowned with success.
The boundaries of Greater Boston - in other words, of that central and suburban territory which is commercially and socially Boston - have been widened from year to year. In 1850, when the extension of the city was first urged, the contemplated addition was of the cities of Roxbury and Charlestown, and perhaps Cambridge. In 1891 Baxter suggested a ten-mile radius. In the time of Mayor Peters, fifteen miles was suggested. The successive Metropolitan District Acts lrave added one and another town to the metropolitan district until at the time of the census of 1930 the metropolitan area comprised forty- three cities and towns, covered 457 square miles of land, and had a population of 1,955,168.
In 1930 the metropolitan territory covered the following cities and towns:
COUNTY OF SUFFOLK
Boston. Founded 1630; city since 1822. Mayor with large power, and City Council with single chamber.
Chelsea. Separated from Boston 1739; city since 1857.
Revere. Separated from Chelsea as North Chelsea 1846; name changed 1871; city since 1914.
Winthrop. Separated from North Chelsea 1852; town.
COUNTY OF ESSEX
Lynn. Founded as Saugus 1631; name changed 1637; city since 1850.
Nahant. Separated from Lynn 1853; town.
Saugus. Separated from Lynn 1815; town.
Swampscott. Separated from Lynn 1852; town.
COUNTY OF MIDDLESEX
Arlington. Separated from Cambridge as West Cambridge 1807; name changed 1867; town, with representative town meeting.
Belmont. Formed 1859 from parts of Waltham, Watertown and Arlington; town.
Cambridge. Founded as Newe Towne 1631; name changed 1636; city since 1846.
Everett. Separated from Malden IS70; city since 1892.
Lexington. Separated from Cambridge 1713; town.
Malden. Separated from Charlestown 1649; city since 1881.
Medford. Founded 1630; city since 1892.
Melrose. Separated from Malden 1850; city since 1899.
Newton. Separated from Cambridge 1691; city since 1873.
Reading. Separated from Lynn 1644; town.
Somerville. Separated from Charlestown 1842; city since 1871.
Stoneham. Separated from Charlestown 1725; town.
Wakefield. Separated from Reading as South Reading, 1812; name changed 1868; town.
Waltham. Separated from Watertown 1738; city since 1884.
Watertown. Founded 1630; town.
Weston. Separated from Watertown 1713; town.
Winchester. Formed 1850 from Medford, Arlington and Woburn; town.
Woburn. Separated from Charlestown 1642; city since 1888.
127
METROPOLITAN BOSTON
COUNTY OF NORFOLK
Braintree. Founded 1640; town.
Brookline. Separated from Boston 1705; town with representative town meeting.
Canton. Separated from Stoughton 1797; town.
Cohasset. Separated from Hingham 1770; town.
Dedham. Founded 1636; town.
Dover. Separated from Dedham 1784; town.
Milton. Separated from Dorchester 1662; town.
Needham. Separated from Dedham 1711; town.
Norwood. Formed from Dedham and Walpole 1872; town.
Quincy. Separated from Braintree 1792; city since 1888.
Stoughton. Separated from Dorchester 1726; town.
Walpole. Separated from Dedham 1724; town.
Wellesley. Separated from Needham 1881; town.
Westwood. Separated from Dedham 1897; town.
Weymouth. Founded 1623; town.
COUNTY OF PLYMOUTH
Hingham. Founded 1635; town.
Hull. Founded 1644; town.
EDITORIAL NOTE
The logic of events has recently brought further recognition of the essential unity of the metropolitan territory. For purposes of statistical comparison the United States Bureau of the Census has established metropolitan districts around and including several of the largest cities in the country. The area of the district so established for Boston is greater than that which is under the jurisdiction of the Metropolitan District Commission, extending to a dis- tance of perhaps twenty miles from the State House and covering 1,021 square miles, with a population in 1930 of about 2,300,000. It embraces nineteen cities and sixty-one towns, located in six different counties. Its area is thirteen per cent of the area of the state, its population fifty-four per cent. Only New York, Chicago and Philadelphia surpass the Boston district in population and general importance.
Time alone can tell whether this statistical recognition by a Federal Bureau will further or retard the movement for a closer jurisdictional union of the capital and the adjoining municipalities. It does, however, advertise to the country at large the proportions of the real Boston and its true standing among American cities.
L
THE CITY AND THE STATE, 1880=1930
By HENRY PARKMAN, Jr.
OUTLINE
1. State control over Boston: the charter and its changes.
2. The debt limit.
3. The tax limit.
4. Schools.
5. Other fiscal relations:
a. The corporation tax.
b. Motor vehicle registration, the gas tax, division of the Highway Fund.
6. Political relations:
a. The police.
b. Civil service.
7. Summary of the relations between Boston and the State.
8. The relations of Boston, Suffolk County and the State.
9. Notable Boston citizens in the service of the State.
STATE CONTROL OVER BOSTON: THE CHARTER AND ITS CHANGES
During the years 1880-1930 Boston established even more securely its position as the principal city of the Commonwealth. To illustrate the growth of the city, it may be interesting to compare the increase in population, valuation and cost of government for the half-century here reviewed with that for the fifty-nine years preceding, dating from the first City Charter in 1822. In the Justin Winsor Memorial History, published in 1880, James M. Bugbee, in his article on "Boston under the Mayors," gives the figures thus: "During the fifty-nine years that the city government has been established the popu- lation of Boston has increased from about 45,000 to 362,535, more than eightfold. The current expenses of the city in 1822 amounted to $249,000; in 1880 the appropriations for current expenses, including city debt, amounted to $10,190,387,- a fortyfold increase. The valuation of property for purposes of taxation amounted in 1823 to $44,896,800, and in 1880 to $639,462,495, or an increase of almost fourteenfold." By 1930 the population had more than doubled to 781,188; the expenses had multiplied by seven and a half to $76,233,861.24, including state and metropolitan district assessments; and the valuation had tripled to $1,972,148,200. In the form of a table these items may be set down as follows:
1822
1880
1930
Population
45,000
362,535
781,188
Expenses.
$249,000
$10,190,387 $639,462,495
$76,233,861 24
Valuation
$44,896,800
$1,972,148,200 00
(128)
129 .
CITY AND STATE
The per capita wealth thus appears to have increased from about $1,000 in 1822 to $1,750 in 1880 and $2,500 in 1930.
In 1880, according to John D. Long in his article, "Boston and the Com- monwealth," in the same volume, "Boston's portion of the state tax was $619,110 out of $1,500,000, or more than 41 per cent, while the census gave Boston 362,535 out of 1,783,086, or a little less than 20.5 per cent." Similar figures for 1930 show Boston's share of the state tax to be $1,816,290 out of $7,000,000, or about 26 per cent, while its population of 718,188 was about 18.5 per cent of the total 4,249,614.
Towards the latter part of the period the growth of the city took the form of development as a metropolitan center. Relatively to the surrounding cities and towns, as might be expected, the tempo of its growth, measured in terms of population or valuation, slowed down, but its importance as the center of trade, industry and finance maintained a steady increase. The efforts toward a greater metropolitan unity evidenced by the establishment of various metropolitan boards and by the increasing attention given to the possibilities of a greater Boston government, are not within the scope of this article, and will be treated at greater length elsewhere.
Nor is it part of the task assigned to the writer to treat in detail of the relations of the city and the state as witnessed by the political development of the city by successive amendments to its fundamental law, the City Charter. These, too, are treated at length in a separate article. It is, however, im- possible to discuss the relations in other respects between city and state without some brief reference to the charter changes during the period under review. For the form of the city government from time to time necessarily influenced the attitude of the Commonwealth towards the finances and management of her principal city .*
The charter changes of 1854, intended to strengthen the Mayor's hands and to tighten up the loose form of government by City Council committees, were found to be ineffective. As a result of two reports from Charter Revision Committees of 1875 and 1884, upon which the Council itself took no action, the Legislature took matters into its own hands, and in 1885 the charter was again amended in an effort still further to centralize executive power. However, the reluctance of the Council, then made up of two bodies, the Board of Alder- men and the Common Council, to relinquish their control over executive and administrative functions, coupled with their power to over-ride the Mayor's veto, and the necessity of confirmation of the Mayor's appointees by the Board of Aldermen, eventually resulted in an overwhelming demand for a further revision. In 1909 the Finance Commission, Erst established by the Mayor of the city, John F. Fitzgerald, and with its powers later strengthened by legis- lative act, recommended a wholesale and drastic revision. Their plan was adopted after stormy debate and appeal to the voters on one of its features, and has since constituted, with minor amendments, the fundamental law of the city. This charter, as Dean Hanford has pointed out in his very able discussion of the subject, went further than that of any other city in concen-
* See Huse, "The Financial History of Boston," H. U. Press, 1916, page 340.
-
130
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
trating executive control and responsibility in the Mayor; abolished the former bicameral Council and substituted a single body of nine; removed from the Council almost all its functions save those of passing upon appropriations and loan orders, and gave the Mayor an absolute veto on all its actions; sub- jected the Mayor's appointees as heads of departments to confirmation by the State Board of Civil Service; and set up a permanent Finance Commission appointed by the Governor with full power of investigation and inquiry with attendant publicity into the management of the city's affairs.
Most, if not all, of these changes in the form of the city government were accomplished without the initiative of the city, and, except in a few minor instances, without any provision for acceptance by the citizens. And so we find throughout this period, in these as in other relations between the city and the state, the never-ending controversy of home rule versus paternalism con- tinually running as a dominant note of the theme.
The decade after the Civil War was marked by enormous expansion of all activities, in governmental affairs as well as in private business, and Boston was no exception to the rule. For the cities and towns of the state, the total indebtedness had multiplied in the decade 1865-75 fourfold, from less than $20,000,000 to more than $80,000,000. Boston's net debt, at the close of 1874, had reached the figure of about twenty-eight millions of dollars, at which point it was to remain almost stationary during the succeeding period of retrench- ment .* This enormous increase of indebtedness was the occasion, undoubtedly, for the seizure of a greater measure of control by the Legislature. But there were other reasons. The corruption and extravagance of the period and the disclosure of such scandals as the operations of the Tweed ring in New York were giving aid and comfort to those who advocated the theory that it was a healthy thing to give the rural districts a check on the "slick city fellows." In the literature of the time there is much evidence of the conflict of opinion that exists to this day. A Tilden commission in New York, reporting in 1875, found that "the notion that legislative control was a proper remedy [for the evils of municipal government] was a serious mistake," and that "one of the principal causes of existing evils is the assumption by the Legislature of the direct control of local affairs." This criticism was quoted with approval by Mayor Pierce in his inaugural of 1878, and in 1887, after a further measure of control was taken by the State Legislature, as evidenced by enactments of 1885 relating to the tax limit, to the management of the police force, to charter changes, etc., we find a Boston paper commenting editorially :
"Whether from economic or moral solicitude, the tendency of today is to seek relief and restraint from the Legislature or the state at large for every form of municipal or local trouble. It matters little whether it be extravagance with Boston's money, or hygiene in Boston's schools, or the regulation of Boston's hours of work or play, or the control of Boston's police, or the building of Boston's public structures, the desire of some seems to be to invoke the oversight and the discretion of the
* See House Document 1803 of 1913, "Report of Joint Special Committee on Municipal Finance," page 13, et passim; also, Huse "The Financial History of Boston," pages 221, 342, et passim.
1
131
CITY AND STATE
excellent rural communities of Berkshire, Barnstable and Essex. We think this disposition is unsound, un-American and dangerous, and that its effect, if persisted in, will aggravate the very dangers it secks to prevent; or else, carried to its legitimate result, it will bring us to a state of paternal protective government which shall look upon its large municipalities as communities to be disfranchised and put under guardianship."
Whether such criticisms were then justificd, and whatever may be the ultimate outcome, certain it is that the same clash of opinions persists. There arc still those who feel that Boston is not to be trusted; and year after year may be heard on the public platform, in the public press, or in the legislative halls the voices of others raised in similar protest.t Nevertheless, the exercise of supervision and control has continued throughout the past half-century. It may be said to have taken two fornis, one financial and the other political, in the sense of supervision over governmental functions.
THE DEBT LIMIT
At the opening of our period, the assumption of financial control had already manifested itself by the Act of 1875 (chapter 209), which imposed a limit of borrowing power upon all the cities of the Commonwealth of three per cent of their average valuation for the preceding five years. And in 1885, by chapter 178, applying only to Boston, it was provided that the city's limit of indebtedness should be two and one half per cent of the valuation until January 1, 1887, when it should be reduced to two per cent. By that time, however, it was felt that the state should exercise control also over the amount to be raised by municipalities from taxation, and a general law was passed limiting the amount to $12 on the thousand; for Boston a separate limit of $9 per thousand was set.
Ten years later the results of this legislation were appraised by a Finance Commission appointed by Mayor Edwin U. Curtis, and consisting of Henry Parkman, John D. W. Joy and Charles H. Cole. They found this attempt on the part of the Legislature to restrict the increase of debt and of expenditure by the imposition of arbitrary debt and tax limits to have resulted in the very
* Boston Post, March 12, 1887.
t Albert P. Langtry, former Secretary of State, writing in " A Brief Political History of Boston," included in Volume 2 of "Metropolitan Boston - A History" (Boston, 1929), at page 727, said, "He [i. e., Mayor Patrick A. Collins] bitterly resented the interference of the Legislature in the affairs of the City of Boston, but his efforts to check the constantly growing paternalism of the Legislature were withcut avail." In the same article, on page 729, writing of Mayor Curley's second term, he said, "He was a persistent advocate of home rule for Boston, but like most of his predecessors who held the same views he was unable to accomplish anything toward diminishing the legislative supervision over city affairs."
. Mayor Matthews, in his valedictory address (page 15), took occasion to say, "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"; and Huse (op. cit., page 244) says: "It [i. e., the act of 1885 relating to the police force) was one of a large number of legislative enactments which during this period (1887-1908) brought the government of Boston more and more under the control of the State House. . Naturally, this gradual decline of home rule, a distinct loss to the educational power of self-government, was resented by many."
Cf., Mayor .Hart, City Document 104, 1900, page 2. "In fact, recent legislatures have become the City Council of Boston.'
-
132
FIFTY YEARS OF BOSTON
reverse of what had been anticipated. The optimistic expression of James M. Bugbee in the Memorial History of Boston, viz., "It may fairly be presumed that the indebtedness of the city will be kept very near the limit authorized by law," should be compared with the statements by the 1895 Commission (City Document No. 142, 1895, pages 2, 3, 5). "It may be said that the limit of indebtedness has practically failed. The amount which could be annually borrowed 'inside the debt limit' has come to be treated simply as an annex to the tax levy, to be borrowed in full every year and used chiefly for minor improvements, practically if not admittedly for current expenses, while the large necessities of the city, which there is no question should be met by borrowing, have been treated as emergencies, and the requisite loans obtained 'outside the debt limit.' It will thus be seen that the net debt of the city, excluding water debt and including loans authorized but not yet issued, is today over $43,000,000, or a little less than five per cent of the average valua- tion of the five preceding years. This is what it really is in the face of a law on the statute books apparently limiting the net debt to two per cent of such a valuation, excluding water debt, and this is why we say the law is a failure."
The proposals of this commission by way of remedy, i. e., a limitation of debt by constitutional amendment to two and one half per cent of the valuation, and complete removal of the tax limit, were not adopted, either then or later, but we shall hear more of them through later years.
Again in 1900 the results of this legislative policy received a complete overhauling, this time before the Legislature itself. Mayor Hart, a Republican, went before the General Court with a petition to increase the debt limit to two and one half per cent and the tax limit from $9 to $12. He was opposed by the Boston Real Estate Exchange, headed by ex-Mayor Matthews and many other prominent business men and associations of the city. The city was much exercised at the time over a rapidly increasing debt, which had reached the figure of over $58,000,000 for 1900, more than double the $25,000,000 of 1885. Both sides admitted that the larger part of this increase was occasioned by the special acts passed by the Legislature. Mayor Hart, on the one hand, argued that this showed the failure of state control, and justified the expenditures, while on behalf of the Real Estate Exchange ex-Mayor Matthews argued that the city was living beyond its means and using loans without justification to defray current expenses .*
The press appeared to be on the side of the Mayor, the Governor appears to have been sympathetic, and after a long drawn-out legislative battle the Mayor's forces carried the day. He did not get all he asked; the tax limit was raised to $10.50 instead of $12, but the debt limit was restored to two and one-half per cent. (See House and Senate Journals for 1900.) An effort to attach a referendum to the bill was finally defeated in both branches.
Strangely enough, this victory for a greater measure of local freedom seems, in this case, to have been won by the aid of legislators outside of Boston. The Boston members of both parties had a majority opposed to the Mayor's pro- posal, and the Boston Journal gratefully stated in its issue of May 23, 1900,
* See Boston Journal, March 16 and 20, 1900; Report to Boston Real Estate Exchange by Hon. Nathan Matthews, Jr., Boston, March 12. 1900, George H. Ellis, printer; Mayor Hart's Address before Committees of the Legislature, City Document No. 104, 1900.
Need help finding more records? Try our genealogical records directory which has more than 1 million sources to help you more easily locate the available records.