CITIZEN, STATESMAN, AND REFORMER.
One can hardly imagine a better school for the training of a good
American citizen than that which Carleton enjoyed. By inheritance and
birth in a New Hampshire village, he knew "the springs of empire." By
actual experience of farming and surveying in a transition era between
the old ages of manual labor and the new aeon of inventions, he learned
toil, its necessity, and how to abridge and guide it by mind. In the
acquaintance, while upon a Boston newspaper, with public men, and all
kinds of people, in the unique experiences as war correspondent, in
wide travel and observation around the whole world, in detailed
studies of new lands and life in the Northwest, in reading and
research in great libraries, and in the constant discipline of his
mind through reflection, his knowledge of man and nature, of society
and history, was at first hand.
Intensely interested in politics from boyhood, Carleton sought no
public office.
When, in his early manhood, he revolved in his mind the question of
attempting this or that career, he may have thought of entering the
alluring but thorny path of office-seeking and "practical" politics.
It cannot be said that his desire for public emolument lasted very
long. He deliberately decided against a political career. Even if the
exigencies of the moment had not tended to forbid the flight of his
ambition in this direction, there were other reasons against it.
He was a school commissioner in Malden, faithfully attending to the
details of his duty during two years. The report of his work was given
in a pamphlet. As we have seen, before the breaking out of the war,
when in Washington, he sought for a little while government employment
in one of the departments, but gave up the quest when the larger field
of war correspondent invited him. He never sought an elective office,
but when his fellow citizens in Boston found out how valuable a member
of the Commonwealth he was, so rich in public spirit and so well
equipped to be a legislator, he was made first, for several terms, a
Representative, and afterwards, for one term, a Senator, in the
Legislature of Massachusetts. Carleton sat under the golden codfish as
Representative during the years 1884 and 1885, and under the gilded
dome as Senator, in 1890.
Faithful to his calling as a maker of law, Carleton was abundant in
labors during his three terms, interested in all that meant weal or
woe to the Commonwealth; yet we have only room to speak of the two or
three particular reforms which he inaugurated.
Until the year 1884, Boston was behind some of the other cities of the
Union, notably Philadelphia, in requiring the children in the public
schools to provide their own text-books. This caused the burden of
taxation for education, which is "the chief defence of nations," to
fall upon the men and women who reared families, instead of being
levied with equal justice upon all citizens. Carleton prepared a bill
for furnishing free text-books to the public schools of Boston, such
as had been done in Philadelphia since 1819. Despite considerable
opposition, some of it on the part of teachers who had severe
notions,--bred chiefly by local Boston precedent, which had almost
the force of religion,--Carleton had the happiness of seeing the bill
passed.
The administration of municipal affairs in the "Hub of the Universe,"
during the seventies and early eighties of this proud century, was one
not at all creditable to any party nor to the city that prides itself
on being distinctive and foremost in fame. The development of
political life in New England had been after the model of the town.
Municipal organization was not looked upon with much favor until well
into this century. While the population of the Middle States was
advancing in the line of progress in government of cities, the people
in the Eastern States still clung to the model of the town meeting as
the perfection of political wisdom and practice. This was done in the
case of Boston, even when several tens of thousands of citizens,
dwelling as one political union, made the old system antiquated.
Before the opening of the 19th century, all the municipally
incorporated cities of the Northern United States, excepting Albany,
lay along a line between the boundaries of Manhattan Island and
Philadelphia. It was not until 1830 that "Boston town" became a city.
For fifty years afterwards, the development of municipal enterprise
was in the direction of superficial area, rather than according to
foresight or genius. It is very certain that the fathers of that epoch
did not have a very clear idea of, certainly did not plan very
intelligently for, the vast growth of our half of the century. Added
to this ultra conservatism, came the infusion, with attendant
confusion, of Ireland's sons and daughters by myriads, a flood of
Scotch-Irish and other nationalities from Canada, and the flocking of
large numbers of native Americans from the rural districts of New
England. Nearly all of the newcomers usually arrived poor and with
intent to become rich as quickly as honesty would allow, while not a
few were without limit of time or scruple of conscience to hinder
their plans. The Americans of "culture and character" were usually too
busy in making money and getting clothes, houses, and horses, to
attend to "politics," while Patrick was only too glad and ready to
develop his political abilities. So it came to pass that a ring of
powerful political "bosses"--if we may degrade so good and honest a
Dutch word--was formed. Saloons, gambling-houses and dance-halls
multiplied, while an oligarchy, ever grasping for more power,
nullified the laws and trampled the statutes under its feet. The sins
of drunkenness and bribery among policemen, who were simply the
creatures for the most part of corrupt politicians, were too frequent
to attract much notice. That conscientious wearer of the blue and the
star who enforced the laws was either discharged or sent on some
unimportant suburban beat. The relations between city saloons and
politics were as close as hand and glove, palm and coin. The gambler,
the saloon-keeper, the masters of houses of ill-fame, were all in
favor of the kind of municipal government which Boston had had for a
generation or more.
An American back is like the camel's,--able to bear mighty loads, but
insurgent at the last feather. So, in Boston, the long-outraged moral
sense of the people suddenly revolted. A Citizens' Law and Order
League was formed, and Charles Carleton Coffin, elected to the House
of Representatives for the session of 1885, was asked to be their
banner bearer in reform. With the idea of destroying partisanship and
making the execution of the laws non-partisan, Carleton prepared a
bill, which was intended to take the control of the police out of the
hands of the Mayor and Common Council of the city, and to put it into
the hands of the Governor of the Commonwealth.
When Mr. Coffin began this work, Boston had a population of 412,000
souls. From the "Boston bedrooms," that is, the suburban towns in five
counties, one hundred thousand or more were emptied every day, making
over half a million people. In this city there was an array of forces
all massed against any legislation restricting their power, while
eager and organized to extend it. These included 2,850 licensed liquor
sellers, and 1,300 unlicensed places, besides 222 druggists; all of
which, and whom, helped to make men drunk. To supply the thirsty there
were within the city limits three distilleries and seventeen
breweries. To show the nature of the oligarchy, we have only to state
that there were twenty-five men who had their names as bondsmen on no
fewer than 1,030 licenses, and that eight men signed the bonds of 610
licenses. These "bondsmen" of one sort controlled the votes of from
15,000 to 20,000 bondsmen of a lower sort. The liquor business was
then, as it is now, the great incentive to lawlessness, helping to
make Boston a place of shame. Ten thousand persons and $75,000,000
capital were employed in work mostly useless and wicked.
"Boston's devil-fish was dragging her down." The Sunday laws were set
at defiance. The clinking of glasses could not only be distinctly
heard as one went by, but the streams of young men openly filed in.
The laws, requiring a certain distance between the schoolhouse and the
saloon, were persistently violated. Of two hundred saloons visited by
Carleton, one hundred and twenty-eight had set the law at defiance.
While six policemen were needed in one Salvation Army room, to keep
the saints and sinners quiet, often there would be not one star or
club in the saloons.
Carleton began by arming himself with the facts. He visited hundreds
of the tapster's quarters in various parts of the city. In some cases
he actually measured, with his own hands and a surveyor's chain, the
distance between the schoolhouse and the home-destroyer. He talked
with scores of policemen. He then prepared his bill and reported it
in the Judiciary Committee, the members of which, about that time,
received a petition in favor of a non-partisan metropolitan board of
police commissioners, in order to secure a much better enforcement of
law. On this petition were scores of names, which the world will not
willingly let die. Yet, after reading the petition, seven of the
eleven members of the Committee were opposed to the bill, and so
declared themselves. Carleton was therefore obliged to transfer the
field of battle to the open House. When he counted noses in the
Legislature, he found that in the double body there were but four men
who were heartily in favor of the apparently unpopular reform. The
bill lay dormant for many weeks. Almost as a matter of course, the
Sunday newspapers were bitterly hostile to it. They informed their
readers, more than once, that the reform was dead. By hostile
politicians the bill was denounced as "infamous."
Nevertheless, the minority of four nailed their colors to the mast,
"determined, if need be, to sink, but not to surrender." Behind them
were the State constitution, the statutes of the General Court, and
the whole history of Massachusetts, whose moral tonic has so often
inspired the beginners of better times in American history. When the
day came for discussion of the bill, in public, Mr. Coffin made a
magnificent speech in its favor, March 17, 1885. Despite fierce
opposition, the bill finally became law, creating a new era of hope
and reform in the City on the Bay.
In a banquet given by the Citizens' Law and Order League, at the Hotel
Vendome, to talk over the victory of law, about two hundred ladies and
gentlemen were present. Among them were President Capen, of Tufts
College, president of the League, and such grand citizens as Rufus
Frost, Jonathan A. Lane, and Dr. Henry Martin Dexter; the Honorable
Frank M. Ames, Senator, and Charles Carleton Coffin, Representative,
being guests of honor. Carleton, being called upon for an address,
said, among other things:
"There are no compensations in life more delightful and
soul-satisfying than those which come from service and sacrifice for
the welfare of our fellow men.... It has never troubled me to be in
the minority. If you want real genuine pleasure in a battle, go in
with the minority on some great principle affecting the welfare of
society."
In his speech he had said: "The moral sense of this community is a
growing quantity, and no political party that ignores or runs counter
to the lofty ideal can long stand before us."
The Honorable Alanson M. Beard had already paid a merited tribute when
he said that Carleton had "lifted up this question above the domain of
party politics into the higher realm of morals, where it belonged."
No one who knew Carleton need be told that, during all these weeks of
uncertainty of issue, he was in constant prayer to God for light,
guidance, and success. From all over the Commonwealth came letters of
cheer and sympathy, especially from the mothers whose sons in Boston
were tempted beyond measure because of the non-enforcement of law. To
these, and to the law-loving editors of the newspaper press, the
statesman afterwards returned his hearty thanks.
Carleton was a man ever open to conviction. To him, truth had no
stereotyped forms. His mind never became a petrifaction, but was ever
growing and vital. At first he was opposed to civil service reform;
but after a study of the subject, he was convinced of its
reasonableness and practicality, and became ever afterwards a hearty
upholder of this method of selecting the servants of government, in
the nation, the State, and the city.
He was a friend of woman suffrage. On the occasion of a presentation
of a petition from twenty thousand Massachusetts women, though four
thousand of them had petitioned against the proposed measure, he made
a strong and earnest plea for granting the ballot to women. Among
other things he said: "No fire ever yet was lighted that could reduce
to ashes an eternal truth." He believed that women, as well as men,
form society, and "the people, who were the true source, under God, of
all authority on earth," were not made up wholly of one sex. He quoted
from that pamphlet, "De Jure Regni," published by George Buchanan in
1556, which was burned by the hangman in St. Paul's churchyard,--where
so many Bibles and other good books have been burned,--which declared
that "the will of the people is the only legitimate source of power."
He declared that the "lofty ideal of republicanism is the Sermon on
the Mount." Of women, he said, "Wherever they have walked, there has
been less of hell and more of heaven."
After an ex-mayor, in his speech, had referred to Carleton's bill,
which changed the appointing power of the police from the Mayor and
Common Council, and, by putting it in the hands of the Governor and
Executive Council, placed it on the same foundation as the judiciary,
as "that infamous police law," Carleton said: "Make a note of it,
statesmen of the future. Write it down in your memoranda, politicians
who indulge the expectation that you can ride into power on the vices
of society,--that moral forces are marshalling as never before in the
history of the human race, and that the women of this country are
beginning to wield them to shape legislation on all great moral
questions. Refreshing as perfume-laden breezes from the celestial
plains were the words of encouragement and sympathy that came to me
from mothers in Berkshire, from the Cape, from all over the
Commonwealth."
In 1890, in the Massachusetts Senate, there was an attempt made to
divide the town of Beverly. Into this, as into so many of the
pleasant towns, villages, and rural districts around Boston, wealthy
Bostonians had come and built luxurious houses upon the land which
they had bought. Not content with being citizens in the place where
they were newcomers,--thus securing release from heavier taxes in
Boston, where they lived in winter,--they wished to separate
themselves, in a most un-American and un-democratic manner, from the
older inhabitants and "common" people, and to make a new settlement
with a separate local government for those who formed a particular
class living in luxury. Carleton, hostile to the sordid and unsocial
spirit lurking in the bill, vigorously opposed the attempted
mutilation of an old historic town, and the isolation of "Beverly
Farms." He opposed it, because it would be a bad precedent, and one in
favor of class separation and class distinction. His speech embodies a
masterly historical sketch of the town form of government.