Ford Henry - The peoples tycoon: Henry Ford and the American century

In the early summer of 1919, the familiar, slender figure with the sun-browned face, sharp features, gray hair, and homespun manner took the witness stand at the courthouse in Mount Clemens, Michigan, a small town twenty miles northeast of Detroit. Henry Ford, industrialist and American legend, was pursuing his libel suit against the Chicago Tribune. A few years earlier, the newspaper had published an editorial describing him as an ignorant idealist [and] an anarchistic enemy of the nation when he opposed President Wilson's use of the National Guard to patrol the border against raids from Pancho Villa's Mexican guerrillas. An outraged Ford had sued, and now the Tribune's lawyer bent to the task of disproving libel by trying to demonstrate the truth of the famous carmaker's ignorance. The task proved easier than anyone had ever imagined.

For several days, under relentless questioning from the chief defense attorney, Ford disclosed an astonishing lack of knowledge. He asserted that the American Revolution had occurred in 1812; he defined chili con carne as a large mobile army; he described Benedict Arnold as a writer, I think; he could not identify the basic principles of American government. As listeners cringed, Ford, like a negligent schoolboy, fumbled question after question, finally responding to one, I admit I am ignorant about most things. Even the defense attorney grew embarrassed and asked, mercifully, if Ford would consent to read aloud a brief book passage or whether he wished to leave the impression that he, in fact, might be illiterate. Yes, you can leave it that way, the witness replied calmly. I am not a fast reader and I have the hayfever and would make a botch of it.

The jury, facing abundant evidence of ignorance but none proving anarchism, found that Ford had been libeled. But it awarded him only six cents in damages. Newspapers and magazines around the nation, however, largely ignored the verdict and the legal issues and had a heyday with his incredible testimony, chortling about the crudeness and shallowness of this American hero. Yet, as the episode played out, two unexpected things became apparent.

First, Henry Ford seemed perfectly content to appear the provincial rube whose productive endeavors left little time for book learning. When pressed on his lack of knowledge about public affairs, he confessed that, regarding newspapers, I rarely read anything else except the headlines. He was even more frank in a private interview with a reporter, commenting, I don't like to read books; they muss up my mind.

This episode put on display one of the great stories, and mysteries, of modern American history. The trial revealed a love affair between a pioneering automaker from Detroit and common Americans that transcended all reason. The same Henry Ford who disgusted so many intellectuals, cosmopolitans, and opinion shapers, enjoyed for some four decades a special bond of affection with workaday citizens who drove his automobiles and hung on his utterances. But what explained his enormous popularity, prestige, and influence? Obviously, it was not based on intellectual achievement. Nor was it a product of mere wealth, since legions of rich industrialists in the United States failed to attain his public stature; in fact, many were denounced by the public as robber barons. Ford's exalted status did not result from technological achievement. Contemporaries realized that he did not invent the automobile, as many nave observers later assumed, and they certainly knew that his celebrated Model T was not the best car on the market.

The mystery of the man and his influence only deepens when one searches more widely. Socialists such as Vladimir Lenin admired Ford as one of the major contributors to twentieth-century revolution, and it was not unusual to see portraits of Ford and Lenin hanging side by side in Soviet factories. Yet Adolf Hitler also revered Ford. He proclaimed, I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany, and modeled the Volkswagen, the people's car, on the Model T. In the United States, powerful capitalists such as John D. Rockefeller acclaimed Ford and described his production facilities as the industrial marvel of the age, while at the same time Woodrow Wilson convinced the automaker to run for the Senate in Michigan as a progressive Democrat. Many artists on the left denounced Ford's impact on modern society. Charlie Chaplin hilariously satirized his system of mechanized labor in the film