Patrick Andrew Collins was an Irish-born American politician. He served as a member of the U. S. House of Representatives from Massachusetts from 1883 to 1889. He was the 37th Mayor of Boston, Massachusetts from 1902 to 1905.
Background
Patrick Andrew Collins was born on March 12, 1844 near Fermoy, County Cork, Ireland. His mother was the second wife of Bartholomew Collins, a “strong farmer, ” who leased two hundred acres. Among the more opulent members of the Irish peasantry, Bartholomew Collins was a man of some education and was active in local Nationalist and Catholic politics, he died in 1847 and in March 1848 Mrs. Collins landed in Boston, having disposed of her rights in the lease. Patrick was then too young to remember his native land but his knowledge of it, gained from his ciders, must have been colored by the catastrophe of the famine in the midst of which his father died. Mrs. Collins settled in Chelsea, Massachusetts.
Education
Patrick went to school in Chelsea, Massachusetts. His first school days were unhappy: his schoolmates and their elders were affected by the prejudices of the “Know-Nothing” period and the boy suffered verbal and physical assaults on his faith and race. Thenceforward, intolerance ranked with English tyranny in Collins’s mind.
Career
In 1857 Mrs. Collins moved to Ohio and for two years Patrick worked in the fields and around the coal-mines. In 1859 he returned to Boston and became apprenticed to an upholsterer. He quickly became a capable and highly paid workman, and, as a charter member of the local union, acquired a reputation for loyalty to his fellows that later stood him in good stead when labor troubles threatened Democratic unity. He became a Fenian in 1864 and soon attained some prominence, but the collapse of the movement convinced him Ireland had little to hope from violent conspiracy.
In 1867 Collins was chosen delegate to the Democratic State Committee and elected to the General Court. He served in the lower house in 1868 and 1869, and in the Senate 1870 and 1871. In 1867 he entered the law office of a Boston Democrat, James A. Keith, and began to attend the Harvard Law School. He graduated with the Bachelor of Laws Degree in 1871 and opened his own office that year.
In 1874 his services in the election of Governor William Gaston were rewarded by the rank of judge-advocate-general, from which office came the title “General” which Collins had too much sense to like. He was a delegate to the convention which nominated Tilden for the presidency, but his chief services to his party were on behalf of Charles Francis Adams, Democratic candidate for governor, who was distrusted by the Irish because of his alleged neglect, while minister to London, of Irish- American prisoners detained as Fenians by the British government. Collins, in an able speech at Marlboro, recanted his own previous utterances and declared that Irish-Americans should vote on American issues only. When, in 1880, Parnell toured the United States on behalf of the Irish Nationalist Party, Collins actively associated himself with the appeal for funds. As president of the American Land League, he was a conservative influence, setting himself against all incitement to crime or palliation of it.
Rather against his will Collins was elected to Congress in 1882. He found Washington expensive and his work in the House futile, rendered more so by the loose procedure. He served three terms but escaped in 1888. In the election of 1884 Collins at first shared the dislike of many Irish Democrats for Cleveland, but won over in a personal interview, campaigned for the party’s candidate in speeches at Albany and elsewhere, taking the same position he had at Marlboro, eight years before. His services in staying the desertion were very great and his friends expected for him a place in the cabinet, which was not offered. There was no breach, however, and Collins had abundant minor patronage to distribute. He was chosen to preside over the convention which renominated Cleveland in 1888.
After the latter’s defeat, Collins was active in Massachusetts politics in the election of Governor Russell. In 1892 he again helped to nominate and elect Cleveland. The consul-generalship in London was the only reward Collins could afford to accept and, after assurances that the ex-Fenian would be persona grata to the British government, he was appointed. His office enabled him to save a little and kept him out of the election of 1896 fortunately, as he had little sympathy with the silver doctrines of Bryan. He entered heartily into the anti-imperialist campaign of 1900, and in 1904, put Olney’s name before the Democratic convention. By this time, however, his interests were chiefly in Boston politics. Defeated in his first mayoral campaign in 1899 by a split in the Democratic ranks, he was elected in 1901 and in 1903, the support of many independents offsetting disaffection bred in some members of his own party by his strict notions of public duty. Failing health limited his activities but his sudden death, at Hot Springs, was a surprise and shock even to his intimate friends. Though Collins was neither a great lawyer nor statesman his probity of character and his loyalty to his church, his party, his native and adopted countries, gained him general esteem. A monument was erected to him in Boston by public subscription in 1908.
Achievements
Patrick Andrew Collins was a leading figure in Massachusetts politics for almost forty years. He distinguished himself for his service in the state of Massachusetts legislature, U. S. Congress and state government. He was instrumental in helping to nominate and elect Glover Cleveland for the presidency. A monument was erected to him in Boston by public subscription in 1908.
Collins was a member of the Democratic Party. While in the state senate he strove to abolish the special “Catholic Oath” and to secure Catholic chaplains for jails and hospitals. As mayor, he stood for the economy, probity, and home rule. He resisted all attempts to plunder the public, whether engineered by city workers or by corporations and opposed the imposition by the legislature of special burdens on the city.
Connections
Collins was married to Mary Carey of Boston in 1873.
