Bible Encyclopedias
Detroit

Charity and Education

Among the charitable institutions are the general hospitals (Harper, Grace and St Mary's); the Detroit Emergency, the Children's Free and the United States Marine hospitals; St Luke's hospital, church home, and orphanage; the House of Providence (a maternity hospital and infant asylum); the Woman's hospital and foundling's home; the Home for convalescent children, &c. In 1894 the mayor, Hazen Senter Pingree (1842-1901), instituted the practice of preparing, through municipal aid and supervision, large tracts of vacant land in and about the city for the growing of potatoes and other vegetables and then, in conjunction with the board of poor commissioners, assigning it in small lots to families of the unemployed, and furnishing them with seed for planting. This plan served an admirable purpose through three years of industrial depression, and was copied in other cities; it was abandoned when, with the renewal of industrial activity, the necessity for it ceased. The leading penal institution of the city is the Detroit House of Correction, noted for its efficient reformatory work; the inmates are employed ten hours a day, chiefly in making furniture. The house of correction pays the city a profit of $35, 000 to $40,000 a year. The educational institutions, in addition to those of the general public school system, include several parochial schools, schools of art and of music, and commercial colleges; Detroit College (Catholic), opened in 1877; the Detroit College of Medicine, opened in 1885; the Michigan College of Medicine and Surgery, opened in 1888; the Detroit College of law, founded in 1891, and a city normal school.

Commerce

Detroit's location gives to the city's shipping and shipbuilding interests a high importance. All the enormous traffic between the upper and lower lakes passes through the Detroit river. In 1907 the number of vessels recorded was 34,149, with registered tonnage of 53,959,769, carrying 71,226,895 tons of freight, valued at $697,311,302. This includes vessels which delivered part or all of their cargo at Detroit. The largest item in the freights is iron ore on vessels bound down. The next is coal on vessels up bound. Grain and lumber are the next largest items. Detroit is a port of entry, and its foreign commerce, chiefly with Canada, is of growing importance. The city's exports increased from $11,325,807 in 1896 to $40,488,295 in 1909. The imports were $3,153,609 in 1896 and $7,100,659 in 1909.

As a manufacturing city, Detroit holds high rank. The total number of manufacturing establishments in 1890 was 1746, with a product for the year valued at $77,351,546; in 1900 there were 2847 establishments with a product for the year valued at $100,892,838, or an increase of 30.4% in the decade. In 1900 the establishments under the factory system, omitting the hand trades and neighbourhood industries, numbered 1259 and produced goods valued at $88,365,924; in 1904 establishments under the factory system numbered 1363 and the product had increased 45.7% to $128,761,658. In the district subsequently annexed the product in 1904 was about $12,000,000, making a total of $140,000,000. The output for 1906 was estimated at $180,000,000. The state factory inspectors in 1905 visited 1721 factories having 83,231 employees. In 1906 they inspected 1790 factories with 93,071 employees. Detroit is the leading city in the country in the manufacture of automobiles. In 1904 the value of its product was one-fifth that for the whole country. In 1906 the city had twenty automobile factories, with an output of ii,000 cars, valued at $12,000,000. Detroit is probably the largest manufacturer in the country of freight cars, stoves, pharmaceutical preparations, varnish, soda ash and similar alkaline products. Other important manufactures are ships, paints, foundry and machine shop products, brass goods, furniture, boots and shoes, clothing, matches, cigars, malt liquors and fur goods; and slaughtering and meat packing is an important industry.

The Detroit Board of Commerce, organized in 1903, brought into one association the members of three former bodies, making a compact organization with civic as well as commercial aims. The board has brought into active co-operation nearly all the leading business men of the city and many of the professional men. Their united efforts have brought many new industries to the city, have improved industrial conditions, and have exerted a beneficial influence upon the municipal administration. Other business organizations are the Board of Trade, devoted to the grain trade and kindred lines, the Employers' Association, which seeks to maintain satisfactory relations between employer and employed, the Builders' & Traders' Exchange, and the Credit Men's Association.

Administration

Although the city received its first charter in 1806, and another in 1815, the real power rested in the hands of the governor and judges of the territory until 1824; the charters of 1824 and 1827 centred the government in a council and made the list of elective officers long; the charter of 1827 was revised in 1857 and again in 1859 and the present charter dates from 1883. Under this charter only three administrative officers are elected, - the mayor, the city clerk and the city treasurer, - elections being biennial. The administration of the city departments is largely in the hands of commissions. There is one commissioner each, appointed by the mayor, for the parks and boulevards, police and public works departments. The four members of the health board are nominated by the governor and confirmed by the state senate. The school board is an independent body, consisting of one elected member from each ward holding office for four years, but the mayor has the veto power over its proceedings as well as those of the common council. In each case a two-thirds vote overrules his veto. The other principal officers and commissions, appointed by the mayor and confirmed by the council, are controller, corporation counsel, board of three assessors, fire commission (four members), public lighting commission (six members), water commission (five members), poor commission (four members), and inspectors of the house of correction (four in number). The members of the public library commission, six in number, are elected by the board of education. Itemized estimates of expenses for the next fiscal year are furnished by the different departments to the controller in February. He transmits them to the common council with his recommendations. The council has four weeks in which to consider them. It may reduce or increase the amounts asked, and may add new items. The budget then goes to the board of estimates, which has a month for its consideration. This body consists of two members elected from each ward and five elected at large. The mayor and heads of departments are advisory members, and may speak but not vote. The members of the board of estimates can hold no other office and they have no appointing power, the intention being to keep them as free as possible from all political motives and influences. They may reduce or cut out any estimates submitted, but cannot increase any or add new ones. No bonds can be issued without the assent of the board of estimates. The budget is apportioned among twelve committees which have almost invariably given close and conscientious examination to the actual needs of the departments. A reduction of $1,000,000 to $1,500,000, without impairing the service, has been a not unusual result of their deliberations. Prudent management under this system has placed the city in the highest rank financially. Its debt limit is 2% on the assessed valuation, and even that low maximum is not often reached. The debt in 1907 was only about $5,500,000, a smaller per capita debt than that of any other city of over 100,000 inhabitants in the country; the assessed valuation was $330,000,000; the city tax, $14.70 on the thousand dollars of assessed valuation. Both the council and the estimators are hampered in their work by legislative interference. Nearly all the large salaries and many of those of the second grade are made mandatory by the legislature, which has also determined many affairs of a purely administrative character.

Detroit has made three experiments with municipal ownership. On account of inadequate and unsatisfactory service by a private company, the city bought the water-works as long ago as 1836. The works have been twice moved and enlargements have been made in advance of the needs of the city. In 1907 there were six engines in the works with a pumping capacity of 152,000,000 gallons daily. The daily average of water used during the preceding year was 61,357,000 gallons. The water is pumped from Lake St Clair and is of exceptional purity. The city began its own public lighting in April 1895, having a large plant on the river near the centre of the city. It lights the streets and public buildings, but makes no provision for commercial business. The lighting is excellent, and the cost is probably less than could be obtained from a private company. The street lighting is done partly from pole and arm lights, but largely from steel towers from ioo ft. to 180 ft. in height, with strong reflected lights at the top. The city also owns two portable asphalt plants, and thus makes a saving in the cost of street repairing and resurfacing. With a view of effecting the reduction of street car fares to three cents, the state legislature in 1899 passed an act for purchasing or leasing the street railways of the city, but the Supreme Court pronounced this act unconstitutional on the ground that, as the constitution prohibited the state from engaging in a work of internal improvement, the state could not empower a municipality to do so. Certain test votes indicated an almost even division on the question of municipal ownership of the railways.

History

Detroit was founded in 1701 by Antoine Laumet de la Mothe Cadillac (c. 1661-1730), who had pointed out the importance of the place as a strategic point for determining the control of the fur trade and the possession of the North-west and had received assistance from the French government soon after Robert Livingston (1654-1725), the secretary of the Board of Indian Commissioners in New York, had urged the English government to establish a fort at the same place. Cadillac arrived on the 24th of July with about ioo followers. They at once built a palisade fort about 200 ft. square S. of what is now Jefferson Avenue and between Griswold and Shelby streets, and named it Fort Pontchartrain in honour of the French colonial minister. Indians at once came to the place in large numbers, but they soon complained of the high price of French goods; there was serious contention between Cadillac and the French Canadian Fur Company, to which a monopoly of the trade had been granted, as well as bitter rivalry between him and the Jesuits. After the several parties had begun to complain to the home government the monopoly of the fur trade was transferred to Cadillac and he was exhorted to cease quarrelling with the Jesuits. Although the inhabitants then increased to zoo or more, dissatisfaction with the paternal rule of the founder increased until 1710, when he was made governor of Louisiana. The year before, the soldiers had been withdrawn; by the second year after there was serious trouble with the Indians, and for several years following the population was greatly reduced and the post threatened with extinction. But in 1722, when the Mississippi country was opened, the population once more increased, and again in 1748, when the settlement of the Ohio Valley began, the governor-general of Canada offered special inducements to Frenchmen to settle at Detroit, with the result that the population was soon more than 1000 and the cultivation of farms in the vicinity was begun. In 1760, however, the place was taken by the British under Colonel Robert Rogers and an English element was introduced into the population which up to this time had been almost exclusively French. Three years later, during the conspiracy of Pontiac, the fort first narrowly escaped capture and then suffered from a siege lasting from the 9th of May until the 12th of October. Under English rule it continued from this time on as a military post with its population usually reduced to less than 50o. In 1778 a new fort was built and named Fort Lernault, and during the War of Independence the British sent forth from here several Indian expeditions to ravage the frontiers. With the ratification of the treaty which concluded that war the title to the post passed to the United States in 1783, but the post itself was not surrendered until the 11 th of January 1796, in accordance with Jay's Treaty of 1794. It was then named Fort Shelby; but in 1802 it was incorporated as a town and received its present name. In 1805 all except one or two buildings were destroyed by fire. General William Hull (1753-1825), a veteran of the War of American Independence, governor of Michigan territory in 1805-1812, as commander of the north-western army in 1812 occupied the city. Failing to hear immediately of the declaration of war between the United States and Great Britain, he was cut off from his supplies shipped by Lake Erie. He made from Detroit on the 12th of July an awkwardandfutile advance into Canada, which, if more vigorous, might have resulted in the capture of Malden and the establishment of American troops in Canada, and then retired to his fortifications. On the 16th of August 1812, without any resistance and without consulting his officers, he surrendered the city to General Brock, for reasons of humanity, and afterwards attempted to justify himself by criticism of the War Department in general and in particular of General Henry Dearborn's armistice with Prevost, which had not included in its terms Hull, whom Dearborn had been sent out to reinforce.' After Perry's victory on the 14th of September on Lake Erie, Detroit on the 29th of September was again occupied by the forces of the United States. Its growth was rather slow until 1830, but since then its progress has been unimpeded. Detroit was the capital of Michigan from 1805 to 1847.

AuTx0RITIEs

Silas Farmer, The History of Detroit and Michigan (Detroit, 1884 and 1889), and "Detroit, the Queen City," in L. P. Powell's Historic Towns of the Western States (New York and London, 1901); D. F. Wilcox, "Municipal Government in Michigan and Ohio," in Columbia University Studies (New York, 1896); C. M. Burton, "Cadillac's Village" or Detroit under Cadillac (Detroit, 1896); Francis Parkman, A Half Century of Conflict (Boston, 1897); and The Conspiracy of Pontiac (Boston, 1898); and the annual Reports of the Detroit Board of Commerce (1904 sqq.).