Charles F. Hurley, Governor

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Charles_F._Hurley

Charles Francis Hurley (November 24, 1893 – March 24, 1946) was the 54th Governor of the U.S. state of Massachusetts and one of its first Irish American governors.

Biography

Hurley was born and raised in Cambridge, Massachusetts. He attended public schools and graduated from Boston College before serving in the Navy during the First World War. He was the first person to serve three terms as Massachusetts' Treasurer and the first to step from that role directly to the governorship.

1937-1939

Governor Charles Hurley's administration was a brief departure from the increasing ethnic conflict between Yankee and Irish American in political machines, party control, and business influence which had marked the state's early 20th century history.

As a result of immigration in the late 19th and early 20th century, the predominant power of the native American classes had first eroded in Boston and then the state with brief checks and restoration of Yankee power in the interim. While Irish immigration had been reduced to a trickle with the Immigration Act of 1924 further immigration was negligible and the state turned to a process of assimilation and competition between the two groups for remaining power.

Charles Hurley represented the more legitimate side to Irish American politics and he attempted to prove the Americanization of his ethnic community by turning away from ethnic spoils which had marked his previous predecessors. Included amongst his program of cleaning up the civil service were the regulation of labor practices and emphasis on individual rights.

During Governor Hurley's administration the Fair Trades Laws were passed which regulated the use of private police in strikes, imposed a minimum wage for women and children, and further regulated industrial work. While these practices endeared him to both ethnic groups, his administration also marked a departure from past practices with its increasing liberalism. Although both Yankee and Irish American voters had favored it, he vetoed a law to require teachers to take loyalty oaths. Additionally he raised the ire of Georgia's Governor Eurith D. Rivers by refusing to extradite James Cunningham who had escaped from a Georgia chain gang thirteen years earlier. Hurley further upset Yankee and Irish interests which had a long tradition of local representative democracy when he also approved a fifth form of municipal government in Massachusetts, called Plan E. This allowed for an appointed city manager and a city council drawn from a proportional representation of the vote, rather than a collection of majority elected precinct candidates. Yankee interests in several cities, such as Boston, had cherished their old Charter government from both historical precedence and the ability of ward representatives in protecting their interests in the majority Irish American city. The later in turn had long used the form of government in defending their interests when they were a minority and saw its abolition as a direct threat to their way of conducting business.

Faced with a reinvigorated Yankee political machine and a loss of support amongst his own constituents, particularly the still powerful Irish mob, Hurley was denied reelection when former Governor James Michael Curley won the 1939 Democratic gubernatorial nomination.

He died on March 24, 1946.

Legacy

Today, the Charles F. Hurley Building in Boston's Government Center complex is named after him.