Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 21

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 21

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The Supreme Court was in substantial agreement on one point, however, that the question before it was one of the allocation of power rather than one of policy, and four of the justices resolved a reasonable doubt of constitutionality in favor of constitutionality. The policy written into the statute of 1901 has become precedent ; with the exception of the Barber Com- mission, 1902, the selection of boards and commissions created after 1901 has been by the method of appointment jointly by Governor and Senate or election by the Senate, the statutes providing for appointment by the Governor "by and with the advice and consent of the Sen- ate," and a general statute declaring the Senate's power to elect if after three legislative days it has not confirmed the Governor's appointment. The same policy has been applied also to the selection of new officers, such as the Finance Commissioner and the Commissioner of Agriculture, and to the selection of judges (except the Supreme Court) in the statute of 1930 authorizing the Governor to appoint justices of the Superior Court by and with the advice and consent of the Senate.

MUNICIPAL AUTONOMY-A Board of Canvassers and Registration for Providence was created in 1895. It was a new and novel type of state-municipal agency in Rhode Island, exercising functions as a practically independent body that theretofore had been inherent in town or city council. There was opposition to the measure as an invasion of municipal autonomy. It was justified by its proponents as an application of the principle that the state has a right to create municipal agencies and to designate their functions ; the separate organi- zation for the administration of public schools existing since 1828 might be cited as a prece- dent. In the creation of the board of canvassers the General Assembly was taking the first step in the direction of a thorough regulation of popular elections, which proceeded with the establishment of boards of canvassers for Central Falls, Cranston, Newport, Pawtucket and Woonsocket, the creation of the State Returning Board, and the enactment of laws governing party primaries as a fundamental part of the modern machinery of elections.

The boards of canvassers, in the determination of eligibility for enrollment as electors, in the making up of lists of voters for use in elections by adding names or striking names from the rolls, in counting ballots and declaring elections, exercised quasi-judicial powers. The Supreme Court hesitated to assume appellate jurisdiction ;* it held that "the board of canvassers and registration of the city of Providence is not a department of the municipal government ; its powers, duties, liabilities and functions are created and defined by the Con- stitution and laws of this state and the United States. Although its jurisdiction and duties are technically limited to the city of Providence, they constitute a board of state officers exer- cising a state function rather than a board of municipal officers exercising a municipal func- tion. . . . In the determination of electoral qualifications and the preparation of the voting lists the board exercises judicial power. .... This power is conferred for the determination and decision of any question or the discharge of any duty required by law of said board; it creates a tribunal meeting at a fixed time and place for the purpose of counting ballots cast at a municipal election, . ... and the determination of the board as to the election of mem- bers of the city council of Providence is final."t

*Kelley vs. Whitley, 27 R. I. 355 ; Greenough vs. Lucy, 28 R. I. 230; Dwyer vs. Board of Canvassers, 28 R. I. 401. ¡Gainer vs. Dunn, 29 R. I. 232.

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Two months later the Supreme Court explained its decision as limited to finding of facts, holding that "the decision of the board upon questions of fact is final and not subject to review by the court." The court's attention having been directed in reargument to the Twelfth Amendment to the Constitution, "The Supreme Court shall have final revisory and appellate jurisdiction upon all questions of law and equity," the court held that "the court will consider questions of law arising in the determination by the board of canvassers and registration of the city of Providence of the result of the election of members of the city council . . . . prop- erly raised in quo warranto proceedings."# The dictum in Gainer vs. Dunnt has been most significant, as it laid the foundation for the revisory and appellate jurisdiction which the Supreme Court has since maintained over state and municipal boards as well as over courts of inferior jurisdiction.

The General Assembly in 1900 created a police commission for Newport, in 1901 a police commission for Providence, in 1902 a police commission for Tiverton, and at other times police commissions for Bristol, Cumberland, Lincoln, Warwick, West Warwick, and Woon- socket. The original police commission in each instance was appointed by the Governor by and with the advice and consent of the Senate. The commission, besides controlling the municipal police department, with power to appoint, promote, demote and remove, to deter- mine the form of organization and scales of salaries, to make and enforce rules and regula- tions for discipline, usually also was given jurisdiction to issue licenses of all kinds, including liquor licenses. In the instance of the Newport police commission act the Supreme Court held§ that the General Assembly was within its constitutional rights in appointing a police commission with power to appoint a chief of police. "The most important laws," said the court, "are made by the legislature, and agencies are created to enforce them. Ordinarily the state makes use of existing agencies, like town or city officers, to do this, but none the less they are officers of the state. To say, therefore, that the state cannot assume control of these agencies in public affairs is to say that a town can nullify a state law, which it does not approve, by choosing officers who will not enforce it. That is not the national doctrine, and, for a stronger reason, it cannot be the state doctrine. . What the petitioners really claim is local independence rather than local self-government. 'The state, as a political society, is interested in the suppression of crime and in the preservation of peace and good order, and in protecting the rights of persons and property. . . The instrumentalities by which these objects are effected, however appointed, by whatever names called, are agencies of the state, and not of the municipalities for which they are appointed or elected. The whole machinery of civil and criminal justice,' says a learned judge, 'has been so generally confided to local agencies, that it is not strange if it has sometimes been considered of local concern. But there is a clear distinction in principle between what concerns the state and that which does not concern more than one locality.' "tt The Newport police commission was held to be a "state board or commission within the spirit as well as the letter of" the general laws, and as such entitled to the legal advice of the Attorney General.## Although a state commission, the mem- bers were held to be entitled to payment by the city of Newport,*t on the ground that "when the General Assembly has the right to control the local police of a town or city it has an equal right to provide for the payment of the expenses of such local police department out of the local funds of the municipality." The Newport police commission was abolished in 1907, following the granting, in 1906, of a new city charter which substituted a representative council for the city council in Newport. The Providence police commission act was amended in 1906 to provide for appointment of the members by the Mayor with the approval of the

#Gainer vs. Dunn, 29 R. I. 239. See Carpenter vs. Comery, 45 R. I. 266.

§Newport vs. Horton, 22 R. I. 196.

ttStiness, J., quoted Staples, J., in Burch vs. Hardwicke, 30 Gratt, 38.

##The Newport Police Commission, 22 R. I. 654.

** Horton vs. City of Newport, 27 R. I. 283.

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RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

Board of Aldermen, the commission thus passing from state to local control. The appoint- ment of police commissioners by the Governor has been considered generally an extraordinary measure, and most police commissions have been abolished or returned to local control. In an advisory opinion, in 1916, the Supreme Court ruled that the General Assembly could sub- stitute an elected financial council for the financial town meeting in a town, holding that the "power of taxation is vested primarily in the state and may be lawfully exercised by the sub- ordinate political bodies of the state only in so far and in the manner in which said power is delegated to them by the legislature."* The Twentieth Amendment, 1928, abolishing the property qualification in cities, permits the creation by the General Assembly of budget com- missions vested with "the authority to impose taxes and for the expenditure of money."

STATE PROPERTY IN TWENTIETH CENTURY-The opening of the twentieth century found the General Assembly in session in a new $3,000,000 marble State House in Providence. The other property owned by the state included five old statehouses, fourt of which were in use as courthouses; county courthouses at Providence and West Kingston, and a courthouse in Woonsocket; college and school buildings for Rhode Island Normal School, Rhode Island College of Agriculture and Mechanic Arts, Rhode Island Institute for the Deaf, Rhode Island State Home and School; a large tract of land with a group of buildings housing penal and charitable institutions at Howard in Cranston, including the Sockanosset and Oaklawn Schools, the asylum for the insane, the house of corrections, the almshouse, the state prison and Providence county jail; four other county jails ; an arsenal, and state armories in Bristol, Newport and Pawtucket; the Soldiers Home at Bristol; a military training campground at Quonset Point. Other property, acquired in or after 1901, included: A new armory at Westerly, 1901; the State Armory, Providence, 1902-1905; the Armory of Mounted Com- mands, Providence, 1912; additional land and seven granite buildings at Rhode Island State College, 1901-1930; a twenty-four room practice school for Henry Barnard School at Rhode Island College of Education, 1928; land and a group of buildings for a new institution, Exeter School, formerly Rhode Island School for the Feeble-Minded, 1907-1930; additional land and building for Rhode Island School for the Deaf, 1907 and 1926; land and buildings for the State Sanatorium (for tuberculosis), 1905; additional land and buildings for penal and charitable institutions, including a new State Hospital for Mental Diseases, 1901-1930; a state system of public roads and bridges, 1901-1930, including a new Rhode Island Stone Bridge across the Seaconnet River, 1904, and the new Washington Bridge across the Seekonk River,# 1930; the Metropolitan Park system, 1905-1930, including Goddard Memorial Park, at Potowomut, 1928; two state piers and other piers and harbor sites, 1910-1918;} court- houses at Westerly, 19II, and Central Falls, 1912; a new Newport County courthouse, 1927, and a new Providence County courthouse, 1930; a new state office building to accommodate an overflow from the State House, 1929; barracks for six patrols of state police; a state air- port, 1929. Including loans for construction of the State House, the General Assembly has borrowed $22,750,000 on long-term bonds to finance the acquisition of state property since 1900; besides that, much has been expended from current revenues. The principal items in the bonded indebtedness have been :§ State House, $3,000,000; highway construction, $1,- 763,000; State Armory, $350,000; Armory of Mounted Commands, $380,000; penal and charitable institutions, $4,100,000 ; harbor improvements, $976,000; metropolitan parks, $1,- 150,000 ; bridge construction, $1,800,000; Washington Bridge, $3,500,000; Newport and Providence County courthouses, $3,200,000; college buildings, $1,260,000; state office build- ing, $925,000; airport, $300,000.

*In re the Warwick Financial Council, 39 R. I. 1.

"All except the old state house at Kingston.

#Chapter XXVIII.

§Reduced in part by payment on sinking funds.

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EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION

The last session of the Supreme Court in Newport was conducted May 26, 1905, 258 years after the creation of a "General Court of Trials" in 1647. "The Declaration of Inde- pendence," said Justice Blodgett, "which may, in a sense, be considered the beginning of our national existence, appears to us today, and after a lapse of 129 years, to be an event of the remote past, but that event is but midway between us of today and the beginnings of the sessions of the court here, since the highest court of the colony had even then been holding its sessions for 129 years in Newport. . . I know of no building possessing equal antiquity in which the court of last resort has continued to sit until the present time as the court has continued to sit here. For more than 150 years of that period the court has been held in this ancient structure, from whose balcony the demise and accession of successive kings of Eng- land have been proclaimed, the Declaration of Independence was announced, and the procla- mation has been made to successive generations of the citizens of the state of the result of their own choice of Governor and other general officers for more than 100 years. Within these walls the Declaration of Independence by the colony of Rhode Island 129 years ago this month was announced in Newport, May 4, 1776, antedating by two months the Declaration of the United Colonies July 4 of that year." Twenty-two years later, 1927, the old State House in Newport was abandoned by the Superior Court of Rhode Island and the District Court of the First Judicial District; both removed to the new Newport County Courthouse. With the courts went the famous Stuart "Washington," which disappeared mysteriously from the old State House as opposition to its removal was gathering force in Newport.

Of the other property, the State Armory in Providence, on Cranston Street, provides a drill shed large enough for regimental manoeuvres, between two head houses with offices and company quarters. The Armory for Mounted Commands, placed strategically on North Main Street, and thus convenient to three cities and the centre of the state's population, besides headhouse and stables, has a drill shed large enough for a squadron of cavalry. The build- ings at Rhode Island State College include East, Ranger, Agriculture, Edwards, Bliss and Hammond Halls, Edwards Hall being a library and assembly hall combined. The buildings at Exeter School house 500. The State Sanatorium includes hospitals for treating both early and advanced cases of tuberculosis, with accommodations for 400. The enlarged state insti- tutions at Howard provide accommodations as follows: Sockanosset School, 150 boys; Oak- lawn School, 50 girls; State Infirmary, 750; Hospital for Mental Diseases, 2000; State Prison and County Jail, 700; Women's Reformatory, 50. The Metropolitan Park system includes 1753 acres of attractive reservations in Barrington, Cranston, East Greenwich, East Providence, Johnston, Lincoln, North Providence, Pawtucket, Providence and Warwick.

MORE BOARDS AND COMMISSIONS --- Important administrative boards and commissions created in the twentieth century include the Returning Board, 1901, counting ballots and issuing certificates of election; Board of Public Roads, 1902, registrations and licensing of automobiles and motorists, construction of state public roads and bridges; Public Utilities Commission, 1912, regulation and supervision of railways, and public service companies; Tax Commission, 1912, determination of large part of state revenues; Board of Control and Supply, 1912, a state purchasing agency later merged in the Public Welfare Commission; Penal and Charitable Commission, 1917, replacing State Board of Charities and Corrections and Board of Control and Supply; Public Welfare Commission, 1923, replacing Penal and Charitable Commission. Boards and commissions to examine and license for occupations, professions and trades, and to regulate practice therein were established as follows: Barbers, 1901; accountants, 1906; embalmers, 1908; veterinarians, 1909; optometrists, 1909 and 1928; trained nurses, 1912, chiropodists, 1917; hairdressing and cosmetic therapists, 1927; chiropractors, 1927. Other state boards and commissions, directing particular activities or

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RHODE ISLAND-THREE CENTURIES OF DEMOCRACY

administering state institutions or state property, include: State House Commission, 1902, custody of State House and new State Office Building, 1929; Metropolitan Park Commission, 1904, continued 1909, reorganized, 1919; Forestry Commission, 1906, reorganized as a bureau in the Department of Agriculture, 1927; Providence Armory Commission, 1906, building when completed in custody of Quartermaster General; Food and Drug Commission, 1909; Board to Survey Natural Resources, 1909, succeeded by Conservation Commission, 1910; State Harbor Improvement Commission, 1911, building piers, etc., replaced 1918; Board of Parole, 1915; First Newport County Courthouse Commission, 1917, to secure options on land; State Board of Labor, 1919; Board for Purification of Waters, 1920, protection of waters, rivers and bay resources against pollution ; Narcotic Drug Board, 1920; Soldiers' Bonus Commission, 1920; Commission on Foreign and Domestic Commerce, 1922; Soldiers' Welfare Commission, 1922; Criminal Law Advisory Commission, 1923; Providence County Courthouse Commission, 1923, to select a site and prepare preliminary plans ; Newport County Courthouse Commission, 1925, to acquire a site, construct and furnish, courthouse completed and occupied October 3, 1927; Providence County Courthouse Commission, 1925, to acquire site, erect and furnish, part completed for occupancy, 1930; Committee of Inquiry on Joint Levies and Appropriations by the Congress of the United States, 1926; Athletic Commission, 1926, licensing and regulating athletic games and exhibitions; Judicial Council, 1927; State Public Health Commission, 1929. New state officers created included, State Librarian, 1901 ; State Probation Officer, 1906; Assistant Justice Sixth Judicial District Court, 1906; Bank Commissioner, 1908; Assistant Insurance Commissioner, 1909; Deputy Bank Commissioner, 1909; Commissioner of State Printing, 1912; Jury Commission, 1918, abolished, 1920, reës- tablished, 1926; Commissioner of Labor, 1919, replaced Commissioner of Industrial Statis- tics ; Deputy General Treasurer, 1923; Superintendent of State Police, 1925; Children's Laws Commission, 1925; Commissioner of Finance, 1926; State Law Revision Commission, 1926; Commissioner of Agriculture, 1927; State Director of Public Health, 1929.

SUPERCOMMISSIONS AND OVERLORD BOARDS-The Returning Board, with the implication of state scrutiny of elections, and the Board of Public Roads, to become an agency for regulat- ing automobile traffic and for constructing the state system of public roads, were departures of importance commensurate with the beginning of a new century. Ten years later four new state agencies-the Public Utilities Commission, the Tax Commission, the Board of Control and Supply and the Printing Commission-marked the beginning of a new era and new principles of administration in Rhode Island. Two were aggressive administrative agencies. One of these purposed regulation of the vast public service monopolies, the operation of which affected the daily life and economic welfare of more than nine-tenths of the state's population in direct and positive relation as patrons. The second was created to deal with taxation and revenue, one of the most important of state functions, as it reaches to the sources from which the state must obtain financial support for the projects undertaken by it for the people.

The Board of Control and Supply was also economic in its purpose; it aimed at conser- vation of financial resources by supervision and control of purchases and expenditures of pub- lic revenues. It was a supervisory agency to which contracts for purchases, construction, etc., must be submitted for approval. Its influence reached into every department, division, bureau and office in state public service. It was promptly styled an "overlord" board, and was within a short time in unconcealed conflict with the State Board of Charities and Corrections, the latter having under its supervision one of the largest organizations then in state service. Relations with other state divisions, while correct, were not invariably pleasant ; the provi- sion for buying commodities of which large quantities were used, such as coal, on contracts placed through the Board of Control and Supply, tended to disturb pleasant relations between state officers as customers and merchants and supply men.

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EVOLUTION OF GOVERNMENT UNDER THE CONSTITUTION

The fourth new agency-the Commissioner of Printing *- for the time being controlled only expenditures from the general state appropriation for printing; later the power of the Printing Commissioner was to be extended to placing all contracts for state printing, includ- ing those made by departments which had particular appropriations available for paying print- ing bills. The system inaugurated by the Printing Commissioner with reference to the annual appropriation for state printing, through his control of contracts and expenditures, made it possible for him to determine what should be and what should not be printed from that appropriation, including such rulings as (I) that the report of department A was not of sufficient importance to warrant printing it at all; (2) that the report of department B was too long, and could be printed only if it were curtailed to a specified number of pages; (3) that form 23 used by department C was superfluous and should not be printed; (4) that form II was too complex and should be replaced, if used at all, by a simpler and cheaper piece of printing. The Printing Commissioner effectually ended a practice under which heads of divisions wishing printing had sent copy and orders to the state printers (under contract) ; printing could be ordered only with the approval of the Printing Commissioner and by him. When heads of divisions had had sufficient experience with the Printing Commissioner to send to him orders for printing that he would approve, and to route other orders in such manner as to pay for them from division appropriations, thus by careful allocation getting most print- ing that was wanted, the authority of the Printing Commissioner was extended to control of printing paid for by the divisions.

The Board of State Charities and Corrections was abolished in 1917, after forty-eight years of service, beginning with the buying of land for and developing the group of state institutions at Howard. With the board went also the Board of Control of the State Home and School, and the Board of Control and Supply. Instead, the General Assembly created the Penal and Charitable Commission, which united the functions of the Board of State Char- ities and Corrections and the Board of Control and Supply, and assumed control of the State Home and School and the Exeter School. The latter had been established and administered for ten years by the State Board of Education, which in 1917 requested that it be relieved of further responsibility, principally because its plans for the development of the institution could not be realized with the appropriations and resources available, and because responsi- bility was divided with the Board of Control and Supply. The Board of Education said :

Under the practice inaugurated by the Board of Control and Supply, that board has assumed control of all expenditures except salaries, and through its legal control of purchases and supplies, it has assumed the selection of equipment and supplies, and thereby the direction of means to ends vitally affecting the manage- ment and development of the institution. In its report for 1912, the committee of management, after pointing out the extent of control already assumed, expressed the opinion that the Board of Control and Supply either "should have the entire charge of the institution or simply perform its functions of making contracts and purchasing supplies, directed in accord with law, by the board of management." In spite of the anomalous situation created by dual management and control by agencies of coordinate rank and authority, both the Board of Control and Supply and the Board of Education have labored together as harmoniously as might be under all the circumstances. Embarrassment has arisen, however, because of divergent ideals and necessarily conflicting policies which these ideals have directed. The function of the Board of Control and Supply is distinctly economic with emphasis upon immediate restriction of expenditures; it is this which has led it to assume the selection of equipment and supplies, and the substitution, in the name of economy, of its choice for the selection made by the committee of management. On the other hand, the function of the Board of Education, while economic in the broad sense that this board is engaged in a great work of conservation, is distinctly educational. Economy in education is not measured invariably by low cost. The Board of Educa- tion makes no plea for unrestrained and unrestricted expenditure, but it does recognize and practice a higher economy, to be measured, not by expenditure, but by improvement. . . There has been no lack of harmony

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Rhode Island : three centuries of democracy, Vol. II, Part 21

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