A good many of the young aristocrats of Detroit have belonged to the Naval Reserve, among them Mr. Truman H. Newberry, former Secretary of the Navy, about whom I heard an amusing story.
According to this tale, as it was told me in Detroit, Mr. Newberry was some years ago a common seaman in the Reserve. It seems that on the occasion of the annual cruise of this body on the Great Lakes, a regular naval officer is sent out to take command of the training ship. One day, when common seaman Newberry was engaged in the maritime occupation of swabbing down the decks abaft the bridge, a large yacht passed majestically by.
"My man," said the regular naval officer on the bridge to common seaman Newberry below, "do you know what yacht that is?"
Newberry saluted. "The _Truant_, sir," he said respectfully, and resumed his work.
Within the last few years there has come to Detroit a new life. The vast growth of the city, owing to the development of the automobile industry, has brought in many new, active, able business men and their families, whom the old Detroiters have dubbed the "Gasoline Aristocracy." Thus there are in Detroit two fairly distinct social groups--the Grosse Pointe group, of which the old families form the nucleus, and the North Woodward group, largely made up of newcomers.
The automobile has not only changed Detroit from a quiet old town into a rich, active city, but upon the drowsy romance of the old days it has superimposed a new kind of romance--the romance of modern business. Fiction in its wildest flights hardly rivals the true stories of certain motor moguls of Detroit. Every one can tell you these stories. If you are a novelist all you have to do is go and get them. But, aside from stories which are true, there have developed, in connection with the automobile business, certain fictions more or less picturesque in character. One of these, which has been widely circulated, is that "90 per cent. of the automobile business of Detroit is done in the bar of the Pontchartrain Hotel." The big men of the business resent that yarn. And, of course, it is preposterously false. Neither 90 per cent. nor 10 per cent. nor any appreciable per cent. of the automobile business is done there. Indeed, you hardly ever see a really important representative of the business in that place. Such men are not given to hanging around bars.