Episcopal Press and News
Faith Was at Core of Williams' Life
Episcopal News Service. February 11, 1988 [88026]
Richard Walker
DETROIT (DPS, Feb. 11) -- Former Michigan Governor. G. Mennen "Soapy" Williams, for whom the core of a 50-year career in public service was the Christian faith, died last week, after suffering a cerebral hemorrhage.
Williams, 76, was a former assistant secretary of state for African affairs in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations, ambassador to the Philippines, and chief justice of the Michigan Supreme Court.
In 1986, after 16 years on the bench, he was unable to seek re-election because of Michigan's mandatory retirement law.
But the Episcopal Church has no such rule for lay leaders and Williams was re-elected only days before his death as senior warden of Detroit's Cathedral Church of St. Paul.
"He was one of the few people I've ever known among the great who lived out what they say they believe in everyday life," said the Very Rev. Bertram Herlong, Detroit cathedral dean.
"It's a great loss for us, but we can rejoice in the example he gave us as a person who lives out in his life something in common with everybody. He was a man of great faith."
Known as "Soapy" for most of his life because of the soap and toiletries business founded by his maternal grandfather, Williams was an active Episcopalian virtually his entire life -- from acolyte and choirboy to leading layman as an adult. A priest was at his side at the hospital and administered the last rites of the Church before his death.
Despite a patrician background and election as president of the Young Republicans while in college at Princeton, Williams became a liberal Democrat during the New Deal era. He held various state and federal appointive positions after receiving his law degree from the University of Michigan in 1936 and served with the Navy in World War II.
With the help of labor unions and liberal reformers, the 37-year-old Williams organized a maverick campaign in 1948 that won him the Democratic nomination for Governor over allies of Teamsters' boss Jimmy Hoffa. He then upset an incumbent Republican to begin the first of six two-year terms as Michigan chief executive. In that campaign, he adopted the green polka dot bow ties that became his trademark.
For the race, Williams had to take a $16,000 mortgage on his home in suburban Grosse Pointe. The candidate and his wife Nancy campaigned city-to-city in a beat-up convertible and colleagues recalled that Williams overcame his innate shyness by calling square dances at political events.
The Williams administration laid the ground for making Michigan a genuine two-party state and became known for championing civil rights, education, and the interests of the working class in the home of the U.S. auto industry.
He appointed the first blacks to the Michigan judiciary and other major government posts. Williams also pushed for construction of the Mackinac Bridge that linked Michigan's upper and lower peninsulas.
But battles over fiscal policy with opposition legislators led to the spectacle of "payless paydays" for public employees in 1959 and he declined to seek re-election in 1960.
Williams considered seeking the presidency himself, but in the spring of 1960 threw his support to John Kennedy in what was considered a crucial step in Kennedy's march to a first-ballot nomination.
Author Theodore White, in his Pulitzer Prize-winning The Making of the President 1960, quoted a Kennedy campaign memo describing the Michigan governor's political motivation as stemming from his religious faith.
"Everyone seems to agree that Williams is a man of strong convictions" the memo said.
"He takes himself very seriously and believes that his is an instrument of God's will in furthering liberal humanitarian causes. He is a devout Episcopalian and will show moving pictures of his trip to the Holy Land at the drop of a hat. Williams apparently sees himself as having been tapped to put the Sermon on the Mount into governmental practice."
"This is not a pose but reflects a sincere, if unusual, conviction...any approach to him which overlooks this strong religious drive -- which is completely intermeshed with his personal ambition -- will miss the mark."
In 1961, President Kennedy named Williams as Washington's chief spokesman on Africa in the New Frontier administration with the newly created spot of Assistant Secretary of State for African Affairs.
The "winds of change" were blowing across the continent during a time of rapid decolonization and Williams championed U.S. aid for newly emerging black states under a policy he called "Africa for the Africans."
This earned Williams an airport punch in the jaw from an angry white Rhodesian and South Africa barred him from entering that white-ruled republic. But Kennedy stood by his diplomat and Williams criss-crossed Africa in a period when the former Belgian Congo and Rhodesia were major trouble spots.
Williams' only political defeat came in 1966 when a bid for the U.S. Senate was buried in a Republican landslide. He was later named ambassador to the Philippines by President Lyndon Johnson and in 1970 was elected to the Michigan Supreme Court.
"He was one of the great progressive leaders of our country," Michigan Gov. James Blanchard said in a tribute.
Bishop H. Coleman McGhee, Michigan diocesan, recalled that for "Soapy" Williams "his church was first in his life."
"There was nothing we would ask him to do connected with the church -- to go speak somewhere or to work on a committee or whatever -- that he would not do. It was almost unbelievable how he responded to every request that came from his church," the bishop said.
In recognition of the many services of "Soapy" and his wife Nancy Williams, the Detroit Cathedral recently named its new apartment complex for low-income elderly the "Williams Pavillion."
Williams is survived by his wife, three children, eight grandchildren, and his brother Richard.
During a funeral Eucharist on Feb. 5 at the Detroit Cathedral, the Prayer Book liturgy was punctuated by tributes from political luminaries and a selection of hymns -- including "Onward Christian Soldiers," "The Strife Is O'er," "The King of Love My Shepherd Is," and "We Shall Overcame" -- which Williams himself picked out for his funeral years ago. Roman Catholic Archbishop Edmund Szoke was also in the clergy processional.
For 1,300 mourners who packed the Cathedral, Federal Judge Horace Gilmore recalled Williams' decades of work for the Church, including recent service as committee for the 1988 General Convention in Detroit.
"The many newspaper articles in recent days have largely missed the religious dimension," the judge said.
"He was a very religious man and a committed Christian. He believed in the Fatherhood of God and the brotherhood of man."