On January 11, 1937, after the violence at the Battle of the Running Bulls, Gov. Frank Murphy ordered the National Guard to Flint. Two days later, nearly 1,300 officers and men arrived "equipped with all the panoply of war." Although the armed troops appeared menacing, the strikers delighted in their arrival, since they considered the National Guard as under the control of the governor, whom they generally trusted. Murphy had informed several key UAW officials that the troops would be used both to protect the strikers and to prevent their eviction. His decision to support the strikers played a key role in forcing GM to the bargaining table.
Source:
Library of Congress, LC-USF34- 040023-D, Farm Security Administration, Office of War Information Photograph Collection. Downloaded from the American Memory website, http://memory.loc.gov/ammem/index.html.
