Graham v. Roberts

Citation200 Mass. 152,85 N.E. 1009
PartiesGRAHAM et al. v. ROBERTS.
Decision Date11 November 1908
CourtUnited States State Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts

200 Mass. 152
85 N.E. 1009

GRAHAM et al.
v.
ROBERTS.

Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, Essex.

Nov. 11, 1908.


Petitions for mandamus and certiorari by Paul H. Graham and others against William W. Roberts to test the constitutionality of St. 1908, p. 542, c. 574, amending the charter of the city of Haverhill. The case was reserved for the consideration of the full court. Petitions dismissed.


Essex [200 Mass. 153]S. Abbott and Daniel J. Linehan, for petitioners.

B. B. Jones, J. J. Winn, O. J. Carlton, and Fred'k H. Tilton, for respondent.


KNOWLTON, C. J.

The only question presented by the report of the single justice upon these petitions is whether St. 1908, p. 542, c. 574, which is an act to amend the charter of the city of Haverhill, is constitutional. The statute prescribes a very radical departure

[85 N.E. 1010]

from the methods of municipal government which hitherto have been practiced in Massachusetts and in most of the cities of the other states. It is at least very doubtful whether the practical working of this system, which appears in our legislation of this year for the first time, will be satisfactory to the people who have voted to adopt it; but the question before us is not whether the provisions of the statute are well adapted to conditions existing in the city of Haverhill and likely to give the people a beneficient and well ordered government, but whether they are within the constitutional power of the Legislature to enact.

The principal contention of the petitioners is that they are in conflict with article 9, pt. 1, of the Declaration of Rights of the Constitution of Massachusetts, which is as follows:

‘All elections ought to be free; and all the inhabitants of this commonwealth, having such qualifications as they shall [200 Mass. 154]establish by their frame of government, have an equal right to elect officers, and to be elected, for public employments.’

The petitioners seem to construe this article not only as applying generally to elections of municipal officers, but as meaning that the inhabitants of different cities in different parts of the commonwealth shall all have an equal right to elect the same number and kind of municipal officers, and to be elected to the same offices, as the inhabitants of any other city in the commonwealth. This is not the true construction of the article. While all inhabitants having the prescribed qualifications have absolutely equal rights in reference to the election of the officers of the state government, the Constitution recognizes the fact that a proper application of the principle of local self-government may call for the election of different officers and for their election in different ways, in different cities of the commonwealth.

Article 2 of the articles of amendment is in part as follows: ‘The General Court shall have full power and authority to erect and constitute municipal or city governments, in any corporate town or towns in this commonwealth, and to grant to the inhabitants thereof such powers, privileges, and immunities, not repugnant to the Constitution, as the General Court shall deem necessary or expedient for the regulation and government thereof, * * * provided, that no such government shall be erected or constituted in any town not containing twelve thousand inhabitants, nor unless it be with the consent, and on the application of a majority of the inhabitants of such town, present and voting thereon,’ etc.

This recognizes the right and duty of the General Court to determine what powers, privileges, and immunities should be granted to any city for the regulation and government of it, and secures to the inhabitants the right to give or withhold their consent to the establishment of the new municipal government. This makes it plain that different cities may be established with different kinds of government, different officers, and different modes of electing them. As was said in Larcom v. Olin, 160 Mass. 102, 35 N. E. 113, ‘the number of the population, the territorial situation, the pursuits and character of the people, their traditions and peculiar town institutions, as well as the probable future [200 Mass. 155]growth of the town, all may well be considered by the General Court, not only in deciding whether a city government should be established, but, if established, what the provisions of the charter should be.’ So in the Opinion of the Justices, 138 Mass. 601, 603, we find this language: ‘The...

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