Like his predecessor, Mayor Palmer served but one year. Business had revived, but retrenchment was still insisted upon. Indeed, in his inaugural Mayor Palmer characterized economy as 'the imperial word that dominates the hour.'

He was much concerned about corruption in the election of municipal officers, and said it was becoming increasingly obvious in regard to the electoral system that 'with each succeeding election the greatest evil that vitiates its purity and honesty and imperils its usefulness as a means to the end of good government, is the employment of money to secure the success of candidates, whether of one party or the other, in sums so large as to far exceed the limit of legitimate political expenditure.' He proposed various changes in the registration laws and would not have the payment of the poll tax as a requisite to voting.

Mayor Palmer complained that the government of the City of Boston was too largely in the hands of appointive officers and not of elective officers, and that most of the large municipal departments were committed to the keeping of commissions. No new municipal undertaking was begun under him."

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