RichardHowe.com – Voices from Lowell & Beyond

New at the White House

New at the White House – (PIP #46)

By Louise Peloquin

     L’Etoile covered the elections so extensively that we were hard put to choose among all of the century-old articles. Here are a couple of items from a weekly column called Au fil de la plume, literally translated on the thread of the pen, featuring bantering quips on current news. These are followed by short pieces on successful locals.

L’Etoile, October 30, 1924

     Judge Gary, president of United States Steel, declares that the country’s future prosperity will largely depend on the result of next Tuesday’s elections. Here’s an extraordinary thing – all of the rival candidates are of the same opinion.

     Alas, in the face of so many contradictory arguments, what must the poor voter think all of the parties are soliciting? These profound words from Louis XIV are truer today than ever: “It is necessary to have the strength to hold the scale straight among so many people making every effort to tip the balance in their favor.”

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L’Etoile, July 15, 1924

A Franco-American at the White House

     Major J.J. Coupal was named President Coolidge’s special doctor 

     Lawrence, Mass., 15. – The news of Major James F. Coupal’s nomination as President Coolige’s special doctor was received in Lawrence with joy by the young and brilliant physician’s many friends and particularly by Mr. and Mrs. Girard of Warwick Street. Dr. Coupal is the first cousin of Mr. and Mrs. Girard, née Rosalind Coupal. Major Coupal will replace Dr. Sawyer who had been President Harding’s doctor and has resigned.

     Major James Coupal was born in Wollaston and studied at Tufts University. His parents live in Wakefield Junction. The Major was in active service in the 26th Division during the war. Upon his return, he was named curator of the Army Medical Museum in Washington. He held a distinguished place in the medical circles of the Capital. He has written many greatly-appreciated works on medicine.

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L’Etoile, September 10. 1924

Lowellian admitted to the New York bar

     William L. Abrams, son of Mr. and Mrs. Samuel Abrams, 377 Westford Street, learned Saturday night that he had succeeded in the New York State bar examinations. Mr. Abrams practices law in New York City at the well-known Henry Wendt firm. 

     Mr. Abrams is a graduate of Lowell High School, class of 1919, and received the Carney Medal that year. In 1921, he obtained his Bachelor of Arts from Harvard University as a student in the class of 1922. Finally, on June 4, he obtained his Bachelor’s in Law from Columbia University. He received his degrees with honours in both universities. (1)

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1) Translations by Louise Peloquin.

Fiction to escape doom-scrolling election coverage by Marjorie Arons Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

The Hunter by Tana French is a murder mystery set in the hardworking village of Ardnakelty  in Ireland during an abnormally dry, searingly hot summer, oppressive to humans and animals alike. Nerves are on edge. The only relief for the farmers and shopkeepers is gathering for a pint or more at the local pub, to air grievances, spread gossip and, in French’s well narrated tale, fall prey to a con man from London who claims family roots in the village and has a get-rich-quick scheme to defraud them.

The principal characters are Trey (Theresa) a 15-year-old wild child of a single mother and a good-for-nothing father who had abandoned the family several years before. Her older brother, Brendan, is also gone, rumored to have been murdered, possibly by locals. Trey has learned carpentry from an American transplant, a divorced and retired cop name Cal, who takes a paternal interest in her, hoping to protect her from her drive to avenge Brendan’s death.  Trey’s biological father, Johnny, shows up unexpectedly and unwanted. He is in debt to the con man and involved in his scheme. Cal’s adult female friend, Lena, lives not far away, loves Cal and supports his caring for Trey. Lena is a gatherer of information and helps tie the threads of the story together.

The painted landscape of The Hunter infuses the story with color and sounds, almost making the setting a character in and of itself.  French’s people are complex, most of them a mix of good and bad, keeping the reader on edge about which aspects of their personalities are at play in any situation.  At times, the dialogue among the townspeople drags on too long, but French is a good storyteller. We don’t know the answer to this whodunnit until nearly the end.  The writing was good enough to persuade me to try out another of French’s several books.

I picked up The Searcher and found it was the prequel to The Hunter and really ought to be read before The Hunter. The Searcher takes place two years before the newer book and lays the groundwork for the story.  We meet Cal Hooper, the transplanted Chicago cop, when he is just settling into rural Ardnakelty. Cal’s relationship with Trey is revealed from its inception.  Trey’s ne’er-do-well father is off at locations unknown, but we quickly learn the depths of the family struggle he left behind. We become immersed in criminal behavior by good people in the absence of a credible law enforcement system. We empathize with the lengths to which people living on the edge must go to make their way in life.

How does one read the personalities of the characters in an insular town with its own standards of behavior?  How does one carve out a moral code to ground oneself while navigating a strange and complex environment? There are twists and turns, suspense, danger, injustice, character growth, touching bonds, all against the painterly language that places the readers into the Irish weather, lush fields ripe with animal life, rugged, dark mountain paths that hint of lurking peril and characters whose moral ambiguity leaves the reader ruminating long after the last page has been turned.

Lowell Politics: Nov 3, 2024

The great American novelist Upton Sinclair once said, “It is difficult to get a man to understand something when his salary depends on his not understanding it.” I thought of that Tuesday night while watching the Lowell City Council once again debate whether the method of selecting Lowell’s mayor should be changed from the way it’s been since the 1940s (a majority vote by city councilors on inauguration day) to a new “add on” election for city councilors on the city election ballot. Tuesday’s Lowell corollary of the Sinclair quote would go something like this: “It is difficult to get a city councilor to accept the outcome of the Voting Rights lawsuit against the city when his being elected mayor depends on his not understanding it.”

The matter arose Tuesday with a joint motion by Councilors Erik Gitschier and Corey Robinson to have the city solicitor draft an ordinance modeled on the Worcester system in which candidates for city council may simultaneously run for mayor in the same election. The Worcester system is limited to at large council candidates, but the Lowell proponents would prefer both at large and district candidates to be eligible for the mayoral ballot. The way it works in Worcester is that the top vote-getter in the mayor’s race who also wins a council seat becomes mayor. In the unlikely event that the person who gets the most votes for mayor does not also win their council race, then the winning council candidate with the next highest vote total in the mayor’s race becomes mayor.

As I pointed out in last week’s newsletter, the problem with a citywide election of the mayor of Lowell is that it would violate the US District Court judgement in the Voting Rights case that was brought against the city several years ago. The basis of that case was that the all-at-large method of electing councilors then in use in Lowell illegally diluted the impact of the votes of minority residents. Changing the method of electing Lowell’s mayor from the current majority vote of the new city council on inauguration day to a citywide at large election would be a reversion to the kind of winner-take-all, citywide election that was found to violate the Voting Rights Act. (And allowing district councilors to run for mayor does not cure the problem since the issue is about the voters not the candidates.)

During Tuesday’s debate, some comments were made that the mayor of Lowell is not a very important position, but if that’s the case, why do so many councilors lust after the job? In the last city election, when Councilor Gitschier made the jump from being a district councilor to being elected at large and also topped the ticket, my guess is that he fully expected to be elected mayor by his colleagues. Unfortunately for him, while he was waging an all-out campaign to win the at large seat, his council colleague, Dan Rourke, who was running unopposed for a district seat, was able to lock up the votes of a majority of his likely colleagues during the campaign since he didn’t have to worry about whether he was going to win his council race (since he was unopposed). Rourke succeeded in that effort and was able to announce commitments from a majority of the councilors-elect shortly after the election. Perhaps Gitschier would have a better chance of being elected mayor in a citywide vote than he would under the current system.

Although Councilor Vesna Nuon has not been the prime mover in trying to change the way that the mayor is chosen, he does seem open to it. Tuesday night he urged the city solicitor to contact the attorney for the plaintiffs in the Voting Rights lawsuit and ask how their clients feel about such a change. Three years ago, Councilor Nuon was likely another frustrated aspirant for mayor. In the 2021 at large race, the first under the new system, he topped the ticket (after having finished first in 2017 and a strong second in 2019). I think the expectation of Nuon’s supporters after his top finish in 2021 was that he would be the next mayor. But some of the district council races that year were hard fought, pitting incumbents against each other. That was the case in Pawtucketville where incumbents Rodney Elliott and Dan Rourke sought the single district council seat. I don’t recall if Vesna officially endorsed Elliott in that contest, but he did appear at some of Elliott’s events and spoke favorably of his colleague. However, on election day, the voters chose Rourke over Elliott, which not only deprived Vesna of Elliott’s vote for him to be mayor, but likely motivated Rourke to help frustrate Vesna’s mayoral quest as payback for supporting his opponent. On inauguration day, it was Sokhary Chau (with the support of Dan Rourke), not Vesna Nuon, who became the first Cambodian American mayor of Lowell.

What is it about being mayor of Lowell that makes that office the Holy Grail for anyone elected to the city council? Elected officials like to talk and they like to be in the spotlight – if they didn’t, they would not be running for office – and among all of the city councilors, the one chosen to be mayor gets to speak the most and receives the most attention. This is especially true for events outside the council chamber such as flag raisings and ribbon cuttings. The mayor always is at the podium speaking while the other councilors are relegated to waving to the crowd when the mayor introduces them. This may sound trivial, but the political culture in Lowell places very high value on these events so they take on outsized importance among the local political class. Additionally, when a dignitary comes to Lowell or a delegation from Lowell attends a conference or an event at a distant location, outsiders, lacking familiarity with the Plan E form of government, treat the mayor as THE MAYOR which generates mild envy among council colleagues.

Aside from all this pop psychology, the mayor of Lowell is potentially of great importance to the successful operation of city government. Just because of being chosen for the position, the mayor becomes a voting member of the school committee as well as the chair of that body. While that is important by itself, the mayor plays a more critical role as the primary link between the city side of government and the school side of government. Massachusetts law grants school committees and school districts a great deal of independence from the rest of municipal government, but if the school department and the rest of city government don’t work in concert, great problems will eventually arise. The mayor is the only person in Lowell in a position to synchronize the efforts of the two sides of government. It is a task that is underappreciated and undervalued, but it is perhaps the most important aspect of being mayor.

On Tuesday night, the Gitschier/Robinson motion was referred to the city council’s elections and rules subcommittee where it will join all the other motions on the “elected mayor” topic at a future subcommittee meeting.

If it’s not already apparent, I think we should leave the system as is. But if, at some point, circumstances allow us to change how our mayor is elected, I suggest going all the way and replacing Plan E with Plan B, which would make a mayor elected by the voters the chief executive of the city rather than a city manager elected by a majority of the city council.

Some members of the current council give much weight to the nonbinding referendum on the 2021 ballot that showed those voting in that election to have a preference for directly electing the city’s mayor. Perhaps they should give equal weight to another referendum presented to the voters 30 years ago. That 1993 ballot question asked, “Do you support a change in the city charter to provide for an elected mayor as chief executive instead of an appointed city manager?” To that question, 10,441 residents voted YES and just 6,730 voted NO. (It was a non-binding referendum, so nothing ever came of it.)

Why do I support a strong mayor? For more than two decades, successive city councils have made it clear that they prefer a politician to be city manager rather than someone with training and experience in municipal management. Since 2000, four of the five city managers elected by councilors all came from the state legislature. None had municipal management experience. (These were John Cox, Kevin Murphy, Eileen Donoghue, and Tom Golden; with Bernie Lynch being the one trained municipal manager.)

I have nothing against a politician being in charge and no complaints about Murphy, Donoghue or Golden. What I don’t like is taking successful, thoughtful politicians and, rather than giving them the power to set and execute a comprehensive agenda for the city as elected “strong” mayors, instead making them as city managers subservient to the whims of eleven city councilors who micromanage city affairs through countless motions and paralyze the city manager with daily barrages of texts, emails and phone calls that make it hard to get anything significant done.

If we’re going to continue making politicians the chief executive of Lowell, let’s allow the voters to make that selection and then hold that person accountable at the ballot box.

But as I said, due to the court judgment that controls our method of electing the city’s leaders, trying to make such a change now is premature, so our focus should be on making the current system work better. The best place to start is by getting more of our residents to participate in city elections. This coming Tuesday is the presidential election. When the votes from Lowell are counted, make note of how many residents have voted, and compare that to how few voted in the last city election. More on that next week . . .

Don’t wanna go back? Our clocks will by Marjorie Arons Barron

The entry below is being cross posted from Marjorie Arons Barron’s own blog.

Kamala Harris pledges, “We won’t go back.” Tonight, however, we all will. At 2 a.m. tomorrow morning we set the clocks back an hour. Sure, it means an extra hour of sleep, but, for many of us, this is a real downer. Except for sunshine states like Arizona and Hawaii, it will be black as midnight at 4:15 in the afternoon. We’ll still be at work, but the melatonin in our bodies will say we should be going to sleep. Even for those not clinically diagnosed with seasonal affective disorder, our moods will tumble downward.

The problem is more than psychological. Our metabolism slows down, we feel draggy, and we eat more carbs to comfort ourselves (some of us don’t need much encouragement). Doctors say that the change affects our hearts as well. Farmers say cows have difficulty producing milk while adjusting to the time change. I can’t speak with authority on that.

Did you ever consider that it doesn’t have to be this way? Let’s get Congress and a new President to stop the twice-a-year seasonal zig-zags. Health practitioners (including the American Medical Association) urge making standard time permanent to keep our clocks in sync with our biology. They cite studies showing that there are more heart attacks with the spring forward in March. By contrast, others say keeping daylight saving is energy efficient, though there are conflicting studies and the reduced use of electricity is minimal. Retailers long maintained that DST meant people in shops and restaurants later, increasing economic benefits, though online shopping has mitigated even those results. AAA documents an increase in car crashes with the early return to darkness. The organization has dubbed the week after clocks turn back “Drowsy Driving Prevention week.”

Some states have considered going it alone. Massachusetts lawmakers have even pondered going to eastern Canada’s Atlantic Time Zone, also in effect in South America. The Atlantic Zone concept might work if the whole Northeast were aligned. But, as I face midnight in the afternoon, I agree with Democratic Senator Ed Markey and Republican Senator Marco Rubio whose bipartisan Sunshine Protection Act would make daylight saving time the year-round standard. The Senate actually passed it in 2022, and they did it unanimously! The House of Representatives has sat on the bill.

In 1985, Markey started his crusade with different Republicans to lengthen daylight saving time. In 1985, he got DST extended three weeks. Again, in 2005, he got it moved from the first Sunday in April to the second Sunday in March and pushed back in the fall by moving its end date from the last Sunday in October to the first Sunday in November.

Despite my deeply held aversion to falling back every November and waiting till the first week in March to spring ahead, I’ve come to think that what matters now is to stop the lurching back and forth. Pick a time and stick with it year-round. We actually had a permanent standard for one year under Richard Nixon during the energy crisis of 1973. President Gerald Ford stopped it when the crisis subsided.

Bipartisan support for a uniform standard shouldn’t be harder to achieve than the infrastructure bill or the chips act. Meanwhile, I’ll be counting the days until DST starts on Sunday, March 9, 2025.