By Melissa Walsh
A hundred years ago the American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) was formed as an urgent response to a gross violation of the First Amendment rights of thousands by the US Department of Justice during the Palmer Raids of November 2019 and January 1920. Its first meeting was held on January 19.

​Detroit is part of that story.

When I was a graduate student at Wayne State University in the early 1990s, frequently, while walking around campus, a member of a leftist political organization would hand me a flyer or pamphlet. There were (and perhaps still are) two fairly popular communist/socialist organizations in Detroit active on the WSU campus then: the Workers World Party and the Revolutionary Workers League. Having recently returned from living in Yugoslavia and traveling in other communist countries in East Europe, I would launch an ideological discussion with the person offering me the literature.

“Have you ever been to a communist country?” I would ask.

The answer was always, “No.”

I would smugly pontificate about the negatives of living in the confines of a communist society — of one-party rule, of political corruption generating a black-market economy of corrupt haves and victimized have-nots, of the lack of free speech and free press, etc. I was young and arrogant and probably didn’t give the person much opportunity to express why they were dedicated to the dream of a communist utopia. I felt I already understood the theoretical merits of wanting a society of shared wealth and equality; I knew it was an unrealistic mission.

Before walking away, I’d say, “In theory, your intentions are noble. The problem is humans are greedy and always will be.”

By Melissa Walsh

​A week before crossing into this new decade, I decided to read each Detroit Free Press edition from December 21, 1919 to January 2, 1920. (I was unable to find a January 1, 1920 edition in the archives at the Detroit Public Library.)

This research is in step with legwork I’ve done the past few years for writing ten short stories of historical fiction for a book I aim to publish in 2020 called Little-known Lives in the Motor City. Each story focuses on characters I imagined living through real events in Detroit during the twentieth century. The stories are heavy in historical research. I use old newspapers to gain a sense of the background of the period — fashion, political mood, economics, style of speaking, etc.

I suspect a hundred years from now there will be another history nerd analyzing Detroit’s crossing into 2020, just as I investigated its crossing into 1920. Certainly, a future analyst will discover news of the detainments and deportations of foreign nationals in Detroit — middle eastern Christians and muslims, Mexicans, Albanians and others. This person will read about Detroit’s changing demographics, discovering that some commentators present the city's changes as evidence of renaissance and others decry them as gentrification. The researcher also will note metro Detroit’s pro-Trump and anti-Trump sentiment and demonstrations.

The researcher might note that the weather of December 2019 was exceptionally mild. I learned that December 1919 was so warm and rainy that the launch of hockey season had to be postponed.

I also learned that in 1919 divorces were listed in the newspapers like obituaries. I noticed that men dictated news while women were given a gentle voice in editorials on domestic chores and entertaining and on how to catch a husband.

I discovered that Detroit was growing rapidly in 1919 and in 1920 would become the nation’s fourth-largest city. Close to 800 miles of road was constructed in Michigan in 1919, most of which ran through the southeastern portion of the state, near Detroit. In December, Detroit City Council considered a solution proposed by Mayor Couzens for Detroit’s overcrowded and costly-to-maintain street-car system. Integral to the plan would be municipal ownership of additional lines.

The influx of workers into Detroit's growing manufacturing plants had led to a severe housing shortage by 1919. Families were sharing small houses and apartments requiring increasingly higher rent by landlords who allowed the dwellings' maintenance to decline. A report released by the city in 1919 estimated that 33,000 of Detroit's housing spaces were “makeshift, cramped or insanitary.”

Veterans were still returning from wartime service in Europe and having difficulty finding employment. Demands for higher wages by Detroit's firefighters, policemen and teachers were refused by Mayor Couzens. These and other Detroiters were hustling in a post-war economy of high inflation. The hardest hit goods were food and fuel. The steep price increases nationally prompted Congress to extend the U.S. 1917 Food and Fuel Control Act, also known as the Lever Act, to impose heavy penalties on those hoarding food and fuel for racket.

The following was the lede in a December 24, article entitled “3,000 families will get gifts”: “Long lines of men, women and children, the former weary and dejected, the latter rollicksome, even with toes sticking out from their ragged shoes, stood at a number of neighborhood centers Tuesday afternoon, waiting to receive from Santa Claus the presents provided by the joint efforts of the Community union, the old newsboys, the news papers and individual contributions and distributed by the girls of the Junior league.”

Christmas Tragedy

A 15-year old boy died from a policeman’s bullet Christmas day. He was believed to be attempting to steal a car when he was shot.

Also, that evening a 38-year old woman made a toast at her family dinner in a home on the 600 block of 24th Street before drinking wine she had spiked with poison. She died from suicide in St. Mary’s hospital hours later.

One person was killed and 12 were injured due to a series of auto accidents in Detroit on Christmas Day. William L. Baldwin, 40, was injured and his wife killed as they were struck by an automobile on Hamilton and Euclid. Eleven others were injured from collisions at Kercheval and Montclair, Hamilton and West Grand Boulevard, Forest and Baldwin (involving a drunk driver) and the hit and run of a pedestrian at Warren and Greenwood.

Also on Christmas Day 1919, Cadillac Motor Car company plant caught fire, destroying the carpenter shop.