U.S. At War: Upset in Detroit

Detroit's youthful, grinny Mayor Edward Jeffries got through the nonpartisan primaries last week. But—as almost no one expected—he finished a poor second to up-&-coming John Francis James Fitz-Gerald. Reasons for the upset: 1) C.I.O. members voting for FitzGerald; 2) Negroes voting against Jeffries.

In two previous campaigns, Mayor Jeffries won by a 2-to-1 majority, with the support of the C.I.O. as well as the white-collar and uppercrust vote. But this time the restive, powerful United Auto Workers (C.I.O.) wanted a man of their own. They picked FitzGerald, a balding Irish attorney who showed surprising strength in 1940 as a Democratic opponent to veteran Senator Arthur Vandenberg. U.A.W. gathered a $30,000 war chest, lavished most of it on last week's primaries, and got out the biggest local labor vote since 1937.

One vote C.I.O. did not have to encourage: the Negro. Rightly or wrongly, Negroes believe they received a bad deal from Jeffries in the June 20 race riot (TIME, June 28) and in the critical months since. And Detroit's politically conscious 150,000 Negroes constitute 9% of the city's population. In Negro precincts, FitzGerald whipped Jeffries 20-to-1. (Examples: 112-1; 148-13; 189-12; 259-5).

Could Jeffries overtake FitzGerald's 37,000 primary lead in the November finals? Political wiseacres hesitated to guess. Jeffries' backers believe their overconfident supporters didn't bother to vote in the primaries.