Corporate Power and Urban Crisis in Detroit 9781400871971

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CORPORATE POWER AND URBAN CRISIS IN DETROIT

Corporate Power and Urban Crisis in Detroit LYNDA ANN EWEN

PRINCETON UNIVERSITY PRESS PRINCETON, NEW JERSEY

Copyright © 1978 by Princeton University Press Published by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey In the United Kingdom: Princeton University Press, Guildford, Surrey ALL RIGHTS RESERVED

Library of Congress Cataloging in Publication Data will be found on the last printed page of this book Printed in the United States of America by Princeton University Press, Princeton, New Jersey

PREFACE

XHiS book is the product of many forces, of which the particular work of an individual researcher and author is almost the least important. The political reawakening of academia in the 1960's laid the basis for this kind of study. The original conception when started in 1970, however, was that of a "power structure" analysis. It is the political motion of the working class in Detroit that transformed this book from a somewhat sterile exercise in demonstrating "what is" to an analysis that speaks to what "shall be." For that transformation, one must understand the nature of the working class in Detroit—its strength, its militancy, its capacity to make errors, fall back, and try again. I cannot start to express what I have learned about the "leadership of the proletariat" from students at Wayne State University, workers at the Detroit Labor School, leaders in daily struggles in the Detroit area, and the political leaders who have shaped and articulated those class interests. Nor can I hope to express what I have learned about oppression and exploitation through the Detroit experience. I have come to understand the heat, filth, and danger of the presses and the forges. I have come to understand real hunger and the despair of violence against neighbor and violence against oneself. This study attempts to be a disciplined and systematic analysis of a problem. But it is also a political statement. Indeed, a fundamental premise of this book is that disciplined analyses by social scientists are always political statements. The politics of this book come out of long and intense struggles within and between various political groups in Detroit, the United States, and the world. My trip to Chile in the spring of 1972 gave me enormous political insights into the Detroit experience. The various political

vi

PREFACE

groups of the Detroit "left" provided a basis for the testing of various theoretical perspectives about the nature of the working class and working class organizing. And the struggles within the plants—by individual workers and by organized groups of workers—provided lessons about the capacity of human beings and the necessity of certain alternatives that I would have never grasped in the isolation of academia. The class-conscious workers and friends that have struggled with, and alongside, me need no acknowledgment, for they know who they are. They have provided the fundamental data for this book as concrete examples of the history of the world-wide working class struggle. There are friends and students who have also helped with this book in a direct and academic way who are generally acknowledged in such prefaces. This study was not funded by any major grant and I received only a small summer stipend from Wayne State University in the summer of 1971 and the assistance of several work-study students. Without the cooperation and unity of those who worked with me, for decent pay, for rotten pay, or for no pay at all, it would not have been possible to carry out this research. Those who in some way worked on the project and contributed greatly to its conclusion include Carl, Gordon, Valerie, Sue, Ted, Barb, Sandy, David, John, Lorraine, and Babs.1 Those who provided their own work and research include Sherri Joseph, Tom Schuby, and Genevieve Herman. The manuscript was read by Rick Hill and Harvey Molotch and was greatly improved by their suggestions and criticisms. Maurice Zeitlin not only provided valuable feedback on the manuscript, but also much of my original academic training that laid the basis for this research. In the end, and after long struggle with a number of political criticisms raised by my readers, I made the final decisions 1 Most of those mentioned are currently working in the Detroit area and, given the controversial nature of the book, I have chosen to afford them the protection of not completely identifying them.

PREFACE

vii

as to what should remain in the manuscript and I am ultimately responsible for the analysis presented. The final stages of manuscript preparation were carried out at the West Virginia Institute of Technology. I am grateful to WVIT for a small grant that helped to fund this work; to Frank Croft, who reworked the maps and charts; and to Cindy Thompson, who retyped and edited final corrections and revisions. I would also like to acknowledge the role played by Sandy Thatcher of Princeton University Press. Sandy's commitment to the idea that all research and analysis based on scholarship should have equal access to avenues of publication was, I believe, a major factor in the acceptance of this manuscript by Princeton. Sandy's patience and his willingness to engage in dialogue with me during the lengthy process of preparation for publication has been deeply appreciated. I am also grateful to R. Miriam Brokaw, who most judiciously copyedited a somewhat tattered manuscript with a great deal of skill. And in this process I have also come to understand why it is, in general, that only those academicians who receive high salaries, released time from teaching, and free supportive services are able to do such publishing, for I have personally found the publication process to be a most difficult experience. Throughout my life I have been fortunate to have a family that has encouraged disciplined work and standards of excellence. From my parents, Lynn and Ann, I received a commitment to the ethics of equality and justice. I would especially like to thank Bruce, who not only supported me personally in critical periods of the work, but also aided immensely in data collection and analysis. The political insights provided by my husband John, drawn from his and his family's history of struggle, have vastly improved the insights of this book. The data collection for this study began in 1970. The analysis of the data and its interpretation has been a process that has covered six years. Parts of the analysis were com-

viii

PREFACE

pleted by 1972 and 1973, while other parts are based on 1970 census data or empirical data where a cutoff point of 1970 was established. These factors and the scope of the study have made it impossible to continually update and still complete the book. But the patterns of power and conflict presented in the study are continuing and the general analysis drawn from the data has been borne out by recent developments in Detroit.2 The struggle ahead will be long and difficult. I hope that this book will clarify the issues and provide perspectives that will enable working people to grow in political consciousness and struggle at higher levels, for the working people of Detroit and West Virginia have done just that for me. And in the end, it is for Beth, Amy, Julie Lynn, John Creed, and all the children of the working class that we fight for tomorrow. L.A.E. 2 In the spring of 1976, for example, layoffs of city workers beyond those described in Chapter Two led to the closing of some fire stations, a reduction in the police force, the closing of several branch public libraries, and threatened to close the Detroit General Hospital and the Detroit Institute of Arts.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Preface

v

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

5

CHAPTER TWO

Detroit: A City in Crisis

12

CHAPTER THREE

Detroit History: The Ruling Class

46

CHAPTER FOUR

Detroit History: The Working Class

78

CHAPTER FIVE

Minorities and the Detroit Working Class

105

CHAPTER SIX

Ownership and Control in Detroit: The Largest Firms

128

CHAPTER SEVEN

Ownership and Control in Detroit: The Families Behind the Firms

157

CHAPTER EIGHT

Ownership and Control in Detroit: Ideological Dominance

178

CHAPTER NINE

Social Planning and Social Control

216

CHAPTER TEN

Working Class Organization: The Role of The Union

249

χ

CONTENTS

CHAPTER ELEVEN

Conclusion: Political Alternatives

286

Appendix

294

Bibliography

297

Index

307

CHARTS, MAPS, AND

TABLES

CHARTS CHART I. Kinship Data follows page 77 CHART II. Occupations and Industries: A Decennial Comparison 83 CHART III. Pro-forma Campaign Organization Chart— Wayne State University Fund-Raising Feasibility Study 193 MAPS M A P I. HUD Properties in Detroit, Hamtramck, and Highland Park M A P II. Plan of Private Claims in Michigan Territory M A P III. Detroit and Metropolitan Detroit M A P IV. Urban Detroit Area (UDA) M A P V. Poverty in Detroit—Percent of Families with Annual Incomes of Less than $3,000 by Detroit Subcommunity M A P VI. Railroad Lines and Industrial Corridors, City of Detroit M A P VII. Inner City Development of Detroit

29 54 231 232

237 238 240

TABLES TABLE I. Percent of Work Force by Type of Employment: Detroit and the United States TABLE II. Percent Nationality Changes: Detroit Population 1850-1925 TABLE III. Percent Blacks in Various Occupational Groups in Detroit, July 1926 TABLE IV. Death Rates for Blacks and Whites in Detroit, 1911-1913

35 110 114 115

xii

CHARTS, MAPS AND TABLES

TABLE V. Directors of the Forty-One Firms in the Study Who Hold Multiple Positions, by Residence TABLE VI. Number of All Major Business Positions Held by Directors of the Forty-One Largest Detroit-Based Firms by Known Residence of Director TABLE VII. Directors of the Forty-One Detroit Firms by Residence and by Primary Affiliation TABLE VIII. Interlocking Directorships Between the Seven Most Interlocked Firms and All Other Firms in the Study TABLE IX. Stockholder Links among the Three Largest Commercial Banks in Detroit, Michigan TABLE X. Stock Ownership by Directors in Firms in Which They Serve TABLE XI. Identifiable Controlling Ownership Interests TABLE XII. Nine Most Prestigious Social Clubs, Detroit Area TABLE XIII. Membership in the Nine Most Prestigious Clubs of the Directors of the Forty-One Largest Detroit-Based Firms TABLE XIV. School Attendance and School Enrollment, City of Detroit, 1850-1910 TABLE XV. Cultural Organizations and Leadership Positions Held by Directors of Large Detroit Firms Who Live in the Detroit Area TABLE XVI. Civic Organizations and Leadership Positions Held by Directors of Large Detroit Firms Who Live in the Detroit Area TABLE XVII. Business-Civic Organizations and Leadership Positions Held by Directors of Large Detroit Firms Who Live in the Detroit Area Table XVIII. Cultural, Civic, and Business Organizations and Leadership Positions Held by Directors of Large Detroit Firms Who Live in the Detroit Area

134

135 137

140 141 146 151 171

172 186

199

203

204

207

CORPORATE POWER AND URBAN CRISIS IN DETROIT

One day The apolitical Intellectuals Of my country Will be interrogated By the simplest Of our people. They will be asked What they did When their nation died out Slowly, Like a sweet fire Small and alone. No one will ask them About their dress Their long siestas After lunch, No one will want to know About their sterile combats With "the idea Of the nothing," No one will care about Their higher financial learning. They won't be questioned On Greek mythology Or regarding their self-disgust When someone within them Begins to die The coward's death. They'll be asked nothing About their absurd justifications Born in the shadow Of the total lie.

On that day The simple men will come. Those who had no place In the books and poems Of the apolitical intellectuals, But daily delivered Their bread and milk Their tortillas and eggs, Those who mended their clothes, Those who drove their cars, Who cared for their dogs and gardens And worked for them, And they'll ask: "What did you do when the poor Suffered, when tenderness And life Burned out in them?" OTTO RENE CASTILLO,

Guatemalan

CHAPTER ONE

Introduction

_L Ν the past decade the urban crisis has become defined as one of the most acute internal social problems that has ever faced the United States. The contradictions of the cities— poverty; the civil rights movements against discrimination in housing, education, and employment; increasing strikes and walk-outs in the factories and the increasing militancy of white collar employees—have exploded into the public consciousness. These contradictions are discussed and an­ alyzed in the media and academia as symptoms of what is wrong in American society—what isn't working right about urban planning, what isn't working right about democracy, what isn't working right about capitalism. In general these analyses have accepted the given frame­ work—the American way of life. The dilemma that has been posed, then, is to find a solution, given the existing premises of contemporary capitalist society. Even those who advocate a "radical" solution rarely go so far as to advocate the qualitative transformation of social relationships that might infer communism. The past decade has seen no solution, however. The urban crisis intensifies as the energy shortage, spiraling inflation, unemployment, and the deterioration of urban living standards continue. The liberal reform solutions of the mid-sixties—the war on poverty, the job corps, urban renewal, the Occupational Health and Safety Act-have all 1 failed to make any significant progress toward solution. It 1 For an overall view of these efforts and criticisms of their prem­ ises from two different perspectives, see Edward Banfield, The Unheavenly City, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1968, and Jonathan

6

INTRODUCTION

has become increasingly clear that there may be no solu­ tions within the liberal reformist framework. Edward Banfield clearly acknowledges this dilemma when he writes: "What stands in the way of dealing effectively with these problems (insofar as their nature admits of their being dealt with) is mainly the virtues of the American political system and of the American character. It is because governmental power is widely distributed that organized interests are so often able to veto measures that would benefit large num­ bers of people. It is the generous and public-regarding measures—for example, the minimum wage and compulsory high school attendance—the ultimate effect of which is to make the poor poorer and more demoralized. Our devotion to the doctrine that all men are created equal discourages any explicit recognition of class-cultural differences and leads to 'democratic—and often misleading—formulations of problems... ."2 Banfield goes on to propose that the minimum wage be repealed, that high-school compulsory attendance be elim­ inated, that the poor be encouraged to sell their children, and that those in the lower class who might potentially become troublemakers be placed in institutions before they have the opportunity to make trouble. 3 Banfield has been attacked on a number of grounds. But his vulnerability is essentially that he was one of the first social scientists to expose the inherent failure of reformism to resolve the urban dilemma. Banfield has clearly moved to the "right"—the charge that his solutions smack of fas­ cism is not unfounded. But he poses the critical question: everything else has failed, so what else is there to do? This study attempts to answer this question. It poses the historical response to the fascist resolution—Marxism-LeninTurner, American Society: Problems of Structure, N.Y.: Harper & Row, 1972. 2 Banfield, The Unheavenly City, p. 256 (emphasis added). 3 For an example of a debate between Banfield and his critics on these issues, see "Banfield's Unheavenly City: A Symposium and Response," in Society, Vol. 8, nos. 5 and β, March/April 1971.

INTRODUCTION

7

ism and socialism. By analyzing the historical development of the class contradiction in a major urban area of the United States—Detroit—this book attempts to pose the questions in a qualitatively different way. These questions are based on scientific socialism—a methodology for the study of human societies that challenges the most fundamental premises of contemporary social science. The reader may find these premises confusing or even threatening, for the vast majority of people in the United States have never had Marxism presented to them as a science, only as a dogma.4 As in any science, the results of testing and theoretical development are cumulative. The growth of understanding a phenomenon is aided by objective historical developments that lay the basis for a further growth in understanding. Thus, the application of Marxism-Leninism to the reality of the United States is not to deny that the objective historical conditions we face are vastly different from those which Marx observed. But we also understand that our technological growth has not invalidated Newton's law of gravity or Copernicus' observations that the planets travel around the sun. In other words, the fundamental scientific laws observed and developed by Marx remain valid, but they have also been developed and expanded by such men as Lenin, Stalin, Dimitroff, and Mao Tse-tung, as well as other socialist theoreticians.6 4 Since this is a book about the urban crisis, and not about MarxismLeninism, the reader who wishes to acquaint himself with the fundamental premises of the science is urged to study Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, The Communist Manifesto, and Frederick Engels, Socialism: Utopian and Scientific, in Selected Works, N.Y.: International Publishers, 1969; also Joseph Stalin, Dialectical and Historical Materialism, N.Y.: International Publishers, 1969. 5 The theory of scientific socialism constitutes a body of knowledge that is, in Stalin's words: ". . . the experience of the working-class movement in all countries taken in its general aspect. Of course, theory becomes purposeless if it is not connected with revolutionary practice, just as practice gropes in the dark if its path is not illuminated by revolutionary theory. But theory can become a tremendous force in the working-class movement if it is built up in indissoluable connection with revolutionary practice; for theory, and theory alone,

8

INTRODUCTION

The fact that scientific socialism makes very explicit its historical role in aiding the working class movement is es­ sentially no different from the role that ruling class theory plays in justifying and legitimating ruling class interests. To argue that the resolution of the urban crisis lies in the resolution of the class contradiction and the movement for socialism is no more biased than to argue that the resolution of the urban crisis lies in making the mechanisms of capital­ ist democracy more efficient. Both approaches represent class interests. Banfield's study may never mention the interests of the large corporation, but his solutions are ob­ viously in the interests of the wealthy, not the poor. This study represents the class interests of the working class, and its solutions are in their interests, not the interests of the ruling class. Since the time that Marx and Engels first laid out the fundamental premises of scientific socialism, the clear and obvious relationship between the exploiting capitalist class and the exploited working class has been complicated by a number of factors—although the essential relationship re­ mains as true today in the United States as it was in the time of Marx. The theories of Marxism have provided the means by which working class movements all over the world have organized and struggled for their rights, and in some countries have succeeded in establishing socialist states." can give the movement confidence, the power of orientation, and an understanding of the inner relation of surrounding events. . . ." The Foundations of Leninism, Peking: Foreign Languages Press, 1970, p. β22. The question of what constitutes a "socialist" country is not an­ swered by the use of idealistic categories. Once a socialist revolution occurs, the state machinery controlled by the capitalists smashed, and ownership of the major means of production transferred to a state controlled by the working class, the process of "building social­ ism" can begin. But this does not mean that a socialist state avoids contradictions, difficulties, and setbacks. Indeed, dialectics teaches that there are contradictions in all things, and socialist states are clearly finding themselves faced with new forms of the class struggle. Nonetheless, the position of this author is that there are a number of

INTRODUCTION

9

The emergence of such socialist states introduced a major factor into the world arena of struggle. The growth of militant working class movements forced the ruling class to develop reformist programs to ameliorate some of the worst conditions for certain sectors of the working class. At the same time, the ruling class clearly understood the threat of a Marxist analysis, and built a complex system of media information, public relations, and public education ("citizenship training") that justified and argued the American way of life as more civilized, superior, and the best ever, while it portrayed all the nasty evils of communism. Using the theories of functionalism, the ruling class hired the best social scientists to devise both explanations and programs to manage the continuing struggles engendered by the disparity of growing wealth and increasing poverty and exploitation. And in the United States the ruling class continued to develop more sophisticated mechanisms of dividing the working class on the basis of nationality (including race), sex, age, and life styles.7 There are those who would not deny the existence of a ruling class, nor the power it exercises. But the difference between acknowledging the existence of such a class and perceiving an alternative is a fundamental difference. Some argue, for example, that such concentration of power is necessary, if exercised benevolently, and that existing problems come from the failure of the population to cooperate— the stupidity of bureaucrats, the apathy of the workers, and countries that have carried out socialist revolutions and that are engaged in the difficult process of building socialism—the major ones being Albania, China, Cuba, North Korea, the Soviet Union, and Vietnam. There are several countries where governments that call themselves socialist are struggling to determine whether they will proceed to a genuine socialist revolution or be pulled back into the imperialist orbit. 7 A thorough analysis of the class structure of the United States from a Marxist-Leninist perspective remains to be done. A recent attempt that makes a major contribution to the beginning of this analysis is Charles H. Anderson, The Political Economy of Social Class, Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice-Hall, 1974.

10

INTRODUCTION

the extremism from the left and right. This view holds that without the people with the power nothing in Detroit would get done or, as the Detroit News puts it: " W h o runs Detroit?' Who makes things happen or keeps them from happening? Who are the movers and shakers, the people who get things done? Who puts up the buildings, helps the needy, provides the jobs, loans the money, plans for the future, pulls the levers of power? Who's in charge? In short, who are Detroit's big wheels?"8 Those who argue this position understand the breakdown of democracy and believe that without the consent and legitimation of the ruling class, little can be accomplished. Accepting the dominant ideology, they believe that the members of the ruling class know what is best, since the ruling class is the social element that most clearly epitomizes the material values of the society. What is in the interest of the ruling class must therefore be in our interest. If we hope someday to be rich and powerful we must protect their right to be rich and powerful. This perspective is not limited to the underlings hired by the ruling class who, if they serve faithfully, may succeed in marrying their son or daughter into the ruling class. This view may also be accepted by members of the working class who accept the myth of individual success as their only hope out of current material conditions. And, finally, there are those "realists" who argue that the benevolence or malevolence of the ruling class is not at issue, for, since the ruling classs has the power and, they argue, since there will always be a ruling class, one must act realistically and accommodate oneself to the realities of life. In the social sciences this position is often taken by the liberal who is ethically repulsed by the excesses of American society as measured by war, poverty, and cultural impoverishment but who is also aware that his own advancement in academia, the media, or a profession is dependent upon his acceptance of the given power distribu8

Detroit News, July 15, 1971.

INTRODUCTION

11

tion. The resulting cynicism may be expressed through bitter criticism or through satire, but it is never expressed in terms of viable alternatives to the existing power relationships. Indeed, the existence of such cynics and critics legitimates the freedom of expression and pluralism of the social institutions. This kind of intellectual cynicism is, however, different from that of the working class individual who may understand that his probability of ever making anything but a marginal living is so small as to be unrealistic. This individual is a cynic because, at a gut level, he understands the lie and because he sees no alternative to the situation. But, unlike the intellectual cynic, whose welfare is predicated on not identifying alternatives, the working class cynic, when given a viable alternative, may actively move to challenge existing power and to struggle for a social redefinition because it is in his class interest to do so. A Marxist-Leninist analysis of the urban crisis not only identifies a capitalist ruling class, identifies the interests of that class, and challenges the ideology and theory that legitimates that class's existence but also argues the historical limitations of that class and the future possibilities for a more humane and just society. The capitalist ruling class identifies Marxism-Leninism as a threat to their interests. It is.

CHAPTER TWO

Detroit: A City in Crisis

problems as an urban area can be most directly gauged by the amount of money and energy that is spent in assuring the general public that "Detroit is Getting Better" and that "Detroit Is a Wonderful Place To Live." The Junior League sponsored a forty-page supplement to the Detroit Free Press in 1971 entitled "The Lord Helps Towns That Help Themselves." In the lead-off article the Junior League stated: "They say Detroit is dying . . . becoming uninhabitable . . . deteriorating . . . or what other words would they choose? But who are they . . . fearful . . . of little faith . . . clinging to facts of the moment . . . refusing to look at the lessons of the past . . . or the hopes of the future. . . . "There is strength here, there is vision and the will to get things done, and you will sense that as you read the messages focusing on Detroit, the city that is finding greatness in its diversity."1 The Junior League, the Chamber of Commerce, and other Detroit boosters were reacting to the spate of publicity following the rebellion of 1967, which focused national attention on the problems of Detroit. But the concern is not limited to Detroit. The late sixties saw a general national concern with the urban crisis that affected all major metropolitan areas. As Fortune magazine described it: "A nation that has often lived dangerously now stands at the volcano's rim. . . . It would be reckless indeed to under-

JL/ETROIT'S

1

Detroit Free Press, p. 3.

A CITY IN CRISIS

13

estimate our danger, to assume that because we have mastered other crises we will master this one. But it would be just as disastrous to assume that there is no possibility that we can restore our essential social unity. "The United States, however, will not surmount the racial crisis unless it makes rapid progress toward resolving a broader, though less acute, crisis—that of 'the city.' In this context, 'the city' means not just the great core cities of our metropolitan areas; it refers to the whole situs of contemporary American civilization, the nationwide complex, including satellite cities, suburbs, and towns. This has become one vast pulsing organism."2 The urban crisis may appear to be a contemporary event —one of many crises this nation must master, as Fortune points out. But the social ills of the city cannot be separated from the history of the city. The current crisis is not a transitional phenomenon nor a temporary aberration; it is, rather, deeply embedded in the development of the social structure and classes that make up the city. It is true that the definition of the crisis that the mass media projects has changed through time and that the social expectations around the quality of city life and services have become more demanding as technology creates new possibilities. But it is not correct to assert, as Edward Banfield does, that because individuals now believe it is possible to solve the problems of the city, the belief in solution creates the "crisis."3 What is different in this period is not a function of changing definitions or rising expectations. In the City of Detroit, the wealthy have always been able to enjoy a higher standard of health, style of living, and more creative and safer jobs than the vast majority of urban citizens.4 The fires that swept dilapidated 2

"The Deeper Shame of the Cities," Fortune, January 1968, p. 132. Edward Banfield, The Unheavenly City, Boston: Little, Brown and Co., 1970, pp. 5-10. * The biographies and reminiscences of the elite offer ample proof of their comfortable and sheltered life styles. See, for example, J. Bell Moran, The Moron Family, Detroit: Alved of Detroit, Inc., 1949; 3

14

A CITY IN CRISIS

wooden tenement houses, the incidence of tuberculosis, malnutrition, and accidents at place of work leading to disability or death, have always indicated to the working class that they were subjected to problems that the wealthy in general escaped. 5 The working class in Detroit has historically sought improvements in living conditions and employment that they believed were possible because they could observe a class that already enjoyed those benefits. But the depths of the current crisis are not simply a question of "more" poverty or "more" hardship. Indeed, contemporary social scientists have often become bogged down in the sterile debate as to whether things are, in truth, getting better or worse. Such a debate focuses upon statistical indicators that are static and fails to reveal the interconnection and developmental processes that are involved in the social crisis.6 Even the Chamber of Commerce of the United States recognizes Malcolm W. Bingay, Detroit Is My Home Town, N.Y.: Bobbs-Merrill Co., 1946; or the biographical portraits in Clarence M. Burton, ed., William Stocking, and Gordon K. Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922, Detroit-Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1922, Vols. 3 and 4. 5 J. B. Moran, in his autobiography, described two events he witnessed as a young person—a boiler explosion in the basement of a newspaper office that killed twenty-five workers and injured many more and a boiler explosion in the Penberthy Injector Company factory that killed forty persons. The "lesson" the wealthy Moran draws from recounting these memories is that all Detroiters should be thankful for the efficiency of the fire department! Moran, The Moran Family. * A recent and carefully done study by Stanley Lebergott is an example of such a static approach. In The American Economy: Income, Wealth, and Want, Lebergott presents detailed statistical data to challenge arguments by radical economists regarding the necessity for income and wealth redistribution. Lebergott's brief theoretical introduction to his statistical analysis reveals the utter bankruptcy of current bourgeoise science on such a question. Lebergott argues that poverty and want cannot be abolished in this country because of the "moral values" held by most Americans! In essence, Lebergott's philosophy joins with that of Banfield. (Princeton, N.J.: Princeton University Press, 1976.)

A CITY IN CRISIS

15

this dialectic (although in a different context): ". . . in the large city, even though it is not different from the small city in producing segregation, the spatial scale of the segregation is such that the difference in degree becomes almost a difference in kind."7 What, then, is the overall process that lies at the base of the contemporary urban crisis in the United States? It is the inherent contradiction within capitalism between the ever-increasing productivity and potential of the forces of production (new technology, better machines, new uses of resources, new techniques) and the decreasing capacity to distribute what could be potentially produced for the greatest benefit of the general society. Instead, capitalism measures its success by the profit mark—the possibility of greater productivity is increasingly held back in order to preserve a system of distribution that insures greater profits for the rich and, conversely, proportionately less for the majority.8 The potential of our technology is enormous, but uses for which it has been developed—profit maximization 7 Task Force on Economic Growth and Opportunity, America's Cities: Current Problems and Trends, Washington, D.C.: Chamber of Commerce of the United States, 1966, p. 18, emphasis in the original. 8 The premise that profit maximization remains the primary dynamic of capitalism obviously underlies this analysis. This does not negate the fact that the conditions for maximum profit vary and that, therefore, the drive for profit may assume different forms in different periods—e.g., maximum short-term profit rates versus acceptance of lower short-term profit rates to insure maximum profit over the long term. But to say, as Galbraith argues in The New Industrial State, that corporations seek to maximize growth subject to an average rate of return side-steps the fact that growth itself is predicated upon the accumulation of capital or, ultimately, profit! (See pp. 171-177, The New Industrial State, Boston: Houghton Mifflin, 1967.) Profit is a function of the surplus value realized from labor. "Capital" is, in essence, a social relationship rather than a "thing," for it is the social arrangement of capitalism that allows a small ownership class to reap the benefits of the productive labor of others. This process is exploitation and is an inherent feature, by definition, of capitalism. This is why the focus upon profit makes traditional economists squirm, and attempt to redefine the process.

16

A CITY IN CRISIS

—are increasingly inconsistent with the general needs of society.9 Marx laid out this analysis a century and a half ago when he pointed out that capitalism, in its early stages, was an inevitable and necessary process for the progressive development of human society. Despite all the cruelty and poverty involved in the beginnings of capitalism, which Marx always denounced, he nonetheless acknowledged that capitalism was the only form of social organization capable of organizing and developing the productive forces and carrying through the transformation of wasteful and uneconomic small-scale production to modern large-scale production. In this way, Marx argued, the material basis was laid, by capitalism, for the future progress of mankind. Marx also understood that although capitalism in its early stages was a progressive stage in the history of mankind, in its later stages it would become a fetter upon the continued development of human society. The methodology of dialectics is to see things not as they are, but as they are developing. Thus, Marxists today may agree that there is a temporary economic recovery, an improvement in one arena of social life, or a temporary cessation of overt war. But the continued development of the inherent contradictions within capitalism will result only in successively more violent crisis, stagnation, and decay. These developments are not the result of people thinking about them, but of the objective economic forces of capitalism. In this sense, then, the deepening crisis of the city is not to be explained by the question of consciousness or psychological expecta9 This contradiction has not escaped the analysis of non-Marxist critics as well. For example, Barry Commoner, writing in The Closing Circle: Nature, Man 6- Technohgy, points out that: "It becomes clear, then, that we are concerned not with some fault in technology which is only coincident in its value, but with a failure that derives from its basic success in industrial and agricultural production. If the ecological failure of modern technology is due to its success in accomplishing what it sets out to do, then the fault lies in its aims. (Emphasis in the original.) N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1972, p. 186.

A CITY IN CRISIS

17

tion but by historical factors of politics and economy that are not subjective but primarily objective.10 A second aspect to the question of the urban crisis, from a Marxist perspective, is its relationship to the world-wide crisis. This study is not a study of international relations or third-world poverty, and yet it must be pointed out that the capitalists of Detroit are part of the capitalist class of the United States, who are in turn part of a international capitalist class that has increasingly organized the "free" world, through the multi-national corporation, as part of its system of exploitation and profit. The loss of the frontier in the United States as the basis for expansion of the United States economy was not a real loss, for the industrialists and financiers continued to push—to the Philippines, to Central America, to Puerto Rico, to South America—until by the end of World War II the United States had replaced Great Britain as the dominant imperialist state of the world. This growth and expansion of United States capitalism could not help but mitigate some of the contradictions at home. As long as territories under the control of the United States could be made to yield superprofits and provide sources for the expansion of U.S. capital, it was possible to meet the demands of workers in the United States for some greater share in the wealth, and to use a small proportion of that super-wealth for the general social improvement of the domestic society. But as the tide turned and the colonies began to increasingly resist colonialism, U.S. capital has been increasingly forced to come home to maintain its rate of high profit. There are no longer offers to fund programs for a "great society" or "model cities." Instead, welfare rolls are being slashed, food stamp programs cut back, and education and health funding significantly reduced. In this context, the calls by liberals to 10 A clear and concise discussion of this aspect of Marx's theory, as well as a discussion of the contradiction between productive forces and distribution within modern capitalism, may be found in R. Palme Dutt, Fascism and Social Revolution, San Francisco: Proletarian Publishers, 1935,1974, Chapter i.

18

A CITY IN CRISIS

save the city sound empty. New York City cannot even pay its bills, much less carry on the kind of battle outlined by Gerald Crane to the American Institute of Planners: "Unless the city produces new homes and repairs its present housing stocks, these activity centers . . . (Detroit's Renaissance Center, the Medical Center, the Wayne State University campus and city and cultural centers) . . . will be splendid islands surrounded by a sea of social discontent, economic deprivation and physical decay. . . . A war must be waged on urban problems that will make all past and present efforts appear as minor skirmishes. And if it is to be a war, the war must be waged on all fronts—social, economic, political, and physical."11 It is on the basis of a Marxist analysis, then, that this chapter describes the objective conditions now faced by the City of Detroit. The argument is not that conditions are getting better or worse, but, instead, that the capacity of the existing social organization of the society to deal with emerging problems in a socially humane way is becoming increasingly limited and that the option, instead, is to respond to social crisis with greater political controls and repression rather than with economic benefits for the general population. Such a response, of course, sets in motion its own opposite—and the working class will respond to such attacks on its standard of living and the failure of the system to respond to its basic social needs. These are dynamics that will be explored in further depth as the book's analysis is laid out. The following description of the problems faced by the City of Detroit, then, is not some attempt to catalog all the social misery of the city or to describe some hopelessly wretched state. This general over-view of the social problems of Detroit and some examples of the particular proc11 Don Tschirhart, the Detroit News, May 15, 1973, quoted from Gerald Crane, head of the University of Michigan Department of Urban Planning, speaking to the American Institute of Planners.

A CITY IN CRISIS

esses by which these problems are viewed and solved given to make real the complexity and seriousness of situation facing the city. This is not a book to describe urban crisis, but one that asks: how did this come to and what will now be done?

19

are the the be?

A. POVERTY, WELFARE, UNEMPLOYMENT The residents of the City of Detroit are increasingly black and brown, the poor, and the aged. This is not a new pattern. Detroit has always had areas where new arrivals to the city—immigrants, Appalachians, southern blacks— could live cheaply on the low wages paid in the dirty, hard jobs open to them. As the city expanded to a region, the lines were no longer drawn as neighborhoods but increasingly as city and suburb. City government jurisdiction no longer included the wealthy, the middle income, and the low income within the same local tax-gathering unit. The result, in Detroit, is a deteriorating situation in which the 1970 census shows a decline in population over the last ten years of 9.4%. The number of individuals defined as dependent (under age nineteen and over sixty-five) has increased 5% in the last decade. Indices of the city's economy show a similar pattern. The property values of the city, as measured by Michigan's standard of equalized value, have declined by $3,000,000—a percentage loss of 6.5% in taxable values.12 In the period between 1960 and 1970, over 9,000 housing units were added in Detroit and over 30,000 were removed—an overall loss of 4% of the housing units in the city. And in the period from 1965 to 1969 only approximately half as many commercial building permits were issued as were issued from 1960 to 1965. The City of Detroit continually has higher unemploy12

MiItOn Taylor and Richard Willits, Detroit: Agenda for Fiscal Survival, Lansing, Mich.: Institute of Community Development and Services, Michigan State University, 1971, p. 18.

20

A CITY IN CRISIS

ment rates than the metropolitan area and the nation as a whole. During the fiscal year of 1969 the unemployment rate in the city averaged 6.7% as compared to the national average of 3.5¾. Workers who could find employment only part of the year accounted for 24¾ of the work force in 1969. And the Bureau of Labor Statistics report indicates that of those part-time workers at least 25¾ earned poverty wages or below.13 Unofficial figures of unemployment based on 1969 reports that included persons who do not report monthly to the Michigan Employment Security Commission (which one must do in order to be counted as unemployed) show that one person in four in Detroit was unemployed as compared to one person in ten for the United States.14 The capacity of the city to pay for the services demanded continues to decline. In January 1973 the Detroit City Controller estimated that if "all goes well" (i.e., that Federal Revenues Sharing money level did not drop, Federal Emergency Employment Act and the city's utility tax continued) by 1978 the city's annual deficit would be running at $62,000,000 annually.15 This is true despite the fact that in the last five years the city has doubled its income tax, instituted a 5% utility tax, imposed two major service cutbacks in city government employment, and in 1973 held vacant 8¾ of the city jobs budgeted in the general fund.16 Despite record profits and production levels in the early 1970's in the automobile industry, a Michigan Employment Security Commission report indicates that internal changes in the auto industry—automation, speed-up, overtime— 13 Economic Problems in the Concentrated Employment Program Area of Detroit, Chicago: Bureau of Labor, Statistics, 1969. 14 Economic Problems in the Concentrated Employment Program Area of Detroit. 15 This is compared to an expected $8.5 million deficit for 1973. Detroit Free Press, January 3, 1973. 16 Between January 1970 and April of 1972 the city payroll was trimmed by over 4,000 positions.

A CITY IN CRISIS

21

have reduced the manufacturing demand for labor in the Detroit area.17 Of all the conditions that affect urban dwellers that lack material resources, the most pathetic in a country of such immense wealth is that of hunger. It is estimated that at least 70,000 Detroiters, among which there are a disproportionate number of very young and very old, are underfed or malnourished all or part of the time. A federal survey of 4,000 mostly low income persons in Wayne County in 1970 found serious nutritional deficiencies in at least 40¾ of the individuals surveyed. In the spring of 1973, the Wayne County Board of Commissioners formed a Task Force on Hunger and petitioned Governor Milliken to declare Wayne County a disaster area so that hungry citizens could receive emergency food. The human price of hunger is enormous. Early protein deficiency leads to mental retardation—an effect that not only cripples the individuals in terms of ever serving a full and useful life, but that adds a greater lifetime burden of social services and of custodial care for an over-burdened urban government. In Michigan the children of low income families tend to be about two inches shorter than children in higher income homes—a simple indicator of the effects of a good diet. And the problems of hunger are compounded by the higher prices of the small inner city food stores, where prices are often 20¾ to 40% higher, the lack of transportation to good shopping facilities, and the wellknown practice on the part of large chain stores of selling old and often rotten meat, vegetables, and fruits to inner city outlets.18 Children who do not eat well perform poorly in school and lack concentration powers—i.e., they are "distruptive." 17

Michigan Employment Security Commission Report, July 1972 in the Detroit Free Press, January 19, 1973. 18 For further discussion, see David Caplovitz, The Poor Pay More: Consumer Practices of Low Income Families, N.Y.: Free Press, 1967; also Tabb, The Political Economy of the Black Ghetto, Chapter 3.

22

A CITY IN CRISIS

Pregnant mothers on inadequate diets are more likely to have babies that suffer infant complications or die. Parents who cannot feed their children adequately and must listen to them cry or grow sickly are more likely to feel hostile and bitter and to express those feelings against themselves, against one another, and against the children. The vicious circle continues. The preceding statistics speak of material resources that are the basis by which individuals, families, and a city produce that which is needed not only to maintain life but also to provide a level of comfort and satisfaction. When that material basis fails over a period of time (in the case of Detroit, certainly for the last two decades) a spiral of effects is set into motion—bad health, children who are mentally slow due to malnutrition, broken families, individuals who lose sanity under pressure. Thus, the material deterioration of the community places severe pressure on the social base of the community. The statistics associated with social problems—welfare, health, crime, slums—cannot be separated from the economic context of the city. And the economic problems of the working class cannot be separated from the question of power—who has it and how it is used. In Detroit, as in many major urban areas, the economic effects and social consequences of the city's problems are often defined by age and nationality criteria imposed historically by the nature of the economic system. Nationality differences defined in terms of race and based on people brought to this country in slavery, and bound down by rigid discrimination after emancipation, have created a sector of the working class who cannot compete equally in the labor market. This cheap, fluctuating labor force was a cushion for the profits of the ruling class, which super-exploited the labor of black people and reinforced the social attitudes and beliefs around inferiority and culture. The national chauvinism that attributes as inherent to a people the attributes that oppression has imposed upon them is the basis for what most social scientists identify as "racism." This pat-

A CITY IN CRISIS

23

tern holds for the Mexican and Puerto Rican minorities as well as for the native American peoples.19 The struggle for survival among most sectors of the working class also has another marked effect. The nature of work and the struggle for survival drain individuals mentally and physically. The struggle creates, in this society, a group of people who are psychologically and physically crippled long before they are physically dead. A bishop of the Episcopal Church (who will almost certainly come from the upper class) does not have to retire until the age of seventy-six and may even have several years of creative and productive labor in front of him; an auto worker must retire at age sixty-five, by which time he is a burned-out human being. And if that worker loses the job at age fifty he may still be deemed too old to engage in decent paying labor since the training for a new job will not "pay off." The results of age and nationality discrimination, then, are to confound the impact of economic deterioration in the city by increasingly placing within the city those groups least able, by historical and contemporary access to opportunity, to compete in the economic arena.20 19

The population of Detroit defined as minorities of color increased far more rapidly in the city than in the metropolitan region from I960 to 1970. In I960 a little less than 30% of the city were national minorities of color; by 1970 national minorities of color accounted for 44%, an increase of 15%. The increase in minorities of color for the entire metropolitan region for the same period was a little less than 4%. 20 The percent of the aged in Detroit (those over sixty-five) is over 7%, whereas the aged in the suburbs (excluding Detroit) account for only 4% of the population. Because of the high migration rate of black families into the city of Detroit, the black population of Detroit has tended to be younger than the white. Thus, the remaining white in the city are increasingly older, while the blacks are increasingly younger—a generation gap superimposed on the nationality gap. But both groups share in common the difficult barriers to economic survival and participation, as full members, in the Detroit area economy. The pattern of age and nationality segregation within the city found in Detroit is typical of the urban poor generally. See Anthony Downs, "Who Are the Urban Poor?" Committee for Economic Development, Supplementary Paper No. 26, October 1968.

24

A CITY IN CRISIS

B. E N V I R O N M E N T AND H O U S I N G

The economic and social indicators under discussion cannot be separated from the physical conditions and environmental aspects of the Detroit area. The characterization of a neighborhood as a slum invokes images of dilapidated buildings, garbage and broken glass, parking lots and vacant lots, and boarded-up houses.21 Physical deterioration does not necessarily mean social deterioration. Many communities that look run-down are highly organized and cohesive, in which community spirit may easily make up for the paint that the landlord will not supply. But it is far more difficult to maintain a sense of the good life under deteriorating environmental conditions. In the down-river area of Detroit the air in 1971, as measured by the Wayne County Health Department, had, on the average, twice as many suspended particulates as federal standards permit for health. In all of Wayne County, in 1971, air pollution totalled 413,000 tons of sulphur dioxide and 100,000 tons of particulates. (One hundred tons of sulphur dioxide would cover thirty acres, ankle-deep.) Detroit Edison accounted for 59% of the particulates emitted in Wayne County in 1971 and 77¾ of the sulphur dioxide. The growing demand for Detroit Edison's power is the demand of industry—48¾ of the power generated by Detroit Edison goes to industry. 22 A four-year study by the International Joint Commission on Air Pollution, released in 1971, argues that the Detroit area is largely responsible for endangering the health of its own resi21 Downtown Detroit is 63¾ parking lots, streets, and alleys, and it is claimed that Detroit has more square feet of concrete per capita than any city in the world. And the blight is advancing outward from the inner city at two yards a day. McCahill, ed., "Detroit—Motown at the Crossroads," Newsletter of the American Society of Planning Officials, Vol. 38, No. 2, February-March 1972. 22 Jo Thomas, "Our Air Can Sicken You, Even Far From Factories," Detroit Free Press, July 9,1972.

A CITY IN CRISIS

25

dents and the health of residents in the Windsor area across the river in Canada. 23 The fact that Detroit has no modern mass transit system —other than a failing bus system—means that the question of automobile pollution has double significance, for the auto manufacturers have bitterly fought pollution controls on automobiles. In February 1973 none other than John Ehrlichman, once-favored Nixon aide, addressed the Economic Club of Detroit and told cheering executives that the administration would side with the auto industry in its efforts to relax tough exhaust standards set by Congress for 1975-1976. Ehrlichman was shortly followed by Rawleigh Warner, Jr., chairman of Mobil Oil Corporation, and chairman of the American Petroleum Institute, who addressed the Economic Club in March. Warner said that much of the blame for the shortage of oil in the United States lies with environmentalists, who have been too demanding. He made several proposals that coincided with positions advocated by the Ford Motor Company and Chrysler.24 The subsequent energy crisis of later 1973 clearly deflated the sails of the environmentalists and the pollution issue seems to have taken a thorough defeat. The result of the pollution—smell, hazy skies, dust and film, respiratory illnesses and allergies—contributes to the undesirability of the city and adjoining industrial areas as places to live and heightens the affect of low income on health. A destructive and debilitating environment is not con23

Citizens of six down-river suburban communities and the Citizens' Governing Board of Detroit's Model Neighborhood Agency representing inner city residents have joined in a class action suit against the largest air polluters in the country—including six of the corporations analyzed in this study. The suit argues that the atmosphere in both the down-river areas and the inner city does not meet federal clean air standards and the air in these areas is unhealthy 365 days of the year. 2 * Detroit News, February 27,1973.

26

A CITY IN

CRISIS

fined to air or water pollution. The physical appearance of neighborhoods in Detroit—particularly in the inner city— reflects the almost complete incapacity of the city, state, or federal government to reverse the process of physical deterioration of housing that threatens to dominate some neighborhoods completely.25 The past four years in Detroit have been ones of increasing housing scandals. On the one hand, legitimate authorities and agencies seem completely incapable of moving the massive programs necessary to meet an acute shortage of low income housing; on the other hand, speculators and corrupt government officials have drained off and manipulated whatever funds there were so that, in actuality, the federal monies have been used to increase deterioration, not retard it. The most visible and widely reported aspect of Detroit's housing crisis was that of the Department of Housing and Urban Development (HUD) office in Detroit. HUD holds the mortgages on homes that the Federal Housing Authority (FHA) and other federal agencies have financed. 25 William K. Tabb in The Political Economy of the Black Ghetto, N.Y.: W. W. Norton and Co., 1970. The only difference that Detroit offers to Tabb's generalizations is that the process he describes has invaded working class neighborhoods, even those of substantial income levels. Tabb summarizes the process as follows: "Three conclusions emerge from these various studies. First, black-segregated residential patterns can be explained not by low income but by the working of 'the exclusionary interests' ('real estate boards, suburban government —that establish and maintain vast sanctuaries from Negroes and poor people'). Second, there is a great variety of available suburban housing. Studies show 'a large supply of older low and moderate income housing already existing in many suburban communities. . . . The existing suburban housing supply, in terms of housing cost, provides ample opportunity for desegregation now.' Third, government policies subsidize slumlords through lax or nonexistent code enforcement, thereby saving them millions of dollars; offer them generous tax treatment; and then pay them handsomely for their property when slums are bought under urban renewal. The economics of ghetto housing insures that bad housing is profitable and that good housing cannot be maintained."

A CITY IN CRISIS

27

When an individual homeowner defaults on a mortgage, the property reverts back to the HUD office, which must resell the home. In the early 1970's the Detroit HUD office was involved in an escalating soandal. Speculative real estate dealers, in conjunction with HUD officials, sold homes at exorbitant prices, with HUD picking up the mortgage. When the mortgage was defaulted, HUD was left with properties that could not possibly be sold on the market at the purchased price. 26 Four FHA appraisers were indicted of taking bribes from real estate companies to approve the condition of homes for FHA financing in 1972, and in April 1973 an FHA appraiser was convicted by a federal court jury for taking such bribes. 27 Thus, thousands of Detroit homes are now vacant and becoming targets for vandals, dope dens, fires, and accidents. Vacant houses also lead to a snowball effect in which a block with several empty homes is no longer considered a desirable area and houses there cannot be sold, leading to even more vacant houses. In an appearance before the Congress' Joint Economic Committee on HUD's administration of housing programs in December 1972, Detroit's Mayor Gribbs stated: "The programs have boomeranged by virtue of mismanagement into the most serious threat today to neighborhood after neighborhood in Detroit. The FHA scandal in Detroit has affected adversely more housing units in the city since 1968 than have been built or rehabilitated in Detroit under federal subsidy programs since their inception more than thirty years ago. I refer to the reports in Detroit of incompetent appraisals, insuring of homes in sub-standard condition, easy approvals which included grossly in2^As of April 1974, HUD owned 12,800 residential properties in the city—8,000 homes and 4,800 vacant lots where HUD homes had been torn down. These holdings represent $120,000,000 and cost about $40,000 daily for maintenance. It has been estimated that HUD ownership in Southeastern Michigan represents one-fifth of all repossessed HUD homes in the nation. " Detroit News, April 27, 1973.

28

A CITY IN CRISIS

sufficient estimates of monthly maintenance costs—all from bureaucrats whose business is housing. There also has been impropiety and corruption as evidenced by federal grand jury indictment of four FHA appraisers in Detroit last week on charges of taking bribes from a real estate operator."28 Contrary to popular opinion, HUD ownership is not confined to lower income neighborhoods. A Detroit News article in May 1974 pointed out that one-third of the HUD homes are in substantial middle-class neighborhoods. 29 Map I shows the distribution of vacant HUD properties in the City of Detroit. It should be noted that in some areas— particularly on the lower east side and the near midwestern areas of Detroit—the number of properties totals over 1,000. In one area the number of vacant lots alone is over 1,000. The visual result for one who lives in the area is the growing sense of living in an encroaching desert. Clearly the effect of large numbers of federally owned vacant homes and lots upon a neighborhood is devastating. Local block clubs or citizens' groups have been able to do little to affect the massive federal bureaucracy. Banks assess the neighborhood as deteriorating and refuse home improvement loans and new mortgages. In April 1971 the Detroit News printed a report that HUD had issued a "blacklist" of areas (including about half of Detroit, all of Hamtramck, and all of Highland Park) as "speculator dominated" and as "poor risks" for FHA-insured mortgages. At the same time as the problem of H U D is solved by the demolition of hundreds of otherwise good homes, the construction of new housing in Detroit has been severely cut back.30 28

Ibid., December 6, 1972. 2» Ibid., May 13, 1974. 30 In the period from April through June 1971, two hundred and sixteen permits for single family residential home construction were taken out. In the same period of April through June in 1972 only seventy-one such permits were taken out. The construction of new apartment buildings for low income residents has been virtually halted by federal cutbacks in funds.

Map I HUD PROPERTIES IN DETROIT, HAMTRAMCK AND HIGHLAND PARK The map divides Detroit according to postal zones. Adapted I"rom a map in the Detroit News, May 13, 1974

D

~ ~ 8 @

8P

0

® 189

0

~

@)

D

o

o

HUD vacant lots

HUD homes

30

A CITY IN CRISIS

New housing built by the city, state, or federal government to meet the housing crisis has been notably lacking. No housing was built under the Model Neighborhood Program from its inception in 1969 through August 1972. A much touted program of the Michigan State Housing Authority (the Rehab program) to carry on rehabilitation of existing housing in an effort to improve existing neighborhoods, hire minority contractors, and provide inner city jobs while at the same time providing housing has failed to accomplish in any major way any of these goals. The Rehab program, despite favorable publicity, has not accomplished its primary goals. During 1971 Rehab's major accomplishments were outside the city—in suburban Wayne County, Oakland County, and Pontiac. A coalition of citizens' groups studied the accomplishments of the Housing Development Authority and charged in September 1972 that only 4% of the Authority's housing has been under low income housing programs and another 8% has been made available to ADC families—the remainder has been middle income housing. Under new federal cutbacks announced in January 1973 the rental subsidization under HUD Programs 236 was severely curtailed, forcing low income individuals out of apartments and homes that Project Rehab had completed. And, finally, the program was never designed to provide housing for the very poor—individuals with income less than $4,000 or with incomes that cannot meet a new federal government restriction against using more than 35¾ of one's income for rent. Likewise, a much publicized housing venture organized by Chrysler Corporation's Real Estate subsidiary and Councilman Reverend Nicholas Hood's Plymouth Congregational Church to build a $6,000,000 to $8,000,000 housing development in the inner city promised 450 new home units. But approximately 30¾ of these units were to go to low income families. Thus, a grand total of 135 low income families were to have new accommodations provided. It is ironic

A CITY IN CRISIS

31

that the same year that the $8,000,000 project was announced, Chrysler Corporation chairman Lynn Townsend met with a group of state legislators and citizens who were protesting the exclusion of blacks from the Northfield Hills development in suburban Troy. 31 Northfield Hills was originated by Chrysler Realty, who sold the land to Levitt and Sons, a subsidiary of IT&T. The development had projected housing for 11,000 persons. The financing for Northfield was $150,000,000—nearly twenty times as much as the much-touted financing for the downtown project. Federal cutbacks beginning in 1973 have seriously affected all of the proposed housing development in Detroit. The freeze held back a $3,000,000 project for low income and moderate income families in the Forest Park neighborhood—where the vacant land for the project had laid empty for several years; a $2.7 million project near the Detroit Institute of Arts was held back; and current plans for the first public housing to be built in Detroit in fifteen years were frozen. The eighteen-month freeze also exacerbated the problem of vacant and abandoned homes in the inner city because the principal means of selling these properties had been through government-subsidized loans for home ownership, rent supplement, and public housing programs. In the state of Michigan, the freeze meant that contracts for low and middle income housing that were allocated $634,000,000 for fiscal 1973 were reduced to $70,000,000 for 1974, a drop of 90¾. Community development program appropriations, which included other aspects of community improvement such as water and sewage facilities, urban renewal, and model cities, dropped from $2.1 billion in fiscal 1973 to $100,000,000 in fiscal 1974. The social costs of the housing situation are difficult to measure but they have profound implications for the capacity of individuals to survive and maintain themselves both physically and psychologically. The crowding of fam31

Detroit Free Press, June 13, 1972.

32

A CITY IN CRISIS

ilies into older homes that are not rehabilitated is reflected, for example, in the city statistics on lead poisoning of children as the result of digestion of lead paint chips. It is estimated by city health officials that 8,000 inner city children will have some degree of mental damage related to the level of lead poisoning. And, obviously, the classical problems of deteriorated housing—rats, clogged sewage, bad heating, poor ventilation, greater probability of home accidents and fires—are all exacerbated by the continuing housing crisis in Detroit. As the problems of the city have heightened, groups within the city who have had the resources have sought what they perceived to be the more desirable option of the suburbs. The options have been both positive and negative. Many leaving the city have sought newer housing, lower taxes, larger lots, cleaner air, and a sense of the rural. All of this has been made more attractive by the availability of FHA and VA loans for new housing in the suburbs after World War II, where the government, in effect, subsidized the suburban exodus. On the negative side, many left the city to escape people of color or ethnic backgrounds that they found threatening, and to avoid contact with lower social classes. And some individuals have had little choice— as industry has moved to follow the suburban expansion or, in some cases, created suburban expansion—jobs have often been available only in the suburbs. 32 Although the vast majority of urban residents who have moved to the suburbs have been white, there are examples of black suburban movement, as well. Such an example in the Detroit area is the suburb of Inkster. When the massive Ford Rouge plant and surrounding Ford factories began production for World War II, it was clear that both black and white workers would be necessary. In order to preserve the white composi32 For a general view of this process see Herbert J. Gans, "The White Exodus to Suburbia Steps Up," New York Times Magazine, January 7, 1968.

A CITY IN CRISIS

33

tion of Dearborn, the Ford management backed the development of the suburb of Inkster, which, from its inception, had a large proportion of black residents. Thus, suburban segregation is also related directly to corporate planning and corporate needs. The fact of geographic mobility, however, has not altered the essential patterns of the urban society. Those problems, which were once confined to relatively limited areas of the city and which now threaten the entire fabric of life of the city, are slowly encroaching upon the suburbs. A task force organized by Governor Milliken in July 1972 reported in February 1973 that unemployment, poor transportation, inadequate health care, and high crime rates were increasingly affecting certain suburban areas.33 The study laid the blame on an increasingly deteriorating economic situation that was creating pockets of unemployment in the suburbs in much the same way that unemployment had been created in the inner city. The threat of such social problems has created tension and increasing fear among suburban residents, many of whom refuse to "go below Eight Mile" into Detroit anyway.34 As a result, suburban communities have introduced or strengthened local zoning and building laws to prevent the erection of low cost housing and multiple housing units as a means for keeping out "undersirables." At the same time, single families pay double, often triple, the price for a suburban home over what that house would cost in the City of Detroit. Demands by suburban industry include needs for low 33

John McCausland's analysis of crime in the suburbs indicates that although suburban areas have "less crime," the distinctions appear to be decreasing each year. "Crime in the Suburbs," Charles M. Haar, The End of Innocence: A Suburban Reader, Glenview, Illinois: Scott, Foresman, 1972, pp. 61-64. 34 A study made by the University of Michigan for Oakland County showed that 30¾ of the county's residents never visit the inner city, 31¾ visit the city less than once a month, and 19¾ once a month or more.

34

A CITY IN CRISIS

cost labor, and communities have had to face the fact that maintenance of an industrial tax base also means housing development to attract low wage labor into the area. Thus, the suburbs increasingly face the contradictions their residents originally sought to escape. In reality, many suburbs are not much different from city neighborhoods, and the resident's work patterns, taxes, and environments are strikingly similar to those of his parents who lived in Detroit.35 The suburbs, then, have served as an escape mechanism for many of the white working class that is often more illusory than real and that acts to convince workers in the small sweatshops that line Ten Mile, Eleven Mile, and Twelve Mile roads that somehow they have it better. There is no denying, however, the effect that the suburban exodus has had on the city. The exodus of both blue and white collar working groups has cut into the individual tax base; the out-migration of industries increasingly hesitant to deal with the crime and shrinking working population of the city has cut into the industrial tax base. And the vicious circle is completed. C. WORKING C O N D I T I O N S

The question of urban environment has been traditionally analyzed by urban sociologists in terms of housing, pollution, health, and crime. But a large proportion of the residents of the City of Detroit and those in the suburban areas spend most of their waking hours within their place of work. Thus, the question of the urban environment cannot be separated from working conditions. The dominance by the automobile industry and related industries in the Detroit area economy is reflected in the 35 An article that attacks the misconceptions around suburbia is Bennett M. Berger, "The Myth of Suburbia," Journal of Social Issues, Vol. 17, No. 1, 1961, pp. 38-49.

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35

nature of work done by Detroit workers, as shown in the following table. TABLE I Percent of Work Force by Type of Employment: Detroit and the United States

Manufacturing Durable Motor Vehicles and Equipment Non-Durable Wholesale and Retail Trade Services Government Other

United States 1970

Detroit Area" 1969

15.9¾

33.2%

1.1 11.6 21.1 16.5 17.8 17.2

15.3 6.1 14.5 14.0 14.1 18.1

* United States from Statistical Abstract of the United States, No. 364, p. 227; Detroit Area from Michigan Employment Security Commission Data.

In other words, Detroit is a heavy industry town. And the automobile plant, or the small parts shop that supplies the plant, is always a noisy, fast-paced, polluted, and dangerous place in which to work. One cannot separate the pollution that the industries of the Detroit area pour into the air that falls on the neighborhoods from the pollution of gas, particles, and chemicals within the shops. The Michigan Cancer Society finding that black males in the Detroit area suffer from higher rates of cancer of the prostate and esophagus (which they claim can be attributed to southern rural backgrounds) is directly linked to the fact that within the automobile plants black workers are proportionately more concentrated in the foundries and in other jobs that are the most dangerous, the dirtiest, and in which they are most likely to be exposed to fumes that affect the internal organs. Black males in the Detroit area also

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have a significantly shorter life span—a fact that is also related to the above conditions.36 But black men are not the only ones in the work force affected. Women, both black and white, are increasingly in demand for work in the small, non-unionized sweat shops that supply parts to the auto industry. These shops, which pay far below the wages in the big plants, save the industry millions of dollars annually in union wages. It is estimated that approximately half of the parts for the auto industry come from these shops and similar shops located in Mexico, the Philippines, the south of the United States, Puerto Rico, etc. These shops, which tend to locate in the suburban ring around the city, lack the minimal detection of union safety grievance procedures, are small enough to evade most government regulation, and the work forces tend to be transitory.37 Starting wages for an eight-to-ten-hour day (with two ten-minute breaks and a fifteen-minute lunch period) for work at a noisy, often old, and dangerous machine, in a poorly ventilated and polluted building, is between $2.50 and $2.85 an hour. Particularly dangerous are the small press shops where outdated press machines often "repeat" accidentally when an employee's hand is still in the press. Although the Department of Labor and government agencies keep some accounting of industrial accidents (and often what is an accident is rewritten on the company books as something else), there is no systematic accounting 36 A more complete analysis of the way that job placement of black workers is related to the capitalist labor market is presented in Harold M. Baron, "The Demand for Black Labor: Historical Notes on the Political Economy of Racism," Part 4, "Current Conditions of Demand," Radical America, Vol. 5, No. 2, March-April 1971, pp. 32-40. 37 The much-hailed Occupational Safety and Health Act—OSHA— does not apply to shops of less than seven employees. Thus, the very shops where the ownership operates on the lowest profit margin and is most likely to cut on safety and health precautions is exempted from any serious government inspection at all. Systematic data on such shops is extremely difficult to obtain, although personal data is plentiful if one knows people who have worked in such shops.

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of the illnesses, injuries, and deaths that occur gradually, over time, with exposure to the conditions inside the place of work. Most doctors outside the industry do not even bother to include place or conditions of work in a medical report. Thus, although it is known that a number of metals and gases used in industry have certain effects, there has been little effort to account for and research the longrange implications of these effects on the work force. For example, chemicals used in the forges and plants of the industries in Detroit include beryllium, chromates, lead, oil mist, cadmium, trichlorethylene, and zinc. Beryllium, used with alloys, is extensively used in automotive products.38 38 A relatively brief exposure to high concentrations of beryllium dust or fumes may invoke symptoms similar to pneumonia and, if not fatal, recovery takes two or three months (with the possibility of recurrent attacks). In more gradual exposures, symptoms may develop over a few months to years with gradual loss of weight, loss of appetite, shortness of breath, and a cough. Contact with the skin causes dermatitis and skin ulcers. Chromates are extensively used in the plating of automobile parts. Exposure to low concentration of chromates produces nasal inflammation and nosebleeds; higher concentration causes perforation of the nasal septum. The incidence of lung cancer for chromate workers is ten times larger than that for workers in other industries. Contact with the skin produces "chrome ulcers." Lead is used extensively in soldering, batteries, and paints. The symptoms of cramps, muscular weakness, weight loss, nerve paralysis, and, finally, encephalopathy may occur after a few weeks of relatively heavy absorption of lead or after several years of more gradual lead exposure. Heavy alcohol intake by workers who handle lead will hasten the development of lead poisoning. Much of the work in automobile plants involves "oil baths." Oil mist, caused by grinding and boring operations involving grinders, lathes, etc., is one of the most frequent forms of in-plant pollution. Exposure to oil mist causes skin disease that may ultimately lead to skin cancer and long-term exposure may lead to lung cancer. Cadmium metal is used in alloys to make automobile parts. Inhalation of high concentrations of cadmium fumes produces dryness of the throat, headaches, rapid pulse, nausea, vomitting, chest pains, and, ultimately, death. Long continued exposure to smaller amounts produces chronic cadmium poisoning. Trichlorethylene is a degreasing agent used in the plants; it leads to dizziness, nausea, headaches, confusion, and, finally, unconscious-

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Because of the inadequate research, the low level of awareness, and almost non-existent reporting procedures, the actual effects of these and other plant pollutants are virtually unknown. Corporate officials who are aware of the serious dangers to the workers' health that exist inside the plants are reluctant to admit the gravity of the situation. And it is extremely difficult to determine the relationship between the final symptoms and its cause. Lung cancer, for example, which may have been caused originally by oil mist or chromates, will be diagnosed by a city hospital physician as lung cancer, but its cause will not be noted. Likewise, a worker who suffers an industrial accident— losing a hand, or falling and suffering a concussion—due to the dizziness and confusion caused by trichlorethylene is unlikely ever to have the sources of the dizziness recorded in the medical history or medical report. Further, certain ness and death. Trichlorethylene has been linked to liver diseases and workers exposed to the chemical are particulary sensitive to alcohol. Zinc is used in brass, bronze, galvanized iron, in paints and in rubber. Inhalation of zinc oxide fumes produces a fever and chills and causes severe irritation of the mucus membranes. Much of the information on the most hazardous chemicals in the auto industry is based on a pamphlet written by the Medical Committee for Human Rights (Chicago, 111.), which used data from the Massachusetts Department of Labor and Industries, Division of Occupational Hygiene. This information was verified and expanded by lawyers of a Detroit law firm (Glotta, Adelman, and Dinges) who handle large numbers of claims by workers disabled in Detroit industries. Rachel Scott exposes this facet of work-related danger, including auto hazards, in her study, Muscle and Blood (N.Y.: E. P. Dutton & Co., 1974). The problem of collecting data on job disabilities, the current lack of adequate information, and the results of one limited survey in this area is discussed by Neal Q. Herrick and Robert P. Quinn in "The Working Conditions Survey as a Source of Social Indicators" (Monthly Labor Review, Volume 94, Number 4, April 1971, and reprinted in "Worker Alienation, 1972, Hearings before the Subcommittee on Employment, Manpower, and Poverty"; Washington, D.C.: U.S. Government Printing Office, 1972, pp. 293302). Herrick and Quinn found that "Workers reported "becoming ill or injured' as the labor standards problem against which they most wanted to be protected and 'health and safety standards' as the area involving some of their most frequent and severe difficulties" (p. 295).

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diseases that may appear to be unrelated to work do not justify workmen's compensation (which is paid by the company) unless the worker proves the relationship of the illness to conditions at work. One cannot underestimate the human damage of this kind of pollution. There are thousands of workers just disabled enough not to be able to work and who must make out lives on meager workmen's compensation (if they are able to prove the work relationship of their ailment). 39 There are thousands of workers whose psychological capacities are severely curtailed by constant worries about physical symptoms, lost time from work, and continual pain, whose families watch the gradual physical deterioration of the breadwinner. 40 Pollution is not the only danger. Many of the Detroit plants are old and decaying. Some of the largest and most oppressive of the Detroit auto plants were built in the twenties and thirties—and have had little modernization or rehabilitation. The Ford tractor plant in Highland Park was the original Model-T Ford plant. Dodge Main was built in the early twenties, Chrysler's Detroit forge plant was built in 1927, and General Motors' Chevrolet gear and axle plant was built in the early thirties, for example. In such plants, as well as in many of the newer plants, windows are broken, ventilation is completely inadequate, and the floors are covered by oil and filth. Machines under conditions of heavy production are inadequately repaired. Hi39

It is not uncommon for workmen's compensation to be denied a worker suffering from an injury on the basis of the fact that despite the injury the worker continued to work. Therefore, according to the compensation board, he or she could not possibly be suffering from the pain that is claimed. What the august members of the compensation board do not take into consideration, of course, is the fact that workers often do work and bear such pain because they must in order to feed their families—a situation no member of the compensation board is ever likely to experience. 40 For a discussion of the psychological and social-psychological costs involved, see Richard Sennet and Jonathan Cobb, The Hidden Injuries of Class, N.Y.: Alfred A. Knopf, 1973.

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los (the small trucks used within the plants) lack decent brakes and the hoists often break, dropping loads on workers. Elevated walkways often have large gaping holes in them. Pollution and unsafe working conditions are not limited to the automobile industry or plants. Hospital workers, truckers, laundry workers, hotel employees, maintenance workers—all are exposed to and suffer from various occupational diseases related to chemicals and gases or to the physical demands of their work. Hospital workers, for example, suffer from skin reactions from drugs, cleaners, radiology, and chemical solutions; from radiation and infectious disease exposure. Secretaries can absorb fumes from copying machines, and maintenance workers can suffer from reactions of chemical cleansing agents. Thus, the air, water, and noise pollution that permeates the outer environment of the urban area is daily compounded by dangerous and long-reaching effects of pollution and environmental conditions within. This situation in Detroit is, in part, a reflection of the city's unique dependency on a particular industry; but the amount of damage due to working conditions is not unique to Detroit. What is important to emphasize is the extent to which the urban crisis of this country—in terms of slums, crime, poverty, and illness—cannot be separated from the conditions to which people are subjected at their place of work. D. CRIME

The physical and material conditions under which people live provide the basic parameters for that which they can or cannot do with their lives. The conditions described in the preceding pages—poverty, pollution, occupational insecurity, poor health—critically affect the extent to which individuals and communities can fulfill their human potential. Human beings deal with material deprivation in a num-

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ber of ways, and numerous sociologists and psychologists have described this through the use of the concept of the "culture of poverty."41 Deprivation may be more than just a lack of adequate diet, income, and living space; it may also be a lack of time and energy to fulfill oneself creatively outside the demands of work; the inability to relate to other people; the inability to participate in and sustain institutional arenas of social activity other than the place of work. Thus, deprivation affects not only the poor, but millions of workers whose struggle for material survival cuts off or limits their capacity to engage in those humanizing activities essential to self-development and self-respect. It is not only the poor who become "winos" and use drugs; it is also the assembly line worker who must use drugs or drink to survive psychologically a sixty-hour week on the line; it is also the low-level manager who must drink to forget his failure to "make it"; it is also the well-to-do youth who sees nothing meaningful in life ahead except what his parents are and what he does not want to become. All of these permeate life in Detroit. In those communities with greater material affluence, the effects of the escapism and alienation may not be immediately visible; in those communities with severely limited material resources, the effects are visibly brutal and dehumanizing. "Law and order" is not so much a cry for some positive program as it is an agonizing plea for stability and sense in a world buffeted by ugliness and meaningless work. The suburban worker's fear of the inner city criminal is the fear of a society that daily threatens him, as a worker, and that provides few psychological rewards. The contradictions of the question of crime are further heightened by the labels and definitions that the dominant institutions impose. It is a crime to steal fifty dollars from 41

The major work to popularize this concept was that by Oscar Lewis, La Vida: A Puerto Rican Family in the Culture of Poverty, N.Y.: Random House, 1966. An extensive review of the literature in the concept, and an anthropological critique of its general usage, is found in Charles A. Valentine, Culture and Poverty: Critique and Counter-Proposals, Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.

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a store, but it is not a crime to sell shoddy and inferior goods in inner city stores and to make excess profits of thousands of dollars. It is a crime to assault or murder to obtain heroin, but it is not a crime to build a car shabbily that will, over a period of several years, kill and maim hundreds of motorists. The youth who shoplifts gets sent to the penitentiary; the government official who takes several thousands of dollars in a bribe is placed on probation. The mass media tells us that crime is a major problem. And, most importantly, the media projects the most irrational of the criminals to be those of color—a projection that heightens the national divisions within the working class.42 Likewise, the projection that the crime problem is something new or unique to the history of Detroit is not borne out by the study of early Detroit. Unemployment and poverty have always bred crime, as this report from the Detroit Daily Advertiser of July 23, 1859 bears out: "Walk the streets at night and you will see many of these men prowling about, in a rather suspicious manner; and 42 In a controversial case in December of 1972, three young black men were involved in a shooting match with police in which a policeman was killed and another policeman seriously wounded. The details of the shootout remain confused, although there is much evidence to suggest that the three "criminals" were militants attempting to deal extra-legally with dope pushers in the black community. Some sources in the black community have gone so far as to claim that the police were covering for the dope pushers. Despite the ambiguities of the case, however, the police commissioner, John Nichols, justified a violent assault on the civil rights of the black community in the search for the three by publicly branding them as "mad dog killers." Although two of the suspects were killed in subsequent gun battles, the third suspect, Hayward Brown, was caught, tried, and acquitted of the crime by a jury of law. The newspaper conviction of the three as "mad dog killers" is a blatant example of the media projection of crime according to certain ruling class definitions—not according to facts. In the entire history of the case, the only newspaper that dared print any elements of the evidence regarding the connections of the police to the dope pushers and the possible motivation of Bethune, Boyd, and Brown, was the Michigan Chronicle, the black weekly newspaper. The front-page story headlined "Police Press Manhunt for 'Mad Dog Killers'" was in the Detroit Free Press, December 29, 1972.

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you will at once make up your mind that they have changed suddenly, from day-loafers to night thieves. . . . We believe that it has become an almost universally expressed desire among all our respectable citizens that a work house or something of that kind should be established where these vagabonds or vagrants could be placed and compelled to earn their board and lodging. As it is now, they are crammed into the jail by the dozens and the people have to support them."43 And an article in Detroit Saturday Night of July 22, 1916, which discusses prostitution in Detroit, concludes: "We have reached a state of society that is fearful to contemplate. Hardly a week passes without the commission of a murder. . . . We have no police force to apply to, and the officers of justice, i.e., the constables, and deputy sheriffs are all or nearly all engaged in the substitute business, often carrying this on in direct contravention of law. . . ."44 It may well be true that the heightening of the contradictions of extreme poverty and of extreme wealth may also heighten the level of personal violence that, without class consciousness, strikes out blindly from one individual to another. But the source and roots of that violence lies, not in any particular national minority, nor in any particular decade, but in the historical division between a class that oppresses and benefits from the labor of others and a class that must be exploited or rendered idle in order to maintain profits. Detroit is known as "Murder City." In 1973 there were seven hundred and fifty homicides in Detroit—highest, per capita, in the nation. Likewise, per capita, Detroit police kill more citizens, and Detroit citizens, per capita, kill more police, than in any other city in the nation. The response by the city's government to the problem of crime has been more police, and more sophisticated and more lethal equipment. These responses, however, fail to « Detroit Daily Advertiser, July 23, 1859. ** Detroit Saturday Night, July 22, 1916.

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address in any meaningful way the sources of crime. It is conceded by most that the city's methadone drug centers have done more to curb crime in the last two years than any law and order program. Methadone, however, only provides a legal drug dependency—on a drug that is more addictive and more lethal than heroin. Methadone, then, is still only a patch, for it does not solve the problems of escapism and alienation, nor does it build creative and productive citizens. The effects of escapism through alcohol and drugs and the instability that crime represents compound the condition of the city. Simple physical safety becomes a paramount concern for citizens. And no one is safe from the senseless killing or assault within a family or by a close friend that suddenly explodes upon an innocent victim. A major proportion of homicides in Detroit are non-meditated attacks by friends or families, arising out of a quarrel or trifling incident. The second most frequent cause of homicide is related to the drug traffic—again, a social mechanism for releasing or escaping the feelings of inadequacy, uselessness, and frustration. And the resort to violent assault on another's person is most likely to occur in those communities already most lacking in other resources. Crime will not "go away" by proclamation, nor will it go away as a result of more repressive control measures. The festering ulcer of crime springs out of the very root of the human relationships in a class society. E. C O N C L U S I O N

These, then, are facts—ever-present realities that every citizen of the Detroit area must face in some aspect of his daily life. These are the conditions that determine the subjective understanding of life and the conditions under which the political struggles of Detroit will be carried out. Already it is clear that those struggles will be complex and bitter. Detroit has been racked by the controversy regarding bus-

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sing following the Board of Education plan to desegregate the schools in 1970 and the subsequent federal court order. This is a controversy that seems to have been designed to pit black against white and that totally clouds the essential questions of the basic right of every child to an equal and quality education. Workers in Detroit face the prospect of unemployment or punishing overtime—there seems to be no middle way. White and black, male and female, are pitted against one another in the fight for jobs. And the newspapers continue to attack "illegal aliens" as a source of Detroit's woes, providing yet another scapegoat for the political frustration of the citizenry. It is clear that the definitions of the problem ("it's the other guy") offered to the working class sidestep the essential contradictions and instead lay the basis for setting one sector of the working class against another. This is a historical pattern, for the ruling class has always, when forced to acknowledge the failure of the system, managed to redefine the cause as somewhere other than in the roots of capitalism. In order to understand the process, historically, one must go into the early history of Detroit and analyze the development of the class contradiction to its present form today.

CHAPTER

THREE

Detroit History: The Ruling Class

VV H A T Detroit is today is the logical result of its history. In order to understand the present, the historical forces of the past must be analyzed and understood. From a Marxist perspective, this requires analysis of the development of classes in Detroit and the struggle that has historically occurred between them. 1 This requires an understanding of the process by which power based on control of the means of production came to be concentrated in the hands of a small number of families, and how this class used that power to insure its continued dominance over an everexpanding and increasingly militant working class. The fact that an upper class accumulated wealth, organized that wealth in coordinated systems of large-scale production and development of natural resources is indisputable. This 1 "The materialist conception of history starts from the proposition that the production of the means to support human life, and next to production, the exchange of things produced, is the basis of all social structure; that in every society that has appeared in history, the manner in which wealth is distributed and society divided into classes or orders is dependent upon what is produced, how it is produced, and how the products are exchanged. From this point of view the final causes of all social changes and political revolutions are to be sought, not in men's brains, not in men's better insight into eternal truth and justice, but in changes in the modes of production and exchange. . . . The growing perception that existing social institutions are unreasonable and unjust, that reason has become unreason and right wrong, is only proof that in the modes of production and exchange changes have silently taken place with which the social order, adapted to earlier economic conditions, is no longer in keeping." Frederick Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," Selected Works from Karl Marx and Frederick Engels, N.Y.: International Publishers, New World Edition, 1969, p. 431.

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fact, however, is supported by an ideology that requires that the process be projected as the result of wise, far-sighted, and merciful men fulfilling their manifest destiny and bringing general prosperity to all.2 The following chapter attempts to provide an historical background for the analysis of the power and control that Detroit's current ruling class holds. This history is the history of "violence and robbery, trickery and fraud." It is a history that indicts the ancestors of many of Detroit's most prominent citizens. Land was the key to early wealth in Detroit and land was the basis on which early fortunes later became manufacturing fortunes. The earliest land grants in Detroit were made by the French king to various aristocrats and nobles who curried his favor.3 The maintenance of the Fort and the protection of these land grants was the responsibility of the French state, for the ruling classes use the state as an instrument primarily of their class interests. 4 Thus, the explorer and settler Cadillac and those who followed him were hardly the grand adventurers of the history books; they were, instead, the hired managers of the aristocratic class interests. This did not preclude the commanders of the 2

Engels points out: "It is, therefore, the law of division of labour that lies at the basis of the division into classes. But this does not prevent this division into classes from being carried out by means of violence and robbery, trickery and fraud. It does not prevent the ruling class, once having the upper hand, from consolidating its power at the expense of the working class, from turning its social leadership into an intensified exploitation of the masses. "But if, upon this showing, division into classes has a certain historical justification, it has this only for a given period, only under given social conditions. It was based upon the insufficiency of production. It will be swept away by the complete development of modern productive forces." Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," p. 431. 3 An excellent history that traces back the earliest French families in Detroit to their origins in France is found in Marie Caroline Watson Hamlin, Legends of Le Detroit, Detroit: Thorndike Nourse, 1884. 4 "The executive of the modern State is but a committee for managing the common affairs of the whole bourgeoisie." Karl Marx, "The Communist Manifesto," Selected Works, p. 37.

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Fort from using their tenure as managers for their own selfinterest, however. Detroit was originally settled by Cadillac, a French explorer who sought to use his assignment in the New World to gain personal wealth. During his regime as commandant of the Detroit Fort, he regimented and controlled the lives of the Fort's inhabitants and their trade, insuring that his own best interests were served. Eventually, the resentment of his subordinates and the dissatisfaction of the residents, in combination with certain administrative malpractices, led to his removal from the Fort by the French authorities. 5 Cadillac was followed by a series of commanders who were, in general, small and peevish men concerned with their own enrichment. Cadillac's successor, Alphonse de Tonty, sold powder illegally to the native Americans and became involved in the embezzlement of furs belonging to the Company of the Colony. Tonty was finally removed from command because the native Americans dwelling in the area threatened to take all their trade to the British if the French did not send a replacement. The third commandant of the post was a man named de Bourgemont, who publicly beat a native American within the Fort. The incident led to serious agitation by the native Americans for his removal. De Bourgemont left the post, however, by deserting his command and going into the forest with several soldiers and 5 The historical account that follows is largely drawn from the following sources: The Cyclopedia of Michigan: Historical and Biographical, N.Y. and Detroit: Western Publishing and Engraving Company, 1900; Silas Farmer, History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, Detroit: Silas Fanner and Company, 1890; Michigan Through the Centuries: Family and Personal History, N.Y.: Lew Historical Publishing Co., Vols. 3 and 4; Clarence M. Burton, ed., William Stocking, and Gordon K. Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922, Detroit-Chicago: The S. J. Clarke Publishing Co., 1922, Vols. 3 and 4; and Paul Leake, History of Detroit, Chicago: Lewis Publishing Co., 1912, Vol. 1. These sources were designated by librarians at the Burton Historical Collection of the Detroit Public Library as being the earliest authoritative histories available. Burton's and Farmer's histories, in particular, have been used as the basis for most subsequent histories of the Detroit area. This study is based on the facts given in these histories but not necessarily the same interpretation of these facts.

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a woman of the garrison with whom he had been having illicit relations. The fourth commandant, Sieur Dubuisson, immediately took over all of Cadillac's property, real and personal, and although the Governor-General never approved the confiscation, no reparation was ever made. Settlers at the Fort were so unhappy with Dubuisson that many left, significantly reducing the number of citizens at the garrison. Dubuisson then built new stockades that enclosed only about half the village population. Shortly after, the Fox tribe of native Americans attacked the Fort and most of those outside the stockades were killed. Following the war between the British and French, Detroit came under the control of the British and remained under their control from 1760 to 1796. When the English took over the Fort, they found in storage furs worth approximately half a million dollars—an indication of the wealth that was to be had in the trade carried on through the Detroit post. The first British commander, Major Rogers, was not unlike his French predecessors. Rogers was soon in trouble with the government for incurring expenses without authority, drawing orders upon the government that afterwards went to protest, and was eventually charged with designing to plunder the post and to desert to the French at New Orleans. Clarence Burton, Detroit historiographer, describes the British rule of Detroit in the following manner: "Under British domination the mild rule of the French was succeeded by a sort of petty despotism, the commandants exercising both military and civil authority. The citizens were relieved to some extent from oppressive taxation by Colonel Bradstreet (commander for one month in 1764) but under Campbell taxes were higher than before."6 The British changed the nature of colonial policy toward the native Americans. Under the French, native Americans had 6 Burton, ed., Stocking, and Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922, Vol. 1, p. 121.

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been valuable allies in the fur trade. The British intentionally acted to drive out the native Americans as well as any French settlers who were not amenable to their rule. The English treated the native Americans with contempt, paid them less for their furs than the French had paid, and often seized valuable land by direct brute force rather than by the more subtle way of negotiation and treaty. The major native American uprising and attacks on Detroit and other posts in the area were a direct result of this policy. The most notable of the rebellions was that led by Chief Pontiac of the Ottawa and the leader of a confederacy of the Ottawa, Objibway, and Pattawatomi. He was defeated ultimately by the superior fire power and resources of the British, but not before he had won several tactical victories that were based as much on the British misassessment of his intelligence as on Pontiac s own military forces. The analyses of the rebellion led by Pontiac—or "Pontiac's Conspiracy," as Burton terms it—are almost completely devoid of any discussion of the brutal and cruel dispossession of the native American people. The implication is, instead, that wily old Pontiac manipulated his people to revolt on the basis of personality or magic. Stark, for example, simplifies the struggle in these terms: "Who was this Pontiac? . . . He might have been completely described as the Wily Warrior, for he was all of that. But the adjective does not take full account of all his wicked qualities, for his campaigns against the white invaders may have assumed a certain brilliance, considering the materials (or lack of them) at his command, but they were also characterized by duplicity, treachery, and terrorism. He was in no sense a good Indian, although he was a valiant one."7 7 George W. Stark, City of Destiny: The Story of Detroit, Detroit: Arnold Powers, Inc., 1943, pp. 59-60. For a more sophisticated, but still chauvinistic account of Pontiac, see Burton, ed., Stocking, and Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922, Vol. 2, pp. 881-904. This interpretation of Pontiac is based on "unsympathetic" histories that, merely by stating the facts, allow the reader not blinded by

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Such a description completely dismisses the fundamental material forces by which an entire people fight to repossess their land and hunting rights. The chauvinism of the author totally masks the duplicity of the British, the savagery with which the British tore the land from the native Americans, the terror of the British superior fire power. Indeed, the burden of "peacefulness" is placed on the dispossessed Indian—a kind of reasoning the ruling class continues to foist upon exploited people today who begin to "agitate" for their rights and economic security. Although Detroit passed into the hands of the United States with the signing of the Treaty of 1783, in reality the control of the Fort remained with the British until after the Indian Wars. The British finally evacuated the post on June 1, 1796. The people of Detroit petitioned for the creation of a Michigan territory, which was granted by the United States Congress and went into effect in June of 1805. The first municipal government of Detroit was established by the legislature of the Northwest Territory in January of 1802. The petition for incorporation of the town was presented to the legislature by Solomon Sibley, who eventually became first mayor of the city and whose descendants are now prominent among those who own and control Detroit today. (See Chart I.) In 1805 a fire swept the village and destroyed nearly every residence standing. The result of the fire is perhaps unique in the histories of American cities, for it allowed the existing ruling class arbitrarily and authoritatively to determine the entire physical plan of the new city. Immediately following the fire, the territorial officials assumed an authority over the village that completely disregarded the village board of trustees. When the people of the village began white chauvinism to see a far different picture. In other words, although Stark and Burton describe British Indian policy as inherently "right," the reader who does not concur automatically with the morality conveyed in that historical interpretation can draw far different conclusions.

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immediate plans for the rebuilding of the village, Judge Woodward, Judge Bates, and Governor Hull blocked the plans and took a different plan to Washington—a plan that gave the three individuals involved complete authority to make all adjustments and decisions regarding lot ownership and lot use in the city. In 1806 Governor Hull and Judges Woodward and Bates set forth a new incorporation procedure for the City of Detroit that made the election of the council a mockery. The mayor, in this plan, had the power of the absolute veto and he was chosen by the Governor and the two judges. Under this plan the Governor and the judges continued to control most ongoing municipal matters. 8 Widespread public agitation over the autocracy of the incorporation of 1806 led to the eventual repeal of that form of government in 1809. But this was not until the three individuals who represented the interests of the local ruling class—the large landholders, traders, and merchants—had succeeded in formalizing and legalizing complete control over land ownership in the area. Burton, in describing this period of Detroit history, observes: "They [Hull, Bates, and Woodward] made no report to Congress upon their management of the park lots and 10,000 acre tract, even to the disposal of a single lot or the receipt of a single dollar received from the sale of lots. Great quantities of land were at their disposal and they were unhindered in manipulating it to their own satisfaction, which they did, if we are to believe the frequent memorials and official protests from the indignant citizens."9 Despite new incorporation papers drawn up in 1806, the 8 The full text of the incorporation papers of 1806 can be found in Burton, ed., Stocking, and Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922, Vol. 1, pp. 315-319. 9 Burton, ed., Stocking, and Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922, Vol. 1, p. 325. The 10,000-acre tract referred to is the parcel of land that was meant to be sold in order to raise monies for a public courthouse, schools, etc., for the village. Obviously, the Governor and the judges sold the land, but the public never received the benefits.

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Governor and two judges remained in control of a trust of the city for sixteen years.10 The public expression of discontent against Hull, Woodward, and Bates was particularly difficult in that period, since there were few channels for the expression of dissent. Few of the settlers could read and write, and there were no facilities for the independent production of pamphlets or newspapers. Nonetheless, one storekeeper in the village, John Gentle, began writing daily attacks upon the Governor and judges that he would nail upon a large bulletin board on the front of his house. Initially, the triumvirate sent emissaries to rip down the statements, but Gentle began to stand guard over them. Soon a large number of people would gather daily in front of the house. Those few who could read the statements would read them aloud, to the applause of others in the crowd. Judge Woodward, Judge Bates, and Governor Hull acted in their capacity as officials of the state and in line with their own private interests. But their capacity to wield that power was based upon their ability to also act in the interests of that small group of wealthy merchants and landholders who constituted the ruling class of early Detroit. Map II illustrates the land claims around the City of Detroit 10

The real and seamy side of Judge Woodward's regime in Detroit is certainly not normally projected in popular histories of Detroit— given that the main thoroughfare in the city is named Woodward Avenue! Children reading F. Clever Bala's simple twenty-page pamphlet on "The Great Fire of 1805" are told that Woodward was a "tall, thin man with the eyes of a dreamer, but with a strong will and the ability to get things done. The fact that he was a good friend of President Jefferson made him an important person to the people of Detroit. He joined with Judge Bates in advising the inhabitants to do nothing until the Governor should arrive. . . . The Governor was distressed to discover that his capital town had been destroyed and to see the difficult conditions under which people were living. There was, of course, no Governor's mansion for him to live in. . . . Judge Woodward was a man ahead of his time. He had great faith in the future of Detroit and so did Governor Hull." F. Clever Bald, "The Great Fire of 1805," Detroit: Wayne State University Press, 1951, pp. 15-16, 20.

Names Elijah Brush+ a Antonine Beaubien+ Charles Moran + Louis Moran+ Antoine Rivard Maurice Moran + Charles Gouin+ Nicholas Gouin+ Catharine DeQuindre+ Francois Gouin+ Jean Marie Beaubien + Charles Pellier b Jacques Campeau+ c Gabriel Chene+ * Purchased from Joseph Moran

Acres 134.18 336.83 135.96 135.26 152.16* 76.12 88.95+ 105.65 + 78 83 105.07+ 119.76 207.99 235.12 211.55

Name d Charles Poupard e Robert McDougall+ Benoit Chapaton f Maurice Moran+ Phillis Pellier George Meldrum Louis Beaufait+ Louis Capaton+ Antoine Boyer g John William & David Macomb+ Antoine Lasalle Antoine Lasalle John William & David Macomb+

Acres 203.26 203.70 13991 170.00 146.20 144.70 139.67 200.91 136.57 309.10 68.27 68.51 309.10

Map II PLAN OF PRIVATE CLAIMS IN MICHIGAN TERRITORY

a, b, c, etc. - identifies particular land holding + - individual known to be ancestor of current members of Detroit class

Name Francois Gamelin+ Dominique La Brosse Alexis Descompte Jacque Laselle Joseph Beaubien+ h Charles Cabassier i Louis Vesier Angelique Cicot+ Francois LaFontaine Jacques Lasalle Francois Chabert Gabriel Godfrey+ Jacques Lasalle Jacques Lasalle Gabriel Godfrey+ Robert Navarre+

Acres 66.71 99.77 67.37 135.19 102.53 156.54 184.14 96.68 100.48 100.00 45.61 2.10 70.54 78.41 112.94 137.29

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in 1810, according to the French practice of drawing up lots as elongated strips all bordering the riverway. The list of those holding claim to the lots and the amount of acreage included in each lot is listed. Several of the individual lots are identified on the map for illustrative purposes.11 The small crosses on the list of names identify individuals who are known to be ancestors of Detroit's current ruling class. The names of Campau, Chene, DeQuindre, Macomb, Beaubien, and Brush are not just street and county names—although that is how most Detroiters recall them. These are the families whose class interests dominated Detroit at its founding and whose ancestors continue to play important roles in the economy of the Detroit region. A key element in this kind of historical analysis is the role of the family in capitalist society. Under the legal norms of capitalism, the family is institutionalized through property and inheritance rights. The general social norms of the family include mutual economic assistance and aid, pride in kinship, and emotional support.12 Although the traditional parental rights under feudalism were broken down by capitalism and the marital relationship was redefined as a free-will contract between consenting parties, marriage for the members of the ruling class remained more closely linked to inheritance and family property relationships.13 Engels argued that the development of capital11

Because the map is sectional, the listing of individuals below the original map did not completely correspond to the numbering on the map itself. It is believed that the other sections of the map would have to be found in order to identify all the lots properly. 12 These general functions of the family are not, however, confined only to families under capitalist systems. See Peter Murdock, Social Structure, N.Y.: Free Press, 1965, p. 43. 13 Stephen Birmingham clearly makes this point in his social history of the upper class: "Money is part of the bloodline, inextricable from it, celebrated along with it so that the two are tacitly considered to be the same. Family money is a thing that, from generation to generation, must not only be preserved, but must also be enriched and fed and nourished from time to time, from whatever sources are at hand, resupplied from other wells of ancient wealth. Otherwise, any family fortune—unless the strictest rules of primogeniture are adhered to—

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ism differentially affected family structure: "The ruling class continues to be dominated by the familiar economic influences and, therefore, only in exceptional cases can it show really voluntary marriages; whereas, as we have seen, these are the rule among the dominated classes."14 Thus, although the history of Detroit is written as the exploits of individual persons, taming the wilderness and making great fortunes, the actual history is the history of families. As Goode points out: "Stratification systems place families rather than individuals in various social positions high and low, because the family is the social unit, because all members of the conjugal family are socially defined as being at the same social level, and because children are given the rank of their families."15 Despite the myths that those who work hardest "make it" and that those who have the wealth have it by circumstance of particular ability, the reality is that the wealth accumulated by European aristocrats was the original basis for the power that the aristocratic families exercised in Detroit. And that power, in turn, was the basis upon which their descendants continued to expand and consolidate the wealth. The connections between contemporary members of the ruling class and the early ruling class is graphically illustrated in the exceptional story told by John Bell Moran in his memoirs: "Some years ago I completed the sale of the last piece of property held by our immediate family from the old dissipates quickly through division, taxation, and simple spending. Marriage, therefore—the right marriage—is of prime importance. 'Love'—taken to mean romantic love, or even sex—must be subordinated to that, or at least made equivalent to that. . . . Before the demands of love can be met, the demands of money must be." Stephen Birmingham, The Right People: A Portrait of the American Social Establishment, Boston: Little Brown and Co., 1968, pp. 86-87. 14 Frederick Engels, "The Origin of the Family, Private Property and the State," Selected Works, p. 516. 15 William J. Goode, "Family and Mobility," Reinhard Bendix and Seymour Martin Lipset, eds., Class, Status and Power, N.Y.: Free Press, 1966, p. 582.

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Charles Moran farm. The deal was ready to close. The money was in escrow, everything was satisfactory except that the buyer's attorney had not yet approved the abstract. After inspecting it very carefully, surveys, farm and lot numbers were correct, he discovered the transfer was being made by the heirs, of the heirs of the heirs of Claude Charles Moran, who, as I have explained in the chapter dealing with him and his land holdings, owned the property fronting on the river at what is now Hastings Street extending North for about three miles. "What baffled the lawyer was that the property seemed to have been held by one owner for over a hundred and fifty years. He could not believe it. He phoned me. . . . I explained to him that the property was part of a French Land Grant made first by Cadillac, then by Beauharnois for the French King. The Grant was confirmed to Charles Moran, as owner, by the United States Government in 1817. "How did the Morans get it? Why, that was easy. The family in the beginning just took it from the Indians. They didn't need it and the French government okayed the deal."16 Chart I (at the end of this chapter) is the family tree that shows the kinship linkages between the original French settlers, the early traders and merchants, and members of the current Detroit ruling class.17 The life histories behind some of the more notable individuals on the chart provide some data regarding the dynamics that the links on the chart represent. By tracing some of the more prominent individuals and their families, we can understand how early power was expanded and transferred. 16

J. Bell Moran, The Moran Family, Detroit: Alved of Detroit, Inc., 1949, p. 112. 17 The illustration given here is only a small part of the entire kinship chart that was prepared. The methodology of such kinship work requires that every descendant and every marriage be recorded in order to search out all possible links. The complete chart is fortyeight plates (pages) and includes over 1,000 individuals covering six generations.

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Two of the largest known land grants that served as a basis for power in early Detroit were those of the Askin family (which later became the Brush farm) and the land held by Lewis Cass (originally held by the Macomb family). John Askin's land grant was an original one and was established during his tenure as Governor of Michillimackinac during British control of Detroit. Askin married the daughter of Charles Barthe and Therese Campau, both prominent early French families. (See Chart I.) Askin was a key landowner and businessman in Detroit during both the British rule and the early period of United States control. He did not want to give up his British citizenship when the United States assumed governance, and he ardently campaigned within the community to persuade others to refuse naturalization. At the same time, he was negotiating with both the native Americans and the French. He attempted to obtain legal ownership rights to the entire northern part of Ohio west of the Cleveland River under deeds signed to him by native American tribes. Askin, along with several other prominent Detroiters, petitioned Congress to be allowed to purchase the entire lower peninsula of Michigan and he sent two individuals to Congress to back up his petition with bribe money. The two individuals were subsequently arrested, tried, and convicted for attempting to bribe the Congress of the United States, and Askin's petition was refused.18 Despite the fact that Askin openly agitated against the United States and carried out negotiations with both the British and the French, and despite his known corrupt dealings with Congress, he was never arrested. Public sentiment against him ran strong, however, and a counter-petition to his pro-British statement was circulated. Detroit citizens served him with a summons for a suit regarding his Tory dealings, and public pressure eventually forced him to move to Canada. Askin's immunity from any kind of official sanction may best be explained in Burton's words: 18

No legal action was ever taken against Askin, however.

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"He [Askin] was a man of great influence, a trader on a large scale, an officer in the Canadian militia, and to some extent the 'Warwick' of the west, for if he did not hold important offices, he dictated who should hold them."19 Asian's closest crony in his dealings in Detroit was Elijah Brush, who served as his lawyer, married his daughter, became the second mayor of Detroit, and took over his extensive property holdings in Detroit. The Askin farm thus became the Brush farm. One of the largest and most spectacular land deals made in early Detroit was the work of Lewis Cass, second Governor of the Michigan Territory. Cass was the son of a major in the Continental Army and was educated at Exeter Academy. His background is that of the wealthy aristocrat, and although the history books abound with tales of his military prowess, his commissions were the result of his birth and lineage, not of his achievement. When he was twenty-five he was made Marshal of Ohio (in 1807) and in his early thirties he was made Governor of the Michigan Territory. Cass purchased a five-hundred-acre land tract in the developing downtown area for $12,000 from the Macomb family, who had purchased the land for $12,650 from the original landholders. Cass used a small portion for himself and leased other portions of the property. It is clear that his intention in buying the land was real estate speculation, for by 1835 the farm was needed for businesses and housing. Cass then sold the entire farm to the Cass Farm Company for $100,000 in 1835.20 Organizers of this real-estate venture included Edmund A. Brush, son of Elijah Brush and Adeline Askin; Charles C. Trowbridge, ninth 19

Burton, ed., Stocking, and Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922. 20 The dollar values given in the text approximate the "real" values of the transactions, since the worth of the dollar in this period was relatively consistent. See, The Cost-of-Living Indexes from 1820 to 1835 in Historical Statistics of the United States Colonial Times to 1957, Series E 157-160, p. 127. (Washington, D.C.: U.S. Bureau of the Census, 1960.)

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mayor of Detroit and husband of the daughter of the first mayor of Detroit, Solomon Sibley; DeGarmo Jones, fourteenth mayor of Detroit; and Augustus S. Porter, twelfth mayor of Detroit. The new owners made improvements on the property by building hotels and filling in the lakefront lots and began to sell the front lots for $146 to $200 per foot and the rear lots for $65 to $235 per foot. The great financial depression of 1837 ended the venture, and eventually all but two of the nine original investors returned the land to Cass since they were unable to make their mortgage payments. Cass now repossessed most of his original property with considerable improvements. The aristocrats in Detroit were not limited to those of French and British lineage. A Belgian nobleman, Ange Palms, who defended the munitions for Napoleon at Waterloo and who came to the United States with a letter of introduction from the Prince of Liege to President Martin Van Buren, was an early member of the Detroit ruling class. Palms invested his money in Detroit businesses and his son started a linseed oil manufacturing business. Francis Palms's second marriage was to Catherine DesRivieres Campau, sister of Joseph Campau of the aristocratic Campau family. Francis Palms's sister, Marie Palms, married Daniel Campau, Joseph Campau's son. (See Chart I.) Thus, a Belgian fortune invested in linseed oil manufacturing was securely linked by marriage to the landed fortune of the Campaus. The result was that Francis Palms began making major land investments, including a purchase of 40,000 acres of government land in Macomb and St. Clair counties during the depression of 1836 to 1837. Under conditions of prosperity ten years later he sold the land with a profit estimated at $300,000 to $400,000. He reinvested these earnings into the pine forests of the state of Michigan and immense tracts in Wisconsin and became, according to Burton, the largest landowner in the northwest and possibly the largest individual landowner in the United States.

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At one point, a dispute in ownership of some of Palms's lands had to be forcibly resolved and Palms authorized his foremen to hire 1,000 men, if necessary, to deal with those who were attempting to obstruct his river. This contest is estimated to have cost him a quarter of a million dollars, but the increase in the value of the land under dispute amounted to $800,000. Palms's usual pattern was to sell the timber on his land but to continue to control the property and mineral rights. In the late eighties, Palms began to reinvest in the Detroit area, constructing a number of city blocks. As manufacturing became more profitable, he turned his fortune into industrial investments. He was the president and largest stockholder in the Peoples Savings Bank and in the Michigan Stove Company; president of the Michigan Fire and Marine Insurance Company; connected to the Garvin Brass and Iron Company, the Union Iron Company, the Vulcan Furnace Company, and the Peninsular Land Company. He held major investments in the Detroit, Mackinac, and Marquette Railroad, of which he was vice-president and director. Nothing in the accounts of Francis Palms's life is said of the people who worked for him—what wages he paid, what hours of labor he required, what concern for their safety and working conditions he had. Nothing is said of the native Americans who once occupied the rich timber lands that yielded such profits nor of the homesteaders who were sold small lots at exploitative prices. Nothing is said of the workers who labored in factories in which Palms invested or lived in the fire-prone tenement houses he constructed. His wealth was not the result of only his superior intelligence or business acumen—it was the concrete result of the value created by thousands of workers laboring on the rich material resources that this county offered. Arriving in the Detroit area later than Palms, James F. Joy came from Dartmouth and Harvard Law School

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to the law offices of Augustus S. Porter. 21 Joy's early fortunes were made at the time of the vast speculations and panic of the 1830's, when public funds deposited in a client's bank (the Bank of Michigan) led to a drawn-out litigation and enormous collection fees for the Joy and Porter law firm. Joy invested these earnings in the Michigan Central Railroad and was launched on a railroad career that created enormous wealth for himself and his family and at the same time created enormous hardship and suffering for thousands of pioneers, native Americans, and Detroiters. Joy not only owned and invested in a number of railroad lines but also served as counsel to numerous others. He organized the Chicago, Burlington, and Quincy Railroad, which, Farmer points out, passed through rich and large undeveloped country. Soon after the railroad was built, the country was rapidly settled. " . . . The enterprise [the railroad], all the time he was connected with it, was the most successful enterprise in the country."22 Joy appropriated immense wealth not only from the legal work for the railroad and investments in the railroads themselves, but also from the speculative purchase of land for sale to the railroads. For example, he purchased 800,000 acres of land in the Kansas territory called the "neutral" lands, through a "special arrangement" with the United States Senate and the Cherokee native Americans. A railroad was to be built across these lands, which were already occupied by pioneers homesteading and building farms. After Joy's purchase of what they had been led to believe were neutral lands, these squatters demanded that their lands be lawfully given to them. When he refused, the settlers began to harass the 21 Porter was the twelfth mayor of Detroit, one of the investors who bought the Cass Farm, and a senator from Detroit to the United States Congress in 1836. 22 Farmer, History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, Vol. 2, p. 1,060. For a general discussion of the ways in which the railroad magnates made enormous profits through exploitation of the native Americans, the settlers, and the railroad laborers see Matthew Josephson, The Robber Barons, N.Y.: Harcourt, Brace, Jovanovich, 1934.

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building of the railroad, burning ties and timber. Joy called on the United States Cavalry for protection, and the railroad work continued. 23 He was also granted 750,000 acres of land in Michigan in return for his facilitating the construction of the Sault St. Mary's Canal. Joy became president of the Michigan Central Railroad Company. He also obtained control of the Jackson, Lansing, and Saginaw Railroad and raised the money for, and built, the Detroit and Bay City Railroad—both railroads were then added to the Michigan Central. Joy bought up the failing Detroit, Lansing, and Northern Railroad and, in partnership with Buhl, Shelden, McMillan, and Newberry, he built the Detroit Union Depot and Station Grounds. Farmer eulogizes Joy by pointing out that "few men such as Mr. Joy and his associates are able and willing to hazard so much in promoting the interests of the city and state in which they live."24 But one suspects that the real hazards of Joy's enterprises were borne by the railroad workers who died from disease and exposure; by the settlers attacked by the United States Cavalry; and by the native Americans who starved as the buffalo were slaughtered to feed the railway crews. Farmer goes on to point out: "Few men have had it in their power for so many years to guide and direct the investment of so large an amount of capital."25 But it is also clear for whose benefit Joy directed that power. 23 This is but one of many instances in the history of the United States where the armed forces of the states are used by the wealthy class against the people whose labor created the wealth. The state is not only the directing and coordinating committee of the ruling class; it is also its repressive apparatus: "an organization of the particular class which was pro tempore the exploiting class, an organization for the purpose of preventing any interference from without with the existing conditions of production, and, therefore, especially, for the purpose of forcibly keeping the exploited classes in the condition of oppression corresponding with the given mode of production (slavery, serfdom, wage-labour)." Engels, "Socialism: Utopian and Scientific," Selected Works, p. 429. 24 Farmer, History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, Vol. 2, p. 1,061.

25 Ibid.

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The wealth and power attained by Joy was transmitted to his son, Henry Bourne Joy. Henry Joy was educated at some of the most elite schools in the east, Phillips Academy at Andover, and Yale University. By the time he was twenty-three years old he was assistant treasurer of the Peninsular Car Company (having, of course, started as an office boy). By the time he was thirty-two he had become president of the Detroit Union Railroad Depot and Station Company. He organized and was a director of the Peninsular Sugar Refining Company. Henry Joy, whose inherited fortune represented wealth gained from railroad and land speculation, turned his fortune to the then emerging automobile industry in Detroit. Joy invested in and eventually became chief executive of the Packard Motor Car Company. He married Helen Newberry, cementing in marriage a business alliance of the two of the wealthiest Detroit families. In describing Henry, Burton's eloquence is boundless, for Joy is one of "a group of men, 'native here and to the manner born whose life for their home town and its memories enabled them to attain the crest of financial success without forgetting the wonderful tradition of Cadillac's village—the culture, the refinements, the charitable impulses and the advancement of social standards." 26 Remembering Burton's own description of Cadillac's authoritative and repressive control, carousing and alcoholism in the fort, and fascination with easy wealth instead of productive labor, one wonders whether his glorification is not indeed tongue-in-cheek. Land was not the only source of wealth in early Detroit, for trading possibilities, given the location of Detroit, were the original reason for its settlement. Thus, as westward expansion continued, and the Erie Canal was built, a greater and greater volume of goods flowed from the east through Detroit westward. Christian H. Buhl and his brother Frederick Buhl are examples of an early Detroit family 26 Burton, ed., Stocking, and Miller, The City of Detroit, Michigan: 1701-1922, Vol. 3, p. 94.

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fortune based on trade and merchandising that was invested, in turn, in land, industry, and finance. Christian and Frederick Buhl were sons of a Pennsylvania merchant and fanner who was well-to-do, although not an aristocrat. The sons received schooling and business training and came to Detroit to seek their fortune. Although they were by profession manufacturers of hats, the brothers became involved in the profitable fur trade and eventually became figures in the American Fur Company, which purchased furs throughout Canada and the Great Lakes.27 The money that the Buhls received from the fur trade was invested in a large hardware store. The rapid growth of Detroit, as a city, as well as the continued profitability of trading, led to major business successes for the Buhls, and their new profits were invested in the Westerman Iron Works at Sharon, Pennsylvania, employing, at that time, 1,000 workers with an average daily output of over one hundred tons. Other profits were invested in a controlling interest in the Detroit Locomotive Works; helped the Buhls to organize the Detroit Copper and Brass Rolling Mill Company; and built the Detroit, Hillsdale, and Indiana Railroad and the Detroit, Eel River, and Illinois Railroad. The investment by the Buhl brothers was crucial in the revival of the old Michigan State Bank (which had provided the initial profits for Joy's investments), and Buhl money helped to organize the Second National Bank of Detroit. Frederick Buhl, in addition to the concerns listed above, was an original director of the Merchants' Exchange and Board of Trade. The object of the Board was stated to be the promotion of "just and equitable principles in trade, to correct abuses and generally to protect the rights and advance the interests of the mercantile classes."28 Frederick 27 Needless to say, the exploited labor of this trade were the native Americans, who often received a few pints of rum or a few trinkets for weeks of trapping. 28 Such an organization is not different in essential purpose from such contemporary organizations as the Detroit Board of Commerce

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Buhl was mayor of Detroit in 1848 and Christian H. Buhl was mayor in 1860 and 1861. Detroiters today associate the name Buhl with the Buhl building downtown and many know that Henry Ford II's sister married a man named Walter Buhl Ford II. (See Chart I.) Two other brothers, who arrived in Detroit later than the Buhls and who invested immediately in the railroad industry and the growing financial sector of Detroit, were James and Hugh McMillan. The father of the McMillans was an organizer and investor in the Great Western Railway Company of Hamilton, Ontario. James and Hugh arrived in Detroit with already substantial means at their disposal. James began at the age of eighteen by taking a position with the Buhl hardware store, and after two years of service became purchasing agent of the Detroit and Milwaukee Railway. He also worked for a railroad contractor, purchasing supplies and caring for finances. In 1864 McMillan joined with Newberry, Dean, and Eaton in the formation of the Michigan Car Company—a holding company that created such firms as the Detroit Car Wheel Company, the Baugh Steam Forge Company, and the Detroit Iron Furnace Company. James McMillan was principal owner of these firms, which were estimated to do an annual business of $3,500,000 to $5,000,000 and averaged 2,500 employees. Other major investments for McMillan were the Duluth, South Shores, and Atlantic Railway; the Detroit and Cleveland Steam Navigation Company; the Detroit Transportation Company; the Detroit City Railway Company; the D. M. Ferry Seed Company; the Detroit Railroad Elevator Company; and the Union Depot Company. McMillan's early profits were earned at the time of the industrial expansion brought on by the bloodiest war in the history of the country up to that point—the Civil War. and Detroit Renaissance, although contemporary organizations are far less candid about admitting their class interests.

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In 1863 he and John S. Newberry contracted with the United States government for the building of a large number of cars to be used in the south for transporting soldiers and munitions. The profits earned on that particular venture were the basis for both Newberry's and McMillan's rapid expansion into the railroad and transportation industries. McMillan did not go south and fight or die for the liberation of the black people, nor did his brother Hugh, nor did John S. Newberry. Newberry, however, held the safe and secure position of Captain of the Cavalry for the state of Michigan, an appointment of President Lincoln under which Newberry had charge of two drafts and decided who should go to the war and who should substitute for whom. The small farmers of the Detroit area and the workers of Detroit understood that slavery was a direct threat to their own continued freedom, and many fought and died to preserve democratic rights that they held dear. At the same time, families like the Joys, Newberrys, and McMillans used the war as the basis for the consolidation and expansion of their economic wealth and power. Farmer, however, explains McMillan's success, not on the historical basis of civil war profiteering, but on the basis of outstanding "personal qualities": "An executive ability of commanding character, with wonderful power of concentration upon any given subject, capacity for complicated details, ability to keep in mind the whole field of his immense interest without losing sight of a single important link in their best and most profitable relation, serve in a measure to explain the results he has secured. . . . He has thus far refused the proferred nomination by party friends to high and responsible official position, contenting himself by aiding effectively in the election of his friends. . . ."29 Hugh McMillan, seven years younger than his brother James, was also actively involved in a railroad and manu29 Farmer, History of Detroit and Wayne County and Early Michigan, Vol. 2, p. 1,064.

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facturing investment, but he branched out into finances and utilities. Besides sharing interests with his brother in the Michigan Car Company, the Baugh Steam Forge Company, and the Duluth, South Shore, and Atlantic Railway, Hugh held a key position in the construction of the Detroit, Mackinac, and Marquette Railroad. He personally organized the stock drive for the newly formed Michigan Telephone Company in 1877, which owned and controlled the entire telephone business of the state of Michigan. (Hugh was the secretary and treasurer.) He was also president and organizer of the Commercial National Bank of Detroit, a large stockholder and director in the State Savings Bank of Detroit and he held official positions in the following concerns: the Detroit Iron Furnace Company, Newberry Furnace Company, Detroit Pipe and Foundry Company, Detroit Iron Mining Company, the Fulton Iron and Engine Works, the Hamtramck Transportation Company, the Red Star Line of steamers, Detroit Railroad Elevator Company, Detroit Electrical Works, Detroit and Cleveland Steam Navigation Company, Duluth and Atlantic Transportation Company, Mackinac Transportation Company, and the Detroit Transportation Company. The direct descendants of the McMillan family continue to participate actively in overseeing their inherited interests. James McMillan, the grandson of James, was, as of 1970, the chairman of the board of Cleveland Navigation Company, the president of McMillan-Packard Incorporated, the president and a director of Great Lakes Oceanic Line, Incorporated, a vice-president and director of Boyer-Campbell Company, and a director of the following firms: Detroit Bank and Trust, Studebaker Corporation, Ferry Morse Seed Company, and American Presidents Life Insurance Company. James McMillan's sister Marie Louise McMillan married Henry T. Bodman, who was, in 1970, chairman of the board and a director of the National Bank of Detroit (the largest bank in Detroit and the sixteenth largest bank in the country). He was also a director of the following

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firms: Michigan Bell Telephone Company, National Steel Corporation, Cunningham Drug Stores, Incorporated, and Wyandotte Chemicals. James McMillans daughter (the great granddaughter of the original James) married Robert Palmer Lambrecht, whose father, Edward Lambrecht, was, in 1970, chairman of the board of one of the largest real estate agencies in the Detroit area and a director of First Federal Savings and Loan. Jan McMillan, the granddaughter of Hugh McMillan, married Charles Louis Palms III, the great grandson of Francis Palms, discussed earlier in the chapter. Thus, the McMillan fortune was based on war, speculation, and the labor of Detroit working people and consolidated through marriage with the fortunes of other prominent Detroit families. Russel A. Alger is an example of a moderately well-to-do businessman whose achievements as an officer in the Civil War and eventual promotion to general paved the way for a lumber empire and the incorporation of his family into the Detroit ruling class. Alger's ancestry traces back, according to Farmer, to the times of William the Conqueror, and his mother's ancestor (Robert Moulton), who came to Massachusetts in 1627 with a boat load of carpenters and cornered the new world market on shipbuilding. Alger's father was a successful farmer who pioneered in Ohio and gave his children basic schooling, although Russel was orphaned at an early age. Alger began his business career in Grand Rapids, Michigan, in the lumber industry. He was commissioned as a captain in the Civil War and assigned to the command of a company that saw a great deal of action in the war, including the Battle of Bonneville, Gettysburg, Boonsboro, and the Shenandoah campaign. He received successive promotions and was made a brevet major-general on June 11, 1865 as a reward for meritorious and gallant service during the war.30 30 Although there is a level of "achievement" involved in Alger's history, it must be remembered that he was a "businessman" to start

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After the war Alger returned to Detroit and became engaged again in the lumber industry that he built into what became the largest pine timber company in the world. His corporation owned timber lands in a number of Michigan counties, both lower and upper peninsula, red woodland in California and Washington territories, pine land in Wisconsin and Louisiana, and cattle lands in New Mexico. He was the president and largest stockholder in the Detroit, Bay City, and Alpena Railroad, and he invested large amounts of capital in the stock of the Peninsular Car Company, the Detroit National and State Saving Banks, and the Detroit Copper and Brass Rolling Mills. In 1884 Alger was elected Governor of the State of Michigan, and in 1888 and 1892 he was a strong contender for the nomination of President of the United States for the Republican Party. In 1897 he accepted the post of Secretary of War under President McKinley. During his tenure in that post, the Spanish-American War occurred—a war that insured that American industry and finance could expand overseas to the west, given that its own territorial expansion had been completed. 31 A number of major scandals broke out in that period, including charges of mishandling of army affairs to the detriment of the support of the United States fighting men. The dubious reasons for the war, in combination with the priorities of the ruling class in terms of creating profits from war expenditure and the importance of business affairs over military objectives, led to disastrous military decisions and Russel Alger received great public criticism.32 In 1902 Alger was appointed to fill the Senate vacancy from Michigan caused by the death of James McMillan. He with and went into the army as a captain—which is hardly "working up from the bottom." 31 For a further analysis of the Spanish-American War from this perspective see William Appleman Williams, The Tragedy of American Diplomacy, N.Y.: Delta Books, 1962. 32 The nature of the war is graphically discussed in Leon WoIfFs Little Brown Brother, Millwood, N.Y.: Kraus Reprint Co., 1961.

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was elected to that position when his term of appointment was fulfilled. Alger's daughter Caroline married Henry Shelden, the son of Allen Shelden, a wealthy and prominent Detroit merchant. The son of Henry Shelden and Caroline Alger, Allen Shelden, married the granddaughter of Christian H. Buhl. When the Detroit News did its study in July of 1971 to determine who "Detroit's Ten Big Wheels" were, they selected a panel of twenty individuals whom they described as "a representative cross-section of important people, influential in their own right, to give us their view of who holds the power in Detroit and who uses it to the city's advantage." One of the twenty panelists selected was Mrs. Allen Shelden, described as a "pillar of Grosse Pointe society." Considering that Mrs. (Elisabeth Buhl Warren) Shelden represented the Shelden, Buhl, Alger, and Hiram Walker fortunes in her direct lines of ancestry, there is little question that she, as a panel member, was "influential in her own right"!83 When John Bell Moran died in January of 1973, a symbol of the unification of the old aristocratic landed wealth that had merged with new automobile wealth was gone. The Moran family was descended from early French landholders who settled in Detroit in 1734. According to historian Marie Hamlin, when Judge Charles Moran died, his estate was surpassed only by the estates of the Campau and the Brush family.34 The landed wealth of the Moran family was channeled into the transportation industry, various industrial enterprises, and it was central in the banking industry of Detroit. When John Bell Moran retired in 1953, he resigned as director of twenty different companies. He had been responsible for the founding of several firms, including the Gray Motor Corporation and the City National Bank. During World as Detroit News, July 15, 1971. 34

Hamlin, Legends of Le Detroit.

T H E R U L I N G CLASS

73

War I he enlisted and served the duration of the war as an artillery officer stationed safely in Pennsylvania and New Jersey. During World War II he was in charge of officer procurement for Michigan. John Bell Moran married Serena Murphy, whose father, William Murphy, had founded the Detroit Auto Company —which initially backed Henry Ford. William Murphy founded the Cadillac Motor Car Company and the Lincoln Motor Car Company, which also built the Liberty airplane engine. William Murphy built the Penobscot Building in downtown Detroit, and toward the end of his life he formed the Pacific Lumber Company, the largest privately owned redwood lumber company in the world at that time, holding 1,000,000 acres of timber. John Bell Moran's grandfather, Judge Charles Moran, was married to Julia DeQuindre, sister of Adelaide DeQuindre, who married Joseph Campau. Their father, Antoine DeQuindre, was the first child of European parents born at Fort Ponchatrain at Lake Champlain, where his family held a substantial land grant from the French king. (See Chart I.) John BeII Moran's sister married Emory Leyden Ford, the grandson of Captain John Baptiste Ford. Captain John B. Ford was an early merchant and industrialist identified with the Michigan Alkalai Company, which later became Wyandotte Chemicals. The captain was also involved in the founding of Libbey-Owen-Ford and Huron Portland Cement Company. This family is known in the Detroit area as the "chemical Fords," to separate them from the "automobile Fords." Captain John B. Ford also founded the New York Plate Glass Company, which later became Pittsburgh Plate Glass, and he turned over operation of that firm to his sons and began the development of what was to become Wyandotte Chemical Company. Captain Ford was also president and director of the Wyandotte Transportation Company, which operated a large fleet of freighters. He was

74

T H E R U L I N G CLASS

a director of Parke, Davis, and Company, the Wyandotte Terminal Railroad Company, and the Michigan Wireless Telegraph Company. Emory Moran Ford is the nephew of John Bell Moran and the great grandson of Captain John B. Ford. Emory Moran Ford as of 1970 was a director of Manufacturers National Bank, the second largest bank in Detroit, and a director of Consolidation Coal Company. His second cousin, John B. Ford III, looks more directly after the family interests as a director of the Wyandotte Transportation Company, the National Bank of Detroit, and the Wyandotte Chemical Corporation. Horace Caulkins Ford, great-greatgrandson of Captain John B. Ford, is a director of the Bank of the Commonwealth. Horace Ford's first marriage was to Dorothy Booth, the great granddaughter of James E. Scripps, founder of the Detroit News, the largest newspaper in the Detroit area. In addition, the Scripps family also has major interests in the Scripps-Howard newspaper chain and the United Press International (UPI). (See Chart I.) These brief histories illustrate some of the processes by which a few of the families whose decendants are members of the Detroit ruling class came to accumulate large amounts of wealth and power. There are many other Detroit families whose forefathers played similar roles and whose kin continue today to hold major ownership interests in the area businesses and to exercise power within various institutions. The families of Stroh, Ledyard, Thompson, Book, and VanDyke, for example, have similar histories. These families are intermarried to the families discussed above, as can be seen on Chart I. The kinship structure of Detroit's ruling class reflects both historical and contemporary linkages. The historical relationships—inherited wealth and power—trace back to the early aristocratic Detroit families. On the other hand, there are newer fortunes earned in newly emerging industries, based on wealth brought in from another area, accumulated as the result of military achievement or political influence,

THE RULING CLASS

75

or as the result of particular inventions or skills. These more contemporary fortunes are integrated by marriage into the older Detroit fortunes. Thus, the ruling class incorporates newcomers within its web and insures that the continuing interest of the class is synonymous with family concerns. The discussion of these families must occur within the context of the ideology that arose out of the period of capitalism in which these families lived and made their fortunes. The myths around great men teach us that through frugality, hard work, foresight, and courage they achieve success. But one could argue that the Irish laborer who worked on Joy's railroad fourteen hours a day, seven days a week, certainly was a hard worker. His courage in the face of blinding snow, scorching heat, and resentful native Americans is not to be disputed. And this Irish laborer may have been extremely resourceful—saving his hard-earned wages, sending them home to his family, teaching himself to read and write. But perhaps, when given a chance to become a supervisor on the railroad and to have the responsibility for working his fellow laborers fourteen hours a day, whipping those who became tired, and cheating those who came to sell the workers their rations, this Irish laborer preferred to stay honest. He valued the respect of his fellow workers more than the reward of success. This example suggests that all of the above admired attributes of capitalist virtue are accompanied by a key virtue —the willingness to succeed at the expense of others; to take advantage of power and exercise that power over individuals who have less. Marx analyzes the ideological aspect of what he calls the secret of primitive accumulation in the following way: "This primitive accumulation plays in Political Economy about the same part as original sin in theology. Adam bit the apple, and thereupon sin fell upon the human race. Its origin is supposed to be explained when it is told as an anecdote of the past. In times long gone by there were two sorts of people: one the diligent, intelligent, and, above all,

76

T H E R U L I N G CLASS

frugal elite; the other, lazy rascals, spending their substance, and more, in riotous living. The legend of theological original sin tells us certainly how man came to be condemned to eat his bread in the sweat of his brow; but the history of economic original sin reveals to us that there are people to whom this is by no means essential. Never mind! Thus it came to past that the former sort accumulated wealth, and the latter sort had at last nothing to sell except their own skins. And from this original sin dates the poverty of the great majority that, despite all its labour, has up to now nothing to sell but itself, and the wealth of the few that increases constantly although they have long ceased to work. Such insipid childishness is every day preached to us in the defense of property." 35 Marx used the term "exploitation" for the process by which workers created greater value than the costs of production (which included the wages for their labor power). The excess value created (the surplus value) was retained by those who owned the means of production and was used to continue to exert control over the worker, who had no means of production, but only his labor power to sell. It is true that the early capitalists often did work hard, and did exhibit ingenuity and frugality. It is also true that they cheated, although their power often allowed them to write laws that made their cheating legal. It is also true that they brutalized men, women, and children in the factories, mines, and on the land that they owned and that they developed an ideology that they propagated, through the presses and publishing houses, to legitimate and extol their activities. At the same time, the ruling class could not hide the result of the class contradictions that capitalism engendered. Workers could see the filth and disease in their neighborhoods, could watch their children die or be crippled by 35 Karl Marx, Capital: A Critique of Political Economy, N.Y.: International Publishers, New World Edition, 1967, Vol. 1, pp. 713-714.

THE RULING CLASS

77

malnutrition or industrial accident, could observe the grime and filth that clogged their lungs at their place of work and that shortened their lives. And even as Detroit workers saw their purchasing power over consumer goods slowly increased, they could see the wealth of the rich increasing at a far faster rate. These contradictions the ruling class could not dispel, and workers began to organize militantly against the plunder they clearly perceived. The ruling class responded to this class contradiction by developing an ethos and myth that attempted to shift the blame for those conditions on the individual. If the worker was not rich it was because he or she had individually failed. The ruling class explained the contradictions by pointing at the national minority groups within the population who had, by entering the labor market or making demands on the system, caused "trouble." And the ruling class used its propaganda to blame this country's troubles on foreign enemies—the "little brown devil" of the SpanishAmerican War, the "Hun," the "Jap," and the "Commie." But propaganda and ideology are not sufficient to resolve material contradictions, and the ideologies of the ruling class have never been sufficient to remove the basis for working class struggle.

CHIIRT I KINSHIP DHTH

Hiram Walker ••

Bernhard Stroh =

John Stroh ι

Car la John2 Stroh," Higbie

Jr.

Carlton3 Higbie,

Jr.

J . H. Walker =

Bernhard Stroh =

Julius Stroh •

Elsa Hiram Stroh = H. Walter

Gari Stroh •

Nicholas Stroh

Gari4 Stroh,

Jr.

Peter Stroh

Mary C. Buhl

1

Chairman, Stroh Brewery. Director, Stroh Brewery; member, Country Club of Detroit, Grosse Pointe Club. 3 Director, City National Bank; Chairman of the Board, National Bank of Rochester; Director, T. I. Fulton Ltd., Franklin Products Company, Sanoh Industrial Company, Ltd., Fulton Rohr Gmbh, Sterling Stainless Tube Company; member, Detroit Club, Country Club of Detroit, Grosse Pointe Club, Pine Valley Club. 4 Director, Stroh Brewery. 5 Director, National Bank of Detroit; President, Stroh Brewery; Director, Detroit Urban League; former C.I.A. agent; member, Country Club of Detroit, Detroit Club, Grosse Pointe Club, Princeton Club of Michigan. 6 Major investments and control in American Fur Company; owned Buhl Hardware Store; invested in Westerman Iron Works (Sharon, Pennsylvania); controlling interest in Detroit Locomotive Works; organized Detroit Copper and Brass Rolling Mill Com­ pany; built the Detroit, Hillsdale, and Indiana Railroad; built the Detroit, Eel River, and Illinois Railroad; reorganized Michigan State Bank; organized Second National Bank of Detroit; Mayor of Detroit, 1860,1861. 2

7 President, National Bank of Detroit; Director, Burroughs, Parke Davis, Bundy, Buhl Land Company; member, Finance Committee, Citizens' Research Council; Executive Officer, Detroit Renaissance; Director, Executive Officer, Economic Development Cor­ poration of Detroit; Trustee, Greater Detroit Safety Council; Executive Officer, Director, United Foundation; member, Detroit Athletic Club, Detroit Club, Yondotega Club. 8 Director, Manufacturers' National Bank; Chairman of the Board, Fitzsimon Man­ ufacturing; Director, S.E. Michigan Red Cross; member, Grosse Pointe Club, Country Club of Detroit, Detroit Club, Yondotega Club, University Club, Detroit Athletic Club.

Robetf Surdar

--

I

(Ullno!

s».lrealcIent 01 Mdllgan Are UK! M.-,. insu"_ Company; ~ in Galvin Bran and lron~, Unionlron~. VUIcanFum_andPenlnsularL.and~ In ....tmwlt.in Detroit. MIIdUrIac and Marqu«t,. Railroad (Vic4l-Prasid.nI and D irector)

~'*"'"

ZlBeIgIan nobleman; co-ordInated munition. lor NepoIaon III War.rtoo; _ to lin,*, State. with Wrtrocluc:tory let1er to Presk*lf Van &qn /rom Pmca liege 01 Belglum.

.. Director, Allied Che-rnleal, Am&rIcan Motors. Be...... J AIrerican """$IOr8, Gannatt.~.Pet lnc .. e.:-ryS.vingsBank;PastPrasidenl,I963-19&5,ESSO: ANistanlofs.cr.taryofCommerct. 11165-1967; Secretary 01 Commen:::e, 1ge7.196a; ~ American Managemem AMocIation: mt'tI"Iber. Council on F'oreIgn ~.

judge. S~Cowt, State of Michigan.

b't1it.I834; ~r, Bo.rooiAegents.lhWws~"'O/Michigan.I821.'835 .. Governor 01 MIctl~, 1Wo,.",., 1948; Under·Secretary 01 Sta,e, AIrIcan AlIa.,;

L-.

Ttuobr1do}Ol

ct.t.r_C.2JS~1'. nbt.y_~l.

...._Pn.IondtK ....

tiOnB.

aere,';'DetroM:arMandOhiol. .. . I. Oelegal. /rom W.yna County. COnst_utlonai ConventIOn. MiChigan Indian Trader:.uthor of Detroit CIty Charter, 1824: realaetata apecuialOl'; Ma)'Of 01 DMroiI, 1824,1830,18«.1845,1846.. . 20 PresOant. OireetoI, J. L Hudson Company; DinIcIor, Nalional Bank at OMro., edison; IrUsIM', Un/VefaiIy LiggeIt School; c:hUman, 1n.>&IM. ~

~

lb~2.1

Ftenaissanot; ~, Eoonomie De-..e/opmenl Corpora/ion, G....... Detroit. rnernI)er. Country CkIb 01 Detroit. Grosse Pointe Club. Detrott Athletic ClUb. Detroit Ckb.. Yondotega Club.

Jr.

.1. l.. 1lldIcn20

~-r

-:i I W1:U_

~

~~- I

_ _all'

w/'ll~.c.-

laticCkIb.Y~CIub.

I

.1 \ . ~

c..pa.,-

~-" ~_'L,-_ _ _ _- . - ~ .ludoJoo~. e.r!~1q.a

lIGovemorO/Mk;to~lmackinac(during British rotIgn); pet_ioned lor pun:t1ueol.otinllDwer ~in!lU1a (pet~ioners eonvIdad 01 bribery); Of"OWIind all Tort afterthe Rev· oIutiDn·CMOIIdonaol1helargesttarrnsln Oetroltsettlement(ownedtoCal5.000.ooo

sellfdlCounc:iloflrllichigan "Direc1or. Ford,....".. Manufacturers National9ank; m&mber. Advi3oelaoJ

Orl.tun6

=.,1I.=:.

~

,.---, ~-"....

OIoo1tcIuordMolt>rC.' eamp..y

Coml*"l

au/a.Car Compao!y (age 23): PnosidenI O/Detrolt Union Railnoad Depct and StMion (1tgIII 32); org....u:ed and Diredcf 01 Peninsula. Sugar Rriroing Company;

"&Iuctoted"'PhilipsACademyandV."UniYersi!y; A.8sIstantT'NSUI"oI~

Ra~road; bOught out DetroiI, Lanosirlg. aIld NortNm Raitroad; in PMne,-.hig with Buhl. Shelden. McMillan, and Ne'MJeion o..,pot and Slalion Gtounds.

Indi.nI ; OWI"of(I750.000~inMic:tligarl;PrMOjenlofM\ctlioanCenlr"~!n:I..:I; conIrOIIedJadg,ands.gin~Rai~;or~izIldDet!O'.ndB&yCIty

8Cf1Is) ; builPencIbacotSuildin(J. "0itry Club e>f 0.1ItliI. YondoI:egaClub, DelrMCiub • Fourded Libb&y-Owens Fool. Pittsburgh PIal. GIaH, and M;,;nigan _ erleals (baume Wyendolla Chemicels) .. Vlee-Presldenl. Director, Wyaodo"a Chemk:llls: mem'*, Country Club 01 Oe1roll. .. Attend«! OartmOUlh and lilNard Law School: joined Porte< IiIw furn-b(lllted "'M with Midlig...., Sanlc and .,vesleclln Michigan Centre.! RaIIroI>d; OI'oaNztd C/l~. Blrir>gton. and Ounq Ra~road ; pUte/Ia$ed 800.000_ in Kansas tern~ c:onsideJed " .."".r' and used Unked SUMS cavalry 10 dNr I'IomestHder3 WId

Company(~priled "1Ih

.f

~=:=':':;:III~ int_

c.r-w Company; President and Difector of WylUldoHe Transportation CompanV; DinIaot of Pa .... a. 0..;,. IOn(! ~ny. Wyandolle T,rmln" Rd'oad Com!lany. and Michigan Wi,,,,",, T"Iegr..,n Camp....,.. "0;,-"""". NaliDnDt Bank 01 Detroll:. P arIc"DavIs,WyantlollIChem/calsCorpota· lion; 0irecI0I and E~ecutl"" VIot·Pre'~r>I. ~AutIrey 0.. Company; trustee. HerwyFonlHollp... ;AdYtlIoryBoam,UnlI[I Fcunoal'()n;Cheltmanoflhe Board. 0.. troll: $)/mpngny Orchestra: me-mber. Delro~ aut!. yondcltlga Clue. CountryCluClol DetrolI.GrossePointeCiub. •• Director, 8ankoflhec:ommor-alIh; member. Grosse P\)inIeClub. Country~ 01 Detroll:. Detto~CIutI

Ie