The City That Was

by Stephen Smith

The report of this committee created a profound sensation and gave the first impetus to a reform movement. A number of prominent physicians and influential citizens became deeply interested in the subject and determined to secure proper Reform Movement
Born legislation. Health bills were annually prepared and sent to the Legislature only to be rejected under the direction of the City Inspector, whose $1,000,000 was expended freely in the lobby at Albany. But the agitation increased in force with successive defeats, a large and still larger number of people were added to the ranks of the reformers of the Citizens’ Association in 1864, with Peter Cooper as President and upwards of a hundred of the leading citizens as members.

The moving spirit in organizing and managing this powerful body was Mr. Nathaniel Sands, an ardent and enthusiastic sanitarian. Two departments were created in the Association, through which the principal work was to be done; viz., a Council of Law and a Council of Hygiene. Mr. Eaton was an active member of the former, and I was for a considerable time Secretary of the latter. Thus we were brought into frequent consultation over a public health law, which the Association had determined to have prepared for the next Legislature.

It was decided that the Council of Hygiene should make a first draft of the bill in which should be incorporated the necessary sanitary provisions. This draft was then to be submitted to the Legal Council for completion in legislative form. As secretary of the Council of Hygiene I had to prepare the first draft of the bill, which was done along the lines of former bills and seemed to the members to be a very perfect piece of work. When, however, the bill came from the Legal Council, scarcely a shred of the original draft was recognizable.

Though the Legal Council was composed of the leading lawyers of the city at that time, the revision and completion of the health law was committed to Mr. Eaton, a junior member. This selection proved to be of immense importance to the immediate sanitary The Right
Man interests of this city, and secondarily to the creation and administration of the health laws of the United States. The field of sanitary legislation was entirely uncultivated in this country at that time, and the principles on which health laws should be based were unrecognized, except by the more advanced students.

Mr. Eaton fortunately proved to be one of the few citizens who had kept pace with the progress of sanitary reforms in England, and entered fully into the spirit of the great movement that for a quarter of a century had agitated the people of that country. Alarmed by the high death-rate annually reported by the Registrar-General, and informed that the larger part was due to preventable diseases, the public demanded adequate remedial measures of the government. The contest was long and most exciting, the issues often being carried into the arena of politics. The Prime Minister once declared that there was such a craze about sanitation that the rallying cry of an election campaign might well be “Sanitas sanitatum, et omnia sanitas.”

The triumph of the reformers was finally complete, and England adopted a code of health laws that are models of excellence, and which, in their enforcement, have made its cities and towns the healthiest in the world.

When our health bill came from the hands of Mr. Eaton it was evident in every line that he had made an exhaustive study of the English health code and had become thoroughly imbued with its spirit. The language was not altogether familiar, and in the involved sentences there were intimations of extraordinary powers quite unknown to our jurisprudence. When he brought the completed bill before the Legal and Medical councils for adoption it was subjected to a most searching criticism. While most of its sections were clear and readily understood, there were portions which were so obscure, owing to the methods of expression employed, that the legal members were in doubt as to the proper construction to be put upon them, while the medical members were altogether at a loss as to their meaning.

Mr. Eaton explained the theory of modern health legislation as illustrated by the English laws, and contended that a thoroughly organized and efficient board of health must have extraordinary powers, and must not be A Board With
Extraordinary Powers subordinated to any other branch of the civil service, not even to the courts. What it declared to be a nuisance—dangerous to life and detrimental to health—no one should call in question. When it ordered a nuisance to be abated within a given fixed time no mandate should avail to stay its action or the enforcement of its decree.

A board of health, in his opinion, should make its own laws, execute its own laws, and sit in judgment on its own acts. It must be an imperium in imperio. England, the foremost country in the world in the cultivation of sanitary science and in the application of its principles to practice, had by its legislation for a quarter of a century established a precedent which it was right and safe for us to follow.

He predicted that if this bill became a law its operations would be so beneficial that it would not only become very popular in this city, but that it would be the basis of future health legislation in this country. He believed, however, that no legislature would pass a bill containing such powers if these powers were made a prominent feature of the bill. For that reason he had adopted that involved expression peculiar to English law which required a judicial interpretation to determine the precise meaning. The bill was approved in the form presented by Mr. Eaton, and preparation was made to secure its passage.