DETROIT IS MY OWN HOME TOWN IFFY THE DOPESTER . A painting of the old coot done by Artist Floyd Nixon, creator of the Iffy Tiger. Detroit Is My Own Home Town BY MALCOLM W. BINGAY THE BOBBS-MERRILL COMPANY PUBLISHERS INDIANAPOLIS NEW YORK COPYRIGHT, 1946, BY THE B O B B S-M E R R I L L COMPANY PRINTED IN THE UNITED STATES This book IS DEDICATED TO JOHN S. KNIGHT, A PUBLISHER WITH THE HEART OF A REPORTER AND THE SOUL OF AN EDITOR, WHO THINKS A TYPEWRITER MEANS MORE TO A NEWSPAPER THAN AN ADDING MACHINE. I WISH TO ACKNOWLEDGE THE COURTESY OF The Saturday Evening Post IN GRANTING ME PERMISSION TO MAKE USE OF MATERIAL IN CHAPTERS I AND 2, ON THE EARLY AUTOMO- BILE DAYS; AND IN CHAPTERS 12, 13 AND 14, ON BASEBALL. CONTENTS INTRODUCTION 13 Book One PUTTING THE WORLD ON WHEELS 1. FROM THE PONTCHARTRAIN BAR TO THE D. A. C. " i ' 23 2. A GIANT Is BORN ON A ROARING ROAD . ; v . 38 3. HE HAD TO WIN A WAR TO WIN Two WARS . v ; 49 4. FROM DURANT TO SLOAN . ^ . , , .. ; . 55 5. CHARACTER AND PRODUCT . , ; I . * . ^ . ^ 66 6. SOCRATES IN INDUSTRY . ..,..-. 74 7. How IFFY WAS BORN . ....... ' ( 84 8. "WHO DOES HENRY FORD THINK HE Is?" 87 Book Two THE MYSTERY OF THE CLOSED BANKS 9. THE BANKS CRASH . .....>* . ; ^ . 109 10. JAMES COUZENS: A STUDY . 115 11. "NOT ONE CENT!" . '. 124 Book Three BASEBALL: DETROIT'S SAFETY VALVE 12. THE FAN WHO BOUGHT A BALL PARK So HE COULD HAVE A SEAT . 137 CONTENTS-Continued 13. TY COBB: SPEED KING 149 14. BASEBALL'S TROUBADOUR 164 15. THE CLOAK MODEL WHO LIVED OVER A HAT STORE . 180 Book Four FABULOUS FELLOWS 16. ALL CADILLAC'S CHILDREN 195 17. THEY STONED A PROPHET 208 18. His WAS THE SOUL OF THE CITY , ..',. 216 19. THE MISSIONARY PRESIDENT 224 20. "SHALL NOT PERISH FROM THE EARTH" . .-,229 21. HE FELL INTO THE RIVER . +.'-^^^..^-.'^/..-- * . 244 22. OUR EDDIE . * 251 23. THE THREE EAGLES . 259 24. AT LAST HE MARRIED HER! ., * 269 25. BY THE WATERS OF BABYLON . .... .280 26. THE THREE "NEW YORKERS" 288 27. THE FACE OF THE EARTH WAS His CANVAS 301 28. SILENT DEPTHS 311 Book Five AROUND THE TOWN 29. PROHIBITION, THE BRIDGE, THE TUNNEL 319 30. POLITICS Is FUNNY , 326 31. THAT RACE RIOT 342 32. OUR ALL- AMERICAN TEAM .... 351 LIST OF ILLUSTRATIONS Iffy the Dopestcr Frontispiece FACING PAGE Detroit River and City Sky Line 32 Campus Martius in Early Days 32 "Brunette Venus" 33 The Detroit Athletic Club 33 K. T. Keller, William S. Knudsen and Henry Ford .... 64 Walter P. Chrysler 64 Alfred P. Sloan, Jr., and William C. Durant ...... 65 Charles F. Kettering 96 Charles F. Kettering and Fred M. Zeder 96 James Couzens and Henry Ford 97 Henry Ford at Lake St. Clair . 128 Henry Ford with Early Racing Car 128 Start of Race at Highland Park 129 Close-up of Early Race 129 Mike Murphy and John Owen 160 Coach Fielding H. Yost 160 Ty Cobb 161 Henry Ford and Barney Oldfield 161 Champion D.A.C. Baseball Team in 1889 192 Walter O. Briggs, Malcolm W. Bingay and Kenesaw Moun- tain Landis . 193 LIST OF ILLUSTRATlONS-Continued FACING PAGE Cadillac's Landing at Detroit in 1701 ..... 224 Mayor William C. Maybury 4 . 224 "Cadillac's Chair" 224 University of Michigan Birthplace 225 Father Gabriel Richard, Rev. John Montieth and Judge Woodward 225 Judge Edward J. Jeffries and son, Edward J. Jeffries . 256 Hazen S. Pingree Statue 256 Hazen S. Pingree 257 Jim Scott Memorial Fountain 288 Jim Scott 289 Albert H. Kahn 320 Willow Run . 321 DETROIT IS MY OWN HOME TOWN INTRODUCTION 'DETROIT was founded because an ancient King of France wore a beaver hat. From that day, in 1610, when Louis XIII walked the streets of Paris proudly showing off his new chapeau, this area has been one of the storm centers of the world. No other American city has a more ancient or a more glorious tradition or one more vibrant with drama. Our history refutes the thoughtless observer who looks upon Detroit as a creation of this day, as a mere machine shop, as a boom town. Detroit was a city with a soul, an identity carved and shaped from a heroic heritage, long before the honk of the motor horn was heard on any hill. French voyageurs came here at the dawn of the seventeenth century to wrest from this wilderness a great colonial empire for the kings of France. No new land is ever settled without an eco- nomic impulse to motivate the people who are to pioneer it. Detroit (of the strait) was known to them as the home of the beaver, Teuscha-Gronde. The beaver skins grew in value as King Louis set the style. The rich of Europe insisted on having them. It was very much as it is today with the kings and queens of movie- land making popular certain styles. The first great trading post of the French was at Mackinac. Here the Indians came from hundreds of miles away to trade their beaver skins for brandy for every Indian headache, a noble's head- piece. The craze for the high hats spread to England. From Fort Orange, now Albany, the English fur traders moved to the land of the beaver. The English were utilitarian. They traded the Indians molasses rum for their peltry. Made in the colo- nies, it was much cheaper than the imported brandy of the French. To the poor Indian it was all "firewater." He began deserting the French for the English. The French were alarmed over the fate cf their dream of empire. 13 14 DETROIT IS MY OWN HOME TOWN Cadillac, who had been commander at Mackinac, was ordered to find an ideal place for a fort on the Lower Lakes, to stem the tide of the English. He picked this site, a half century after others had touched its shores. Here, in 1701, he erected Fort Pontchartrain. Here on June 5 Detroit was born and it has been on the map ever since as one of the significant cities of history. Why Detroit? That question has been asked throughout the world for years. Detroit has been the mecca of the great students of our times: economists, industrialists, sociologists, scientists, historians, philoso- phers. They have poured here from Europe, South America, the Orient, to learn from us and to find the answer to the riddle: Why Detroit? The answer cannot be gleaned from any set of facts. To un- derstand Detroit we must consider the intangible values that go to make up life itself. The existence of all other American cities can easily be explained. Boston, New York, Baltimore, Philadelphia just had to be. The trade of the seas finds natural harbors. Chicago was inevitable. Chicago grew like a callus on a hand, from the mere friction of westward travel. So did Buffalo, Cleveland, Toledo. But not Detroit. Here was a city more ancient than all the rest, far up in a penin- sula, away from the natural paths of trade. Yet through the long bloody years of warfare it was prized because of its then strategic value. But the heart and soul of Detroit will not be found in the mere recitals of the endless wars that waged around her. Detroit was unique as a frontier city. Detroit had an established culture before it was ever incorporated as a city. While other pioneer communi- ties were, of necessity, uncouth, illiterate, ruthless, the seed of better things was planted within this soil before the matrix of our being became solidified. Three men gave Detroit its present unique personality in those formative years after the flags of France and Britain had been swept from our shores. First, there was Father Gabriel Richard, heroic French priest, scholar and humanitarian. He it was who brought the first print- INTRODUCTION 15 ing press to the Northwest. He printed our first newspaper. He organized schools. After his Mass on Sunday morning he would gather the people of other faiths into the assembly hall and preach to them simple, inspiring, nondenominational sermons. He died a martyr's death in the streets of our city while nursing the stricken in the greatest of the cholera plagues that swept Detroit. Second, there was an equally heroic figure, the Reverend John Montieth, Presbyterian. This rugged Calvinist worked shoulder to shoulder with his Roman brother in Christ. They brought to the Indians His Message and kept alive the divine spark among those of all faiths. Third in Detroit's spiritual and cultural trinity was Judge Au- gustus Brevoort Woodward, for whom our main street is named. He was not a religionist. Far from it! He was a friend of Thomas Jefferson, an acquaintance of Ben Franklin, a follower of Voltaire and Rousseau. He was a world traveler, a cosmopolite, and a lover of the Greek and Latin classics to the point of eccentricity. These three remarkable men worked together in this little clear- ing torn from a primeval forest. They organized debating societies, lectures, a library, schools. Finally they founded the University of Michigan and were the entire faculty. When the great fire completely destroyed Detroit in 1805, they were the ones who placed on the seal of our city that imperishable motto: Spera?nus Mellora; Resurget Cinenbus (We hope for better days; It shall arise from its ashes). And we have never ceased to hope, to struggle, to achieve. Blow after blow has been rained upon this city throughout its history and always it has arisen from its ashes cleaner and finer and better because it has conquered adversity.