The Flivver King: A Story of Ford-America

On March 7, 1932, Abner Shutt, who no longer owns his car, is walking the cold Detroit streets seeking factory work. He stumbles onto a meeting marked by a sign, “Ford Workers Assemble.” Since Abner considers himself a Ford worker, he stops.

Abner listens to a former Ford worker speak about “the story that Abner knew by heart: the speed-up and the tyranny of the bosses, the senseless petty regulations, the irregularity of employment, the lack of security and the decencies of life” (168). Abner recognizes the truth of the speech and warms to the cheering crowd. He also appreciates the freedom with which the man expresses his ideas: “Men couldn’t talk like that inside the plant, not even in a whisper; but out here America was still free” (168).

The speaker announces a protest march right up to the gates of the plant. Abner realizes that the gathering must be one of Communists, but because the speaker is “talking workers’ talk” (169), Abner stays to listen. He hears a succession of speakers discuss Ford’s political activities and failure to support his unemployed workers, as well as the city’s near-bankruptcy and the bankers’ forcing the city of Detroit to fire city workers and cut families from the welfare registry in order to receive loans.

A speaker reads a list of the men’s demands, which include “jobs for those who had been laid off, or fifty per cent of their wages until they had work again; the slowing of the speed-up, [and] the ending of the spotter system” (170). The men set off marching, joined by other “ragged and hungry men, assembled at different meetings” (170.). Singing “Solidarity Forever”, the 3,000 men, including Abner, march toward the plant escorted by policemen sent by Mayor Murphy: “Everything was to be orderly, the organizers had promised, and the orators warned them that if they committed acts of violence they would forfeit public sympathy, in which lay their one hope” (170).

The protestors leave Detroit and enter Dearborn, “a town which Henry ruled; the mayor and all the officials were his” (171). The Dearborn police tell the marchers to stop. When an orator, promising that the demonstration will be peaceful and orderly, announces their intention to march to the Ford plant, the police begin to throw bombs filled with tear gas and vomit gas.

The men continue to march. Ford has stationed his “service men” on a bridge with machine guns and gas bombs, together with the Dearborn police, to guard the gates of the factory. Some of the men march up to the gates anyway demanding to be allowed to enter and speak to Ford. Abner is among them:

not a little scared, and confused in his thoughts. He had been over that bridge so many times, it seemed like home to him. Wasn’t his own son working in there right now? Surely he had a right to ask for a job; surely if Mr. Ford knew about it, he would grant that right” (172)

However, Abner sees the men on the bridge throwing bombs, and a man next to him is fatally shot in the stomach. Abner runs from the march. He learns later that Harry Bennett later rode out from the factory firing a gas pistol or a gun, and someone from the crowd threw a rock that hit him on the head. Afterwards, the Ford police and Dearborn police fired machine guns into the unarmed crowd, killing four and wounding fifty.