Independent Man: The Life of Senator James Couzens

• 16. THE POLICE COMMISSIONER
• Chapter
• Wayne State University Press
• pp. 107-112
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CHAPTER XVI

THE POLICE COMMISSIONER

In the words of Detroit’s semi-official historian, George B. Catlin, he “immediately began making history” as Commissioner of Police.¹ Owing to that penchant of his for saying what he thought, he started off with a storm. During an interview with the newspapers he was asked to give his policy on law enforcement, particularly in regard to the state law forbidding the sale of alcoholic beverages on Sunday. Instead of repeating what every other police commissioner had said—that, of course, he would enforce all laws—he was frank. He said that he had not “made up his mind,” and added:

Certain laws are debatable. It is debatable whether it is right for a man to have a glass of beer on Sunday. It is not debatable that when a rich man may have his glass of beer in his club or elsewhere, the poor man is entitled to the same privilege. Whether either should be permitted is the question. There are in statute books and among city ordinances so many obsolete and absurd laws that it would be foolish for an official to announce that he intended to enforce the law strictly.²

He soon learned that it was more foolish for a police commissioner to be so forthright. “Can Detroit hope for much from a man who, even before he takes the required oath of office, announces in the public press that the enforcement of the public law in some regards is to him a debatable matter?” inquired Judge William Connolly, the Democratic candidate for mayor.³

“Is Couzens going to enforce the law passed by the people in Lansing, or just a little of it here and there, as it appeals to him personally?” asked one newspaper.⁴

A newspaper in Grand Rapids commented: “It would seem as though it is about time for the state authority to take Mr. Couzens and the whole Detroit outfit by the ear.”⁵

Ministers denounced him from their pulpits.

2

For once, he was indecisive, as a statement he issued showed. “Neither wets, drys, ministers, politicians, nor the public have any reason to become panicky because I have not determined what policies are to be enforced as yet. I do not intend to be driven into a panicky condition. I know I shall not be.” Which of course meant that he really was “panicky”—for him.

Then he made a wise decision—to conduct a personal survey of police conditions in Detroit. Emulating Police Commissioner Theodore Roosevelt of New York some twenty years before, he prowled around the city, night and day. Without revealing his identity, he talked to policemen, to saloonkeepers, to streetwalkers, and to ordinary citizens. He later recalled:

“I found conditions far worse than the public dreamed they were. The real inside conditions were never known to the public. . . . The town was wide open . . . gamblers ran as they pleased; hundreds of houses of prostitution were scattered around, and 1,400 saloons ran all day and all night and on Sundays.”⁶

He then made the only decision possible for him: All laws would be enforced.

To Police Superintendent Ernst Marquardt he sent the kind of order he might have issued as general manager of the Ford Motor Company:

Effective at once, I want every man in the department instructed to absolutely enforce all laws twenty-four hours of the day, whether on or off duty. . . . From now on, I want every law and ordinance complied with, and this includes specifically the prevention of crime of all kinds, and the proper regulation of laws, ordinances, rules, and regulations governing traffic, saloons, pool rooms, and every other thing that will bring about a clean and decent city. . . . No excuses will be accepted.⁷

3

There was first amazement, then amusement over this order. It was considered by the “wise ones” ludicrous as well as fantastic. A police commissioner of a metropolitian city issuing a command actually calling for complete enforcement of all laws!

To be sure, it was fantastic, in a sense. And of course the Couzens order was not fully obeyed, for the city was not the Ford Company. Yet it did bring some results, enough to cause “wise ones” to hold their breath. For example, his order called for the enforcement of the ordinance against saloons being open on Sundays.

People had said that nobody could enforce the Sunday law, that the politicians would not permit it. But Couzens enforced the law.

He soon learned, however, that types of lawbreaking other than violation of the Sunday rules were not so easily uprooted, not even by the strongest, most Couzens-like general order. “I discovered,” he said, “that there was a vast difference between running a government department and manufacturing automobiles. . . . When they asked me to clean up Detroit, they didn’t mean it. They wanted me to clean it up and not clean it up. They wanted me to make it nice enough for the reformers and let it stay rotten enough to appease the bums.”⁸

4

His goal, he now said, was “a disciplined city.”⁹ No one before him had ever seriously tried to discipline Detroit, not even Pingree. The temperament of the city had never encouraged such efforts. The city’s nonconformism was shown even in the way Detroiters operated their automobiles, for at that time practically no traffic regulations were enforced. Perhaps symbolically, during Couzens’ first month as police commissioner, his own automobile was stolen, to the great delight of his ill-wishers, whose number by then had greatly increased.

The politicians formed an almost solid opposition. Most of the city’s forty aldermen were openly hostile. “Why give Commissioner Couzens everything he wants?” an alderman cried at a council budget meeting. “To let him hang himself!” jeered a colleague.¹⁰

5

On one occasion, Mayor Marx openly tried to frustrate him. When Couzens wanted certain legislation at Lansing to strengthen the police department, the mayor had a representative at the capital to lobby on the other side—against his own police commissioner.¹¹ “I learned all the emotions of public service when I was commissioner of police,” Couzens wrote later to Arthur H. Vandenberg, then editor of the Grand Rapids Herald. He had in mind such headlines as these:

“COUZENS FAILS EVEN TO REGULATE MOTORISTS” . . . “POLICE KEEP RIGHT ON WITH THEIR BUNGLING” . . . “VICE DENS FLOURISH IN HEART OF DETROIT” . . . “COMMISSIONER COUZENS HASN’T MADE GOOD.”

This hurt. But he concluded: “Nearly all public men who did their duty had to endure about the same sort of stuff. A man can’t set himself up as a target if he doesn’t want to be hit.”¹² So he held to his goal doggedly. “He made life miserable for everybody in Detroit who violated any statute, ordinance, order, edict, enactment, provision, rule, regulation, or section thereof,” said the writer William Hard.¹³

6

He announced that he was determined to abolish the so-called red-light districts. This caused a group of reputable citizens to descend on him to argue that his policy would lead to worse evils. He answered that they should go to the state legislature and get prostitution legalized; until then, he intended to enforce the law. “But our families!” protested the citizens. “They would misunderstand our motives!” “Well,” he replied, “if you think you can convince me that prostitution is all right, you should have no trouble with your families.”¹⁴

Still another group of citizens visited him to save the red-light areas. They said they were interested “only in Detroit’s welfare.” To these Couzens displayed a little black book and read off some automobile license numbers. “Are those your license numbers?” he asked. Some of the callers admitted that they were. “Well,” said Couzens, “I have a mind to publish these numbers!” Then he told his dismayed callers that the numbers had been taken down by investigators from cars found parked in front of some of the more flashy brothels in the city!¹⁵

In dealing with traffic regulation, he succeeded in stirring up an even bigger storm than he did by his frankness on the red-light districts. After becoming convinced that elimination of all parking in the busiest downtown streets was necessary, he issued an order to that effect, although warned by the city’s law department that his order exceeded his authority. Business leaders assailed him as a “czar.” Former Mayor Philip Breitmeyer counseled open rebellion.¹⁶

The stir was such that the order had to be rescinded. But the very impulsiveness of his action so dramatized Detroit’s need for some traffic control that shortly afterward the city council enacted legislation along the lines that he had intended to establish. Thus he became the father of the city’s modern traffic code.

7

His biggest storm—actually a serio-comic episode worthy of Gilbert and Sullivan—began in March 1917, when he decided to bring into the open a half-secret scandal involving a municipal judge. “Judge Albert Sellers,” he announced to the press, “is giving blanket releases to professional bondsmen with the names of prisoners to be filled in as the occasion arises.”¹⁷ The judge sneered at him. “Police Commissioner Couzens should quit his job and go home.”

Couzens then issued an order that henceforth the police department would ignore Judge Sellers’ releases unless they had been issued in a regular court session.¹⁸ Then the city settled back to await the inevitable collision. It came very soon afterward when Couzens’ order was enforced in the case of two women arrested as streetwalkers. Judge Sellers had issued the pair his usual prearranged releases. Couzens’ police officers refused to honor the releases. So the judge issued a contempt citation against Couzens.

Haled into court, Couzens was given the choice of paying a fine of $100 or serving a thirty-day sentence in jail. He refused to pay the fine and was taken to jail.¹⁹ Of course the city howled, either in indignation or with delight. The city’s multimillionaire police head locked up in his own jail! Not even Teddy Roosevelt had endured such an experience in his similar efforts to clean up a crime-ridden city.

Couzens did not remain long in his own jail. But the incident did win for him the favorable public opinion that a bad press had denied him. He carried this fight with the judge to the State Supreme Court, and won a decision that outlawed the practice of giving blanket releases.²⁰

8

For a time this civic comedy made him a hero. But his troubles were not over. That spring the United States entered the European war. The city filled up with “floaters.” Crimes increased—and Couzens was blamed. The Detroit News, usually his supporter, said: “The present condition cannot continue. If Mr. Couzens is responsible even in part, it is preposterous that he be kept in his place. . . . Certainly the stubborn pride of any one man or any group of men cannot be permitted to result in perpetuation of this reign of terror.”²¹

The situation really was impossible. There was one face-saving avenue of escape open to him—to take a war job in Washington, and thus get out of the police “mess.” Just at this time, General George W. Goethals, then Acting Quartermaster General of the Army, invited him to Washington to talk over a proposal that he become head of a new motor-truck division of the war department.²² This was the result of a recommendation Milton McRae had made to the Secretary of War, Newton D. Baker, that Couzens be brought into the national picture in some wartime capacity. He and Goethals got along very well. Goethals’ greeting to him was: “So! You are Couzens! They tell me you are a hell of a hard man to get along with. Well, I am too!”²³

But while Couzens was negotiating with Goethals, the politicians at home had the City Council pass a resolution requesting his removal. The resolution said that the crime wave was a result of his “incompetency,” and directed Mayor Marx to remove him, “in order to restore confidence in our city and for the protection of our homes and our loved ones.”²⁴ Couzens immediately returned to Detroit to face his opponents. “The politicians want me to quit because I will not grant them special privileges. They can’t remove me,” he announced.²⁵ He was not removed.