The Dearborn Independent, also known asThe Ford International Weekly, was a weekly newspaper established in 1901, and published byHenry Ford from 1919 through 1927. At its height during the mid-1920s it claimed a circulation of between 700,000 and 900,000. If true, this would make it second only toThe New York Times in terms of national readership.[1] Those numbers were largely due to a quota system for promotion imposed onFord dealers. Lawsuits regardingantisemitic material published in the paper caused Ford to close it, and the last issue was published in December 1927. The publication's title was derived from theDetroit suburb ofDearborn, Michigan.
In 1918, Ford's closest aide and private secretary,Ernest G. Liebold, purchased theIndependent from Marcus Woodruff, who had been running it at a loss. The initial staff of the newspaper includedE. G. Pipp, previously managing editor ofThe Detroit News, writersWilliam J. Cameron (also formerly of theNews) and Marcus Woodruff, and Fred Black as business manager.
The paper was printed on a used press purchased by Ford and installed in Ford's tractor plant inThe Rouge. Publication under Ford was inaugurated in January 1919. The paper initially attracted notoriety in June 1919 with coverage of the libel lawsuit between Henry Ford and theChicago Tribune, when stories written by Pipp and Cameron were picked up nationally.
Henry Ford, a self-proclaimed pacifist who opposedWorld War I, believed that Jews were responsible for starting wars in order to profit from them: "International financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the international Jew: German Jews, French Jews, English Jews, American Jews. I believe that in all those countries except our own the Jewish financier is supreme ... here the Jew is a threat".[2]
Ford felt that Jews, in their role as financiers, contributed nothing of value to society.[3] He believed that Jewish businesses focused solely on price, and cheapened their products. Ford once bit into a candy bar and, finding it not as good as it once had been, said "The Jews have taken hold of it. They've cheapened it to make more money".[4]
In 1915, Ford blamed Jews for instigating World War I, saying "I know who caused the war: German-Jewish bankers." In 1925, Ford said "What I oppose most is the international Jewish money power that is met in every war. That is what I oppose – a power that has no country and that can order the young men of all countries out to death."
Ford ensured that everyone who worked for any of his companies accepted his views, and made sure not to hire a single Jew in office jobs, although he hired them for physical labor.[5]
So began the articles with themes of a worldwide conspiracy by Jewish super-capitalists, that the Jews invented the stock market and gold standard just to corrupt the world and other peoples.[6]
Pipp left theIndependent in April 1920 in disgust with the planned antisemitic articles, which began in May. He later claimed that a major influence on the paper's antisemitism came fromBoris Brasol, aWhite Russian émigré lawyer, writer, and conspiracy theorist.[7] Ford did not write the articles. He expressed his opinions verbally to his executive secretary, Ernest Liebold, and to William J. Cameron, who replaced Pipp as editor. Cameron had the main responsibility for expanding these opinions into article form. Liebold was responsible for collecting more material to support the articles.
One of the articles, "Jewish Power and America's Money Famine", asserted that the power exercised by Jews over the nation's supply of money was insidious, depriving farmers and others outside the banking coterie of money when they needed it most. The article asked the question: "Where is the American gold supply? ... It may be in the United States but it does not belong to the United States." It concluded that Jews controlled the gold supply and, hence, American money.[8]
Another article, "Jewish Idea Molded Federal Reserve System", was a reflection of Ford's distrust of theFederal Reserve System and its proponent,Paul Warburg. Ford believed the Federal Reserve system was secretive and insidious.[9]
These articles gave rise to claims of antisemitism against Ford,[10] and in 1929 he signed a statement apologizing for the articles.[11]
While Henry Ford ownedThe Dearborn Independent, none of its content was directly written by him, including theInternational Jew series. However, the views expressed inThe International Jew reflected Ford's own antisemitic views, especially because nothing was published without Ford's final approval. This series of antisemitic articles inThe Dearborn Independent was published for a total of 91 weeks. The articles pinned cultural developments such as jazz, immoral books, flashy jewelry, and alcohol consumption on the Jews and Jewish influence. Partially attributable to his antisemitic beliefs,Adolf Hitler was a fan of Ford, and had a full-length portrait of Ford at the headquarters of theNational Socialist German Workers' Party.[12]
Many issues of theIndependent commented extensively uponThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion. The first mention of theProtocols appears in the issue of July 10, 1920, the seventh installment of its "International Jew" series. Also, in 1920–21 theIndependent carried a series of articles expanding on the themes of financial control by Jews, entitled:[13]
The newspaper publishedThe Protocols of the Elders of Zion, which was discredited byThe Times of London as a forgery during theIndependent's publishing run. TheAmerican Jewish Historical Society described the ideas presented in the magazine as "anti-immigrant, anti-labor, anti-liquor, andantisemitic". In February 1921, theNew York World published an interview with Ford in which he said: "The only statement I care to make about the Protocols is that they fit in with what is going on." During this period, Ford emerged as "a respected spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice", reaching around 700,000 readers through his newspaper.[14]
During theWeimar Republic in the early 1920s, theProtocols was reprinted and published in Germany, along with anti-Jewish articles first published byThe Dearborn Independent and reprinted in translation in Germany as a set of four bound volumes, cumulatively titledThe International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem.
Steven Watts wrote thatAdolf Hitler "revered" Ford. He quotes Hitler as saying, "I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany", and says that Hitler modeled theVolkswagen, the people's car, on the Model T.[15] Several themes fromThe Dearborn Independent articles appear inMein Kampf. Hitler even quotedThe Dearborn Independent inMein Kampf, and Henry Ford was the only American that Hitler specifically named: "Every year they [the Jews] manage to become increasingly the controlling masters of the labor power of a people of 120,000,000 souls; one great man, Ford, to their exasperation still holds out independently there even now."[16]
On February 1, 1924, Ford receivedKurt Lüdecke, a representative of Hitler, at his home. Lüdecke was introduced to Ford bySiegfried Wagner (son of the famous composerRichard Wagner) and his wifeWinifred, both Nazi sympathizers and antisemites. Lüdecke asked Ford for a contribution to the Nazi cause, though this is denied by theFord Motor Company.[17]
In July 1938, prior to the outbreak of war, the German consul atCleveland gave Ford, on his 75th birthday, the award of theGrand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner.[18]James D. Mooney, vice-president of overseas operations forGeneral Motors, received a similar medal, the Merit Cross of the German Eagle, First Class.[19]
There was much negative press aboutThe Dearborn Independent within Jewish communities, but there was non-Jewish negative press as well.
There are many accounts of Jewish organizations coming together to fightThe Dearborn Independent.[20] The first major antisemitic article about Jews was published on June 19, 1920. There were major repetitions on August 28, then again in February, March, and November 1921.[20] The essay "Anti-Semitism- Will it Appear in the U.S.?" quotedLouis Brandeis, a Justice of theSupreme Court, who advocated for Jewish civil rights and said, "Organize, organize, organize, until every Jew must stand up and be counted."Louis Marshall noticed thatThe Cause of World Unrest was advertised on the back of one issue of theIndependent, so he wrote a personal letter to the publisher, Major George Haven Putnam, condemning him for his intolerance. Marshall said that Putnam was using Jews as his scapegoat. Eventually Putnam apologized for his advertisement and for publishing the book.[21]
The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America published a resolution condemning Ford's propaganda and beliefs. In January 1921, a statement titled "The Peril of Racial Prejudice" denounced antisemitism as un-American and condemned theIndependent for its antisemitic campaign. It was signed by more than 100 prominent citizens of "Gentile birth and Christian faith", including PresidentWoodrow Wilson, former presidentWilliam Howard Taft,William Jennings Bryan,Clarence Darrow,Nicholas Murray Butler,Robert Frost,Samuel Seabury,Ida Tarbell,Paul Cravath, and the presidents of Williams, Oberlin, and Dartmouth colleges, as well as those of Princeton, Cornell, and Syracuse universities. However, this did not stopThe Dearborn Independent from their negative press regarding Jews.[22][23]
While they explicitly condemnedpogroms and violence against Jews, Ford's articles blamed the Jews for provoking incidents of mass violence.[24] San Francisco lawyer and Jewish farm cooperative organizerAaron Sapiro filed alibel lawsuit in response. During the trial, the editor of Ford's "Own Page", William Cameron, testified that Ford had nothing to do with the editorials even though they were under his byline. Cameron testified that he never discussed the content of the pages with Ford, or sent them to Ford for his approval.[25] Friends and business associates said they warned Ford about the contents of theIndependent and that Ford probably never read the articles (he claimed he only read the headlines).[26]
Further court testimony alleged that Ford knew about the contents of theIndependent in advance of publication.[27] Investigative journalistMax Wallace noted that "whatever credibility this absurd claim [Cameron's denial] may have had was soon undermined when James M. Miller, a formerDearborn Independent employee, swore under oath that Ford had told him he intended to expose Sapiro."[27]
Michael Barkun observed:
That Cameron would have continued to publish such controversial material without Ford's explicit instructions seemed unthinkable to those who knew both men. Mrs. Stanley Ruddiman, a Ford family intimate, remarked that 'I don't think Mr. Cameron ever wrote anything for publication without Mr. Ford's approval.'[28]
The trial prompted theAnti-Defamation League (ADL) to begin a concerted effort to oppose theIndependent. An ADL–led coalition of Jewish groups led the charge, and raised objections to Ford's writings in the Detroit press. The ADL also organized aboycott of Ford products, which was supported not only by Jews, but also by several liberal Christian groups. In December 1927, Ford gave in and abolished the paper. News reports at the time quoted him as saying he was shocked by the paper's content and unaware of its nature. Ford also wrote a public letter to ADL presidentSigmund Livingston recanting his antisemitic views.[23]
Ford's 1927 apology was generally well-received: "Four-Fifths of the hundreds of letters addressed to Ford in July 1927 were from Jews, and almost without exception they praised the Industrialist." While most of the major national Jewish and non-Jewish newspapers accepted Ford's apology, many local Jewish papers rejected it.[29] In January 1937, a Ford statement toThe Detroit Jewish Chronicle disavowed "any connection whatsoever with the publication in Germany of a book known asThe International Jew."[29]
According to Pool and Pool (1978), Ford's retraction and apology (which were written by others) were not signed by him (rather, his signature was forged byHarry Bennett), and Ford never privately recanted his antisemitic views, stating in 1940: "I hope to republishThe International Jew again some time."[30]
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