The Atkinson Story: A Change in City Reform

"Master of the art of government, Cambridge has flourished under his genial management." That was the citation of the honorary degree presented by Harvard to Cambridge City Manager John B. Atkinson several years ago. He had ruled Cambridge always with efficiency, sometimes with arrogance, and sometimes with shortsightedness, through a tempestuous decade of reform.

Recently his long career abruptly ended. On August 4 Cambridge's City Council voted his dismissal 5 to 4.

In his place, the Council appointed John J. Curry '19 for a two year term. With a cum laude S.B. from the College and a Harvard Master degree, Curry tutored college students from 1924 to 1936 in languages, then became headmaster of a local grammar school until his appointment as manager.

Atkinson's bid for reappointment had been continually tabled by the Council from the time it should have been acted upon--last January. Every Monday until the remarkable ouster, some councillors moved Atkinson's reappointment to the $20,000 yearly managership, and every Monday the majority solemnly refused to consider the motion.

The pattern continued, week after week, until the inevitable happened; Atkinson announced the new tax rate with a jump of nine dollars. The Mayor, Joseph E. Degulielmo '29, who opposed reappointment, called a special session of the council for August 4, reportedly to discuss rent controls.

Limp Quletness

The Council chambers had a limp quietness about them on that fateful day; only a few scattered, dozing spectators were present, and City Hall staffers were on summer vacation with only a skeleton crew to carry on.

But if City Hall presented a scene of unexpectedness, the major performers were well rehearsed. The majority--an alliance of two "good government" C.C.A. councillors and three independents--had already agreed on Curry. The City Manager himself had premonitions: a week before the special session, he made a dosperate bid for peace with the hostile councillors. He appointed the brother of Councillor Edward A. Sullivan to the water board (although Sullivan said later his brother was number one man on Civil Service rating and had been stymied for six months because of Atkinson's refusal to appoint him) and Mayor Deguglielmo's brother to the Housing Authority.

And two hours before the opening of the special session, Atkinson filed a petition before the Retirement Board for a disability pension (he said he developed a bad case of ulcers on the job), and requested annual pension of $13,333.

For a man who claimed he never played politics, Atkinson showed he could play a hard, fast game--but he lost.

Immediately at the opening of the special session, Councillor Sullivan raised the reappointment issue and nominated his own candidate for manager; three other councillors presented other names; finally Councillor Edward A. Crane '35 placed in nomination schoolmaster Curry, the other four switched, and with startling abruptness the reign of John B. Atkinson had ended.

The minority quickly recovered from this blitz attack, and Councilor W. Dennison Swan '17 shouted: "This is a shame and a disgrace to the council . . . I can see the fine hand with the Italian dagger plunged into the back." Councillors jumped up, shouted their pieces, and vented emotional steam. Two opposition councillors, Swan and Chester A. Higley, made an attempt to get the council to reconsider its action, but the try proved feeble; reconsideration was defeated 5 to 2 with two absent.

So Cambridge, in a few minutes and on a single ballot, had bridged the gap between two phases of city administration. The city has been reformed and all is healthy. Now, councillors feel, the city must move ahead from its economy of scarcity to one of abundance. Schools in particular were sorely in need of refitting; city financing begged overhauling, and the relation of state-city taxation demanded reassessment.

Throughout Atkinson's long, arduous career, he had been threatened with dismissal, but no one took these threats seriously because Cambridge was reforming in earnest and the city's expenditures had to be slashed, but more important Atkinson was backed up by a majority of the "good government" councillors--those endorsed by the Cambridge Civic Association.

This non-partisan group, formed only to perpetuate local reform under the city managercity council system of administration, held a majority of the nine man council.

This year the C. C. A. still retained that majority, but two of the C.C.A. endorsed councillors--Crane and Deguglielmo--were distinctly dissatisfied with Atkinson's policies. They bolted from the other three, and teamed up with three independents to form the crucial majority.

The unholy alliance brought immediate speculation: does it mean the end of good government for Cambridge? But merely because Crane and Deguglielmo broke from the C.C.A. did not mean they would not follow C.C.A. policy on other matters. Indeed they both felt Atkinson was not following C.C.A. policy himself, particularly on capital financing and school lighting. They saw him as an absentee manager who still had outside business interests despite the $20,000 yearly salary.

But others did not think the overall issue counted. They saw one thing: Atkinson brought reform, so Atkinson should be kept. The Boston Herald commented editorially: "John J. Curry will begin his term of office under a shadow . . . he will never be able to forget that the man who preceded him was a strong man who could say no and who was fired because of it; who left office with few political friends, but with high honor." What these Atkinson proponents evidently forgot, at least the majority of the councillors thought, was that Atkinson was elected by a good government coalition; that he flouted this coalition; and that at times even superceded the authority of the elected body, the council.

Steady Faith

But Atkinson still had faith in the Plan E form of government. Said he: "It is the most democratic form of municipal administration in the world. Why, I was even removed from office through its democratic process."

Schoolmaster Curry reported for work the next morning at 8 a.m., and tackled some of the big headaches left over. A deligent worker, admittedly "politically inexperienced," Curry would make "no promises whatsoever" but appeared ready to carry out the C.C.A.'s program.

Cambridge lost a city manager in its growth, a man who had refrormed a corrupt city. It gained a new manager, ready to develop the city into better financial and academic avenues.