Remembering G. Mennen 'Soapy' Williams
Larger-than-life Michigan governor sought to help the less fortunate
It was called the Michigan miracle by the press, a term used to describe the improbable election victory of G. Menenn Williams as the governor—a political neophyte whose only public office prior to the 1948 vote had been an appointment on the state Liquor Control Commission. He had seemingly come out of nowhere to gain the Democratic nomination, with he and his brand of young upstarts wresting control of the party from the old guard that was then under the sway of the Teamsters Union, and then edging out the Republican incumbent, Kim Sigler.
He actually won election the twice—first, by having 163,000 more votes than Sigler after the results were tabulated on Election night and then by holding onto that win when the recount took place—the latter accomplishment credited to his campaign enlisting a lot of volunteers who acted as watchdogs to ensure there wasn’t any mischief.
The bigger story in the ’48 election had been President Harry Truman’s unexpected win over Tom Dewey, giving the Democratic standard-bearer a full four-year term after assuming office with the death of Franklin Roosevelt in May of 1945. All the political experts, backed by polls, had confidently predicted that the Democratic hold on the White House would end after 16 years, with the New York governor (Dewey) leading the federal government that included GOP majorities in both chambers of congress.
“Happy Days” were going to be back in Washington, D.C. for Republicans.
While Truman’s victory was unexpected and has become the stuff of legends, Williams’ win was more in the category of “stunning upset” given the political and governmental landscape that existed in the state at that time. In current parlance, Michigan was deep-red. Two years earlier, in 1946, Sigler had won in a landslide, U.S. Senator Arthur Vandenberg was reelected by over 300,000 votes, and 14 of the state’s 17 congressmen were Republicans. In addition, the party candidates won all of the other statewide offices and both the state House and Senate enjoyed large Republican majorities.
That outcome was due, in part, to a long history of success enjoyed by the GOP dating back to when the Republican Party was created in 1854, with one of its birthplaces being Jackson, and Kingsley Bingham elected as governor in 1856—one of the first Republicans to gain a major state office in the country.
In his ‘History of the Wolverine State’, Willis Frederick Dunbar has a chapter entitled ‘A Citadel of Republicanism’ and it begins by noting “From 1854 until 1932 Michigan was almost a one-party state. At 34 of the 38 biennial (two-year) elections from 1854 through 1930 the Republican candidate for governor was elected. In all but two of the presidential elections held in this 76-year period, Michigan gave its entire electoral vote to the Republican candidate.”
Only one Democrat had been elected to the U.S. Senate during this time frame, Dunbar pointed out, adding this was mainly because he (Woodbridge Ferris) was a popular figure with the voters, rather than his being a Democrat.
“Throughout the period the Republicans elected a heavy majority of Michigan’s members to the national House of Representatives,” he wrote, adding “With few exceptions the GOP controlled both houses of the state legislation.”
The only problems the party faced in those bygone years were the occasional intra-party struggles, the most famous occurring during the Progressive Era in the early years of the 20th century when Teddy Roosevelt and his followers bumped heads with the conservative establishment.
The other reason for the party’s success in the 1946 election—the first one held after the end of World War II—and why it managed to do well even during the Roosevelt years was a highly-organized and well-financed organization.
In his biography of Williams, Thomas Noer noted that “State Republican chairman Arthur Summefield, a wealthy Flint Chevrolet distributor, levied an informal ‘tax’ on all General Motors dealers in the state to finance Republican campaigns and used the fund to maintain an efficient statewide organization,” adding, “Automobile manufacturers also made major financial contributions. As one observer summarized it. Michigan was “a magnificent company store’ run by the car industry and the Republican Party.”
This dominance continued, wrote Noer, “despite the rapid emergence of organized labor in the 1930s and 1940s, as most unions in the state (during this period) were either politically inactive or inept.”
Williams, in that first campaign, developed a folksy, non-stop, hand-shaking, predawn-to-past midnight, across-the-state style that gained followers and endeared him to voters. He soon became known for his green and white polka-dot bow tie and his nickname ‘Soapy’. The latter, as many know, was because he was an heir, on his mother’s side, to the Mennen Soap fortune.
However, in 1948, while he was not destitute and was described by his opponent as a “Grosse Pointe socialite” who was out-of-touch with the common man, his mother controlled the purse strings and didn’t approve of his positions, so his campaign operated on a shoestring, fueled mainly by his energy and the hard work, along with the efforts of his wife Nancy, his staff and the volunteers drawn to the campaign.
In 1948, Williams benefitted from labor finally deciding to wield its strength as a voting bloc, but he also targeted blacks and others seeking changes in state policy.
“To Williams, the 1948 victory was a glorious crusade that united workers, blacks, intellectuals, and others who had been ignored by traditional politicians,” said Noer in his biography. “He (also) saw it as a victory for liberalism and reform and an example of how the right ideas and a united effort could overcome the greatest odds.”
But while the newly-elected Williams viewed his win as a mandate to bring reform to Michigan and while he and others saw the success other liberal Democrats had found elsewhere in the nation (coupled with Truman’s win) as an affirmation by voters “to expand the efforts of government to use its power to create a more just, compassionate, and equitable society, the Republicans, particularly in Michigan, held a different view and agenda.
They saw Williams’ election as an aberration to the norm, more the fault of Sigler, with his poor campaign and unpopularity with voters, than a rejection of Republican governance. In that era, before one-man, one-vote forced a re-configuring a districts based mainly on population rather than geography, a practice that gave rural areas of the state more seats than the large cities, the party still held huge majorities in the Legislature.
Enjoying a 61-to-39 advantage in the House and a 23-to-9 majority in the Senate, the Republicans decided to let Williams know how matters stood.
“The Republicans immediately served notice that they were not going to cooperate with the new governor,” Noer wrote in his book. “Michigan was one of only three states that did not have an executive mansion and offered no housing allowance to its governor. The chief executive had to pay for his home out of his own salary. Before Williams was inaugurated, the legislature cut his salary by three thousand dollars while keeping pay for Republican state officials at the previous level.
“The salary slash was symbolic of the Republicans determination to assert their power and let Williams know that they still controlled the state,” Noer explained.
Republican officials also figured that they’d regain the governor’s office in two years—after the 1950 election—by running a more popular candidate and this so-called ‘Michigan miracle’ would prove to be short-lived.
Those plans, as history shows, did not turn out as they’d expected. Soapy defied the odds by winning re-election, albeit by a smaller margin that again necessitated a recount, and then went on to win another four terms—gaining in popularity with state voters and even considered as a presidential candidate.
But his efforts at New Deal-style reform—including those aimed at improving education and mental health care, and lending more assistance to the less fortunate—proved difficult or did not bear fruit, with the Republican-led Legislature generally either turning down his proposals or refusing to appropriate additional money for those areas of the budget. The GOP lawmakers were especially adverse to increasing taxes beyond the sales tax that was then the main source of state revenues, including a his call to institute an income tax.
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Williams ended his tenure as governor at the end of 1960 and then served as an Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs where he championed the cause of that continent and its new black-majority governments. He returned to Michigan to run for the U.S. Senate in 1966, losing the race to incumbent Robert Griffin. He was then named as the U.S. Ambassador to the Philippines Back in the state after that service, he turned his attention to the Michigan Supreme Court, was elected in 1970. He became chief justice in 1983 and remained on the bench until Jan. 1, 1987.
He died the following year is buried alongside his wife Nancy in in the Protestant cemetery on Mackinac Island.
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Note: I actually had finished a column earlier this evening, offering a few of my thoughts on today’s announcement by Congresswoman Elissa Slotkin that she was running for the U.S. Senate in 2024. She is seeking to replace fellow Democrat Debbie Stabenow who is retiring from that post at the end of her current term. However, something happened during the posting, after I’d finished, and I ended up losing the whole effort. So I searched the archives and found this past piece. I’ll see what I can do to re-write the Slotkin analysis in the coming days.
Steve Horton is a mid-Michigan journalist and editor-publisher of the Fowlerville News & Views—a weekly newspaper.
He was larger than life! He attended every St. Patrick's Day celebration in the 50s at the Book Cadillac Hotel in Detroit where my sister and I were part of the Irish dancers! Yes, please comment on Slotkin's entry - I am one of her fans.