Aftermath
All of the seriously wounded marchers were arrested, and the police chained many to their hospital beds after they were admitted for treatment. A nationwide search was conducted for William Z. Foster, but he was not arrested. No law enforcement or Ford security officer was arrested, although all reliable reports showed that only they had engaged in gunfire, resulting in deaths, injuries, and property damage. The New York Times reported that "Dearborn streets were stained with blood, streets were littered with broken glass and the wreckage of bullet-riddled automobiles, and nearly every window in the Ford plant's employment building had been broken".
The following day, Detroit newspapers reported sensational and mistaken accounts of the violence, apparently based on rumors or false police reports. The Detroit Free Press, for example, falsely claimed that Harry Bennett and four policemen had been shot. The Detroit Press said that "six shots fired by a communist hiding behind a parked car were cited by police Monday night as the match which touched off a riot at the Ford Motor Company plant". The Detroit Times wrote that "These professional Communists alone are morally guilty of the assaults and killings which took place before the Ford plant." The Mirror ran a headline saying "Red Leaders Facing Murder Trials". The national press was more critical of the security forces. The New York Herald Tribune wrote: "The Dearborn police are to be condemned for using guns on an unarmed crowd, for viciously bad judgment and for the killing of four men."[4]
In the following days, the local newspapers gathered more information and changed their tone, reassigning blame for the deaths and severe injuries of unemployed and unarmed workers. The Detroit Times, for example, said that "Someone, it is now admitted, blundered in the handling of the throng of Hunger Marchers that sought to present petitions at the Ford plant in River Rouge." It called "the killing of obscure workmen, innocent of crime ... a blow directed at the very heart of American institutions." The Detroit News reported that "Insofar as the demonstration itself had leaders present in the march, they appear to have warned the participants against a fight."
The mainstream trade union movement spoke out against the killings. The Detroit Federation of Labor, affiliated with the American Federation of Labor, issued a statement saying that "The outrageous murdering of workers at the Ford Motor Plant in Dearborn on Monday has cast a stain on this community that will remain a disgrace for many years."
On March 12, an estimated 25,000 to 60,000 people participated in a funeral procession for the four dead marchers, who were buried side by side in Woodmere Cemetery in Detroit. The slogan of the funeral march was "Smash the Ford-Murphy Terror". A fifth marcher, Curtis Williams (36), died of injuries five months later on August 7, 1932. When Woodmere Cemetery refused to allow Williams, an African American, to be buried there, Williams's family arranged for his cremation. The union chartered an airplane to scattered his ashes over the River Rouge complex.[7][8]
Detroit Mayor Frank Murphy said that "the chaining of patient prisoners to beds is a brutal practice that should find no encouragement in an enlightened hospital". Murphy was criticized because some observers thought Detroit police may have been involved in the violence, but a historian writing nearly 50 years later described their role as "peripheral". Murphy denounced Harry Bennett as an "inhuman brute" and called Henry Ford a "terrible man". He asked, "What is the difference between the official Dearborn police and Ford's guards?" His answer was, "A legalistic one." Murphy's profile rose after the incident. He became Governor of Michigan and ended his public career as an Associate Justice of the US Supreme Court.[9]
Nine years later, on April 11, 1941, after the economy had begun to recover and 40,000 Ford workers conducted a ten-day sit down strike, Henry Ford signed a collective bargaining agreement with the United Auto Workers union.[10]
