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MAYOR OF BUFFALO
READERS of American monthlies
may have noticed in a recent number of “Muusey,” an article entitled “The
Scot in America.” Amongst those Scotsmen who have made their mark on
American life there is included the name of Mr James Noble Adam, Mayor of
Buffalo. “The World’s Work” and “The Arena,” a magazine devoted to social
and civic advance, have also had articles calling attention to his municipal
work. As Mr Adam is a Border man, a short notice of his career in the Border
Magazine may not be considered inappropriate.
Mr Adam is the son of the late Rev. Thomas Adam, of Peebles, memories of
whose venerable and striking appearance in the pulpit, and vivid and
humorous talk in private, are still fresh in many minds. By his mother’s
side also, the Mayor of Buffalo is connected with the Border, and his
forbears lie in the lonely hillside churchyard by St Mary’s Loch. He
himself, however, though born in Peebles, was from early childhood brought
up in Edinburgh, and received there his education and business training.
While still a very young man, he became partner in a wholesale smallware
firm, and scored his first success. But though keen and untiring in his
work, his interests were not by any means confined to it. His early friends
remember many a ploy in which he was a leader ; they find now, that the
music he heard, and the poets he read then, have most power to touch him
still. They remember, too, how' on Sundays sometimes he used to wander, and
come back to tell them of Walter Smith or Marcus Dods—names better known now
than they were then.
Mr Adam’s elder brother, Mr R. B. Adam, had gone out to America some time in
the later fifties, and was gaining for himself that position of influence,
which he so long exercised for good, in the prosperous and
rapidly-increasing City of Buffalo. Moved by his representations and advice,
Mr Adam determined to try his fortune in the United States. He and his wife,
for he had just married, left early in 1872. His first business venture was
in New Haven, Connecticut, where he began and carried on successfully a
dry-goods business. New Haven is one of the earliest settled of the cities
of New England, and it is certainly one of the most attractive. It is the
seat of Yale College, which is second only to Harvard (and a Yale man would
perhaps scorn the admission), amongst American Universities, but it is too
quiet, too settled, has too much of the character of a University town to
afford much scope for large business enterprises. Mr Adam, therefore,
determined to follow his brother’s example, and made his home in Buffalo—the
“Queen City of the Lakes.” Buffalo, besides being a very pleasant place of
residence, almost a garden city in some of its districts, has unique
advantages for commerce in its situation at the eastern end of Lake Erie,
and its growth and prosperity have been remarkable. Mr Adam established here
a department store, one of the best known and most successful in the city.
It is, however, not as a business man, but as a public servant that Mr Adam
has of late been brought into prominence. That a Scotsman should have been
elected Mayor of Buffalo was not of itself enough to have attracted much
notice beyond that city’s bounds, but it is because he has associated
himself so enthusiastically with the great wave of Municipal reform which is
sweeping away rooted abuses in the larger cities of the Union, and because
his election won for the cause one of its notable victories, that he has
come of late into the public eye in his adopted State.
About twelve years ago Mr Adam began his Municipal work as a member of the
Board, of Councilmen ; later he served for a term of three years as
Alderman, and on its completion was again elected Councilman. He took up the
work as he had done his own business affairs, and went thoroughly and
patiently into all necessary details. The knowledge of these details led him
to take a part that was not always easy and pleasant. In some departments he
found waste, he found improvidence, he found corruption. Graft, or the
making of secret profit on public business, was known to be rife. To drag
these unsavoury matters to light was, of course, to make bitter opponents,
but at the same time his perseverance in this course wrought gradually in
the minds of the people of Buffalo a conviction that J. N. Adam was the man
to whom the interests of the city might be most safely entrusted.
Buffalo has long been a stronghold of the Republican party, but Mr Adam’s
free trade principles had led him to join the Democrats. He always
maintained, however, what seems obvious enough, but what was in direct
opposition to common practice, that national politics had nothing to do with
city government, and this conviction had, through costly experience, been so
far impressed on the people that he gained large majorities amongst a
constituency usually strongly Republican. At his last- election as a
Councilman, he was the only Democrat on the Board. This independent policy
did not always commend itself to the Democratic “machine;” it would have
preferred a man who could be reckoned on to reward his supporters, but as
the election approached it was felt that J. N. Adam, was the only name to
win by, and he was nominated by the Democratic Convention. He intimated that
he intended to keep himself untrammelled by his party if elected. He
announced his platform to be “Honesty versus Graft,” and, after a stirring
contest, was elected by the unprecedented majority of about 10,000.
During the interval between his election and his entering on office, Mr Adam
visited New York, Washington, Baltimore, and Philadelphia, in order to study
municipal conditions The Mayor did not enter on his work with any startling
theories. “I am not a reformer,” he 6aid ; “I am a business man—working.” In
the “message” addressed to the Common Council be says: “I desire to make it
dear at the outset that as there is no authority in law, so there will be no
toleration in practice, for private or political interests to control the
transaction of municipal business. The affairs of our city are not a.
question of politics, but of business pure and simple. We are employed by
the people to work for the public interests.” Or again, “I will do all in my
power to put any grafting official not only out of office, but into jail. ”
His first act was to appoint to the offices which- were in his power men
fitted for the work, though of the opposite party. The opposing candidate in
the mayoral election, for example, was asked to serve on an important
commission, and the positions of Inspector of Education and Inspector of
Health were filled by Republicans. The Mayor believes strongly that city
regulations should be strictly enforced, and that useless and obsolete laws
should be struck off the Statute-book. He therefore appointed for the
revision of the city charters a body of citizens of repute, who undertook
the work in a thorough-going manner, collecting and examining the charters
of about sixty of the leading cities in the country, that they might benefit
by the experience of- others. Meantime he saw to the stringent application
of existing regulations. He insisted that the paid officials at the City
Hall should do a full day’s work. He demanded the fulfilment of contracts
with public companies* such as the Street Car, and Gas Companies, by whose
defaulting the city had suffered, and closed a large number of low drinking
saloons which had menaced the good order of the city.
Mr Adam has entirely withdrawn from business, and devotes all his energies
to public .affairs. If he insists on the full tale of working hours from
other officials, he probably has the longest working day of any of them.
Mr Adam has kept up his association with his native land fresh and unbroken.
For long his visits occurred every two years, but latterly every summer sees
him enjoying his holiday at the foot of the Eildon Hills, and glorying in
that prospect over the splendid sweep of rich country, broken by “dark
Ruberslaw” and the green Minto Crags, and bounded by the Cheviots—that view
which, seen from the hills, the Ettrick Shepherd thought the finest in the
South of Scotland. It is the man who works hard who enjoys his holiday most.
A. P. |
