Abstract
The confrontation of gadfly and official over New York’s handling of the typhoid fever outbreak of 1911 is a case study that highlights both the often-hostile interpersonal dynamics of a demand for an accounting and the increasingly unassailable position of the expert manager—even when, as in this case, there were objective grounds for criticism. At issue, again, was the question of access to public records, a common initial step in the political process of accountability, and in this case, as with several others detailed in this chapter, the decision was to deny the right to demand an accounting.
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Notes
- 1.
“Lay Typhoid Outbreak to Camps and Resorts,” New York Tribune, August 20, 1911, p. 1; In the Matter of the Application of William H. Allen 148 A.D. 26; 131 N.Y.S. 1027 (New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, 1911).
- 2.
Haven A. Mason, “A Profession of Municipal Management,” California Municipalities, August 1899, p. 17.
- 3.
Lederle obituary, New York Times, March 15, 1921. Dr. Darlington’s new policy on department records came as Miss Mallon moved to file suit against the city, with his policy reported in the New York Tribune, March 4, 1909, while her suit was heard, and request for release from the city hospital was dismissed, in late June. New York Sun, June 30, 1909. Mary Mallon’s detention in 1907 drew little attention; the Evening World’s report got her name wrong and ran the story below a page 3 feature on Easter Parade hats, New York Evening World, April 1, 1907. The Times, Tribune and Sun took no notice. Lederle released her in 1910, but she was confined again in 1915 and remained so until her death twenty three years later. “‘Typhoid Mary’ Dies of a Stroke at 68,” New York Times, November 12, 1938. For Darlington’s connection to Tammany Hall see his obituary, Columbia Alumni News, No. 37 (October 1945), p. 26, and Gustavus Myers, The History of Tammany Hall (New York: Boni & Liveright, 1917), p. 389, which reported that Darlington was one of the four close supporters of Tammany Boss Charles F. Murphy who were read out of the city Democratic Club for nonpayment of dues in 1914, a move which shook Murphy’s leadership of the Hall not one bit.
- 4.
“Three Jobs filled by the Mayor,” New York Tribune, January 10, 1910, p. 1 for Mayor Gaynor’s comments on Dr. Darlington and Dr. Bensel; for his break with Tammany, see Kenneth Finegold, “Traditional Reform, Municipal Populism, and Progressivism: Challenges to Machine Politics in Early-Twentieth-Century New York City,” Urban Affairs Review, Vol. 31, No. 1 (September, 1995) p. 30; “Typhoid Mary,” New York American, June 20, 1909, centerspread, n.p. Park’s research focused on diphtheria, as did Lederle’s, and his studies of the role of disease carriers was key to eventually controlling the disease, although not fully recognized at the time. If there was tension between the two over credit for their work on a disease that was actually deadlier and more prevalent than typhoid, it did not keep Park from working under Lederle, though his medical counterparts were not inclined to acknowledge any collaboration of the two, “William Hallock Park,” American Journal of Public Health, Vol. 29, No. 5 (May, 1939) pp. 530–531; “Has New York Many Walking Pesthouses?” New York Tribune, July 4, 1909, p. 5.
- 5.
Gretchen Condran, “Changing Patterns of Epidemic Disease” in Hives of Sickness (David Rosner, editor) (Rutgers University Press: New Brunswick, 1995), p. 34, reports that typhoid in early twentieth-century New York City caused fewer deaths than diphtheria or scarlet fever, the incidence of both of which was on the rise, and was lower than tuberculosis, meningitis, smallpox, and dysentery.
- 6.
“Typhoid Under Control,” New York Tribune, July 9, 1910, p. 9.
- 7.
“Typhoid Still Increases,” New York Tribune, August 20, 1911, p. 3. For the changing theories about the outbreak, see “Typhoid Shows Strong Gain in Manhattan,” New York Tribune, August 17, 1911, p. 2. The pasteurization requirement is discussed “Delay for Milk Dealers,” New York Tribune, December 26, 1911, p. 8.
- 8.
“No Extra Police for Waldo, More Milk Depots Probably, Mayor Praises Lederle,” New York Sun, October 31, 1911, p. 11. The Milk Committee’s backers were the kind of prominent New Yorkers Allen cultivated for his bureau, including the sugar beet tycoon R. Fulton Cutting, Kuhn Loeb partner Mortimer Schiff, and John D. Rockefeller, who financed the committee’s Junior Sea Breeze summer camp for children, Clean Milk for New York (New York: Association for Improving the Condition of the Poor, 1906), pp. 4–5; Allen was perhaps trying to elevate his profile as a clean milk crusader at Lederle’s expense. New York had an active inspection program of dairies in the city since 1895, and expanded this program in 1905 to farms outside the city, checking 590 farms in five states to monitor sanitation. The city was distributing more than 4 million bottles of pasteurized milk a year by 1910. Through 1911 and 1912, city inspections of retailers and a ban on sale of unbottled milk would have made adulteration by dealers fairly difficult. A graver problem for child health is suggested by the health department study in 1918 that found that 19 percent of school children were malnourished, William G. Rothstein, Public Health and the Risk Factor, A History of an Uneven Medical Revolution (Rochester, NY: University of Rochester Press, 2003) pp. 123–124, 127.
- 9.
“Lederle Denounces Wheeler Milk Bill,” New York Tribune, April 1, 1912, p. 1; “Milk Bill Death Warrant for Babies,” New York Tribune, April 2, 1912, p. 1.
- 10.
In the Matter of Allen at 27; “Can See Health Records,” New York Sun, October 10, 1911, p. 5 mentions the milk inspection records, “Lederle Fights for Records,” New York Tribune, October 11, 1911, p. 2 describes the records as statistical.
- 11.
William Allen, “Efficiency in City Government” (April 16, 1908 speech to the City Club of Chicago), Bulletin of the City Club of Chicago (Vol. 2, No. 8, April 1908) pp. 126, 127, 130; Mordecai Lee, “Glimpsing an Alternate Construction of American Public Administration: The Later Life of William Allen, Cofounder of the New York Bureau of Municipal Research,” Administration & Society Vol. 45 (July 2013) pp. 522–562.
- 12.
“Ahearn Pilloried, May Be Removed,” New York Times, July 17, 1907, p. 1; “Ahearn Re-elected, Hughes not to Act,” New York Times, December 20, 1907, p. 1 “Ahearn Ruled Out,” New York Times, October 30, 1909, p. 1.
- 13.
Who’s Who in New York City and State Fourth Biennial Edition [John W. Leonard, ed.], (New York: Hamersley & Company, 1909), p. 1156; Francis M. Scott Obituary, New York Times, February 6, 1922, p. 10. Allen continued attacking Tammany, as in his Al Smith’s Tammany Hall: Champion Political Vampire (New York: Institute for Public Service, 1928) claiming that major reforms, including the milk stations, were accomplished despite Tammany’s resistance because of public pressure, much of it, in his view, instigated by his own efforts.
- 14.
Allen launched the bureau with a $1000-a-month stipend from Cutting, and in the years before he was forced out in 1914, the bureau’s biggest funders were John D. Rockefeller, who gave more than $125,000 (about $3 million in current dollars), Cutting, who gave nearly $117,000, Andrew Carnegie, who gave $55,000, Mrs. E.H. Harriman, who gave $51,500, the investment banking firm Kuhn Loeb, which gave $41,000; and J.P. Morgan & Company, which gave $29,000. The rest of the bureau’s $949,000 came from other financial institutions and wealthy New Yorkers, all of whom shared a longstanding distaste for Tammany’s corruption, a conviction that waste and fraud meant they paid too much in taxes for the public services they received, and a growing frustration over their inability to fix either through democratic means. F.A. Cleveland, “Statement of Facts” in Commission on Industrial Relations, Final Report and Testimony, U.S. Serial Set, Vol. 9 (1916), pp. 8235, 8468–8470. The political nature of the bureau was clear from the start; Cutting initially proposed the bureau as an arm of the Chamber of Commerce and later as a branch of the Citizens Union as it was making the change from a political party opposed to Tammany to a nonpartisan civic reform group. Ibid., p. 8322. “During the first five years of the bureau’s existence Mr. Allen had little to do with the research work of the bureau. During the last three years (that is, from 1911 on) … Mr. Allen had much to do with the research work and it was during this period that serious differences developed …. With respect to publicity, Mr. Allen’s views have never been in harmony with his associates … his personal attacks on educators was the subject of protest by members of the board.” Ibid.
- 15.
New York City Charter, section 1545 (Laws of 1901, Chapter 466). Similar clauses are found in earlier city charters or statutes, Laws of 1865, chapter 171; Laws of 1873, chapter 335, section 107; Laws of 1882, chapter 410, section 50; Laws of 1897, chapter 378, section 1545; In the Matter of Allen at 29.
- 16.
In the Matter of Lord, 59 App. Div. 591; 167 N.Y. 398 (New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, 1901); Neville v. Board of Health, 21 N.Y. Supp. 574 (New York Supreme Court 1892) Henry v. Cornell at 35; In the Matter of Allen at 31.
- 17.
New York City Charter, section 1175 (Laws of 1901, Chapter 466); In the Matter of Allen at 31.
- 18.
People ex rel. William L. Woodill v. Raymond B. Fosdick, as Commissioner of Accounts of the City of New York 141 A.D. 450; 126 N.Y.S. 252 (New York Supreme Court, 1910); Public Papers of John A. Dix, 1911, (Albany, NY: State of New York, 1912), pp. 480–485; Payne et al. v. Staunton, County Clerk 55 W.Va. 202 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1904); State of Washington ex rel. C. A. Cook v. John B. Reed, as Treasurer of Pierce County 36 Wash. 638; 79 P. 306 (Washington Supreme Court, 1905); Leffingwell v. Miller 20 Colo. App. 429 (Court of Appeals of Colorado, 1905) for city engineer records; Round v. O’Meara, Police Commissioner, 197 Mass. 218 (Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1908) involving police records; Barrickman v. Lyman, City Engineer, 155 Ky. 710 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 1913) city engineer records; People ex rel. Schweller v Prendergast, City Comptroller, 153 N.Y.S. 699 (Supreme Court of New York, 1915) public employee pay records; People ex rel. Charles M. Higgins v. Haven Emerson, as Commissioner of Health, 169 N.Y.S. 297 (Supreme Court of New York, 1918) for death certificates.
- 19.
Condran, “Changing Patterns of Epidemic Disease,” p. 32.
- 20.
“Typhoid Still Increases,” New York Tribune, August 20, 1911, p. 3; “Typhoid Epidemic Broken,” New York Tribune, September 7, 1911, p. 3, reporting that the number of cases had abated, reported there had been 612 from mid-June to the end of August, compared to 449 for the same period in 1910. The letter, “Pasteurized Milk and Typhoid,” was published in the New York Tribune on August 27, 1911 on p. 6. Outbreaks prevented or contained by identifying a single source include Lederle’s ban on swimming at five beaches after a break in a sewer line serving a hospital treating typhoid patients, “Sewage Holds Up Five Public Baths,” New York Sun, May 22, 1912, p. 6, or when 32 people fell ill in Moorestown, N.J., and officials quickly traced the source as an infected manager of a dairy as reported in front page stories in the New York Sun August 12, 13, and 14, 1912. Lederle and other health officials were ready to disclose disease sources when they did identify them.
- 21.
A 1910 New York Tribune headline over a grouping of two stories on typhoid fever reported that “Army surgeons have learned how to conquer the disease by vaccination,” New York Tribune, September 18, 1910, p. 2. Front page stories in March and June reported on new vaccines from the Pasteur Institute, New York Tribune March 22 and June 22, 1910. The paper, which devoted more space to typhoid that its competitors, said vaccination “offers a means of ending quickly the hideous death toll of typhoid fever” in a major story on published September 3, 1911. And by the end of 1911 at least some New York officials were aware that vaccination was effective, vaccinating 400 militiamen of the 71st regiment of the New York National Guard, “The 71st Typhoid Immune,” New York Sun December 29, 1911, p. 2. “Typhoid,” Evening Star (Washington, D.C.), p. 4. Dr. Fisk, medical director of the Provident Savings Life Assurance Society of New York, became medical director of the Life Extension Institute; former President William Howard Taft was chairman; board members included the president of National City Bank and a vice president of Guaranty Trust Co. and Yale University economics professor Irving Fisher. The institute’s Hygiene Reference Board that Fisher directed included Dr. C.B. Davenport of the Eugenics Record office. Life Extension Institute, What Is It? What Does It Do? (New York: Life Extension Institute, 1914) pp. i, xxi; “More Typhoid Vaccination,” New York Sun, May 7, 1912, p. 7; “New York Physicians Closely Investigating New Preparation of Typhoid Vaccines,” New York Sun, June 2, 1912, Fourth Section Magazine, p. 13.
- 22.
Lederle obituary, New York Times, March 15, 1921; “Vote Down Vaccination,” New York Sun, January 2, 1912, p. 1.
- 23.
The Wall Street death was reported in the New York Sun on August 11, 1912 on page 1 (“Typhoid Appears in Wall Street District”); the Tribune, Times and Evening World took no notice. The Brooklyn outbreak in “No Typhoid Epidemic in Financial Section,” New York Tribune on August 13, 1912, p. 9; Arthur Bushell, Chronology of the New York City Department of Health, 1655–1966 (New York: City of New York, 1966) p. 17; Filio Marineli, Gregory Tsoucalas, Marianna Karamanou and George Androutsos, “Mary Mallon (1869–1938) and the History of Typhoid Fever,” Annals of Gastroenterology, Vol. 26, No. 2 (2013), p. 124; George Soper, “The Curious Career of Typhoid Mary,” Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine, Vol. 15, No. 10 (October, 1939), p. 700. (Soper, who was the doctor who linked a series of typhoid deaths over several years to Mallon by tracing her employment history, says her case led doctors to shift their focus from seeing sewer gas or putrefying organic material in food and milk as the host of typhoid bacilli, allowing for a concerted effort at effective preventive measures.) The story about the death of the three infected children was in the New York Tribune, May 24, 1914; “Health is a Purchasable Commodity, Says Commissioner E.J. Lederle,” New York Tribune, February 4, 1912, p. 2; P.B. Brooks, “An Outbreak of Typhoid Attributed to Infected Oysters,” Journal of the American Medical Association, Vol. 66 (1916) pp.1445–1447.
- 24.
John O’Brien and Heman Clark v. The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York 40 A.D. 331 (New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 1899) at 332.
References
Barrickman v. Lyman, City Engineer, 155 Ky. 710 (Kentucky Supreme Court, 1913).
In the Matter of the Application of William H. Allen, 148 A.D. 26; 131 N.Y.S. 1027 (New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, 1911).
In the Matter of Lord, 59 App. Div. 591; 167 N.Y. 398 (New York Supreme Court Appellate Division, 1901).
Leffingwell v. Miller, 20 Colo. App. 429 (Court of Appeals of Colorado, 1905).
Neville v. Board of Health, 21 N.Y. Supp. 574 (New York Supreme Court 1892).
John O’Brien and Heman Clark v. The Mayor, Aldermen and Commonalty of the City of New York, 40 A.D. 331 (New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 1899).
Payne et al. v. Staunton, County Clerk 55 W.Va. 202 (West Virginia Supreme Court, 1904).
People ex rel. Henry v. Cornell, 35 How. Pr. 31, (New York Supreme Court, Appellate Division, 1868).
People ex rel. Charles M. Higgins v. Haven Emerson, as Commissioner of Health, 169 N.Y.S. 297 (Supreme Court of New York, 1918).
People ex rel. Schweller v. Prendergast, City Comptroller, 153 N.Y.S. 699 (Supreme Court of New York, 1915).
People ex rel. William L. Woodill v. Raymond B. Fosdick, as Commissioner of Accounts of the City of New York, 141 A.D. 450; 126 N.Y.S. 252 (New York Supreme Court, 1910).
Round v. O’Meara, Police Commissioner, 197 Mass. 218 (Supreme Judicial Court of Massachusetts, 1908).
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New York City Charter, Laws of 1865, chapter 171.
New York City Charter, Laws of 1873, chapter 335, section 107.
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———. The Curious Career of Typhoid Mary. Bulletin of the New York Academy of Medicine 15, no. 10 (Oct. 1939): 700.
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Ress, D. (2018). The Expert Fights Back. In: Municipal Accountability in the American Age of Reform. Palgrave Macmillan, Cham. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-319-68258-7_7
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