The monument reads : "The citizens of Michigan erect this monument to the cherished memory of Hazen S. Pingree. A gallant soldier, an enterprising and successful citizen, four times elected mayor of Detroit, twice governor of Michigan. He was the first to warn the people of the great danger threatened by powerful private corporations. And the first to awake to the great inequalities in taxation and to initiate steps for reform. The idol of the people."
Detroit News article January 6, 2013:
Hazen Pingree: Quite possibly Detroit's finest mayor
"It is always the big thief who shouts the loudest about the little thief." — Hazen S. Pingree
In the book "The American Mayor" published in 1999, Hazen S. Pingree was identified by U.S. scholars as one of the Top 10 mayors in U.S. history. As mayor of Detroit and later governor of Michigan, Pingree was not just responding as a businessman to the needs of citizens and the dysfunctional organization of city government, he was changing the social foundation of Detroit, forcing the city out of a 19th century socially rigged order toward a progressive, socially just 20th century.
In his four terms as mayor, Pingree got private corporations to lower the price of natural gas, telephone service and street car rates. He reconstructed the sewer system and improved Detroit's horrible unpaved streets that were considered among the worst in the country for a big city. He constructed public schools, the first public parks, and free public baths. He exposed corruption in the school board and bribery at the private lighting company. He initiated the first publicly owned transit company and city-owned electric company after he found that Detroit was paying nearly double the rates charged in Toledo, Cleveland, Grand Rapids and Buffalo.
He implemented equal tax policies for the city, and he forced down the rates for river ferries. He started competitive bidding for street car companies and he brought about electrified rapid transit. He did away with the old toll roads and began his nationally famous potato patch plan that helped feed thousands through a devastating economic depression.
Although 120 years later many would find themselves on the exact opposite side of Pingree in their beliefs about the effectiveness and purpose of the public sector versus the private sector, credit Pingree with devoting his sole focus on the betterment of Detroit and its common people.
Detroit in 1889
To understand Hazen Stuart Pingree's character, iron persistence, blunders and achievements, it is important to see the city that elected him in 1889 as its 43rd mayor.
In 1889 Detroit's population was 205,000 and growing steadily; the majority of Detroiters were foreign born and had arrived after the Civil War. The census of 1890 reported only 42,000 of Detroit's population were born of native parents; 78,000 were born of foreign parents and 80,000 were foreign born. Germans far outnumbered Irish Americans or other nationalities; the city supported eight German newspapers.
Detroit was 89 square miles (it is now 138 square miles), and it was divided into 16 ribbon shaped "wards." Each ward elected two aldermen to represent them on the Common Council for two-year terms. On the day Pingree was inaugurated, seven aldermen out of 32 were indicted by a grand jury for accepting bribes from public contractors.
Public projects such as the purchase of Belle Isle or the development of the new Grand Boulevard, located on the city outskirts at that time, were viewed as recklessly extravagant, privately motivated boondoggles and met with deep suspicion and frequently violent opposition.
The tax codes made public improvements such as paving streets difficult. When a street was paved, owners whose property abutted the street were taxed higher than the rest of the city; therefore, few wanted their streets paved or improved. Paving as well as other public utilities were run by "rings," contractors who paid "boodle" — bribes to aldermen on the Common Council. Pingree's predecessor, Mayor John Pridgeon, was linked to scandal after scandal involving the Common Council, city commissioners, grand jury investigations, and prosecutions for bribery and graft.
Mayors did not run Detroit at that time; the city was controlled by a "corrupt political machine, in the hands of a small group of men," as city historian George Catlin described it. The nomination of 32 aldermen was dictated by this machine; some of the characters nominated were capable, but many "were notorious for past political malfeasances and corrupt practices."
Detroit was politically a city of Democrats, but despite their lock on the ethnic wards, differences in nationalities, especially Germans and Irish, kept the council in a state of war. A large number were German saloon owners and bartenders, led by President John Chris Jacob. "Boss Jacob" was a cynical and tough-minded ward boss. His German accent was heavy and his language profane. If someone threatened to cast an adverse vote he would drown them out with his booming voice, physically intimidate them or make up some parliamentary rule to send everyone to a rule book and stall the process.
Jacob was quoted in the Detroit Evening News in 1889 as saying, "Dose Irisher altermanns what is always gombining against der Germans." Many Germans who by this time were socially rising in Detroit had nothing but contempt for the newly arrived Polish or other immigrants. Council's only concerns were with city contracts, rewarding allies with jobs, and hammering enemies.
These alderman candidates were seldom known by the general public. Caucuses and any political business were held in the back rooms of saloons. Some of the wards, such as the First Ward, were in dangerous slums like the "Potomac" that ran along the river. Many of the inhabitants of the Potomac were veterans of the Civil War who were now dock workers or day laborers; some were "floaters" — flop house bums.
The slum's odd name came from a popular song of the Civil War, "All Quiet Along the Potomac." (It is said the song inspired the translated title for the World War I epic novel and movie, "All Quiet on the Western Front".)
Boss Jacob was accused of using "floaters" in his re-election campaign by his Republican challenger for alderman of the Fifth Ward. In a fit of fury Jacob beat his accuser, choked him, and pitched him over a stairway railing.
The arrival of Pingree in Detroit
Hazen Pingree was nearly 50 when he ran for public office for the first time. He was born to a poor family in Maine in 1840. He worked on a farm, had little education, and got a job in a shoe factory as a leather cutter. In 1862 at age 22 he and others in the town enlisted in the Company F, First Massachusetts Heavy Artillery, to fight in the Civil War. He saw a lot of action.
Pingree first heard of Detroit when he was a prisoner at the Confederate Andersonville prison in Georgia for six months. (Problems with his stomach that started with the starvation diet at Andersonville would trouble him all his life.)
He listened to a few fellow homesick prisoners from Detroit who enthusiastically loved their city and extolled the business opportunities for young men. During Gen. Sherman's march to Atlanta, Pingree was transferred to another prison but managed to escape. He returned to his unit and continued fighting and was even present at Appomattox Court House and Lee's surrender of the South.
On Aug. 15, 1865, Pingree was mustered out and a few months later came to Detroit. He began as a cobbler for R.H. Fyfe on Jefferson Avenue, then took a sales job with another shoe company, H.P. Baldwin. He was unhappy there and soon quit. He met Charles H. Smith, an accountant, and they formed a partnership buying and selling produce.
In 1866 it was announced that H.P. Baldwin was going out of business, so the two men bought up the old shoe manufacturing machines. Pingree rebuilt them and the partners formed the Pingree and Smith shoe firm with $1,360 and eight employees, which in 20 years grew to 700 employees making, in 1886, 490,877 pairs of boots, shoes and slippers for men, women and children. The company brought in nearly a million dollars a year, and was the second biggest shoe manufacturer in the U.S., according to Silas Farmer, Detroit's city historian.
During the 1870s and '80s, while Pingree built up his shoe business, he stayed to the side of politics as a donor. He was part of the group called the "Big Four": wealthy businessmen in the state who donated large sums to the Michigan Republican Club.
Republicans were searching for a man to run for mayor in a race they didn't expect to win in 1889, because Detroit was in the hands of Democrats. Pingree was not their first choice, but through consensus they hoped that a level-headed yet forceful businessman might have some appeal, so they nominated him. These same men, among whom were U.S. Sen. James McMillan, former Mayor William G. Thompson, and Michigan Central Railroad lawyer James F. Joy, would later become his most implacable, bitter enemies.
Candidate Pingree
Pingree refused at first. "Mayor? Why? What the hell do I know about politics? I'm too busy making shoes."
Then, after pressure from the Republican Club members, he reluctantly accepted. He had no experience but he had ferocious energy, which is how he built his shoe empire. He was well dressed in his black silk top hat and full-length black frock coat. Newspaper reporter John C. Lodge, who later became mayor in the 1920s, wrote that Pingree "was always the last word in attire."
He was portly and strong like a Maine farmer, with a high-pitched voice and a bald round head with pale, somewhat pinkish skin. Historian Catlin said Pingree's blue eyes gave him a vacant stare which reporters described as either dreaming of the future or vacuous, depending on where they stood with him.
Candidate Pingree got coached by some political old hands who saw he had potential; he seemed sincere, friendly and likeable, and once he threw himself into a challenge he was relentless. They showed him tips on how to give a speech and very soon he drew crowds. He liked people and spoke directly to them. He referred to himself as "just a plain shoemaker — old baldheaded Ping." However, Lodge added that "Pingree fairly blew up as he always did when his sense of justice was outraged."
In his 1965 book "Reform In Detroit," Melvin Holli explained that on a deeper level, what Pingree saw and exploited was Detroit's new immigrants who had arrived after the Civil War. They made up the largest percentage of Detroit's population but many felt unrepresented, particularly the Polish. He acted on that and used that strategy throughout his political career.
He courted the Poles with a translator at his side, and drank red eye whiskey with the Irish voters, squashing rumors he was a temperance supporter. He spoke to German societies. He fraternized on street corners, asked his shoe customers to vote for him, and enlisted his shoe factory employees to get out the vote. When he didn't get favorable reviews in the English language daily newspapers, he secretly bought a German paper, Sonntags Herold, replaced the editor and immediately got the paper's enthusiastic endorsement.
Pingree won the election by a slim majority.
The first year
Pingree wisely had hired Alexander I. McLeod, an easygoing former newspaper writer from Mt. Clemens, to act as his secretary and right hand man. McLeod wrote his speeches and smoothed feelings when Pingree "had blood in his eye." McLeod typically entered the council chamber first, smiling and greeting aldermen and others. The Common Council chambers were at times jammed with as many as 200 people: businessmen, corporate lawyers, reporters, citizens with complaints, spectators, and policemen. Shouting, horn blowing, brawling and even riots were not uncommon. Everyone smoked cigars and the air was gagged with blue smoke.
Pingree entered Chris Jacob's Common Council for the first time as the elected mayor. He spoke directly without the flowery introductions and asides that characterized Victorian speeches. He listed five reforms he wanted to address, starting with the streets. Detroit streets in 1890 were among the worst in the nation with only four paved streets and miles of rotting cedar block.
Secondly, the public franchises, such as the street cars which were privately owned, were poorly maintained and the fares too high. He also complained of contracts with gas and electric companies showing Detroit's rates far exceeding even smaller cities such as Grand Rapids. He finished with a list of jobs he needed filled in his office and recommended who he saw as the most fit for each job.
Council was stone silent. Just as silent were the Republican businessmen and lawyers sitting in the gallery, investors in the lighting, paving and city street cars, listening to Pingree's every word.
"Ya, vell," Chris Jacob said. "Vee dink about this den." He adjourned the session.
As George Catlin wrote, each alderman retreated to his respective ward saloon, determined to bring down this dreamy new mayor.
Taking it to the streets
Pingree soldiered on. He took the hidebound aldermen, cynical newspapermen and others to the street to look at what he was talking about. Four streets were paved with brick and what was then called asphalt: Jefferson, Lafayette, Second, and Cass. Other streets, like Grand River or Woodward, were made up of cedar block, paving material that first appeared in 1836.
The Detroit Journal described the streets as "150 miles of rotting, rutted, lumpy, dilapidated paving." In summer, sections of streets oozed pitch and resin and occasionally caught fire from discarded cigar butts.
Graft and corrupt contractors resulted in the sewer scandal of 1890. Pingree took a group of aldermen down into the sewers where he showed them concrete as soft as mush, bricks falling from the wall at a touch, crumbling mortar, mud and effluence pouring through the walls. Pingree declared that the fault lay with the city's cement supplier, who sold unsuitable cement. The contractor threatened to sue. Pingree turned his office into a concrete testing lab with jars and bottles with sand, brands of cement, water, pressure gauges, and tensile testing equipment. The contractor backed down when Pingree showed that the contractor's cement crumbled in his fist.
Pingree led the entire common council plus newspaper reporters on junkets to other cities to see electric powered street cars. In 1890, Detroit continued to rely on dusty horses pulling cars on old worn oak stringers (rails) topped with strap iron — basically no different from the rails of the 1840s.
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