Wrath in Massachusetts

From Faneuil Hall back across Massachusetts, taxpayers howled their indignation last week; seldom since the Boston Tea Party had there been such a civic outcry. The target of public wrath: new pensions for old pols.

The pensions were slyly slipped into law last July during the chaotic windup of the state legislature. They were spotted," weeks later, by the Massachusetts Federation of Taxpayers Associations, a privately sponsored research group. Among the findings:

P:Pension payments to state legislators were handsomely increased, and the system was broadened to make anyone who had ever served in the legislature eligible for a pension based on his highest salary in public office. No. 1 beneficiary: Democrat James M. Curley, now 77, former governor, former mayor of Boston, and ex-convict (five months for mail fraud). Curley, who served in the state legislature in 1902-03, is eligible for a $1,000-monthly pension under the new law. P:Retroactive payments, amounting to thousands of dollars, will go to statehouse employees, some earning as much as $13,000 a year, for carfare and lunches. P:Some 900 new jobs for bureaucrats, mostly as income-tax assessors and collectors, were authorized.

Like a modern Paul Revere, the taxpayers' federation loudly sounded the alarm. Led by Boston's Post, the press took up the shout. Riding the hubbub of popular anger, Congressman Christian Herter, Republican candidate for governor, dashed off a series of open letters to his Democratic rival, Governor Paul Dever: widespread "dismay and disgust" cried Herter, made it imperative for Dever to call a special legislative session to repeal the "sneak" benefits before they went into effect. The Republican case is somewhat hurt by the fact that the state senate which approved the pension bill is controlled by Republicans.

The Democrats first tried to pooh-pooh the whole affair. Dever, who keynoted the Democratic Convention, refused to answer Herter, denied it was a sneak bill, said both parties had voted for it, charged that the Republican demand for a special session was "a fraud upon the public."

Curley began by saying that he would certainly apply for a pension, cracked: "What's in a name? If my name were Frothingham, Shattuck or even Nichols, there would be no objections." But the public fury grew ominously. By week's end the Democrats were in full retreat. Curley announced he would not accept the pension after all. Governor Dever gave in, called a special session to meet this week and go over the whole question of pensions for pols.

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