USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 13
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 | Part 51 | Part 52 | Part 53 | Part 54 | Part 55 | Part 56 | Part 57 | Part 58 | Part 59 | Part 60 | Part 61 | Part 62 | Part 63 | Part 64 | Part 65 | Part 66 | Part 67
127
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
TAXATION.
The city charter vested the power to lay and assess taxes in the city council (1821, ch. 109, sec. 1; ch. 110, sec. 15, 28; 1822, ch. 85). The city council discharged this duty with reasonable judgment, having good precedents to go by. As early as 1694 the town chose assessors separate from the selectmen, and in 1862 the law authorized the town to elect two assistant assessors in each of the twelve wards, the assist- ants electing the three principal assessors. This law was repealed by the charter, and from 1822 to 1885 the city council chose all assessors of taxes. The number established in 1802 was not changed until 1849, and by the ordinance of October 24, 1850, the distinction between first and second assistants was virtually established. In 1866 the board of principal assessors was increased to five, and so remained until the ordi- nance of April 20, 1891, required the appointment of nine assessors. The institution of assessment districts, together with first and second assistants for each, was established by the ordinance of January 3, 1868, due to the annexation of Roxbury, and in 1880 the principle of electing assessors for three years was established. The law of 1885 (ch. 266) transferred the appointment of assessors to the mayor, subject to ap- proval by the board of aldermen, and the appointment of assistant as- sessors was left to the assessors (Rev. Ord. of 1885, 55; but see St. 1885, ch. 266, sec. 1), it being the apparent policy to vest great power in heads of departments. The city councils, from 1822 to 1885, acted conservatively in this matter, especially as regards the choice of princi- pal assessors.
As under the town, the assessors were the first city department to administer State law only, the city supplying merely the means for carrying the tax laws of the State into local effect. Massachusetts taxes wealth, and the Boston assessors were among the first to tax wealth at its real value as nearly as the market can indicate value. That personal property largely escapes direct taxation, is not the fault of the assessors. Neither is it their fault that the principle of municipal or special taxes has been discouraged in Massachusetts. The vast privileges conferred by the city, therefore, have not yielded fair returns to the corporation as such. The assessors tax the wealth they find, and out of the general levy on wealth nearly all municipal expenses are de- frayed. As these expenses are heavy, the tax is heavy, the principle of special assessments or of fees for special rights or services having
128
BOSTON.
been discouraged. But the tax actually assessed is apparently borne without hardship, payments being prompt. Up to the war period the expenses of the city and county were relatively light. For the year ended April 30, 1862, the city and county expenses, including the State tax, were $3,438,651.91, against $5, 203,706.55 for the next year. But during the first year the premium on gold did not touch 105, while in the second year it rose above 172. Municipal expenses grew very high when Boston saw fit to annex the suburbs, while the premium on gold melted away. In the year preceding annexation, when Boston had about 200,000 inhabitants, expenses were $6,532,619.77, and the gold premium rose above 167. During the first year after annexation, when the gold premium did not go above 117, and the population was 341,919, municipal expense reached $15,388, 632.28. On April 30, 1867, the net debt of the city was $8,558, 281.59; on April 30, 1844, it was $21,473,213.02. All this is not due to annexation; but during the years of annexation Boston began its present scale of municipal house- keeping.
Ten years after this period, in 1885, an accident led to a law (1885, ch. 178) limiting both the debt and the tax of Boston. This interesting law has prevented the Boston tax rate from being 17 per thousand of assessed property, which was the rate in 1884, but has not checked gen- erous expenses. The law desired the net debt of the city to be within 2 per centum of the average valuation. On this basis the net debt, on January 31, 1893, ought to have been within $16,386,264.04; it was re- ported by the auditor at $21,323, 238. 11 (ann. rep., 1893, p. 8, 9), this amount not inchiding the debt for water supply. The General Court of 1885 laid down a strict rule, and its successors from 1886 to 1892 authorized the city to incur debts amounting to $28, 806, 469.69, to which the fine resolutions of 1885 need not apply. The auditor reports the net debt of the city (funded debt, less means to pay), on January 31, 1893, at $30,908,879.14, which includes the debt for water supply, and is nearly four per centum of the average valuation for the preceding five years, less abatements. Against this stand the vast assets of the corporation, briefly alluded to in Mayor Hart's inaugural address of 1890, p. 13. For the amount of interest and sinking-fund requirements of the city, see Mayor Hart's inaugural address of 1889, p. 10. It should be remembered, also, that the city debt includes the county debt, and that the city tax includes the county and State tax. That debts are an evil, need not be stated; nor that the prudence of a gov-
129
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
ernment is measured by the degree to which it meets current require- ments from current revenues.
VOTING.
As the right of suffrage in Massachusetts could not be exercised, until 1892, except upon the payment of a tax, it was natural that the assessors should make out the lists of voters. The city charter placed this duty upon the mayor and aldermen; and Mayor Quincy, always energetic, seems to have personally revised such a list. "subject to the revision of the board of aldermen " (Mun. Hist., 23:). The list con- tained about twelve thousand names. The list of 1892 contained but 87, 227, or a smaller proportion, notwithstanding the tax requirement upon voters had been abolished. Mayor Quincy may have thought that mayor and aldermen meant chiefly the mayor; after his time it meant chiefly the aldermen, and Mayor Shurtleff tells in his last inaugural address how the aldermen made voting lists (1820, 35). They let the faithful city clerk do the work, of course with the aid of the assessors. Annexation made this arrangement impossible, and in 1874 (ch. 60) the duty of preparing lists of voters was transferred to a board of three registrars. These registrars and their assistants are not allowed to hold any other office, and since 1890 they are required to represent political parties (1893, ch. 417, sec. 28, 33). When such a man quits the political party "which he was appointed to represent," he must be removed from office, says the statute (1. c., sec. 29). How the politics of a clerk can be ascertained under the guarded secrecy of the ballot, established in 1889, the law does not indicate. But it provides that assessors shall send their assessment lists to the registrars (1. c., sec. 16, 17), which lists must contain the names of all men of the vot- ing age, and of such women as make written application therefor.
The law intended from the outset to guard the registrars of voters, but could not separate them from other offices. Even after the repeal of the tax requirement upon voters, the assessors' list of persons to be taxed is justly made a basis for registering voters; for the assessors go from house to house to learn who should be taxed, and the city requires them to keep "a full and complete record of the name of each person having a residence in the city of Boston, and his present and past resi- dences " (Rev. Ordin. of 1892, 21). The State requires every male of the age of twenty years or above to be taxed; women of the voting age may be taxed, and in case they hold taxable property must be 17
130
BOSTON.
taxed. Registrars are justly required to help in enforcing the tax laws (1893, ch. 417, s. 21). It is not quite certain, therefore, that it was best to make them an independent department, and that an attempt to reduce the many independent departments of the city might not make the registry of voters a bureau under the assessing department. The government of the United States requires many executive offices, but nearly all are subordinate to one of the eight cabinet officers. The work of the registrars of voters is largely ministerial, and a ministerial office should not be made an independent department. The govern- ment of the United States requires good work of the coast survey and the mint, but has properly subordinated these offices. It is pleasant to add that the Boston voting list is very accurate, especially in the case of naturalised voters, whose names are not entered, save upon adequate evidence. The present ward lines of Boston were established in 1875-6, previous divisions having been made in 1715 (eight wards), 1735, 1805, 1822, 1838, 1850, and 1865 (always twelve wards). The annexed cities and town were treated as new wards, until 1875-6. Precincts, for voting, were not established until 1878, the number being 10%, until 1889, when it was increased to 286, to be reduced in 1890 to 205.
The city charter accepted the suffrage requirements of the third amendment to the Constitution of Massachusetts (the amendment was adopted in 1821) as the proper test for municipal voters. The ancient difference between State suffrage and municipal suffrage was thus swept away, to be restored in 1879, when women were given the right to vote for school committee. The General Court may establish munic- ipal suffrage at pleasure, while State suffrage is regulated by the Constitution. The male inhabitant of the Province was not replaced, until 1821, by the citizen ; nor, until 1857, by the legal voter, who must be a citizen as well as an inhabitant. But the poll tax as such never
had anything to do with voters as such. The poll tax is still assessed on minors, and until 1844 it was assessed on all males "between the ages of sixteen and seventy years." In 1855 the constitution was so amended as to establish the principle of plurality elections, in the place of the majority previously required by candidates. For town, city, and county elections the plurality rule had been previously adopted, on February 22, 1854 (1854, ch. 39). The publication of election re- turns used to be left to private enterprise. In 1875 the Boston reg- istrars of voters issued a sheet showing, by wards, the number of names registered for the city election of 1874. The number was 57,045; the
131
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
total vote for mayor was 18,233; yet the city had about 330,000 inhab- itants. In 1822, when Mayor Phillips was elected, the entire vote was 2,650, in a population of more than 45,000. For the national election of 1892 the registrars report the Boston vote at +4,883, and the num- ber of registered voters at 84,227, while the population was about 460,000. For the votes of the mayors, see the Catalogue of the City Councils XXXIII (published in 1891). The registrars of voters issue annual reports. In 1888 (ch. 436) the law established the principle of ballots supplied at the public expense, of elections conducted entirely by public officers, and of secret voting. This arrangement, popularly known as the Australian ballot, was first used at the November election of 1889, for State officers, and met a public want, especially on the part of candidates for office and of all persons who desired orderly elections. A code of all election laws was presented in the acts of 1893, ch. 417. Occasionally the charge of fraud or corruption has been made in regard to Boston elections, but always without evidence. The elections, or the contrary, show great intelligence and independence on the part of voters.
FINANCE DEPARTMENTS.
The financial departments of the city were greatly simplified by the charter. Previously there were separate treasurers for the town and county, and the town collectors were separate from the town treasurer. Until 1811 the collectors allowed a discount to tax payers who paid within three months after the delivery of the tax bill. The city char- ter vested the appointment of the city treasurer in the city council (1821, ch. 110, 18), and the supplement of the charter (1821, ch. 109, sec. 12) made the city treasurer the treasurer of Suffolk county. He was also collector of taxes until 1875 (ch. 176), and as such appointed deputies, while up to 1822 the constables were the real collectors, police and peace officers. Since 1875 the office of the city treasurer, there- fore, performs mostly ministerial duties. Unless otherwise ordered, the city treasurer holds the trust funds devised to the city, the amount on January 31, 1893, being $578, 932. 11. He receives the same salary as the treasurer of the United States ($6,000). The collecting depart- ment has been remarkably successful in collecting taxes and other sums due to the city, except poll taxes. This may be adduced as a justifica- tion of the tax system that prevails in Boston and Massachusetts, and makes any material changes difficult. Those that ought to pay special
132
BOSTON.
taxes or fees oppose the change, and the community as a whole appears to favor the payment of all municipal expenditures from the general tax levy. But this system, inherited from the remote past, invites spe- cial appropriations and demands for special work. Special work done by the city for special interests should be specially paid for. The amount of special collections in Boston is slight. The tax year begins on May 1; the finance year of the city and town began on the same day, except from 1823 to 1825, and since 1892, when it began on Feb- rnary 1. From 1828 to 1825 it began on June 1.
Under the town government all finances finally drifted under the con- trol of the selectmen, the overseers of the poor, and the board of health, who constituted the committee of finance, and acted as such since 1812, though the town meeting elected annually three auditors of accounts (code of 1818, p. 4). These auditors simply took a final look at the ac- counts before they were published. The charter supplement (1821, ch. 109, sec. 14) authorized the city to appoint an auditor, and an ordinance to that effect was passed on August 2, 1824. By a curious anomaly a separate board of accounts was established for the county courts and prisons (1821, ch. 109, sec. 9). This board, consisting of judges, was replaced, in 1866 (ch. 11?), by the board of aldermen, who acted until 1849, when the city auditor became county anditor,-an office that should have been assigned to him in 1824 (1879, ch. 256). A greater anomaly is the fact that Boston became a city to get rid of county in- terference, and then let all county matters drift away from city con- trol. The charter supplement (1821, ch. 109, sec. 13) vested the laying of county taxes in the city council, and permitted county taxes to be treated as city taxes (see also 1822, ch. 85); yet the city council chose to neglect county matters, and so occasioned the constant interference of the State with this subject. Originally (1821, ch. 109, 4, 5) the sal- aries of the police court and its clerk were fixed by the city. As the city council neglected county finances, the General Court took charge, the result being that county expenses have become rather onerous. This unsatisfactory condition could have been avoided, if the city gov- ernment had given due attention to county affairs. It was more atten- tive to city finances proper. To meet all public indebtedness, the ordi- nance of December 28, 1840, required the annual purchase of three per cent. of the city debt, which from the days of Mayor Quincy (Mun. Hist., 274) to 1870 was managed by a special committee. The ordi- nance of December 24, 1870, created the board of sinking-fund commis-
133
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
sioners (Mayor Gaston's inang. addr., 1871, 11), but did not prevent an alarming increase of the city debt, the fire of 1872 and the annexations adding to its growth.
The ancient committee on the reduction of the city debt, consisting of the mayor and two members of the common council, established on April 23, 1824, had aeted with ability and success. They had excellent ordi- nances to aid them. The sinking-fund commissioners are ministerial officers. The ordinance of 1870, which created the board, laid down the rule that loans for public buildings should run ten years; loans for street widenings and improvements were to run twenty years; loans for the water supply were to run thirty years. These loans were to be pro- vided for by paying into the sinking fund, respectively, six, three, and one and a-half per cent. on each. The General Court, alarmed by the increase of municipal debts, provided in 1865 (ch. 209) for sinking funds in general, and required at least eight per cent. to be set aside against ten-year loans, and enough against other loans to cancel them at matti- rity. The same law provided that water loans should not run above thirty years, sewer loans not above twenty years, and all other loans not above ten years. The city requires eight per cent. on ten-year loans, three and a-half per cent. on twenty-year loans, and two per cent. on thirty-year loans (code of 1876, 320; Rev. Ordin. of 1892, 70). The court-house loan the General Court permitted to run fifty years (1885, ch. 3:1) by which time the present building and its furniture will cer- tainly be inadequate; fifty-year park construction loans have also been authorized (1891, ch. 301; 1886, ch. 304). A catalogue of the city debt, on January 31, 1893, appears in the annual report of the auditor, 1893, p. 140-201. It should be stated that the city has always met its debt at maturity, except twice, in the case of water loans (1. c., 190), and that its debt management was best, perhaps, when it rested entirely with the city. The water debt has always been treated as a separate establishment, and was the first to have a sinking fund by that name (1846, 167, sec. 11). In 1882 (ch. 133) the General Court wisely per- mitted the annual payment of loans or loan certificates, instead of re- quiring the accumulation of sinking funds, provided a given loan is thus cancelled at maturity. This arrangement is not favored, but is pref- erable to a sinking fund.
SUPERINTENDENT OF STREETS.
The administrative departments traced in the preceding pages are mentioned, if not founded, in the charter of 1822. But the charter
134
BOSTON.
could not keep them from a tortuous course. The departments created by ordinance were not more fortunate. When Boston became a city, the duty of paving and repairing all streets and ways was found to rest with the surveyors of highways, while the selectmen could widen, lay out, and discontinue such ways, though the court of sessions also had the power to lay out highways. The mayor and aldermen inherited the power of the selectmen and the sessions, and greatly desired to be surveyors of highways, the more so because the selectmen had usually acted as surveyors. But the city council of 1822 elected three sur- veyors of highways, and it took mueh pressure to make the common council recede from its desire to have some control of street work. A citizens' meeting was held, a law was passed by the General Court (Quincy, M. H., 65), and in 1823 the mayor and aldermen became sur- veyors of highways. They divided the city into four districts of three wards cach, and, in the words of Mayor Quincy, "appointed two alder- men superintendents of each distriet." This arrangement gave way, in 1835, to the committee on paving. From 1835 to 1885 that com- mittee ruled over the streets of Boston, wielding great power and expending vast fortunes. In theory the mayor and aldermen were the surveyors of highways from 1823 to 1854, and the aldermen alone from 1854 to 1885 (1854, ch. 448, see. 41). The law of 1885 (ch. 266, sec. 6) undertook to separate the executive powers of the highway surveyors from their legislative and judicial powers, if any. In fact, the mayor was made surveyor of highways, and as such wields great power (see also 1893, ch. 423, sec. 21, 22).
As early as May 23, 1825, the mayor and aldermen appointed a superintendent of streets, and made him their agent for general street work. As they obliged him to do much additional work, such as re- pairing school houses, the common council insisted upon having a voice in appointing the superintendent. The ordinance of April 23, 1827, provided for his annual election and prescribed his duties. Up to 1885 he was elected by the concurrent vote of the two branches of the city couneil; since then he is appointed by the mayor, subject to approval on the part of the board of aldermen. Up to 1885 he was the special agent of the aldermanie committee on paving; since then he is the special agent of the mayor. At first the superintendent of streets had charge of laying out and widening, of paving and repairing streets, of all common sewers, of cleaning streets and removing house dirt, of the publie buildings, the publie wells and pumps, and whatever else the
зага „ Шинуан
135
CONSTITUTIONAL HISTORY.
aldermen might direct, though up to 1854 the mayor had some authority over the superintendent. As a curiosity the health ordinance of May 31, 1824, "relative to the police of the city of Boston," may be men- tioned. It ordains that " the department of internal police be placed under the superintendence of the city marshal," and that " to this de- partment shall belong the care of the streets, the care of the common sewers, and the care of the common vaults, and whatever else affects the health, security, and comfort of the city " (code of 1827, 170-1). In 1834 an ordinance required the city marshal "to take the general superintendence of all common sewers " and even to make plans of them (code of 1834, 246). The actual work on public sewers, however, was done by the superintendent of streets (1. c., 261), and the sewer assessments made by the city marshal proved an illusion.
The duties assigned to the superintendent of streets could not be discharged by one officer, however diligent, and by the ordinance of June 6, 1831, the office of superintendent of sewers was established, relieving the superintendent of streets of much work, and the city marshal of inspecting, accounting and drafting he was not well qualified to manage. The sewer department has always been interesting for the attempt it made to assess the cost of sewers, in part or altogether, on the abutters or immediate beneficiaries. On the whole, the attempt has failed in a city that paid all public expenses from the general tax levy; the town, however, had never treated sewers as a town affair. In 1840 the care of the public buildings was transferred from the superintendent of streets to the superintendent of lands (ordin. of Sep- tember 14. 1840), and in 1846 an independent superintendent of public buildings was authorized (ordin. of December 24, 1846), who has charge, also, of the fuel for the city. By the ordinance of April 26, 1853, finally, the city stables and the work of street cleaning, as well as the removal of house refuse, were transferred from the superintend- ent of streets to the superintendent of health, so called. The ordinance of March 9, 1891, again united the street, sewer, health or sanitary- police, and bridge departments (the latter having been authorized in 1828, 1820, and 1885, respectively) under the superintendent of streets. Possibly the work of the street commissioners, the board of survey, the lamp and ferry departments might have been added. At any rate the first superintendent of our streets was required to do the work now assigned to the board of survey and the street commissioners (see also Quincy, Mun. Hist., 194).
136
BOSTON.
ADDITIONAL DEPARTMENTS ESTABLISHED BEFORE 1854. Law Department.
The city of Boston began, and continued for more than five years, without a law department. The early mayors were learned in the law, yet the failure of establishing a department for interpreting and apply- ing the city charter proved a mistake. In 1822, after some heavy bills for counsel had been incurred, the office of city solicitor was established (ordin. of June 18, 182:). His duties have continued substantially the same, and may be described as those of a business lawyer. The salaries paid at that time to city officers ranged at or above a thousand dollars each. The elerk of the police court received $1,400, and his assistant $:00. The city solicitor was allowed $600, the same as the city mes- senger. From 1839 to 1843 the city solicitor, at that time John Pick- ering, had the assistance of a city attorney, Elbridge G. Austin. Mr. Pickering served from 1829 to 1846, and was unsurpassed for accuracy. Unfortunately few of his opinions are published; but he overruled many views and precedents he found, and placed the law business of the city on a good foundation. In particular he put an end to the absurd habit of the early city fathers to imitate town usages. The code of 1827 illustrates the early period; the code of 1834 introduces a better age. Mr. Pickering drafted the first part of the Revised Statutes, "Of the internal administration of the government," which still stands, duly amended, in the Public Statutes of the Commonwealth. Before he became city solicitor, he had won fame by his dictionary of Greek, and previous to that he had published his vocabulary of Americanisms. He was easily the most learned man in the service of the city.
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.