Criticism Made Freely

In 1913 New York City's Buerau of Municipal Research came to Portland and reviewed the city's government and services. It published its results in a series of reports as they were completed, and summarized the results on May 4, 1913 in the Oregonian, only shortly before an election where voters would decide whether to adopt a new city charter based on the Galveston plan. Here's some excerpts.

• "No centralization of power could possibly afford greater opportunity for wrong doing than the conditions which actually obtain in thecity's legislative body at the present time."
• "The Police department is so inefficient that to list the things it hasn't but ought to have is to describe a modern police department." 
• "Control over contagious diseases is wholly inadequate. One-quarter of the city's tuberculosis cases are not reported. Venereal diseases are not reported at all. Cases are often released from quarantine by telephone or verbal order."
• "The Council, particularly, has assumed dictatorial powers in the granting of special [building] permits, although wholly incompentent to pass judgment understandingly upon such technical engineering questions. Special permits mean special privileges for a few"
• "Provision has not been made for maintaining all streets by city labor." [100 years of potholes]
• "The Auditor's financial control is no control. It consists merely of his being informed what has been done after it has been done."
• "The City auditor has no means of knowing whether the city received from the county all of the taxes to which it is entitled."
• "Although water revenues amount to more than $750,000 a year, the City Auditor has no accounting or auditing control thereover."
• "Scientific budget making in Portland is handicapped by the present charter, which limits each of the city's principal functions to a certain perscribed tax levy. The Council should be able to apportion each year's funds according to the current needs of each department, bureau and office, and not be compelled to adhere to the arbitrary schedule fixed 10 years ago."

The new city charter, which remains our present-day city charter, passed by a narrow margin of 722 votes [I have a citation for this - I will update later with it] (it was also the first election after women's suffrage in Oregon).  Its passage should not be weighted too heavily on the Bureau of Municipal Research's findings - rather eastside Portland discontent with under-representation under the existing ward system is a more likely culprit.[I have a citation for this, too]  There were 10 wards with 4 on the eastside and 6 on west, despite the eastside being far more populous by 1913 than the west.

The sentiment is echoed by a postscript from Oregonian editorial board regarding the Bureau of Municipal research report, after passage of new city charter:

• "The same charter, last November, in competition with another commission charter, gained 48.08 percent of the vote case on the issue. In the recent election, with no competition, it secured 50.44 per cent of the vote cast." 
• "These experts told us a large number of things we already knew and had been discussing for months and even years. They were not employed by the city of Portland, as might be readily inferred from the [recent advertising] leaflet, but by a self-appointed committee, whose membership in large part is yet unknown to the public. The work of the bureau was no needed, and served principally tocomplicate a contest between rival candidates for office. There is suspicision that it was brought here for that purpose.  Does anybody remember what the bureau reported, except that it placed all blame for municipal shortcomings on the old charter and by implication excused from blame city officials who were seeking re-election?"





So maybe the whole report was a publicity hit job? It certainly reads like one.  And if a hit job is what the citizens group wanted then the Bureau certainly delivered the goods.

 Here follows the full scan of the Bureau's summary from May 4, 1913:

PURSUED BY AN IRATE HUSBAND

PURSUED BY AN IRATE HUSBAND
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Exciting Chase After Two Men Who Insulted a Woman—One is Captured and Gets Fined.
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    As Mrs. W. M. Woodall accompanied by Miss Frances Taylor, was returning to her home on Third and Columbia streets, about 9 o'clock Tuesday evening, two strange men accosted them on First street near Jefferson and began to make ungentlemanly remarks to hem.  The first remarks were passed in silence, but when the men became more insolent in pressing recognition, the ladies told them to mind their own business or there would be trouble.

   No attention was paid to this warning and the men went so far as to attempt to take hold of the arms of the women.  This last impertinence so frightened them that they started to run.  The two men also turned the corner on Columbia street and pursued the women to the doorstep of Mrs. Woodall.

   When Mrs. Woodall got into the house her husband had already retired. She however, lost no time in apprising him of her very unpleasant experience, and he at once started in pursuit of the men.  The men were still near the gate when Mr. Woodall appeared at the door and the exciting chase began.  One of the men escaped on a side street, while Mr. Woodall, in hot pursuit of the other, continued the road race down Columbia towards First.

   Upon reaching First street, the pursued man dodged into a saloon, while the enraged husband, in his night clothes and brandishing a large club he had picked up on the way, followed closely after.  The crowd of men who were gather about the bar were so frightened by the flying spectre-like men that some of them dropped their glasses and lost their appetite.  The saloon-keeper, with the instincts of a Trojan warrior, grabbed Mr. Woodall and unceremoniously threw him out of the back door, while the same summary movement was performed with the man whom Woodall was pursing, only the latter was ejected through the front entrance.

   Mr. Woodall, not to be outdone by the action the irate saloon-keeper, ran around the saloon from the rear end to the front, and got there just in time to catch the man he had so vigorously pursued.

   Officer Smith appeared on the scene immediately after and took the man to the city jail, while Mr. Woodall retraced his steps to his home to tell his wife of the capture.

   The man, who gave his name as Alex Leuden, and claimed to be a barbed, working in a Washington Street shop, had an examination in the police court yesterday afternoon.  He denied having made any improper remarks to the ladies, but admitted that his companion did.  The name of this companion he did not know, for he claimed the man was only a casual acquaintance.  As the women, however, positively identified Lueden as the man how accosted them and took improper liberties in addressing them, the court did not place much reliance in his statements.   Leuden was found guilty and fined $30.

 

 

[I like to think that Mr. Woodall was this broad shouldered Bluto-from-Popeye type fellow.  The club he brandished would thus be either a small tree or a lamppost torn summarily from the very ground.  I also like to imagine that the saloon-keeper was an even more broad-shouldered Bluto.]

-Oregonian.  June 7, 1889.

A Breach of Etiquette

A Breach of Etiquette --- At Astoria, on Sunday, Samuel White had some misunderstanding with Mrs. Riorson and she called for the police, whereupon Samuel did there and then willfully and maliciously bite her nose.  The next day he was arraigned before Justice May and held to await the action of the grand jury in the sum of $800.  White had evidently not been properly brought up.  He should have chewed the lady's ear, which would have passed for a bit of pleasantry, but to bite her nose and thus spoil her good looks is a piece of cannibalistic savagery which cannot be too strongly condemned.  His conduct on this occasion is very un-[illegible].

 

 

 

 

[By "should have chewed the lady's ear" is the author referring to the act of affection (sexual foreplay) or to the act of talking to someone or both?  Or neither?]

 Oregonian.  February 27, 1889.

SHOCKING AND OUTRAGEOUS.

SHOCKING AND OUTRAGEOUS.
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John Barry, While Drunk, Treats the Dead Body of His Aged Wife with Brutal Violence – No Adequate Punishment.

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    A brief item appeared in these columns yesterday morning on the death of old Mrs. Barry, who has been rooming at the old lodging-house at the corner of Second and F streets.

   It is a case which calls for than a passing notice, as exemplifying the life of a hard-working wife, joined to a worthless and dissolute man.  Barry's exploits yesterday were on a par with his previous night's performances.  He was in the police court yesterday noon, where he pleaded guilty to a charge of being drunk.  The officers, humanely inclined, spoke a good word to the judge for the man, as he was supposed to be overcome with grief, and he was suffered to go, that he might attend his wife's funeral.

   He took his departure and went to the morgue, where his wife's body was lying.  Between frequent potations he went in and out, finally becoming so drunk as to fall down several times, bruising his face and tumbling over the stove.  The police had to be called in, and he was again conducted to jail.

  The reports of his conduct on the previous night seems so outré and incredible that a reporter was yesterday detailed to ascertain their truth.  Shortly after 7 o'clock Wednesday evening a roomer in Mrs. Barber's lodging house came up the back stairs and discovered something in the hall.  A light was brought, and it was found to be old Mrs. Barry, with life practically extinct in her body.  She was carried to her room, and the sisters at St. Vincent's hospital, who have always interested themselves in Mrs. Barry's case, were notified.  They came to the house and prepared the body for the grave with snow-white linen and a cloth upon the face.  The watch was given to Mrs. Barber, the lodging-house keeper, and another lady friend who volunteered to aid her.

  In due course of time, well fired with liquor, Barry returned home.  He went to his room and ordered the women out.  Not being possessed of sufficient determination they obeyed.  Alone with the corpse of the woman, whose meager and hard-won earnings had been his almost sole support, the brute began his orgies.  He first laid hold upon the shroud and cloths placed by the Sisters' loving and tender hands, and tore them from the body.  He struck her repeatedly upon the face, calling upon her to rise.  For the first time, the patient woman failed to do his bidding, and seizing her roughly he dragged her from the bed to the floor.

   BY this time help had arrived.  Two men forced their way into the room and replaced the body on the bed.  They wiped the blood from the face, covered the battered and bruised spots, and renewed, as far as they could, the linen coverings. 

   Barry then drew a knife, and he as he bore the appearance of a maniac, they withdrew.  Before the drunken ruffian had time to renew his despoliations, the police arrived, he was conveyed to the station, and the rest of his exploits are already told.

   Many old citizens remember Mrs. Barry.  She was a hard-working industrious woman and a faithful wife.  Of late years she has well worn herself out and such work as sewing, scrubbing, and nursing which the Sisters could throw her way has been her sole revenue.  Barry has maintained a show of working odd jobs, but the roomers in the house who knew them say that she has virtually supported both from her slender earnings.

   What little money came into the old brute's pocket was assiduously employed in getting drunk.  He became gradually so enfeebled that, following a debauch he would spend the entire day in bed.  The old lady did her utmost to quiet his noisy outbursts, and when he slept or was quiet she went in search of work.

   John Barry's wife is dead.  Her years of patient and unrequited toil are all gone by, but even her shroud of death did not detain her brute of a husband from acts of unspeakable violence which a dog would not be guilty of to a dead objection of his affection.

   Our advanced civilization such that ninety days in jail is the probable limit to his punishment.  There are portions of the West where brutality such as this is followed without delay by tar and feathers, or a rope over the limb of the nearest tree.

   The old lady's body still lies at the morgue.  Mrs. Barber has been trying to secure donations upon the street sufficient to give the body a decent burial.

   Barry will appear in the police court this morning to answer a charge of being drunk and disorderly.  Whatever his plea or sentence, if he has any feeling when sober, he will not have an enviable memory to cherish of the death-bed of his faithful wife of so many years.

   There is not a penalty upon the statute books adequate to such an outrage, and the public sentiment of a community ought be such that no man who has committed such an act could continue to live in it.

 

Oregonian. January 4, 1889.