Hitler or the U. S.?

From Detroit, fourth city of the U.S., symbol and seat of America's industrial genius, had come news that made all citizens anxious. Sitdowns, wildcat strikes, poor planning, material shortages, short tempers and bad attitudes of union workers (see p. 71) had cut war production. A housing shortage forced some workers to live in tents, shacks and trailers. There was tragic, dirty confusion: in Macomb County, just north of the city, newly laid water mains were torn up to supply another area. Some 300 families of defense workers were forced to lug their water, some as far as three miles, from a public hydrant (see cut).

Last week LIFE aired the stupid, paralyzing mess, concluded: "The morale situation is perhaps the worst in the U.S. . . . It is time for the rest of the country to sit up and take notice. For Detroit can either blow up Hitler or it can blow up the U.S."

From Detroit's Mayor Edward J. Jeffries came outraged protest: "I'll match Detroit's patriotism against any other city's in the country. Why. anyone who lives here knows we haven't had a major labor dispute, except the D.S.R. [Department of Street Railways] last year, in three years. The whole story in LIFE is scurrilous. . . . I'd just call it a yellow magazine and let it go at that."

But from the knowing, energetic Detroit News, the city's largest newspaper (circ. 336,014), came a different reaction. Reprinting part of LIFE'S text, the News said: "It is a harsh indictment. To much of it Detroit must plead guilty." As to wildcat strikes and sitdowns, said the News, Franklin Roosevelt had asked for specific information. It urged all who knew about the unpublicized stoppages to write to the White House.

"The only cure," concluded the News, "is solemn realization on the part of every citizen of the truth of the sentence, 'Detroit can either blow up Hitler or it can blow up the U.S.' Which it does can be determined only by Detroiters."

The Same, and More So. The news from Detroit is far from good:

> In Ford's River Rouge plant a foreman asked a machine operator to move a box which was blocking the aisle. Said the operator: "Hell no, move it yourself." The foreman had to get a maintenance man to move the box. While the box was being moved, the machine operator declaimed for 45 minutes on his "rights," Other workmen left their machines, gathered around to listen. The foreman could do nothing; he did not want the workers to have a new "grievance."

> In the Lincoln factory the daily quota was 284 vehicles. The men knocked them out easily one day, finished two hours ahead of time. They started to play: first they threw water, then buckets of water, then the buckets. When the Army security officer at the plant asked them to go back to work the reply was: the quota was made, that's all there was to it.

> Continental Motors does not give the men regular time off to smoke. The men crowd into lavatories, turn them into smoking rooms. "It's the damndest thing you ever saw," said one workman. "Often a man will spend 45 minutes in the toilet. Foremen just stay away, they don't dare do anything."

>At all Ford plants workmen complain about the food concessions. They say sandwiches are inedible, milk dirty, and say that Ford's tough, union-hating Harry Bennett, who controls the concessions, passes them out to his friends.

> Month ago a fence with a gate was put around one department at Ford's Willow Run plant so there could be a check on whether men who wandered around were on legitimate errands. At noon the whole department promptly sat down. By 3 p.m. the fence was down.

> Much of the bad morale at Ford was because the union and the company--notwithstanding the war--were continuing their old fight, dating back to the days before unionization in Detroit. Said one worker: "A lot of these companies deserve to be treated pretty miserable. They treated us that way during the depression. Didn't even say, 'Sorry, old man, we ain't got nothing for you today.' Just said, 'Get the hell out of here.' So now it ain't no wonder if some of the boys treat the company miserable." Production Chief Charles Sorenson said everything would turn out all right.

> Another important point: union shop stewards had little authority at Ford, fearing that rabble-rousing unionists would get their jobs. Having for years told their men that any & all demands were just, they now had a hot time sitting on the lid.

Detroiters had a man-sized job ahead of them.

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