Norwich bulletin., 1911-01-03

But the enactment of the charter amendments and the acceptance by the voters of Plan was only a part of the plan of the reformers. To make sure that Boston be thoroughly reformed il was necessary to have. their kind of a mayor. Accordingly the Committee of One Hundred, which had carried on the campaign for Plan 2. reorganized itself into a municipal league for the sole purpose of electing James J. Storrow, head of one of the two biggest financial houses in the city as mayor.
 MT, StorroW was placed in nom1na- tion under the nomination paper sys- tenn as the candidate to prevent the re- turn of John F. Fitzgerald to city hall But as the free for all plan had opened the doors, there were other candidates. Mayor Hubbard decided he would try out his two years record at city hall, and there was still another minor can- didate. The battle. however, was be- tween Storrow and Fitzgerald. More money was spent than in any three previous mayoralty campaigns, Fitz- gerald was assailed viciously and, the abuse reacting, he won by an over Wneln1ing vote.
 So the first move made to clean up city hall with a new charter failed dlsmally. But the reform faction still had hopes. They counted upon a re- publican civil service commission to
 
 prove his appointments, and their ex- pectations have been more than real ized Name after name was rejected by this board, who are not required un- der the charter to either give a hear ing or make known their reasons for rejection. What has added strength to the cries of the Home rule for Boston advocates was the fact that all three members of the commission reside out side the city.
 One of the blanks in the democratic state platform this fall concerned a return to home rule for Boston and the action of the civil service commission furnished the democrats with excellent capital to make this a live issue.
 That the city council of nine could and would be controlled by the mayor was predicted at the time of the char ter agitation and it has turned out to be fact By taking five of the coun- cil1nen into camp the mayor isn't both cred by what the other four think of him. or what they way do. Already a movement is on foot to get back to a happy medium and have council with ward representation. The claim of the reformers was that being elected at large the members of the council should represent no particular section of the city. But from practical standpoint this has not worked well,
  urally do more for his own district than for one he has no affiliations with even though he represents all sections alike.
 What has been termed the most ab surd provision of the charter was that providing for recall of the mayor al the end of two years but requiring a majority of the registered voters to ac- complish 1t. Boston has something over 112,000 voters. Of this close tC 10000 never go to the polls. This leaves about 90,000 as the actual vot- ing strength of the city It might be possible to get 45,001 votes to recall . mayor who has shown either gross dis honesty or incompetency. But a ma : jority of those voting, the invariable standard of majority rule, is disregard ed and you must have 56000 to bring to terms a mayor who might perhaps be reposing in Charles jail. Boston: recall is d physical impossibility. but like some other portions of the charter it was framed with the idea of a re- former in the chair. It was argued that to fix the percentage too low would only encourage the willy poli- ticians to work uo a sentiment against any kind Of a mayor and recall hin wholly for political reasons, and this was certainly avoided