1906 - 1909
HISTORY
James Noble Adam was born in Peebles, Scotland on
March 1, 1842, the youngest son and second of five children.
His father was Reverend Thomas Adam. When James was four
years old, the family moved to Edinburgh, where he was educated
in the parish schools.
When he was twelve, he began an apprenticeship at
the Thomas Cooper & Co. store for $1 a week. After he
completed a five-year apprenticeship, he remained as a journeyman
for another five years.
Around 1865, after ten years with the Cooper company,
he went into partnership with J. J. Richardson. In 1872,
upon the advice of his brother, Robert B. Adam
, co-founder of Adam, Meldrum & Anderson
, he came to America. J. N. spent two years in Buffalo
studying American business. He then traveled through the mid-west
and east, finally settling on New Haven, Connecticut. Here
he began a successful retail operation with John Taylor
of New York.
In 1881 he sold his business to Howe & Stetson
and moved back to Buffalo
He began a new partnership with W. H. Hotchkiss, starting
a full-scale department store at Main and Washington Streets.
J. N. Adam & Co. became a Buffalo
tradition. For nearly 50 years it was one of the top places
to shop in Buffalo
He carried on as president of the firm for many years.
In 1895 Adam stopped in the Hotel Lafayette
where he met Franklin D. Locke. Locke suggested that Adam run
for councilman. He did and won the nomination and later
the election. After his term expired he was out of politics
for two years.
In 1901 he was elected alderman of the 24th ward.
And in 1904 he was again elected a councilman.
In 1905 Adam retired from the company he founded,
presumably to follow the political career that was mapped
out for him.
On October 4, 1905 political conventions were held
by both parties. The Republican's met in Concert Hall. John
F. McGee nominated Police Justice Thomas Murphy for mayor,
which was seconded by Thomas Myers. George Clinton recommended
Corporation Counsel Charles L. Feldman
for the same office, which was seconded by Anselm J. Smith.
After the roll was called down to the 22nd ward, Feldman
had 83 delegates to Murphy's seven. Mr. McGee withdrew Murphy's
name and Feldman's nomination was unanimous.
The
Democrats held their convention at Schwabl's Hall
They had already decided that J. N. Adam was to be their
candidate. Henry F. Jerge paid a brief tribute during the
nomination. It was seconded by J. P. Sullivan.
The campaign battle cry was 'A Square Deal For All.'
Adam was unanimously nominated.
The Buffalo
Times stated on October 5: "The Democratic City Convention
of yesterday
accomplished something that this paper hoped it would do
two years ago.î
The Express stated that same day: "After the
first of January, next, there will be a Mayor of Buffalo
who has been chosen under the proper conditions. Whether his
name is Feldman or Adam, he will be a man of the people,
rather than of the politicians. Two years ago the Democratic
managers refused James N. Adam
the nomination for Commissioner of Public Works, though apparently
a majority of the delegates favored him. It is a hopeful
sign of the times that political organizations have to turn
to such men as Feldman and Adam, not because they want them,
but because they want to win."
Adam frequently traveled back to Scotland to visit
relatives and friends. He was there at the time of his nomination
and it was imperative that he consent to the nomination.
He was cabled and responded with a simple 'Yes.'
In his acceptance speech later in October, Adam said:
"I might have declined. Some times I have felt that
I should decline - the answer I sent last was not the one
I wrote first - and I suppose there are some elsewhere -
who wish I had declined. But here I am to redeem that promise.
The note is due and it's paid."
Adam got his campaign pledge out to nearly every
voter in Buffalo
"I pledge myself, if elected, with whatever ability
and experience I may have to work for your interests, and
to see that every man, woman and child of this city enjoys
, during the next four years, an honest administration of
affairs, and that every one big and little, gets a fair,
square deal."
Adam utilized a new way of campaigning, which was
door-to-door campaigning. Up until this time it had generally
been that the candidates would meet the voters in the saloons
and here try to persuade their vote.
LIFE AS A MAYOR
The election returns of November 7, 1905 showed a
decidedly Democratic turnout. J. N. Adam was elected over
Charles Feldman by a handsome majority, 36,449 to 26,561.
It was to be a Democratic year, as the entire party
line in the city and county was nominated except the office
of Overseer of the Poor. The Common Council
and County Board of Supervisors
were Democratic.
As was stated regarding Adam's victory in the Times:
"The tremendous vote given to Mr. Adam makes him at
once a State figure to be considered in the next gubernatorial
contest."
Following his election, Adam traveled to the large
cities of the east and Midwest as he had when he was searching
for a location to open his first retail store. He was accompanied
by his private secretary, Victor Speer. Adam wanted to acquaint
himself with the way other cities ran their government.
When he met with New York's Mayor McClellan, they agreed
to work on a mortgage tax law after Adam was elected.
Upon his return from his travels, Adam was sworn
in on January 1, 1906, accompanied by Mr. Speer. He was
received by Mayor Erastus Knight
in the Mayor's reception room.
His first communication to the Common Council
was that same day, as he presented his inaugural address. Like
his predecessor, Mayor Adam
wrote extremely long addresses, touching on every part of the
city government, and going into extreme detail on many sections.
"The conduct of municipal affairs is a matter
of business and not of politics. By the process of the recent
election the people of this city employed those who take
office today to manage the affairs of this municipality.
Every city official is responsible to the people and not
to a political party or to a part of a party known as a
political organization or a political boss. The charter
sets forth the duties of each official, and the charter
confers no power of government of municipal affairs on any
individual or group of individuals other than on those officials
duly chosen by the people and their qualified subordinates.
"I believe in single [department] heads with
a definite and fixed responsibility. I find this belief
shared by governmental authorities in other cities I have
recently visited.
"With a view to remedying what I believe to
be serious defects in the plan of organization of our municipal
government, I herewith request your co-operation in procuring
legislation abolishing the present Police, Fire and Park
Commissions and placing each of these important departments...under
the direction of a single responsible head, such head to
be appointed by and to hold office at the pleasure of the
Mayor.
"I again agree with my recent fellow-nominee
for Mayor, who...said:
"With an improved organization providing for
each department a responsible head, we turn at once to the
question of expenses. The first rule must be, not how much
we would spend but how much we should spend. This brings
us face to face with our resources - in other words, the
subject of property and its taxation.
"I believe property of all kinds should be assessed
at its full value. I believe every piece of real property
in this city should be assessed for what it is worth. Full
valuations would mean not only a much lower tax rate per
$1,000, but also would mean higher prices for property all
over the city.
"If a dollar is paid for salary, the City is
entitled to at least 100 cents worth of work in return.
It is not out of place to remark here that two hours in
the morning and one hour in the afternoon do not constitute
a day's work for the City. A day of eight actual working
hours is no more a hardship for an employee in the City's
business than it is for an employee in a private business.
Fewer officials working eight hours a day are better than
more officials working three of four hours a day.
"Along this same line of thrift in our public
undertakings I desire to call attention to the markets of
our city. The net income a year ago from the markets was
$37,000. This is not enough. Imagine any businessman owning
the sites of our markets and operating them, netting only
$37,000 a year!
"Our markets have become more than a place of
business for citizens in humble circumstances. They have
been made a source of speculation to middlemen who profited
at the expense of the city on one hand and at the expense
of citizens on the other hand.
"Any improvements in our water works are made
for ourselves, and not for private enterprises or foreign
corporations.
"I believe this department should be made separate,
and its rates so fixed, and its operating expenses so gauged
as to cause the department to be self-supporting not only
in name, but in fact.
"The installment of water meters in all homes
would not of itself solve the problem of revenue.
"The lighting question has come to be identified
closely with the power question in our municipality. For
some years Buffalo
has been heralded far and wide as the Electric City and as the
Power City. Amid popular acclaim Niagara power was transmitted
to Buffalo
It was to be so cheap that coal would be at a discount and
steam give way to electricity in our industries. It was
to mean much in the upbuilding and developing of our industrial
life and material prosperity. We granted a liberal franchise
ten years ago to a private corporation to use our streets
and sell that power. The ten years have passed and I state
only the plain truth when I say that the manufacturers and
business men of Buffalo
have found themselves enjoying little if anything more in the
way of cheap power than they had before the electric power
came.
II believe
the City should invite genuine and permanent competition
on a basis certain to have the price of power reduced, and,
if necessary, the City should generate its own power and
have its own power plant.
"In the matter of public conveying we have witnessed
in recent years rapid development in the street railway
system. Separate lines in and out of the city have been merged.
...Contracts with suburban roads have been executed recently
bringing their cars into Buffalo
Eventually trolley
cars from Batavia, Toronto, Hamilton, Rochester and other points
may come to the center of our city.
"Another subject of interest in connection with
public conveying is the project for a union station. Buffalo
should welcome a new station, should extend every proper facility
to the great interests involved, should do its utmost in
protecting them from speculators or other deterrent influences,
should do its own part as a city in popularizing the enterprise,
should be liberal, prudent and broad-minded concerning the
location, approaches and site, but as for using the public
money to pay for any general item of expense, no.
"One of the City's most important thoroughfares
is the Hamburg Turnpike, a public highway extending from
the Buffalo
River in the southerly part of the city to the town of Hamburg.
Along this thoroughfare great industries have been springing
up. Steel and iron plants and other plants, employing thousands
of hands, lie adjacent to it. It is needed as never before
for a public thoroughfare, not only to and from the great
Lackawanna Steel Plant
district but as a means of direct access to the southern section
of our city.
"Another phase of our development is the matter
of annexation. The present boundaries of our city are not
permanent. Yet the question of their annexation is one requiring
careful consideration according to the conditions existing
in any direction which it may be proposed to extend them.
My predecessor at the close of his term took up
this matter of annexation in a communication to the
Common Council
The present administration will endeavor to treat this subject
as a question of vital interest to adjacent territory and
of momentous importance to Buffalo
"The Board of School Examiners, under the law,
should have power to fix the standard of examinations so
that applicants who are utterly inefficient in some important
branches of instruction cannot gain a place on the eligible
list by proficiency in other branches.
"Our Police Department, when reorganized in
its plan of direction, should take a police
census of our city without expense to the taxpayers.
"Our system of tenement inspections should be
thorough and the tenement laws should be enforced. The question
primarily is not the material welfare
of the owner of the property, but the physical welfare of the
occupant's life. Public health is more important than private
gain.
"Resorts, charitably known as music halls, should
be wiped off our main thoroughfares, just as street loafers
should be ordered off our principal corners. Our thoroughfares
at all times should be safe to our citizens. I mean this,
and if it should give rise to any question as to the social
evil, I will not hesitate to make my meaning plainer still,
if necessary.
"The Buffalo
Sanitary Company has recently offered to sell its plant to the
City at original cost. Let us take them at their word on
their willingness to sell. It includes of course the surrender
of their contract. The City should acquire this plant, not
at original cost, but at present actual value. The good
will already belongs to the City, for without the City's
good will the company would have no business.
"I am in receipt of a communication from the
Society for Beautifying Buffalo
, relative to the placing underground of overhead wires
and the removal of unsightly poles. Such burial, of course,
should apply not only to one, but ultimately to all.
"A project not only for the adornment but for
the enlightenment of Buffalo
is the movement for a greater university. A new home for the
Society of Natural Sciences, a fitting companion to the
Albright
Gallery and to the home of the Historical Society
, would emphasize further the higher side of our municipal
life.
"Every public official should be interested
in keeping the conduct of affairs free from the giving of
taking of anything to which
the giver or taker is not honestly entitled - in
one word, graft. I believe graft should be scotched by not
only arresting and trying, but by convicting and imprisoning
the grafter, whether he be an office holder or not. Disguise
should not be permitted to keep a thief out of jail and
a grafter is a thief in disguise. I will do all in my power
to put any grafting public official not only out of office,
but into jail. I will do all in my power to expose and punish
bribery or corruption
or any attempt to wrongfully control or influence the conduct
of our public affairs, no matter how high or how low the
wrongdoer may be."
Mayor Adam
continued his lengthy annual messages to the Common Council
, with his second, on January 7, 1907.
"Peace and prosperity have characterized the
life of our city during the past year. As a community we
have been free from calamitous disasters and impoverishing
inactivities. Old industries have enlarged and thrived.
New industries have come. The number of homes has increased
gratifyingly. Our population has grown accordingly. So desirable
is our vicinity, as a site for manufacturing, that when
an establishment recently was drawn elsewhere one of the
inducements was the eagerness of another to acquire its
plant here upon advantageous terms.
"Amid this prosperity we find the cost living
increased. Included in this is the expense of our municipal
government as manifest in the rate of taxation.
"At the close of the year I say more emphatically
than at its beginning, that we must have honesty and efficiency
in our public service.
"The new streetcar line through the Hamburg
Turnpike, with its service to the great South Side, is one
of the attendant accomplishments of the solution of the
waterfront
problem.
"A new Charter Commission
was named by me early in the year. I endeavored to make it thoroughly
representative and non-partisan. It has been engaged in
the work of preparing a new charter which I trust may be
ready for consideration during the life of the incoming
State Legislature.
II say emphatically, that if I ever definitely and
adequately learn of any case of official corruption
or police
protection of any kind of crime or den of vice, I will not only
exert every element of power at my command, but I will call
upon the citizens of this community to join in putting the
offender out of office and into prison. I do not believe
in persecution of any citizen. I abhor persecution and punishment
of a corrupt official. I believe in decency. I herewith
publicly request every citizen of whatsoever station or
vocation, to present at any time any knowledge or suspicion
of the existence of vice or of the location of violators
of law.
"Complaint has been made by me to the State
Gas and Electricity Commission against the companies supplying
illuminating gas and natural gas to the people of Buffalo
"We point with appreciation to such liberal
public spirit as prompted the Rumsey family to present to
the city the attractive addition to Delaware Park
known as Rumsey Woods.
"It is proper to refer...to the custom which
has grown steadily throughout the year of inviting and receiving
complaints, suggestions, advice from any citizen on any
subject. There have days during the past year when communications
to and from citizens in my office alone have totaled hundreds.
"The subject of new passenger terminals has
been an animated one at times during the past year. As you
are aware, public sentiment divided, one portion favoring
the so-called William Street site, another portion favoring
the so-called Cary site and another portion favoring the
so-called Exchange Street site for a union passenger station.
The present passenger terminals in Buffalo
are inadequate and antiquated. I believe they are unsatisfactory
alike to the roads and to the city. One of the important
things to be inaugurated this year is new passenger terminals
that will be a credit to the city, an honor to the railroads
and a pride to the people.
"In all kindness, I say that the street railroad
service in Buffalo
should be improved. ...There has been marked improvement in
cars...and more satisfactory schedules put in effect on
some lines. But there is room for tremendous improvement.
"There reposes somewhere in one of the branches
of your Honorable Body a proposed vehicle-tax ordinance.
I believe that such a measure should be enacted. ...It is
but fair that those who use the streets and directly create
the wear and tear should contribute directly to the maintenance
thereof.
"A new contract for gas lighting in our streets,
etc., is to be made this year. It should be a vast improvement
on the old contract. The price should be much lower.
"I was much impressed to note that the new Lafayette
High School already is overflowing. When the time comes
for the next new high school, and it may be sooner than
many of us expect, it should be of such proportions as to
provide for the increase of attendance for some time to
come.
"A so-called census of dogs, through the medium
of dog tags, revealed a tremendous surprise. We had been
led to believe that the number of dogs in Buffalo
had dwindled until we seemed bound toward a dogless city. The
year's count and receipts from licenses revealed gratifying
results.
"It is of interest, too, to scrutinize the work
of the Municipal, Police and Morning Courts and also the
Juvenile Court. Buffalo
took the lead in the establishment of Juvenile Courts in this
State and the growing popularity of this court is significant.
"We should preserve the shade trees, plant more
shade trees, regulate unsightly billboards, minimize the
smoke nuisance and keep our city tidy and clean.
"The people of Buffalo
, I think, want their affairs properly attended to, the
small affairs as well as the large affairs. Nothing is too
small to be done well; nothing is too large to done in the
right way. What is worth doing at all is worth doing right.
"I have smiled at times during the year over
so-called complaints of 'Poking into too many things.' There
is no danger of public officials learning too much about
the doing of all things well.
"I have indicated much of what awaits our attention.
Let us strive to accomplish it. Heavy expenditures are involved
for necessary improvements. What we must have we can afford.
But let us see that it is done wisely, efficiently and well.
Let the burden be borne by all in equal share and it will
seem no burden."
On January 6, 1908 Mayor Adam
delivered his third annual address
to the Common Council
"Our city has prospered during the year now
past. Peace and good order have prevailed; industry has
thrived. The stress and shock of panic, so pronounced elsewhere,
served in our community to attest the strength of public
confidence and the soundness of our institutions, financial,
commercial and industrial.
"I have regretted during the past two years
the division at times of the Common Council
on partisan political lines. It was less frequent than in previous
years, but it should not occur at all. It indicates that
politics and not business is uppermost.
"The politicians we have ever with us. Partisanship
is essential to their existence. But let us give them a
vacation for two years. We do not need them. In so far as
I am concerned, I desire to announce to your Honorable Body
that at the termination of my present incumbency of the
office of Mayor, I will not accept re-nomination or re-election.
My acceptance of the office in the closing years of my life
has been due to the sole desire to do something for our
city which has done so much for me; to leave matters better
than I found them, especially financial matters; to untangle
if possible that which becomes woefully tangled, and by
trying to do my part, to point the way for other business
men to take up the task and do their duty as citizens by
leading our city onward to the great future awaiting it.
"I hope that in the long line of my successors
as Mayor, throughout the future years, no one will be chosen
who is dependent upon the emoluments of the office for a
living. The Mayors of Buffalo
should be its ablest, greatest business men, who have demonstrated
by their conduct of private business their fitness to direct
public affairs as the city's chief executive.
"As you are aware, when I took office as Mayor
two years ago, affairs were in a condition deplored by all
good citizens. Financial and moral conditions especially
were wretched.
"As to moral betterment, the action taken is
well known. We cannot have a perfect city this side of eternity,
but we can have a decent city, an orderly city, and we can
have it without persecution of unfortunates and without
unduly interfering with the personal liberty of the great
majority of our citizens, who are law-abiding.
"If a citizen were to ask me to place my finger
on the most important phase of our municipal business affairs
apart from wise expenditures of public money, I would turn
to the work of assessments.
"Buffalo
needs many things. It stands a city of the first class with
some of its old country-town ways still surviving and with
many of its facilities still undeveloped.
"The next ten years will witness a development
compared with which the splendid growth of the last ten
years will seem slow indeed.
Bit has been suggested and publicly advocated by
various interests that a tunnel be built under the Buffalo
River from the foot of Main Street to the Seawall Strip, along
which is expected that the city ultimately will have a direct
highway connecting with the Hamburg Turnpike, and forming
a straight-away thoroughfare from the heart of the city
along the entire outer harbor, and out to the Steel Plant
at West Seneca.
"Buffalo
greatly needs a new Technical High School
...I commend the matter...to your consideration.
"I am informed that the condition of the Central
High School
..warrants careful consideration of the question of a new
Central High School and also of the question of the advisability
of or necessity for a fourth high school.
"Citizens...have brought to my attention a proposal
that there be legislation at Albany and that the city appoint
a commission and that a city hospital for consumption (tuberculosis
) be built in the hills adjacent to Buffalo
"In regard to passenger terminals, public opinion
for years favored a union station and at least two commissions
so reported. The present commission took up the question
of both freight and passenger terminals and for a union
station brought in a site held by the railroads to be the
only one possible - the Fillmore Avenue site.
"...Buffalo
needs a new tax law and a change in the system whereby tax-dodging
will be impossible and the man who fails to pay his taxes
becomes liable to lose his property.
"The city took over during the past year the
rubbish destroying plant. If contractors could run it at
a profit, so should the city and taxpayers get the benefit
of the savings.
"We are part of a city's history. Let us write
our page clean and legible and fair, so that those who come
after will turn back to it with pride and hold it as an
inspiration and an example - a chapter worthy of the city
of their day, when what is now great to us will seem so
small; all except the motive which, if it be born of integrity
is imperishable and forever eminent."
Mayor Adam
's last annual message to the Common Council
was submitted on January 4, 1909.
"No municipality in the world now enjoys a better
reputation or higher standing financially. Our bonds are
exempt from taxation and have been declared a legal investment
for savings banks in Massachusetts, which is considered
a criterion of value.
"The tangles and snarls of bygone years have
been untangled in large measure, deficits and false assets
have been wiped out; long-standing back bills and bad debts
have been paid up.
"We are not perfect. No city is. But we are
ordained to greater things. We want to grow. We want to
grow greater, broader, stronger, more prosperous. If anything
wrongfully interferes with our growth it should be lopped
off, kicked out or reformed.
"A city such as ours should go forward by leaps
and bounds. We are at the portal of the Great Lakes. The
vast trade of this colossal inland waterway should pour
in and out of our harbor. Our water front should teem with
busy terminals and great industries. Our harbor skyline
should reveal from West Seneca to Tonawanda the monuments
of commerce and manufacture. Instead of this, what do we
find? Waste places, water lapping untenanted frontage, lands
idle. Our outer harbor is a marina morgue, clutched in the
relentless grip of railroads and its development blackened
by years of litigation while these railroads played their
own game among themselves regardless of the interests of
the city.
"In the inner harbor we find railroads at the
entrance, railroads or their lake lines, or dead or alive
elevators on both sides. ...We find railroad bridges blocking
progress - the bridges of the railroads and the greed of
some of the land-owners of undeveloped land.
"Miles of waterfront
? And how much of it has the city? None! Miles of waterfront!
And in well-nigh solid array, shoulder to shoulder, stand
the railroads claiming it is theirs and leaving Buffalo
to wait, while they play their own games among themselves.
"Land terminals match the water terminals in
disgraceful inadequacy. Commission after commission has
gone forth in good faith to treat with the railroads in
honor and fair dealing. Again we are the city deceived and
interests ignored. Their passenger terminals are a disgrace
to themselves and an outrage upon the citizens of Buffalo
Towns not half our size can boast of better stations.
II recommend specifically for immediate action:
"...The revoking of every revocable permit or
grant to any railroad to use...any portion of the city's
property which enables said railroad to reach or touch any
of the Waterfront.
"...The rescinding of all action in regard to
union stations.
ú...The prompt acquiring, with the least possible
delay, of the lands under water between Jersey street and
Georgia street.
"I plead for an emancipated Buffalo
I stand for a city with a port throbbing with commerce and
trade, an outer harbor developed and busy from end to end,
for an inner harbor freed of needless obstructions, like
dead elevators...and with its frontage filled with industrial
and commercial activity.
"We should set the example, to others who need
to build, by building where it is needed ourselves.
"We need a Technical High School
Let us have it.
"We need a Central High School
I presented this need to you a year ago.
"We will need also another high school, probably
on the South Side of the city.
"New grade schools will be needed. Let us have
them as actually required.
"A new police
station has been made out of an old school for a new police
precinct. Let us arrange...to make such use of it as called
for its creation.
"New fire houses are really needed. Let us have
them.
"A hospital for contagious illnesses is needed.
So is a special hospital for sufferers of tuberculosis
"A police
headquarters is a necessity.
"The question of a great new hall for Buffalo
might be answered.
"If Main Street were deflected slightly to the
left and carried from its foot out to West Seneca it would
form a almost straight thoroughfare from the heart of Buffalo
to the Lackawanna Steel Plant
"The specific proposal for a boulevard to Niagara
Falls deserves the support of every resident of Buffalo
"Show me the man who knows not the need of a
university education and I will show you the living embodiment
of that need.
"I desire officially to praise the work done
by the city forester during the past year. When Dr. M. D.
Mann, in the face of constant difficulties, led the movement
which resulted in the creation of the position of city forester
the incumbent selected found a big task before him. He has
done his work ably.
"The present tax law of Buffalo
is abominable. Under it, tax dodgers throw thousands of dollars
of unpaid taxes
on the shoulders
of taxpayers.
"I believe that many thousands of dollars can
be saved annually to the taxpayers by the city owning and
properly operating its own asphalt plant.
"Instead of prices always climbing up for doing
city work we have at least one instance where the price
has decreased. I refer to the collection of ashes and garbage.
"Triumphs have come to great industries of our
city - hard won triumphs, achieved only after unparalleled
competition, and the victories are an honor to Buffalo
manufacturers whose courage made them possible and a credit
to Buffalo
workmen whose skill and toil and brains created and operated
the implements of conquest. I refer especially to the magnificent
victories of the Pierce Great Arrow automobiles in the Glidden
and Hower tours and the supreme triumph of the Thomas automobile
in its famous and historic trip around the world in which
American supremacy and superiority were established beyond
peradventure of question. Buffalo
is proud of such industries as these two great factories and
rejoice in their victories and their renown.
"Our growth during the year has been highly
gratifying. We are gaining worldwide fame as a manufacturing
center.
"This year the tax rate dropped from $19.52
to $18.48.
"Can you not see the city of the future - great
beyond our dreams of its greatness, rich beyond our dreams
of its riches, prosperous beyond our dreams of its prosperity.
And shall our memory be cherished or condemned then? Shall
our acts of today be honored or dishonored then? Shall Buffalo
in the days of her future greatness hold us in esteem or regard
us with contempt? The answer is in our acts. To fritter
or idle the year away is to prove unworthy of Buffalo
, unworthy of its citizens, unworthy of ourselves. To rise
to the opportunity and act with integrity, intelligence
and promptness is to perform a service greater than any
honors of the hour, for our deeds will be alike our best
bequest and our abiding monument."
The last official act that Adam did as Mayor was
to present to the Common Council
the report of the Charter Revision Commission. The main points
proposed:
Reduction of elective administrative officials to
three - Mayor, Comptroller, and President of the Common
Council
Single appointive heads of departments. Common Council President
term to be four years. A single board in the Common Council
to be 25 members, 12 elected at large and 13 representing
wards. Fix ward boundaries and new powers for the Common
Council.
The building of the immense J. N. Adam & Co.
store on Main Street was part of the growth of downtown
Buffalo
that Adam never mentioned.
As Mayor Adam
stated in his third annual address
, he did wish to run for another term. In July 1909 he was
asked if he would accept an independent nomination, but
declined to answer.
Adam took yearly summer trips to his homeland of
Scotland and usually appointed Alderman Louis P.
Fuhrmann acting Mayor. He took another trip in October,
1909, and upon hearing of the early city convention, hastily
left Scotland. At the primary held on September 14, 1909,
Louis Fuhrmann
was the easy winner in every ward, with Mayor Adam
and his supporters trailing far behind. Upon reaching Quebec,
Mayor Adam
was informed of Fuhrmann's nomination for mayor and telegraphed
a congratulations to Fuhrmann. It is believed that Adam
would have accepted the nomination if the party had given
it to him, but Fuhrmann had become very popular during the
many months he spent as acting-Mayor. In a way Adam had
elevated Fuhrmann and cut off any chance he had for his
own reelection
After the election of Fuhrmann, he was asked his
thoughts on the election. "If Buffalo
progresses as much in four years as in the past five, I'll answer
your question."
Mayor Adam
attended the inauguration of Mayor Fuhrmann
Immediately upon its completion he left. None of Adam's
supporters of four years previous were to be found. Only
but a handful of friends was there to escort the outgoing
mayor.
When Adam retired the Buffalo
Evening News stated of his administration: "...Even its
severest critics admit that it placed the city upon a sound
basis financially."
PERSONAL LIFE
Adam was married to Margaret Linton Paterson of Edinburgh,
on January 9, 1872. It was that year that they emigrated
to the United States. They had no children. The last known
residence of the Adam's, was at 60 Oakland Place.
He was a member of the Chamber of Commerce, and a
supporter of the Buffalo
Historical Society
and Fine Arts Academy
He also was a member of the St. Andrew's Scottish Society.
Some time between 1910 and 1915 a hospital was opened
known as the J. N. Adam Memorial
Hospital
for Tuberculosis
in Perrysburg, New York. In 1960 it was changed to the J. N.
Adam State School for Severely Mentally Retarded. This was
a division of the Gowanda State Hospital and was a temporary
residence to be used until the construction of the children's
psychiatric hospital in West Seneca was completed.
The J. N. Adam Co. continued in business until the
1960's when downtown
