Edmund W. Flynn was the chief justice of the Rhode Island Supreme Court from January 1, 1935, to April 28, 1957. Born in Providence, Rhode Island, on February 22, 1890, he was the son of a police officer. His two older brothers were John Flynn, the legendary coach of the Providence College baseball team, and William S. Flynn, who became Governor of Rhode Island in 1923. Flynn graduated from the College of the Holy Cross and Georgetown Law School. A member of the Democratic Party, he represented South Providence in the Rhode Island House of Representatives for five years, from 1931 to 1935, also running unsuccessfully for mayor of Providence in 1962. When his party unexpectedly gained control of the state legislature in 1935, in what was deemed the “Bloodless Revolution,” the legislature appointed an entirely new state supreme court with Flynn as chief justice.
The Bloodless Revolution of January 1935 was not a spontaneous uprising but a well-planned coup by a dozen Democratic leaders, including Edmund Flynn. In late November and early December 1934, the votes for the 42 Senate seats were tallied, and the preliminary count gave the Republicans a 23 to 19 edge. However, the Democrats alleged voter irregularities in three towns ostensibly carried by the GOP–Coventry, Portsmouth, and South Kingstown. Upon investigation, the deception in Coventry was so blatant that the Republican-dominated State Returning Board reversed the result, leaving the “final” count at 22 to 20 in favor of the Republicans.
However, Democrats were convinced of fraud in both Portsmouth and South Kingstown. As the incumbent presiding officer of the Senate by his 1932 victory, Robert E. Quinn invoked a constitutional power under Article IV, Section 6 to have the Senate itself conduct a recount in the two disputed districts. To that end, he appointed a three-member Senate committee composed of two Democrats and a moderate Republican.
Confident of the results of that inquiry, Quinn, Governor Green, Mayor Tom McCoy of Pawtucket, First Assistant Attorney General William W. Moss, Providence Representative Edmund Flynn, and several others met to draft the revolutionary scenario. When the Senate opened on New Year’s Day 1935, Quinn swore in all of the senators-elect except for Republicans B. Earle Anthony of Portsmouth and incumbent Wallace Campbell of South Kingstown. This duo sat in their assigned seats with flowers on their desk, but Quinn ignored them. This procedure left the Senate divided 20 to 20, with Quinn presiding. In 1924, several Republicans tried to leave the chambers to prevent a quorum, but Quinn had prepared warrants for their detention, and the state police complied.
The state police presence and compliance had been facilitated the previous January when Green and Quinn ousted Colonel Everitte St. John Chaffee in favor of their candidate to lead the state police, Edward J. Kelly of Providence. The Senate confirmed Kelly in a voice vote when Quinn, as presiding officer, refused requests of the Republican majority for a roll call ballot. At that session, Republicans had 27 senators compared to only 14 Democrats and one independent. Because of a GOP omission in creating the state police, its colonel was not covered by the Brayton Act.
With the Republicans restrained, Secretary of State Louis Cappelli supervised a recount. That tally overturned the election results in both towns and gave victory to Portsmouth Democrat Joseph P. Dunn and South Kingstown Democrat Charles A. White, Sr. The new line-up was now 22 to 20 in favor of the Democrats, thanks not only to Quinn’s maneuvers but also to the 1928 constitutional amendment that had allowed Providence four Senate seats.
With a comfortable margin in the House of 58 to 42 and the consequent 80 to 62 control of the Grand Committee of the House and the Senate–the body that then chose Supreme Court justices–Democrats implemented their revolution by enacting the five major bills that their plan had prepared in anticipation of gaining Senate control. These measures were introduced and passed by the eager Democrats in rapid-fire succession.
The first bill vacated the office of Sheriff Jonathan Andrews of Providence County and all the patronage jobs that went with it—the second vacated the five judgeships of the state supreme court. The five Republican justices on the Court were granted large pensions on the condition that they resign their offices by noon the following day. They did so—the first bill passed by a voice vote, the second by a roll call. The third bill passed by the insurgents wiped out the Providence Safety Board and gave Governor Green the power to name a public safety director for the city. This Providence Safety Board situation was the most notorious example of Republican interference in the affairs of those municipalities that were under Democratic control. At that time, the state operated under a theory of local government known as the “creature doctrine,” whereby local communities were mere creatures of the General Assembly, with the legislature having virtually absolute power over them. It was the custom of the Republican-controlled state government to frequently interfere in the local affairs of cities that tended towards the Democratic Party.
The fourth bill abolished the office of finance commissioner and created a combined office of state budget director and state controller and placed the budgetary powers under the Governor. Prior to this act, the finance commissioner, appointed by the Senate, had control of the state budget. The Governor had no budgetary power other than to veto the entire budget, because he lacked an item veto (and still does). Control of the finance commissioner, a position then held for over a decade by Republican state party chairman Bill Peck, was another method by which the GOP Senate could maintain its dominance in state affairs under the 1901 Brayton Act.
The last bill, Chapter 2188 of the Public Laws of 1935, was the longest. It merged some 80 state commissions controlled by the Senate into eleven executive departments, and it repealed the Brayton Act, not by name but by repealing all acts “inconsistent” with the reorganization law. The seven departments not headed by an elected general officer were to be headed by a director who would be appointed by the Governor and hold office “at the pleasure of the governor.”
From the time that the Senate convened to hear the report of the special committee on the recount at 7:32 p.m. to the adoption of the fifth measure, which repealed the Brayton Act and reorganized state government, only fourteen minutes elapsed. The House quickly approved the measures by roll call votes along a straight party line, and Governor Green immediately signed them into law. Next the Grand Committee met to fill the vacancies of sheriff and the justices of the state supreme court, appointments already agreed upon in advance. Then Green was sworn into office as Governor for a second term. Finally, at 12:05 a.m. the Governor read an abbreviated inaugural address that contained recommendations for much that had already occurred and invoked “the spiritual presence of the patron saint of the Democratic Party in Rhode Island—Thomas Wilson Dorr.”
The 1956 Rhode Island gubernatorial election was held on November 6, 1956—the Election Pitted incumbent Democrat Dennis J. Roberts against Republican nominee Christopher Del Sesto. Although Del Sesto won a plurality, he did not become Governor that year. The Board of Elections completed its count on December 18, 1956; Del Sesto won by 427 votes. But in what was known as the “long count,” the Rhode Island Supreme Court invalidated 5,000 civilian, absentee, and shut-in ballots cast before election day because a constitutional amendment required such votes to be cast on, rather than before, election day. The decision, released on New Year’s Day, 1957, resulted in Roberts remaining in office by a plurality of 711 votes. (50.1%-49.9%) The incumbent Governor’s brother was on the Court. He recused himself from the decision, but “two of the four judges hearing the case, Chief Justice Edmund W. Flynn and Justice Francis B. Condon, both Democrats, voted in Roberts’ favor. Flynn served until his death on April 28, 1957, the longest-tenured chief justice in Rhode Island history.
A bachelor, Flynn was active in the Roman Catholic church and held the papal honor of Knight Commander with Star of the Order of St. Gregory.
Judge Flynn was elected in August of 1957 as Chairman of State Chief Justices organized to study the problems of court congestion and delay in litigation. He was inducted into The Rhode Island Heritage Hall of Fame in 2014.
For additional reading:
- “Edmund W. Flynn; R.I. Chief Justice,” The Berkshire Eagle (April 29, 1957), p. 13.
- Conley, Patrick T. “Great coach was a third of the famous Flynn brothers.” The Providence Journal, November 15, 2014.
- “R. I. Republicans Left Groggy By Democratic Coup,” St. Albans Daily Messenger (January 2, 1935),