Burlington's First Progressive Era
Introduction
When Theodore Roosevelt visited
Burlington in September 1902 he brought some kind words for Vermonters. He
had been to the Queen City a year earlier, on the very day he found out that President
McKinley had been shot by what the papers were calling a “crazed anarchist.”
But now the “wild man,” the “damned cowboy” hated by Wall Street, Vice
President under McKinley for less than a year, had returned as President.
Burlington Mayor Donley C. Hawley
stood with Roosevelt at the train barn near the waterfront, surrounded by flags
and bunting. “You have always kept true to
the old America ideals," the President told the Vermonters, "the ideals of individual initiative, of self-help, of
rugged independence, of the desire to work and willingness, if need, to fight.”
Still, Republicans like Hawley were
suspicious. Roosevelt’s rhetoric about a “square deal” for working people and
control of big business sounded radical. But Democrats like James E. Burke were unabashed
admirers. Burke was already the leading spokesman for the city’s growing
Democratic Party. He was also promoting a fusion movement with dissident
Republicans. Like Roosevelt, he projected himself as a pragmatic reformer,
thriving on idealism, moral outrage and an ability to inspire the masses.
Born in Williston on May 4, 1849, from a family that admired the British populist Edmund Burke, he had emerged as
the leader of a new Irish, Democratic opposition in the city. Son of Irish
Catholic immigrants from Canada, he‘d begun his political career at almost 50
years old, identifying himself as a champion of the poor, labor, and ethnic
newcomers. He was also known and well-liked as a blacksmith.
To many local Yankee “puritans” James Burke was something else entirely: a dangerous “papist,” implying that his main
allegiance was to the Catholic Church. But he found more than enough support at
the foot of University Hill – in low-income neighborhoods, tenements near the
railroad tracks and along the waterfront. These were the city’s ethnic
neighborhoods at the time, populated not only by the Irish but also Germans,
Italians, Jews, and French Canadians. In 18 citywide races between 1903 and
1937, Burke lost only twice in these “immigrant” wards. They were also the base
for his five-year foray into “third party” politics during the 1930s Depression
– the Citizens Party.
Burke’s first victory came in
1893, when he was elected to the Board of Aldermen from Ward 4, then the city’s
waterfront area. Two years later he was appointed to the Board of Police
Examiners. But he couldn’t recapture his aldermanic seat in 1899, and his first
two runs for mayor, in 1900 and 1902, were unsuccessful.
Power Struggles
On March 3, 1903, the hotly
contested mayoral race between Burke and incumbent Republican Donley Hawley
drew an overflow crowd to the city clerk’s office. The men – only males could
vote – perched on windowsills and stood on the rail that surrounded the
aldermanic table. As the results for each ward were announced the winning side cheered.
Hawley, a surgeon, came out of
top in affluent areas, but Burke’s persistence was finally paying off in the
immigrant wards. Plus, he had two compelling issues this time around: a
proposed city-owned light plant and local licensing of saloons.
When the final votes were
tallied, Hawley had a three-vote margin. But the reason was that City Clerk
Charles Allen refused to count ballots that had been marked twice. Burke was
livid. “Those who laugh last laugh best,” he proclaimed. “There are many men who
voted today for me and whose ballots were thrown out. We propose to have them
counted.”
Good to his word, Burke took the
matter to the Vermont Supreme Court and won, gaining certification of an
11-vote victory by early summer.
It took more time, but he also
got the light plant. Two years later, during his third term, Burke’s daughter
Loretta pressed a button at the bandstand in City Hall Park energizing two
circuits of streetlights with power from the newly built plant.
Municipal power had enormous
appeal. In December 1902 the Vermont legislature had authorized the city to
furnish electricity, purchase needed land – by eminent domain if necessary, and
issue bonds for the work. However, it also approved the incorporation of a
privately-owned company, Burlington Light and Power, which would subsequently
compete with – and sue – the city over the management of energy distribution.
Burlington Light and Power was
founded by B.B. Smalley and Urban Woodbury. In 1892, Smalley, a wealthy
Democrat, had run for governor. But his main focus was business, as a corporate
lawyer, banker, and president of the Burlington Gas Light Company. Woodbury was
his closest business associate, president of the Consolidated Electric Company,
a founding board member of Smalley’s Burlington Gas Light, and a war hero who
had been mayor and lieutenant governor. In fact, two years after Smalley ran
for governor in 1892 and lost Woodbury ran as a Republican and won.
Only a week after Burke was
declared Mayor by the state Supreme Court he asked the alderman to approve
bonds for a light plant. Two days later, on June 11, he staged a special
city-wide meeting to vote on a proposed $150,000 investment. Woodbury spoke
against the plan, along with Elias Lyman, owner of the area’s big coal company
and Burlington Traction Company, the local mass transit monopoly. Both men were
hissed by members of the audience as they spoke.
Local voters clearly favored
public power, and within ten years the city was generating over one million
kilowatt hours with a turbine generator. Despite widespread support, however,
the owners of the competing private power company did not cave in. Instead,
when the city was on the verge of expanding its department in 1910, Burlington
Light and Power made a competing bid to supply energy for street lights, public
buildings and parks. When it was turned down the private utility company filed
an injunction to prevent the city from issuing new bonds.
The lawsuit was dropped after two
years, since it wasn’t possible to prove that commercial lighting supplied by
the city would increase public debt. But Burlington Light and Power did
eventually win a battle in court, using a 1904 agreement with the city as the
basis for its argument.
To avoid duplication as demand
for electricity increased, the city had made a deal to share utility pole space
with the company. Since the city used Light and Power poles, it was supposed to
pay a 20 cent per year fee for each wire attached. But the city stopped paying
in 1909, claiming that it had a right to use the tops of all poles without
charge. Light and Power cried foul, especially since the city was their chief
competitor. The Court agreed. No matter what the City Charter said, the light
department had to pay up.
That defeat didn’t change the
direction in which the city was moving, however. When Green Mountain Power
offered $1 million to lease the department for 20 years the city declined.
During those years public power brought Burlington more than $2 million in
profit. In 1953, the department became a city monopoly when it bought Green
Mountain Power’s franchise.
CHAPTERS
Next: Attempted Fusion – The
Burke-Clement Alliance
