PURELY COMMENTARY
•
PHILIP SLOMOVITZ
Ford Case Summarized
Robert Lacey's Ford (Little, Brown
Co.), reviewed last week, covered many
experiences marking most important
events affecting mankind, this nation
and the Jewish people. Since this column
and at least one more hereafter will con-
tinue to treat the effects of the bigotries
perpetrated by Henry Ford I, it is neces-
sary to emphasize the necessity of re-
membering the, occurences in the inter-
est of always being prepared to offer re-
pudiation of prejudice as means of pre-
venting its continuity. Anti-Semitism
may never be completely checked and
the organized tasks to erase its aims
must be viewed also as part of the uni-
versal struggle to condemn and, if possi-
ble, prevent bias aimed at all peoples
and their faiths and ideologies.
Therefore, the present summation of
the notorious. Ford case as a supplement
to what was drawn from Lacey in last
week's column.
In 1963, when the centenary of
Henry Ford's birth was sensationalized
in the American press, especially in the
Detroit newspapers, the London Jewish
Chronicle invited me to write an account
of the Ford hatemongering campaign.
Here is the account as I presented it in
1963:
There was a great to-do in
Detroit, Michigan, over the cele-
bration of the centenary of the
birth of Henry Ford. He was
born on July 30, 1863. Some
politicians and civic leaders
wanted to bestow high honors on
the name of the great indus-
trialist.
Congressman John Lesinski,
who represents the district which
includes Dearborn, where the
Ford factories are located,
wanted the Post Office to issue a
commemorative stamp, but his
request was refused and the re-
fusal upheld by the White House.
Another refusal came from the
Detroit City Planning Commis-
sion, which unanimously rejected
a proposal to have a park named
in Henry Ford's honor.
At the same time authors of
biographies of Henry Ford spoke
about Ford's background, under-
lining his anti-Semitism and the
high-handed methods he used to
suppress organized labor.
Although his descendants are
respected, highly honored and
well known for their humanita-
rian practices, Henry Ford's re-
cord has by no means been for-
gotten.
In his magazine, the Dearborn
Independent, he had reprinted the
atrocious lies of the Protocols of
the Elders of Zion, and when he
attacked by name Aaron Sapiro
and Herman Bernstein, he pro-
vided an opportunity for these
two Jews to start libel suits
against him.
In order to avoid embar-
rassment for himself, similar to
the time when he sued the
Chicago Tribune for libel and
stated, in the Mt. Clemens,
Michigan, courtroom, that "his-
tory is bunk," Henry Ford issued
an apology, which was written
for him by Louis Marshall, on
July 7, 1927.
It was hoped in Jewish and
libertarian ranks that this would
mark an end to one of the vilest
chapters in the activities of anti-
Semites in the U.S.A., and that
the Ford pamphlet The Interna-
2
Friday, September 26, 1986
And A Harry Bennett Memo
Henry Ford
tional Jew would never again see
the light of day.
But in the 1930s the Ford
name began to appear again and
again in news reports from Ger-
many, Latin America and the
U.S.A., in connection with re-
newed anti-Semitism campaigns.
A congressional committee
engaged in investigations of Nazi
activities in the 1930s was called
upon to probe the anti-Semitic
background of Henry Ford, be-
cause of the manner in which The
International Jew canards were
being circulated in Germany,
Spain, Brazil and other countries.
In his book, The Rise and Fall
of the Third Reich, William L.
Shirer wrote: "The Reich youth
leader was Baldur von Schirach,
a romantically minded young
man and an energetic organizer
whose mother was an American
and whose great-grandfather, a
Union officer, had lost a leg at
Bull Run; he told his American
gaolers at Nuremberg that he
had become an anti-Semite at the
age of 17 after reading a book
called International Jew by Henry
Ford."
In 1938 Hitler's highest
award, the Grand Cross of the
Supreme Order of the German
Eagle, was presented to Henry
Ford in his office by the German
Consul in Cleveland, Karl Capp,
in the presence of Fritz Hailer,
the German Consul in Detroit
who later played a notoriously
pro-Nazi role in America.
E. G. Liebold and William J.
Cameron, two of Ford's chief ad-
visers, were present at the cere-
mony. Henry Ford then received
Hitler's personal congratulations
and commendations. It was the
year of the "Kristallnacht," the
wholesale destruction of
synagogues and properties
owned by Jews in Germany, ele-
ven years after Ford had made
his apology. Ford's reply to those
who asked that he return Hitler's
token of shame was: "I'm going
to keep it."
Nazi propagandists were
linked with the Ford organization
during the years of Nazi horror.
Fritz Kuhn, a proven Nazi agent,
was among those courted by
THE DETROIT JEWISH NEWS
Harry Bennett
Henry Ford. The United Auto
Workers' Union accused the Ford
Motor Company of "Nazi sym-
pathies" in. the 1940s and the
famous car manufacturing com-
pany had its name besmirched
with a link to Hitlerism as a re-
sult of the continuing prejudices
of its founding head. There were
also accusations that the elder
Ford was linked with the Ku
Klux Klan.
In 1942 Henry Ford com-
mended to a leading correspon-
dent: "I still believe the interna-
tional Jew is responsible for the
war."
Instances of Ford's prej-
udice% that manifested them-
selves after 1927 until his death
could be multiplied many times.
They are brought to mind again
by the centenary of his birth.
But while Henry Ford's
anti-Semitism is recalled, there is
unanimity that his son Edsel,
who was hounded by his father,
was innocent; that Mrs. Edsel
Ford and her sons are doing all
they can to atone for the sins of
the old man. While Ford's home
town remembers the evils of the
elder industrialist, there is due
caution that his sins should not
be visited upon his
grandchildren.
The reason for such a recapitulation
is apparent. The hate-spreading that be-
came a mobilization of the world's anti-
Semites, engineered by Henry Ford I,
must not be relegated to forgetfulness.
Adolf Hitler was not alone to embrace
Ford. He had the encouragement of some
of the famous Americans like Thomas
Edison.
So that the battle against prejudice
may never end, the details of the Ford
chapter in the fulminations of bigotries
should especially be known by the youth
in Jewry and among all nations.
Ford's right-hand man, adviser and
protector in his active years after the
trial that compelled him to sign the
apology written by Louis Marshall was
Harry Bennett. He was kicked out of the
company when the grandson of the foun-
der of the Ford Motor Co., Henry Ford II,
assumed control of it.
Here is an account of my personal
confrontation with Harry Bennett:
Harry Bennett had a nefarious re-
it
cord in his career as Ford's guide, protec-
tor and adviser. He played double roles
in treatment of the press and always de-
fended Henry, lying in his behalf when
necessary. That's what happened when
he participated with his boss and Dr. Leo
M. Franklin in framing a statement in
which Ford posed as a benefactor for Hit-
ler's victims and then denied making the
statement.
As the then editor of the Detroit
Jewish Chronicle, Bennett invited me to
have lunch with him and about four or
five Ford Motor Co. department heads.
Harry Newman, U of M All-American
football star, who drove me to and from
the luncheon, was among the partici-
pants. It was held in Ford's private din-
ing room in Dearborn. Bennett hosted
the meeting out of an anxiety to prove
and emphasize that Ford was not an
anti-Semite.
Discussing with me Ford's Jewish
attitudes, Bennett made comments
which indicated that he sat in on Ford's
plans during his anti-Semitic activities.
It was shortly after the public humilia-
tion of Dr. Franklin vis-a-vis Ford's al-
leged desire to aid the German refugees
and Bennett made this comment to me
as part of his denial that Ford was really
an anti-Semite:
"Mr. Ford gave Elizabeth Dilling
$5,000. So what? The next time she
came for help he turned her down."
That's how Bennett treated an im-
portant matter of support for a notorious
anti-Semite.
I was advised by my attorney at the
time, in the only instance of my doub-
lechecking on advisability of making
public a Bennett comment on a Ford
attitude, not to publicize it. "You'll be
branded a liar, as Franklin was, if you
go public with it," was the advice I fol-
lowed at the time.
This would have remained a forgot-
ten story. But Bennett himself revived
many incidents, after his dismissal by
Henry Ford II from the company, with
his book They Never Called Him Henry.
In that book, Bennett raked up old
grudges with attempts to paint Henry
Ford as "Giant and Genius, Pigmy and
Puppet."
Bennett himself is not guiltless in
his boss' anti-Semitism. It is true that he
had many Jewish friends and associates,
notably Harry Newman who was his
"salesman" and was granted a Ford
agency. He also authorized Ford business
for Jewish firms. But when he had influ-
ence he could have done more — in the
Franklin - Ford - Bennett - Coughlin
lying episode and in deals with Elizabeth
Dilling.
A new generation of Fords rose to
noteworthy fields of human relations.
There is a new record of commendable
service which does not erase the
grandfather's guilt but lends respect to
the Ford name they perpetuate.
There is an addendum to the
Bennett-hosted luncheon.
On the steps of the building contain-
ing the Ford private luncheon, to which I
was led by Harry Newman, sat more
than a dozen huskies. In the first room
of the building, as we entered, was a gal-
lery displaying scores of guns.
To the question I posed, "Who are
men on sitting on the stoop of this build-
ing?" Bennett replied: "They are my
salesmen." The question, "Why the gun
gallery?" elicited the reply: "That's my
hobby."
You have just been introduced to
one of the major members of the Ford
tragi-comedy as I knew him.