Part of John L. Spivak’s 1936 series on U.S. fascist organizations, this article looks at the cover-up of the Black Legion, which terrorized Michigan in the mid-1930s, and its close connection to Henry Ford’s head goon, scumbag extraordinaire, Harry Bennett.

‘Who Backs the Black Legion? Harry Bennett, Henry Ford’s Duke of Michigan’ by John L. Spivak from New Masses. Vol. 19 No. 12. June 16, 1936.

The industrial and political ramifications of the terroristic Black Legion are too widespread for Michigan’s officials to risk a thorough investigation. Their plan now is to kill the story as quickly as possible before it gets out of hand and involves too many important people.

The entire story cannot be suppressed. It has gone too far now in national and international publicity. But the tories will try. The men employed as tools by others, as yet undisclosed, will be indicted and sent up to prison. Statements will be issued that now the Black Legion has been broken up. Everything will return to normal. And the Black Legion will continue strong; it will branch out; and the officials and other leaders who are sitting back on the keg of dynamite that almost exploded, will remain unexposed and unhampered. That is what the reactionaries desire.

To understand what is happening in the suppression of the Black Legion investigation, it is necessary to understand a little of the industrial and political set-up of the entire State of Michigan.

We must also keep in mind that state and national election campaigns are under way. The Black Legion oath bound its members to fight Jew, Catholic, Negro and Communist; but news of its activities has chiefly involved anti-Catholicism so far. Comparatively little in the way of exposures of the Legion’s activity against Negroes, Jews, Communists and militant trade unionists, has appeared to date. The revelations so far have dealt with the Black Legion’s attack against “the Roman hierarchy,” as they are fond of terming it.

So strong is this anti-Catholic sentiment developed by the Legion that it is generally admitted now by officials in charge of the investigations which have sprung. up like mushrooms all over the state that the Legion has gained several hundred members in Detroit alone since the expose. This gain has been due chiefly to the assurances of the Black Legion members that the whole hullabaloo is a “Catholic plot.” They adduce as evidence of it that Governor Fitzgerald is a Catholic, State’s Attorney Crowley who is conducting the investigation, is also a Catholic, and so is Judge James A. Chenot, the one-man grand jury. The whole thing is the hands of Catholics, the Black Legion argues. Actually, so far as I was able to ascertain, the only Catholic is the Attorney General. This Catholic issue is of paramount importance to the politicians running for office. They do not want to antagonize the anti-Catholics on the one hand or the Catholics on the other by making an issue of it. The election is too near. They would prefer to see the whole thing dropped. And they are also worried about the effects of the investigation upon the industrial barons.

The State of Michigan is pretty much controlled by the automotive industry. The state is almost wholly Republican. The few footloose Democrats- are so inconsequential that scarcely anyone pays much attention to them. The Democrats have a few communities and a few public officials in minor places. The state press is almost entirely Republican.

Under such a set-up, if the Black Legion story, which attracted international attention and brought a host of outside correspondents into Michigan, can be quieted down sufficiently to get rid of the outside newspapermen, the local press can be depended upon either to play down the story or to kill it entirely. And this is precisely what is being done now.

The Republican Party itself in the State of Michigan is pretty much controlled by the automotive manufacturers. Chief of this controlling influence is an ex-sailor named Harry Bennett, the head of Henry Ford’s “personnel division.” Actually he is the organizer and head of the Ford Secret Service, the most amazing private secret service in history. Bennett has his fingers everywhere and politicians are terrified of him and seek his friendship. What Bennett says, goes in Michigan.

Bennett is a rather presentable man in his early forties, and stories of his power are whispered all over the state. He sits in a small room in the basement of the executive offices of the Ford Motor Company with a picture of his charming seventeen-year-old daughter on his desk and a pistol to his left. When entertaining or interviewing anybody from spies to the highest officials of the state who come to ask for favors-he is fond of placing a pencil upright in a holder and practicing shooting with the pistol. At the other end of the room is a small metal receiving tray which catches the bullets as he fires them. Bennett is an excellent shot. He likes to shoot the point off the pencil-and does.

This is the man who, backed by the vast fortune of a multi-millionaire automobile manufacturer, sits in his unpretentious office and pulls the wires that run the political life of Michigan.

What Bennett’s connection or interest in the Black Legion is, has not been brought out and never will be brought out by the officials in the State of Michigan. It doesn’t matter who the officials are, whether state legislature or the Governor himself. Bennett controls them, and they are in fear of him. 

WHEN Dayton Dean, who, his wife says, was head of the Black Legion’s “Death Squad,” pumped five .45 caliber bullets into the body of Charles A. Poole, a young W.P.A. worker, and the police started a roundup of the Black Legion, they had no notion of the ramifications of the terroristic outfit. The fantastic facts that came out within forty-eight hours after the story broke and spread to the four corners of the earth, got out of hand. It was too late to do anything about it then. Detroit was already swarming with newspapermen.

The excitement in Michigan was intense. New developments broke hourly: the Bullet Club in Pontiac, various unexplained deaths, arsons, floggings. Reporters, local and from distant cities, ran all over the place demanding news or digging up new facts themselves. The politicians were obviously worried. They did not know where it would lead nor whose membership card would be found next. It took them over a week to collect their wits. By that time forces which apparently were more powerful than the whole legal machinery of the state made their desires known that the story be killed as soon as possible. This offered little difficulty in Michigan. The state has one of the prettiest set-ups for achieving a thing like this. The State of Michigan is almost totalitarian with all the pretenses of democracy: it is ruled by one man: Henry Ford rules through his man Harry Bennett as a feudal overlord ruled. Legal control has its nucleus in the one-man grand jury idea. This idea came in handy to Harry Bennett, Duke of Michigan, before and it is proving very handy with the present Black Legion investigation.

A grand jury is supposed to be exactly what it says-“grand,” a “big jury” consisting of twenty-three persons who hear the evidence and hand down indictments. The State of Michigan still has this “grand jury” for state matters, but some years ago the employers’ association came to the conclusion that sometimes a grand jury becomes “unwieldy.” People may get on it who may not jump through the hoop when the whip cracks. On the pretense that it would save money for the impoverished state run by the automobile manufacturers, an act was put over by the state legislature making it possible to have a one-man grand jury in a county. This one man hears all the evidence; he alone decides whether to hand down indictments or not. If he decides the evidence does not warrant indictments the matter ends there and all the material gathered is buried in the secrecy of the one-man grand jury. Anyone who gives out any grand jury information can go to jail for contempt of court.

During the bank scandals of Detroit in 1933, the earls and barons of Michigan used the one-man grand jury very nicely. No indictments were handed down. Since then a federal grand jury has investigated the same people and some thirty indictments have been handed down and three men convicted. The man who killed the state’s case against the bankers was Assistant State’s Attorney Chester P. O’Hara, who is now handling the Black Legion evidence before another one-man grand jury.

Grand jury proceedings are supposed to be secret. Because of the widespread interest in the banking scandal, the one-man grand jury was made a public Roman holiday, though the state’s attorney’s office knew it was illegal. The people wanted a show and they got it. If indictments had been turned in they would have been thrown out of court because the whole procedure was illegal.

With this sort of a set-up where one man, whose political life depends upon the Duke of Michigan and his associates, has the power to hand down indictments and weigh all the evidence and omit evidence which he considers “insufficient,” the State of Michigan launched its investigation into the Black Legion.

The judge who was picked to be the oneman grand jury is James E. Chenot. While Chenot was prosecutor, killings occurred at the Ford plant. Chenot investigated the affair and could find no evidence warranting indictments. Chenot is known and is generally accepted as “Harry Bennett’s man.” When he ran for office two things occurred. The underworld rallied to a man to support him and it is generally accepted and admitted in political circles that the shady characters “down river” raised $200,000 within 48 hours to put Chenot on the bench. Secondly, because of his able cooperation at the time of the investigation into the Ford plant killings during which time he worked hand in glove with Harry Bennett, he became known as Henry Ford’s choice for the job. P.S.- He got the job.

When Chenot was appointed the one-man grand jury in the Black Legion case he immediately called in the attorney general of the state, the assistant attorney ·general and everybody else connected with the case from the prosecution angle and issued a statement:

“Every possible precaution will be taken to protect witnesses who testify before the jury (he said solemnly). I have control of the proceedings in this court. Anyone who violates the secrecy of this grand jury will go to jail.”

There was no misunderstanding the Judge. He wanted no more news appearing to keep the story alive. The names of 500 members of the Black Legion, their membership cards and the fact that many of them were high officials in the state and the county, were now in the possession of the Grand Jury and could not be made public. It was the prettiest way to protect certain officials and keep the scandal from spreading that could have been devised. The mouths of everyone connected with the case from the county prosecutor to the attorney general-from the lone policeman on the beat who might learn something, to the Commissioner of State Police and his men-all were effectively silenced. There is no appeal to the Governor even for a pardon when the court sentences anyone for contempt of court- and there is practically no limit to the sentence.

It is obvious that the grand jury is manipulated by the higher-ups for whatever, at the time, best suits their purposes. When it becomes necessary for them to have the grand jury open to satisfy the people, the grand jury hearings were open, though this made them illegal. Now, when it is necessary to keep the hearings secret lest some of the evidence reach into places they wish to protect, when the hearings may be sufficient to force the federal government to step in, the grand jury becomes secret-and only one man decides who is to be indicted and what evidence is valid. The grand jury system in Michigan is nothing more than a plaything to be manipulated by the industrial and political leaders behind the scenes.

The effect of this announcement was obvious: newspapermen had been playing the story for all it was worth; they had given columns and pages to it by following up tips, individuals, leads given them by the investigators. Suddenly they were left high and dry and dependent upon themselves to keep the story alive. The chief sources of information were in the hands of the one-man grand jury. Out-of-town newspapermen gradually left the scene. The local papers-all of them Republican-slowly started to play down the story. It was the first and very effective step to kill the whole story before too many widely-known politicians and the automotive barons themselves became involved.

THE history of the organization of the terroristic Black Legion is well known. Harry Bennett, Duke of Michigan, knows it. The one-man grand jury knows it. The Attorney General, the county prosecutor, the Governor know it. I know it. But it is one thing to know it and another thing to prove it. The man who originally organized the Black Legion was one of the highest state officials in Michigan and is at the present time one of the highest state officials. His name and the names of other high officials who met in the state’s offices with him to organize it- high officials who are still high officials- have not been brought out. Some of them may be brought out because the man who originally organized it has aroused the Duke of Michigan’s antagonism. His head may roll as a result, unless he will be asked to resign quietly and save another scandal.

Without mentioning names because of the absence of documentary proof, some facts may be presented: the terroristic Black Legion was organized in one of the high state offices in Lansing, Michigan, in the fall of 1931, after the Ku Klux Klan had been pretty much shattered. This high state official has political ambitions and originally organized it to further his own ambitions and without an idea that it would extend and become an interstate affair.

The first meetings were held in the state offices. The Black Legion grew to the point where this politician could command 30,000 members to vote as he ordered. The authority was split up by giving county control to other individuals and as a result of his power over the 30,000 members he was appointed to another high political office which he cherished and which he now holds.

Subsequently the Black Legion was taken over by another and much more powerful organization which now controls it. It is the safeguarding of this second organization in which those behind it are chiefly interested.

One thing is definite: the Democrats in the state, fully aware of the ramifications of the Black Legion, are anxious for a federal investigation which could blow up the entire Republican control. The Republicans are just as anxious to avoid a federal investigation, for at present the federal government is Democratic. This is also one of the chief reasons why Republican State’s Attorney Crowley jumped into the investigation-lest the Democratic county prosecutor manage to get the federal authorities into it and thus take the investigators out of local control.

The federal authorities on the other hand do not want to stir up a hornet’s nest just before the presidential campaign. There are too many Klansmen and anti-Catholics in the South so they are sidestepping it and trusting that too much of a stink does not come out. The only way the full Black Legion story will ever be broken and the real higherups behind it brought into the limelight and their motives exposed, will be when organized popular pressure demands it so relentlessly that officials cannot crawl out of a probe.

The New Masses was the continuation of Workers Monthly which began publishing in 1924 as a merger of the ‘Liberator’, the Trade Union Educational League magazine ‘Labor Herald’, and Friends of Soviet Russia’s monthly ‘Soviet Russia Pictorial’ as an explicitly Communist Party publication, but drawing in a wide range of contributors and sympathizers. In 1927 Workers Monthly ceased and The New Masses began. A major left cultural magazine of the late 1920s and early 1940s, the early editors of The New Masses included Hugo Gellert, John F. Sloan, Max Eastman, Mike Gold, and Joseph Freeman. Writers included William Carlos Williams, Theodore Dreiser, John Dos Passos, Upton Sinclair, Richard Wright, Ralph Ellison, Dorothy Parker, Dorothy Day, John Breecher, Langston Hughes, Eugene O’Neill, Rex Stout and Ernest Hemingway. Artists included Hugo Gellert, Stuart Davis, Boardman Robinson, Wanda Gag, William Gropper and Otto Soglow. Over time, the New Masses became narrower politically and the articles more commentary than comment. However, particularly in it first years, New Masses was the epitome of the era’s finest revolutionary cultural and artistic traditions.

PDF of full issue: https://www.marxists.org/history/usa/pubs/new-masses/1936/v19n12-jun-16-1936-NM.pdf