USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 15
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Early in 1922 the United Textile Workers ordered a general strike affecting cotton and woolen mills. Governor San Souci promptly appointed a conciliation commission, but the strike passed rapidly into the control of radicals, and violent demonstrations succeeded peace- able picketing. Because of disorder at Natick and Pontiac, Governor San Souci sent militia to Pawtuxet Valley on February 20. The following day troops were called to Pawtucket to protect the Jenckes Spinning Company's mills. Strikers resisted reopening of the mill at Hope, March 2; the mill at Crompton was reopened, March 10, and it was announced on the eleventh that the Pontiac Mill would be dismantled and closed permanently. Discontent among street railway workers was forecasted in the operation of cars with one man serving both as conductor and motorman, April 3. On July I, shopmen employed by the New York, New Haven and Hartford Railroad Company went on strike. Injunctions against strikers at the plants of the United States Finishing Company and the Slater Yarn Company were issued, July 7. In the same week jitneys, affording a new, convenient, comfortable and popular transportation service, were excluded from competition with electric tramways by regulations enforced by the Public Utilities Commission. Because of a shortage of coal a fuel adminis- trator was appointed. City residents seethed with discontent because of uncertainty with reference to trolley transportation as the financial distress of the operating companies was revealed and increases in fares were threatened. Goddard Brothers announced restoration of the old textile scale of wages in their mills early in September, and the textile strike in the Pawtuxet Valley ended, September 19. Governor San Souci called together a conference to discuss unemployment problems that were statewide, to meet October 4.
These economic disturbances, all quite beyond control by the Governor, in spite of his very affable disposition, genuine interest in the public welfare and willingness to exert to the utmost such resources as were available, troubled his administration. Besides that. the Gen- eral Assembly was far from harmonious, because of factional quarreling among the Republi- can majority, additional to the perennial conflict with the Democratic Old Guard, which fought to the end and never surrendered. Witness the repeal of the jury act and abolition of the
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office of Jury Commissioner as a rebuke to Jacob Eaton in 1920, as evidence of a breach in Republican ranks which continued to widen. Jacob Eaton died, March 20, 1921, and the Republican party lost one of the most astute politicians who ever sat in the General Assembly ; his career, marking the rise of an indigent immigrant to a position in which he was able to dictate the policies of his party and to control the government of the state, illustrated aptly the opportunity that America offers to men with ambition and ability.
Eventually Governor San Souci felt constrained by the urgent requests of personal friends and regard for old loyalties to veto the education act of 1922 .* Had the veto been exercised within the time prescribed by the Constitution, it is quite likely that the quarrel over this measure would have abated until the opening of the next General Assembly; as it was, the Governor delayed too long the sending of his veto message to the Secretary of State, and the education bill became a law without his approval .; Than Emery J. San Souci Rhode Island never had a Governor with better intentions, and seldom one with more practical abil- ity; yet there was never a Governor against whom forces beyond his control were woven more surely by the Fates for his political destruction. On the merits of his administration as a capable public servant, Governor San Souci deserved renomination by his party ; as it was, rival factions of the party supported other candidates in the convention, and Governor San Souci withdrew. Harold J. Gross, who had been Lieutenant Governor, was nominated by the convention for Governor, and James E. Dooley for Lieutenant Governor. Against them the Democratic convention named William S. Flynn for Governor, and Felix A. Toupin for Lieutenant Governor; both candidates had been prominent as leaders of the Democrats in the General Assembly.
DEMOCRATIC LANDSLIDE OF 1922-The nomination of William S. Flynn for Governor by the Democratic convention on the first ballot reversed anticipation and was a tribute to the political skill of John J. Fitzgerald, law partner of ex-Governor Higgins. Back in 1902, after having been Mayor of Pawtucket, Fitzgerald had sought the Democratic nomination for Gov- ernor, but had been defeated in convention by Democrats of the old school, who supported Governor Garvin. On the closing night of the session of the General Assembly of 1920, Fitzgerald presided over a mock session of the Senate, which was "at ease" awaiting a mes- sage from the House of Representatives. Fitzgerald, taking the chair of the Lieutenant Gov- ernor, introduced himself as "leader of the dominant party" soon to be in Rhode Island. It was a prophecy that came near to being realized. By adroit appeals, man to man, to delegates to the Democratic convention in 1922, asking for a complimentary vote on the first ballot, Fitzgerald produced a small majority for William S. Flynn on the first ballot, whereas it had been expected that the initial voting might reveal the strength of rival candidates without being conclusive. The program prepared for the convention was so much upset by the ease with which Flynn had been named, that a conference was called before further procedure. Favoring the Democrats in the campaign of 1922 were all the economic forces that had pro- duced strikes and discontent, unemployment and short time in Rhode Island; the mystifying financial operations attending the reorganization of the electric tramway system; the factional quarrels in the Republican party ; the opposition of the French, particularly, to the new edu- cation law, popularly called the "Peck Bill"; and, almost on the eve of election, an "exposure" of alleged wholesale bribery by the Republican candidate for the United States Senate. An off year, there being no presidential election, the total vote was reduced by 10,000. Flynn gained 26,000 and Gross lost 25,000 as compared with the vote two years before, the result being that a Republican plurality of 53,000 was changed to a Democratic plurality of 7000. With Governor Flynn the Democrats elected Felix A. Toupin as Lieutenant Governor and presiding officer in the Senate, Herbert L. Carpenter as Attorney General, and Adolphus C.
*See Chapter XXXII.
145 R. I. 275.
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Knowles as General Treasurer. Of the Republican candidates for general officers only the Secretary of State, J. Fred Parker, had survived, and he probably because, as his opponent was a woman, many doubted the desirability of change. Of the House of Representatives the Republicans had barely the majority necessary to control the organization and elect their candidate for Speaker; of the Senators more than one-third were Democrats. If the Repub- licans controlled both houses and thus had the initiative in legislation, the Democrats held an effective veto, because the Republicans did not have a majority in the House sufficient to over- ride the Governor's opposition. The closeness of the party strength in grand committee was indicated in the election of the justice of the district court of the eleventh judicial district, in which 138 ballots were cast, sixty-nine for Hugh M. Devlin, sixty-eight for Roscoe M. Dexter, and one for an unidentified "Potter." His Honor the Lieutenant Governor, presiding, dis- carded the vote "for nobody," and announced the election of Devlin by a majority in a total vote of 137. The Supreme Court issued an injunction forbidding the Deputy Secretary of State to sign, attest and affix the seal of the state to a commission to Devlin, on the ground that the Constitution required a majority in elections in grand committee .*
The January session of the General Assembly, 1923, was the longest and stormiest session in the history of Rhode Island with the exception of that in the following year. When adjourn- ment was taken on June 9 the Senate had met eighty-four days and the House eighty-one days. Early in January the Senate Democrats began a filibuster with the purpose of delaying business. Led by the Lieutenant Governor, they demanded constitutional reform, including provision for a constitutional convention. As presiding officer, the Lieutenant Governor surprised the majority by the facility with which he ruled on points of order, by his novel interpretation of rules, by the argument and authority with which he sustained his position, by his ability to adapt precedent to his own purposes, by the keenness with which he discrim- inated his rulings from precedents, and by the ease with which, avoiding appearance of unfair- ness and simulating unctuous urbanity, with surpassing suavity, he sustained the minority program. He had no difficulty in seeing a Democrat first, if two Senators rose apparently simultaneously, and thus he gave advantage to the minority. Republicans had, for them, the almost unprecedented experience of feeling the "steamroller" in action and of enduring the discipline that a masterful presiding officer often administers with the purpose of facili- tating a program, but used in this instance to clog action. Did the Republican majority wish to adjourn they were impotent to move adjournment until such time as the Lieutenant Gov- ernor happened to see a Republican rise or hear him address the President before a Democrat had obtained the floor. Lieutenant Governor Toupin was demonstrating the truth of a revo- lutionary proposition, to wit: That a minority plus a presiding officer may be more potent that a "mere majority." On April 14 the Senate session continued seventeen hours.
In the House the division on party lines was closer, but the Republican majority was sustained by the advantage of a friendly Speaker. House Democrats also were demanding constitutional reform, including particularly abolition of the property qualification and a con- stitutional convention. Sessions were prolonged by demand for roll call voting, and the roll call was resorted to frequently for the purpose of putting members of the House on record individually. On one occasion when the ranks of both parties had been reduced by absentees who were paired, the Democrats rose in a body to leave the House without a quorum, but were held in the chamber by locked doors and counted as "present but not voting.'
In view of the bitterness of the struggle the volume of legislation in 1923 was remark- able, although an examination of it indicates that much of it was enacted because of compro- mises. Otherwise it is not easy to explain the passage of such Democratic measures as the law requiring the board of canvassers in Providence to visit every ward to accommodate registry
*Carpenter vs. Sprague, 45 R. I. 29. In 138 ballots a majority must be more than half. See Gill vs. Mayor of Pawtucket, 18 R. I. 281.
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voters, the act to prevent fraud in elections and to regulate political advertising in newspapers, the abolition of police commissions in Cumberland and West Warwick, the proposing of an amendment to the Constitution giving the Governor power to veto items in appropriation bills, and the appointment of a joint committee to examine the accounts of and ascertain the amounts of fees collected by sheriffs. The Governor vetoed a bill to increase the salary of the Deputy Secretary of State, and another authorizing the city of Cranston to issue bonds for the purpose of building a city hall.
The climax of the session was reached almost at the end, following a filibuster of almost ten weeks in the Senate, when the Lieutenant Governor ruled that the annual appropriation bill had not been passed by the majority required by the Constitution. The appropriation bill, following precedent, included items appropriated for payment to certain societies and institu- tions, including, for example, Rhode Island School of Design and Brown University, for scholarships. The Constitution requires : "The assent of two-thirds of the members elected to each house of the General Assembly shall be required to every bill appropriating the public money or property for local or private purposes." The usage established had been to call for the test of two-thirds majority in the preliminary stage of considering the appropriation bill by sections. On May 3, when the "private" sections were before the Senate they were approved without opposition on a roll call vote in which thirty-five members participated. On May 4, sixteen members of the Senate attempted to correct the Senate Journal as read by substituting for the record of "passed" that the sections had been adopted "to stand as part of the act," which was the actual vote on other sections as they were considered. On the final vote on the passage of the act as a whole, the vote was twenty-two yeas and sixteen noes. The Lieutenant Governor ruled that the appropriation bill had failed of passage, wanting the two-thirds major- ity on "private" appropriations required by the Constitution. The House of Representatives asked the Supreme Court for an advisory opinion, and the court heldt that the Lieutenant Governor's ruling was in error; that the vote twenty-two to sixteen, wanting the two-thirds majority, did not pass the "private" sections, but was effective in passing other sections of the bill; that thereafter the bill was in the condition of a measure from which the Senate by amendment had stricken out the "private" sections, and that it should go back to the House of Representatives for "further consideration with a view to concurrent action or conference." Governor Flynn vetoed the bill as passed without the "private" sections on May 25. Whereas twenty-two votes in the Senate were not two-thirds, they were three-fifths, and the Senate might pass the appropriation measure over the Governor's veto; the Republicans could not muster three-fifths in the House, and the Democrats controlled the situation, and dictated the terms of a compromise which led eventually to a revolution in the administration of state finances. The compromise measures included (1) approval of a proposed amendment to the Constitution giving the Governor power to veto items in an appropriation bill, while approv- ing other parts of it; (2) provision for participation by the Governor in the making of the annual appropriation bill, an act requiring all departments, commissions and officers, for which and whom appropriations were made, to file annual financial reports and estimates of expendi- tures with the Governor on or before January 15, with authority vested in the Governor to be heard by committees on appropriations ; (3) requirement that every department should report annually to the Governor as well as to the General Assembly. Along with these measures went a new appropriation bill, which was passed and approved, and then the General Assembly adjourned, not to meet again, except on an after-session excursion to Block Island, until January, 1924.
THE FILIBUSTER OF 1924-The Rhode Island State Manual carries this commentary on the legislative year of 1924: "1925. January 6. January session of the General Assembly for the legislative year of 1924 expired by limitation at twelve o'clock, noon, no resolution of
+In re House of Representatives, 45 R. I. 289.
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adjournment, sine die, having been passed at this session." The House of Representatives functioned normally, albeit it soon tired of sending measures to the Senate; the grand com- mittee met and elected officers, including Ernest L. Sprague, as Secretary of State, January 16, to replace J. Fred Parker, who had resigned. In the Senate filibustering began early, so that by the time the annual appropriation bill reached the upper chamber, and was reported out of the finance committee, it took its place at the end of a long list of measures already on the calendar and awaiting action. The calendar never was reached, as the Senate debated in daily sessions approval of the journal or questions of personal privilege. The purpose of the fili- buster was to delay enactment of the appropriation bill, thus to starve the government and to constrain the Republican majority to yield to the Democratic program for constitutional and other changes. If the majority failed to support a motion to adjourn they were held in fruit- less session until they were tired out. If a member of the majority left the chamber he was brought back, and the Senate remained at ease until he returned. Occasionally a member of the majority was threatened with ejectment unless he conformed to the "order" maintained by the presiding officer. Several times the majority and minority tested endurance, the possi- bilities for adjustment lying in the absence or withdrawal of the Lieutenant Governor, which would place the President pro tem in the chair and in control of the body; or on the with- drawal or absence of enough Republicans to give the Democrats a majority while maintaining a quorum for doing business. Several of the Republican Senators were elderly men, and scarcely able to withstand a long test.
On March 28, Lieutenant Governor Toupin expelled two "Journal" reporters from the Senate on the charge of publishing false and inaccurate reports of the proceedings in the Senate. The sessions of the Senate drew throngs to the State House daily, and there were reports at the time that crude weapons were found at times behind chairs and in the retiring room at the Senate, and that armed gangsters had been seen in the chamber. In 1923, pending the passage of the appropriation bill, resolutions were approved extending from time to time the period in which the General Treasurer might make payments on the basis of one-twelfth monthly of the annual appropriation in the preceding year ; in 1924, no resolution could pass the barricade in the Senate. Accounts against the state were accumulating; many state employes, whose salaries were not established by statute and payable without action by the General Assembly, were unpaid; there were suggestions that inmates of public institutions were deprived of necessities. Henry D. Sharpe, on May 2, advanced money to pay the board of wards of the State Home and School, who had been placed out. In certain instances banks advanced credit to assist institutions; among the latter were Rhode Island State College, which negotiated a loan. For professors and instructors at Rhode Island College of Educa- tion bank credit was obtained on orders for salaries indorsed under authority of the Trustees.
Rhode Island was experiencing a new and novel type of revolution, in which the legal government was being starved systematically. In an endurance test aimed at the Lieutenant Governor he was fed by faithful supporters, and his personal wants were attended to, even to barbering, when he was shaved while occupying his place on the dais. In June there was violent disorder in the Senate, spectators and Senators joining in physical battle. The sheriff called for police, but the Lieutenant Governor refused to order the "people" ejected from the Senate.
THE GAS BOMB-Early in the morning of June 19, after a prolonged filibuster a gas bomb was placed in the Senate chamber, the fumes prostrating several Senators and driving others out. A few were removed to hospitals for observation. The "bomb" consisted of an ordinary laboratory test tube or flask in which a small quantity of chemicals had been mixed to produce a suffocating gas with an oppressive odor. The "bomb" could have been manu- factured in one of the laboratories of the State House, but probably was not. The test tube came from another place. The "Providence Journal," on June 20, offered a reward of $1000
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for information that would lead to the apprehension and conviction of the person who had placed the bomb in the Senate.
The Lieutenant Governor was wide awake to an opportunity. With several Republican Senators incapacitated by reason of gas fumes, writs were issued under the constitutional authority of the minority to compel the attendance of a quorum, in which the Democrats might have a majority. Republican Senators, except Senator Sanderson, left the state on June 22, and on June 23 were reported as guests at Hotel Bartlett, Rutland, Massachusetts. There- after the Senate was called to order from day to day and adjourned for want of a quorum, disclosed by roll call. The House of Representatives adjourned from Tuesday to Thursday, and Thursday to Tuesday, eventually meeting, by gentlemen's agreement, practically as a com- mittee for the purpose of recording "no quorum" and adjournment. Twenty-three banks joined a syndicate on June 23 to underwrite a credit of $400,000 to assist state employes and state institutions by loans to meet the situation for the remainder of the year.
The summer and fall were rife with rumors of kidnapping expeditions to the vicinity of Rutland, of gangsters guarding Hotel Bartlett, of mysterious patrols on highways between Rhode Island and Rutland, of exiled Senators who stole home under cover of late Saturday night darkness and fled before midnight of Sunday to escape arrest on orders of the minority. The Attorney General made an investigation of reports that armed gangsters had attended sessions of the Senate, and an effort to find the perpetrators of the bomb outrage. A special session of the grand jury was convened, and on August 4, 1924, the grand jury returned indictments against William C. Pelkey, chairman of the Republican state central committee ; John J. Toomey and William Murray, alias "Toots" Murray, all of whom were arrested and released on bail. The indictment, in several counts, charged the three with conspiracy, placing the bomb, and an assault upon the person of Felix A. Toupin. The charges against the three defendants were dismissed on October 6, when the Attorney General was unable to produce one Lally, the principal witness for the prosecution. In the discussion before the Superior Court on October 6, it was brought to the attention of Mr. Justice Hahn, who presided, that the missing witness, Lally, had been released on bail of $1000, and that the small amount of the bond, in the instance of a material witness in a serious case, had been consented to by the Attorney General. The dismissal was ordered after the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the indictment and prosecution, admitted that though he was disappointed at the failure of Lally to appear, he could not be certain that Lally could be produced at any certain time for a trial. The defence offered to permit the trial to start, thus allowing time, while other wit- nesses were heard, to locate Lally; but the Assistant Attorney General declared that little could be proved without the star witness.
REPUBLICAN LANDSLIDE OF 1924-In the fall election Governor Flynn was the Demo- cratic candidate for United States Senator, and Lieutenant Governor Toupin ran for Gov- ernor. Both were defeated by over 32,000 plurality in a total vote that reached 209,000. As a matter of fact, Toupin polled 4000 votes more in 1924 than did Governor Flynn in 1922, but the Republican candidate, ex-Governor Pothier. had piled up nearly 50,000 more than had been polled for Gross in 1922. In the Republican landslide Democrats were swept from all offices, and the Republican majorities in both Senate and House were increased in such manner as to give the party unquestionable and undisputed control. Among the measures introduced and . passed at the January session of 1925 were a large number fixing the amounts of annual appropriations in such manner as to make them statutory and effective without action of the General Assembly, thus to reduce the effectiveness of another filibuster. Moreover, a begin- ning of the reorganization of the state finance forecasted in the budget measure of 1923 pro- ceeded with the enactment of legislation creating a state commissioner of finance, to whom financial reports and estimates should be submitted, and whose duties should include the draft- ing of an annual appropriation bill to become effective for the continuance of departments if
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the General Assembly failed to pass an appropriation bill before April I. The reorganization proceeded with the substitution of a state comptroller for the state auditor, and eventually the change of the fiscal year from the calendar year to the year beginning July I and ending June 30. Governor Pothier was reelected in 1926 and died February 4, 1928. Governor Norman S. Case, who succeeded Governor Pothier, was reelected in 1928 by 8000 plurality in a total vote of 236,000. The Democrats in 1928 carried the state in the presidential election, Rhode Island's five electoral votes being cast for Alfred E. Smith.
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