Free Terror in the City of Champions by Tom Stanton Page B

police commissioner in April. A well-known character in city circles, he had served as commander of the Michigan National Guard, heading up parades on horseback in full regalia. When the cornerstone was laid for the Masonic Temple and President Warren Harding came to town, Col. Pickert, as he liked to be called, played a central role in organizing the stunning procession. He had also been the city’s chief customs collector, appointed by President Hoover.
    Born poor to German immigrants and raised in the Irish district of Corktown near the Tigers ballpark, Pickert provided reporters with good copy. He had color. He believed in astrology. He collected Oriental rugs. (“No one can tell what patience and what industry, what joy and sorrow, has gone into an old Oriental.”) He had been awarded a Purple Heart in the Great War.
    Col. Pickert had definite ideas about how his police officers should act. His first order as commissioner was to forbid officers from chewing gum. “Gum and police work don’t go together,” he said. “Imagine how a police officer looks walking down the street and in public places with his jaws working like a cow munching a cud.” Col. Pickert didn’t care much for tobacco chewing either, but he allowed it in moderation. He insisted on a more militaristic feel for his police force. He liked to be saluted fully, not halfheartedly, and the sight of officers with their feet on furniture or windowsills, or with their chairs tilted against walls, could set off a tirade. He called for clean white shirts to be worn without suspenders (unless covered by a coat). He also preferred that officers not have facial hair. His own face, clean-shaven, was topped by light-colored hair, cut starkly and parted crisply over his left eye.
    Beyond his quirks and personality, Col. Pickert instituted a hard line against protesters, radicals, and labor organizers. Claims of police brutality rose under his administration, and the Special Investigations Division evolved into a Red Squad. He did not hide his feelings on these matters. Col. Pickert and his wife, Julie, spoke freely about their beliefs. They had met in their forties through patriotic organizations. Both were active in the American Legion. At the downtown Women’s City Club, to which Julie belonged, Col. Pickert boasted that the police department kept lists of radicals and watched their activities “all the time.” He accused Detroit public school educators of “teaching, living, talking, and breathing” communism. “The appalling thing is that the people in whom we put so much faith are forgetting their Americanism and teaching this rotten doctrine,” he said. “If we allow these instructors to remain in our schools, pretty soon we will be on the downgrade.” He worried about unions and labor troubles. “I wish we could have a showdown soon,” he said.
    The Black Legion was also ready for such a confrontation. By mid-1934 the legion had expanded in southeast Michigan to four regiments of 1,600 men in Detroit, one regiment in Highland Park, one in the downriver area south of the Ford Rouge plant, two farther south near Monroe, two north of Detroit in Pontiac, one or two in Flint, one in Saginaw, and possibly others. There were regiments in Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois as well. Not all were at capacity.
    Legionnaires congregated in open fields and meeting halls. Smaller groups met in basements and darkened living rooms. Particularly in neighborhoods, frequent swarms of cars could pique curiosity. As the legion grew, the danger of being exposed swelled. With snoops and nosy neighbors a concern, the legion looked for more discreet meeting places. Fraternal halls, already hosting assemblies of men, offered the best camouflage. These ranged from the patriotic to the religious. Oddfellows, Maccabees, Pythians, Forresters, Woodmen, Veterans of Foreign Wars, American Legion, Masonic orders—the extensive lists of their meeting times and locations filled special