He went west to Milwaukee and clerked in a grocery. In 1863 he became a partner. Then he began buying wheat from farmers as agent for Eastern buyers. He entered into partnership with John Plankinton, a meat packer, and from that beginning he became one of the most successful business men of the country and for a time the largest buyer of cattle, sheep and hogs and the largest shipper of dressed meats.

The wild lands of the unsettled areas of the Far West offered free range to breeders of cattle and as a result this country had a generation of "cattle kings," so called. Their enormous production of cattle caused concentrations of the packing business at Chicago, Hammond, Omaha and Kansas City. Detroit today has 11 firms engaged in the packing business, but most of their product is shipped in from the West and they act as distributors as well as producers of dressed and packed meats. The local industry employs 1,957 men; the capital invested amounts to $16,082,329; the product marketed has a value of $57,648,135, and the material consumed costs $47,993,092 per year. These figures are from the last Govern

ment census.

CHAPTER CXII

DETROIT'S POLICE AND FIRE DEPARTMENTS

F

OR many years after Detroit had become a city of considerable size its public affairs were conducted after the fashion of a country village. In 1801 constables were appointed as peace officers for the first time, although the city was then 100 years old. In 1802, under a newly established civil government, the marshal was authorized to exercise police authority for the enforcement of ordinances and maintaenence of peace and order in Detroit. In 1804, owing to various manifestations of hostility on the part of the visiting Indians, a night watch was organized consisting of five persons, who patrolled the streets of the town during the last four months of that year. Then the night watch was abandoned for a time, but was revived occasionally as the town appeared to demand special protection.

In 1825 a local firebug caused a revival of the night watch. In 1833 a riot, caused by an attempt to restore the fugitive slaves, Thornton Blackburn and his wife, to their Southern owner, resulted in the rescue of the slaves and their removal to Canada. The sheriff, John M. Wilson, was badly injured while attempting to deliver the slaves for transportation to the South, and a night watch was again revived for a time until peace again settled down upon the community. In 1841 a disreputable element lived at the intersection of Randolph Street and Michigan Grand Avenue (now Cadillac Square), in the neighborhood of the present County Building. A group of rickety buildings housed a number of notorious characters and the common council authorized the marshal to tear down those buildings and make them uninhabitable. The attempt to control public morals by destruction of buildings, instead of dealing directly with the disreputable inhabitants of the buildings, was perhaps unique, but it also proved to be illegal, for when the marshal

obeyed the order "Peg" Welch, T. Slaughter and other owners of the buildings sued him for damages and he was compelled to pay. This failure in administration of public affairs, through ignorance and clumsiness, led to a substitution of lawlessness for law. After the Supreme Court had sustained the property rights of the disorderly element in Detroit, a number of publicspirited citizens set about the purification of Detroit by fire in accordance with Holy Writ. A number of buildings occupied by the disreputable element were set on fire by unknown parties. Such methods of fighting lawlessness by lawless practice were bound to fail, but the citizens were so reluctant about paying taxes that they neglected to provide an adequate police force for maintaining peace, order and decency in Detroit.

Business men of the city organized for law and order in 1859 and subscribed to a fund for maintaining a police patrol service in the business center of the town. Two years later a police commission, consisting of the Mayor and two men to be appointed by him, was created with authority to employ a number of regular policemen. In 1863, when the draft riots. and anti-Negro outbreaks occurred all over the country, the puny police force of Detroit proved powerless. Two years later came a curious institution of police authority in Detroit under what was known as the Metropolitan Police Act of the Michigan legislature. The city government was apparently afraid of the political power of the lawless element, which voted solidly and unanimously in elections then as now.

The prevalence of crime in Detroit had become notorious, so at the instigation of Ald. John J. Bagley of the Third ward the legislature was induced to pass a law for the establishment of a police commission, to be appointed by the Governor under authority of the State instead of the authority of the Mayor and common council of Detroit. The act creating the metropolitan police department was passed February 28, 1865. This curious surrender of one department of city government and placing of the police function of the City of Detroit in the hands of the Governor and legislature illustrates the weakness of a democracy which does not function locally. The lawless

element was organized as a political power in Detroit. It was active in the caucuses or primary elections and it was active in elections, while the better element, when it voted at all, usually voted the straight party ticket and too often quite a number of undesirable candidates were forced upon the ticket by the element which controlled the caucuses in certain wards.

The first police commissioners appointed under authority of the State were Jacob S. Farrand, Lorenzo M. Mason, John J. Bagley and Alexander Lewis, all of whom were men of the best class of Detroit citizens. This new system displeased the city marshal, constables and deputy sheriffs, whose authority it destroyed. Influence was brought to bear, through the common council, to have the act declared unconstitutional, but the Supreme Court sustained the act and the Detroit police department remained a state institution for 27 years. In 1867 the Woodbridge Street central police station was built. In 1873 another station was built at Gratiot and Russell Street. In 1883 the city dedicated what was then termed "East Park," bounded by Farmer, Randolph and Bates streets, for a site for police headquarters and a building was erected at a cost of $55,000 which, with its later enlargements, served up to 1923.

Patrol wagon service was introduced in 1871 and in 1885 came the institution of telegraph signal boxes for communication between patrolmen on their beats and headquarters.

Detroit was one of the first cities of the country to utilize motor vehicles for its police and fire departments.

The metropolitan police department as organized April 1, 1865, installed 51 officers and patrolmen under direction of Supt. Theodore A. Drake, whose salary was fixed at $2,000 a year. Mr. Drake resigned six months later and M. V. Borgman, already promoted from sergeant to captain, was made acting superintendent and later superintendent on August 1. He retired December 1, 1873. He was succeeded by Stephen K. Stanton. In March, 1876, Mr. Stanton was succeeded by Andrew J. Rogers. In April, 1882, Edwin F. Conely, who later became one of the foremost attorneys of the state, was appointed superintendent of police at a salary of $4,000 a year.

James E. Pittman succeeded him in 1885, with M. V. Borgman as deputy. In April, 1891, public dissatisfaction over the failure to arrest members of a local gang which had kidnaped a well known citizen and held him for ransom, led to the displacement of Deputy Borgman and the appointment of Capt. C. C. Starkweather in his place.

Mr. Starkweather became superintendent in the following year. He was retired on a pension in 1897, and John Martin succeeded. In his annual message to the common council in 1891 Mayor Pingree averred that the police department was naturally an administrative department of the city government which should be under direction and control of the city government. The creation of the police department had been placed in the hands of the governor of the state in 1865 and for 26 years all police commissioners of Detroit had been appointed by the governors. This was equivalent to a confession that Detroit was not capable of self-government in its police function. At Mr. Pingree's suggestion an act of legislature was obtained in 1892 which placed the appointment of police commissioners in the hands of the Mayor.

Under authority of this act, Mayor Pingree on July 13 appointed four police commissioners to succeed the state-appointed commission, which consisted of Col. F. J. Hecker, Martin S. Smith, Sidney D. Miller and ex-Supt. James E. Pittman. The new commission was appointed in accordance with the established practice of naming two Republican and two Democratic commissioners. The first city police commission was composed of S. B. Grummond, Collins B. Hubbard, Albert Ives, Jr., and Carl E. Schmidt. This was one of the several steps taken toward the achievement of home rule for Michigan cities in the administration of their strictly internal affairs.

It is almost as difficult to keep politics and ambitious politicians out of departments of municipal administration as it is to keep alcoholic liquors and bootleggers out of prohibition territory. When political patronage is placed in the hands of a city commission through the authority to appoint members of the staff and to employ labor, it is too often the case that