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History on Stage: The Detroit Players, Prohibition, and the Great Depression
by
Marijean Levering
Nov. 26, 1918: Meeting of the Board of Governors of "The Players" was called to order by Vice-President Weeks (accent on the Vice).... Player Standish was penalized a bottle of Scotch for being absent without leave.
Jan. 14, 1919: After a discussion as to whether or not impeachment proceedings would lie against President Standish for failure to pay the fine assessed against him for absence from a Board Meeting earlier in the season, the meeting adjourned.
Feb. 4, 1919: Upon motion of the entire Board, President Standish's impeachment proceedings were dropped, the fine remitted and the off-set tendered, accepted.1
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This is how the board of governors of The Players, a private, all-male social club that produced theatrical presentations, responded to prohibition—with humor (Michigan instituted statewide prohibition in 1918, a year and a half before national Prohibition).2 This is also how The Players would confront the Depression, if at times the humor was a little grimmer. Examining The Players provides not only an opportunity to look at a private club in more depth than is offered by most scholarly accounts of individual clubs, but also a chance to study an elite group during two periods of significant change in American history. What is most striking about this group's records is how clearly they exhibit two distinct attitudes at Players, one political and one personal. The first attitude is demonstrated most clearly in the group's plays: a recurrent theme was that government needed to stay out of everyone's business, whether economic or private. The second attitude, though found in the plays, is also scattered throughout the minutes of the group's board meetings: men must take personal responsibility and meet their obligations. If the government was not supposed to interfere in people's lives, then men had to take care both of themselves and of those people for whom they were responsible. |
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The first attitude in particular seems almost contradictory considering that at least a few members of The Players were themselves prominent government officials during the early twentieth century. In that sense these men were the government. James Couzens was both the mayor of Detroit from 1919 to 1922 and a U.S. Senator from 1922 to 1936. Truman Newberry was also a U.S. Senator, and other members of the group held Detroit city offices. Admittedly, it may also be true that the perspective gained from their positions of power convinced them that the government should, ideally, stay out of people's private lives. One of the club's more active members, Robert M. Toms, was a judge who prosecuted bootleggers even while his club enjoyed the fruits of their labor, and he could not have been ignorant of the presence of alcohol at the club.3 fHaving changed their minds about prohibition, some club members worked to resolve this inconsistency. Several members of The Players, such as Henry B. Joy, Emory W. Clark, and Frederick M. Alger, who had been avid "drys" (even though their club was most definitely "wet"), became vocal advocates in the movement to repeal Prohibition. Joy, Alger, and a former Player, Sidney T. Miller, were directors of the Michigan Committee of the National Association against the Prohibition Amendment.4 This also reflects the desire of many Players' members to keep government out of what they saw as a private matter. |
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