74 
 
 .C4 MS 
 
 Copy 1 
 
 Annexation of Charlestoivn and Som- 
 erville to Boston. 
 
 A CONDENSED REPORT OF THE 
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 Hon. Ellis W. Morton, 
 
 BEFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATUKE ON TOWNS, 
 
 In behalf of the petitioners for an act. authorizing the 
 
 union of Charlestown ajid Somerville 
 
 with Boston^ 
 
 Monday, Feb. 27, 1871. 
 
 BOSTON: 
 ALFRED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 
 
 1871. 
 
Annexation of Charlestotvn and Soni- 
 erville to Boston. 
 
 A CONDENSED REPORT OF THE 
 
 ARGUMENT 
 
 Hon. Ellis W. Morton, 
 
 - BKFORE THE COMMITTEE OF THE LEGISLATUKE ON TOWNS, 
 
 In behalf of the petitioners for an act authorizing the 
 
 tuiion of Charlestoivn and Somerville 
 
 with Boston, 
 
 Monday, Feb. 27, 1871. 
 
 X 
 
 •A-^ 
 
 BOSTON : 
 
 ALFKED MUDGE & SON, PRINTERS, 34 SCHOOL STREET. 
 
 1871. 
 

Mr. Chairman and Gentlemen: 
 
 1^ the outset of my argument, permit a suggestion 
 that the various petitions referred to you do not call 
 for a determination of the question of annexation it- 
 self. In frequent instances petitioners request the 
 legislature, by the exercise of its high authority, to 
 adjust municipal boundaries, not in accordance with 
 the sanction of a majority of all the people interested, 
 but in concurrence with the will of certain people. 
 This class of cases oftentimes presents serious dif- 
 ficulties to the impartial legislator. 
 
 The question now debated is a simple one : wheth- 
 er a rectification of boundaries may be permitted in 
 accordance with the deliberately recorded will of a 
 majority of all the people of all the communities con- 
 cerned. 
 
 The committee might properly dispose of this in- 
 vestigation with the limited inquiry — Are there any 
 sufficient reasons why the union of Boston, Charles- 
 town and Somerville, should not be assented to? but 
 the tendency of the hearing has been towards the 
 broader inquiry why it should be, and the committee 
 will involuntarily entei'tain it. 
 
 The very facts of this hearing and of the patient 
 sittings of yourselves and your predecessors in simi- 
 lar investigations, are a complete refatation of the 
 
theories of " natural boundaries," at least so far as it 
 is sought to ai^ply them to the communities of Mas- 
 sachusetts. 
 
 A few untanght individuals, living in an isolated 
 jDOsition, might be restricted to their territory by 
 natural obstacles ; but when intelligent communities, 
 ready in art and science, snbject water to ferries, as 
 is the case with diflerent sections of Boston, or when 
 they actually tie themselves together by a bridge, as 
 Charlestown and Boston have done, then it is idle to 
 discuss "natural boundaries." The bridge thrown 
 over the railways between Boston proper and South 
 Boston, does not difter as a connection, or as an 
 avenue of travel, from that which spans the water- 
 way between Boston and Charlestown. 
 
 If there may be a "natural boundary," a river is 
 certainly not often established as such in commercial 
 places. It is regarded as a valuable commercial 
 highway, the possession of which seems almost a 
 condition of importance. I might cite in support of 
 this suggestion, nearly every conspicuous city abroad. 
 
 Boundaries must be adjusted to communities, not 
 communities to boundaries. 
 
 The committee will, doubtless, consider somewhat 
 the sisrnificance and extent of the agitation in favor 
 of annexation, and while the inquiry whether a 
 majority of all the citizens in the three municipalities 
 ai'e annexationists is unessential, and must be a 
 subject of difference, yet it is incumbent upon the 
 petitioners to show that a sullicient number desire it 
 to entitle them to the altention of the legislature. 
 
In 1854, the legislature passed an act authorizing 
 the imion of Boston and Cbarlestown, and it was ac- 
 cepted by a very large majoiity of the voters of both 
 cities, but subsequently set aside by the supreme 
 court for a constitutional defect. Kever since, 
 though repeatedly demanded, has an opportunity 
 been given by the legislature to these cities to re- 
 assert their desires in this domestic matter. 
 
 The only time they have been enabled to declare 
 their judgment, the majority of the people pro- 
 nounced emphatically in favor of annexation. Since 
 then, Boston has indicated her concern to enlarge 
 her cramped limits by the annexation at diflerent 
 times of Koxbury and Dorchester. This year, you 
 have heard the voice of her citizens through her 
 representatives in the city government, who have 
 instructed the mayor to petition the legislature to 
 submit the question of annexation to the decision 
 of the j^eople, in recognition of the high principles 
 of democratic government. In aid of this authorita- 
 tive petition, you have those of a very large and 
 estimable body of individuals. 
 
 Charlestown has, since 1831, been troubled with the 
 untiring attempts of a great number of her citizens 
 to secure the exercise of a right, hardly a privilege, 
 which has been once accorded. When, in a solitary 
 instance, the right was admitted by the legislature, 
 they unhesitatingly exercised it in favor of annexa- 
 tion; but having lost the enjoyment of the fruits of 
 its exercise through an oversight of the legislature 
 itself, their almost yearly petitions, ever regarded 
 
6 
 
 favorably by committees, have been rejected through 
 the influence of the enormous county of Middlesex, 
 the largest in the commonwealth, with its open 
 treasury, which they themselves helped to fill, a 
 county with which they have no harmony of interests, 
 and within whose imcongenial grasp thc}^ are con- 
 fessedly held solely because they pay her annually 
 twelve thousand dollars more than they cost her. 
 
 ^N'ow these oft-disappointed, I may say aggrieved 
 humble petitioners, men of high character and broad 
 views, many of them men of wealth, with enterprise 
 to direct its employment to the public advantage, all 
 of them intelligent, earnest, progressive, good citizens, 
 are here for the ninth time, supported by evidence of 
 unusual worth; and if needs be, they will come for 
 the tenth time to pray that their community may be 
 suifered to enjoy the rights yielded freely to others 
 similarly situated, rights, the enjoyment of which are, 
 in their belief, absolutely necessary to the advance- 
 ment of their personal prosperity and development 
 of the highest public interests. 
 
 The disposition of the citizens of Somerville has 
 been declared in a i-esolve passed in a legal town 
 meeting, April 10, 18G9, in favor of annexation, and 
 by the election of Mr. BoAvman, the annexation can- 
 didate, to the legislature, by a vote of 537 against 
 237 for the regular republican nominee, who received 
 the votes of many annexationists. 
 
 It is true, that when their wish was found not to 
 enlist the sympathy of the last legishiture, and when 
 it was supposed repeated rebulfs would dishearten 
 
the annexationists of Charlestown, the territory of 
 which Kes between Boston and Somerville, the town 
 voted (38 to 12), without rescinding the previous 
 vote, to ask this legislature for a city charter. Their 
 first choice is annexation; failing in that, they desire 
 a city charter, and it is but ordinary justice that they 
 should have one. 
 
 Passing the matter of public interest in the ques- 
 tion of annexation, let me establish the palpable 
 propriety of it. 
 
 This is found in the smallness of the area of the 
 three places, in the propinquity of Charlestown and 
 Somerville to the business, working, actual centre of 
 Boston, and in their entire identity of interest with 
 her. 
 
 Boston, the capital of the commonwealth, the 
 commercial exchange of I^ew England, at least she 
 should be, has but 9,902 taxable acres, between three 
 and four thousand less than the average area of our 
 towns. Charlestown, against the solemnly registered 
 will of a majority of her citizens, suffers the grievous 
 burdens of the support of the machinery of an inde- 
 pendent government for a comparatively insignificant 
 spot of 520 taxable acres; less land than many a 
 Massachusetts farmer rules. If the State were cut 
 up into towns of the size of this dwarf city, whose 
 influence is nothing to that of the Middlesex county 
 commissioners, we might boast of 8,522 instead of 
 838. Somerville has only 1,975 taxable acres, taken 
 from Charlestown, at a time when she had two dis- 
 
8 
 
 tiiict and unbarmonious classes of citizens, — a com- 
 mercial and manufacturing class, and an agricultural 
 class, — living under a system of government not 
 adapted to both. 
 
 Wipe out tbe artificial outgrown boundaries of a 
 former and difterent time, and unite tbese small par- 
 cels of territory, and our commercial metropolis will 
 have for her growth only 12,897 acres, less still than 
 the average of the towns of the commonwealth, as 
 against the 82,560 acres of Philadelphia. 
 
 The city hall of Charlestown is but a mile from 
 the city hall of Boston, and Charlestown divides 
 Suffolk county. The whole of the territory of Som- 
 erville, more easily and frequently accessible by rail 
 than any other suburb of Boston, is nearer to her city 
 hall than are the extremes of her southern line. 
 
 There is an admitted community of interests be- 
 tween the petitioners; they are actually one commer- 
 cial people, whose business and employment have a 
 common centre in Boston; their j^rosj^erity depends 
 upon the same conditions; they are mutually benefited 
 by the municipal enterprises, though unequally taxed, 
 and they are alike injured by the municipal errors 
 or neglect of Boston. 
 
 The Charlestown merchant is nearer his Boston 
 counting-room tban the majority of the Boston mer- 
 chants, and the Somerville-Boston merchant is as 
 ])rompt at his warehouse as the merchant of the 
 AVest or South End. Three-fouilhs of the polls of 
 Charlestown find daily occupation in Boston, and 
 Ibur-fifths of the business men of Somcrville have 
 
9 
 
 their business in Boston, eight or nine hundred of 
 their names being in the City Directory. The citi- 
 zens of Charlestown have a more direct interest 
 to-day in the removal of Scolhiy's buikliiig, ordered 
 by the city governmant of Bjston, than a mijority 
 of her own people. It appears by the report of the 
 Gliief of Police, that i^)v. 12, ISTO, ad.iy ch)S3;i by 
 chance, there passed out from B3 5taii over Oiii'b^ 
 river and Warren bridges, between four o'clock P. M. 
 and twelve o'clock, midnight, 12,150 persons. 
 
 Having drawn attention to the three prominent 
 facts which establish the proprietj'' of annexation, 
 smallness of the territory of the several municipali- 
 ties, the propinquity of Charlestown and Somerville 
 to the business centre of Boston and their obvious com- 
 munity of interests with Boston, permit me to direct 
 your observation, upon the supposition that the com- 
 mittee will choose to consider why annexation should 
 be authorized, rather than the naked proposition 
 Avhy it should not, to a few of the advantages which 
 each municipality will realize; Boston will gain. 
 
 First. A limited advance toward the equitable 
 proportion of territory to which she is entitled, ignor- 
 ing her dense population, simply as one of 338 cities 
 and towns of the commonwealth, while the territory 
 to be acquired is of peculiar value from its conven- 
 ient situation to receive her growth, and the abun- 
 dance of easy lines of communication with it. It 
 will hardly be conceded that Worcester should be 
 shorn of her size as being cumbersome or too large 
 
10 
 
 for her proper develoi)ment, and for a systematical 
 jDrovision for her increase; bnt if 21,094 acres is only 
 a suitable area for her population of 41,107, how can 
 you reasonably resist the infei*ence that this moderate 
 expansion to an area of little more than half that 
 extent must be of incalculable moment to a popula- 
 tion of 25U,52(> ? 
 
 It is the part, not of wisdom, but of the most 
 ordinary prudence, to attempt to explore the im- 
 mediate future, and make some seasonably adequate 
 preparation for its necessities. Either the utmost 
 jDossible growth of your capital is absolutely deter- 
 mined and limited today by the rigidity of bounda- 
 ries not adapted to the communities they fetter, or 
 some territorial enlargement must occur to contain 
 merely, not accommodate the natural regular in- 
 crease of the next twen^^y-five years. AVithin less 
 than that time every foot of our lately acquired 
 districts will be as closely settled as the centre 
 of Boston is now. The steady and rapid encroach- 
 ments of trade are fast forcing a surrender of 
 dwelling places. The aspect of some of our wards 
 has been completely changed within five years. The 
 annexation of Charlestown and Somerville is not in 
 anticipation of future requirements, but is an inade- 
 qiuite measure for the present. It is clearly for Bos- 
 ton's interest that her present growth, at least, shoukl 
 not be forced without her limits ; and too early at- 
 tention cannot be devoted to systematic plans for the 
 convenient, comfortable and healthful occupation of 
 the territory which is to receive it. Parks, squares, 
 
11 
 
 avenues and streets, proportioned to the magnitude 
 of a city, and not measured by the wants of a town, 
 should be seasonably laid out, and the enormous ex- 
 pense of eventually remodelling a place of chance and 
 irregular character avoided. 
 
 Second. She will gain in the direction of her gov- 
 ernment and atfiiirs generally, a population, very 
 largely native, of 43,000 people whose interests 
 are commercial, whose places of business are chiefly 
 in Boston, whose property is there, and whose pros- 
 perity depends entirely upon the prosperity of Bos- 
 ton. 
 
 The dangers to which the administration of the 
 affaii's of a great city is exposed, arise not from its 
 size or populousness, but from an abandonment of 
 municipal concerns to a class whose motives are not 
 regulated by important individual interests by those 
 who are compelled to live in the suburbs, — subur- 
 bans in name only. As traffic usurps place after 
 place, changing the natural and ordinary distribution 
 of population, it is seen that many parts of Boston 
 are left to the management of the very poor and the 
 very rich. Annexation will neutralize influences 
 likely to be prejudicial and antagonistic, and tend to 
 equalize the benefits of a government which should 
 be for the common profit and happiness of all whom 
 it directly aftects, and which should be shared in by 
 those actually living within its close reach, and who 
 are bound fast to the city that supports it, by inter- 
 ests which no technical boundaries can restrain. 
 
12 
 
 Third. Boston will receive credit in the markets 
 of the world for additional population, really Bosto- 
 nian, thoroughly commingled with her nominal pop- 
 ulation in business association and social intercourse, 
 distinguished from it in nothing, and separated from 
 it only by an unfit boundary which has long since 
 ceased to be more than an nnnecessary political line. 
 
 The importance of commercial cities is very large- 
 ly governed by the rank the census gives them; and 
 numerous witnesses, familiar with finance and en- 
 gaged in trade, have most earnestly challenged your 
 attention to this point. The census returns of ^^opu- 
 lation are always anticipated, not only by great rival 
 cities, but by neighboring towns with sensitive inter- 
 est. They fix their comparative rank and rate of 
 growth; and the establishment of this rank is posi- 
 tive, unaccompanied by any explanations of condi- 
 tions Avhich might properly affect it. 
 
 By the last census, Boston is declared the seventh 
 city of the Union, and thus she is known at home 
 and abroad. The stranger merchant only know^s 
 that six cities of the United States are larger, 
 by the common measurement, than our capital, and 
 this fact regulates, to a great extent, his dealings 
 with us. Her nominal rank deceives him; he is mis- 
 led as to the real market which invites his trade; he 
 is unaware that he has learned only the rank of a 
 little munici})ality, and not that of the great com- 
 munity who are ready to buy of him and sell to him. 
 
 'J'he proclamation of her station, which limits largely 
 her power of commercial attraction, is not supple- 
 
13 
 
 mented by a statement that the sleeping-places of her 
 merchants, artisans, mechanics and laborers, her true 
 business, manufacturing and productive population, 
 constitute separate municipalities to which they are 
 credited, the existence of which lessens the common 
 importance and lowers the rank of the great commu- 
 nity of which they are parts, and which they should 
 unite as districts and not divide into inconsequen- 
 tial towns; nor is it stated that the higher rank of 
 other cities is based upon the population of an area 
 very much larger, and in one instance about eight 
 times larger than that of Boston, an area embracing 
 their entire population, and having space for their 
 natural and attracted growth. 
 
 By this proposed conformation of bounds to facts, 
 the capital of Massachusetts will outrank, as it 
 ought, the capital of Maryland. 
 
 Fourth. Annexation will place in the united con- 
 cordant control of Boston and the people to be made 
 a part of her people, and to participate equally with 
 them in all her concerns, the water front, the common 
 anchorage of all nations, from the JSTeponset to the 
 Mystic, and this advantage to our commercial metrop- 
 olis is not oj)en to dispute. 
 
 We now have one port of entry subject to the 
 jurisdiction of two municipal governments. The 
 liberal designs which have been entertained and 
 partly carried out by Boston to make our docks 
 and wharves tempting to shipping, and to furnish 
 such conveniences to trade as shall lead it to a port 
 one day nearer Europe than JS^evv York, must be 
 
11 
 
 checked at that part of the port Avhere the narrow 
 Charles river flows under the short avenues which 
 connect the dwellings of Boston's business men with 
 their counting-rooms. Beyond the Charles she is 
 impotent. The interests of the whole port she can- 
 not recognize ; they must be developed by two com- 
 munities, which, separated, have manifestly diverse 
 interests in some respects, but united, could have 
 only identical collective interests to advance. 
 
 Among the most strenuous advocates of annexa- 
 tion are the representatives of railroad corporations, 
 business and manufacturing corporations, and private 
 individuals owning wharf property the other side of 
 the Charles; they tell you that as Boston wharves 
 they would have a standing which as Charlestown 
 wharves they cannot obtain, even with an exposition 
 of their contiguity to Boston. 
 
 - It may be appropriate to remind Massachusetts 
 leiiislators that the Tunnel railroad line, in which the 
 State has its millions, has its water end in Charles- 
 town. The shippers of the AYest, the carrying of 
 whose produce it is to compete for Avith gigantic 
 rival lines of ISTew York and Pennsylvania, are to 
 be invited to choose their market not between the 
 cities of Boston, IS'ew Y'ork and Philadelphia, but 
 between historical, though commercially unknown 
 Chai'lestowii and the first and second cities of the 
 country; and the managers of that line and those of 
 another Massachusetts line, controlling directly a 
 thousand miles of i-oad, Avhicli has just purchased 
 thirty acres of Charlestown wharf property, tell you 
 
1;- 
 
 nnqnalificdly that such a choice must operate to the 
 prejudice of their lines and consequently of the 
 commonwealth. 
 
 Fiftli. Boston will secure an incalculal3le fortune 
 in the resources of the Charlestown Water Works, 
 supplied by the almost inexhaustible Mystic, with a 
 daily yield of more than 30,000,000 gallons of pure 
 water, which can be increased by a connection with 
 Horn Pond and the Lower Mystic. 
 
 The territory of Charlestown is capable of con- 
 taining a population of but 75,000 persons, which 
 under ordinary regulations, Avill require 5,000,000 
 gallons per day, — her present population requires 
 less than one half that quantity. To-day, Boston 
 is dependent upon, and purchases water from 
 this source for a portion of her citizens. The 
 present value of this boon, to be acquired by the 
 pacific vote of its possessors, Avill not fail to be real- 
 ized by the hundreds of manufacturers and the many 
 thousands employed by them, their very bread con- 
 tingent upon their employment, who have been noti- 
 fied by the Boston Water Board since this legisla- 
 ture convened, that unless Providence interposed 
 with rain before a certain specified day, the water, 
 without which their entire business must suddenly 
 stop, w^ould be cut oti\ The threatening warnings 
 and urgent appeals, rather commands, issuing from 
 the office of the mayor, at the same time excited 
 universal apprehensions of what might follow next. 
 
 It may be answered that Boston might buy of her 
 neighbor in case of a water famine; but there is no 
 
16 
 
 power to compel her to sell, and thoug'h motives of 
 friendship or desire of gain, might send her water 
 through Boston pipes, none but the criminally 
 improvident would neglect a fair, honorable opportu- 
 nity to obtain an ownership in this great property 
 rather than to let extremities dictate the terms of a 
 temporary lease. "What may be the wants of Boston 
 the thoughtful may conceive when they remember 
 that in 1860 a committee reporting a bill to authorize 
 what is now asked, mentioned among the benefits 
 Boston could ofier Charlestown her "waste water," 
 and then reflect upon the portentous fact, that in 
 the short space of ten years Boston has come to 
 within a few days of the end of the unrestricted al- 
 lowance of water to her inhabitants. 
 
 In response to the inquiry by counsel for our water 
 board, I will say to the committee, that its president 
 is a petitioner an 1 expected to be a witness. 
 
 Sixth. It will give her access to the remain;ler of 
 Suftblk county, which is now divided by the 520 acres 
 of Charlestown. 
 
 While this may not be of vital consequence, it is 
 verv far from an indifferent advantas^e. The com- 
 niunication of one portion of the county with the 
 other should not be at the " mercy of the waves." 
 Surely, a tolerable symmetry is to be sought for the 
 first county of the commonwealth. 
 
 I will let my "sixth" be my last. 
 
 I have not endeavored to present all the main 
 advantages of annexation to Boston; indeed, the 
 task would be exhaustless and exhausting. I have 
 
17 
 
 but indicated a few, in the train of which follow many, 
 more or less prominent as viewed from the stand- 
 point of different persons. 
 
 Permit me now to advert to Charlestown. 
 
 IsTot seldom does it happen, when the settlement of 
 boundaries is considered, that a by no means trivial 
 element in the matter is sentiment, an element strong 
 and deep in its manifestations, and most worthy of 
 respect. I still hear the lamentations of the citizens 
 of " good old Dorchester " (" good old " are the reg- 
 ular technical words for this class of cases), when 
 the legislature, in wisdom amply proved, carved out 
 a portion of that revered place for the people of Hyde 
 Park ; and the wailings of " good old JSTorfolk," when 
 Dorchester was subsequently empowered to link her 
 fate with Boston. 'No such element is to be con- 
 sulted now. From a place of reasonable extent, the 
 " good old Charlestown " of a former day has been 
 gradually hewn into sections, and all but a fragment 
 of five hundred and twenty acres distributed among 
 the people of Cambridge, West Cambridge, Stone- 
 ham, Woburn and Somerville. 
 
 Opposing counsel have appeared to expect me to 
 assail the government and institutions of the com- 
 munity, which I, as a Boston man, would consolidate 
 with our own; and they have forestalled me by a 
 defence of their schools, police and fire departments, 
 streets, sidewalks, gutters and drains. They might 
 have spared themselves this exertion. 
 
 Boston schools and Charlestown schools are alike 
 
 3 
 
18 
 
 Massachusetts schools, and this is not the occasion 
 to criticise any of them — the committee would be 
 restive under it. The police of Charlestown is the 
 police of an orderly law-abiding people, and the fire 
 department may be assumed to be efficient. I have 
 tried to lift this subject of your deliberations far 
 above sidewalks and drains. Let them remain where 
 they are. I will acknowledge Charlestown to be a 
 monument of wonder and success, taking account of 
 her unfortunate position. 
 
 Charlestown will gain by annexation : 
 First. An immediate and substantial enhance- 
 ment of the value of her real estate. 
 
 If this proposition had not been proved in pre- 
 cisely similar cases, in the face and eyes of every one 
 of us, it might require the attendance of some argu- 
 ment, most easy to be made ; but I shall not, under 
 the circumstances, heap u]) reasons in its support. 
 When the territory of a little city becomes a part of 
 and shares the prominence of a large one, when it is 
 guaranteed the magnified development and fortunes 
 of a great capital, its value is the value of the territory 
 of a great, busy, attractive, growing metropolis, in- 
 stead of that of a small, over-shadowed municipality. 
 If one seeks a residence in Boston, he cannot be di- 
 verted to Charlestown by the ofi'er of a better house 
 for less money, and in a location more healthful, 
 pleasant, and nearer the business and attractions of 
 Boston, and simply because he is determined to be in 
 name as well as in fact Bostonian, and persuasion 
 cannot shake him. 
 
19 
 
 A witness very familiar with the matter, one who 
 steadfastly held the part of a leader in the annexation 
 movement which finally established the permanent 
 importance and prosperity of Roxbury, informs you 
 that the act of annexation has doubled and quadru- 
 pled the market value of her territory ; that it has 
 made the conservative land owners who resisted it 
 rich, and given the politicians who dreaded annihila- 
 tion better offices with greater pay. Dorchester fur- 
 nishes a like example. Her lands are in demand at 
 high prices, and her public men have downy nests. 
 
 I need go no further; indeed, it is claimed by my 
 opponents that this inevitable result is the motive of 
 the petitioners, who are said to be men of property; 
 but that such a consequence will not help the man of 
 moderate means, who hves in his own house, nor the 
 poor man who has no house. 
 
 Mr. Chairman, I have yet to learn of the first com- 
 plaint from a man of moderate means, that his estate 
 by singular fortune has been suddenly doubled in 
 value ; that his resources, in vigorous manhood or old 
 ao-e, in health or in infirmity, have been enlarged; 
 that he has become the owner of ten thousand dollars' 
 worth of property instead of five, or of twenty 
 thousand dollars' worth instead of ten. The commit- 
 tee will not attend with patience an argument to 
 sustain the theory, that, all things considered, a 
 man is a trifle better oft* in this world, at this period 
 of its existence, with ten thousand dollars than with 
 five thousand. As to the poor man, who has failed 
 through improvidence or mishap to accumulate any 
 
20 
 
 property, it might be said, that the welfare and hap- 
 piness of his well-to-do friends is not to be sacrificed 
 to his misfortune; but this is unnecessary. The 
 truth is that any advanced value of land compels its 
 improvement, multiplies the demands for labor, and 
 leads to the erection of cheap, agreeable, wholesome 
 houses for the laborer. The prosperity of one is the 
 prosperity and hoj^e of all. 
 
 Second. Annexation will change the scale of public 
 improvements from that suitable for a somewhat ob- 
 scure city, — obscure from its peculiar situation, being 
 overtopped by Boston, — to that befitting a great city. 
 Future developments will bear the impress of a dif- 
 ferent hand. ISTew avenues and new public buildings 
 will testify to the new magnitude of the locality. 
 The streets of Charlestown and Somerville will be 
 properly connected and characterized by a broad sys- 
 tem, not likely to be adopted now, nor hardly feasible. 
 It has been testified that Roxbury had very good 
 streets before annexation ; but they begun nowhere, 
 and ended nowhere. IN'ow they are of liberal pro- 
 portions, and planned with better system. 
 
 Third. It will put at rest the long and sharply 
 contested question of the support of the bridges, 
 and very soon win for the citizens of Charlestown, 
 what the legislature cannot ordain, the substitution 
 of a solid structure, of appropriate size and archi- 
 tectural beauty, for the rude, unsightly, unstable, 
 rotting, cramped, always choked, dirty, disgi-aceful 
 bridges, which are utterly inadequate for their accom- 
 modation. 
 
21 
 
 The petition of John Skinner and Isaac "Warren 
 and others, for permission to bnild a bridge over 
 Charles river — to be free when paid for — was 
 nrged npon the legislature nearly fifty years ago, 
 with the statement "that the petitioners desired to 
 increase the facilities of communication between 
 Boston and Charlestown, and eventually to make 
 them one municipality." 
 
 Boston will not for many years to come be in- 
 clined to join in the construction of a new Charles- 
 town bridge of proper materials and dimensions, and 
 Charlestown singly cannot a fiord to engage in such 
 a costly enterprise, however much her citizens may 
 suifer for want of it, and as to the matter of their se- 
 rious inconvenience there is no division of testimony. 
 This union alone will reconcile conflicting inter- 
 ests, and lead to such action as will comport with the 
 united requirements and be commensurate to the dig- 
 nity and circumstances of a great, harmonious popu- 
 lation. 
 
 Fourtli. The citizens of Charlestown, doing busi- 
 ness in Boston, as most of them do, will enjoy an 
 equalization in taxation. 
 
 IS'ow the Charlestown-Boston merchants are com- 
 pelled to pay large taxes to the support of the 
 schools and other institutions and departments of the 
 Government of Boston, in the management of which 
 they have no voice, and in the benefits of wdiich they 
 have either none or a very unequal share. The be- 
 ginning and end of their part of the matter is the 
 enforced payment to officials of others' appointment 
 
22 
 
 of so much money, in the distribution of which they 
 have no volition. At home they must again con- 
 tribute to the charges of other schools and other in- 
 stitutions and departments of another government — 
 a government of a territory smaller than many gen- 
 tlemen's private estates. 
 
 Fifth. Annexation will lift the public credit to 
 the standard of Boston's credit. 
 
 As a mere money-making transaction, it will be 
 perceived that this gain in dollars and cents will be 
 very great, sufficient to pay for many extensive public 
 improvements, or if the diffei-ence were funded, to 
 pay Charlestown's debt. Boston has a high credit 
 in the financial markets of the world, where her 
 standing is known, and her untarnished name duly 
 estimated. The bonds of Charlestown, whose fame 
 is fair, and whose pecuniary ability should be un- 
 questionable, find only a domestic market, at a con- 
 siderable discount, and at higher rates of interest 
 than Boston bonds bear which sell at a premium. 
 
 A knowledge of simple arithmetic will suffice for 
 the calculation of the additional value annexation will 
 impart to a public dollar. 
 
 Sixth. It will work a just release from dispro- 
 portionate county burdens. 
 
 Charlestown should unhesitatingly and cheerfully 
 respond to every equitable demand of the county. 
 She should promptly open her treasury to the pay- 
 ment of the last dollar and the last cent of her 
 due proportion of the county expenses. She 
 should, as a large community, submit even to liberal 
 
23 
 
 calculations against her; but she should not, upon 
 any theory of government, or any code of county 
 commissioners, or principles of taxation, be treated 
 as a source of profit to the county. This is wrong, 
 it is illegitimate, it is a grievance. She is con- 
 fessedly used as such a source of profit. It is not 
 denied that she pays Middlesex county annually 
 much more than she costs her. It is patent, from 
 the statements submitted, that her severance from 
 the county will be an honest relief tQ her of many 
 thousands of dollars every year. 
 
 Seventh. The new importance of Charlestown as 
 a part of Boston, quickened by the impulses of a vig- 
 orous healthful commercial centre, will save to her a 
 large number of those who are continually turned 
 into the strong current that bears away many of the 
 best of her citizens to wider fields for the investment 
 of their capital, whether money, brains or hard hands. 
 
 She has found disappointment in the last census 
 returns. Witnesses tell you that she is becoming 
 noted as a place to leave; that men take her ofl&cial 
 posts for a time and then migrate. The distinguished 
 counsel for the county commissioners, has narrated 
 with melting pathos what she has done for him ; he 
 has made touching acknowledgments of what he 
 owes her; he has told you with unaffected modesty, 
 that she has honored him with the ci'owning rank of 
 mayor. He, too, her favored one, has joined the 
 departing throng, and is here now, a citizen of New- 
 ton, the advocate of county authorities, resisting the 
 petitioners' appeal, that the city which had the good 
 
24 
 
 sense to set him in her foremost place, may be allowed 
 to exercise the same sense in the disposition of a mat- 
 ter affecting them vitally. Every able-bodied man 
 who abandons one place for another is in himself a 
 positive loss to the place he leaves, and a positive gain 
 to the place in which he settles. What he takes with 
 him is an additional loss. 
 
 The sons of Massachusetts have gone to all parts 
 of the country, they have been the pioneers in the 
 manufacture c^ territories into States and in planting 
 the villages which have swelled into thriving towns, 
 and towns which have grown into strong cities. In 
 this work they have done well; but now that the 
 power of the West is year by year more marked, now 
 that her capitals are eclipsing our own, a good policy 
 for the commonwealth requires the retention within 
 her own borders of her own population and the invi- 
 tation of those who seek new homes to come here. 
 This policy is now the true policy of all our munici- 
 palities. 
 
 Eighth. Charlestown will gain an ownership in 
 the public libi'ary of Boston, a library which has few 
 equals. 
 
 The worth of such a proprietorship cannot be 
 reckoned. The opportunity to freely use such a 
 fountain of knowledge, of instruction and entertain- 
 ment, is no mean privilege; but one that nuist exalt 
 itself in the minds of her people, who have in their 
 midst an annual circulation of 57,000 volumes from 
 their library of about 30,000. 
 
 But I must pause somewhere in my specilicalion of 
 
distinct adv^aiitages to be reaped by annexation. As 
 the vision gradually opens upon the subject, the mind 
 is filled with the outlines of its new aspects; and we 
 try to imagine the face Charlestown would wear 
 today, if the will of her people, as declared at the 
 ballot box, sixteen years ago, had taken effect. 
 
 I had intended to enumerate somewhat in detail 
 the promises annexation offers to the thriving town 
 of Somerville. I shall, however, content myself with 
 a general statement that the various features the case 
 presents in respect to Charlestown are discernible in 
 its relations to Somerville. The value of her lands 
 will rise ; she will be saved the exjDense of an inde- 
 pendent city government, contemplated if annexation 
 fails to receive the warrant of the legislature j she 
 will be insured a development upon a scale designed 
 in anticipation of the events of the prosperous future 
 of a grand city; she will attract the immediate notice 
 of Boston capital, and, like Boston, will get an 
 ownership in the water works, which now supply her 
 by contract. 
 
 I will consume no time in undertaking to depre- 
 ciate the testimony of the witnesses for the remon- 
 strants, or to underrate them individually. They 
 are entitled to respect and their evidence should be 
 gravel}^ weighed. Some are office-holders, some are 
 merchants, who always register themselves as resi- 
 dents of Boston when away from home; one is a real 
 Charlestown man, living there, keeping a little store 
 there, and hoping to die there; and one is an ex- 
 
26 
 
 collector of customs, under a former administration, 
 who lives on a fancy farm in West Roxbury, and 
 thinks the general tendency of things is bad. Few 
 of them represented to any extent the very gross, 
 and according to my learned friend, the rather debas- 
 ing interests of property. They are fascinated with 
 the simple beauty of town governments, imbued with 
 their importance as schools for political education, 
 charmed by the complete machine of a government 
 working in the little space they inhabit. 
 
 All this is very reasonable, if political discipline is 
 the ohject of government, and not an incidental result 
 of government; and it must be regarded very care- 
 fully. 
 
 The more active petitioners are accused of paying 
 something more than a poll-tax, of having property 
 to be appreciated, of being the promoters of business 
 schemes, of being accessories to the filling of flats 
 and building of wharves, of being corporators trying 
 to enlarge their trade; in fact, they are charged with 
 not being '' the poor man"; and I fear there is a dis- 
 position to excite the laborers against their employ- 
 ers in this matter. 
 
 I must admit that these imputations are, in a 
 measure, just; but as an offset, I will solicit the 
 attention of the committee to a number of petitions, 
 each bearing the names of several hundred Charles- 
 town men, her worthy, honest, industrious citizens 
 of small means, whose total property is less than 
 twenty thousand dollars. The ])ersistent peti- 
 tionei's are the same far-sighted men, who advo- 
 cated years ago the erection of the bridges, and 
 
27 
 
 recently the construction of the water-works, 
 and the remonstrants are the same men who op- 
 posed them. 
 
 In reply to the claim of my learned opponent, 
 that the petition of the city of Boston means 
 nothing because the city officials are not here to 
 press it, I desire to say, that I am in communication 
 with the committee of the city government on 
 legislative affairs, and it has been considered to be 
 fairer to Charlestown, as she is not represented, that 
 Boston should not appear to assume the aggressive, 
 but that her petition alone should indicate her inter- 
 est. That committee are ready to come here if de- 
 sired, and offer any information or aid. The order 
 for the city's petition was passed with the delibera- 
 tion of delays, and I trust it is not to be explained 
 away by the fluency of counsel. 
 
 Some of the witnesses have supported their objec- 
 tions to this measure by forebodings of bad govern- 
 ment. They are very prompt to accord to the pres- 
 ent government of Boston a merited commendation; 
 they say that no ill results have attended the policy 
 of annexation thus far; but their imaginations harbor 
 undefined fears. Those fears are fed upon no expe- 
 rience; on the contrary, experience in Philadelphia 
 and elsewhere, establishes the good effect of annexa- 
 tion upon municipal government; but they are the 
 ordinary natural fears of the unknown and untried. 
 Those who have been accustomed only to the very 
 pleasant family government of Charlestown, distrust 
 the project, which terminating it, seems to leave them 
 
28 
 
 in foreign hands. They forget for the time that 
 their mayor may still be their neighbor, that their 
 aldermen will still be their friends, their councilmen 
 chosen out of their own families, and their school 
 committee men the same persons they have trusted 
 heretofore. Will the participation of such men in a 
 government contaminate it? Will their officials 
 forget them? Are Roxbnry and Dorchester over- 
 looked? The former sends her own trusted mayor 
 to the city hall, and both have a full representation 
 in each branch of the council, and their rei^resenta- 
 tives have been able to secure for their constituencies 
 what could not have been accomplished under 
 separate governments. When my brother's search 
 for corruption has ended with newspaper comments 
 upon the questionable taste of the expenditure of 
 a paltry sum by the unpaid city council for the 
 customary badges and copies of Cushing's Parlia- 
 mentary Law, and when you are assured that such 
 is the determination of our citizens to have their 
 affairs conducted not only with strict integrity and 
 prudence, but with rigorous jDropriety, that a resolve 
 to check even this trifling expenditure was carried 
 into our last election, I think I am not called upon 
 to vindicate the capacity of Boston, either with or 
 without Charlestown and Somerville, for self-gov- 
 ernment. 
 
 I will occupy a little time in exposing the more 
 general objects of the policy, as applied to this case, 
 of combining the intelligence, the energies and the 
 resources, and giving scope for the growth and pro- 
 
29 
 
 gress of adjacent^ communities, stimulated by the 
 same motives, impelled towards the same purposes, 
 and enjoying the same prosperity, or suffering the 
 same depression. 
 
 Were your capital the only city in the world, 
 and were your commonwealth the only state in the 
 w^orld, we might tranquilly meet the smooth course 
 of destiny w^ithout being animated by eager 
 thoughts of preserving a name and power in the 
 midst of rival cities, and restless, struggling, 
 advancing sister states. But we cannot ignore the 
 size and rank of othei* places ; we cannot view with 
 indifference the provision of other capitals by the pol- 
 icy of annexation, for i-apid and wholesome increase 
 and augmented influence, while they are hotly con- 
 tending with us for the trade and commerce which 
 are our ver}^ life. There is now pending in the As- 
 sembly a bill for the addition of 46,000 acres, with a 
 population of 125,000, to the city of New York. 
 
 It is hoped that your capital may attain and hold 
 the place of one of the great centres of the world; 
 that b}^ making; her more imposing, giving her new 
 power of attraction and new capacities, she may exact 
 the tribute the world pays to such centres. 
 
 They are marked with stars upon the map ; they 
 are lights by which their countries are seen, and 
 their brightness or dimness discloses the condition of 
 the state, whose index they are. Who speaks of the 
 larger, though subordinate counties ? Their names 
 are never heard, even in adjoining states. Abroad 
 their existence is not dreamed of. Xowhere is the 
 
30 
 
 force of attraction more striking than in a commu- 
 nity where great numbers aggregate. The strength 
 of a grand chorus draws the multitude. Humanity 
 clusters. Individuals halt with the crowd. The 
 larger the population, the faster will it gather. Is 
 this fancy, to be put to flight by tests ? 
 
 I will quote a paragraph from the Philadelphia 
 ^N^orth American of August last, illustrative of the 
 opinion of a commercial rival, who has tried the widest 
 range of annexation. 
 
 " It seems not improbable that when Boston shall 
 have succeeded in annexing all her suburbs, and shall 
 stand forth in her true x>'t^oportions, there will be a 
 large emigration thither of floating population from 
 all parts of New England and the British Provinces. 
 At present, a considerable portion of this population 
 seeks IS'ew York and Philadelphia, and its peculiar 
 energy and capacity for business have been of 
 immense service to both places. . . . She will also 
 be the centre of a much increased European immi- 
 gration, which, from thence, will be gradually 
 diffused throughout the interior, and afiect the whole 
 character of the states there." 
 
 Make a seaboard city imposing, and she commands 
 the regard of every foreign or domestic shipj^er Avho 
 has a vessel to freight, of every merchant who wishes 
 to buy or sell, of every capitalist who has a dollar to 
 invest, and of every citizen and laborer who seeks a 
 market for his skill and his toil. 
 
 It is contemplated to give your capital a new rank 
 as a market, a new activity in great charities and 
 philanthropy. 
 
31 
 
 What bearing will all this have upon the state? 
 If an unfavorable one, then only extraordinary bold- 
 ness would enlist in behalf of the petitioners. 
 
 My learned friend has said, that " The State can 
 do without Boston better than Boston without the 
 State." The character of the idea surprises me — it 
 conceals a feeling that all our other cities and towns 
 are more naturally a part of Massachusetts than Bos- 
 ton; that the grand proportion of her loyal population 
 which has settled in her chosen capital are not of the 
 same consequence as the people of Middlesex, Frank- 
 hn, or Hampshire; that the representatives from Suffolk 
 are less Massachusetts representatives than are the 
 representatives of other counties. Let it be remarked 
 by the committee that the notion of a severance of 
 Boston from the commonwealth, under whose benefi- 
 cent protection and favor she has made herself a 
 worthy capital of such a commonwealth, is presented 
 by the counsel of the County Commissioners. The 
 mere supposition of such an occurrence would not be 
 hazarded by the petitioners. 
 
 Sir, — In no respect are the state and the capital 
 antagonistic; they are inseparable; they are not to 
 be imagined as distinct divisions; the one is within 
 and of the other. Boston is but a component part of 
 the state; her prominence and her importance belong 
 to the state ; her growth is the state's ; her wealth is 
 the state's, and if annexation yields advantages to 
 reinforced Boston, she accepts them as a member of 
 the state, and not independently. 
 
32 
 
 I have told you openly, that beyond the special 
 jDrofits these three communities mutually look for, we 
 covet, through a new rank, an additional weight in 
 the balances of commerce. 
 
 Sir, — When we have in mind the fact that the 
 industry of the commonwealth is almost exclusively 
 directed to trade and manufactures, and remember 
 that her climate is harsh, her territory uneven, and 
 her soil stubborn, we cannot repel the conclusion that 
 the more important her chief port, the better it shall 
 be estimated as a market, the better off will be all 
 within the State. Every foreign merchant who trades 
 here, every capitalist who is induced to invest here, 
 every man who emigrates here and becomes a citizen, 
 contributes to lighten the taxes of Berkshire. The 
 great marts of traffic draw taxes from every civilized 
 nation of the earth. Boston now pays a third of the 
 state tax; she may just as well pay a half in a few 
 years. In this, if in nothing else, it will be felt that 
 her wealth is the wealth of the state. 
 
 The bare hint of a variance between the interests 
 of the state and Boston must be withdrawn from the 
 light of truth. If there is any one spot more com- 
 mon to all the inhabitants of the state than any other, 
 that spot is her capital. Here, her trusted officials 
 and the representatives of every district are found 
 assembled for the public good; here, the business 
 men of every county meet as on tlieir own ground; 
 here, the wharves receive the raw material con- 
 signed to your factories, and the warehouses receive 
 your i)roducts. The commission merchant is the 
 
33 
 
 agent of the manufacturer, and to conceive of their 
 hostility is unnatural. Boston's stores and counting 
 rooms are auxiliary to the shoe shops, the cotton 
 mills, the woollen mills, the paper mills, the shovel 
 works, the iron works, the manufactories generally 
 of the country. In Pearl street is registered the 
 transactions of the shoe shops of Lynn; in Franklin 
 street the operations of the mills of Lowell; in State 
 street the condition of the banks. Under Faneuil 
 Hall is learned the results of our farming, and a lit- 
 tle beyond, the fares of our fishermen. 
 
 One witness has made the point that Boston as a 
 city should be limited to the size of Massachusetts as 
 a state. When you can gauge other states by ours, 
 then will be the occasion to entertain such a sug- 
 gestion. 
 
 It is the aspiration of every municipality to make 
 steady headway, and their constant exertions will 
 alone preserve for the voice of Massachusetts its 
 authority in the councils of the nation, and keep her 
 in the vangnard of states. 
 
 It has been objected that the political power of 
 Boston may be unduly strengthened. Political power 
 in the legislatnre is not the power of a town or a city. 
 It springs from the people, and divided as they are 
 into independent districts, it is a noticeable fact that 
 the representatives of the several districts comprised 
 in the large cities are almost invariably found on 
 
 opposite sides. 
 
 This fact is singularly conspicuous in the Boston 
 
34 
 
 districts. I have never witnessed the exercise of 
 Boston power in the legislature. 
 
 Annexation will in no manner touch legislation. 
 It no more affects the Charlestown and Somerville 
 than it does the "Worcester districts. The same peo- 
 ple, with the same politics, in the same districts, elect 
 the same men. Everything touching legislation and 
 politics is absolutely unchanged. 
 
 I desire once more to remind you, after having 
 patiently followed the range of my incomplete argu- 
 ment, that much as it may be desired, necessary as it 
 may be, you are not asked even to favor the propo- 
 sition of annexation. We only appeal to you, and 
 this we do most ardently, that three intelligent com- 
 munities, exceptionally small in extent, may be sanc- 
 tioned in the disposition of their own fate by the 
 formal expression of their will. 
 
i-ADKHKY OF CONGRESS 
 
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LIBRARY OF CONGRESS 
 
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