Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 19

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716

USA > Rhode Island > Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II > Part 19

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*In re Right of Electors, 41 R. I. 118.

țIn re Election of United States Senators, 41 R. I. 209.

§State for an Opinion, 35 R. I. 167.

+In re Providence Journal Company, 28 R. I. 490.

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are bought and sold." . . . . "Who paid money, how much was paid and who got the money at the election of the last Supreme Court judge?" Troy was summoned before the Supreme Court, and at a hearing declared that he did not use the language quoted, and "I did not and would not have the people of Woonsocket or the people of this country, or, of this state for that matter, believe that I knew or would charge that any man from the district court to this Supreme Court corruptly obtained his election." At the conclusion of the hearing the court in its opiniont said :

We are convinced that the speech at Woonsocket was part of a campaign of false and malicious attacks upon the integrity of the members of this court and the judiciary of the state in general which the respondent had entered upon in a reckless attempt to excite popular prejudice against the courts as they are now consti- tuted. We find the defendant guilty of gross official misconduct. Upon receiving his license as an attorney and an officer of this court he undertook to be faithful to the administration of justice. He must be held to know that much of the good order of the community, the safety of the citizens and the security of property, depends upon the confidence that the people may justly place in the integrity of the judiciary, and in the impartiality of their decisions. If the feeling becomes implanted in the public mind that positions upon the bench are corruptly obtained by purchase, the suspicion inevitably follows that the decisions of the court also may be the subject of purchase. Reliance is no longer placed in the fairness of such decisions and our govern- ment is weakened in respect to the very matter to secure which the state, in a large measure, was established, viz : that the citizen might be secure in his liberty, his person and his property through the protection of law. Thus in maliciously attempting to instill into the minds of the people a distrust of the integrity of the court, as one of the coordinate branches of the government, the respondent has attacked the state itself.

The court proceeded : "It is within the right of every citizen, whether a member of the bar or not, to publicly advocate and by fair and legitimate criticism and argument to urge changes in our law with reference to any matter, including the election of the judiciary. In so far as the respondent's address at Woonsocket was of that character we would not attempt to restrain him nor call him to account; and this opinion must not in any way be so under- stood. Because a man is a member of the bar the court will not, under the guise of disci- plinary proceedings, deprive him of any part of that freedom of speech which he possesses as a citizen. The acts and decisions of the courts of this state, in cases that have reached final determination, are not exempt from fair and honest comment and criticism. It is only when an attorney transcends the limits of legitimate criticism that he will be held responsible for an abuse of his liberty of speech. We well understand that an independent bar, as well as an independent court, is always a vigilant defender of civil rights. .... In Rhode Island the relation between this court and the members of the bar has always been unusually intimate and marked by mutual respect and friendliness. It cannot be otherwise than that the personal characteristics or the ability of the judges may have been the subject of comment and criticism among members of the bar, and that at times the representative of a defeated litigant, in the disappointment arising from an unfavorable decision, may have condemned such decision with heat and vigor ; but never before has this court been called upon to consider the case of an attorney who maliciously, deliberately and in a public manner has sought to injure or destroy the influence of the court and its authority." Troy was suspended from practice for two years, as a penalty. He was elected in 1930 as Senator from the city of Providence from one of the districts created under Article XIX of amendments. The people in 1930 approved an amendment to the Constitution providing for absentee voting.

THE CAMPAIGN OF 1922-In the senatorial campaign of 1922 the rival candidates were Senator Gerry, Democrat, who sought reelection, and ex-Governor Beeckman, Republican. The campaign opened most inauspiciously for the Republican party because of industrial unrest pervading the year preceding ;¿ a factional quarrel in the state convention, which had

+In re Troy, Opinion, 43 R. I. 279.

#See Chapter XXIII.

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not terminated when the convention adjourned; and an "exposure" of alleged political corrup- tion a few weeks before election. One Legace, a prominent Democratic politician, declared that he had received from a political agent for ex-Governor Beeckman a large sum of money to be expended during the campaign. The "Providence News" printed a fac-simile of bills of large denomination alleged to have been used in the transaction, with a news article relating the episode and details of the alleged transaction in a room at the Biltmore Hotel. Ex-Governor Beeckman at first bluntly and unequivocally denied the truth of the story; a short time later an explanation was made by his attorney, which admitted a payment to Legace and asserted that the money was to be used for legitimate campaign expenses, such as hiring places for ral- lies, printing and postage, incidental expenses and the services of persons employed. At this stage of the campaign, assuming the truth of the explanation, which was plausible, the most damaging factor was Legace's well-known affiliation with the Democratic party, of which he had been the candidate for Congress from the Third District in 1920. The ex-Governor had not explained his reason for disbursing campaign money to a Democrat. Ex-Governor Beeck- man sued the "Providence News" for libel, and in December the "News" was indicted by the grand jury.

The campaign was one of the most bitterly contested in the history of Rhode Island. William S. Flynn, Democrat, was elected as Governor, with 7200 plurality ; Senator Gerry was reelected with nearly 14,000 plurality. Senator Gerry's vote was less than 1000 larger than Governor Flynn's ; nearly 6000 Republicans who voted for Harold J. Gross as Governor did not vote for Beeckman, expressing in this way their estimate of the transaction with Legace. The campaign was notable for the Democratic emphasis upon the issue of corruption in politics.

LAW AND ORDER IN 1924-With Senator Colt dead* and with no authority granted to the Governor to make a temporary appointment as suggested in the Constitution,; two senatorial terms were to be filled in the fall election of 1924, one the unexpired term of Senator Colt ending March 4, 1925, and the other a new term of six years beginning March 4, 1925. Gov- ernor Flynn was nominated by the Democratic state convention as candidate to fill both terms. Jesse H. Metcalf was chosen to lead the Republican ticket, not as a dyed-in-the-wool Republi- can so much as an advocate of law and order and good government, which had been molded and welded into an issue of the campaign because of the filibuster in the General Assembly of 1924. Metcalf had been a member of the General Assembly in 1889-1891, elected as a Demo- crat, and again in 1907, when he was elected by the combination of Democrats and advocates of good government who supported Robert H. I. Goddard as a candidate for Senator. He had been chairman of the Penal and Charitable Commission, 1917-1918, and of the Metropoli- tan Park Commission, 1910-1924. In 1924 he was staunchly opposed to "Toupinism," which was a term coined to indicate recourse to revolutionary practices such as the filibuster. Edward M. Sullivan, who had been Democratic candidate for Governor in 1920 was a candidate for the Senate, styling himself a "Liberal Independent." Senator Metcalf's pluralities were 26,375 for the short term and 32,004 for the six-year term. Governor Pothier's plurality in the same election over Toupin was 36,807. For President, Calvin Coolidge carried Rhode Island in the same year by 48,680 plurality. It was a bad year for Democrats in Rhode Island.

To oppose Senator Gerry for reelection in 1928 the Republican state convention named Felix Hebert. Nearly a quarter of a million voters went to the polls in an election in which the interest was more national than state because of the rival candidates for the presidency-Her- bert Hoover and Alfred E. Smith. The total vote was 242,784, of which 107,557 straight Republican and 104,927 straight Democratic ballots were cast. The 30,300 electors who voted other than straight party ballots effected results such as the choice of presidential electors favor-

*August 18, 1924.

Article XVII, paragraph 2.

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able to Alfred E. Smith, by 1451 plurality ; the election of Hebert, Republican, as Senator, by 2994 plurality ; the election of Republican Congressmen in the First and Second Districts by reduced pluralities, but the election of O'Connell, Democrat, in the Third District by 11,382 plurality ; the reelection of Governor Case and the Republican state ticket of general officers by pluralities averaging 8000. Senator Hebert had made an unusual campaign in the face of what seemed to be, when he was named in convention, odds so hopeless that for once the Republican party sought a candidate for Senator, whereas in other years candidates had sought the nomination. Perhaps the most significant factor in the election was the uncovering of an "independent" electorate of 30,300.

For the United States Senate in 1930 the rival candidates were Senator Jesse H. Metcalf, seeking reelection as a Republican, and ex-Senator Gerry, Democrat. The canvass was pains- taking and thorough, and the vote of over 220,000 in a year in which no presidential election occurred, was extraordinary. Senator Metcalf's election, in spite of divided counsels in the Republican party, was achieved by a plurality of 2500, as compared with a plurality of 3500 for Governor Case as candidate for reelection.

4套:N

OLD STATE HOUSE, PROVIDENCE

CHAPTER XXV. EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION.

T is proper to remark," said the Supreme Court in an advisory opinion,* "that under the Charter the legislative power of the General Assembly was practically unlimited." That was one of the contentions of Dorr and others who had advo- cated constitutional reform before 1842 .; The Governor in colonial days occa- sionally cited his own official impotence, without positive authorization to act, as an excuse if not the real reason for non-compliance with the requests of officious representa- tives of the crown. The Constitution, although by the declaration of the principle "of the distribution of powers"# it purported to establish an independent executive, did not increase the Governor's powers materially. It is true that he was directed to "take care that the laws be faithfully executed"; his actual powers were (I) to command the militia while in the service of the state; (2) to grant reprieves during recesses of the General Assembly; (3) to make recess appointments; (4) to prorogue the General Assembly in the event of a disagree- ment as to the time of adjournment, and (5) to call extraordinary sessions of the General Assembly .** The Governor, neither under Charter nor under Constitution, had the veto power until 1909. It should be noted, however, that withholding from the Governor the power to veto was distinctly in accord with the principle of the distribution of powers, inasmuch as the veto enables the executive to participate in legislation, from which he is excluded if meas- ures become law without submission to him for approval. On the other hand, withholding from the Governor authority to appoint administrative officers might be construed as neglect of the principle of distributing powers, inasmuch as the responsibility for enforcing law attaches ultimately to the department which has authority to appoint or elect. In Rhode Island the Governor eventually found himself to be only one of a large number of executive officers, most of whom felt responsibility only to the General Assembly. The position of the Governor has not been weakened by the development of an elaborate organization for gov- ernment; rather it has not been strengthened. The General Assembly, as it has transmuted its own function to deal with particular situations into general law applicable to similar situa- tions, has created new agencies for administration, and has jealously held the agencies respon- sible to it, whereas otherwise, had it chosen to do so, it might have magnified the executive department by giving to the Governor the power to appoint. The General Assembly, in grand committee, elected in 1843 and thereafter unless other provision was made, all officers not chosen by the people as provided in the Constitution, even to justices of the peace and public notaries.tt It was altogether extraordinary and without precedent that the Barnard public school law of 1845 authorized the Governor to appoint the Commissioner of Public Schools.

THE CIVIL LIST OF 1843-Aside from the five general officers elected by the people -- the Governor, Lieutenant Governor, Secretary of State, Attorney General and General Treasurer -and the members of the General Assembly, not exceeding 103, the civil list in 1843 included the chief justice and three associate justicestt of the Supreme Court, a clerk of the Supreme Court for each of the five counties, a clerk of the court of common pleas for each county, a sheriff for each county, long lists of justices of the peace and notaries public; an agent of the Providence and Pawtucket turnpike, three commissioners of shell fisheries, an inspector gen-

*In re Constitutional Convention, 14 R. I. 649.

+Chapter XVIII.

# Article III.

** Article VII.

tiUntil in 1893 the power to appoint was given to the Governor.

##Two associate justices until January 1, 1843.

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eral each of beef and pork, lime, and scythe stones, seven inspectors of the state prison, and seven inspectors of ferries. The annual expenditures from the general treasury amounted, in round numbers, to $80,000, including $5000 for salaries, $7250 for the General Assembly (per diem and mileage), $17,500 for courts, $1000 for expenditure by the Governor, $5500 for maintaining the state prison, $25,000 for public schools, $2000 for the education of the deaf, dumb and blind, $17,000 for miscellaneous expenditures of all kinds on orders by the General Assembly. The annual appropriation bill for 1930-1931 for the support of the state govern- ment, excluding particular appropriations not regular charges, carried more than $8,000,000.

NEW OFFICES-The reorganization of courts under the Constitution included provision for the designation of one associate justice of the Supreme Court as the presiding justice in each of the courts of common pleas established for the counties; with him sat two associate justices elected by the General Assembly for each of the five counties. This arrangement continued until 1848, when state-elected judges for the county courts of common pleas were abolished, the panels being filled by local justices. State "courts of magistrates" were created for Providence and Newport, 1854; Woonsocket village, 1855; Pawtucket village, 1865; North Providence, 1873; Westerly, 1883. With the establishment of twelve judicial dis- trict courts in 1886, as tribunals of limited civil and criminal jurisdiction, justice courts were abolished. A fourth associate justice of the Supreme Court was elected in 1875. The Gen- eral Assembly invariably elected justices and clerks of courts, until, in 1930, the Governor was authorized to appoint justices of the Superior Court, by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The first administrative office created under the Constitution was that of Commis- sioner of Public Schools, in 1845. Henry Barnard, who had been conducting a survey of the public school system under the designation of "agent" was appointed as Commissioner by the Governor. Although Barnard in his commentary on the school law of 1845 expressed an opinion that appointment of a school officer is preferable to election, it is possible and prob- able that the provision for appointment by the Governor instead of election in grand commit- tee, in this instance had the purpose of avoiding the constitutional requirement that "no per- son shall be eligible to any civil office (except the office of school committee) unless he is a qualified elector for such office."* Barnard's home was at Hartford, Connecticut, whither he returned, after his service in Rhode Island, to take up the task of reforming the school system of his native state. The office of State Auditor was created in 1856, and William R. Staples resigned the position of Chief Justice of the Supreme Court to accept election to it for a few months. The State Auditor acted as a comptroller ; he was the General Assembly's agent in the General Treasurer's office, and his approval of an order or account was essential to author- ize the General Treasurer to pay it. The General Treasurer was elected by the people; the State Auditor was elected by the General Assembly in grand committee. The General Assem- bly controlled the revenues, having both the taxing and the appropriating powers; it placed the State Auditor in the General Treasurer's office to hold the latter to the orders of the General Assembly. The appointments of a state sealer of weights and measures, of an inspec- tor of kerosene, of cattle commissioners, and of an assayer of liquor, as these officers were created between 1864 and 1875, were entrusted to the Governor, but in 1876 the statute pro- viding an inspector of cables placed the election of this officer in the grand committee. The Board of State Charities and Corrections, 1869; the Harbor Commission, 1876; the State Board of Health, 1879; the State Board of Pharmacy, 1882; the Board of Managers of Rhode Island State College, 1888; the Board of Control of the State Home and School, 1891 ; the State Board of Dentistry, 1891-all were appointed by the Governor, usually with the approval of the Senate. The State Board of Education, 1870, except the Governor and Lieu- tenant Governor, who are members, ex-officiis, was elected by the General Assembly in grand

*Article IX, section 1.

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committee. The deviation in this instance may be attributed to the fact that the Governor and Lieutenant Governor are members, although the more plausible explanation is that the act creating the board in 1870 was copied from a bill drawn in 1855 by Elisha R. Potter, who was then Commissioner of Public Schools, and presented to the General Assembly, but not passed. The power to appoint the Commissioner of Public Schools was taken from the Governor shortly after the State Board of Education was created, and thereafter the board elected the commissioner, who became the board's secretary and executive agent. The State Board of Education and the Commissioner, together, became a Board of Trustees for Rhode Island Normal School, which was reestablished in 1871 after a lapse of six years, thus continuing the normal school of 1854, of which the Commissioner of Public Schools had been director. He was assisted in the later years of the older establishment by a board of inspectors. The election of the Board of Sinking Fund Commissioners by the General Assembly may be explained, as in the instance of the Board of Education, by the fact that it included general officers as ex-officio members, or by the fact that it is a board intimately related to the General Assembly's control of public finance. It was created in 1878.

The early policy of the General Assembly with reference to the state bonds issued during the Civil War was retirement by purchase on favorable terms. After nearly $1,500,000 of bond issues had been retired, the remaining bonds reached a market value which made them a satisfactory as well as remunerative investment. The General Assembly did not offer premiums for retirement or buy bonds that had advanced beyond par. Instead it appointed commissioners and made provision for the accumulation of a sinking fund. One other office was created, in 1886-that of Chief of State Police-for the purpose of enforcing the con- stitutional prohibitory amendment. This office was abolished in 1889. The lists of officers and boards and commissions indicate the extension of state public service in progress and the accelerated movement in the last quarter of the nineteenth century. To those mentioned may be added an assistant attorney-general, a commissioner of dams and reservoirs, commissioners of inland fisheries, a State Board of Soldiers' Relief, and bank commissioners, the last for a brief period immediately after the Civil War to facilitate the reorganization of state banks as national banks.

GROWTH OF STATE PROPERTY-Another view of the extension of state functions is obtained from the accumulation of state property. The property owned by the state of Rhode Island in its corporate capacity in 1842 included five state houses, one in each of the five counties, at Newport, Providence, Kingston, Bristol and East Greenwich; a state prison built at Great Point on the Cove in Providence in 1838, and with it on the same premises a house for the warden and a county jail for Providence County; a county jail in each of the four other counties ; an arsenal in Providence, with arms and equipment for the militia; besides other money in the general treasury, a permanent school fund accumulated from 1828 and invested in bank stock .* The five state houses, when not in actual use by the General Assem- bly in the peripatetic career prescribed for it by the Constitution, were available for occu- pancy as courthouses, and continued in use as county courthouses when the number of capi- tals was reduced, in 1854, to two. The arsenal, because of the demonstration during the Dorr War of unsatisfactory location, was replaced soon after 1843 by the stone structure on Bene- fit Street in Providence subsequently occupied as an armory by the Marine Corps of Artillery. The Benefit Street arsenal was also used by courts while the General Assembly was in session in the State House in Providence. The prison had been built after careful investigation of penal institutions in other states, beginning so early as 1827, when a commission visited the New York State prison at Auburn. It was modelled after plans for a prison in Philadelphia, and condemned, almost as soon as it was occupied, as utterly unsatisfactory. Dorr's early

*Except money borrowed by the state to meet current expenditures.

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death was attributed to the year that he spent in solitary confinement in the state prison in Providence.

The state began to acquire land for the location of a group of penal and charitable insti- tutions at Howard in Cranston in 1869, and continued buying parcels of land to complete the reservation and to control water rights until 433 acres had been purchased in 1877 with a total expenditure of $34,300. A board of state charities and corrections, created in 1869, opened a state workhouse in July, 1869, in one of the farm buildings purchased with the first parcel of land at Howard. The construction of a stone building for state workhouse and house of correction was begun in 1872, and completed in 1873. The building was occupied in 1874. Two wooden pavilions for use as an asylum for the insane were constructed in 1869, besides a cottage for "excited patients," in 1870. The earliest public provision for the insane, except such custody and care as might be undertaken in almshouses, had been commitment to Butler Hospital, beginning in 1851. In later years indigent insane had been sent also to insane asy- lums outside Rhode Island. Both wooden buildings in the main asylum group were enlarged and two additional stone buildings were added to this group in 1875 and 1878. The wooden building vacated by the workhouse was remodelled for use as an almshouse in 1874. A new almshouse was erected in 1888. A stone barn, then one of the largest in New England, was built in 1875. The construction of water works, consisting of dam and reservoir, pumps, boilers, mains and hydrants, was undertaken in 1870. In ten years of intensive development accommodations for 1000 inmates had been provided. The state prison in Providence, enlarged in 1852 by addition of a new wing, had been inadequate for several years before 1878, when a new state prison and county jail were built on an estate in Cranston near the charitable and corrections group. Four years later the state reform school was removed from Providence to the new Sockanosset School for Boys and Oaklawn School for Girls, also con- structed on land near the group of state institutions at Howard. The accommodations in the state group had reached 2400.

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 19

Author: Carroll, Charles, author Publication date: 1932 Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co. Number of Pages: 716

Author: Carroll, Charles, author
Publication date: 1932
Publisher: New York : Lewis historical Pub. Co.
Number of Pages: 716