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Ford Front. In Detroit, on the call of the county prosecutor, Judge Ralph W. Liddy of the Common Pleas Court constituted himself a one-man grand jury to investigate the beating-up of Organizer Richard Frankensteen & friends by Henry Ford's men. Several of the Ford men were brought in. One of them, Oscar Jones, 23, a Negro who used to be a lightweight boxer, admitted he took part in the brawl and was taken into custody. He and a Ford foreman, Wilfred J. Comment, were promptly subpoenaed by Senator La Follette's Civil Liberties Committee. Meanwhile officials of the town of Dearborn joined Ford attorneys in denying the right of Judge Liddy to investigate an event which took place outside Detroit's city limits.
Regardless of jurisdiction, the higher-ups of the Ford Co. were hard for Judge Liddy's process-servers to find. Edsel Ford was reported somewhere in the East. Harry H. Bennett, head of the Ford "service men" accused of the assault, sent word that he was recovering from a severe sunburn at his home in Ypsilanti. When he appeared he spent only a short time in the grand jury room but it was long enough for him to be served with a subpoena to supply the names of all "service men" on the Ford payroll on the date of the riot. Mr. Bennett, once a lightweight boxer in the Navy, sailed into Henry Ford's employ aboard some ships Mr. Ford bought from the Government after the War and became master of the Ford plant militia and all problems of personnel. He denied knowledge of the formation of a Ford Brotherhood of America, decried by U.A.W. as a "company" union but did say that 80,698 of the plant's 82,064 men had signed "loyalty pledges" voicing "complete confidence and agreement with the policies of Mr. Henry Ford."
Elsewhere three incidents, minor in themselves, last week suggested the trend of Labor's thinking about itself and its power.
¶ A "rent strike" was launched by the United Automobile Workers in Pontiac, Mich. Accusing landlords of raising rents so fast that motor workers were worse off after recent wage increases than before, the union announced that none of its members would pay any rent considered unfair. The union's idea of fair rent: 1% a month on assessed valuations. On its list of fair landlords the union placed General Motors which built houses for its workers during a housing shortage. How many of the union's 15,000 members failed to pay rent June 1 was not known, but in the first case (originating before the rent strike) to reach court, a jury voted for the worker-tenant's eviction.
¶ In New York City 800 drivers, supervisors and guards of armored cars used for transferring millions of dollars in cash & securities daily between banks and businesses, went on strike. In a few hours the constipation of the city's financial system grew serious and the strike was settled, the strikers winning a closed shop and wage increases of more than 30% ($45 a week for drivers and supervisors).