James J. Couzens

James J. Couzens

James J. Couzens (born August 26, 1872 in Chatham , Ontario , Canada , † October 22, 1936 in Detroit , Michigan ) was an American entrepreneur , politician of the Republican Party and both mayor of Detroit and longtime senator for Michigan .

biography

Couzens was one of the co-founders of Ford in 1903 and worked for the Ford Motor Company until 1919 .

At the same time he began a local political career in Detroit and was initially from 1913 to 1915 Commissioner for the trams ( Commissioner of Street Railways ). He was then the city's Police Commissioner between 1916 and 1918 . After that he was finally even Mayor ( Mayor ) of Detroit and held this position from 1919 to 1922.

On November 29, 1922, he was named a US Senator to end the term of office of Truman Handy Newberry , who had previously resigned on November 18, 1922 on charges of election fraud .

The formation was on his initiative from 1924 through 1926 a Joint Committee of Taxation of the US Congress ( United States Congress Joint Committee on Taxation ) by the Revenue Act of 1926 . At the time, there were numerous reports of inefficiency and waste within the agency, as well as numerous allegations that the tax return method provided numerous incentives to bribe tax officials. One of the key tasks the committee was supposed to investigate was estimating the value of oil drilling rigs - there seemed to be no system, no coherence, and no competent oversight of the procedures that were going on at the time. After the Senator publicly accused the bureau in 1925 of withholding millions of dollars in taxes from the state by preferring treatment of large corporations, that same bureau shortly thereafter informed him to pay back $ 10 million in personal taxes.

During his membership in the US Senate, he was also from 1926 to 1929 Chairman of the Senate Committee on Education and Labor ( US Senate Committee on Education and Labor ). He was then between 1928 and 1933 Chairman of the Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce ( US Senate Committee on Interstate Commerce ).

Couzens ran successfully for re-election several times as a representative of the Republicans and thus belonged to the United States Senate as the holder of the second Senate seat ( Senator Class 2 ) from Michigan until his death. However, he was defeated in the Republican primaries for the Senate election in 1936 to his internal party challenger Wilber M. Brucker , a former governor of Michigan .

His son Frank Couzens was mayor of Detroit from 1933 and 1934 to 1938.

Individual evidence

1. ↑ rulers.org

Web links

• James J. Couzens in the Biographical Directory of the United States Congress (English)
• James J. Couzens in the nndb (English)