Bernard Healy

{{short description|American politician}}

{{Infobox officeholder

| name = Bernard Healy

| image =Bernard Healy, 1906.png

| caption = Healy in 1906

| office = Member of the Los Angeles City Council for the 8th ward

| term_start = December 8, 1904

| term_end = December 10, 1909

| predecessor = Robert Asa Todd

| successor = District eliminated

| party = Republican

| birth_date = {{birth date text|1856}}

| birth_place = Wheeling, West Virginia

| death_date = {{death date and age|1916|10|22|1856}}

}}

Bernard Healy (1856 – October 22, 1916) was a Los Angeles City Council member who was known for his attempt in 1905 to legislate against landlords who refused to rent to families with children, for his support of paid holidays for city workers in the parks and streets departments, and for his large family.

Personal

Healy was born in Wheeling, West Virginia and was married in Arizona about 1880, becoming the father of eight to ten children, including a set of twins. He was a non-commissioned officer in the United States Army "during many of the uprisings along the frontier."[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042462/1905-09-03/ed-1/seq-53.pdf "Faithful County and City Officials," Los Angeles Sunday Herald, September 3, 1905, page 5]

Government service

File:Cartoon version of Bernard Haley, Los Angeles City Council, 1904-09.png

Healy was a City Council member between 1904 and 1909,Chronological Record of Los Angeles City Officials 1850–1938, Los Angeles Municipal Reference Library, March 1938, reprinted 1946 when he was described as a "kindly, good-natured man of large family and patriotic impulses."[http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19070528.2.93&srpos=10&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-barney+healy----- "All Hail Healy," Los Angeles Herald, May 28, 1907, page 6] The Los Angeles Herald said of him in 1907 that he was "the most picturesque character in the present council. He is known as "Buttermilk Barney," as he is an abstainer, is always clad in green and wears no neckties."[http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19071201.2.68.42&srpos=17&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-barney+healy----- "Suggest Healy for Police Chief," Los Angeles Herald, December 1, 1907, page 5]

He represented the Eighth Ward on the east side of the city,Bounded ". . . westerly and northerly by Main street, from First street to Marchessault street; Upper Main street, from Marchessault street to San Fernando street; San Fernando street, from Upper Main street to Downey avenue; Downey avenue, from San Fernando street to the Los Angeles River; easterly by the Los Angeles River from Downey avenue to First street; southerly by First street from the Los Angeles River to Main street."[https://www.proquest.com/docview/163506482 "The Election," Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1889, page 2] which the Times called "the ward with the greatest percentages of the saloon vote," the newspaper noting that Healy "was an uncompromising Republican" in "the strongest Democratic ward in the city."

In 1905, Healy was the author of a successful move in the City Council to give outdoor parks and streets employees half a day off on Saturdays and legal holidays, the same as employees who worked in the City Hall.[http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19050530.2.70&srpos=1&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-barney+healy----- "City Employees Will Get Holidays and Pay," Los Angeles Herald, May 30, 1905, page 7] He also authored an ordinance, adopted unanimously, that made it unlawful to grant a saloon license anywhere within 600 feet of a public school building.

[http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19050822.2.162&srpos=7&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-barney+healy----- "No Saloons With 600 feet of Schools," Los Angeles Herald, August 22, 1905, page 14]

In 1907 he introduced an ordinance[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042462/1907-06-07/ed-1/seq-7.pdf Healy's Mail Is Heavy Nowadays," Los Angeles Herald, June 7, 1907, page 7] that would have made it a misdemeanor for a landlord to refuse to rent to a family with children. He said:

{{blockquote|We've even got laws that will send a landlord to jail for declining to rent rooms to colored people, but that same man can send a woman and two babies out into the street and the law will not touch him. . . . It's a crime against the State, and the man that does it ought to be behind bars. He ain't fit to be at large. . . . I have been hunted about this town myself like a wounded buffalo by those landlords because I had children to bring up. . . . We've got enough ordinances on our books to run a half a dozen States, but there isn't one of them for the man of the common people with a modest salary who is trying to raise a family that will be a credit to the community. . . . I am going to ask the Council to pass an ordinance that will send the next man who refuses to take a woman in because she has babies to the chain gang.[https://www.proquest.com/docview/159086176 "Healy Would 'Bust' 'Landlords' Trust,' " Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1907, page II-1]}}

File:Bernard Healy, Los Angeles City Councilman, and his twins, 1907.png

Healy's first attempt was derailed by the city attorney, who advised that it would probably be unconstitutional. The councilman then amended his proposal to instead simply set a higher license fee on landlords who bar children,[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042462/1907-06-03/ed-1/seq-7.pdf "Council Faces Money Debates," Los Angeles Express, June 3, 1907, page 7] an exclusionary practice, he said, that placed "a premium on race suicide, and I'm going to fight it."[https://www.proquest.com/docview/159129447 "Looking Out for Babies," Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1907, page II-1] The council approved the ordinance, but the city attorney again ruled the idea to be unconstitutional.[http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19070806.2.169&srpos=24&e=-------en--20--21--txt-txIN-barney+healy----- "Landlords Safe From Healy's Ire," Los Angeles Herald, August 6, 1907, page 12]

On December 7, 1909, Los Angeles changed its voting for City Council members from individual wards to all-city voting, with the top nine candidates being elected. Healy took the eleventh spot and so left the council on December 10, 1909.[http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19091209&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN------ "Vote for Candidates," Los Angeles Herald, December 9, 1909, page 1] Afterward, in an article examining what the outgoing City Council members would do since "they lost their salaries of $100 a month and perquisites," the Los Angeles Herald said that "Barney Healy's income . . . seems to have been spent freely. Healy's faults did not include niggardliness, and no tale of hard luck ever failed to reach his pocketbook."[http://cdnc.ucr.edu/cgi-bin/cdnc?a=d&d=LAH19100107.2.67.2&srpos=13&e=-------en--20--1--txt-txIN-healy+recall+council----- "Old Council Members Lost in Private Life," Los Angeles Herald, January 7, 1910, page 5]

Healy ran for the council again in 1910 and was defeated.[http://chroniclingamerica.loc.gov/lccn/sn85042462/1910-07-01/ed-1/seq-1.pdf "Good Government Triumphs," Los Angeles Herald, July 1, 1910, page 1] An unsuccessful effort was made to have the City Council appoint him as an officer in the street-cleaning department. In 1912 he was made a bailiff and deputy sheriff in a Superior Court at a salary of $100 a month.[http://dbase1.lapl.org/webpics/calindex/documents/06/1509.pdf "25 Years Ago Today," Los Angeles Herald-Express, March 15, 1937]

Notes and references

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{{LosAngelesCityCouncil1889-1909}}

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Category:Los Angeles City Council members

Category:California Republicans

Category:1856 births

Category:1916 deaths