USA > Massachusetts > Norfolk County > Milton > History of Milton > Part 14
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1. To choose a Moderator.
2. To choose all necessary Town Officers for the year ensuing.
3. To determine what sum of Money the Town will appropriate the ensuing year for the support of Schools, and how it shall be apportioncd.
4. To raise such sunis of Money for defraying the necessary expenses of the Town, for the year ensuing, as may be thought proper.
5. To know how the Town will have their Highways repaired the ensuing year.
6. To know how the Town will have their Poor supported the ensuing year.
7. To bring in their votes for County Treasurer.
8. To choose a Committee to examine the Town Treasurer's accounts.
9. To choose a Committee of Vaccination.
10. To choose a Committee on Landing places.
11. To hear and act on the report of any Town Committee.
12. To sce if the Town will accept Cross Street, leading from the Old Plymouth Road to the New Road which is connected with Willard Street in Quincy.
13. To consider and determine whether the Town will authorise the Selectmen to agree with Mr. Ebenczer Pope, to widen the Road at the Corner of his Land, leading to Squantum.
By order of the Selectmen, HENRY WEST, Constable. Milton, Feb. 27, 1843. .
N. B .- The Selectmen will be in session at the Town House, on Saturday, the 11th day of March next, from 7 to 9 o'clock, P. M. and on Monday, the 13th, one hour previous to opening the meeting, for the purpose of receiv- ing qualifications of voters.
WARRANT FOR 1843 TOWN MEETING
Town Meeting
then consisted of eight legal voters, plus the chairman of the Selectmen and of the School Committee, and the Superintendent of Highways. This com- mittee was without any authority other than that delegated to it by the Town. As years went on the idea spread to other towns, and eventually be- came required by State statute for all towns above a certain minimum size. By 1902 our committee had grown to fifteen, including the chairmen of the Selectmen and of the School Committee, and its duties were identical with those of today. Very briefly these duties may be summarized as that of be- coming familiar with all matters to be voted upon in Town Meeting, of rec- ommending in print how the Town should vote, and how much it should appropriate, and that of approving transfers from the contingent, or re- serve, fund. A town at its annual meeting makes appropriations for its an- nual expenditures, and these are assessed upon the taxpayers, collected and expended. Should some sudden emergency arise there might very well be no funds to meet it, and a special Town Meeting would have to be held with further appropriations and the raising of another tax. The establishment of the reserve fund allowed additional funds to be made available without the expense and inconvenience of an additional meeting. If emergency funds were not needed, they were not drawn upon, and the money reverted to the Town. There is another added advantage, although perhaps a minor one. The availability of such funds allows the unexpected to be discounted in the budget estimate, and the amount requested may be kept a little smaller in size.
Two offices which so far have only been mentioned deserve further con- sideration. The Moderator originally was chosen at the start of each meet- ing, and for many years there was very apt to be a different moderator each time that the Town met. The office was normally voted to a prominent citi- zen, and while few held it continuously for any length of time, many held it a number of times over succeeding years. It is an office which should be ex- ercised by an absolutely fair, unbiased, and non-partisan person, and over the years many outstanding citizens have been honored by election to this position. In the older days town government was simple, but today it is much more involved, particularly in the number of committees which must be ap- pointed by the Moderator. It has been found desirable for the best interests
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History of Milton
of the Town to continue a Moderator in office year after year, thus broaden- ing his experience and knowledge of today's much larger town, things which are essential to the selection of committee members who are fairly and truly representative of the entire population.
The Town Clerk has always been a person of importance. While this office of itself is essentially one of recording facts and issuing licenses, it has al- ways had a very considerable indirect power, due partly to the prestige of the office, and also to a considerable extent, I believe, to the contact and thus the knowledge and friendship that the Town Clerk has with the popu- lace. Over the years Milton has been very prone to get a good Town Clerk and then to hang on to him. He is an agent that does much to keep the ma- chinery of town government turning over smoothly.10
In New England the Counties never have been very important units of government. They were initially formed in 1643, but some seven years be- fore, the General Court had established what were in effect four County Courts. Shortly after the Counties appeared, the militia was organized into four regiments, one to each County. Essentially the only contact that Milton had with Suffolk County for many years was through the law courts and the militia. Eventually the County took over responsibility for certain highways and bridges. Today the State has assumed most of this, and the County is concerned, practically speaking, only with courts of law, jails, and certain aspects of health.
Under the old Charter the judiciary had consisted of three levels, County Courts, where one or more of the Assistants sat as magistrates; the Quarter Courts consisting of all the Assistants as a body; and finally the General Court, composed of the Governor, Assistants, and Deputies. Prior to the coming of Andros the General Court had never established any precise re- quirements for town government, leaving each town to adjust its procedure to its best needs. Despite this freedom, there appears to have been little dif- ference between one town and the next. Under the new Charter of 1691 the General Court specified the town officers and their duties, and also estab-
10. Today it is a "she" who perhaps has started a new custom in the choice of Milton's Town Clerks.
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Town Meeting
lished "four courts or quarter sessions of the peace". These were County Courts staffed by Justices of the Peace appointed by the Governor and Coun- cil. Any order or bylaw passed by a town had to be approved by the Court of Quarter Sessions of its County before it could become effective. Various at- tempts were made by Milton and some adjoining towns to break away from Suffolk County, but it was not until 1792 that their efforts were successful, and Norfolk County was formed.
Milton's Town Meeting was held in the Meeting House from the earliest days until 1835, when the Unitarian Church secured possession of its pres- ent building, renovated it, and refused its use to the Town. For the next year or two meetings were held in the old Academy building, in the Old Stone Church at East Milton, and in the Railway House, which, later known as the Blue Bell Tavern, stood on the site of today's Milton Post Office. The Unitarian Society then relented and allowed the Town to use the Meeting House for a short period until the first "Town House" was built in 1837. This was a simple one-storied assembly hall sixty by forty feet in size, locat- ed on the approximate site of today's Town Hall. It remained in use until 1878 when the present building was erected.
In the early days Town Meetings were called whenever any important business came up, but they gradually became fewer in number. By the mid- eighteenth century there were usually two meetings, in March and in May, and sometimes a fall meeting to elect a representative to the General Court. By the early 1800's it became usual to elect officers and transact some gener- al business at a March meeting, to vote for the Governor and other State of- ficers in April, and finally to vote the appropriations in May. By the end of the century Town Meeting opened early on a Monday morning for election of officers, and in the afternoon and evening took up the appropriations and other business. This often resulted in long evening sessions and adjourned meetings, and in 1915 the present method of elections on a Saturday, with all other business taken up on the following Saturday was initiated.
For many years the meeting had something of a social side to it. The citi- zens straggled to Town Hall in the morning to vote, and then often hung around, gossiped, and talked politics. Some would bring lunch pails, while
159
History of Milton
others would buy something at a refreshment booth or from a pedler. At the beginning of this century and probably for some time before that, women were allowed to vote for the School Committee, and the Town Hall would have had quite a picnic appearance, always provided it was not too cold a day. Sometimes for meetings held later in the year, if the weather was warm, the voters would assemble on the lawn and transact the business under the shade of the old elms, which we have since lost through recent hurricanes. It was usual to clean up all the Town's business in one afternoon in those less complicated days.
I have been interested in attempting to determine the attendance at Town Meeting over the years. Unfortunately the records only occasionally list the number of votes cast on articles in the warrant, but by a study of all the re- ports that can be found I judge that the number of voters present was about as shown in the following tables.
Year
Voters
Total Population
Per cent of Population Voting
1750
70
about 650
10.7%
1800
90
1143
7.9%
1825
130
1540
8.5%
1850
185
2241
8.3%
1875
275
2738
10.0%
1920
266
9985
2.7%
It is obvious from this that the attendance at Town Meeting in the more recent years had failed to keep pace with the growth of the Town. It also brings out a serious weakness in the old Town Meeting government that de- veloped whenever attendance at Town Meeting failed to keep up with the increase in population.
In 1750 families were large, and the 650 population probably contained not more than a hundred or so men of voting age. Thus it would appear that at least some sixty or sixty-five per cent of the eligible voters attended. In 1875 Milton was still essentially a country town and the figure would not be too different. In 1920, however, Milton was greatly changed. It was a subur- ban town, many of whose residents had little interest in the Town and its affairs, and no longer bothered to go to Town Meeting, although on the
160
Town Meeting
whole they continued to vote for Town officers. There were well over two thousand voters,11 of which less than some ten or twelve per cent took the trouble to go to Town Meeting. Had an organized block of less than two hundred attended that 1920 meeting, they could have passed almost any vote they wanted, and yet they would have represented less than ten per cent of the eligible voters.
In the early days Town Meeting was one of the events of the year, and everyone would have attended who could. The voters thus represented practically the whole community, and questions were decided after free dis- cussion among all the inhabitants. As long as Milton was a country town, a representative cross section of the community attended, discussed, and de- cided. Later, as conditions changed and population became greater, attend- ance at Town Meeting failed to keep pace, and also gradually ceased to be quite as representative as it had formerly been. I do not think that this con- dition ever caused any harm in Milton, as it certainly did in Quincy some seventy years ago, when an organized block took over the Town Meeting for its own ends. Here was the one major weakness of this form of government, the ability of an organized pressure group to take over complete control of the meeting when conditions had become such that a very considerable number of the legal voters failed to attend. Had they all come, the Town Hall of course would not have held them.
The problem of adapting the old form of open town meeting to a large and growing community was appreciated early in the present century. Brookline appears to have been the first Massachusetts town to adopt the new system (1915) which had been applied in Newport, Rhode Island, in 1906. Milton had appointed a committee on town government in 1917, and the 1920 Meeting instructed this committee to study and report on the de- sirability of adopting representative town meeting. At the same time the question of precinct voting, which had been under discussion since 1913, was again considered. It was found that Milton's population was too small to allow existing statutes to apply, and it was necessary to secure an amend-
11. In the fall of that year, after woman suffrage became effective, there were some 4000 on the voting list.
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History of Milton
ment to the Constitution. Precinct voting for officers was instituted in 1924, and representative town meeting in 1928.
A town meeting held before and one held after the adoption of the new systemi would have appeared to the observer to be practically identical, the only noticeable difference being the somewhat better attendance at the rep- resentative town meeting. Otherwise the atmosphere, the discussions, and the voting showed no apparent change. One major and desirable result had been secured, even if it was not evident at first sight. The old meeting had been attended by those who were interested, who felt a sense of duty, or who "had an axe to grind", and the gathering by the beginning of this cen- tury had ceased to be representative of the Town as a whole. The new pro- cedure corrected this fault, and in effect again made Town Meeting what it had been fifty years before. The old system, with a large town and many vot- ers lacking interest or sense of duty, was always open to the threat of a rela- tively small but well-organized pressure group, while the new system as- sured that this could not happen, provided always that the election of pre- cinct representatives never became organized and directed to some ulterior purpose. This seems hardly likely in the foreseeable future, but it is con- ceivable, and must be guarded against.
The last century and a half has shown a very marked decentralization in town government. At the start of that period the Selectmen controlled al- most the entire operation of the Town, and practically all the annual outlay passed through their hands. Today less than 40% of the year's appropria- tions for local expenditures are spent under the control of the Selectmen. The School Committee alone directs the disbursement for normal operating expenses of sums almost as great.
Two factors give cohesion to this decentralized group of separate boards and committees. They are all the servants of the Town, and once each year they are required to make a formal report in print, to be prepared to answer questions, and to defend their views in Town Meeting. Each year they re- ceive from the Town a more or less specific directive as to their actions for the next twelve months, and some are subject to pressure at other times throughout the year. The other factor is the Warrant Committee, which has
162
EX
حور
1955 TOWN MEETING
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مخدر الكوم بابيد
Town Meeting
in effect, at first through custom and later by statute, taken over the leader- ship of the meeting once exercised by the Selectmen. From a sentimental point of view this is to be regretted, from the practical it has proven most desirable, and proper leadership of Town Meeting by a conscientious, thor- oughly informed, and fair-minded Warrant Committee chairman is most productive of equitable and efficient action by the Town.
Milton has had for a great many years a succession of hard-working and intelligent Warrant Committees which have built up a reputation for diligent execution of their mission, and the production of recommendations which were for the good of the whole Town and were not in the slightest affected by personal or political bias. This has been achieved through the appoint- ment by the Moderator of Warrant Committees whose composition at all times represented a fair cross section and sampling of the various interests which compose the Town. Such a group, when working together with the over-all good of the Town at heart, is almost certain to arrive at decisions which are acceptable to the Town. In recent years the prestige which this committee has built up as the result of its reputation for fair and equitable recommendations has become such that the Town Meeting will often accept without question its recommendations for about ninety-nine per cent of the budget, and then take keen pleasure in voting it down on some minor point just to show that after all the Town Meeting is the master. If the Warrant Committee should ever degenerate into a biased or controlled group, Town Meeting has merely to take back the responsibility which it has in the final analysis only delegated to the Warrant Committee, and arrive at its own recommendations for action on the articles in the Warrant. It must always be remembered that, except in the handling of the Reserve Fund, the War- rant Committee is not an executive committee, and that its function is solely that of informing itself and then of recommending actions to the Town, which may or may not accept them.
There is one final requirement necessary to make this decentralized sys- tem operate successfully, and that is a supply of serious and conscientious citizens who will fill these many offices, most of which bring no pay, or if any, a token one only. It requires work, but it is interesting work, and hith-
163
History of Milton
erto there has been no difficulty in filling these offices with those who are content to serve the Town for its own sake.
It has been most interesting over the years to see how Milton has greatly changed not only its size, but also its entire complexion and the composition of its population, and yet the machinery of the old New England town con- tinues to operate without basic change, and to give us government which while not entirely perfect, is the nearest approach to ideal local government that the world has been able to produce.
To continue it we need first of all a group of citizens who will give time to the Town and serve in its offices and on its committees without thought of personal gain. Next we require a representative Town Meeting which con- tinues to be truly representative of the entire community. To make it rela- tively easy for the Town Meeting to function smoothly and efficiently we must have a Warrant Committee which is representative of the Town, free from any personal or ulterior motive, and willing to devote sufficient time to carry out its mission. Finally, in order to have that kind of Warrant Com- mittee, as well as those special committees required from time to time, we must have a Moderator who knows the Town, has no personal bias or ambi- tion, and makes his appointments with the good of the entire community in mind. All of these, except Town Meeting itself, may collapse in party poli- tics and self-seeking, and good government yet be continued through the basic integrity and diversification of the Town Meeting members. It will be much harder, however, and it will be far better for the Town to continue its centuries-old tradition of electing moderators who will serve the Town and not themselves or party interests.
164
The Poor
T THE social revolution through which we are now passing has practically removed the term "the Poor" from our language, but in the days in which I am writing this class most certainly did exist, and was always a serious concern to the Town. All inhabitants were entitled to Town aid if they were unable to care for themselves, but this was available only in the town in which they legally resided. On this account one did not change his resi- dence at will as we do today, particularly if there appeared to be any possibility of his becoming a pauper. One of the earliest Milton records is that of 28 April 1665, which ordered that no man should settle in the town without the per- mission of Town Meeting1 or of the Selectmen, on penalty of a fine of twenty shillings for each week that he was here, and that no citizen should let a house to an unauthorized out-of-towner without facing the same penalty. A little over a year previously the Town had ordered that no inhabitant should take a non-Milton resident into his household without official permission. For many years one of the sad duties of the Selectmen and Constables was to harry the poor, the infirm, and the insane from town to town, back to their legal habitation. As late as the year 1793 the Milton Constables ordered out of town a long list of Milton residents who had been born elsewhere and had never been legally accepted as inhabitants. This list included a considerable number of most prominent people, such as General Jacob Gill, Capt. John Lillie, Dr. Amos Holbrook, and Daniel Briggs, the shipbuilder. There was,
1. "At a publick town meting legaly warned and held in Milton the 10 day of June 1709 it was put to vote whether thay wold reseve John Tucker to be an inhabiten in our town and it was vot- ed that thay wold not.
Ephraim Tucker, Town Clerk."
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History of Milton
of course, neither desire nor intent to enforce this order, but these people were thus legally ordered deported, and hence could never become a drain upon the Town as paupers, should they ever reach that condition.
The Overseers of the Poor are first mentioned in 1688, when one of the two was also a Selectman, but there is practically no further reference to them for many years. The Selectmen normally filled this office also, and since they did not record their expenditures we have very little knowledge as to how the poor were cared for. They were almost certainly boarded out to those citizens who would undertake their keep at the lowest rate. In 1786, for instance, it was voted "that the Poor be let out to the lowest bidder, and to be under the inspection of the Selectmen", but two years later some were evidently being given aid at home. In these years we find specific votes that the Selectmen should also be Overseers of the Poor.
In 1754 an unsuccessful attempt was made to establish a workhouse in conjunction with Braintree and Weymouth, and in December of that year a house was hired of Ebenezer Tucker, Jr., for such use, with Benjamin Crane as keeper. This could not have worked out very well since further attempts were made the next year for a co-operative arrangement with Dorchester and Stoughton. Again these came to nought. Construction of a workhouse became a lively subject in the course of a few years. In 1765 it was voted not to build one, and in 1768 it was decided to build near Canton Avenue and Pine Tree Brook. Next year the project was off, but on again in 1770. Noth- ing was done, however, and it was voted again at next year's March Meeting, and then the vote was reconsidered. The events leading up to the outbreak of the Revolution now drew the citizens' thoughts and finances in other di- rections and nothing further was accomplished.
In 1792 the Town voted that the poor should be supplied at the discre- tion of the Selectmen, and in 1803 the question of a workhouse came up again to plague Town Meeting. It was voted to build one, but next month the vote was reversed, and reversed again at the following March Meeting in 1804, but the house still was not built despite the instructions of Town Meeting. In November of that year the project was again put off, but it prob- ably was completed in 1805 and certainly existed two years later, when
166
The Poor
Overseers of the Poor were elected separately from the Selectmen. In 1813 the Poor House, as it was now called, had a cage into which insane persons or others in need of restraint could be placed. In 1821 it was "voted that the Poor shall receive no assistance from the Town but at the Alms House (ex- traordinary casualties excepted) ... ", but in the following year relief out- side of the Poor House was authorized.
March Town Meeting of 1834 brought in a great innovation. Gen. Whit- ney, Jesse Tucker, and Moses Gragg were elected Overseers, and they put into practice that system of the paupers' repairing the highways which is mentioned elsewhere. Two years later the Overseers were also elected Sur- veyors of Highways, and in 1838 a delightful event took place. At the April Meeting of that year the Town voted "to give the poor spirit(s) say two or three glasses per day as they behave well and work". Two or three glasses of rum a day must have furnished a lot of encouragement! There probably was collusion with Quincy, for a similar vote was passed in that town the same year, except that it was restricted to "the temperate use of ardent spirits when they work on the road or farm". At Milton's Annual Town Meeting of 1839 some blue ribbon enthusiast moved, not to reverse last year's vote, but to "expunge" it from the record. Town Meeting was coy and took the obvi- ous refuge of referring the matter to a committee, in whose hands, as far as the record has ever revealed, it still remains. Whether or not the pleasant and reprehensible practice was continued, I cannot say, but I doubt it. A few years later it was entirely forbidden.
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