Page:EB1922 - Volume 30.djvu/887

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DE VALERA, E.
837


cms other changes in Detroit's manufacturing industries. Freight- car building, which was the largest of all up to 1908, has been almost entirely discontinued. The carriage and furniture factories were for the most part changed to the making of automobile accessories, and clothing manufacture diminished. Meantime some of the metal industries increased enormously. The city in 1920 was either first or near the front in the following lines : aluminium castings, brass products, computing machines, druggists' preparations, soda ash and kindred alkalis, stoves and varnishes.

Transportation. For the accommodation of the increasing traf- fic caused by this industrial expansion there were great enlarge- ments by the transportation lines. The Michigan Central tun- nelled Detroit river and built an immense new passenger station and office building. That road and the Grand Trunk and the Pere Marquette made great additions to their freight yards, stations and sidings, and the outer belt line was extended. The Pennsylvania lines were extended from Toledo to Detroit, with a belt line of their own round a portion of the city, and ample freight and passenger facilities. The Detroit, Toledo and Ironton, which was suffering for lack of funds and equipment, was purchased by the Henry Ford interests, with great improvement in its facilities for service as a coal road. In lake freight transportation 1916 was the maximum year. The number of passages by vessels through the Detroit river that year was 37,852, net registered tonnage 76,677,264, actual freight tonnage 100,907,279, estimated value of freight $1,069,617,- 157. There was also in 1919 and 1920 an astonishing development in motor-truck service. There were in 1920 about 20 established lines reaching out from the city in all directions, and covering dis- tances as great as 50 m. or more. At the April election in 1920 by a vote of 89,285 to 51,093 the people approved of a plan for municipal construction and operation of street railway lines. It was intended for the present to supplement, but ultimately to absorb, the privately owned system. A short section was opened Feb. I 1921.

Miscellaneous. The manufacturing and population growth was accompanied by similar expansion in other lines. For example: assessed valuation, 1910, $377,335,980; 1920, $1,699,149,580; city tax levy, 1910, $6,837,686; 1920, $35,086,359; bank capital and surplus, 1910, $19,130,000; 1920, $58,343,500; bank deposits, 1910, $140,183,995; 1920, $503,944,735: bank clearings, 1910, $910,835- 005; 1920, $6,109,313,803; building permits, 1910, 5,498, to cost $17,225,945; 1920, 19,412, to cost $77,737,365; post-office receipts, 1910, $2,133,647; 1920, $6,031,442; internal revenue receipts, 1910, $6,725,941; 1920, $304,184,392; imports, 1910, fiscal year, $13,763,200; 1920, $91,160,552; exports, 1910, $82,143,633; 1920, $339,844,490. Detroit's allotment of the four Liberty loans and the Victory loan was $233,977,172. The subscriptions actually made amounted to $299,794,150, from 785,176 subscribers. During 1917 and 1918 contracts for munitions and army supplies to the amount of about $900,000,000 were taken in Detroit. Of these nearly $300,000,000 worth were cancelled after the Armistice.

Administration. Under a charter adopted by popular vote June 25 1918, the methods of municipal government were materially changed. In place of a Board of Education of one member from each ward, there was a Board of seven members, elected two or three at a time on a general ticket and holding office for six years. The old Board of Estimates, consisting of two mem- bers from each ward and five at large, was abolished, leaving ap- propriations and bond issues to be determined by the mayor and common council. The mayor's final judgment was conclusive upon all appropriation items, unless reversed by a vote of seven out of the nine aldermen. The old common council of two aldermen from each ward was displaced by a council of nine members all elected at one time on a general ticket. The mayor, city clerk and city treasurer were elected, but all other administrative officers and commissions were appointed by the mayor, without reference to the council, and were subject to dismissal by him without trial. Nominations, two for each office to be filled, were made at non-partisan primaries. Blanks for voting were also non-partisan, and the time of election was separated from that of the state and national contests. By special legislative enactment the police and recorders' courts were combined in one with seven judges, holding office for four years and having jurisdiction of all criminal and ordinance cases. The judges were all chosen at one time on a non-partisan ticket. (W. ST.)

DE VALERA, EDWARD [EAMONN] (1882- ), Irish re- publican leader, was born Oct. 14 1882, near Charleville, Co. Cork. His father, Vivian de Valera, was a Spaniard; his mother, whose maiden name was Kate Coll, came from near Bruree, Co. Limerick. He spent his childhood and boyhood among his mother's people, and was educated first at the national school and later at the Christian Brothers' school, Charleville. He then went to Blackrock College, Co. Dublin, where he gained a reputa- tion both as a student and an athlete. Here he worked at Latin, Greek, French and English literature, and at his favourite subject, mathematics. He won a middle grade exhibition in 1899, and in 1900 one in the senior grade. Entering the Royal Univer- sity in 1901, he won the next year a second class mathematical

scholarship. He went as teacher to Rockwell College, and while there graduated with a pass B.A. degree in mathematical science in 1904, and proceeded to the B.Sc. degree in 1914. In 1910 he passed the examination for the diploma in education (teaching). For a time he worked at a thesis on quaternions for his M.A. degree, but he never presented it. He also attended lectures in mathematics at Trinity College, Dublin, where he unsuccessfully competed for a scholarship. Returning to Dublin, he taught mathematics, Latin, and French in the principal Roman Catholic colleges, including the old University College, St. Stephen's Green; Belvedere; Clonliffe; Dominican College, Eccles Street; Loreto College, St. Stephen's Green; and Carysfort Training College for teachers. He examined in mathematics for the Irish Intermediate Board of Education in 1912 and following years. He unsuccessfully attempted to become an inspector of national schools. He was very popular with his pupils. He also rapidly acquired a knowledge of Irish (Gaelic), and in 1914 he was able to read difficult bardic Irish poetry. He took charge of the Irish Summer College at Tawin founded by Casement.

On the foundation of the Irish Volunteers in 1913, he threw himself heart and soul into the new organization. Sinn Fein had turned to the use of violence in 1909, and to this organization De Valera belonged, though he assumed no leading share in it till the Easter rebellion of 1916. When Casement was captured he countersigned the order of Thomas MacDonagh on April 23, cancelling the inspection and manceuvres ordered for that day. When, nevertheless, the rebellion broke out De Valera was in the outer circle of Dublin held by the rebels, which ranged from Ringsend to Ballsbridge. He commanded the insurgents holding Boland's bakery, which was valuable in two ways: it assured the rebels of a supply of foodstuffs, and it offered a commanding position for rifle fire. Though there was heavy firing day and night in this district, there were not many casualties, as there was much cover for both sides. The real leaders of the rebellion were P. H. Pearse and J. Connolly. When an order from the former reached De Valera commanding him to surrender, he at first refused to believe that it was genuine. When he satisfied himself, on Sunday, April 30, he submitted and surrendered with the hundred men of his garrison. He was sentenced to death, but the sentence was commuted to penal servitude for life, and he was committed to Lewes prison, but was released in the general amnesty of June 15 1917. No conditions had been attached to the release of the prisoners, and De Valera himself openly ascribed this action of the Government not to generosity, but to fear. As the only surviving leader of the rebellion, he found at once that he had achieved importance in the eyes of the majority of the Roman Catholic Irish, who had meanwhile swung round violently in the direction of Sinn Fein. When the ex-prisoners left the boat at Kingstown De Valera marched at their head, and his entry into Dublin was a triumphal progress. His triumph was increased in the same month by his election for East Clare by a large majority, his opponent being P. Lynch, who had been the crown prosecutor and now stood as a Nationalist. The importance of this election rivalled that of the famous Clare election of 1828, when O'Conneli stood. De Valera's sweeping victory gave an immense impetus to the Sinn Fein cause.

From this time until his re-arrest in the spring of the following year De Valera was the heart and soul of the Sinn Fein move- ment. A facile writer and speaker, both in English and Gaelic, he was a 'master of the type of unmeasured eloquence that appeals to the Irish temper, which is impatient of compromise. In Dublin, on the day after his election for Clare, while in the hall of the convention the representatives of the N. and S. were engaged in seeking a formula of union, in the street outside De Valera was telling a cheering crowd that " if Ulster barred the way, Ulster must be coerced." A similar violence characterized all his speeches. The Sinn Fein convention of Oct. 26-27 1917 elected him " President of the Irish Republic."

In the agitation, in the early part of 1918, against " con- scription " De Valera took a leading part. But in May the dis- covery by the Government of another plot for a rising, to be combined with a German invasion, led to his re-arrest together