Focus 580; Henry Ford and the Jews

We'll be talking about the life of Henry Ford and of course Henry Ford It's well known that he pioneered mass production and by doing the assembly line made it possible for cars to be manufactured inexpensively enough previously before Ford. They were really hand built sort of one of a kind items of course and only wealthy people could afford them. But one of the things that Ford did was he made it possible for a lot of people have cars and of course that changed American. Many different ways. This morning though we're going to focus on a different aspect of Ford's character and his life. Something that I expect for a lot of people. Is is really unknown This will be very new to them. And that is the fact that Henry Ford did a great deal to foster anti-Semitism in this country and perhaps also around the world. And our guest for the program this morning is Neil Baldwin. He's authored a newly published book on the subject the title is Henry Ford and the Jews the mass production of hate. Public affairs is the publisher on the book. Just a little bit more about our guest Neil Baldwin.

He's executive director of the National Book Foundation and he is the author of a number of books including biographies of the American artist man Ray the poet William Carlos Williams and the inventor Thomas Edison and in fact he explains in the book Henry Ford in the Jews that it was his work on Edison that opened this door on to the life of Henry Ford and led him into doing the work that ended up being this book. As we talked this morning with Neil Baldwin questions of course are welcome. The number here in Champaign Urbana if you'd like to call in join the conversation. 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. We also do have that toll free line that means it would be a long distance call. Use that number and we'll pay for the call that's 800 to 2 2 9 4 5 5 again here in Champaign Urbana. Another way to think about it is three three three W I L L and also toll free 800 to 2 2 w. Iowa.

Mr. Baldwin Hello. Hello and thank you for having me. Well we appreciate it very much. And I was interested because we do. I don't know that you would expect you to remember but we did indeed talk about Thomas Edison your book about Edison It was interesting to learn here that that was your first hints about Ford and his anti-Semitism really came as you were working on Edison. So I was on your show. Yes we talked. We talked about the Edison biography. That would be five or six years. Yeah it's been some time. Gosh well we've all gotten older or younger Well you have. Well we've gotten older. I'm not sure about the other part. So tell me what your first question anyway it's. I was interested to learn indeed that you're you're way into this was it was as a result sort of an unintended offshoot of the work on Edison and I guess in fact someone had had suggested to you then writing a biography of Ford and by that time you had learned enough about him to think perhaps you didn't care much for the man but that this was a topic that was worthy of special

interest. You know it wasn't so much that I didn't care r. For him because as a biographer I've always tried to to maintain a sense of being outside. I mean I'm very very into the research but outside the subject so that I can be as objective as possible. The problem was that after you do somebody like Edison who is such a giant and such a genius in so many ways. I mean I recognized it and I say very overtly in the book that Henry Ford's contribution to the culture of the entire Warhol is undeniable. The automobile whether you are in favor of it or not actually doesn't really matter if you're in favor of it or not it's it's ubiquitous and it's there and he was the person who consumer ised the automobile and and the the internal combustion way of getting around them. So I think it's

almost impossible to measure his impact but what happened was I came across some diaries that were kept by John Burroughs who was a naturalist who went on a camping trip with Edison and Ford and Harvey Firestone and several other people in the Adirondack Mountains and in the evening they were talking around the campfire. That's anti-Jewish rhetoric started viewing for from Henry Ford's mouth. And this is like 19 18 or 19 it was just during our just after the first world war and John Burroughs kept notes on this conversation and they were never published in his memoirs but I came across them in the New York Public Library in the burgh collection in New York and that got me thinking and that's it. And then then in the spring of 1997 the Ford Motor company sponsored a commercial free broadcast of Schindler's List on Channel 4 I believe it was. And the irony of that coupled with what I just read about and learned about Ford's belief started me thinking maybe

that's what I should write about. So I was interested to learn that not only was Ford important because of the automobile and the changes that brought him in America or press because of that he was a significant individual in the sense that he was he was widely admired by Americans and because of who he was that gave him a platform from which to speak. And I actually one of the things that I was there was interested and surprised to learn was that he was he would not only was he interested in politics he was interested in politics at a high level and in fact in 1916 his name was placed in nomination at the Republican National Convention as a candidate for the president. It's you know Andrew Ford He is he was and is an American icon. And that's what made it so problematic and a lot of people that you know they said to me at the beginning of this journey why are you doing this. Why are you taking on such a

complicated subject why you just let let it lie. See the book that I've written isn't just an ad hominum attack on Henry Ford and an exposure of its attitudes. It's if I try to take a more nuanced approach to talk about after he published his newspaper the Dearborn independent where the major articles began to appear against the Jews that was kind of like its first public platform. How did the American Jewish community which enough itself was such a splintered and fragmented group of people how did they. Deal with this out pouring from such a prominent and as you say popular person how what how did the leadership of the American Jewish community among themselves debate and write back and forth and and write to Henry Ford and try to sponsor petitions and articles and editorials and so I dug deeply into the Jewish archives all around the country I

would say I spent more time in the Jewish Theological Seminary and the American Jewish Congress and places like that than I did in the Ford archives. I just want to make it clear that that it's a dialectical problem it's it's an antagonism with two sides. Sure. And also it another thing that the book does is it talks. It talks not just about Ford and his anti-Semitism but anti-theism anti-Semitism in America at the time. And. Knowing that I guess one would have to acknowledge the fact that in in his anti-Semitism Henry Ford was not exceptional for he has time. No it's a matter of fact it's a big it's a big topic and I go even further than that I decided I should try to place it not only in a context of America at the time and energy for its dates are 1863 to 1947 which is important to sort of put in the back of your mind. But I also decided to place it in the

continuum of anti-Semitism from the time of the Caribbean origins of the Jews to the present to show that not only is he does he have a place in American culture but he has a place in the entire ideological culture. See the thing is that. And reforged believes as you just said we're not unique to him. A person growing up in populous America. After the Civil War at a time when the huge influx of eastern European immigration was coming to America hundreds of thousands of the tired and for and huddled masses as they say were coming to New York City and spreading out all across the country these were people who were impoverished persecuted. They look didn't look like Americans they didn't talk like Americans they didn't dress like Americans. They were Protestants they weren't white they weren't. They didn't speak English and yet they wanted a place in our country they wanted a place in our in our melting

pot. And some people didn't like that. You know Henry Ford did not did not like that at the most basic level. He felt that the Jews because they were different didn't belong here they shouldn't be here. That's really how it sort of started. Let me just real quick introduce Again our guest We're speaking with Neil Baldwin. He's the author of a number of books several of the biographies biographies of the American artist man Ray the inventor Thai medicine and the poet William Carlos Williams. He's also coeditor of a collection of interviews with authors about their working lives which is titled The writing life and the book that we're talking about this morning is about Henry Ford and the title is Henry Ford and the Jews. The subtitle is The mass production of hate. It's published by Public Affairs is out now fairly recently in the bookstores of course if you want to look at it and your questions comments are welcome. Three three three. W-why El Al and toll free 800 1:58 W while one of the little

ironies here and perhaps this is the case often with prejudice is it's based on not on any kind of personal experience but a lot of secondhand information. One of the things you do note in the book is the fact that that in his youth perhaps there were only about a thousand Jewish people living in Detroit and that chances are pretty good that before he was an adult. Henry Ford never even met one. Yes. Yes. And that is one of the things I again in building the case. Just very briefly it when Henry Ford was in school which would be like the late 1860s and the late 1970s as he was growing up as a young boy in Dearborn Michigan a little farming town north of Detroit. His main reading matter was something called the McGuffey Readers which were the probably the most popular textbook in American schools in the 19th and early 20th century. I think about one hundred twenty five million copies in various different printings were sold effects

McGuffey reader over like a hundred year period. And in that McGuffey reader you know I grew up in the 50s that I read the you know Fun With Dick and Jane and I read you know about See Spot Run and things of that nature. I know that really dates me but anyway. But Henry Ford and the McGuffey Readers he came across the first stereotypical stories about Jews. There were lots of little parables from sort of from a Christian stand point about the Jewish money lenders and there was a whole chapter on Shylock The Merchant of Venice character from Shakespeare and. The fact of the matter is that at a very young age Henry Ford was exposed to these cliched stereotypes and these were very widespread and very much as you say accepted in American society during that period and going into the turn of the century the populist movement in the South you know where the farmers were banding together and blaming that New York bankers

you know slash Jews you know for controlling the financial structure of America so let's be sure we understand the context of his development. Is it a logical development. Why I guess one further question is why it was that he would decide to take these views from simply being views that were personally and strongly held to something that he wanted to do probably promulgated and in fact to the point where one of again one of things you explain is that you know he was he liked the idea of having a a big plan. Form for metaphorically speaking a big platform from which to speak he felt he had important things to say. And so in order to disseminate those views he actually started his own newspaper and you mentioned the Dearborn independent. Right. What was it that that led him to feel that. Well this wasn't this was a message that was so important that he in effect wanted to to broadcast

it. Well I think that I've figured out when the as they say the tipping point was and it was much you know he was a middle aged guy. We're talking about let's just put a few dates in here and one thousand eight. The Model T Ford was first marketed by 19 11 are 12 13 and thereabouts Henry Ford was a millionaire you have to understand the meteoric rise and the wealth and prominence over that four five year period in there. Then you get into the work didn't you Van you have the shock of the war World War won and then you have Henry Ford's first public intimation that he's basically using the Jews as a scapegoat and blaming Jewish international quote Jewish bankers for causing World War water and by the by infiltrating the economies of European countries and being the invisible wire pullers behind the armament of Europe and that created a threat and a tremendous

strain. On and we Ford's company. And what I try to show in the book is that therefore I feel his first it's the first public manifestation was based upon an economic reaction he was having against the Jews at the same time in this country the Federal Reserve Bank was created in 1910 to 1912. And the idea of the Federal Reserve Bank came from Paul Warburg who was a Jewish German immigrant from the Warburg family in Germany married into the chiff family which is a very powerful Jewish family here in America. So you get this. You get this combination of Jewish power and money power. And then you put that up against the war and the effect of that on Henry Ford's corporate existence and then you have a very potent brew of you know where you can develop a paranoid feeling. I'm speaking in terms of Henry Ford something that's kind of how I position this you know rather than saying Oh

well I read a story about Shylock when I was 16 years old. That's you know like I think it's important to bring that up. But millions of young kids in America read those same stories and they didn't end up doing what he did. They really had it had effect on his pocketbook. We have a caller to bring into the conversation other people by the way who are listeners certainly. Welcome questions here in Champaign Urbana 3 3 3 9 4 5 5. Also we have a toll free line that's good anywhere that you can hear us. Eight hundred to 2 2 9 4 5 5. Here's a caller they're on a cell phone on line number one. Hello. Yeah I don't. Well I doubt you've read this book but there's no reason you would have there's a book by a fairly prominent economist political scientist named Gary Miller called managerial dilemmas. It has a long section on Henry Ford in there because Henry Ford ended up being sort of one of these is kind of the inventor of the industrial management of industrial management.

I think it one of the interesting things about that is that I think you can see in his management style some real talent hereon tendencies for lack of a better word and I don't like to trot that word out lightly. But I can't really think of a better one. I think he had and I think they're looking for the sort of the bottom line was probably the motive the main motivation for this but he did a number of really strange things. Well things that I think nowadays we would consider pretty disgusting. Ford sociology department and Ford Motor Company was a wood. Break families up all sorts of things like this. One of his main motivations for paying his employees three times the market rate was that he could effectively discipline them if they

quit they lost a huge amount of money so they couldn't they couldn't leave. And so but along with that came the bargain of the Ford sociology department which would come in your house and see what you're doing to see you know to see if you're your sort of appropriate to work at Ford things like that. In the 20s he ran Ford Motor Company as a as a dictatorship. And. I don't know fortunately or unfortunately just true and it is really screwing up people to model T for a long long time long after was actually completely or completely obsolete and in the end other other companies sort of took over. But he he was an odd guy. A very odd guy very very opinionated. There's. It's quite possible that that decisions based on some decisions he made

killed his son had solved. Because as soon as all died of food poisoning from milk drank from the four dairy which Ford was adamantly opposed to pasteurization and any other sorts of health and health considerations for reasons no one knows. Things like that so I think. Yeah I mean I think that the fact that he was anti-Semitic and he took it to all the you know the next level is not really too surprising given that he took pretty much everything to the next level. Well and these are all things that the author Afzal actually does. Deal with talking about his his management style his tendency to want to take workers and mold them into the image that he had in mind even that fact and the fact that all this was very hard on a lot of people in and including his son and indeed being Henry Ford's son might have might have been the thing that killed Edsel Ford. Now this is all your this is all in and Mr Baldwin's book.

Yeah I should i should give him a chance to respond. Yes I think it's so interesting. What was the name of that book you just mentioned. The managerial dilemma is that your own dilemma as well. This is this. It's not otherwise about 40 just uses it but I think that is a terrific catch phrase because and this was one of the big temptations I had of course having written about Addison. You know somewhere toward the end of my fourth book I sat back one day I was at my desk and I thought gee maybe I should have written a biography of Henry Ford because I became so wrapped up in his as the caller is saying is the consonants the consistency between his the way he ran the company and the way he ran his idiology even to the point of that's where we got the title a mass production of hate which I have to give my publisher Peter Osnos who is the CEO of public affairs came up with that catchphrase because he pointed out to me that it seemed as if Ford's methodology of producing cars was very similar to his

methodology of producing these articles and that there were in the pen that week after week after week kind of the same idea there was this obsessive and compulsive need to be in control and as the caller is saying it it it carried over into the personal lives of his employees but it also carried over to I think he felt that people like him a native born American white males frankly were losing control of the size of the country to the outsider of the alien The Jew is such a a symbol of the alien of the outsider is almost like. Immigration touched a nerve in Ford that he never recovered from. I mean that the great wave of immigration is almost like he must've been sitting there in Dearborn you know waiting for the sort of tidal wave to to engulf him. And

and so I think these things are interpenetrated and interconnected I agree I agree I want to check out that book. I wrote it down managerial dilemmas. So thank you. I mean it it's otherwise. I mean it's got lots of really great examples of all sorts of things in it. But but there's a long extended example on Henry Ford because Ford is so illustrated of these kind of the the inventor Herb million inventors around where he sort of the. The prefecture of the of the hierarchical business model. Go see it. I say that mentality and there are so many other managerial strategies that he use which I talk about. If he had it let's say he had a met at meeting of the editorial board of the Dearborn independent which is basically him and two or three of his most trusted inner circle and a few other functionaries and he very often would arrive late or leave early or get up in the middle of a conversation to keep people off balance.

He would turn up at the factory you know like you'd be working minding your own business working on the assembly line. Just it's you know doing your little job there and all of a sudden and Ray Ford would materialize like standing right behind you he would pull you off the line and ask you how things are going. And you know he would he would come and go like a ghost. Kind of. And if you take that behavior pattern. And you just can apply that to sort of this kamikaze approach to publishing articles and books. And pamphlets and disseminating them and sending them to people unsolicited you know turn up in your mailbox would be a little pamphlet called The international jewel of the world's foremost problem if you were the head of a Rotary Club. He did it you know he did a lot of direct mail off this stuff he sent. He sent anthologies of these articles to community leaders all across the country. He also sent them his his dealership the entire Ford dealership network all around the

country was also had to be met subscription salesmen for that. There were independent they had to meet a quota every month of selling subscriptions to the magazine along with the cars. So you know it was very much central to his behavior. We're a little bit past the mid point I have another co I want to get to. And for anyone who has tuned in last five minutes I think I should again introduce our guest We're speaking with Neal Baldwin and he writes about the story here that we're talking about the NEA. I'm a Penry Ford in his new book is titled Henry Ford and the Jews. The subtitle is The mass production of hate. It's published by Public Affairs did the just real quick I want to ask and go on to a call I did the independent ever make money or did it always lose money. I from what I can tell on you you have to just understand that in the Ford archives the Henry Ford Museum Archives in in Dearborn the Museum Archives most of

the material pertaining to the independent including drafts for articles and correspondence and financial records have been removed or destroyed by the Ford Motor Company. This is not this is a fact this is a known fact I'm not like you know opening up some can of worms I mean this has been known for 20 or 30 years. So but it's possible to reconstruct of the sort of a financial pattern and basically that that there were in the pen it was pretty much in the red all the time really was the big money it was a hemorrhaging money operation. But he did it anyway because he felt he had to. Let's talk with another caller here this is champagne. That's line number two. Interesting topic. I can imagine you're kind of in a firestorm because you are taking on an American icon but I think it's important to discuss these things because I think the the the men primarily behind the Industrial Revolution were very often motivated people

who who have very complex personalities. I just had a comment and then a question one. And I don't think this is unique to anti-Semitism but the publication in the self referencing of material against the perceived Jewish threat goes very far back to the Dreyfus affair. And this is basically bogus a publication about the banking conspiracy concerning the Elders of Zion which is unfortunately still quoted by right wingers. Oh yes and that's of course Ford was the main publisher of that in this country so he was OK. I was kind of wondering about that because and that's where we got it from I got it thanks to the Dearborn publishing company who did not copyright any of their screeds. You can still get the protocols are valid as a sovereign right. And anywhere and I think that was is still not an uncommon tactic for people in whatever area to publish something bogus them and somebody else quotes it and

gosh you've got it in another book. And now we've got to Bocas. Word of the quote. So I think he's following in a fine tradition that unfortunately we got from a number of European countries and I don't you know want to single out any European country because I think it's pretty much universal across Europe at the turn of the century. And you know so I don't think you could. Although I'd be interested to know if Was there a seminal event in his life. Because very often people you know point to a single incident where they say this is why. What did you find something like that or was it just. Well I talked in the earlier part of the program about how I thought I had determined a tipping point in terms of the period of his life when he started to publicly articulate his views. And the interesting thing is he was in his late 40s before this happened this is in and my view about 19

12 13 14 somewhere in there I was saying earlier that it was a confluence. Profit problems at the comp at the Ford Motor Company combining with the start of World War 1. Combining with the huge wave of immigration combining with the founding of the Federal Reserve System these things all are within like a two to three year period of time and that and then there's that lag where he tries to figure out a platform. Then he starts to talk about founding his own newspaper as early as 1916. And doesn't start publishing at till 19 20. So it's a very long evolution and in those years also is when he hired two people earnestly bold and William Cameron to work for him and earnestly both as a a crush of Prussian German birth he was from Detroit. He was a rabid

anti-Semite and he was the person who reached out to the person in the bar espresso who brought the Protocols of the Elders of Zion to America and William Cameron was a editorial writer from The Detroit News who was a right wing Christian a British Israel lied. And so. See if it's like putting your team together and then going out on the field when you're totally ready. That's how I you know was there one. Was there one Jewish person that offended him or lent him money or something. I really don't think it was about that. It was about hitting him where he lived as their first caller said it was a I believe it was an economic matter because every time there was a a flurry of activity in the Jewish Question I show how it's connected to problems in the Ford Motor Company. It just it's like clockwork scapegoating probably them. I'm just saying that here's a guy he's a quintessential capitalist. And he's rail

raging out against. You know people who he considers to be the biggest threat to him as a quintessential American Capitalist. Well in the Pullman strike him a few merchant run it were during his earlier life. I mean you can it's like you know history when you look back on things and you start to think that you're writing history which I this is the first book I've written or I was I felt I could call myself a historian It's very weird because up until now I've thought of myself as being a quote biographer unquote. But history the sense of history is so. Difficult because I believe that every generation at least there is a vision of so many things that have been received into our general knowledge. It's sort of if you look back in 20 year chunks. I mean look what's happening with the view. Look what's happening with FDR right now how he's being the not demonized but revived this is this just six and a tendency to

revisit you know new archives are open look what happened with Charles Lindbergh. It's it's very common. I guess history as well as difficulty Giambattista FICO not to show off my knowledge but I do remember this the Italian philosopher afikomen has his has his view of history as a giant wheel that just keeps turning and I know that and sort of spiraling forward. Well I don't want to get too far off the right and certainly some of the figures have feet of clay and are presented with a variety of poor choices and I'm not saying that excuses for it but I certainly think part of the populist movement Wennberg was moving for an influential book. Which brings me to my second point I'm curious because I know here in this part of the country the Buddhist party which people may not be aware of. Yes as a German American Nazi Party. And I think people were desperately searching for reasons to say it wasn't Germany's fault that the war started and I think a lot of people can take the perspective that you know there's even been a book saying the

victors always start the wars and therefore Germany didn't start World War Two. I think there probably is and I'm just curious about his connections with the Buddhist party because it's pretty well established fact that Ford was connected with Nazi Germany. His factories remained on bond and opened during World War Two. And so I'm curious where he played. Was he a neutralised was he as a result huge populist movement expected. I don't get me wrong I just want to make a pitch for. Yeah and I was asking about that the connection to maybe the American pacifist and the Buddhist. No I mean I was going to say you really you really should go at bucket's fourth rating. But beyond that I know I talk a lot about at the end toward the end. I try to bring you know the problem when I get into World War Two and the or the late 30s even is that Henry Ford. He's my central figure and I try to keep track of him and he starts to lose his mind at all.

And I mean that he had a couple of nervous breakdowns which I don't think too many people know about. I found a testimony from his personal physician. He had a couple of nervous breakdowns. He was depressed. He withdrew into his big mansion in the river on the River Rouge he had a huge mansion where he lived with his wife and he became very disenchanted with the company. He you know his in his inner circle tried to get him to stop speaking out in public because he never seemed to make sense he would speak and non-sequiturs and he maybe even might have suffered from I don't want to say Alzheimer's or something but some form of dementia. And he maintained his grip on the company until 1945 in May and nominally I mean a name he did but he really wasn't running it in World War Two. Henry Ford wasn't really running the company at the

helm of the company. By that time. However. There is no question that first of all Ford was very heavily invested in the German economy from 19 24 25 when they built their first plant over there in Cologne Germany was one thousand twenty four. Like many other American companies and I think that this is a you know we're talking about neglected periods of history. I think that someone needs to take a look at the total investment of American of corporate America in Nazi Germany and try to sort out the proportions because General Motors. Really had a much bigger chunk of the German car Kaname than Ford.

And so it's not good enough to just say well they had a factory over there and the forklift and Ford Motor Company was invested over there because that doesn't single them out. Even saying they had slave labor in their factories which was a fact that was brought to light in The Nation magazine about I believe almost 2 years ago when the suits were brought against Ford by survivors of that period. So. At that point in my story. Henry Ford is really not a player but there's no question that the company was there there's no question that it was run by Hoover it was in fact run by sympathizers with to the Nazis in Germany I mean. So it's a it's a it's a. I thought it said to myself at that point well I can either write another hundred pages because it interests me or I have to exercise my discipline as an author and maybe save it for another book because it wants your protagonist is not a fully functional then

you don't want to prolong the agony. You know what I mean. Masson ating we have just about 10 minutes. Left and I have already noted although that's one of the great things about this program is that we can encourage some you know lengthy responses we don't have to tell people well you got to give us every response in a minute and a half. And that's that's that's fine. We do also have other caller id like to bring in the conversation as well. And let me just maybe I should also mention again our guest is Neal BALDWIN If you'd like to read this more of the story that we've been talking about he's written the book on it it's title Henry Ford and the Jews the mass production of hate published by public affairs and is out now. Next caller is in Champaign here lie number one. Hello is that me. Yes hi. Well this won't be all that long but I have a I'm so far you've been talking about forward in terms of this anti-Semitism is largely motivated around what sounds like kind of ethnic

cultural and economic motivations and I'm curious about forwards. Was he involved in the Christian church. Oh I don't stop I'm so glad this is pardon me. I'm so glad you brought that up because. Like I said at the beginning this is a many faceted problem and I know we only have a few minutes but I guess I would just turn your attention to. I have a whole section in my book about the British Israel Life movement which is something that's been written about fragen fragmented ways here and there but the British Israel movement basically was an Anglo-Saxon Christian sect that began in Canada and Britain sort of simultaneously was in English in other words it was an English roots it had roots in the English culture. I believe that the Jews were not the chosen people but that they were the usurpers of the Arian race the Anglo-Saxon race who were the true chosen people of God and I.

The Anglo Israel light movement took wing in America under the auspices of William Cameron who as I said earlier was Ford's right hand man and his main writer his main you know writer under his own other under forged BYLINE I would say by Henry Ford but it was usually written by this man Cameron who was actually of Canadian birth. And there's no question that if Cameron honed his ideology and had to tread a totally open and free platform to promulgate the British Israel like philosophy in the pages of the Dearborn independent and after he left formally when they shut the newspaper down Cameron founded the we came the president of the Anglo-Saxon Anglo reallife Society of America and he published The Protocols of the Elders of Zion under the auspices of the British Israel like movement in America. So I I do show in the book how I think there's a connection between Ford's sort of as the

spawning ground for a lot of the articulation of the Christian fundamentalist right wing movement that came up in the late 30s early. Was he in fact himself a church goer. Now what. Matter of fact I couldn't put this in the book if it wasn't real but there's a whole long oral history interview with the Minister of Ford's church where he and his wife Clara was kind of like a ceremonial thing where they would have to make a showing and go to church. But Ford Ford was not a an observant Christian. But I think he would be a kind of a a lowercase c Christian in other words he believed that Christian meant American Christian meant good people white people hardworking people. So I mean what I was curious about was whether or not there was a use of it would be if it's been used quite heated. The Stuart actually the

Gospel of John read it as an entirely anti-Semitic text. Well and that you know back in the beginning of the book of the McGuffey Readers there are excerpts from from that very gospel. And but I don't see I don't like to speculate and I really I could not like point to a specific instance where Ford I mean he had the Bible he kept the Bible at his in his home he had a couch where he read at night by the fireplace there. And he had a well-formed copy of the Bible over there. He had the Emerson you know Ralph Waldo Emerson his writings. There is no question he he read you know with his wife in the evening she would read to him from the Bible and from the classics but he just wasn't the kind of guy to make a literary allusion to anything. So you know you don't want to you don't want to take it too far or you can show it. I tried to point out these elements in his intellectual life but he was not a

speechmaker he didn't really write anything himself and so you have to be careful there. Thanks very much I'm really anxious to read your book. Thanks Wilco. We're coming to the point here where I'm sorry say we only have maybe about five minutes or a little bit less and there's a big part of the story that here we have not touched on. Because as you said in the first part of the interview that the book is not just about Henry Ford It's also looks at how the American Jewish community responded to Henry Ford So maybe here you can take up at least a couple of minutes to talk a little bit about that. Well I also like to say and I'm pretty proud of this we did create a Web site it's called the old Baldwin books Dot Com one word of all the books Dot Com The reason I would mention the website is because for those of you who are interested there's three or four chapters you know from the book that you can read and sort of it. It shows pictures of all the different major characters and who they were and it's kind of like an interesting sort of preview of how to get into the story but in that

in the visual part of the website are the pictures of the major Jewish leaders Louis Marshall Cyrus Adler Arran the pair o and Jacob Schiff and the major Jewish leaders of the Jewish organizations that were found at the Anti-Defamation League the American Jewish Congress the American Jewish Committee that banded together to try to fight for its injustices. And I show I try to show in the book how they coped with that struggle and it culminated in a libel suit brought. In 1907 by a very prominent Jew named Aronson Piro who was a community organizer who finally brought suit against Ford in Detroit and forced him to apologize for all things he had done and sad. And it's a very tragic story because of course Ford didn't really mean what he said. It's kind of an empty apology but the Jewish community took it at face value and was rejoicing for about two or

three months until he began his l all over again just began publishing and promoting his idiology. One of the things that I wondered about there was apparently a concern within the Ford Motor Company that Mr. Ford's views and the fact that he was so vocal about them did have some effect on sales. Head did did people in the American Jewish community ever think about or talk about. The possibility of an organized boycott. They did talk about it and there was a certain point actually this is right about the time of the libel suit and the trial which was a short lived trial because Ford decided to come to terms with the peril because he didn't want to be dragged up to the witness stand. But anyway it's just about the time of the trial which got a lot of publicity. There was a meeting between Ford and his Northeast Regional Director from New York where he was reported to him that sales in the northeast of America were way down. And at that point I believe that was the precipitating factor in his apology. There was

definitely definitely an economic reaction. It wasn't organized it wasn't like you know pamphlets were distributed it was I don't believe it was a formal lobbying effort I just think Jews stopped buying 49 27. Well I think we're about at the point I'm sorry to say that we're going to have to stop because we've used the time but we also wanted to tell the people certainly that if you're interested in reading this book that we've talked about Henry Ford and the Jews published by public affairs by our guest Neil BALDWIN It is in the bookstore. And as he mentioned also if you have access to the Internet you can look at the website Neil Baldwin books where there are some excerpts there's more information so you can get a sense of some of the material that that the book contains And also if you're interested in some of the other people that Mr. Bolton has written about he's also done biographies of Thomas Edison the American artist Man Ray and the poet William Carlos Williams You can look for those books as well.

And Mr. Baldwin to you we want to say thank you very much for talking with us live really appreciate being on your show and whatever my next book is. I hope I can come back. The invitation is is wide open. Thanks very much pineapple.