- 22. THE REWARD
- Chapter
- Wayne State University Press
- pp. 134-138
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CHAPTER XXII
THE REWARD
Couzens‘ satisfaction at having established the nation’s largest municipally owned railway was “sweeter,” he said, than anything he had ever achieved in business.1 Best of all, he had demonstrated beyond any question that he was his own man. The Detroit News commented:
The only way to dictate successfully to Mr. Couzens about anything would be first of all to throw him into a deep well and then to fill up the well with scrap iron and paving bricks. After that, it is assumed that if you told him to stay there, he might do it.2
This was precisely the reputation he wanted.
2
Would he now be content to rest on his laurels? Would he be satisfied to continue as Mayor of Detroit, to run for that office again, and then call matters quits? No one who really knew him could have thought so. Close to fifty then, he was still subject to the drive of ambition that had always marked him.
The truth was that he had never given up the idea of being United States Senator from Michigan, the highest office to which he could aspire in view of his Canadian birth, and he seldom forgot that this was his ultimate goal. In November 1922 there would be another senatorial election.
Henry Ford had unexpectedly precipitated a political issue that made it altogether reasonable for Couzens to expect to capture the Republican nomination from Senator Charles E. Townsend. For Ford had placed with the Department of Justice evidence that Senator Truman H. Newberry had expended large sums of money in the 1918 campaign. On the basis of this, Newberry had been convicted of violating the federal corrupt-practice act in a lower court. The
United States Supreme Court had overruled the conviction,3 but the issue had been kept alive.
In January 1922 the Senate took up a resolution to expel Newberry. On one side were the Old Guard Republican senators; on the other, insurgent Republicans, led by La Follette of Wisconsin, and, of course, the Democrats. Senator George W. Norris of Nebraska made a powerful, sarcastic speech against Newberry, which began, “Mr. President, they had a public sale up in Michigan . . .”4 This resolution was defeated, but this did not end the matter. Instead, in the 1922 elections, “Newberryism” became an issue against every senator up for re-election who had supported Newberry.5 This was particularly true in Michigan, for Senator Townsend had defended Newberry.
3
Here was a situation that seemed made to order for Couzens. No other nominal Republican in the state so definitely represented the antithesis of “Newberryism.” Besides, when he had stood for reelection in the mayoralty campaign the previous year, 1921, he had demonstrated that he was a political force of the first magnitude in Michigan on his own, regardless of party machinery. If his first election as mayor could have been passed off as a freak, this was not so in 1921, for all of his shortcomings, real and alleged, had been fully aired, and all the people he had offended by refusing to be a “good fellow” had opposed him. “You are too mean to people to be re-elected,” his friend Jay Hayden had told him.6
The business elements generally had been against him. “They opposed my activities at every turn,” Couzens himself said.7 Yet he was handsomely returned to office. “He hasn’t a soul with him—except the city of Detroit,” said one observer.8
4
His health, however, finally determined that he would not enter that senatorial race after all. From the first year of his mayoralty, his physical condition had become a cause for concern. Just after his initial municipal-ownership victory, marked by the heavy speaking program that had clearly overtaxed him, he began to be conscious of a stiffening in his left knee. Severe rheumatic pains attacked him. His leg was placed in a cast and he was forced to hobble about with a cane.
Then his tonsils, considered a possible cause of his trouble, were removed. For a man of his hitherto perfect health—except for headaches—he was remarkably slow in recovering from the tonsilectomy. The stiffness in his leg and the pain persisted. Later, he began to suffer from severe abdominal pain.
He was operated on again, this time for the removal of a gallstone. After spending two months in Florida, he seemed to have recovered his health. But soon he was again operated on, this time for bladder trouble. His condition became so desperate that it was reported he was dying.9 He staged a comeback, only to be subjected to still another operation two months later, this time for an infection resulting from the previous operation.
When he finally did get back on his feet, he was by no means an invalid. Back at his desk in City Hall, he took on even more activities, adding the active managership of the street railway lines to his general duties as mayor. He was proud of the way he could still drive himself. “I get up at 6:30 every morning and hustle to get out of the house at 8 o’clock. I make straight for my office at the street railway headquarters and stick on the job there until noon. Then I change from being general manager of the traction system . . . and get on the job as Mayor. . . . I have never worked so hard in my life.”10 But the made-to-order opportunity to be a United States Senator had slipped by—so he thought.
5
Actually, the “Couzens luck” was running with him again.
Almost as soon as he had reconciled himself to a long wait before he could have another chance at the senatorship, the news came that Commodore Newberry intended to resign from the Senate. His colleague, Senator Townsend, had been defeated by a Democrat, Woodbridge N. Ferris. Very correctly, Newberry interpreted Townsend’s defeat as a rebuke to himself. He also foresaw that when a new resolution for his expulsion came up in the Senate, it would certainly pass. Therefore, on November 18, 1922, he prudently resigned—“lashed from the Senate,” in the words of Mississippi’s Senator Pat Harrison.11
Governor Alex J. Groesbeck, known as a progressive Republican, then described the kind of man he would appoint to the vacancy. He would be “aggressive, and capable of taking care of himself on the floor of the Senate . . . something besides a mere dispenser of patronage,” one who would be against “so-called standpatism” and “have the capacity and courage to do things that will advance the state and national welfare, regardless of personal and political considerations.” This seemed to fit Couzens to a T, except for one thing. The appointee naturally had to be a Republican. Couzens professed to be a Republican, but was he?
6
It was widely known that he placed an individual’s stand on public questions ahead of party regularity. Back in 1918, in response to a request for a campaign contribution on behalf of Republican Congressional candidates, he had told Fred W. Upham of Chicago, treasurer of the Republican National Committee:
I must confess that I am not so much a party man as I am for individuals, and, in declining contributions to their campaigns, I have stated that I would have to know for whom the campaign was being conducted. . . . There are Democrats that I would rather vote for than some Republicans, though I am a Republican.12
Governor Groesbeck was warned against the Couzens “temperament.” The Detroit Times, then owned jointly by William Randolph Hearst and Arthur Brisbane, commented: “The principal objection to Mr. Couzens seems to be that he is temperamentally unfitted to work on a job where he is surrounded by men equal to him in authority. He is a lone hand player.”13
On Saturday, November 25, 1922, Governor Groesbeck called on Couzens at his home, obviously for a confidential “feeling out” sort of conversation. Couzens reiterated that he was a Republican, but he frankly said there was not much about the party’s program at that time that he approved. The Governor really felt the same way, and so this was not against Couzens in Groesbeck’s view. As for patronage, Couzens said: “I hate the very sound of the word.” Couzens made one concession that Groesbeck accepted as satisfactory: he did “believe” in “party government.”14
7
Groesbeck had said that he would definitely announce his choice on the 27th. The 27th passed and Groesbeck was silent. The press began to mention other available men. Among them were E. D. Stair of the Free Press, Ralph Booth of the Booth newspapers, and Marion L. Burton, president of the University of Michigan.
As for Couzens, he went about his affairs as usual. He had planned to spend Thanksgiving Day in New York City with Madeleine, who was at school there. Besides, Frank Couzens had married Margaret Lang of Kitchener, Ontario, the previous October 22nd; the newlyweds would also be in New York, and Couzens wanted to see them. He did not see fit to change his plans.15
Only a few hours after he and Mrs. Couzens and Madeleine had settled themselves in the Hotel Belmont on November 29, 1922, there was a telephone call from Governor Groesbeck. He had been appointed to the Senate as Newberry’s successor.