USA > Massachusetts > Suffolk County > Professional and industrial history of Suffolk County, Massachusetts, Volume III > Part 9
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OVERSEERS OF THE POOR.
Beside the police, the school committee, and the board of health, no new department was created by or for the town of Boston under the Commonwealth. Moreover, the board of health was unwisely abolished when Boston had become a city; the police department was created in theory only, or mainly, the expense being an obstacle in the way of maintaining an efficient police; but the school committee was to last, and to assume ever increasing importance, which is now (in 1893) greater than ever. On the other hand, the power of the venerable overseers of the poor began to crumble in the last days of the town. The overseers, whose mission was charitable, had kindly permitted themselves to look after the vicious poor, and in that way to become the instruments of reformatory, correctional, and penal work. Under the law of 1788 the overseers could discharge from the house of cor- rection; under the law of 1798 the insane poor, properly under the charge of the overseers, were sent to the house of correction; the law of 1194 gave them special duties as to houses of ill fame; finally, the law of 1435, to which the Boston overseers appealed, when Josiah Quincy attacked them, had made them the managers of the workhouse for "the idle and poor " (1 Gen. Laws, 324, 557; 2 Prov. Laws, 757). As the town of Boston had no separate house of correction, workhouse, and almshouse, and as the overseers had charge of the almshouse, and the workhouse, and some authority in the house of correction, the poor, the idle, and the vagabonds all drifted under the care of the overseers, the latter consenting. Their colony, first in Beacon street, then in Leverett street, contained the respectable poor, with the vagabonds,
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the sick, the orphans, the insane, and the outcasts. Even the jail was there.
This colony was kept together in 36 rooms; there it was fed by the overseers, who tried in vain to keep their company duly employed, the result being that the expenses of the town for the nominal relief of the poor were enormous. In 1726, for instance, the town was informed that its treasury had been drawn upon by the overseers for £3, 458 11 2, while the selectmen had drawn £4,421 17 712 (18 Bost. Rec. Comm., 257). It was not uncommon for the annual drafts of the overseers to exceed those of the selectmen (1. c., 87, 135). Mr. Quincy perceived that this was misplaced generosity, and induced the town to buy the estate at South Boston now occupied by the house of correction. The estate covered some sixty acres; there the house of industry was erected, the inmates to be employed on the farm. One of the last votes of the town approved the proceeding, and the overseers of the poor were requested to deliver to the house of industry such able-bodied poor as could be put to work. The overseers resisted. When Mr. Quincy became mayor, he fought this fight to the end, and the over- seers were beaten. Under the town the overseers had charge of all indoor and outdoor relief, of the insane and the workhouse; Mr. Quincy left them nothing but outdoor relief, all else being transferred to what is now (since April 21, 1890) called the department of public institu- tions. The theory advanced by Mr. Quincy was correct, but it was not carried into effect. His opposition to the overseers of the poor simply resulted in making two administrative departments where one would suffice. It would have been wise to separate charity, correction, and punishment; this separation was not made; it has not been com- pleted in 1893. Mr. Quincy's Municipal History states his view with spirit (pp. 34-40, 88-96, 138-147). The overseers defended their course in a spirited address "To their constituents," published in 1823; but they lost their control of indoor relief. The laws of Febru- ary 3, 1823 (house of industry), of June 12, 1824 (house of correction), and of March 4, 1826 (house of reformation for juvenile offenders), made this loss complete.
FINANCIAL AND MINOR CHANGES.
Under the laws of 1786 (1 Gen. Laws, 212, 251) the town meeting chose annually nine assessors. As they were not able to cope with the work of determining the value of taxable property for a town of more
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than 5,000 inhabitants, the General Court, in 1802, authorized each of the twelve wards to choose annually two assistant assessors, who elected the three principal assessors (3 Spec. Laws, 5). This arrangement answered the purpose, and incidentally strengthened the practice of ward elections, in the place of overcrowded town elections at Faneuil Hall. The assistant assessors and the board of health were chosen on the same day, the ward meetings for that purpose being held on the first Wednesday in April. The financial year, like the tax year, began on the first day of May. This date was found the most convenient. In 1822 a change was attempted, but proved inconvenient (Quincy, Mun. Hist., 46) ; a second change was made by the ordinance of March 21, 1891. But the tax year continues to begin on May 1, as in the days when Boston was a town. The act creating assistant assessors provided that the town treasurer, chosen in town meeting, should be the collector of taxes. In 1813 the selectmen, the overseers of the poor, and the board of health were authorized to choose the town treas- urer and the collectors (4 Spec. Laws, 502). The same officers, thirty- three in all, had been authorized in 1812 to superintend the finances of the town, and were called the committee of finance (By-Laws of 1818, p. 4). The city charter transferred the election of the city treasurer to the mayor and aldermen, but the assessment and collection of taxes to the discretion of the city council -- good evidence that the charter was not a thoroughly well-considered instrument. The town had ordered as early as 1786 that at every town vote involving money the vote should be counted, and that reconsideration should not be allowed, un- less demanded by at least the same number of voters (By-Laws of 1786, p. 84). This prevented undue haste, and worked well.
Regular committees audited the accounts of the town treasurer, and submitted town budgets. Before the close of the eighteenth century the accounts of the town were annually published, at first in the form of broadsides. In 1811 a detailed account of expenses and town prop- erty was begun in pamphlet form. In 1812 this duty was assigned to the committee on finance, consisting of the nine selectmen, the twelve overseers of the poor, and the twelve members of the board of health, and when the office of city auditor was established, in 1824, he con- tinued the series of reports begun by the finance committee of the town, his first report being the thirteenth in the series. Indeed, no suspicion attaches to the financial transactions of the town and its officers. The town was equally fortunate in the orders it issued. To prevent block- 12
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ades in the principal street of the town, now Washington street, all teams were required more than a century ago to drive on the east side of the street when going north, and on the west side when going south, under a fine of ten shillings for every offense (By-Laws of 1286, p. 11). The Province system of fire companies was continued, but the selectmen were allowed in 1485 to appoint eighteen men for every engine, and in 1801 the number was increased to twenty-four men. The "Cata- ract," or number 14, was allowed forty men. The men attached to each engine chose their own captains, and made their own rules (By- Laws of 1818, pp. 150-154). In a case of fire the twenty-four firewards took control, if disorder can be called control. Nor was the later vol- unteer system an improvement equal to the occasion, though Mayor Quincy boasted in 1828 that he had twelve hundred firemen to fight the enemy of the town. The truth is, the town had not the money to pay for a good police, a good fire service, good water, good sewers, and good streets.
PLANS FOR A CITY IN 1784.
The change from town to city was taken with great reluctance. It was thought best to amend the State Constitution, in order to dispel all doubt about a city charter the General Court might grant. This amendment, proposed by the constitutional convention of 1820, was ratified by a very small majority of the voters, but it was ratified and still stands. It authorizes the General Court to give a city constitution to such towns as have at least twelve thousand inhabitants, provided such towns make formal application and give due consent (art. 2 of the Amendments). This amendment did not take effect until 1821, but prepared public opinion for the change impending in Boston. In the Colony and the Province the mere suggestion of such a change was re- jected by the town meeting. Under the Commonwealth formal plans for the transition from the town organization, which is simple democ- racy, to a city, which is representative democracy, were submitted in 1784, in 1792, in 1804, and in 1815. They were all rejected, and fort- unate it is they were rejected. The constitutions of the State and the United States supplied good precedents for a city charter; these prec- edents were not mentioned. Yet the government of a city cannot be wholly unlike that of a State or the nation. The essential part, as far as the constitution of either is concerned, is the extent and the proper distribution of the power to be vested in the government. The Con-
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stitution of Massachusetts had laid down the ideal principle as to the distribution of power in a free government (Declaration of Rights, art. 30). When the charter of Boston was drawn up, the learned jurists looked to the town they would and would not abandon, and never to the State or the nation which had shown how to organise democracy, through representative institutions, in a free and efficient government. The lesson of the Articles of Confederation of 1977 had been forgot- ten.
The several plans for a city charter, submitted to the town meeting from 1784 to 1821, are still extant, but have very little save antiquarian or pathological interest. The committee of 1784, which included Samuel Adams, William Tudor, James Sullivan, and Thomas Dawes, submitted two plans, one of them an adaptation of the old New-York charter, as if the world had not advanced since King George II. The town meeting ordered the " Two Plans " printed and distributed, and at a later meeting rejected the schemes tumultuously (Quincy, Mun. Hist., 22-24; H. H. Sprague, City Government in Boston, 10-11). The first plan contemplated four annual elections by the people, two to be held in March, beside general meetings. The people were to meet for certain purposes in wards, for other purposes at Faneuil Hall. In a word, the simple arrangement of the town meeting was to be replaced by a complicated system. The government was to be vested in a cor- poration called " The Mayor, Aldermen, and Common Council of the City of Boston, in the Commonwealth of Massachusetts." The corpora- tion was to be divided against itself, the mayor, recorder, and twenty-four councilmen to constitute the common council, but no common-council meeting to be legal, unless the aldermen were present. The mayor, recorder, twelve aldermen, and twenty-four councilmen were to make the ordinances; the mayor, recorder, and twenty-four councilmen were to raise the money for the use of the city; but only the mayor and aldermen were to appropriate and expend it. There was to be a town clerk, but the recorder was not to be that person; he was to tell the corporation of thirty-eight persons what each division could lawfully do. The second plan proposed that the corporation consist of the president and eighteen selectmen, one-third of the latter to be chosen by the people at large in a general meeting, and the remaining twelve selectmen by wards on the next day. No checks and balances were provided, and the corporation of nineteen was to tax and expend taxes at pleasure. This plan was rejected because the people understood it
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too well; the other plan because nobody could understand it. The town was not prepared to transfer its whole government to an irrespon- sible committee of nineteen; neither would the town accept a common council of thirty-eight for one purpose, of twenty-six for another, while the power of appropriating and expending money, and of appointing city officers, was vested in the mayor and aldermen who were part of the common council, but voted only on certain topics. The wonder is, not that the plans were rejected, but that men of standing and reputa- tion proposed them. The administration of justice and the onerous dependence on the county justices were not touched in the plans of 1184; the legislative and executive powers of the government were neither separated nor even defined; government by committee was to be made permanent ; no appreciable relief or gain was offered to the voters and taxpayers. How could they help rejecting the plans? The rejeetion took place on June 12, 1784, and was complete.
TOWN VERSUS CITY.
In 1785 a committee including Adams, Tudor, Sullivan, and Dawes, of the committee of 1784, reported that the constitution of the town was perfect, thus justifying the rejection of the previous plans (Sprague, 1. c., 12). On March 23, 1786, the General Court passed its general town act, declaring "the inhabitants of every town within this govern- ment . to be a body politic and corporate " (1 Gen. Laws, 250). The statement, therefore, that "the town of Boston was never formally incorporated " (Sprague, 6), is not entirely correct. The act of 1786 replaced the general town act of 1692 (1 Prov. Laws, 64), and this took the place of the memorable Colony act passed in 1635-36 (1 Mass. Rec., 172). These three acts are the ancient charters of the Massachu- setts town, and as such have permanent interest. Without them it is difficult to understand the constitution of these towns, even at the present time. But it is significant that the rights and duties of a town or its selectmen have never been enumerated, and that towns generally may do anything not expressly prohibited by the General Court, or since 1789, by the law of the United States. The powers not delegated to the United States are certainly reserved to the States or the people. In Massachusetts the State has enumerated powers, and the State Con- stitution does not vainly enumerate and reserve the rights remaining with the people and not delegated. The declaration of rights is almost profuse in affirming the rights remaining with "the people," a term
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used as freely as the term "town " is used in the frame of government. It is not unreasonable, then, to conclude that the people certainly have many reserved rights, and that they are free to exercise these rights in their corporate capacity as towns. The General Court can establish and abolish towns, but not wholly without their consent; it cannot pro- hibit town meetings (decl. of rights, art. 19), and it cannot annul a lawful contract (U. S. Const., art. 1, sec. 10). It cannot prevent the people from organising themselves for public purposes, from taxing themselves, from changing their government, and from treating all government as an agent of the people to whom it is responsible (decl. of rights, art. 5, 7). In their town meetings the men of Massachusetts could exercise the rights justly dear to them as freemen and as mem- bers of organised society. There they exerted their powers directly and visibly; there they could speak their minds; there they could join with their neighbors in ordaining what should be, or what should not be. It was in the town meeting and by the town meeting that the local aristocracy had become democratic, and that the American principle of equal rights and equal duties had been established. The people of Boston might exchange this government, with its many re- served and prescriptive rights, for something better; but the town meet- ing would not abdicate in favor of a committee, which it had been in the habit of creating and discharging at pleasure. The town might be disposed to delegate a part of its power temporarily to one set of agents, another part to another set of agents; it would not retire in favor of an annual committee. The town would accept greater power; it would not resign the power it had. The Boston men feared that the estab- lishment of a city meant the loss of town rights; the neighbors of Bos- ton feared that a city meant an increase in Boston rights, to the detri- ment of the neighbors.
In 1792 the town discussed the melioration of its government as pro- posed by a committee of twenty-one, including James Sullivan, William Tudor, Christopher Gore, John Quincy Adams, and Charles Bulfinch. They proposed a town council of twenty-seven, the nine selectmen to be chosen on a general ticket, and the remaining eighteen in the nine wards to be established. This town council was to make bylaws, and to choose a town attorney for prosecuting their violation. A special court was to be established for these causes. The town did not take kindly to this notion. The average voter does not naturally like a pros- ecuting attorney, and the idea of a town attorney to prosecute all
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violations of town ordinances was not acceptable. The town would elect a number of officers; but the legislative and executive power was vested in the town council. That was more than the town meeting could bear, and, greatly to the surprise of John Quincy Adams and young Harrison Gray Otis, the whole scheme was rejected after full and fair consideration. Mr. Adams was disgusted with " simple democ- racy." Yet what could have induced the town to transfer the power of the town meeting to a committee of twenty-seven? To establish this committee, the people were required to have a general election and an election by wards, and the committee so elected was to unite legislative, executive, and prosecuting powers. The men who finally rejected the scheme have not been praised (Sprague, 12-14); but was it right, was it prudent, was it American, to vest nearly the whole power of the town in one unwieldy and irresponsible committee? Had not the Con- federation illustrated the efficiency of committees that legislated and executed, nobody in particular being responsible for failures? The superiority of an annual committee over a temporary committee was not conceded. So the attempt of 1791-2 fell through, on January 26. 1992 (Quincy, Mun. Hist., 25).
THE PLAN OF 1804.
In 1804 the town ordered a constitutional convention. The members were chosen in wards, that system having been introduced in 1499. The convention included James Sullivan, James Prince, John Davis, and Harrison Gray Otis, but none of the town officers that knew best where the shoe pinched. The convention met in Fanenil Hall, and was charged to propose whatever changes might be necessary in the town and county government. The work of the convention was pre- pared by a committee of the gentlemen named, with R. G. Amory and Charles Jarvis added. The convention finally proposed a town council of thirty-three or thirty-four, to consist of nine selectmen chosen at large, of twenty-four delegates chosen two by each ward, and of the Intendant, to be chosen by the thirty-three from among themselves or from the people at large. This title was borrowed from Charleston, S.C. The intendant was to preside at the town council, which made the bylaws, ordered taxes, appropriated money, and, strange to say, was to prosecute all suits in which the town might be a party. Lest this legislative body lack executive power, it was to manage all town property and to "give deeds in their name and behalf." The selectmen
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were to expend the money not spent by the town council, the board of health, the overseers of the poor, or other town officers. The latter were to be appointed by the town council, except that the intendant was to appoint "the police officer " [sic ]. The intendant was to preside at the meetings of the school committee, the selectmen, and the town council, and, worst of all, he was to appoint a regular time and place "to receive the complaints and representations of individuals." There he was to attend " daily." He was to have a salary, and would have earned it.
The convention-famous as the only constitutional convention ever held by the town-recommended " that suitable measures be taken to render the town of Boston a county," the town council to be the heir of the court of sessions, whose judicial work had been transferred to the municipal court. The reason why the selectmen were retained, is not clear, except that in managing his police officer the intendant was to have "the concurrence of the selectmen." But they were to be sur- veyors of highways. To produce the town council, at least two elec- tions were required. As for the intendant, the town would be unable to see why he should not be elected by the people. If he was to be the head of the town, though only in name, the town would never permit him to be chosen by the town council, which was altogether overloaded with legislative and executive duties, and was to have more, should the court of sessions be abolished. Still the convention showed a certain improvement upon all previous attempts: it tried to regulate the town finances, it proposed to unite the town and county, and it undertook to give the town a visible head. The chairman of the selectmen was simply the parliamentary chairman of a board with undefined powers and rights. The town meeting was retained, but it was shorn of power. Then why retain it ? the town meeting might ask. Plain men have a keen eye to the difference between shadow and substance. The people were less partial to the name of town, town meeting, or select- man, than to the power they knew so well how to exercise through these agencies. The people desired this exercise of power, and they were not prepared to transfer the whole power of the town to a stand- ing committee they could not control. Nor are the plain men ever wholly wrong in their conclusions and judgments. The scheme of 1804 was laid before the town on March 12, and was not accepted. The people might distribute power, as they did in town meeting; they would not transfer all power to one body however representative.
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THE REHASH OF 1815.
The plan of 1804, somewhat modified, was again proposed in 1815, when certain members of the town government had failed to be re- elected, and gentlemen felt that town government was a failure (Quincy, Mun. Hist., 26). Charles Bulfinch, who had been defeated, was chair- man of the selectmen, received a salary, and was superintendent of police. Such men are apt to lose in popular elections. Nor does it appear why town government was a failure when certain good officers were thrown out. The town appointed a large and influential committee to report on the expediency of changing the municipal constitution. The committee included Jacob Rhodes, Redford Webster, and George Blake, who had served in the convention of 1804. Among the new members were John Phillips and Josiah Quincy, both destined to serve the city of Boston as mayors. The report of the committee is amusing, and the draft of the charter they submitted an echo of 1804. The convention had proposed a plain town council ; the gentlemen 1815 proposed to call it " The Intendant and Municipality of the Town and City of Boston," adding that the term "town " was " absolutely indispensable " because it stood in the State Constitution; that Boston should be called a city because " this name has an effect to raise the rank of a place in the es- timation of foreigners;" and that the head of the city-town should be called intendant because that term was used in Charleston, South Caro- lina. "implying the duties which he is to execute." The convention of 1804 had proposed that the intendant should be removable by three quarters of the town council so voting. The committee of 1815 omitted this bit of pleasantry. They gave him a voice at least in the manage- ment of town property, and treated the selectmen with some respect. All money not expended by the board of health or the overseers of the poor was to be expended by the selectmen, but only upon appropri- ations made by the municipality, which was to consist, apparently, of the intendant, the nine selectmen, and the twenty-four delegates com- bined.
The school committee and the county justices were treated with slender respect, and it was provided that "the town and city of Boston shall hereafter be a county." But the thirty-three or thirty-four mem- bers of the municipality were to appoint three justices of a police court, and "care shall be taken that all the justices of the county shall be taken in succession quarterly, if they shall express their consent to act as justices of said court." The same municipality was to appoint the
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