Digital Extra: The Journal's 175th Anniversary

07.21.2004

1951. Public business is public's business

On the night of Dec. 31, 1947, two Journal reporters asked James Donovan, a Democratic boss and city clerk in Pawtucket, whether they could look at a tax abatement resolution that the City Council had just passed.

"See me tomorrow," he said.

"Tomorrow" was New Year's Day, City Hall would be closed, the reporters said.

"See me Friday," he said.

For more than a week, Donovan was "too busy" to see them.

On Jan. 21, 1948, Mayor Ambrose P. McCoy announced he had given the information to The Pawtucket Times. The same day, the city passed an ordinance barring publication of tax abatement information without permission of the City Council.

The mayor said the ordinance was aimed at The Journal. "I say no corporation can threaten the City of Pawtucket. They have threatened us for 15 years. This time we will fight it out to the last ditch."

That last ditch would wind up being the Supreme Court of the United States.

Alderman Raymond F. Henderson argued, "There must be some limit to these vague statements about the public business being the public's business."

Through 1948, state Superior Court judges found in favor of the newspaper, only to have their decisions overturned by the state Supreme Court on procedural grounds.

In August, The Journal sued in federal court, arguing Pawtucket had violated the U.S. Constitution.

Alderman Henderson testified that the City Council should have a right to limit access to tax records. "If Joe Stalin walked into Pawtucket and wanted to see these records, I don't think he could."

The judge interrupted, "Of course, we haven't got Joe Stalin in this case."

Journal lawyer William H. Edwards, argued in his closing: "We have just fought a war against two totalitarian governments. We have won the war and many of your friends and mine have died in it. But at home eternal vigilance is still the price of freedom."

In June 1950, the federal court sided with The Journal.

Pawtucket appealed.

In July 1951, a federal appeals court sided with the paper. Pawtucket appealed to the Supreme Court, which refused to hear the case.

On Dec. 13, 1951, Journal reporters finally saw the abatement lists, a victory for freedom of information that was hailed by journalists around the country.