Hazen S. Pingree

From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Hazen Pingree's statue located at Grand Circus Park, Detroit, Michigan
Hazen Pingree's statue located at Grand Circus Park, Detroit, Michigan

Hazen Stuart Pingree (August 30, 1840June 18, 1901) was a four-term Republican mayor of Detroit (1889-1897) and Governor of the U.S. state of Michigan (1897-1901). Pingree, after taking office as Governor on January 1, 1897, intended to also fill the last year of his term as mayor of Detroit, which would have lasted until elections in November 1897. However, his right to hold the two offices simultaneously was contested, and after the Michigan Supreme Court ruled against him, Pingree resigned as mayor (see Catlin p. 628).

Born in Denmark, Maine, he was a cobbler by trade and moved to Detroit following the Civil War, where he established the Pingree and Smith Shoe Co.

Pingree was elected mayor of Detroit in 1889 on a platform of exposing and ending corruption in city paving contracts, sewer contracts, and the school board. He soon turned to fighting privately owned utility monopolies. He challenged the electric and gas monopolies through municipally-owned competitors. His largest struggle, however, was with Tom L. Johnson, president of the Detroit City Railways, over lowering streetcar fares to three-cents. Pingree again attempted to create a competing municipally-owned company, but was barred from creating a railway by the Michigan Constitution.

During the depression of 1893, he expanded the public welfare programs, initiated public works for the unemployed, built new schools, parks, and public baths. He gained national recognition through his "potato patch plan," a systematic use of vacant city land for gardens which would produce food for the city's poor.

He was an advocate of economist Henry George's single tax. He died in 1901 in London, England, whilst returning from an African safari with former President Theodore Roosevelt. He is buried at the Woodlawn Cemetery in Detroit. There is a statue of Pingree standing in the Grand Circus Park in Detroit, commemorating him as "The Idol of the People."

[edit] References

Preceded by
John T. Rich
Governor of Michigan
1897–1901
Succeeded by
Aaron T. Bliss