A Brief History of Memphis by G. Wayne Dowdy

Author:G. Wayne Dowdy
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
Published: 2013-08-14T16:00:00+00:00

Chapter 5

“WHY NOT VOTE THE OFFICIALS OUT OF POWER?”

On January 3, 1906, James H. Malone was inaugurated mayor, and he moved quickly to address the growing tax inequity in the city. In 1905, the state legislature passed the Boyle Bill, which gave local government the power to equalize the tax rate across Memphis and thus eliminate the tax differential for suburban residents. Not wanting to anger the wealthy suburbanites, who naturally liked paying fewer taxes, Mayor Williams had previously blocked any attempt by the legislative council to pass an ordinance equalizing the tax rate. A month after his inauguration, Malone introduced an ordinance establishing a uniform tax rate, which was quickly passed by the legislative council. Equalizing taxes resulted in greater efficiency and, along with more precise bookkeeping practices, led to a lowering of the overall tax rate. Once the tax issue was addressed, Malone felt free to pursue further annexation. In March 1909, the General Assembly approved a bill that extended the city boundary to include an important railroad yard, the town of Lenox and a section of Overton Park.

As we have seen, street repair had faltered during the previous administration due to lack of funds. Despite improved accounting practices, there remained a dearth of revenue to adequately pave city streets and add needed sidewalks. In 1907, the General Assembly passed the front foot assessment law, which allowed property owners whose land abutted city streets to request improvements provided that they agreed to pay two-thirds of the cost. Forty-six paving projects were initiated the following year, with the city appropriating $750,000 for the improvements. It quickly became evident, however, that waiting on property owners to start the process, combined with unwieldy contract negotiations, severely hampered Memphis’s ability to pave streets in a systematic fashion. Because of this situation, Malone successfully amended the law to allow local government to initiate improvement projects and tax property owners to pay their portion of the project’s cost. This action dramatically increased the amount of repair and paving that took place and provided Memphis with a modern street system for the first time in its history.

Many of the goals set by local progressives had been achieved under the Malone administration, most notably, tax equalization and a modern street system, but progressives were disappointed by their inability to achieve the public ownership of utilities. The same year Malone was elected mayor, the state legislature allowed the city to increase its bonded indebtedness by $10 million in order to construct an electric light plant or purchase an existing one. Despite having the financial means to bring this about, Malone and the legislative council did nothing, which irked many local progressives, most notably public works supervisor E.H. Crump. Declaring that members of the public works board were treated like “schoolboys” by the mayor and police commission, Crump abruptly resigned from the legislative council in September 1907.

As we have seen, Malone owed his office in large part to the underworld that controlled a large bloc of votes and had plenty of money for campaign contributions.

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