Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens

• 20. THE BATTLE FOR M.O.
• Chapter
• Wayne State University Press
• pp. 126-130
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CHAPTER XX

THE BATTLE FOR M.O.

Ironically, no one in the Detroit of that period was more often called a “Bolshevist” than Couzens himself—mainly because of his battle to establish municipal ownership of the city’s streetcar lines.

He had flatly declared in his inaugural message that Detroit needed to run its own public transportation system. His blue eyes never looked more like steel than when he said: “Unless the Detroit United Railway agrees to reasonable terms by which the city takes over its city lines, I will be ready to adopt war measures.” If necessary, he added, he would submit a purchase plan “every six months, until one was adopted.”¹ For his one idea was to put over municipal ownership, no matter what it cost him.²

Even so, against his deepest personal inclination, he began with a compromise. He had concluded long before that the best procedure would be for the city to build competing lines, “start small like the Ford Company did,” deny any more franchises to the D.U.R. while letting the old franchises expire, and then sit back to watch the municipal lines crush out the company lines. But he let the members of his Street Railway Commission, three amiable businessmen, persuade him that such a course meant a fight which, they said, would be “bad for Detroit.” They induced him to go to the voters in a referendum in April 1918 with another purchase plan—to buy the D.U.R. lines for $31,500,000, a price to which the D.U.R. had agreed. They also persuaded him to conduct only a mild campaign, keeping himself in the background. His commissioners argued: why stir up the people when the company had agreed to sell and all the Detroit papers were in favor of the purchase?³

2

The compromise turned out badly. For one thing, the D.U.R., which had ostensibly agreed to the sale, had in fact prepared reams of literature against the proposal and distributed this material at the last minute.⁴

But more serious opposition came from Henry Ford. In 1915 Henry Ford had unqualifiedly endorsed Couzens’ M.O. plan in a front-page interview in the Detroit News, saying: “It is one of the safest business propositions I have ever heard of. I will gladly work under James Couzens in the street railway matter.”⁵

True, Ford’s newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, had carried an item, just after Couzens’ election, that had belittled Couzens’ streetcar program. But Ford personally had sent a copy of the paper to Couzens accompanied by this message:

“While I have bought this paper, I am not taking active management until January 1st, 1919. I do not agree with this article in any way. My sentiments are to help you in every way.”⁶

But despite this, during the last week of the streetcar campaign, Ford, acting through Charles E. Sorensen, then general manager of the Henry Ford and Son Tractor Plant, let loose a resounding blast against the Couzens plan. Everyone understood that while the statement ripping into Couzens’ plan (which soon was posted all over Detroit in handbills and printed in full-page advertisements) bore Sorensen’s signature, it was really Ford’s. Indeed, Ford had admitted to E. G. Pipp that he intended “to keep Couzens from getting his way.” “He seemed to feel unusually peevish toward Couzens that day,” recalled Pipp. Pipp reminded Ford that previously he had supported Couzens’ efforts toward municipal ownership. “I have a right to change my mind,” snapped Ford.⁷

3

The Ford statement injected a wholly new argument into the streetcar controversy: electric streetcars are out of date; the “coming thing” is gasoline-propelled cars; Henry Ford is developing the new type of car; hence the city of Detroit would be paying $31,500,000 to the D.U.R. for “junk.”⁸

Of course, the Ford gasoline streetcar was pure fiction, or little more than just an idea. In the words of Jay G. Hayden, “The announcement was plainly designed to scuttle the purchase proposal.”⁹

Couzens boiled with anger. “What Mr. Couzens said regarding Mr. Ford could not be presented in these polite columns,” the Detroit Saturday Night recalled later.¹⁰ Ford came back with a barbed statement filled with sarcastic references to Couzens’ “lack of mechanical knowledge.”¹¹

Had this exchange continued, it would doubtless have dawned on the majority of Detroiters that the “Sorensen statement” was really an expression of personal feeling and had nothing to do with the merits of Couzens’ streetcar plan. As it was, the time was too short for the public to catch on.

As a result, thousands of Detroiters, who otherwise were for M.O., voted against Couzens’ plan because they were taken in by the Sorensen statement. So Couzens lost his second M.O. referendum.¹²

4

The Detroit News analyzed the defeat as having resulted from Couzens having been, for once, too soft. The people were fed up with inadequate transportation and wanted the D.U.R. treated roughly. “What they want is to hang the D.U.R.’s hide on the fence.”¹³

Couzens agreed, and bided his time for another occasion when he could again raise the M.O. issue. It came when a strike, two months later, halted all streetcar service. He decided that the strike, ostensibly for higher wages, was really a collusive affair between the D.U.R. management and the unions to get further rate increases.¹⁴ On the second day of the stoppage, he issued a decisive statement:

The moment has arrived to finish up our dealings with the D.U.R. I reached that conclusion last night. That conclusion was confirmed when I left my farm at 5:55 this morning and came to town and saw how comfortably we were getting along without the D.U.R. . . . We will order the company off the non-franchise lines and put our own equipment on the tracks. . . . By fall, we can have cars sufficient to have a fair-sized system of our own running, or to have forced the D.U.R. to turn over its property at junk prices.

If the Council will cooperate, I am willing to let this end all relationship with the D.U.R. once and for all. We have been grasped by this lying corporation until it seems to me that they have made their final grasp.¹⁵

And to this he appended—as if in answer to critics of his “impulsiveness”—a personal note:

“I have reached this conclusion under no pressure and after no moments of excitement, but after thirty-six hours of quiet thought.”

An ominous postscript, that—for the D.U.R.

5

Then the D.U.R. knew it was in for a battle to the finish. It promptly settled the strike, after Couzens had directed his city attorneys to seek a court order placing the company in receivership for failure to render transportation service.¹⁶ Then, suddenly, the company discovered that it wanted to build numerous extensions that it had previously refused to consider. Just as suddenly, it discovered that it could increase wages without charging for transfers.¹⁷ It started a discussion of subways, and even offered to surrender its city lines to another company, keeping only its interurban properties. Or it would deal with the city on a service-at-cost basis—anything, in fact, to keep the people from accepting the Couzens proposal for a rival municipal line.¹⁸

Most of the members of the City Council backed away from a showdown, saying that it would be better to try to get improved service and, perhaps, a subway, than to start another fight. Couzens’ own street-railway commissioners, all personal friends who had been appointed because they supposedly favored his program, also backed away. They said that instead of municipal ownership, Detroit should adopt the so-called Taylor Plan, a service-at-cost scheme under private ownership which was being tried in Cleveland.

“Well, gentlemen,” Couzens said to them, “if that’s your conviction, I’ll have to ask for your resignations.”¹⁹

He then announced a referendum for April 1920 on a bond issue of $15,000,000 for the establishment of a competing independent, city-owned streetcar system.²⁰

Against this plan, the D.U.R. enlisted an army of orators and sundry propagandists. The Board of Commerce and a special group of business leaders, led by Alvan Macauley and Henry B. Joy, both of the Packard Motor Car Company, joined the D.U.R. in its fight.

Even the three friends who had been Couzens’ streetcar commissioners openly opposed the proposal.²¹ Aided by utility companies in other cities, the D.U.R. let loose a flood of literature that literally clogged the Detroit post office. It was estimated that the company spent $500,000 to defeat the plan.²² Joining in the attack were not only those interests opposed to “socialism,” but also those eager to see a personal setback for Couzens. As Jay Hayden has recalled: “For years, he had been stepping on sacred toes. If he won this battle, it was clear that he would be even more firmly entrenched. The myriad of interests that he had thwarted moved as one in a supreme effort to stop this man.”²³

But, luckily for Couzens, just at this time Ford had set his heart on buying out all of the minority stockholders in the Ford Motor Company. There had been a good deal of jockeying on Ford’s part to get the other stockholders, including Couzens, to sell out without knowing who wanted to buy. Couzens had held out until he could discover who was behind mysterious offers being made by various brokers. He found out that the buyer was Ford himself when Edsel Ford, in September 1919, came to his home and put all the Ford cards on the table.²⁴ Unless Couzens agreed to sell, some of the others would hold back. Couzens was the key to the whole transaction.

At the session with Edsel, Couzens agreed to sell, although he insisted on getting a higher price for his stock than the others in recognition of his part in the creation of the company. John Anderson, for one, endorsed this proposal, saying to Stuart Webb, one of the negotiators: “If there is anybody in that organization who is entitled to a little bit more than anyone else . . . it is Mayor Couzens. It was due to his efforts that the company became a success.”²⁵

The deal was closed for $30,000,000 for his stock, of which $29,-308,857.90 was for himself, and $691,142.10 for his sister Rosetta.

Apparently out of gratitude, Ford then made a truce with Couzens that culminated in a curious letter which Ford had his secretary release to the Detroit Saturday Night—to correct some “rumors”:

The relations between Mr. Ford and Mr. Couzens during his association with the Ford Motor Company, or afterward, have at no time been strained. Both men have ideals wherein they are desirous of serving the people in the best and most beneficial way, and each has chosen his method of doing so. I believe as well that neither one of these men would hesitate to cooperate with the other if the resulting benefit was for the best of the people.

Very truly yours,                         

E. G. LIEBOLD,                           

General Secretary to Henry Ford.²⁶

Ford now forgot the Sorensen’s “gasoline car” and came out for the M.O. plan. This time more than 63 per cent of the voters approved Couzens’ program for municipally owned and operated streetcars. Couzens immediately gave the order to begin excavation work for the new M.O. lines—thus starting, at last, to carry out the program first proclaimed as far back as the 1890’s.²⁷