1911 Encyclopædia Britannica/Boston (Massachusetts)/Government

BOSTON

Government.—Beyond a recognition of its existence in 1630, when it was renamed, Boston can show no legal incorporation before 1822; although the uncertain boundaries between the powers of colony and township prompted repeated petitions to the legislature for incorporation, beginning as early as 1650. In 1822 Boston became a city. Thus for nearly two centuries it preserved intact its old “town” government, disposing of all its affairs in the “town-meeting” of its citizens. Excellent political training such a government unquestionably offered; but it became unworkable as disparities of social condition increased, as the number of legal voters (above 7000 in 1822) became greater, and as the population ceased to be homogeneous in blood. All the citizens did not assemble; on the contrary ordinary business seldom drew out more than a hundred voters, and often a mere handful. From very early days executive officers known as “select-men,” constables, clerks of markets, hog reeves, packers of meat and fish, &c., were chosen; and the select-men, particularly, gained power as the attendance of the freemen on meetings grew onerous. Interested cliques could control the business of the town-meeting in ordinary times, and boisterousness marred its democratic excellence in exciting times. Large sums were voted loosely, and expended by executive boards without any budgetary control. The whole system was full of looseness, complexity and makeshifts. But the tenacity with which it was clung to, proved that it was suited to the community; and whether helpful or harmful to, it was not inconsistent with, the continuance of growth and prosperity. Various other Massachusetts townships, as they have grown older, have been similarly compelled to abandon their old form of government. The powers of the old township were much more extensive than those of the present city of Boston, including as they did the determination of the residence of strangers, the allotment of land, the grant of citizenship, the fixing of wages and prices, of the conditions of lawsuits and even a voice in matters of peace and war. The city charter was revised in 1854, and again reconstructed in important particulars by laws of 1885 separating the executive and legislative powers, and by subsequent acts. A complete alteration of the government has indeed been effected since 1885. Boston proper is only the centre of a large metropolitan area, closely settled, with interests in large part common. This metropolitan area, within a radius of approximately 10 m. about the state house, contained in 1900 about 40% of the population of the state. In the last two decades of the 19th century the question of giving to this greater city some general government, fully consolidated or of limited powers, was a standing question of expediency. The commonwealth has four times recognized a community of metropolitan interests in creating state commissions since 1882 for the union of such interests, beginning with a metropolitan health district in that year. The metropolitan water district (1895) included in 1908 Boston and seventeen cities or townships in its environs; the metropolitan sewerage district (1889) twenty four; the park service (1893) thirty-nine. Local sentiment was firmly against complete consolidation. The creation of the state commissions, independent of the city’s control, but able to commit the city indefinitely by undertaking expensive works and new debt, was resented. Independence is further curtailed by other state boards semi-independent of the city—the police commission of three members from 1885 to 1906, and in 1906 a single police commissioner, appointed by the governor, a licensing board of three members, appointed by the governor; the transit commission, &c. There are, further, county offices (Suffolk county comprises only Boston, Chelsea, Revere and Winthrop), generally independent of the city, though the latter pays practically all the bills.

A new charter went into effect in 1910. It provided for municipal elections in January; for the election of a mayor for four years; for his recall at the end of two years if a majority of the registered voters so vote in the state election in November in the second year of his term; for the summary removal for cause by the mayor of any department head or other of his appointees, for a city council of one chamber of nine members, elected at large each for three years; for nomination by petition; for a permanent finance commission appointed by the governor; for the confirmation of the mayor’s appointments by the state civil service commission; for the mayor’s preparation of the annual budget (in which items may be reduced but not increased by the council), and for his absolute veto of appropriations except for school use. The school committee (who serve gratuitously) appoint the superintendent and supervisors of schools. The number of members of the school-board was in 1905 reduced from twenty-four to five, elected by the city at large, and serving for one, two or three years; at the same time power was centralized in the hands of the superintendent of schools. Civil service reform principles cover the entire municipal administration. The city’s work is done under an eight-hour law.

An analysis of city election returns for the decade 1890–1899 showed that the interest of the citizens was greatest in the choice of a president; then, successively, in the choice of a mayor, a governor, the determination of liquor-license questions by referendum, and the settlement of other referenda. On 21 referenda, 10 being questions of license, the ratio of actual to registered voters ranged on the latter from 57.00 to 75.38% (mean 61.15), and on other referenda from 75.63 to 33.40 (mean 61.39),—the mean for all, 64.18. But the average of two presidential votes was 85.37%; and the maxima, minima and means for mayors and governors were respectively 83.86, 74.99, 78.36 and 84.73, 61.78, 75.72. Of those who might, only some 50 to 65% actually register. Women vote for school committee-men (categories as above, 95.18, 59.62, 76.49%). On a referendum in 1895 on the expediency of granting municipal suffrage to women only 59.08% of the women who were registered voted, and probably less than 10% of those entitled to be registered.

Hospitals, asylums, refuges and homes, pauper, reformatory and penal institutions, flower missions, relief associations, and other charitable or philanthropic organizations, private and public, number several hundreds. The Associated Charities is an incorporated organization for systematizing the various charities of the city. The Massachusetts general hospital (1811–1821)—with a branch for mental and nervous diseases, McLean hospital (1816), in the township of Belmont (post-office, Waverley) about 6 m. W.N.W. of Boston; the Perkins Institution and Massachusetts school for the blind (1832), famous for its conduct by Samuel G. Howe, and for association with Laura Bridgman and Helen Keller; the Massachusetts school for idiotic and feeble-minded children (1839); and the Massachusetts charitable eye and ear infirmary (1824), all receive financial aid from the commonwealth, which has representation in their management. The city hospital dates from 1864. A floating hospital for women and children in the summer months, with permanent and transient wards, has been maintained since 1894 (incorporated 1901). Boston was one of the first municipalities of the country to make provision for the separate treatment of juvenile offenders; in 1906 a juvenile court was established. A People’s Palace dedicated to the work of the Salvation Army, and containing baths, gymnasium, a public hall, a library, sleeping-rooms, an employment bureau, free medical and legal bureaus, &c., was opened in 1906. Simmons College and Harvard University maintain the Boston school for social workers (1904). Beneficent social work out of the more usual type is directed by the music and bath departments of the city government. In the provision of public gymnasiums and baths (1866) Boston was the pioneer city of the country, and remains the most advanced. The beach reservations of the metropolitan park system at Revere and Nantasket, and several smaller city beaches are a special feature of this service. Benjamin Franklin, who was born and spent his boyhood in Boston, left £1000 to the city in his will; it amounted in 1905 to $403,000, and constituted a fund to be used for the good of the labouring class of the city.

Largely owing to activity in public works Boston has long been the most expensively governed of American cities. The average yearly expenditure for ten years preceding 1904 was $27,354,416, exclusive of payments on funded and floating debts. The running expenses per-capita in 1900 were $35.23; more than twice the average of 86 leading cities of the country (New York, $23.92; Chicago, $11.62). Schools, police, charities, water, streets and parks are the items of heaviest cost. The cost of the public schools for the five years from 1901–1902 to 1906–1907 was $27,883,937, of which $7,057,895.42 was for new buildings; the cost of the police department was $11,387,314.66 for the six years 1902–1907; and of the water department $4,941,343.37 for the six years 1902–1907; of charities and social work a much larger sum. The remaking of the city was enormously expensive, especially the alteration of the streets after 1866, when the city received power to make such alterations and assess a part of the improvements upon abutting estates. The creation of the city water-system has also been excessively costly, and the total cost up to the 31st of January 1908 of the works remaining to the city after the creation of the metropolitan board in 1898 was about $17,000,000. The metropolitan water board—of whose expenditures Boston bears only a share—expended from 1895 to 1900 $20,693,870; and the system was planned to consume finally probably 40 millions at least. The city park system proper had cost $16,627,033 up to 1899 inclusive; and the metropolitan parks $13,679,456 up to 1907 inclusive. There are no municipal lighting-plants; but the companies upon which the city depends for its service are (with all others) subject to the control of a state commission. In 1885 a state law placed a limit on the contractable debt and upon the taxation rate of the city. Revenues were not realized adequate to its lavish undertakings, and loans were used to meet current expenses. The limits were altered subsequently, but the net debt has continued to rise. In 1822 it was $100,000; in 1850, $6,195,144; in 1886, $24,712,820; in 1904, $58,216,725; in 1907, $70,781,969 (gross debt, $104,206,706)—this included the debt of Suffolk county which in 1907 was $3,517,000. The chief objects for which the city debt was created were in 1907, in millions of dollars: highways, 24.07, parks, 16.29, drainage and sewers, 15.05, rapid transit, 13.57 and water-works, 4.53. Boston paid in 1907 36% of all state taxes, and about 33, 62, 47 and 79% respectively of the assessments for the metropolitan sewer, parks, boulevards and water services. About a third of its revenue goes for such uses or for Suffolk county expenditures over which it has but limited control. The improvement of the Back Bay and of the South Boston flats was in considerable measure forced upon the city by the commonwealth. The debt per capita is as high as the cost of current administration relatively to other cities. The average interest rate on the city obligations in 1907 was about 3.7%. The city’s tax valuation in 1907 was $1,313,471,556 (in 1822, $42,140,200; in 1850, $180,000,500), of which only $242,606,856 represented personalty; although in the judgment of the city board of trade such property cannot by any possibility be inferior in value to realty.