USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Boston > Municipal history of the town and city of Boston during two centuries : from September 17, 1630, to September 17, 1830 > Part 7
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The Common Council elected John Welles its President, and Thomas Clark its Clerk. The City Council elected Samuel F. MeCleary City Clerk, an office which he now holds, and has held by successive annual elections to this day, (1851.)
2 See chap. iv. pp. 55, 56.
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particularly in no one, the important duty of investigating their relations to one another, and their adequacy to the public service, was either wholly neglected, or performed only occasionally, and in a very irresponsible manner. To remedy these defects, the city charter enjoins on the Mayor, as the executive officer, the performance of these duties, invests him with the requisite powers, and thus renders him responsible, both in character and station, for their efficient exercise and fulfilment ; ample secu- rity against the abuse or neglect of those powers being provided for in the constitutional control of the City Council and the annual elections by the citizens. With these general views, the Mayor proceeded to state, that he regarded the dnties of the executive officer, as resulting from the provisions of the charter, to be the identifying himself, absolutely and exclusively with the character and interests of the city, studying and understanding all its rights, whether affecting property, or liberty, or power, and . the maintaining them, not merely with the zeal of official sta- tion, but with the pertinacious spirit of private interest. Of local, sectional, party, or personal divisions, he should know nothing, except for the purpose of healing the wounds they inflict, or soft- ening the animosities they excite. The honor, happiness, dig- nity, safety, and prosperity of the city, the development of its resources, its expenditures, and police, should be the perpetual object of his purpose, and labor of his thought. All its public institutions should be the subject of frequent inspection; and above all, its schools should engage his utmost solicitude and unremitting superintendente. Anticipating the rival projects, individual interests, personal influences, by which an executive officer would be beset in executing the police, protecting the rights, and promoting the prosperity of the city, and that, in pro- portion to his firinness and inflexibility, his motives and princi- ples would be assailed, the Mayor relied with confidence, that his faithful endeavors to uphold the interests of the city, would receive countenance and support from the intelligence and virtue of the citizens. In relation to his fulfilment of the obligations resulting from the city charter, he promised nothing except a laborious fulfilment of every known duty, a prudent exercise of every invested power, and a disposition shrinking from no official responsibility.1
1 See Appendix B.
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The prominence given in this address to the defects of the ancient town organization, and of the remedy provided for them in the powers of the Mayor, was, in his view, made necessary from the particular circumstances of the city at that time, and from the apprehension that the changes those circumstances required, might be the occasion of jealousy and discontent.
Five distinct Boards, - that of Health, of Surveyors of High- ways, of the Overseers of the Poor, of Firewards, and of the School Committee, -then exercised powers, of which some were unequivocally executive, and of which all were, under the city charter, without question, properly subject to the general super- vision of the Mayor. All these Boards were, more or less, iden- tified with the habits and prejudices of the citizens; the mem- bers of many of them had been long in office, and under the town form of government had enjoyed, in their respective spheres, unquestionable authority. Some of them had exercised under the same name the same powers, from very distant, and others from the most ancient periods of the existence of the town. Each had proportions of efficient power and local influence. Each friends, by whom, and circles, within which, the exercise of its particular authorities was deemed useful, and often indis- pensable. With some, emoluments were connected; and with all, the pleasure of exercising beneficial authority and enjoying use- ful distinction.
By the provisions of the city charter, the members of some of the boards continued to be chosen directly by the citizens; and thus deriving their authority immediately from the people, were disposed to consider themselves subject to very limited respon- sibility to the City Council, and as independent of the authority of the Mayor. They were reluctant to acknowledge themselves subject to the inspection of that officer, as this implied they were, in the language of the city charter, " subordinate officers," which, from a natural pride of place, they were not prepared to admit.
'The relations of these boards to the city government, rendered the duties of the Mayor, at this juncture, peculiarly difficult and delicate. This division of executive power among independent boards, was evidently incompatible with its efficient exercise and with that personal responsibility which the terms of the city charter had devolved upon the Mayor, and which the people had been led to expect from the individual who might hold that office.
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It was apparent, also, that unless the powers of these boards were either immediately modified or abolished, they would be fixed upon the city, with pretensions enlarging with tine, until the inconvenience resulting from them should become insupportable. Yet it was easy to foresee that an attempt to abolish institu- tions long familiar to the people, and with which they had been accustomed to associate the comfort, health, and safety of their families and buildings, would expose the officer who should recommend such measures to suspicions and calumnies tending to affect, if not destroy his influence and popularity. After weighing deliberately all the duties and consequences, the Mayor decided that no personal considerations ought to have any weight in competition with the obvious advantages which must result to the city from the removal or modification of boards, behind which a weak, a cunning, or indolent executive officer might take refuge to hide imbecility or selfishness, or find an apology for inefficiency.
These views of the Mayor were founded on researches and observations relative to municipal governments in Europe and the United States. Either from the terms of their charters, or from a long course of usage and precedents, the powers exercised by mayors were chiefly judicial. Their executive powers were very limited, being chiefly exercised through the medium of boards or of committees ; the mayors being deemed little more than presiding or certifying officers, were not held by publie opi- nion more responsible than other members of the board. The power and practical efficiency of this officer consequently degene- rated, and the amount of supervision and labor applied to the per- formance of his duties depended almost wholly on the disposition of the incumbent. As the importance of the office of mayor thus diminished, the qualities essential to a vigilant and efficient exer- " cise of its duties were apt to be disregarded by the community in the selection of candidates. In some places, party spirit gave the office away to its favorite, looking only to his political faith, and not at all to any adaptation of his talents to the fulfilment of its duties. In others, ambition made it a stepping-stone. Here, charity had bestowed it on a needy, popular favorite, honest, but trembling for his bread at every critical exercise of his authority. There, some one of the popular classes, into which every city becomes divided, had placed the head of the
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class at the head of the city, with no special regard to qualifica- tion.
To postpone, and if possible, to prevent the occurrence of such a state of indifference to the essential qualities of the executive officer in the city of Boston, the Mayor elect deemed it his chief . official duty to produce and fix in the minds of all the influential classes of citizens a strong conviction of the advantage of having an active and willingly responsible executive, by an actual expe- rience of the benefits of such an administration of their affairs ; and also of their right and duty of holding the Mayor responsible, in character and office, for the state of the police and finances of the city.
To bring the responsibility of the executive officer into distinct relief before the citizens, was accordingly a leading principle, by which he endeavored to regulate his conduct in that office. This purpose he avowed, and never ceased to enforce by precept and example, during his administration of nearly six years. And the long continuance of support he received from the citizens, suffi- ciently evidenced that his views were in accordance with those entertained at that period by a great majority of the inhabitants of Boston.
One of the most urgent duties enjoined on the Mayor, by the city charter, was attention to the health, security, and cleanliness of the city. Immediately, therefore, after the organization of the city government was completed, in May, 1823, the Mayor recom- mended to the consideration of the City Council the state of the streets, and in what body the care of cleaning them was, or ought to be invested, and what powers and authorities are required to be granted for the purpose of keeping them clean; and also the consideration of the measures which ought to be taken to put the House of Industry into effectual operation.
Each of these recommendations were referred to joint commit- tees in both branches ; 1 that in respect of the streets was parti- cularly directed to inquire in whom the powers and duties of surveyors of highways were invested.
1 That relative to the streets, to the Mayor and Alderman Baxter; and to Messrs. Eliphalet Williams, Silsby, Stodder, Bates, and Dexter, of the Common Council.
That relative to the House of Industry, to the Mayor, Aldermen Odiorne and Child; and to Messrs. Davis, J. K. Williams, Baldwin, Jackson, and Lincoln, of the Common Council
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The relations of several of the independent boards, which under the town government had the management of important branches of the public service, were left by the city charter, either obscurely defined or wholly unprovided for. The embarrassments arising from the Surveyors of Highways were the first experi- enced, and earliest received attention.
Under the town organization, the Board of Selectmen had fulfilled the duties of the Surveyors of Highways. But the city charter had made no special provision for the election of these officers. The power of appointing them was only inferred from the general authority it gave to the City Council " to elect all necessary officers for the good government of the city, not other- wise provided for," and under this clause three Surveyors of High- ways were chosen in 1822. Inconveniences arose from the nature of the office and the extent of its powers, which the citizens had been accustomed to have exercised by the whole Board of Select- men, and the arrangement by which they were transferred to three individuals, dependent on the City Council, was unsatis- factory and unpopular. The Mayor and Aldermen were regarded as the proper successors to the Selectmen, with respect to these powers, but the right of the City Council to confer them on a coordinate branch of the government was doubted. During the first year of the city, the subject attracted the attention of the City Council, and they appointed a committee upon it in Octo- ber, 1822. But no effectual action resulted. In the mean time, the usual difficulties arising from authorities, intimately affecting the rights and properties of citizens, being exercised by so small a body, began to be felt. 'The Surveyors of Highways regarded themselves in the light of an independent board. Questions immediately arose, concerning the degree of control the Mayor and Aldermen had a right to exercise in relation to that Board, and the powers intrusted by law to it under the city charter. .
In other respects, the state of the several authorities, relative to the highways and streets, were found embarrassing. The great objeets of municipal attention, - the street and house dirt and the night soil, and the modes and rules for their removal, had, under the town government, been frequent subjects of ques- tion, and even controversy, and early began to appear such under that of the city.
The Surveyors of Highways claimed one species of jurisdic-
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*tion over the streets; the Mayor and Aldermen another; the Board of Health a third. In consequence of the obscurity of the limits of the divisions of their powers, there was some difficulty, and occasionally something arbitrary in the claims and proceed- 1 ings touching their respective jurisdictions. Thus, the carrying away of the street dirt was admitted to be within the power of the Selectinen, and now, of consequence, of the Mayor and Alder- men. But of the house dirt, the Board of Health claimed the exclusive jurisdiction, and denied to the Selectinen, and also to the Mayor and Aldermen, the right of intermeddling on that sub- ject. What was house dirt, and what was street dirt, and whether yard dirt belonged to either, and to which, began to be questions of solemn and dividing import. The first year of the city government had witnessed a curious instance of the supe- riority claimed by the Board of Health over that of the Mayor and Aldermen, and of the conciliatory temper with which the latter Board had received and responded to that claim.
An order was issued by the Board of Health, and duly served upon the Mayor and Aldermen in the following words : -
" To the Honorable Mayor and Aldermen of the City: -
" GENTLEMEN, - Complaint has been made at this office that there is col- lected in the corner, on the westerly side of the T1 and next to the Long Wharf, a quantity of filthy, putrid, and nauseous substances on the premises belonging to you, or under your direction, and is a nuisance. You will, therefore, appear before this Board on Monday, the seventeenth instant, and show cause, if any exist, why the City of Boston should not remove the same and cut through said T an opening next to the Long Wharf, twenty-four feet wide in the clear, and eight feet deep on a level with the lowest part of the flats, on the easterly side of said 'T, for the free passage of the tide waters.
" By order of the Board of Commissioners of Health. " JOHN WINSLOW, Secretary. "4 June, 1822."
This order was read in the Board of Aldermen, and on the twenty-fourth of June a report was made "that they do not think the city ought to pay any part of the expense, excepting that for removing nuisances." This report was accepted, and no notice taken either of the nature of the claim of jurisdiction or of the manner of enforcing it.
Similar clashing of authority or of opinion occurred between the Surveyors of Highways and the Board of Aldermen, although
1 A wharf so called.
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not enforced by any like tone and official process. The state of uncertainty, in respect of the body, in which both the care of the highways and that of cleansing the streets was left by the char- ter of the city, led the Mayor, at the commencement of this city year, to regard a settlement of those questions as the most im- portant and urgent in their nature. With respect to the Sur- veyors of Highways, the change proposed could not be effected withont an appeal to the great body of citizens. A general meeting of all the inhabitants, therefore, was called on the fifteenth of May, 1823, on the subject of appointing the Board of Aldermen surveyors of highways. The change proposed readily received their sanction; and the Legislature of the State, on the eleventh of June ensuing, passed an act in conformity with the vote of the citizens, and on the eighteenth of the same month, the City Council elected the Mayor and Aldermen Sur- veyors of Highways.
In pursuance of this authority, this Board immediately divided the city into four districts, each including three wards, and appointed two aldermen superintendents of each district, by whom the powers thus invested were subsequently exercised without question, and to the general satisfaction of the citi- zens.
No subject had been pressed upon the Mayor with more ear- nestness, by private citizens, than the state of the streets and the importance of adopting systematic plans for effectually removing the various accunnilations and nuisances in them, which are inci- dent to a populous city. Anticipating, however, that the scale which it would be necessary to adopt, in order thoroughly to effect this object, would lead to a pecuniary expenditure, so far exceeding any thing the citizens had experienced under the town government, the Mayor had, in his inaugural address, endeavored to conciliate their minds, by thus stating the general views he entertained on the powers intrusted to the executive authority on this subject : - " If the powers vested seem too great, let it be remembered that they are necessary to attain the great objects of a city, - health, comfort, and safety. To those whose fortunes are restricted, these powers ought to be peculiarly precious. The rich can fly from the generated pestilence. In the season of dan- ger the sons of fortune can seek refuge in purer atmospheres. Bul necessity condemns the poor to remain and inhale the noxious efflu-
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via. To all classes who reside permanently in a city, these powers are a privilege and a blessing. In relation to the city police, it is not sufficient that the law, in its due process, will ultimately remedy every injury and remove every nuisance. While the law delays, the injury is done. While judges are doubling, and law- yers debating, the nuisance is exhaling, and the atmosphere cor- rupting. In these cases, prevention should be the object of soli- citude, not remedy. It is not enough that the obstacle which im- pedes the citizen's way, or the nuisance which offends his sense, should be removed on complaint, or by complaint. The true crite- rion of an efficient government is, that it should be removed before complaint, and without complaint."
On examining the powers of the city, relative to these subjects, the Mayor found that the most important were claimed and exer- cised by Commissioners, called the Board of Health. They had gradually extended their jurisdiction to all subjects, which could, by any fair construction, be brought within the terms of the legislative acts instituting their authority. In respect of these powers, they had acknowledged no subordination to the Select- men of the town. Collisions had occasionally arisen between them, relative to the removal of nuisances, which had generally terminated in favor of the Board of Health; and they conse- quently claimed and exercised, at the time the city goverment was formed, jurisdiction over all subjects which could be compre- hended under the terms "causes of sickness, nuisances, and sources of filth, injurious to the health of the inhabitants." 'The dirt collecting on the surface of the streets, being considered a nuisance, rather in respect of sight, smell, or convenience, than of health, was admitted by those commissioners to be within the jurisdiction of the Selectmen.
By the city charter, the powers and authorities vested by law in the Board of Health were transferred to the City Council, " to be carried into execution by the appointment of health commis- sioners, or in such other manner as the health, cleanliness, com- fort, and order of the said city may in their judgment require." These commissioners, therefore, now held their places, not as formerly, immediately from the people, but by their election by the City Council, and the continued existence of that board depended on its will. Notwithstanding this change in their public relations, these commissioners claimed and exercised as
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broad and independent a jurisdiction during the first year of the city government, as they had done under that of the town. An instance of their pretensions has just been noticed.1
Soon after the commencement of the second administration of the city government, (in 1823,) the Mayor perceived that, so long as this state of things continued, he could not exercise that general superintendence of this important subject which the city charter had made his duty, without troublesome and unpro- fitable collisions. His powers of inspection were restricted to " subordinate officers;" a relation which the members of that board were not prepared to admit, as applicable to them, so long as they acted under the forms and principles which had been established by virtue of the several acts forming the ancient constitution of that board. In his opinion, there was no de- partment of police for which the chief executive officer of a city ought to be made more strictly responsible, than for that on which the comfort and health of the inhabitants of the city de- pended. The existence of an ancient board, accustomed to exercise exclusive jurisdiction, and yet claiming a qualified, if not an absolute authority over the subject, would render it easy for a weak, an indolent, or a cunning executive to evade that responsibility, and yet neglect his most imperative official duties.
To prepare the public mind for a new arrangement of these powers, the Mayor, on the day of his inauguration, formally recommended the subject to the notice of the City Council, as already stated; and a joint committee having been appointed, they reported, that " the care of cleaning the surface of the city was, by force of the terms of the city charter, vested in the Mayor and Aldermen ; but that the docks, night soil, and house dirt was considered as belonging to the Board of Health, until the farther order of the City Council." In this construction the City Council found that the members of that board would acquiesce; and, being desirous to avoid, or, at least to postpone, all questions which might create collisions, they confined their attention, in the first instance, to the surface of the city, including its streets, · courts, and yards.
From inquiries into the antecedent practice of the town and
1 See page 61.
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city, it was ascertained that no general, regular system for cleans- ing the streets had ever been adopted or executed. All opera- tions had been occasional and local, the result of some particular, urgent necessity. Nor was it found that expenses for such an object had ever, in one year, exceeded one thousand dollars.
The Board of Aldermen and Common Council entirely con- curring with the views entertained by the Mayor on this subject, it was determined at once to incur the expense of a general and thorough cleansing of the city. The result, it was antici- pated, would so convince the citizens of the benefit, and so habitu- ate them to the comfort of the cleanliness of the city, that it would be impossible for any executive to be negligent in this respect, and long retain his influence and office. To the end that the advantage of the proposed operations might be felt by all the citizens, it was determined to carry them into effect, in every street, alley, court, and household yard, however distant, and however obscure.
For this purpose, the city was divided into four districts, each composed of three wards; and the Board of Aldermen into committees, each composed of two members; the superintend- ence of the cleansing of one district being assigned to each com- mittee. For the first time, on any general scale destined for universal application, the broom was used upon the streets. On seeing this novel spectacle, of files of sweepers, an old and common adage was often applied to the new administration of city affairs; in good humor by some, in a sarcastic spirit by others.
In the course of a month, the proposed operation was com- pleted, to the very general, if not the universal approbation of the citizens. More than three thousand tons of dirt were removed from the surface of the city, at a cost of about fourteen hun- dred dollars ; and in the first month of this administration, nearly double the sum was asserted to have been thus expended than had ever before been voted, in any one year, to a similar object, since the settlement of Boston. The comfort and pride of city cleanliness was thus brought home to the door and the feelings of every inhabitant, and, for the time, no language was publicly heard but that of approbation; yet, subsequently, this expense constituted one element of clamor, which party spirit did not fail to remember, when the charge of extravagance and the terrors of
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