This series of articles is already being met by an organized barrage by mail and wire and voice, every single item of which carries the wail of persecution. One would think that a heartless and horrible attack were being made on a most pitiable and helpless people – until one looks at the letterheads of the magnates who write, and at the financial ratings of those who protest, and at the membership of the organizations whose responsible heads hysterically demand retraction. And always in the background there is the threat of boycott, a threat which has practically sealed up the columns of every publication in America against even the mildest discussion of the Jewish Question.
The Jewish Question in America cannot be concealed forever by threats against publications, nor by the propagandist publication of matter extremely and invariably favorable to everything Jewish. It is here and it cannot be twisted into something else by the adroit use of propaganda, nor can it be forever silenced by threats. The Jews of the United States can best serve themselves and their fellow-Jews all over the world by letting drop their far too ready cry of ‘anti-Semitism…’
It could be assumed that Henry Ford was a brilliant man, because of the immense impact that his business had on the world, but to do so would be getting ahead of ourselves. Ford was cunning, ruthless, driven and certainly inventive. It’s not uncommon for someone to be highly gifted in an area of life and ignorant in many others. Henry Ford was an under-educated farm boy and a lot of his ideas about society and the world may have been skewed by this fact. Evidence of Henry Ford’s lack of comprehension came to light in 1919, when he sued the Chicago Tribune for libel.
The strides that Ford made for his workforce and the immense, self-promoting marketing campaign he embarked on certainly worked wonders on his public image. Henry Ford was used to being the darling of most columnists and writers, so much so that he couldn’t deal well with anything but being unconditionally beloved. When Henry Ford opposed American military action in Mexico, he began to find criticism in the pages of the Chicago Tribune. The Tribune was in support of drafting men into the National Guard, even vowing to hold jobs for anyone called to duty, while the pacifist Henry Ford refused to do so. An article with the headline: ‘Henry Ford is an Anarchist’ called Ford an ‘ignorant idealist’ and an anarchist-enemy of the nation. This accusations enfuriated Ford and he decided to fight back in court.
Ford took the Chicago Tribune to court, seeking one million dollars in damages. The trial began in the summer of 1919 and took fourteen weeks to present each side. It was during this trial that the ignorance and weak character of Henry Ford became evident. One observer, author John Tebbel, reflected on Ford’s testimony: ‘He was virtually illiterate, obviously, and his philosophy was unashamedly out of the cracker barrel.’ This was a very telling insult to Ford’s intelligence. The use of the term ‘cracker barrel’ refers to the old barrels of crackers that would be in the local country stores during the late nineteenth century. The stereotype is that the plain and simple country folk would gather there to talk, much like the ‘water cooler’ is used as a reference today. Cracker barrel philosophy was thought to be the inane ramblings of ignorant rural citizens.
The primary lawyer for the Tribune, Elliott K. Stevenson, began to ask Ford a number of questions on American history, in order to establish his level of ignorance and validating the newspaper’s position on his intelligence. Among the absurdities, Henry Ford was found to believe that the Revolutionary War occurred in 1812, and thought that notorious traitor Benedict Arnold was a writer. It has been said that copies of Ford’s testimony were printed and sold near the courthouse, inspiring an immense amount of laughter and mockery from the public. The entire experience served only to show a wilful ignorance in Ford. Ford refused to read in front of the jury, making excuses about forgetting his glasses and that his eyes watering; when asked if he wanted to leave the jury with the impression that he was illiterate, Ford is said to have replied: ‘Yes, you can leave it that way.’ Throughout the eight days of questioning, Henry Ford would often lose interest and wander around the courtroom, looking out the windows and fidgeting. He was clearly out of his league in the proceedings.
The jury, which consisted primarily of farmers, did find for Henry Ford in the end. They awarded him the amount of six whole cents after a ten-hour deliberation.
In 1927, Jewish lawyer and farm cooperative organiser Aaron Sapiro brought a lawsuit against Henry Ford accusing him of defamation for his many years of clearly anti-Semitic articles in The Dearborn Independent. This was the third lawsuit of this kind that had been raised against the newspaper, but the only one that would end up going to trial. Ford would not testify at the trial, but instead faked a car accident and hid out in the hospital to avoid it. Ford would then issue a less than sincere apology and shut down The Dearborn Independent for good. The final issue was published on 31 December 1927.
Ford wrote a statement of apology to be released on 30 June 1927, regarding ‘Charges Against Jews Made in His Publications, The Dearborn Independent and a Series of Pamphlets Entitled The ‘International Jew’. In this apology letter he defers responsibility of the newspaper’s anti-Jew articles to his underlings and basically denies the reality that he was the mastermind behind the racist newspaper:
For some time past I have given consideration to the series of articles concerning Jews which since 1920 have appeared in The Dearborn Independent. Some of them have been reprinted in pamphlet form under the title ‘The International Jew’. Although both publications are my property, it goes without saying that in the multitude of my activities it has been impossible for me to devote personal attention to their management or to keep informed as to their contents. It has therefore inevitably followed that the conduct and policies of these publications had to be delegated to men whom I placed in charge of them and upon whom I relied implicitly.
In an even more nervy move, Ford goes on to paint himself in a sympathetic manner towards Jews, while subsequently claiming that he had no idea that his newspaper was publishing his own editorials and collecting them in book format for distribution at his own dealerships and worldwide readership:
To my great regret I have learned that Jews generally, and particularly those of this country, not only resent these publications as promoting anti-Semitism, but regard me as their enemy. Trusted friends with whom I have conferred recently have assured me in all sincerity that in their opinion the character of the charges and insinuations made against the Jews, both individually and collectively, contained in many of the articles which have been circulated periodically in The Dearborn Independent and have been reprinted in the pamphlets mentioned, justifies the righteous indignation entertained by Jews everywhere toward me because of the mental anguish occasioned by the unprovoked reflections made upon them.
Henry Ford ordered the remaining copies of his horrible anti-Semitic book to be burned and the production of future copies ceased. The sad reality is that by then, Ford had already used his considerable authority and influence as a cultural icon to legitimise his racist ideals. A lot of Jewish organisations at the time accepted Ford’s apology as sincere, especially since he shut the paper down, but it would later be revealed in the accounts of those that knew him that Henry Ford still firmly held his views behind closed doors, as evidenced by his ongoing involvement financially and publicly with the Nazi Party.