Henry Ford: The Man

HENRY FORD -- THE MAN

HENRY FORD was born on July 30, 1863, during the American Civil War, on a farm at Dearborn, near Detroit, Michigan. He was the son of William Ford, a prosperous farmer who was of Irish stock. His mother was of mixed Dutch and Scandinavian origin. At 17 he became an apprentice in a machine shop in Detroit, and he also kept a machine shop of his own and worked for a harvester company by repairing their portable farm engines. His mechanical genius showed itself in early youth, and in 1890, when he secured a post with the Detroit Edison Electric Company, he realized that the public were more interested in road vehicles than in tractors and he studied the principles of the gas engine to overcome the weight of steam engines. In 1887 he had built his first gas engine and kept on building more. His first gasoline "buggy" was given a public trial in 1893 at which it attained a speed of 25 miles an hour.

In 1903 he formed the Ford Motor Company with 12 shareholders and a capital of 100,000 dollars. In 1924 he was producing one thousand of the world-famous Ford motor-cars a day. In 1924 the annual production of the Ford works reached the towering peak of two million cars, trucks and tractors. The secret of his success lay in mass production methods, and high wages. Of humble origin himself he had a deep feeling for his employees, and worked out rough and ready principles in regard to labour which he constantly applied. One was to pay the highest possible wages, and in this he was a true reformer; another, to accept applicants for work without questions or references. Many European socialists were impressed by Ford's proof demonstration that Marx had been rendered obsolete by Ford and that capitalism could be rationalized and moralized. In 1918, Ford, who had been a supporter of President Wilson, had unsuccessfully run for the Senate, and there was some talk later -- it caused alarm among the professional politicians -- that he would run for the Presidency, but he announced that he would not stand against Coolidge. Ford made great endeavours, most of them impracticable, to negotiate peace between the warring nations of Europe in the first world war.

In 1920 he went into print and bought "The Dearborn Independent," a virile and very independent journal published in his home town. It was noted for its courageous and continuous examination of the Jewish Question in America, and for its objective views on true Americanism.

Ford was accused by many Jews, along with. Deterding and Greuger, to be a financial backer of the Hitler movement in Germany. At the Nuremberg Tribunal, Baldur Von Shirach, Hitler Youth Leader, said he had become "Jew-wise" through reading Ford's books.

Ford was a resolute opponent of Roosevelt's policy of "controls" in industry and commerce, but in his later years his political and other public activities were few. He died aged 83, at Detroit, April 7, 1947. A famous American and one of the world's outstanding individuals.

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In his book "My Life and Work," published in 1922, Henry Ford includes the following concerning the "International Jew" series of articles: "The work which we describe as Studies in the Jewish Question, and which is variously described by antagonists as "the Jewish campaign," "the attack on the Jews," "the anti-Semitic pogrom," and so forth, needs no explanation to those who have followed it. Its motives and purposes must be judged by the work itself. It is offered as a contribution to a question which deeply affects the country, a question which is racial at its source, and which concerns influences and ideals rather than persons. Our statements must be judged by candid readers who are intelligent enough to lay our words alongside life as they are able to observe it. If our word and their observation agree, the case is made. It is perfectly silly to begin to damn us before it has been shown that our statements are baseless or reckless. The first item to be considered is the truth of what we have set forth. And that is precisely the item which our critics choose to evade. Readers of our articles will see at once that we are not actuated by any kind of prejudice, except it may be a prejudice in favour of the principles which have made our civilization. There had been observed in this country certain streams of influence which were causing a marked deterioration in our literature, amusements, and social conduct; business was departing from its old-time substantial soundness; a general letting-down of standards was felt everywhere. It was not the robust coarseness of the white man, the rude indelicacy, say, of Shakespeare's characters, but a nasty Orientalism which has insidiously affected every channel of expression -- and to such an extent that it was time to challenge it. The fact that these influences are all traceable to one racial source is a fact to be reckoned with . . . Our work does not pretend to say that last word on the Jew in America. It says only the word which describes his present impress on that country. When that impress is changed, the report of it can be changed . . . Our opposition is only to ideas, false ideas . . . which are sapping the moral stamina of the people. These ideas proceed from easily identified sources, they are promulgated by easily discoverable methods and they are controlled by mere exposure. When people learn to identify the source and nature of these influences swirling around them, it is sufficient. Let the American people once understand that it is not natural degeneracy but calculated subversion that inflicts us, and they are safe. The explanation is the cure. This work was taken up without personal motives. When it reached a stage where we believed the American people could grasp the key, we let it rest for the time. Our enemies say that we began it for revenge and that we laid it down in fear. Time will show that our critics are merely dealing in evasion because they dare not tackle the main question."

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