USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 10
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clerk of this police court. Possibly as a bid for votes the committee proposed that the municipality should "grant to any association of ar- tists, artificers, or mechanics, such power of regulating themselves in their several occupations, and of possessing such immunities, and im- posing such restrictions, as the said municipality shall consider for the benefit of the community and for the encouragement of industry." The chief executive of the town was to be chosen by a convention of the nine selectmen, the twenty-four delegates, the twelve overseers of the poor, and the twelve members of the board of health. The select- men, overseers, and board of health, acting under the law of 1813, chose the town treasurer and collectors; this power the committee pro- posed to transfer to their municipality. But the most brilliant passage of their report is this: "The executive power efficiently exists at pres- ent in a superintendent of police, who is chosen by the selectmen out of their own body, and receiving a salary dependent upon their discre- tion, and responsible solely to them." The committee appears to have thought that the executive work of the town consisted in the duties discharged by the head policeman. Yet Josiah Quincy, who fancied himself a champion of the town meeting, would not trust the same town meeting to appoint a superintendent of police. The real execu- tive work of the town-city was to be done by the thirty-three select- men and delegates, the intendant to be the figure head, while the in- evitable committees would use their best judgment in managing mat- ters.
The constitutional reasoning offered by the report is astonishing. The report states correctly that the chief executive of the city-town should not be vested with judiciary powers [be the judge of the police court?], because in that case he would have to be appointed by the governor. Then the report proposes a police court of three justices selected by the city-town in quarter-yearly rotation, and "acting under the authority of the government of the town." The State Constitution said, and still says: " All judicial officers shall be nominated and appointed by the governor, by and with the advice and consent of the council," and Mr. Phillips, who signed the report, was president of the State senate. As the State Constitution contained the words "town " and " selectmen," the committee concluded bravely that "a board of selectmen is rendered necessary, by the letter of the Constitu- tion, in every town in this Commonwealth." By a like train of think- ing the terms "town " and " town clerk " were offered as "absolutely 13
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indispensable, " being "made so essential by the provisions of the State Constitution," which mentioned the terms just as it happens to mention " subjects," meaning citizens. The report tried to draw a line between executive and judiciary powers, though it treated justices of the peace and the police court as executive agencies. The obvious line between executive and legislative work was not drawn, partly, perhaps, because town affairs had always been conducted by committees, the members of which took part in town meeting; and it seemed natural that the men who had voted the money should expend it. The ideal that runs through all these committee reports is a town government containing none but able, honest and thrifty men, with a predominance of persons that have attended at least a highschool, and occupy some social position. The class of inhabitants that had neither wealth nor educa- tion nor influence to boast of, took a different view. They knew that they were not drones in the body politic or the body social, and that power belongs to him that fairly takes it. The report of 1815 was treated kindly by the town, which rejected it by a vote of 951 to 920. About one person in twenty saw fit to vote. The liberties of the town were saved.
FROM TOWN TO CITV.
On June 5, 1821, the governor of Massachusetts announced that the General Court, under the second amendment of the Constitution, might incorporate cities. The people had approved the amendment with special reference to Boston, although it applied also to Salem which had the requisite 12,000 inhabitants. The amendment was carried by a very small majority, but it was carried, and prepared the public mind for the impending change. If the General Court could incorporate towns, it could incorporate cities; but the law lights of the Common- wealth thought the amendment desirable. In the same month-June, 1821-the Boston town meeting proposed to unite the office of town and county treasurer. The finance committee, which elected the town treasurer under the authority of ch. 62, Acts of 1813, failed to comply with the request of the town, for the county treasurer was elected by the people. This petty incident led the town to insist upon its prefer- ence, and to reconsider the relations of the town to the county. As usual when there is discontent, the cry of extravagance was raised. The fact is, the county expenses were moderate, but the county author- ities were unpopular, mainly because most of them were Bostonians
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appointed by the governor, and lived on fees and litigation. As the town was virtually the county, it seemed inconsistent with self- government that the acts of the town should be revised and occasion- ally set aside by a few townsmen whom the governor had commissioned. In due course the town received two reports, on the union of the town and county treasurer, and on making Boston a county. The two re- ports were turned over to a committee of thirteen, with instructions to report a plan for a better town and county government. Clearly the town was ready to act. It was ready to escape, if possible, from all county bondage.
The committee, as usual under the town, when important affairs were in hand, included great names: John Phillips, for years president of the Massachusetts senate, and destined to be the first mayor of Bos- ton ; Josiah Quincy, the speaker of the house, and deeply interested in Boston affairs, destined to be the great mayor; Lemuel Shaw, who had been selectman, and was to be chief justice; and Daniel Webster. The committee report was considered by the town on December 10, and re- committed. The report, commonly attributed to Lemuel Shaw, recom- mended the union of the town and county, and for the rest hoped that all powers of the town and county might be vested in a town council of nine selectmen and "about forty " assistants, except that the town clerk, the board of health, the overseers of the poor, the assessors, the firewards, the school committee, and some fifty petty officers should be chosen by the people, and,-which is important, -that the court of sessions be abolished, its executive duties to go to the town, while the judiciary work of the court and its members was to be vested in salaried law courts. The report appeared to separate the judiciary from the other branches, but, while leaving the town to choose annually some hundred and twenty town officers, not counting ward officers and State or national representatives, the executive and legislative work of the town and county was to be done by nine selectmen and forty assistants, without an executive head, that is, without responsibility. Boston, at that time, had about 45,000 inhabitants. The committee allowed one assistant to every nine hundred, and concluded that the total number of assistants would be "about forty." The town concluded that the committee had not gone far enough, added twelve men, and instructed this committee of twenty-five to draft a city charter.
The report so called for was submitted on December 31, and led to a memorable debate. The debate lasted three days, and ended in the
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adoption of the terms mayor, aldermen, and common council, where the committee had proposed intendant, selectmen, and assistants; but far more important was the adoption of the principle that the executive power of the town and county was not to be in the hands of one body ; it was to be divided; there was to be a system of checks and balances. The report had wisely proposed that the judiciary be separated from the other branches; the remaining power was to be distributed, lest any one branch wield too much power. This was achieved by the democ- racy of the town meeting. The plain men felt that the town gained when it inherited all the administrative work of the county; the plain men felt, also, that it was better to divide and distribute the adminis- trative and legislative power of the town than to lodge it in any one body. The committee had proposed that the selectmen, now reduced to seven, should elect the "intendant;" the town voted that the mayor be chosen by the people. With like intelligence the plain men insisted upon elections by wards, and that the city government should not have the right to sell the common or "Funnel Hall." On the whole, the people showed greater progress and better insight than did the gentle- men who fought so tenderly for leaving things more or less as they were. It was the honor of the lawyers to have separated the judiciary from all other work. Nobody thought of separating executive and legislative work; everybody appeared to think that the mayor and aldermen were the executive body, while the city council was to be the town legislature that passed ordinances and made appropriations. The consequences of this confusion were to be felt for more than sixty years of administration by committee.
The result of the debate begun on December 31, 1821, was submitted to a popular vote on January 4, 1822. The people voted almost unan- imously that Boston be a county, and, by a vote of 2, 805 yeas to 2,006 nays, that the report for changing the town to a city, as adopted in town meeting, be approved and carried into effect. The act of the General Court was approved on February 23; on March 4 it was ac- cepted by a popular vote of 2, 194 yeas, to 1,881 nays, about one person in ten voting. On April 8 the first city election was held. Josiah Quincy describes the change from personal knowledge. Mr. H. H. Sprague (pp. 18-31) gives additional details. It is difficult to exagger- ate the services the town officers had rendered, especially the selectmen who were not consulted when a city charter was under consideration. Under the Colony the selectmen had been administrative, legislative,
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and semi-judicial officers in one; under the Province all their judiciary and many of their administrative duties had been lost to the county justices; the management of many important affairs had been trans- ferred, both under the Province and especially under the Common- wealth, to other town officers; yet they had served faithfully and without compensation, except that their chairman received a salary when he became superintendent of police. The selectmen, the over- seers, and the board of health had free access to the town treasury; their acts were never suspected. They had the power to incur debts ; they left the town withont a debt; the city inherited from the county a debt of $71,185.
The volume of By-Laws published by the selectmen of 1818, possibly the compilation of Thomas Clark, the town clerk, illustrates the fidelity and insight of the selectmen, and presents a matchless picture of the town government. No later attempt has equal value. The city has published many ambitious volumes; but only the code of 1818 under- takes to cover the whole field of local government. And that attempt is almost silent as to schools. It enumerates the 112 officers chosen annually in town meeting; also the officers appointed by the selectmen. It shows how each ward elected a member of the board of health, two assessors of taxes, and a ward clerk, and how the board of health to- gether with the overseers and selectmen elected the town treasurer and collectors of taxes. In the place of this army the citizens of Boston, qualified as the amended State Constitution prescribed, were to choose one mayor and eight aldermen at large; in each ward four councilmen, one member of the school committee, one overseer of the poor, not less than three firewards, and the ward officers. All other officers were to be appointed by the city government. The town and county finances, managed by two treasurers and at least four conflicting boards, were united and transferred to the city government. The ordinances of the city were not subject to the veto power exercised by justices of the peace. The city was to have a representative head, and the powers formerly exercised by the town meeting were distributed among two . bodies, each having the negative upon the other. The town, then, made a great gain in power; this power was not vested in any one body, but distributed; the constitution was simplified ; a system of accounta- bility was made possible ; and the individual citizen was relieved. Under the town he had to elect more officers than he could possibly know, and to attend more meetings than was reasonable. Under the city he was
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to attend to all local affairs in one election. The town had gained ; the citizen had gained; the government had gained; and the liberties of Boston were increased beyond those of any other community in Massa- chusetts. This very striking advantage was secured by the plain men of Boston who did not reason closely upon constitutional principles, but knew very well whether popular rights were to be increased or dimin- ished. Much is due to the learned and highminded men that drafted the charter; more is due to the town meeting that stood for popular rights. All honor to the reforms that come from the intellectual and scholarly few; the noblest reforms come from the plain people.
THE CITY PERIOD, 1822 TO 1890.
The chief source for a constitutional history of the city is to be found in the Acts of the General Court. A complete set of these laws is not common; nor is there a general index. Up to 1831 the General Court usually met twice a year. The general laws have been digested in three several codes, the Revised Statutes, passed November 4, 1835 ; the General Statutes, passed December 28, 1859; and the Public Stat- utes, passed November 19, 1881. The special statutes passed by the Commonwealth have been printed in a separate set, under the author- ity of the State; but the set is not absolutely complete. The city of Boston has repeatedly tried to make a code of all laws and ordinances applicable to the municipality. Such codes were issued in 1822, 1834, 1850, 1864, 1869, and 1876. The compilations of 1827 and of 1850 are interesting as illustrating the government of the city under the first charter; the compilation of 1864, with its several supplements, is rela, tively complete ; and the compilation of 1876, being the work of James M. Bugbee, is valuable. A purely historical treatment of the laws, ordinances, regulations, and orders of the city government is a desid- eratum. The city published in 1860 the Annals of the Boston Primary School Committee, by Joseph M. Wightman, covering the government of the lower schools from 1818 to 1855. A " Manual for the use of the Overseers of the Poor " appeared in 1866. Private enterprise has un- dertaken a history of the Boston fire department. And some of the ex- ecutive departments have begun to publish the law by which they are governed. The city ordinances have been issued, in separate digests, in 1883, 1885, 1890, and 1892, with the Regulations of the Board of Aldermen added. In 1885 the law department of the city issued a vol- ume of special statutes relating to Boston; an enlarged edition, with
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"extracts from the Public Statutes," appeared in 1881 ; a third edition, entitled " Special Statutes relating to the City of Boston," and omit- ting the general laws, appeared in 1892, but is not complete. Much information is scattered through the "City Documents," the titles of which are digested in an index. The documents mentioned under the entry of " charter " are important. Charter digests appear in the city codes, up to 1816, also in document 28 of the year 1845. in a pamphlet published by the city in 1886, and in the Municipal Register, published annually since 1841. All these digests should be used with reserve. Quincy's Municipal History is a brilliant account of the author's admin- istration, from 1823 to 1828. Mr. James M. Bugbee, in 1887, and Mr. H. H. Sprague, in 1890, published brief reviews of the Boston govern- ment from the beginning. In 1891 the Record Commissioners pub- lished a Catalogue of the past City governments.
AREA AND POPULATION.
The area of Boston was smallest from 1739, when Chelsea was set off, to 1804, when South Boston was annexed. The area of the city was enlarged by encroachments upon the surrounding water, especially in the South and Back Bays, by the annexation of Roxbury in 1868, of Dorchester in 1870, of West Roxbury in 1874, all these being trans- ferred from Norfolk County, and by the annexation of Charlestown and Brighton in 1874, these two being transferred from Middlesex County. Including the harbor islands, the area of the city is nearly forty square miles; the original peninsula, north of Dover street, was less than five hundred acres. The population of Boston, in 1820, was 43,298; in 1890 it had risen to 448,471, the original peninsula, enlarged by encroachments upon tide water, containing 161,330, while 287,147 lived on annexed territory, including East Boston, the harbor islands. and South Boston. Suffolk County, which had 43,940 inhabitants in 1820, rose to 484,180 in 1890. Its area was smallest from 1803 to 1804. The annexations of 1874 made it the most populous county in Massa- chusetts. The city and the county are one; the city holds all property of Suffolk County; the voice of Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop in Suf- folk-County matters is insignificant; the dreams of 1650 and 1677 have been realised; Boston is the only municipality in Massachusetts not subject to a separate body of county commissioners; it is not surpassed for municipal spirit; and yet the great city has not become a homo- geneous community. East Boston and West Roxbury have a city gov-
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ernment in common, but little else that they have not in common with other cities or towns. The law of 1885 made the city a monarchy ; but even a great monarch in this democratic land cannot master the rea- sonable ambition of so composite a community. Local ambition has achieved magnitude. Has it achieved municipal greatness ? . Has it magnified self-government ? In 1845 it was thought that foreign im- migration destroyed or impaired the unity of Boston. In the fifties this sentiment swept through the State; and yet the foreign immigrant should not be blamed when Brighton and East Boston are commonly spoken of as separate communities. Boston made its greatest gains in self-government before it covered thirty-seven square miles. After the great annexation it has been governed mainly by State law, and since 1885 the General Court is the chief legislature of Boston; the mayor the executive officer chiefly of State-House law. The ordinances of the city, since 1885, have been comparatively insignificant. Boston has be- come large; but it consists of the city proper, with a half-dozen thrifty suburbs mechanically attached to the metropolis. These suburbs have gained by annexation, the old peninsula has not. Once it had to sat- isfy only its own local wants; now it has to provide for a family enlarged by hopeful agreement. Yet the old peninsula, up to the Roxbury line, contains two-thirds of all the property taxed by the city.
Of the Boston population roughly one-third is foreign born; another third is of foreign parentage. In 1845 it was noticed that only 27 per cent. of the population was born in Boston of American parents, and that "foreigners and their children " constituted nearly one-third of our population. Persons interested in such subjects will find Lemuel Shattuck's Census of Boston for 1845 interesting, and may consult Carroll D. Wright's digest of the Boston census for 1880. The national census of 1890 promises the latest details. The admirable State Census of 1885 gives luminous details as to the parent nativity of our popula- tion. These writers all show how largely our population has been recruited from Ireland and British North America, and, to the thinking mind, how rapidly this immigrant element is either amalgamated or lost. A great city seems to be the cemetery of the country, and America seems to be the cemetery of foreign nations. What survives helps to make up the American nation, without visibly affecting our inherited laws, institutions or language. These appear to be stronger than all influences from without. And even the humble immigrant
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comes here very much as did the fathers we honor, -to improve his condition, not to upset the law and order to which he looks for encour- agement. This immigration is governed by natural causes. It was slight while Boston was a commercial city; it became noticeable when we had occasion to build canals, turnpikes, and especially factories. In 1822, when Boston became a city, the art of Macadam was not gener- ally known; illuminating gas did not light the streets of Boston; steamboats had been seen, but were not trusted; our first railway track was laid in 1826, at Quincy; our passenger railways belong to 1834 and later years; the first ocean steamer, the "Britannia," arrived in 1840; our first line of street railways was opened in 1856; we had our last riot in 1863; the elevator in our city hall was built in 1864; the first message by the electric telegraph was sent by Morse in 1844; in 1846 the telegraph connected Boston with Springfield: the telephone came in 1871; the city introduced electric lights in 1882; electricity as a motor in our streets was accepted by the city in 1889. The number of tippling-shops in Boston is not any larger in 1892 than it was in 1822. On the whole, then, immigration has not checked progress, and per- haps it has supplied some of the hard work that had to be done to build ofir sewers, streets, canals, railways, and waterworks, and to carry out the plans of more enterprising minds. These minds have more enter- prises than there are hands to carry them out, and the whole world has more work to do than there are men ready to do it. Boston would be a small city but for fresh blood from the country, and New England would have lost its people in good part to the great West, had not foreign immigration supplied the places left vacant by our own emi- grant who sought to improve his condition beyond the Alleghanies. But the character of New England and Massachusetts and Boston has not suffered. The census of 1885 tells us that of the Boston population ten years of age and older, seven per cent. was illiterate. That fact is due to immigrants. But they have neither made nor marred the laws that govern the city.
THE CITY AND THE COUNTY.
In accepting the city charter the people of Boston accepted also the Act of 23 February, 18 ?? , for regulating the administration of justice in Suffolk County. This interesting act, known as ch. 109 of 1821, formed part of the charter, with which it was to stand or fall. Without this act the charter is incomplete. Its effect is still felt. It drew a
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sharp line between the administration of justice and all other work of the city and county. It relieved the law courts of all administrative work, which was assigned to the board of mayor and aldermen, and it abolished the veto power the ancient court of sessions had exercised since 1699 over all bylaws passed by the town. The administration of justice was kept by the State; the executive power of the county was transferred to the city, and by the Act of February 10, 1823, the city council was empowered to lay and assess county taxes (1821, ch. 109, s. 13; ch. 110, s. 15; 1822, ch. 85). The town of Chelsea, beside Bos- ton the only town in Suffolk County from 1803 to 1846, was relieved of all county taxes, and of all ownership in the property of Suffolk County in 1831 (1831, ch. 65, accepted by Chelsea Sept. 5, 1831). But Boston supplies all Suffolk county, now consisting of the cities of Boston (since 1822) and Chelsea (since 1857), and the towns of Revere (set off in 1846 as North Chelsea, named Revere in 1871) and Winthrop (since 1852, when it was set off from North Chelsea), with county buildings, and pays all expenses of Suffolk County, except that Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop pay for such services as they may accept from the county commissioners of Middlesex acting in the three communities named (Publ. Stat., 205).
By a fiction Boston became virtually a county. Under another fiction Chelsea, Revere, and Winthrop remain in Suffolk county, and vote for certain officers of Suffolk county, such as the district attorney, three clerks of the Supreme and Superior courts for Suffolk county, the register of probate, the register of deeds, the commissioners of insolv- ency, and the sheriff, though all these officers are paid by the city of Boston. At the same time the people of Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop vote for the county and special commissoners of Middlesex, who have one kind of jurisdiction in Chelsea (18:2, ch. 87), and another in Re- vere and Winthrop (1893, ch. 417, s. 255). The East-Boston District Conrt has jurisdiction of Winthrop (1886, ch. 15), and the Police Court at Chelsea has jurisdiction in Revere, but both courts are a charge upon the city of Boston, while the justices and clerks of these courts are ap- pointed by the State. The Boston city charters of 1822 and 1854 con- templated that Boston should become a county in fact (1821, ch. 110, 15; 1854, ch. 448, s. 38); and the law of 1831 debarred Boston from opposition, should Chelsea, since then divided into one city and two towns, request to be set off to "any other county." But why should Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop ask for such a transfer, when Boston
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