HON. FRANK J. RICE

New Haven had, in the second decade of the twentieth century, a demonstration of the possibilities of citizenship which was at once pathetic and inspiring, an example of public service which was both thrilling and tragic. The city charter adopted in 1900 gave great opportunities to the mayor, and there were those who feared for the misuse of its powers. They were forced to admit, in the course of the unprecedented term of service of Frank J. Rice, that the charter's opportunities for a man of high ideals outweighed all other considerations. New Haven is a democratic city, but the office of mayor usually has gone to some man of well recognized prominence either in public affairs or in politics. When Frank J. Rice was named for the office in 1909 he was known merely as a popular president of the Young Men's Republican Club, a manager of some large central properties for a prominent real estate owner, a former member for several terms of the board of councilmen. Back of that he had been a trolley conductor. He was highly trusted by those who did business with him, highly popular with those who knew him in politics or social affairs, but he was not, in the superior sense, a prominent citizen of New Haven. Many exacting citizens looked puzzled, and some of his political opponents looked pleased.

There was a confident effort to defeat him in 1909, but he won the election by a plurality of four hundred and two. Three months later he came to the chair of the mayor, a plain, simple, sincere citizen, with the desire to serve the city he loved uppermost in his mind. He made no promises except the comprehensive one to do his best. He did, however, outline a few of his plans. One of them was to give New Haven some better sidewalks, and that, though one of the less important of his achievements, is characteristic of his administration of city affairs. He found the sidewalks of New Haven of ancient and billowy brick, of cracked and crumbling asphalt, of unfinished gravel. In less than six years he had, against indifference, prejudice and selfish opposition, given New Haven more than two hundred miles of modern concrete sidewalk and accomplished this simply by keeping at it.

For almost seven years Frank J. Rice gave of his best to serve the city of New Haven. It should have been eight full years, but he wore out before the end of his time. In the truest, highest sense he spared not himself. He took his office and his opportunities seriously—too seriously, perhaps. He was careful and anxious about many things. He was never satisfied unless a problem was solved in the best possible way, unless the very best appointment was made, unless he could give his most intense attention to every subject. He responded to every call the people made upon him. He listened to every man's troubles and spent as much time with the humblest as with the most important citizen. He grew, perforce, into the hearts of the people. They reelected him in 1911 by a plurality of two thousand and twenty-nine. He gave them another term of unselfish service. In 1913, a definitely democratic year, he was again elected, by a plurality of one thousand two hundred and one. In 1915 the city broke all records by reelecting a mayor to a fourth term, and the mayor was Frank J. Rice, this time by a plurality of two thousand and thirteen.
 

By the time New Haven had really come to know and begun truly to appreciate Mayor Rice it lost him. How he served himself out, how he gave up his life to keep true to his ideals, is a tragedy that will long leave its impress on New Haven. Too late his friends found they had been asking too much of him. Too late his political critics hushed their clamor when they found they had worried his sensitive spirit to the breaking point. Midway in the first year of his fourth term he broke under the strain, and though for several months more he made a brave attempt to rally to the task, though he conducted some of the more important of his official duties, he came back no more to the desk in city hall, where he had so faithfully done the greatest of his life's work, and on January 18, 1917, his brave spirit rose to the land of his eternal ideals.

Sincerely New Haven bowed its head in sorrow. By tens of thousands his fellow citizens passed before his bier, or stood by the way as the sad procession wended its way to Woolsey Hall, or thronged the city of the dead where earth received his ashes. The proudest of his fellow citizens were humbly glad to pay their best respects in the solemn service in Woolsey Hall. It was such a funeral as New Haven had not seen in many a decade, and its demonstration was true to the core.

It was five days later, in the course of an address before an association of Yale alumni in another state, that President Hadley went out of his way to pay to Mayor Rice what, taken in its setting, must be considered a remarkable tribute. He was speaking on the ideals of public service which Yale teaches, and he had mentioned the union of New Haven and Yale in the great anniversary pageant of the previous fall, when he said:
     "The mayor of New Haven did not participate in this celebration. He had done much to help in the early stages, but at the time when it came he was on his deathbed—dying in office after having honorably served the city for several terms. He was not a Yale man, but with each successive year of his office he understood Yale better and worked more actively with us. With the announcement of his death came a message from the city asking if the funeral might be held in Yale University. On Sunday last thirty thousand citizens of New Haven, of every nationality, lined the streets to see the body of the chief magistrate borne from the city hall to Woolsey Hall, and then to its last resting place. Thus was celebrated the last scene in the drama which commemorated the coming of Yale to New Haven. The pageant had a worthier epilogue than human hand could have written."

Such is the great and central chapter in the forty-eight years of Frank J. Rice. The rest is but the setting. He was born in North Adams. Massachusetts. February 5, 1869, of a family whose new world progenitors settled in Vermont about 1790. His father was Jesse H. Rice. Frank T. Rice came to Cheshire. Connecticut, when quite young and was educated in the schools of that town and New Haven. At eighteen he left his books for the grocery business in the town of Cheshire. After three years he was employed by the firm of  H. P. Ives & Company and afterward became its superintendent. When he first came to New Haven he was a conductor for the New Haven Street Railway Company for five years. Then he entered the employ of Frank Benedict, and when elected mayor was manager of some important real estate interests.

He was married in Clinton, Connecticut, to Miss Charlotte A. Watrous, a native of Clinton, this state, daughter of Spencer and Clarissa (Dowd) Watrous, representatives of old colonial families. Two children were born of this marriage, Russell L., July 8, 1894, has been since, as he was before his father's death, manager of the real estate business which the mayor established in anticipation of his retirement from public life. He was married September 12, 1916, to Miss Mildred Hall, daughter of Mr. and Mrs. Robert Hall, of an old Danbury family. The younger son, Mancel W. Rice, was born in New Haven, March 17, 1897, and enlisted in the One Hundred and Second United States Infantry, formerly the Second Connecticut Regiment.

Frank J. Rice belonged to many fraternal organizations, including the Masons, the Odd Fellows, the Elks, the Red Men, the Heptasophs, the Eagles, the Woodmen of the World, the Knights of Pythias, the Aryan Grotto and the Haru Gari. He was also identified with the Young Men's Christian Association and the Sons of Veterans, and was an honorary member of the Second Company, Governor's Foot Guard. He was a member of the Chamber of Com-merce and the Connecticut Association of Mayors, of the Connecticut Fish and Game Protective Association, the New England Business Men’s Association, the New Haven Real Estate Board and the New Haven Board of Fire Underwriters. He was a consistent member of the First Methodist Episcopal church, of which also he was a trustee, and a director and trustee of the National Savings Bank and a trustee of the New Haven Hospital Society.

(Photo attached)