Frank
Murphy was born in Harbor Beach,
Michigan, on 13th April, 1890. As a child worker
in a local factory he developed a strong hatred of exploitation and
a sympathy for the underprivileged.
After a long struggle Murphy was able to fund his studies at the University
of Michigan. He graduated in 1914 and worked in Detroit
as a law clerk during the day and a teacher at night school.
Murphy joined the United States Army during
the First World War and saw action in France.
After the war he remained in Europe where he studied law in Trinity
College, Dublin and in Lincoln's Inn, London.
On his return to the United States he became chief assistant to the
U.S. attorney of Eastern Michigan District where it is claimed he
never lost a case. After a spell of private practice he was appointed
a judge in Detroit(1923-30).
A member of the Democratic Party,
Murphy was elected mayor of Detroit and
during his period of office (1930-33) he received national recognition
for his efforts to help the unemployed. A strong supporter of Franklin
D. Roosevelt and the New
Deal, Murphy served as governor-general of the Philippines
(1933-35) and United States High Commissioner (1935-36).
Murphy was elected as governor of Michigan
in 1937. Controversially, Murphy refused to employ troops to help
break strikes by automobile workers. This upset industrialists in
Michigan and they successfully used their power to make sure he was
not re-elected as governor.
Franklin D. Roosevelt appointed Murphy
as his Attorney General in 1939. The following year the president
nominated him to become a member of the Supreme
Court. Over the next nine years Murphy established himself as
a strong defender of civil rights. Frank
Murphy died in Detroit on 19th July,
1949.
RIGHT
HERE AT HOME
Daniel
Fitzpatrick, The Unemployed
(1931)
(1)
Frank Murphy, while mayor of Detroit,
had an article published in the radical journal, The
Unemployed
(Spring, 1931)
The
time has come when widespread unemployment has ceased to be the concern
of one group. It is neither the affair solely of the manufacturer
nor of the unemployed. There was a time when the contractual relationship
between the employer and the employee was supposed to be none of the
public's business. That time has passed. Today the stability of employment
is the direct business of every taxpayer and every citizen, because
they are responsible for the support and maintenance of those who
are of jobs. It is the public who must foot the bills and it is the
public who most interest itself in the question which has become,
not a class, but a social issue.
The first consideration of a widespread unemployment situation is
a practical, satisfactory relief program. The mapping out of such
a program is not an easy matter. For example, in Detroit there are
1,500,000 souls but only 300,000 taxpayers. The taxpayers have been
providing heat, rent, light, food and clothes for 45,000 destitute
families, the breadwinners of which, in the main, are employed in
factories that for tax reasons border on the city limits - just outside,
and do not contribute to the support of their former employees.
12,000 homeless men are cared for daily in two lodging houses, one
on the west side, donated by the Fisher Brothers, one on the east
side, donated by the Studebaker Corporation. 1,800,000 meals have
been given and 350,000 nights's lodgings supplied. Two meals are served,
each meal consisting of a well balanced, sufficient diet. Ninety thousand
lunches have been given to the school children of the unemployed.
At present 8,000 children daily are being fed in school. One hundred
and twenty-five thousand person have been outfitted with clothes by
the clothing bureau; 700 homeless women are being cared for in private
homes or small institutions like the YWCA or League of Catholic Women.
But the most satisfactory part of the work is the establishment of
an Employment Bureau which has given out 21,000 jobs.
(2)
Melvin Holli, The American Mayor (1999)
Detroit's
Frank Murphy (1930-33), secured seventh place, drawing one first-place
vote and five second-place votes, and the affirmative votes of twenty
of our respondents. Democratic Murphy helped to establish the U.S.
Conference of Mayors, was a New Dealer before there was a New Deal,
lobbied for federal aid to cities, and tried to feed the hungry during
the Great Depression—and balance the city's books. Mayor Murphy
has become better known to urbanists since the publication of Sidney
Fine's definitive biography, Frank Murphy: The Detroit Years
(1975). Murphy deserves wider recognition, especially because his
post-mayoral career of upward movement is remarkable and striking
for a mayor. After service in city hall, Murphy rose rapidly to become
governor-general of the Philippines, then governor of Michigan, and
next a U.S. Attorney General. He ended his public career as a U.S.
Supreme Court justice. Few big-city mayors have experienced such dramatic
and visible upward political mobility.
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