Rep. Birmingham proposed a cigarette tax to raise revenue for the old-age assistance act enacted the previous year, the Boston Herald reported May 8, 1931, pp. 1, 15. In the spring of 1931, the legislature was considering ways to pay for the old-age assistance act. In a May 6 speech in Worcester, Gov. Joseph Ely attacked the Boston Herald for suggesting that he supported the idea of a cigarette tax. Rep. Horace T. Cahill, a Republican representative from Braintree, alleged that Ely actually supported the tax in his speech, despite the governor’s criticism of the newspaper. Cahill quoted a part of Ely’s speech, which appeared to support the idea of a cigarette tax: “It has been proposed that a tax be placed on cigarettes and tobacco, but the man who manufactures and sells tobacco and even those of us who smoke it rather resent, for what reason I do not understand, the imposition of a tax upon this article of unnecessary consumption.” The House ways and means committee was considering means to raise revenue to implement old-age assistance act. The committee was scheduled to hold a public hearing on the cigarette tax proposal the following week. Ely ignited a storm of protests during his Worcester speech when he charged that the old-age assistance act was a Republican ploy to get Gov. Frank Allen re-elected. Rep. John V. Mahoney, a Democratic representative from Boston, criticized the governor for his remarks. “I object strenuously to Gov. Ely’s procedure in calling the old-age assistance act a Republican measure. None worked harder for its success than I did and no one ever has found my record tainted with Republicanism….I resent the Governor’s action in attempting to rob us of the credit which is due all the Democrats who voted for it.” Cahill asserted that the old-age assistance act was a “Democratic baby.” “In one form or another, it has had the support of Mr. Ely’s party ever since most of these now serving in the Legislature can remember. Year after year the Democrats have gone up to the State House with it.” On a separate issue, Birmingham carried the protests of his Democratic colleagues to Ely over his remarks that he was considering vetoing a bill to abolish physical exams for the classified civil service labor lists in cities, the newspaper reported. Birmingham also conveyed to the governor the threat that a veto would be overridden by the legislature.
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