City Politics a Century Ago: A Liquor and Trains Election

The shooting of President James A. Garfield captivated the nation in the fall of 1881. As the Chief Executive's life hung balanced between life and death for almost three months, citizens offered daily prayers and followed closely each new report on the progress of the ailing president. When Garfield finally succumbed at 11 p.m., Monday, September 19, the country intensified its prolonged mourning.

The following Wednesday, the Cambridge City Council and the Board of Aldermen tabled all regular business and met in joint session to listen to Mayor James A. Fox, who issued a proclamation declaring Monday, October 3 a public holiday and urged the people of Cambridge "to unite in a testimonial to the martyred president." "Never, at least since the death of Lincoln, has there been such general absorption in a public question," the Cambridge Chronicle declared between its black borders. Indeed, the weekly Chronicle devoted a large portion of its two news and commentary pages to the matter. In addition to the details of the death and the ceremonies, and the general expression of sorrow, it ran a short article about the assassin:

America is the home of legal liberty. Our country is so great that even this small viper who crawls between heaven and earth should be with decency and tried and punished without prejudice.

And the paper added a word of admonition to the newly sworn-in president, Chester Arthur:

President Arthur is getting so much "taffy" now-a-days that we do not think he needs nor expects any from the Chronicle, of which we have no doubt he is a constant and careful reader. Whatever other people expect, we have no faith he will give the country anything like the administration of his immediate two predecessors...He can make a good business President--no man can do better. Or--he can smash the whole (Republican) party to pieces, and we are afraid he's going to do it.

Even in the wake of national tragedy, the editors of the Chronicle were playing up one item of local concern. Describing the recently formed Charles River Railway Company, they offered the following observation:

The whole Charles River business looks to some people like a bull movement for certain real estate, and we shall not be surprised if we see the company working in unison with large holders of land to benefit all parties at the public expense.

***

Cambridge of this day had entered the Gilded Age. Along with other modern conveniences, rail transportation had come to the city. The Union Railroad was the first to enter the market, and had established itself as the prime form of mass transportation. In 1881, however, Charles E. Raymond put together some capital and a Board of Directors, and formed the Charles River Railway Company to get a piece of the burgeoning market.

Even in this era of laissez-faire economics, the government did not stand entirely aside and let the capitalists battle it out to the ultimate benefit of the people. To start or extend a line, a company needed a permit from the city, and the ability to expand often depended on the local government's decision to build or repair streets bridges. And so, the competition between Union and Charles River Rail (C.R.R.) became a matter for public debate.

In November, the new company was petitioning the Aldermen for extension permits. Heated discussion proceeded the November 23 hearing; the Chronicle ran several editorials urging the denial of their request, questioning the legality of the move and accusing the company of ulterior motives. At the meeting, one Alderman--Francis L. Chapman--requested a legal opinion from the city solicitor. A representative from C.R.R. countered that the city had no right to deny the request, that only the Supreme Court had jurisdiction. None of the debate really mattered. The Board voted to grant permission, Chapman casting the only dissenting vote.

The reservations opponents had about the new company went beyond simple loyalty for the other side. The C.R.R., many felt, was the major force behind a petition drive to build a new bridge to Boston, a worthwhile project they felt, but an excessive expense for the taxpayers to bear. Though the company denied any interest in the new bridge, the Chronicle reported on October 22 that Raymond, the president of the company, had purchased "several lots of land near Front Street [the proposed location of the bridge] at nearly double the assessed value." Opposition to the construction stemmed from the recent experiences the city had gone through. During the '70s, Cambridge was ruled--or so the Chronicle contended--by a government "disposed to rush into anything labelled 'improvement' without seeing the end or considering the cost." Streets were built and widened, sewers laid, lowlands filled, buildings erected. But the city was pushed into debt a million a year, "and the taxpayers have not yet got over the effects."

By the beginning of the '80s, Cantabrigians had reached a "reasonable unanimity" on fiscal austerity, electing governments that decided "to go without everything not absolutely necessary," the newspapers reported. "City Governments have sat night after night cutting down and paring off so that they could pay the expenses of each year, pay the interest and sinking fund of the debts, and still leave taxes at $16 per thousand.

By 1884, officials projected a balanced budget, allowing the city to proceed with much needed repairs and widely desired improvements. But a petition drive was underway aimed at construction of a bridge that would cost at least a million dollars. And the Chronicle suspected the railway was behind it: "If the Charles River Railway is to depend on plundering the city treasury as well as the Union road, the people should rise against it and crush it before it gets any larger."

***

On October 8, the newspapers reported the case of one Jeremial Haggerty, a liquor dealer whose fourth class (grocer's) liquor license had just been revoked by the Board of Alderman. It seems the police chief had been going from shop to shop in late September with a request that the stores close on account of the Garfield obsequies: when he came to Haggerty's business, he noticed the beer pump dripping and saw several men standing at a counter drinking. Though not positive, the officer throught they were drinking ale. Since city laws prohibited a grocer from serving liquor on the premises, the officer brought the case before the Board.

Though Haggerty denied the charges--the men, he said, were drinking cider, the pump, he explained, had been used to fill some bottles which a woman had purchased but a few moments earlier--the Aldermen took away his permit. "In any other case but a liquor case," the Chronicle observed, "the evidence given by the defense would have outweighed that of the accusing officer." But liquor in Cambridge in 1881 was not just another case.

The last Massachusetts legislature had passed a law allowing each city or town by direct vote to say whether the local authorities should or should not grant licenses for the sale of liquor. Cambridge had such a referendum scheduled for the December 6, the day of its city elections.

The first week of November, a group of citizens formed the "Protection League," a group devoted to securing a majority "No" vote on the proposal to allow licenses. Upon formation, the group issued the following statement:

The league asks the sympathy and support of all good citizens of Cambridge who are opposed to the multiplication of dram-shops in this city, and who desire to have our streets cleared of the drinking places which offer such fatal allurements to our young men. The league especially directs the attention of the people to the fact that the issue as presented at the approaching municipal election is one that does not admit evasion or neutrality. Every citizen is called to vote either upon the side of the liquor traffic or against it.

The Chronicle took the opposite side in its four-part series of editorials "License or Prohibition." Arguing that prohibition tends to spread alcoholic consumption rather than stop it, the paper noted that "under prohibition there were four hundred known drinking places in Cambridge, where there are now about ninety."

***

In the days before proportional representation, before the Progressive Era, Cambridge selected its leaders by wards. Non-partisan conventions would nominate candidates for each of the five wards; the top vote-getters would win one of the ten seats. In its December 3rd issue, the Chronicle reported the proceedings of the nominating process under the headlines "POLITICAL!" "Charles River Railroad vs. The People...League Made with the Prohibitionists":

The storm which has been brewing for the past fortnight fell with a crash upon the Cambridge political field last Monday evening. No such fight has ever been seen here since Cambridge was a city, or is likely ever to be seen again. The combined forces of the Charles River Railroad Company with their treasury filled under the last assessment, and the fanatical no-license men went into the caucuses and succeeded in getting enough out of the whole to do about as they pleased. Already another ticket is in the field, however, and the fight is transferred to Tuesday next at the polls.

Each of the ward conventions was filled, many people attracted by mass mailed post cards announcing the Union Railway intended to pack the meetings. Pamphlets were distributed with the slogan "UNION RAILWAY VS. THE PEOPLE." Actually, Charles Railroad interests allied with no-license (prohibitionists) forces stacked each of the ward conventions, accepting or rejecting candidates on the basis of their stands for the railroad and against liquor.

The following week, the election--in which 5000 voters went to the polls--ended up much the same way. Those candidates affiliated with the Charles River Railway captured seats from all but wards two and three, and Alderman Chapman, the lone dissenter on the vote to grant C.R.R. the extension permit lost his chair. The outcome of the liquor license question was unclear--the tally on the referendum changed with each recount--but five aldermen elected were considered anti-license. "Cambridge is to be given prophibition by the railroad, this is the result and the only result of last Tuesday's election," the paper declared.