George Romney
George Wilcken Romney (July 8, 1907 – July 26, 1995) was an American businessman and Republican Party politician. He was chairman and president of the American Motors Corporation from 1954 to 1962, the 43rd Governor of Michigan from 1963 to 1969, and the United States Secretary of Housing and Urban Development from 1969 to 1973. He was the father of Mitt Romney, the former Governor of Massachusetts and the 2012 Republican presidential nominee.[1]
Romney served as a Mormon missionary in the United Kingdom and attended several colleges in the U.S. but did not graduate from any. He served as the chief spokesman for the automobile industry during World War II. He became the chief executive of American Motors Corporation in 1954. At American Motors he turned around the then struggling firm by focusing all efforts on the compact Rambler car. Romney mocked the products of the “Big Three” automakers as “gas-guzzling dinosaurs.”[2]
Romney ran for Governor of Michigan in 1962 as an independent-minded reformer defending the individual against the power of “Big Labor, Big Industry, and Big Government.”[3] He was elected and then subsequently re-elected in 1964 and 1966 with increasingly large support. As Governor, Romney worked to overhaul the state’s finances, greatly expanding the size of state government and introducing Michigan’s first state income tax. He succeeded in attracting businesses to the state and in cutting unemployment to below the national average.[4] Romney had also inherited an $85 million budget deficit, but he left office with a surplus.[5] Romney led the way for a large increase in state spending on education, and Michigan thereby began to develop one of the nation’s most comprehensive systems of higher education.[6] (I went to the University of Michigan — Go Blue.)
Romney also was a strong supporter of the American Civil Rights Movement.[7] During his first State of the State address in January 1963, Romney declared that “Michigan’s most urgent human rights problem is racial discrimination—in housing, public accommodations, education, administration of justice, and employment.”[8]
Romney decried both the large influence of labor unions within the Democratic Party and the similarly large influence of big business within the Republican Party.[9] Romney opened his office in the Michigan State Capitol to visitors, spending five minutes with every citizen who wanted to speak with him on Thursday mornings,[10] and he was always sure to shake the hands of schoolchildren visiting the capitol.[11] He almost always eschewed political activities on Sunday, the Mormon Sabbath.[12] Romney saw a moral dimension in every issue and he held his political views with as much fervor as his religious ones.[13] Writer Theodore H. White said “the first quality that surfaced, as one met and talked with George Romney over a number of years, was a sincerity so profound that, in conversation, one was almost embarrassed.”[14]
In the 1964 U.S. presidential election, Senator Barry Goldwater quickly became the likely Republican Party nominee. Goldwater represented a new wave of American conservatism, of which the moderate Romney was not a part.[15] Romney declared, “If [Goldwater’s] views deviate as indicated from the heritage of our Party, I will do everything within my power to keep him from becoming the Party’s Presidential nominee.”[16][17] During the Fall 1964 general election, Romney cut himself off from the national ticket, refusing to appear on the same stage with Goldwater.[18]
Romney campaigned for Governor in mostly Democratic areas and, when pressed at campaign appearances about whether he was supporting Goldwater, he replied, “You know darn well I’m not!”[19] Romney was re-elected as Governor of Michigan in 1964 by a large margin, despite Goldwater’s landslide defeat to President Lyndon B. Johnson that swept away many other Republican candidates.[20][21][22]
Romney was a front runner for the Republican nomination for President of the United States in the 1968 election, but Richard Nixon won the nomination and the election.[23] Nixon later appointed Romney as Secretary of Housing and Urban Development.
The 1968 Fair Housing Act, passed months earlier in the aftermath of the assassination of Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr., directed the government to ‘affirmatively further’ fair housing. When Romney became the Secretary of the Department of Housing and Urban Development, he believed those words gave him the authority to pressure predominantly white communities into building more affordable housing and end discriminatory zoning practices. Romney sought to use his power as secretary of Housing and Urban Development to remake America’s housing patterns, which he described as a “high-income white noose” around the Black inner city. Romney ordered HUD officials to reject applications for water, sewer and highway projects from cities and states in which local policies fostered segregated housing.[24] He dubbed his initiative ‘Open Communities’ but did not clear it with the White House. As word spread that HUD was turning down grants, Nixon’s supporters in the South and in white Northern suburbs took their complaints directly to the President.”[25]
Open Communities conflicted with Nixon’s so-called “Southern strategy” forcing Romney to back down and release federal monies unconditionally in cities that resisted Romney’s policies.[26] At one point, Nixon told his chief of staff, Haldeman, “Just keep [Romney] away from me.”[27][28][29]
Romney was a proud member of the Ripon Society, a centrist public policy organization that was the intellectual heart of moderate Republicanism. While Romney condemned the violence that befell Detroit during the riots there in 1967, he acknowledged that urban unrest was deeply rooted in economic deprivation. Speaking days after the riot, he affirmed, “The drive for human justice has gained ground during the past few years. All our efforts have not been wasted, all our programs designed to bring about equal opportunity are not now valueless. We must not permit a backlash to weaken the valuable programs and policies designed to bring about first-class status for all citizens.[30] ‘We must arouse ourselves from our comfort, pleasure, and preoccupations,’ and “listen to the voices from the ghetto.’”[31]
[1] Tom Mahoney, The Story of George Romney. New York: Harper, 1960.
[2] “The Dinosaur Hunter.” Time, April 6, 1959.
[3] “Politician in High Gear; George Wilcken Romney Wants a Citizen Party”. The New York Times. February 10, 1962.
[4] “Politician in High Gear; George Wilcken Romney Wants a Citizen Party”. The New York Times. February 10, 1962.
[5] Weaver, Warren, Jr. “Romney Sounds an Uncertain Trumpet.” The New York Times Magazine, November 19, 1967.
[6] Paul Brace, State Government and Economic Performance (Baltimore: Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994) 54–55.
[7] “Romney Leads a Protest.” The New York Times, March 10, 1965.
[8] Sidney Fine, Expanding the Frontiers of Civil Rights, (Michigan: Wayne State University Press, 2000) 216, 218. Romney’s advocacy of civil rights brought him criticism from some in his own church. In January 1964, Quorum of the Twelve Apostles member Delbert L. Stapley wrote Romney to say that a proposed civil rights bill was “vicious legislation” and telling him that “the Lord had placed the curse upon the Negro” and men should not seek its removal. Romney refused to change his position and increased his efforts towards civil rights. Regarding the church policy itself, Romney was among those liberal Mormons who hoped the church leadership would revise the theological interpretation, but Romney did not believe in publicly criticizing the church, subsequently saying that fellow Mormon Stewart Udall’s 1967 published denunciation of this policy “cannot serve any useful religious purpose.”
[9] “Politician in High Gear; George Wilcken Romney Wants a Citizen Party.” The New York Times, February 10, 1962.
[10] “An Impatient Politician: George Wilcken Romney.” The New York Times, June 8, 1964.
[11] Barnes, Bart. “George W. Romney Dies at Age 88; Michigan Governor, HUD Secretary.” The Washington Post. July 27, 1995.
[12] “An Impatient Politician: George Wilcken Romney.” The New York Times, June 8, 1964.
[13] Wallace-Wells, Benjamin. “George Romney for President, 1968.” New York Magazine, May 20, 2012.
[14] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1968) 36.
[15] “An Impatient Politician: George Wilcken Romney.” The New York Times, June 8, 1964.
[16] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 154–155, 157.
[17] At the convention, Romney fought for a strengthened civil rights plank in the party platform that would pledge action to eliminate discrimination at the state, local, and private levels, but it was defeated on a voice vote. He also failed to win support for a statement that condemned both left- and right-wing extremism without naming any organizations, which lost a standing vote by a two-to-one margin.
[18] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 351.
[19] Ajemian, Robert, “A Trio of G.O.P. Stars Fighting Hard Not to Be Buried with Barry,” Life, October 30, 1964, 35–38.
[20] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 37. Romney won 15 percent of Michigan’s black vote, compared to Goldwater’s two percent.
[21] Theodore H. White, The Making of the President, (New York: Harper Perennial, 1964) 405.
[22] T. George Harris, Romney’s Way: A Man and an Idea, (New Orleans: Garrett County Press 2012) 241.
[23] Romney formally announced on November 18, 1967, at Detroit’s Veterans Memorial Building, that he had “decided to fight for and win the Republican nomination and election to the Presidency of the United States” (“1967 Year In Review”. United Press International. Retrieved October 20, 2009). His subsequent release of his federal tax returns – twelve years’ worth, going back to his time as the head of the American Motors Corporation– was groundbreaking and it established a precedent with which many future presidential candidates would have to contend. (“Romney Reveals 12–Year Income.” The Pittsburgh Press, November 26, 1967. pp. 1, 9) (Shaxson, Nicholas. “Where the Money Lives.” Vanity Fair (August 2012).)
[24] HUD made Warren, Michigan a prime target for the Open Communities initiative and threatened to halt all federal assistance to the town unless it took a series of actions to end racial discrimination there. Town officials represented that progress was being made and that its citizens resented forced integration. Romney rejected this response, partly because, during his tenure as Governor, Warren residents had thrown rocks and garbage and yelled obscenities for days at a biracial couple who moved into town. Romney said, “The youth of this nation, the minorities of this nation, the discriminated of this nation are not going to wait for ‘nature to take its course.’ What is really at issue here is responsibility – moral responsibility.”
[25] Nikole Hannah Jones, “Living Apart: How the Government Betrayed a Landmark Civil Rights Law,” ProPublica, October 29, 2012.
[26] Charles Lamb, Housing Segregation in Suburban America since 1960 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005), 85–93.
[27] Richard Reeves, President Nixon: Alone in the White House, (New York: Simon & Schuster, 2002), 71.
[28] Another of Romney’s initiatives was “Operation Breakthrough”, which was intended to increase the amount of housing available to the poor, an initiative that did have Nixon’s initial support. Based on his automotive industry experience, Romney thought that the cost of housing could be significantly reduced if in-factory modular construction techniques were used. Romney said, “We’ve got to put an end to the idea of moving to suburban areas and living only among people of the same economic and social class.” This aspect of the program brought about strong opposition at the local suburban level and it eventually lost support in the Nixon White House as well. The initiative was phased out once Romney left HUD, but side effects of the program did lead to more modern and consistent building codes and to the introduction of technological advances such as the smoke alarm. In any case, using conventional methods, [under Romney] HUD set records for the amount of construction of assisted housing for low- and moderate-income families.
[29] Bonastia, Christopher. “Hedging His Bets: Why Nixon Killed HUD’s Desegregation Efforts.” Social Science History (28)1: 19-52 (2004).
[30] That Fall, Romney travelled 10,000 miles to visit the worst neighborhoods in 17 American cities. ‘I think it’s important for public officials—and through their eyes all citizens—to see … the horrible conditions which breed frustration, hatred and revolt,’ he declared. While many of the audiences he addressed were bemused to find a white Republican touring primarily black urban communities, he met with a respectful, if sometimes muted, reception. ‘At least he’s here and that is something,’ one community activist allowed. ‘It seems to show he’s really concerned. We haven’t seen any of those other guys down here in the streets.’ For Romney, the key takeaway of the ghetto tour was that America needed a ‘drastic revision’ of its priorities.
[31] Zeitz, Josh. “What Happened the Last Time Republicans Cared About Poverty,” POLITICO Magazine, April 20, 2015.