Why They Tried To Destroy Austin

Why They Tried To Destroy Austin

By Nadine Brown

Whenever a candidate for a coveted political! office gains and maintains a far-out lead over others vying for the same position, he is bound to be a target. Opponents will spend almost as much time, effort, and money trying to dig up something that they hope will discredit the front-runner and enhance their own chances as they devote to their actual campaigns.

This practice is viewed by both Democratic and Republican Party regulars as part of the political process, and the usual response to questions about it is "that's politics."

Many see nothing unusual from the norm in the recent attack on Secretary of State Richard H. Austin by one of his three opponents in the race for the Democratic Party's U.S. Senate nomination, which will be decided August 3. All four are aspiring to the seat being vacated by Sen. Philip Hart, who is retiring after 18 years in the Senate.

But many more feel there's an ulterior motive involved.

Since no black Democrat has been elected to the U.S. Senate in the Party's history, Austin, the only black candidate, is considered the best-known person who can set the precedent.

The only blacks who held seats in the Senate during Reconstruction were elected in the South from the Republican Party, the party of Lincoln. And the only black member of the Senate today is Sen. Edward Brooke, a Republican from Massachusetts. More and more blacks are using that tact in criticizing the Democratic Party's policies.

It was in the early '30's that a group of blacks, led by the late attorney Harold Bledsoe, decided to bolt the Republican Party, which had consistently ignored the needs and rights of the Negro people. There was no stampede at first, but finally, like the Pied Piper, the band of leaders led a mass exodus out of the Grand Old Party and into the Democratic ranks.

During a discussion about that historic period, attorney Robcrt Millender, Austin's campaign manager, recalled that his father, who was chairman of the West Side Republicans, was reluctant to leave his people at that time. "It was in 1936 that he resigned from his chairman post and became a Democrat," Millender said. Many others made the transition that same year, he added.

Some political pros in the Democratic Party recognize the fact that voters in heavily black Detroit and Wayne County have often carried the Party's ticket to victory. And they feel it is now essential that Austin is elected to the Senate. But there are some die-hards who don't think that way.

WHY ELSMAN ATTACKED

Austin was projected as a Democratic Party candidate in the campaign against Republican Sen. Robert Griffin in 1972. But the steamroller was soon launched in state Attorney General Frank Kelley's favor, and Austin, realizing the futility of his efforts, made no contest. Kelley was then soundly beaten by Griffin.

Since he first entered the political arena in the '60's, Austin has earned the label of "Mr. Clean," even among some of his foes. And many voters are rejecting the attack on him as a ruse to once again block him from the Senate nomination.

Austin did not announce his candidacy until April 27, while two of his opponents, Congressmen James O'Hara of Utiea and Donald Riegle of Flint, have been shaking the bushes across the state for nearly a year. According to opinion polls, O'Hara and Riegle have not yet risen above their very distant second and third positions behind Austin.

James Elsman, a Birmingham lawyer who charged Austin with coercing branch managers for funds, is the least-known Candidate and is trailing far behind the two Congressmen.

Another Congressman, Rep. Marvin L. Esch (Republican from Ann Arbor) hopes to reap the benefits from the Democratic squabble and win the Senate race for his party.

Austin, well-known throughout the state, became a front-runner almost as soon as his name was mentioned as a possible Senate candidate. Early this year, Austin's age, now 63, was attacked. But questions about whether he could stand the pace in the Senate fizzled in the face of his abounding energy and mental prowess, which one politician said "would put much younger men to shame."

Last month, Elsman, who has been frantically trying to attract enough voter attention to move up from his low-man-on-the-totem-pole position in the four man race, charged Austin with raising his campaign money by using a "corrupt system."

Elsman says that Austin forced the Secretary of State's branch managers he appointed to contribute money to his campaign, and that he is benefiting from a - "spoils system." Elsman claims his secretary, Paulette Fabrizio, posed as a citizen and got an admission over the telephone from a suburban branch manager that some appointees are pressured into making contributions.

Despite the fact that Austin announced last week that he has ended the branch manager contributions to his campaign and has engaged a private accounting firm to audit the funds, Elsman, gleeful over the media attention his attack has received, has reportedly vowed to continue his plans  to file a lawsuit against Austin. He says he wants a grand jury to look nto the patronage system operated by the Secretary of State-which is out of the question, due to the shortage of time before the August 3 primary.

THE PATRONAGE SYSTEM

The patronage system, operated through the Secretary of State, has been a longstanding practice by both major political parties. It has spanned some four or five decades, and it has been no secret that it has benefited the political party's coffers.

Candidates seeking appointment appear before the Congressional district's steering, or policy, committee, which makes recommendations to the district's membership. There the request is either endorsed or turned down.

This writer, who has been an active member of the Democratic Party and has served as an officer, has witnessed and participated in gruelling questions posed to potential appointees. Most candidates who had not been active in the party were rejected.

One of the key questions asked of anyone seeking the membership's approval for his or her appointment was: "Will you support the party both actively and financially?" And if the membership learned that any appointee had reneged on the promise to contribute, there was a clamor for that appointee's removal. On one occasion, district officers were threatened with recall if they didn't act on that demand.

Every politically sophisticated person knows this, and so do the news media's political writers. Therefore, it must be assumed that Elsman is not politically astute and may not have known about the long history of the patronage system, in view  of the fact that he simply threw all of his accusations only at Austin.

When Austin was elected Secretary of State in 1970, he won by a very healthy  margin. In his 1974 re-election, he carried the Democratic ticket with the highest number of votes.

The constructive changes he has made as Secretary of State include one that permits applicants for new or renewal driver licenses to also apply for voter registration. The new practice, adopted by both houses of the State Legislature and signed into law by the Governor, is the first of its kind to be put into operation in the nation.

Austin has also instituted a special assistance and counseling program for senior citizen drivers, and obtained authorization for women who desire to do so to use  their maiden names in all business transactions.

But the major reform which won applause from farmers and others in rural areas, as well as in urban communities, is the provision that made it possible for if Michigan citizens to purchase auto and driver licenses by mail, instead of having to apply in person at a Branch office.

Constructive changes were not new to Austin. His skills with financial affairs became public knowledge when he became the first black to be elected as Wayne County Auditor in 1966. He brought the County's finances out of the red and warded off a pending lawsuit threatened by Detroit because of money owed it by the County.

Nor is he a stranger to attacks. Austin had a clear road to election as Mayor of  Detroit until former Mayor Roman Gribbs filed just before the deadline. Then about  two days before election, a daily newspaper ran a headline article saying that Frank Ditto, a controversial militant, was a member of Austin 's staff.

Millender, Austin's campaign manager had released a list of Austin's volunteer  workers to the media about two months previously. What the media did in printing that untrue story regarding Ditto was to frighten conservative whites into rejecting Austin.

AUSTIN ENDS PATRONAGE

Millender explained during a SUN interview that Austin continued the phase-out of branch managers, and their replacement by Civil Service workers, which was started by former Secretary of State James Hare. Hare began the move as a result of a court suit filed by the Civil Service Commission, and a consent decree, sanctioned by the court, to turn the branches over to Civil Service.

"Austin has kept well within the schedule set by that decree," Millender said. "He has reduced the branch managers from 240 to 95 during his five and a half years in office." Millender also refuted Elsman's charge about Austin's appointments. "He has only appointed eigtit new branch managers, and that was done only by attrition -when someone died, resigned, or quit."

This was most unusual, in view of the fact that newly elected officials customarily "clean house," so to speak, and appoint their own people to the jobs.

After being turned down in his request that the Internal Revenue Service and the Michigan Revenue Service audit the Secretary of State's funds, Austin hired the firm of Arthur Anderson & Co. to conduct the audit.

He said branch managers have contributed about $50,000 to his campaign, but that "As of now, any and all ties between the branch manager system and political contributions of any kind are ended. No longer will any political contributions from branch managers be accepted by me."

Austin behemently denies usingany coercion to get funds: "Contributions were made on a voluntary basis. But when it comes to political ethics, appearance is almost as important as fact."