Gerald E. Buckley (April 5, 1891 – July 23, 1930) was an American radio commentator in Detroit, Michigan. He successfully campaigned for the recall of Mayor Charles Bowles in the wake of corruption allegations. Prior to his death, Buckley had served as an investigator for Henry Ford, and as a special investigator for the United States government.
Early life and career
Jerry Buckley was born and spent his youth in Detroit’s oldest neighborhood of Corktown. Buckley and his five siblings were raised by his mother, Anna “Annie” C. Buckley, a stay-at-home mom and Michigan native, and his father, Jeremiah “J.C.” Buckley, a moneyed landowner who emigrated from Canada to Michigan in 1884.
As a popular young adult, Jerry Buckley was known for his good looks and his “playboy” attitude, wooing women through his musical compositions and frequent presence in local nightclubs. In 1915, at the age of 24, Jerry Buckley married Michigan native Jeanette Logan, who gave birth to their only daughter, Rosemary, in 1918.
Buckley served as an investigator for Henry Ford, owner of Ford Motor Company, during the 1921 Newberry v. United States Supreme Court case, in which Ford legally challenged his defeat to Truman Newberry in the 1918 US Senate Election. Following his involvement in this case, Buckley continued to work as a government investigator on various legal cases, and occasionally channeled his investigative skills to aid his brother, George, in his legal work. Buckley’s lifelong passion for song composition, combined with his investigative background, led him to a career in broadcasting, where he would become one of the first media celebrities of the burgeoning new medium of radio in the 1920s.
Radio career
In 1928, Buckley began hosting a 6 p.m. nightly commentary program on Detroit radio station WMBC. Since the imposition of Prohibition in Michigan in 1917, Detroit had become a mecca for criminal activity, with prostitution, gambling and illegal alcohol production and consumption running rampant in the hands of mobsters, resulting in frequent gangland killings. Bootleggers operated extensively in Detroit, using nearby Windsor, Ontario as a conduit to funnel liquor illicitly into the US. Broadcasting from WMBC-AM studios on the top floor of the luxurious LaSalle Hotel, Buckley used his platform to enact a campaign against the rampant and rising crime in Detroit.
Buckley voiced the fears and outrage of his Detroit audience, whom he called the "Common Herd," openly criticizing and accusing city government officials of incompetence and attacking those whom he believed to be at fault for Detroit's rising crime rates. Buckley also served as an advocate for his "Common Herd," lobbying for various social causes such as social welfare programs, old-age pensions and providing jobs for the unemployed. This advocacy earned him his status as "the voice of the people" amidst the beginnings of the Depression Era, when unemployment figures skyrocketed in Detroit.
The success of Buckley's radio career came at a price; although beloved by the masses, he was also subject to numerous threats for his uninhibited critique of illicit activities in Detroit. When implored to hire a bodyguard to protect him, Buckley reportedly dismissed the suggestion, stating, "I get twenty threats a day. There is always someone who says I'll be killed." Despite his joking, Buckley kept a room at the LaSalle Hotel for emergency scenarios, and allegedly refused to leave the hotel on multiple occasions out of fear for his safety.
In the summer of 1930, Buckley's programs increasingly focused on claims of corruption among various Detroit officials, specifically targeting then-Mayor Charles Bowles.
Mayoral recall
The tension and violence that permeated throughout Detroit culminated in "Bloody July" in July 1930, during which ten men were killed by gangsters in the span of two weeks. Just before the start of Buckley’s broadcast on the night of July 3, two Chicago-based dope peddlers, later identified as George Collins and William Cannon, were murdered just outside the LaSalle Hotel on Woodward Avenue. Buckley quickly gathered information regarding the double-homicide, and delivered detailed information to his audience on his broadcast that night. Infuriated by this murder, and the eight murders to follow, Buckley attacked the Detroit police department for its inability to quell this explosion of violence, and specifically targeted newly-elected Mayor Charles Bowles for his inadequate response to the crime wave.