Bernard Healy

Bernard (Barney) Healy was a Los Angeles, California, 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.

Healy and his twins

Personal

Healy was a native of Virginia who was married in Arizona about 1880 and became 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."[1][2]

Government service
Healey as seen by a Los Angeles Times artist

Healy was a City Council member between 1904 and 1909,[3] when he was described as a "kindly, good-natured man of large family and patriotic impulses."[4] 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."[5]

He represented the Eighth Ward on the east side of the city,[6] 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."[2]

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.[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.[8]

In 1907 he introduced an ordinance[9] that would have made it a misdemeanor for a landlord to refuse to rent to a family with children. He said:

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.[10]

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,[11] an exclusionary practice, he said, that placed "a premium on race suicide, and I'm going to fight it."[2] The council approved the ordinance, but the city attorney again ruled the idea to be unconstitutional.[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.[3][13] 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."[14]

Healy ran for the council again in 1910 and was defeated.[15] 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.[16]

Notes and references
  1. "Faithful County and City Officials," Los Angeles Sunday Herald, September 3, 1905, page 5
  2. "Looking Out for Babies," Los Angeles Times, June 2, 1907, page II-1
  3. Chronological Record of Los Angeles City Officials 1850–1938, Los Angeles Municipal Reference Library, March 1938, reprinted 1946
  4. "All Hail Healy," Los Angeles Herald, May 28, 1907, page 6
  5. "Suggest Healy for Police Chief," Los Angeles Herald, December 1, 1907, page 5
  6. 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.""The Election," Los Angeles Times, February 6, 1889, page 2
  7. "City Employees Will Get Holidays and Pay," Los Angeles Herald, May 30, 1905, page 7
  8. "No Saloons With 600 feet of Schools," Los Angeles Herald, August 22, 1905, page 14
  9. Healy's Mail Is Heavy Nowadays," Los Angeles Herald, June 7, 1907, page 7
  10. "Healy Would 'Bust' 'Landlords' Trust,' " Los Angeles Times, May 24, 1907, page II-1
  11. "Council Faces Money Debates," Los Angeles Express, June 3, 1907, page 7
  12. "Landlords Safe From Healy's Ire," Los Angeles Herald, August 6, 1907, page 12
  13. "Vote for Candidates," Los Angeles Herald, December 9, 1909, page 1
  14. "Old Council Members Lost in Private Life," Los Angeles Herald, January 7, 1910, page 5
  15. "Good Government Triumphs," Los Angeles Herald, July 1, 1910, page 1
  16. "25 Years Ago Today," Los Angeles Herald-Express, March 15, 1937
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