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DuPont became general manager and chief engineer of the Citizens' Line in March 1895. He supervised a six-million-dollar renovation of the company's ninety-seven miles of track, including the electrification of horse-drawn sections. DuPont purchased hundreds of new electric cars, and to facilitate the weight of the new rolling stock he replaced obsolete track with heavier gauge rails manufactured at Tom Johnson's Pennsylvania mill. DuPont also won praise from trade publications for his innovations and inventions in Detroit. These included a thirty-inch diameter pipe designed to discharge condensation from the company's power plant, arranged to prevent clogging and freezing in winter, and a novel inspection car mounted on a pivoting turntable, which enabled duPont to travel on tracks of varying diameter during his inspections without switching cars. It was also likely during his stay in Detroit that duPont developed a new electric heating and ventilating system for large streetcars, which was soon adopted by street railways throughout the United States. DuPont was also obsessed with the "little touches" designed to cultivate a positive public image for the Citizens' Line, ranging from clean cars to easy-to-read signs.¹⁰ Little wonder Tom Johnson later praised his friend for creating "the best electrically equipped street railroad in existence."¹¹ In 1898 the Citizens' Line merged with a competing system to form the Detroit, Fort Wayne, & Belle Isle Railway, and duPont became general manager of the new, expanded, company.¹²

The duPont years in Detroit were characterized not only by efficiency, but also by good employee relations. The motormen and conductors of the Detroit street railways, represented by the Amalgamated Association of Street and Railway Employees, had a reputation for "[going] around with a chip on their shoulder," and had engaged in a bloody strike in 1891.¹³ A dearth of source material makes it impossible to assess the intricacies of collective bargaining and labor-management relations during the duPont years, but the feeling of mutual respect between manager duPont and his workers was so strong that upon the announcement, in December 1900, that he was leaving for a position in St. Louis, one thousand members of the Association held a farewell banquet in his honor. The union's president, W.D. Mahon, thanked duPont for "the honorable, respectful way he treated his men." The Detroit Free Press called duPont "one of the best street railway men in the country, one of the best citizens and one of the best fellows," and the Detroit News proclaimed that duPont would "never be more popular with the street railway men in St. Louis than he has been in Detroit."¹⁴

It is difficult to ascertain the origins of A.B. duPont's enlightened attitude towards labor. His father had shown no qualms about taking a firm line with unions and breaking strikes in Louisville, and his older brother, Thomas Coleman duPont, destined to become president of E.I duPont deNumours, had once used convict labor to break a strike in a family-owned Kentucky coal mine.¹⁵ But many of the duPonts, despite their wealth and positions of privilege, also exhibited degrees of independent idealism. For example, Antoine Bidermann duPont Sr. had boldly supported the Union cause in the Civil War, despite the presence in Louisville of significant Confederate sympathy, and Ermann's sister Zara would, in later years, march in support of the Loyalist cause in the Spanish Civil War.¹⁶ But duPont was undoubtedly also influenced by his friend, Tom Johnson, who had long cultivated a reputation for enlightened labor policies. Johnson's companies generally paid higher wages than those of his competitors, and even during economic recessions he refused to enact layoffs. As a congressman Johnson had backed legislation to enact an eight-hour day for federal employees, and no less a figure than Samuel Gompers of the American Federation of Labor later commended Johnson for endorsing "the measures in which labor was interested."¹⁷ As Tom Johnson and Antoine duPont developed a close relationship, the younger man fell under the influence of his mentor, adopting Johnson's belief in the fair treatment of workers. As historian Hoyt Landon Warner has written, "Johnson's talent for inspiring followers was extraordinary."¹⁸

Tom Johnson also educated his disciple in the movement for equitable taxation, as Ermann duPont's years in Detroit were marked by a growing allegiance to the Single Tax philosophy of reformer Henry George. In his 1879 treatise, Progress and Poverty, George argued that the inequality between the taxes paid by privileged interests and those paid by working class people was responsible for nearly all of the world's social problems. George proposed replacing all taxes with a "Single Tax" on real estate appreciation. More than simply a tax reform measure, Henry George considered his idea a panacea for all of society's ills.¹⁹

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