Henry Ford and anti-semitic conspiracy

Sorry that i don't know how to post this article but an interesting read on an american icon: Henry Ford Invents a Jewish Conspiracy

 

Just goes to show that no one is perfect. I didnt see mention as to why he didnt like Jews?

 

In those days, there were a lot of conspiracy theories involving jews going around. Ford did not start the theories, but he bit into them, as did many others. In his later years he recanted, but by then, the injury to his reputation had been done. Every generation has its boogie men, that was one before WWII.

 

but I thought I should see if I could find a similar thread before starting my own! And; "tah-dah" there it was!

The anti-Semitism of Henry Ford was quite likely an off shoot of his childhood on the family farm, when his introduction to "Jews" were only through the second-hand story of Shylock the money lender from Shakespeare, and Fagin the master-thief, and child abuser from Dickens’ Oliver Twist.

As time went on this overview of Jews as unscrupulous money-lenders, middlemen, and general "cheats and liars" was only re-enforced by his friendship with men like Edison whose anti-Semitism was quite vocal. Edison himself always felt that even though he made millions of dollars, it was Jewish lawyers and bankers who conspired to keep him from making even more. He and Edison, both using the Greenback money woes of the late 19th Century truly felt that money value was controlled by the precious metal, gold, and the gold was hoarded and controlled by Jews.

As Ford’s first two forays into the business of motorcar production failed to bring him any wealth (Detroit Automobile Company, and the Henry Ford Company), he was sure that "moneylenders" and profiteers had been at the core of his first company’s failures, and Edison re-enforced that suspicion. Ford equated all bankers with Jews, and all lawyers and middlemen as Jewish profiteers as well. While Henry Ford was a mechanical genius, and an engineer of the self-taught school, he was a bit of a dullard in other areas of thought. Not that he wasn’t intelligent, just that it is possible that his education halted in the realm of the realities of the world at the values of his own staunch Protestant upbringing. As was exposed in his libel case against the Chicago Tribune newspaper in 1919.

On the stand in his own testimony he showed he didn’t know or have a grasp of when the American Revolution occurred, he believe he had "heard" that it was in 1812, and when asked if he had ever heard of Benedict Arnold he replied he thought so; "wasn’t he a writer?". His grasp of both history in general, and America history in specific was limited to say the least.

His famous statement that; "…history is bunk" is sometimes taken out of context. It is clear that he only meant that history was "bunk" to himself, not that all history itself was bunk. He didn’t have the time, ability or inclination to read about history or adopt it into his life. It was therefore "bunk" to him.

Now, I am not making excuses for Henry Ford Sr. or for his early positions as per Jews, but that said; in many cases he couldn’t mentally separate "International Jewry" from Jews themselves and how they would or could be insulted by his claims. He was astounded when many of his best friends who happened to be Jews separated themselves from him, returned his gifts, and quit talking, letter writing, and walking out when he showed up at events. He was dumbfounded when Dr. Leo Franklin, a personal friend (who was a Rabbi) and to whom he had given a Ford car, returned it to him and walked home from Fair Lane (Ford’s estate). Ford called Dr. Franklin within days and asked him; "What’s wrong Dr. Franklin? Has something come between us?" (Ford: The Men and the Machine; Robert Lacey, p.230)

Henry Ford Sr. simply couldn’t separate the insult he expressed to Jews in general from the Jews he knew himself. Until this particular moment in time his personal butcher was a Jew, and there were never fewer than 3,000 Jews working at the Ford plants.

Henry Ford himself was far from a dullard (overall) but his view of the world was. Before his first anti-Semitic article in his wholly owned Dearborn Independent, a number of things (besides his friendship with Edison, and his rural upbringing) came to bear. Probably the first chronologically as an adult was his outrage and subsequent suit against the Chicago Tribune for publishing that he was an "anarchist" and "non-patriot". In Detroit the Chicago Tribune was distributed by Solomon Press, and that name stuck in his craw.

In the end he won that suit, but was only awarded SIX CENTS (and court costs) in damages. While this suit was ongoing, the Chicago White Sox scandal was unfolding. Henry Ford was, and remained a great fan of baseball all through his life. To hear, and later be assured that the men who started the whole "fix" were of Jewish extraction (Atelle, the Levi brothers, and Rothstein) only re-enforced in his heart again the suspicion that it was Jews who were exploiters and "middlemen".

But those were "outside Jews", it seems that he had (until the Dearborn Independent articles) a sizable number of friends who were Jewish, and he was astounded that they closed him out. He didn’t see nor make the connection between his vocal and printed words against Jews in general, and the specific Jews he knew.

Henry Ford Sr. is both a simple and complicated individual. Simple in that once he formed an opinion it was very difficult for him to "change course", as that would mean admitting a shortcoming of his own. He was always disappointed by others, and became entirely too self-reliant for his own mental health. He fell into the trap of rewarding those who agreed with him, no matter their own motives, and punishing those who disagreed with him. Complicated in the fact that his motives for his opinions seem to be both justified and unjustified, and he would shift from one to the other as it profited him in many instances.

A committed pacifist on the one hand, he agreed to build the "Eagle boat" as a coastal patrol weapons boat in the Great War as there was a profit involved. Just as in the production of the Liberty Engine; "..very early in the Liberty engine program it became apparent that one of the great stumbling blocks to volume production would be the steel cylinder if it were necessary to machine it out of a solid or partially pierced forging, as is done in making shells. Col. Deeds and Col. Waldon laid this problem before Henry Ford and the engineering organization of the Ford Motor Co. and they developed a unique method of making the cylinders out of a piece of steel tubing." (emphasis mine)

From:

Liberty Engine in USA. American Aircraft Production. American and British Aircrafts hundred years ago. - youaircraft.com


At first it was believed that both 8 and 12 cylinder engines would be required and negotiations were started looking to the production of both sizes.
The Ford Motor Co. agreed to produce 10,000 of the 8-cylinder engines, but before the contract had been made information from abroad indicated that efforts should be concentrated on ilie 12-cylinder engine. Contracts were therefore let for 22,500 Liberty 12-cylinder engines as follows:

Packard Motor Car Co - 6,000
Lincoln Motor Co - 6,000
Ford Motor Co - 5,000 (emphasis mine)
Nordyke & Marmon - 3,000
General Motors Corporation (Buick-Cadillac) - 2,000
Trego Motors Corporation - 500
This number was sufficient to take care of the requirements of both the Navy and the Army. The first of these contracts was signed in August, 1917, and production work started immediately.

From:

Liberty Engine in USA. American Aircraft Production. American and British Aircrafts hundred years ago. - youaircraft.com

If there was a "buck" to be made, pacifism be hanged.
When or if "outside" Jews just happened to be convenient scapegoats in some circumstances he was more than willing to throw the "blame" their way. Ane yet, he was appalled and flummoxed that Jews who were his personal friends were offended by his speech and publications!

Not a simple man, nor a simple position as per anti-Semitism, nor true racism. He was all over the place in both instances. Just my take on it, and my opinion. I will never forgive the man for sending Hitler a multi-thousand gold marks birthday present on April 20th, all through the war years until 1945 through the Swiss and the Swedish banks.

The fact he had beenawarded that Nazi Gold Cross on his birthday must have had something to do with it, or it might have been that he truly admirred Hitler somehow as a "rural kid" who made good, as he himself had.