SOURCE: "Henry Ford," in The Reputation of the American Businessman, Harvard University Press, 1955, pp. 142-75.

[In the following essay, Diamond surveys the obituary assessments of Ford's life and cultural significance as reported in both mainstream and alternative news media.]

In 1923, Arthur H. Vandenberg, editor and publisher of the Grand Rapids Herald, sharpened his pen to prick the rapidly swelling "Henry Ford for President" bubble. "Ford has to his debit," the editor wrote, "more erratic interviews on public questions, more dubious quotations, more blandly boasted ignorance of American history and American experience, more political nonsense, more dangerous propaganda, than any other dependable citizen that we have ever known."

On April 9, 1947, the same Arthur H. Vandenberg, now senior United States Senator from Michigan, rose on the floor of the Senate to appraise the automobile manufacturer once again. "Mr. Ford's death," the senator said,

ends one of the most thrilling and greatest careers in the life of this country. It is the vivid epitome of what one man can do for himself and for his fellow men under our system of American freedoms. Through his own irresistible genius and courage he not only rose from humble obscurity to fame and fortune, but he also founded a new national economy of mass production which blessed his hundreds of thousands of employees with his wages and his millions of customers with low prices. He has probably had as great an impact on his times as if he had been a President of the United States. With it all, he continued always to be a modest, kindly, gentle friend with a constant interest in the welfare of his country and of his fellow men.

The passage of time and the emergence of new issues ledothers besides Senator Vandenberg to reconsider earlier judgments and to focus upon criteria which, however unimportant they appeared in an earlier day, seemed now to be those upon which appraisals should be based. Shortly after Henry Ford had taken the witness stand in 1919 during his lawsuit against the Chicago Tribune, the New York Times commented tersely: "Mr. Ford has been submitted to a severe examination of his intellectual qualities. He has not received a pass degree."

But in 1947 it was not Ford's "intellectual qualities" which concerned the Times. That he incarnated the opportunities in which American society abounded, that his had been a life of service, that he embodied the simple virtues—these were the bases on which the new evaluation was erected:

To a peculiar degree he was the embodiment of America in the era of industrial revolution … It was the American success story … His was a single-minded devotion to the fundamentals as he saw them: hard work, the simple virtues, self-reliance, the good earth. He profited by providing what was new, but also he treasured that which was bygone … He built "for the great multitude," and they were, both directly and by accident, the great beneficiaries of Henry Ford, master mechanic.

For all the doubts which Senator Vandenberg and the New York Times had expressed concerning various facets of Henry Ford's career, neither, of course, had been antagonistic to his business activities, and it required no great sleight-of-hand on the occasion of his death to convert early doubt into present praise. But in 1947 not only former skeptics but former enemies found common ground on which to stand in sanctioning what had once been a target of attack. Ten years earlier, on May 26, 1937, several members of the United Automobile Workers of America, the CIO union attempting to organize the employees of the Ford Motor Company, were attacked by the Ford Service Department while distributing leaflets at the gates of the River Rouge plant in Dearborn, Michigan. But in April, 1947, Walter P. Reuther, now president of the UAW-CIO and one of those who had been most severely mauled in the earlier attempt at organization, issued on behalf of his fellow union officers a laudatory statement concerning the automobile manufacturer. And for the president of UAW-CIO Local 600, the union which bargains for the employees of the River Rouge plant, there was no place for enmity based on memories of an earlier day. Writing in Ford Facts, he said:

The greatest tribute that could be paid to Mr. Ford is that his roots were firmly imbedded in the soil of his birth—the banks of the River Rouge. From humble beginnings on a farm … he welded together a vast industrial empire … without leaving the banks of the River Rouge. His friends and his neighbors were important to him. No absentee ownership on the banks of the River Rouge for him! Part of his greatness arose from his willingness topioneer. Like his rugged forbears, he was never afraid to venture forth into uncharted seas. He recognized that increased purchasing power in the hands of the workers meant more contented workers and a greater potential market—a greater America … His mistakes were never mistakes of the heart.

What, then, were the criteria the application of which resulted in an evaluation of the automobile entrepreneur in which the area of approval was wide enough to encompass even the leaders of groups which hitherto had remained outside the consensus of acquiescence?

Henry Ford "was a benefactor of mankind. Simplicity was the keystone of his life," Republican Congressman George Dondero of Michigan said in the first of six speeches delivered by members of the United States Congress on the occasion of Ford's death:

Born of humble parents, and with meagre education, he rose from obscurity to build the greatest industrial empire of his time … The poor man should never forget him. He provided transportation for him at a cost within his reach. The laboring man should never forget him. He doubled his wages voluntarily. Henry Ford and his family have been manufacturing cars, not because they needed bread but to provide employment for those who needed it.

For Democrat as well as for Republican, service had been the major characteristic of Ford's life. "Henry Ford was a practical idealist who believed in helping his fellow man to help himself," Representative John Dingell asserted. "How well he succeeded can be judged by the prosperity of hundreds of thousands of his workers, associates and coordinated industries … As Henry Ford grew and prospered so did everyone who worked and associated with him."

Other congressmen embellished the portrait. Republican Edith Nourse Rogers of Massachusetts was not concerned with Ford's business career. "He bought the historic Wayside Inn at Sudbury," she told her colleagues. "He was tremendously interested in all the old traditions of the country. He was interested in art in all its forms. The Ford Sunday symphony orchestra is heard by millions … He had some of the finest cattle in the United States. He made splendid contributions to agriculture." Conservative Democrat John Rankin of Mississippi asked different questions of Ford's career but nevertheless came to a similar conclusion: "If it had not been for Henry Ford," he prophesied retroactively, "the average American would not be able to ride in an automobile today. There is one thing characteristically American about Henry Ford's life … simplicity . …"

Henry Ford as a man for whom principle prevailed over profit, for whom service to humanity was the fundamental law of conduct, rooted in the traditions of his country, exemplifying its opportunities, and governed by sentiments of warmth and friendship for. his fellow man—this was the portrait of Ford presented by those congressmen who chose to discuss the matter. Whether or not the portrait corresponded in every detail to reality, it was one which both reflected and yet reconciled important conflicts in the society in which Ford had lived. The veneration of goodness and the rewarding of success, while always approved in the abstract, nevertheless created serious problems when applied to concrete cases; for always there had been those who insisted that the good were not always rewarded and that the successful were not always good. But in the case of Ford there could be no such problem. He had helped himself because he had helped others—not because he needed bread but because he wanted to provide bread for others had he manufactured automobiles, the congressman had said—and so, for the idealists, the problem was solved because there was no problem. For those less concerned with resolving apparent paradoxes but inclined rather to accept situations as they found them, the answer was no less satisfactory. Henry Ford had proved it was possible neither to be so self-seeking as to be branded inhuman nor so good as to be condemned to poverty.

Once the portrait of the entrepreneur had been drawn, it remained only to sketch in the background in such a way as to suggest that, without the appropriate setting, the painting would be meaningless. Republican Senator Albert W. Hawkes of New Jersey and radio commentator Samuel B. Pettengill jointly undertook that responsibility. "Henry Ford's life," Senator Hawkes asserted, "… sounds almost like a review of the opportunities open to all people under the American system of free men. Mr. Ford benefited humanity by giving them an opportunity to benefit themselves through honest effort, work, and thrift."

For the instruction of his colleagues, Senator Hawkes read the radio address which Samuel Pettengill had delivered on April 20, 1947:

Abraham Lincoln and Ford mean America throughout the world—log cabin to White House—machine shop to industrial empire. Henry Ford and the other automobile manufacturers who, like him, have developed and applied mass production methods represent the American system at its best. They show what competitive individual enterprise can do—and I stress the word competitive …

Has big Government, and the cost and the waste of Government, made it impossible for America to ever have another Henry Ford?… Contrary to the teaching of Communist professors that "one man's gain is the other man's loss," he demonstrated on a world scale that it is possible to make more money, pay higher wages, and reduce costs all at once and at the same time—investor, worker, and consumer all gaining and no one losing by the process. The secret of this miracle of economics is high production per man-hour, which brings costs down … The best manager of a machine is the man who owns it; if he takes pride in his job. This is the miracle of America. It is hard to see any limit to this progress … if … If we don't lose the magic formula in a struggle between class and class; if investor, and manager and worker all play fair with each other … But even the magic formula cannot work exceptunder a government friendly to achievement, a government that protects a man in the fruit of his toil. Great as he was, I firmly believe Henry Ford would be a name scarcely known beyond the county limits of his home, if he had not lived under the protection of the Constitution of the United States … Ford's career was possible only in an America with constitutional government and competitive free enterprise unhampered by confiscatory taxation of able men—as it was when he was born.

These, concluded the speaker, were "big facts that tie in with the argument as to whether communism, socialism, or the individual enterprise system is best for America—and the world."

Never before had the identity of business enterprise and the entrepreneur with the symbols of nationalism been so explicit, and in that explicitness of identity lies the clue to the realization of the new and broader consensus. If the entrepreneur, like Abraham Lincoln, "represented the American system at its best," if competitive free enterprise and constitutional government were interchangeable parts of the same mechanism, and if—as the speaker said—these "big facts … tie in with the argument as to whether communism, socialism, or the individual enterprise system is best for America," then to deny the identities or to evaluate Ford differently was to court the risk of being considered antagonistic not only to business enterprise but to the nation itself, at a time when its very existence seemed to be challenged and when the conception of loyalty was being increasingly invoked as the acid test of all political and economic pronouncements. The equation of business enterprise and patriotism was not one which was derived for the first time on the occasion of the death of Henry Ford. It appeared at least as early as the time of Commodore Vanderbilt; with the discussion of J. P. Morgan it received a new impetus; and it had been utilized by Ford himself. From 1937 to 1941 he had sought to protect himself against union organization by describing the CIO as "un-American," as a Russian importation; and in November, 1941, when Ford employees in Canada were preparing to elect their bargaining representative, he had asked them to remember that the UAWCIO was an "American" importation and to vote against that union out of loyalty to the "Canadian way."

The congressmen who lauded Ford's simplicity, emphasized his career of service, and insisted that all he represented was the very essence of that which the country was mobilizing to defend were speaking, of course, to a relatively limited audience. But through the news and editorial columns of the daily press, which deviated hardly at all from the appraisal of the congressmen, the American public was saturated with obituaries which, though they purported to examine Ford's career, subordinated discussion of the man to praise for what he was alleged to symbolize.

"Only America could have produced the kind of man he was," wrote the Grand Rapids Herald of Ford:

Only in America could he have revolutionized a civilization and built a powerful empire of such vast extent. For he was both the product and the exponent of the free enterprise system functioning at its best in a democratic atmosphere … Mr. Ford's eighty-three years give us a vivid, bright example of the opportunity America offered in his lifetime and still offers to a man with the foresight, the unswerving purpose and the indefatigable energy to grasp it … Thus in one man, with his foibles as his wisdom, is summed up the opportunity and the spirit of America.

Other newspapers were equally convinced that the essential clue to an understanding of the entrepreneur's career lay not in his character but in the nature of the time and place in which he had lived. "Henry Ford … was distinctly a product of America. In no other land and no other age could just such a career have been enacted and such a personality have flourished," the Atlanta Journal stated. "The times were ripe and the country of free enterprise and individual initiative was favorable to talents like his." He was, that newspaper concluded, "one among many in the long tradition of pioneering characters and inventive minds whom America has brought forth and who have made America in turn."

"In some areas of the world Henry Ford would not have been permitted to have carried out his ideas. He would have been refused a permit," one newspaper stated. But in America things were different. "Since this nation's infant days, men have climbed to marvelous heights of success on the ladder of opportunity fashioned by the American system. Like many others, the name of Henry Ford will endure as an eminent example." His was "the story of a Michigan farm boy who went to work at $2.50 a week … Henry Ford went on to achievement in after years which gave him world renown and gave to the world more of the benefits which constantly flow from the exercise of courage and genius under the American economic system. Henry Ford's career stands as an illustration of the American way of life at work." Newspaper after newspaper from every corner of the land reiterated the argument of the reciprocal relationship between the man and his environment—the nation had made possible the career, and the career had benefited the nation. "America gave Henry Ford his opportunity … Only in a free society can there be a Henry Ford; only in a free society can the productive, imaginative, able person produce for society what his own mind and courage dictate." He was, indeed, "the embodiment and example of the freedom of opportunity and enterprise that is America."

That it was the quality of freedom in the American environment that had produced Henry Ford all newspapers agreed, but the precise nature of that freedom was some-what obscure. In some analyses it seemed to refer to political institutions; in others, to that particular set of economic relationships which had become known as "free enterprise"; and in still others both concepts of freedom were so merged as to create the impression that they were, indeed, identical. None expressed the mingling of concepts so eloquently nor so clearly revealed its usefulness for the purpose of strengthening the traditional forms of enterprise than did editor William Griffin of the New York Enquirer. Ford's

… record serves to emphasize, at a crucial period in our country's history, the superiority of the American system of free government and free opportunity, as an instrumentality for the protection of the liberties and rights of the individual and of the masses, and the promotion of their well-being, over every other system known to man in the past or in the present … Wealth was not his by inheritance, but genuine Americanism was … Because long and toilsome hours did not dismay him, because he was self-reliant and farsighted, and because he was animated by the Americanism which he learned at home and at school, Henry Ford in time conferred upon his countrymen and his country benefits beyond the capacity of human calculation … The great American whose death our country now mourns did not receive an expensive education, with the taxpayers footing the bill. He left school when he was 16, not to dodge work and have a good time, but to busy himself as an employe in a Detroit machine shop. Those were the horse-and-buggy days before the philosophy of maximum pay for minimum effort began to wreak such horror in our national life. Henry Ford was a self-reliant individualist. Life in his parental home was American. The education he received was an American education, not the type of instruction so prevalent in our land today, when so many young Americans are the victims of an educational system that destroys patriotism and self-initiative, leads boys and girls to believe that the world owes them a living, and saddles the hard-pressed taxpayers with a burden that is of no benefit to anyone but on the contrary maintains a system which is a national destroyer … No country save America could have produced a success story even approaching that of Henry Ford. Ours is the task and the duty of guaranteeing that this land shall not become the victim of the totalitarian philosophies that have enslaved the Old World and are threatening to enslave the New. Henry Ford will live in history as one of America's foremost patriots and one of the greatest benefactors of mankind.

Was it free America which had produced Henry Ford, or was it free enterprise? The newspapers obviated the necessity of making a choice by presenting the two as if they were in fact one. "By utilizing the American system of free enterprise, he started from financial zero and built up during his lifetime the greatest private fortune the world has ever known," The Burlington Free Press editorialized. Henry Ford, stated the Charlotte Observer in an editorial which equated nation and economic system,

has been the living symbol of everything that we mean by American private enterprise—its initiative, its daring, its urge to achievement, its freedom from hide-bound tradition and taboo, its incomparable rewards in both material and spiritual satisfaction for work well done, and, above all, its opportunity. The superiority of our system over all others was never better exemplified than in the life of this man, who demonstrated that in this land of ours humble birth is no barrier to greatness, that genius can win recognition in a ramshackle garage, that a man's capacity for attainment is limited only by his own shortcomings … His life was a practical demonstration that the impossible collectivist ideal of equal distribution has been attained least of all in the collectivist countries; the nearest approach to it has been made by American private enterprise.

"With the system of free enterprise we embrace in this country, more" great entrepreneurs "will follow" Ford. But "if ever the time comes when" individual initiative and private enterprise will be lost, then "it will be time for America to close up shop and call it a day."

If that which was responsible for Ford's career was, however expressed, something in the American environment, then surely the career itself, capped as it was with extraordinary success, was American in a special sense.

"Mr. Ford's life story," one paper commented, "tells us that there is no limit in America to what a man can accomplish, and that it is possible to rise to the top and still walk unaffected with one's fellowmen." There could "be no better illustration of the old slogan that 'America is another word for opportunity."' The success he had achieved was not at all unusual; indeed, "Ford may be rated as a typical American, in that he demonstrated in a monumental way the heights to which American opportunity can lead. In no other land could he have achieved the tremendous results that he did."

Indeed in every aspect of his life, private as well as public, Ford was authentically American. A "man of simple tastes and of peace," he was "quite the antithesis of the Krupps or the Kruegers, his counterparts on the European continent." His qualities of "individualism … self-confidence … inventiveness, pliability and industry" were not uniquely his own, but those "of America." He was "a great American," and like "great Americans," he had been "simple and human." Americanism permeated his very being. "Like the many-sided Franklin and the versatile Jefferson, Henry Ford was, in accord with one of America's more picturesque traditions, a man of many facets. His active interests ranged from world peace and reforestation to dietary reform and folk dancing."

"There was something very earthy and American about Mr. Ford. His hobbies, expensive though some of them were, were also wholesome and much in the American tradition"; and no one had done as much to keep that tradition alive, for he had been "greatly interested in early American culture and in the perpetuation of the ideals and the virtues that have made America great." His "American saga" had been "many chaptered." His career, of course, was thoroughly in the American tradition. But there was another chapter "for the father—an immigrant out of Ireland"; and above all there was the chapter "for the widow who mourns," whom he had married "59 yearsago," and who had been "his helpmate … his inspiration. Such long loyalty and constancy—that's American, too!" Surely this was a man who had "built himself into the history" of his country.

On the basis of such evidence, the conclusion reached by the press was logical and appropriate. Henry Ford had been "an inspiration to Americans in this and future generations" and a "symbol of the United States," of "individualistic American drive," of "American productive genius and of America itself." His were "the qualities the nation must more and more appreciate for they" were "the qualities which forged the greatness of this nation, and the qualities which alone will keep it great."

If this was discussion of an entrepreneur, no less was it discussion of the setting in which that entrepreneur had acted and, more precisely, discussion which held setting to be of greater consequence than agent in accounting for the nature of an entrepreneurial career. Never before had interest focused so sharply on entrepreneurial setting rather than entrepreneurial character, and never before had the defenders of business enterprise disclosed such sensitivity to problems relating to the fundamental economic structure of society. Indeed, recognition that they were concerned with such problems and that the real importance of Ford's career lay in the light it shed on the merits of competing economic systems was frankly avowed.

"You political and economic theorists," asked the Portland Oregonian, "you proponents of the isms, you critics of the American way of life who believe that democracy is in decay, where are the Fords and the Edisons of your school? Where are your Lincolns? It is more than mere coincidence that the story of Henry Ford, inventor and industrialist, is essentially an American story."

"The rise of Mr. Ford, a one-time obscure farm youth, to the position which he occupied in the industrial world," the Lansing State Journal observed, "is one of the most effective lessons the world has ever had in the virtue of the American system of free individual enterprise. At a time when that system is under attack from some quarters it is of the greatest importance that there be reflection upon what an obscure farm youth was able to accomplish with the opportunities which were open to him under a system which made it possible for him to use his individual ideas … Had he operated under a system which did not permit freedom of individual enterprise he might have remained in obscurity." If "freedom of individual enterprise" was the basic element of the system which had produced Ford, and if that system was characteristically American, then those who advocated alterations in it were not only guilty of tampering with the material prosperity of the nation but of injecting "alien poisons" into the American environment. Those who called for the "replacement" of this system "by more and more government control, through such alien governmental forms as communism"; the "cheap political demagogues" and the "communist infested CIO local union" which controlled his plant; "the collectivists and the left of center planners"; "the Judas fringe of the left"; the advocates of the "alien economic and political sophisms that, having failed to create, would attempt by force, casuistry and deceit to pervert our democratic processes to their own gain"—only such persons as these could be found among the opponents of Ford, the press argued, because, by definition, only advocates of alien ideologies could oppose him. Ford had succeeded because he was "untouched by the precocity of decadent foreign doctrines" and because he was "the personification of strong Americanism." "If there is a defense for a free economy, nothing speaks louder than the deeds of Henry Ford." In this lay his triumph and significance, that the "whole career of Henry Ford presents a glamorous testimonial for the American system … The achievements of the elder Ford will intrigue young Americans so long as our free enterprise system endures."

If Henry Ford's career was a testimonial to the environment which had shaped it, it was, in another sense, a testimonial to business enterprise itself; for, so at least the newspapers argued, service to humanity was the real product of the Ford factories as it was of all industry. Nor, indeed, could it be otherwise; for mass production, with which Ford was so closely identified, was, in the view of the press, to be considered less a technological aspect of the process of manufacture than an instrumentality for the elevation of standards of living. The fundamental result of mass production was to "put the motor car within the reach of the common people," to give "the lesser man not only an instrument for a freer, wider life, but … the purchasing power to enjoy the better things of living," to lighten "men's labor, improve their efficiency, their wages and their living standards." Appraised in terms of the results wrought by his work—"increased national wealth, convenience in travel, progress in the making and distribution of useful articles of commerce, rational philanthropy, and patriotism"—there could be no dissent from the double verdict that Ford's "enterprises enriched his country and the world at large in spiritual and cultural as well as in material ways" and that "not mass production alone" but "mass service to all was the sparkplug that made the Ford ideal click."

"He conceived that his own prosperity lay in that of others," wrote the Detroit News. "To place in the reach of the greatest number of people a useful product which would lift the whole level of living was, therefore, a purpose to which he committed a boundless originality and inexhaustible energy." That he had succeeded in his purpose was abundantly evident in every aspect of American life. "He released his countrymen and people everywhere from the older restrictions of locality … With the new freedom of movement and thinking came a new, more commodious freshness of the spirit." His "initiative and daring raised directly and indirectly the wages of millions and his mass-production methods … lifted living standards, comforts and conveniences to a new 'high.'" He increased the strength and prosperity of the nation. His "genius meant the making of jobs in a big industry and the building of a businesswhich directly and indirectly contributed tremendous pay rolls of employment as well as taxes to the American economic system." His automobiles "probably accomplished more than any other agency in the past hundred years in increasing unity between city and country," for they "brought within easy range of rural families markets and recreational and cultural advantages."

"Although Henry Ford showed no sentimentalism in business," the Arkansas Gazette concluded approvingly, "his policies were humanitarian in their results, as well as practical." He had raised the "living standard of the common people of America"—his achievement gave him "a sort of immortality," the immortality "that is reserved for those who dream and toil for humanity's sake."

In that conclusion the Negro newspaper, the Chicago Defender, concurred. Ford had been "an industrial genius at the service of society." But other Negro newspapers exhibited greater interest in more concrete demonstrations of the automobile manufacturer's humanity. He had befriended the noted Negro scientist, George Washington Carver, and his "high wages and revolutionary assembly line production" acted as a powerful magnet to draw Negro migrants from the "farm-bound South." Above all he had not refused to hire Negroes in his factories. "There would be no need for an FEPC if all employers took a page from' the Ford book. In his passing, we have lost a real friend," mourned the Afro-American. This was high praise indeed for Henry Ford, but it was not praise from which enterprise in general could derive much satisfaction; for the Negro press applauded Ford not because he typified standard business practice but because, in their view, he had departed from it.

So far as Ford himself was concerned, however, editorial opinion was virtually unanimous in holding not only that the consequences of his acts were of widespread public benefit, but that consideration of public service was the compelling motive which dictated his acts and decisions. One of the cardinal principles of classical economics was, of course, the compatibility of private striving and public welfare, but the two had been linked in such a way as to make the latter dependent on the former. In the economic theory of the newspaper editors, however, there was no place for explicit avowal of private striving. Service had replaced profit as a basic category of entrepreneurial motivation. "The acquisition of a personal fortune counted for little with Henry Ford," wrote the Galveston Daily News. "He was not by nature a moneymaker." On the contrary, his "mind was dominated by constructive motives, the desire to invent and to invent in such a way as to lessen human labor." The very ideas which made of Ford "one of the greatest benefactors of his day" stemmed from "his love for his fellows with whose struggles he sympathized and for whose betterment he worked, his own wealth being incidental to his performance." That this was so the Ford Motor Company itself revealed. "The impression has somehow gotten abroad that Henry Ford is in the automobile business," the Company had said. "It isn't true. Mr. Ford shoots about fifteen hundred cars out of the back door of his factoryevery day just to get rid of them. They are the byproducts of his real business, which is the making of men … Mr. Ford's business is the making of men, and he manufactures automobiles on the side to defray the expenses of his main business."

Indeed, the money Ford had made was really a reward both for the risks he undertook and the benefits he conferred. "He and those who lent him money took all the risks of possible, even probable, failure," the New York Daily Mirror stated. His "vast personal fortune" was a "reward for the billions upon billions that have been made for those who have been associated with him, either as management or labor, or connected with other concerns that have profited by his production methods; and for his contribution to the happiness of the so-called 'common man.'" But in either case, whether construed as reward for risk or as reward for service, his fortune was only "a by-product," "only incidental," merely "nominal," and considerably less than the value of his "service to … country and to mankind." Not "by exploitation of labor and financial finagling" had he made his fortune, but by concerning himself with "the general welfare of his country and of the world." There was, in this example of the relationship of private wealth and public service, a profound lesson in political economy:

It is individuals who have big ideas, not nations … It is individuals who have the drive, the patience, the persistence, to put big ideas into effect, not nations … If, in the process, the individual acquires a great fortune and great power, that is not necessarily worse than the acquisition of greater resources and power through the domination of government. It can be better, and often is, because government is still left to help keep the individual from getting too far offside, whereas the man who dominates a government is often beyond anyone's reach.

Not even the high eminence which Ford had attained, however, placed him "beyond anyone's reach," and the fact that—as most of the press agreed—he had begun the climb to that eminence from a position no higher than that occupied by most men served less to emphasize his exceptional qualities than to place him squarely amidst the general body of his fellow men. A few newspapers, to be sure, felt that Ford's climb up the ladder of success had begun at a rung somewhere higher than at the bottom. His father, said the Chicago Journal of Commerce, had been "well-to-do," and the Detroit Free Press was even more favorably impressed with his father's economic status: "At the time of Henry's birth, his father had prospered until he held 240 acres of land. He was a progressive man. He owned and operated the latest and best of farm machinery of that day." But most editors chose not to quibble over the exact elevation at which Ford had begun his climb; the fact of his ascent and the eminence which he ultimately attained were the matters to be emphasized. "The saga of Henry Ford's rise from farm boy to the world's richest man, head of a billion-dollar company," said the New York Daily News, reverting to a time-honored theme, "reads like one of the novels of Horatio Alger who was one of Ford's favoriteauthors." His was a "life story more strange and wonderful than any spinner of tales ever dared put into words. Even the bare details … still seem incredible. If they had not happened before our very eyes we could not believe in the farm boy turned mechanic, inventor, racing car driver, motor manufacturer, head of one of the greatest industrial empires in the world. Yet it is all true." He "was the King Midas of all time," compared to whom "Croesus … was a piker"; but he had started the trek which led to such wealth "as a $2.50 a week mechanic." In this, as in all else, Ford's career was "traditionally American," for it was the "realization of the American dream" and he had written still another chapter in the history of a "country famed for its astounding episodes of the 'rags to riches' variety."

In all of his undertakings, concluded the editor of the New York Enquirer, "Ford was a big business man with a big heart, a big understanding and sympathy with his fellow man, a big regard for the rights and advancement of his employes, a big eagerness to serve the masses, a big contempt for the detractors of the American way of life, a big faith in America and a big confidence in her future." But though he was big in the things that required bigness, the press argued, he was no different from his countrymen in those areas of life in which true qualities of humanity were likely to manifest themselves.

"With all of his vast wealth and his world wide prestige," said the Atlanta Journal, "Mr. Ford remained the simplest of men, a good neighbor, a loved companion to those who knew him, with never a tinge of ostentation …" "Mr. Ford was a good man and his tastes, regardless of his ability to have anything money could buy, remained modest." He loved automobile and boat racing, skating, and baseball. "Henry Ford's identity with sports was more than sufficient to humanize him," said the Detroit News. To the very end of his life he remained "a family man," with "strong family loyalties," and he "often said, in his latter years, that his chief aim in life was to provide happiness for his wife." But his family was not the only recipient of his kindness. "Henry Ford was the kind of man who was so worried about the chance of accident in the 1936 500-mile Speedway race that he insured all drivers and mechanics," the Indianapolis Star revealed. This was a demonstration, "in a practical way," of his advocacy of the Golden Rule; "he believed in it, he preached it—and within limits—he practiced it." He was, in short, "a down-to-earth human being," "a humble, God-fearing, eminently respectable and wholesome citizen."

To these qualities of plainness and humanity, James Kilgallen, a columnist of the Hearst newspapers, devoted his attention:

One of the greatest things about Henry Ford was his simplicity. He was a plain, easy-to-know man, the kind you'd run into if you suddenly dropped into the village barbershop. True, he was a multi-millionaire but he never talked to you in dollars and cents. In fact, he often traveled around without a dime in his pocket. There was no pretense about him, nothing of the "phony," no consciousness of the fact that he was a man of note whom many regarded with awe.

In Ford's personality, Kilgallen concluded, all facets of the American character were revealed and in him each American could find something of himself. "To me, Henry Ford was like … Tom Dewey, Jim Farley, Peggy Hopkins Joyce, Eddie Rickenbacker, 'Peaches' Browning and others who were sure-fire Page 1 copy … He was just plain Henry Ford. In a word, he was democratic." Reporter Robert J. Casey captured still another aspect of the man's character. The people of Detroit, he said, "spoke of his affection for children and linked him with legends like that of St. Francis and the birds." In the face of such evidence, could anyone deny that "he was fundamentally a man of the people?"

But the riches which Ford had attained were more than those of the monetary variety. He had accumulated, as well, a great store of experience and wisdom. "It wasn't mechanical ability alone" that characterized him; his "other impelling and powerful" characteristics—"faith" in himself, "his distinguishing quality of intellect," his "hard, common sense," "his disposition to set impossible objectives and then achieve them," his "fierce individualism"—were applied with distinction in non-business as well as in business activities. His was a career, therefore, "that had many facets. He was an ardent pacifist, a prohibitionist, deeply interested in sociology and in the development of agriculture as an adjunct to industry." He was "a humanitarian"; he "developed antiquarian interests" and was "a patron of American folkways"; and, "something of a philosopher," his thought was that of "a shrewd, kindly sage." If "as an individual" he exhibited "all sorts of misjudgments and prejudices," they were simply those which "he shared with the rest of us"; and besides, "if he exposed himself to ridicule by some of the convictions he expressed and the causes he espoused, more often than not his critics came to agree that he had been right." Nowhere was this better illustrated than in the field of science. Once he had told a reporter:

I believe that the smallest particle of matter—call it an atom or an ion or what you like—is intelligent. I don't know much about atoms and the like, but I feel sure that they know what they are doing—and why. They swarm all around us. If a man is working his level best to do what he believes is right, these invisible elements pitch in and help him. If he is doing what he knows is wrong, they will work just as hard against him.

And the critics scoffed. But "today," wrote the Detroit News, "scientists are coming close to Henry Ford's concept in their belief that inherent spirituality is a basic function of all matter."

Since Ford remained a man of the people despite the towering heights he had attained, he was, in the view of the press, eminently qualified to impart to his countrymen the wisdom which had served him so successfully. In presenting Ford's views to the public the press was offering more than simply an interior view of the man; it was also, in effect, advising its readers that the policies which the automobile manufacturer had found serviceable in coping with problems were in the public domain and would be of equal utility to all. The practice of presenting Ford's views to the public was hardly new. For years journalists had quoted Ford's opinions on all manner of problems, and as early as 1923 a booklet had been published containing 365—one for each day of the year—of the auto maker's aphorisms 365 of Henry Ford's Sayings]. What was new was the content of the aphorisms which the press chose to print on the occasion of Ford's death. There was available in the public record a body of statements by Ford on almost every conceivable subject:

I cannot conceive how we tolerate hunger and poverty when they grow solely out of bad management.

It is not necessary for people to love one another in order to work together. In a factory the sole object of everybody should be to get the work done and get paid for it.

It is pretty well understood that a man in the Ford plant works.

Wars are manufactured by war campaigns along definite lines. First the people are worked upon, their suspicions are aroused. All you need are a few agents with some cleverness and no conscience working through a press whose interests are bound up with those who benefit by war. Then the "overt act" will soon appear.

The paramount right is the right to work.

It's a good thing the recovery is prolonged. Otherwise the people wouldn't profit by the idleness.

The nations of Europe could come together more easily if it were not for their capitalistic governments.

A certain stream of nasty Orientalism has been observed in this country to be affecting our literature, our amusements, our social conduct and our business standards. It is traceable to one racial source. Whether this impress is to be changed or not is wholly in the hands of the Jews themselves.

The cow must go.

Successful persons often say that opportunities are just as plentiful as they ever were, but they don't tell you what they are, where to find them, or how to use them … They deal in glittering generalities that mean nothing.

Maxims such as these were not, however, those which were quoted by the press at the time of Ford's death. Rather did the press select from the general body of available material those aphorisms which conformed more closely to the image of Ford it had chosen to present:

Competition is the great teacher.

It is all one to me if a man comes from Sing Sing or Harvard. We hire a man, not his history.

I am in business not to make money as money, but to do many things which I believe are of public benefit.

I have tried to live as my mother would have wanted me to.

History as sometimes written is mostly bunk. But history that you can see is of great value.

I am not interested in money but in the things of which money is merely a symbol.

The only right use for money is to capitalize industry. One might give it away but giving it away doesn't do any good.

Gold is the most useless of all things.

Profits are a public trust.

Endowment is an opiate to imagination, a drug to initiative … One of the greatest curses of the country today is the habit of endowing this and endowing that.

It was to this Henry Ford whom the nation's leaders from every area of activity joined to pay tribute in an unprecedented display of mourning. "He typified the best in American enterprise … He contributed directly and by example to our high living standards," said Alfred P. Sloan, chairman of the board of the General Motors Corporation. "A great man and a wonderful example of American civilization and opportunity," proclaimed Mayor Edward Kelly of Chicago. "He was a genius in many respects and an example of what continuous and hard work may do for ambitious Americans." To his friend Harvey S. Firestone, Ford "exemplified the virtues of hard work, vision and service which made this country great, and sought to preserve these virtues through his philanthropy so that the human, simple, pioneering spirit of America might be perpetuated." Ford's former associate William S. Knudsen expressed the verdict and the wish of all: "He will be remembered forever … for the things he has done and the beautiful example of his personal life. May God bless him and give him the reward he has so richly earned."

But more than the great and the near-great exhibited their sorrow at Ford's death. It was, the Detroit Free Press suggested, entirely appropriate that the funeral of the man to whom "service was the watchword, profits … a byproduct," the man who "took the burdens off the backs of men and made the machine the slave of man," should not be a private service but a vast public display of appreciation and affection. The members of the Michigan legislature paused "in commemoration of the passing of a great man"; Governor Kim Sigler ordered all flags on state buildings to fly at half-staff until the funeral; the Detroit common council "directed that a large portrait of Ford, draped in mourning colors, be displayed on the front of the city hall for thirty days, and that mourning posters be displayed on buses"; the mayor of Dearborn proclaimed thirty days of official mourning; all Ford plants were ordered to shut down on the day of the funeral and in all automobile plants in Michigan preparations were made to stop fast-moving assembly lines for one minute of mourning; Ford dealers throughout the nation closed their establishments the afternoon of April 10; and all automobile traffic in the city of Detroit was observed to come to a complete halt as Ford's body was lowered into the grave. George W. Mason, president of the Automobile Manufacturers Association, said that "about seven million workers probably would take part in the demonstration of sympathy."

For two full days before the funeral, countless numbers of persons—thirty thousand, according to the Montgomery Advertiser; seventy-five thousand, according to the New York Times; one hundred thousand, according to the Louisville Times—filed past Ford's bier. What mattered was not the number of those who came to pay him tribute—in any case that was large—but the social groups from which they came. "Factory workers and business men rub shoulders in a silent procession," said a reporter at the scene, because with Ford "both groups had something in common." So, indeed, did all mankind—the corporation executive who saw in Ford the model of successful enterprise, the worker and the farmer who saw in him the model of aspiration and benevolence, even the "bridal couples" who would "miss his smile" and the sad old lady, Miss Mae Tabor, his schoolmate, who "was heard to whisper, 'Good-by, Henry. You were such a good boy.'" It was for all of these that Dean Kirk B. O'Ferrall spoke as he laid Henry Ford's body down to its final rest: "I speak to you of Mr. Ford's simple personal tastes and habits and his humility; his devotion to his home and his belief in everlasting life. I doubt whether any man of great wealth ever gave more away without the knowledge of the world and his fellows generally."

Rarely before had the nation's daily press so nearly approached unanimity in its evaluation of the work and character of an entrepreneur. Occasionally, of course, evidence was presented which did not quite conform to the almost universally presented description of the man. For the editorial writers of the Detroit Free Press, Ford "never lost the kindly touch of genuine friendship. He found joy in mixing among his fellows and would spend a day with some mechanic who did not accept him in awe, but respected him as a fellow mechanic." That conclusion stood, although reporters of the Free Press, interviewing long-time employees of the Ford Motor Company, found one mechanic with thirty-two years of service who could not "recall ever speaking to Mr. Ford"; and another with thirty-one years of service who "told how Mr. Ford used to walk through the Highland Park plant, watch carefully the work of the men at their machines and then pass on without speaking." The same newspaper revealed that George W. Frazier, patternmaker of the first Ford car, who was buried only two days after Henry Ford, had been deprived of his pass permitting him access to Ford property fifteen years earlier, and never "thought of asking for another, although he often wanted to renew friendship with Mr. Ford. He simply stopped going."

Significantly, even the few organs among the daily press which looked askance at Ford confined their remarks largely to his nonbusiness activities. For columnist Kenesaw Mountain Landis II of the Chicago Sun, "Ford democratized the automobile, distributed undreamed wealth to the nation and built the greatest private empire in the world"; and for that he deserved credit and appreciation. It was "his opinions … in matters of philosophy, history, sociology and morals" that earned him ridicule. Max Lerner, writing in the newspaper PM, drew a sharp distinction between "Ford's racist and reactionary views" and "his achievements as a technician and an industrialist." As to the latter, "mass-production, standardization, high-speed belt-line, high wages, large volume" were his accomplishments. As to the former, "his mind" was "a jungle of fear and ignorance and prejudice in social affairs." "Henry Ford is dead but the stew of hate churned by his long-defunct newspaper the Dearborn Independent still fouls up the atmosphere," that newspaper commented. "Only last week, the Council Against Intolerance in America received a letter from a Ford Motor Co. official, regretting that the International Jew was in circulation again, under the sponsorship of Gerald L. K. Smith." The conclusion of the New Republic was cut from the same pattern: "The mechanical genius which could conceive the Ford assembly line could never quite figure out that a man's dignity is not measured with calipers." The Christian Century felt that what had made Ford "one of the most appealing figures in the America of his time" was "the simplicity of his public character and way of life … his venturesome adoption of the principles of high wages and low prices, his interest in the social rehabilitation of men who served prison terms … his encouragement of technical education for boys." But "he did not understand … much of the world," became "involved in blunders and senseless tyrannies and even outright injustices," and because of "the power which his enormous wealth gave him" became surrounded by "men with warped or reactionary purposes who studied how to use him for their own ends."

With the commercial press approximating virtual unanimity in its reaction to Ford, ideas that differed sharply from the portrait it presented—including opposition to his business activities, dissent from the laudatory accounts of his personal character and nonbusiness activities, and denial that all Americans felt a sense of loss at Ford's death—became restricted largely to those newspapers representing political groups which openly expressed their hostility to capitalism and to that decreasing number of trade union papers which still remained under the influence of anticapitalist thought.

Missing from the columns of the Communist Daily People's World were the usual pictures of Ford giving slices of his birthday cake to children in Dearborn, or relaxing around a campfire with his friends Thomas A. Edison and Harvey Firestone, or standing at the side of his wife and smiling shyly at the first Ford car. Instead, that newspaper decorated its obituary of "The Paragon of Free Enterprise" with a picture of Ford receiving the Grand Cross of the German Eagle from German consuls Earl Kapp and Fritz Heiler at Detroit in 1938 on his seventy-fifth birthday. "Ford was a philosopher all right," said the People's World. "But his philosophy was hardly original. It was written down in Hitler's Mein Kampf. Ford was a bigoted and active anti-Semite. He was an early admirer of Nazism. He financed almost every fascist movement in America." As to the vaunted efficiency of his assembly line, "thousands of workers were consumed by its relentless speed-up, used up in their youth and dumped on the scrapheap of humanity." This was no servant of mankind; "to the people of Detroit, Dearborn, and Highland Park, who built his empire, the Ford name meant police terror, anti-labor activity, antiSemitism, discrimination against Negroes, and reaction in politics." Nor, indeed, could it have meant anything else, for Ford in reality was but "a symbol … of the American economic royalist who makes the vaunted 'free enterprise' system an instrument of social and political domination." Writers of the New Masses, applying similar criteria of evaluation, stressed aspects of Ford's career which were held to be inevitable consequences of the system which produced him. For them, the memorable events—and the ones on which ultimate appraisals should be based—were those associated with the shooting of four demonstrators at the "Ford Hunger March" of 1932; the beating of union organizers in Dearborn in 1937; the conclusion of National Labor Relations Board Trial Examiner Robert N. Denham that members of the Ford Service Department were "most brutal, vicious and conscienceless thugs"; the hectic pace of the assembly line, geared "to get the maximum work and profit out of each individual"; the "good money" Ford made "out of both world wars … despite his professed pacifism"; "Ford's anti-Jewish prejudice"; and "the Hitler medal" he had been awarded. Had such a man won for himself a place in the hearts of his countrymen? "Henry Ford could never buy from his workers and the people the affection and loyalty the union commands."

"The newspapers and his paid sycophants are singing weird tales about this two billion dollar tycoon and his spendings on 'charity,'" the Chicago Fighting Worker asserted. "Everything is done to gloss over the fact that Henry Ford was merely another capitalist brigand, who made his fortune out of the sweat of Fordworkers' brows." Why had not the daily press discussed his "anti-labor gangsters, private detectives and … involved system of spying on labor"; his "notorious anti-Semitism" and "support of Fascism"; his "brutal speed-up"? "Judge Capitalism by Its No. 1 Hero!" adjured the Weekly People. Such activities were manifestations of a disease rooted in the structure of society, not in the individual, and the remedy must be equally comprehensive. "The working class … will remember Henry Ford and vow to end the system that can give rise to such people," provided only that they "awaken and organize their economic powers."

Expressing their ideas in language less acid than that of the radical political parties, a few trade union newspapers—some still influenced by radical thought, others simply reflecting opinion in the plant—evaluated Ford in such a way as to indicate that less than universal approbation existed at the lower levels of the social structure. "Under the veil of decent regard for the dead," said the Federated Press news service, "there was little mourning for the individualistic anti-union auto maker in the Detroit area. At UAW-CIO headquarters the privately expressed sentiment harked back to the long years when Ford stamped out or tried to stamp out unionism with thugs and goons under his crony Harry Bennett. In barbershops envy and resentment overtopped expressions of esteem." Had Detroit automobile traffic really stopped—as the daily press had said—at 2:30 P.M. on the day of the funeral? "No motorists in Detroit's central district were observed to do so, except out of respect for red lights." And did the shutting down of automobile assembly lines throughout Michigan really prove the existence of warm sympathy and respect for Ford? Writing in the Dodge Main News, official organ of Dodge Local 3, UAW-CIO, shopworker Frank Stawski, correspondent of the Body Unit section, observed: "I was asked to put this item in the unit column. There was a pause for Henry Ford, yet on Good Friday we did not pause. God commandeth his love toward us, in that, while we were yet sinners, Christ died for us." For the daily press, consideration of Henry Ford's career had led to the conclusion that free enterprise must be maintained; but Frank Stawski, reflecting on Ford's career and focusing his attention upon speed-up and layoffs, concluded: "That is one of the main reasons why we must have a union, to protect our jobs." The "Shop News and Views" editor of the UAW-CIO Local 599 Headlight, newspaper of the Buick shopworkers in Flint, Michigan, cast doubt, indeed, on the degree to which even automobile industry management felt sorrow at the death of Ford.

The tribute paid to Old Henry, the King of all auto tycoons, was meant to be a publicity gag … The public probably thinks that dear old G.M. [rivals for market] are not deadly enemies when it comes to respect for each other. Thursday, after we went to work, they placed the notice [to stop work for one minute at 2:30 P.M.] on the bulletin boards not at 6:00 A.M., on the time clocks. Nor at any time did our Bosses ask us to pause at 2:30 P.M. Also no whistle was blown. I point this incident out to you, not that Henry was kind to labor, but to the fact that this man did more to promote mass production which G.M. copied. Their tribute was a farce. Just a publicity gag of the lowest type … More than likely if we had paused, we would have been slapped around with a reprimand … I would be ashamed to print what some of our supervision said when asked why we did not pause … Just a lot of hot wind looking for a place to cool its heels.

And was the closing down of Ford plants throughout the country on the day of the funeral to be considered as a day of mounring—as the daily press termed it—or as a "compulsory workless day"?

"We urge you to correct this gross blunder," said the Reverend Donald Harrington, minister of New York's Community Church and national chairman of the Workers Defense League, in a telegram to Henry Ford II. "Depriving your employes of pay for the day's mourning for your grandfather does not constitute a memorial to him which you would want your workers to remember."

Exactly what Ford workers would remember about their employer no one could state with certainty, but that in all probability it would not be identical with that which the daily press felt to be memorable was made clear by the editorial which appeared in the Ford workers' own news-paper, Ford Facts:

Henry Ford placed his reliance primarily on individuals like himself rather than on government or social action. As the foremost exponent of assembly line mass production, he revolutionized industry and with it society. Thus he did as much as any man to bring into being a world in which his own intense individualism no longer provided an adequate answer to the burning problems of either society or the individual … Ford's individualism brought into being its opposite—the need of collective action and thinking, of cooperation on a far-reaching scale … The world which he leaves behind calls for new qualities and new values.

Like the daily press, the newspaper of Ford's employees gave credit to the man for his industrial innovations. But from the conclusion that those accomplishments testified to the need for maintaining what the press called "individualism" it sharply dissented; and in that dissent lay the hint of an alternative morality and economy.

But not all, even of the labor newspapers, discussed Ford's accomplishments in the light of alternative economic systems. For the most part they applied to the appraisal of Ford criteria similar to those used by the daily press, and from similar criteria emerged similar conclusions. "Neither the saga of American industrial progress nor our rise to hitherto unknown standards of living and comfort can be understood without Henry Ford. In his own, admittedly individualistic way he did more to promote the workers' welfare than a great many men who pride themselves on their sympathies for labor," the International Molders' Journal said. Speed-up, opposition to unions, anti-Semitism—discussion of such issues was no more prominent in this sector of the labor press than it was in the daily press. Weighed against "the great benefits that have accrued … through his genius and energy," his "personal eccentricities" were as nothing. That his method of "assembly line production … revolutionized the nation"; that he had "held each worker is entitled to a living wage"; that his triumph was a demonstration that "democracy, being the right way of life, can recruit its leaders at the grass roots"—these were the important conclusions to be derived from a study of Ford's life.

In praise of Ford both labor leaders and antilabor spokesmen united, and the common ground of their admiration for him was broad enough to support mutually exclusive reasons for approbation. The officers of the Michigan State CIO Council, for example, applauded Ford for the fact that he "was one of the first industrialists to recognize the CIO as an organization here to stay by accepting collective bargaining" [Diamond adds in an endnote that this statemen "is contrary to the facts. The General Motors Corporation recognized the UAW-CIO in February, 1937; Chrysler, shortly thereafter; and Ford—the last automobile company to recognize the union—not until June 21, 1941"]. But one southern newspaper, the Augusta Chronicle, praised him because, the "essence of rugged individualism, he remained to the last an economic and political conservative and never became reconciled to trade unions even after recognizing them … If there is a defense for a free economy, nothing speaks louder than the deeds of Henry Ford." Both, no doubt, would have agreed with the statement of the Buffalo Catholic Labor Observer that "the death of Henry Ford focuses the attention of world industry and world labor on America's success in the field of mass production. Nowhere else are so many useful products of the teamwork of labor and management so available to so large a number of well-paid men and women"—for in that statement was recognition and approval of a mutuality of interest between "labor and management." To the degree that that mutuality of interest was affirmed by leaders of the labor movement—and certainly such statements were elicited to a greater extent by discussion of Henry Ford than of any other American entrepreneur—the leaders of business enterprise were assured that they would continue to function in a climate of security.

The journals of industry, of course, spared few adjectives in their portrayal of Ford as a "Courageous, far-seeing pioneer—Giant of Industry—Genius of Production—Master Craftsman in many fields—Humanitarian—A man whose life story is written in the minds of all people, whose life work benefited all mankind." To be sure, such journals felt, to a greater degree than was the case with the daily press, that while Ford "had an uncanny knack for doing the right thing and saying the right thing when it came to building motor cars," he had "a similar un-canny knack for doing just the opposite when it came to public utterances and activities in world affairs." Even that, however, had its advantages: "In the long run his own embarrassment probably was counterbalanced by the valuable publicity accruing to the company." But regarding his accomplishments in industry, his influence on society, and his contributions to human welfare, there could be no doubt. Certainly his services "cannot and should not be forgotten until time has erased the last remnants of western civilization."

"Thorough and untiring in his methods," vividly imaginative in the generation of ideas and forceful in their application, he succeeded in manufacturing a product "within the reach of everyone"; if that was "good business policy" which resulted in "a tremendous fortune" for him, it was also "a very unselfish attitude" which "promoted the welfare of mankind." No wonder then, that "workmen in overalls and fashionably dressed business executives" alike respected and loved him. They loved him because he had served them and because his life was an exemplification not only of "the creativeness of mind and the energy of our nation," but of "those enduring qualities and the high purpose … the simplicity and vigor" which represent "America in its finest tradition." He was, in this sense, a product of his country, but he had been one of its creators as well: "Henry Ford's favorite philosopher, Ralph Waldo Emerson, has said that great institutions are but the elongated shadow of a man. If this is true in any case it was true in the case of Ford."

The magazines of public opinion agreed with the organs of industry. Through watching Ford, claimed Time, "two generations" of persons the world over "caught a glimpse—however distorted—of U.S. capitalism's great adventure." And great indeed had that adventure been. "The real Industrial Revolution of our day—the one which Henry Ford led and symbolized—was not a technological one, was not based on this or that machine, this or that technique, but on the hierarchical coordination of human efforts which mass production realizes in its purest form." Economist Peter Drucker gave Ford full credit for unsurpassed "success in technology and economics," but felt that he had failed "to solve the problems of the new industrial system." If the relatively few readers of Harper's Magazine were given the impression that in that sense at least Ford's life had been a failure, the millions of readers of Life were given no reason to qualify their approval. "The philosopher's case against Ford," that magazine asserted testily, "is that he … cast up economic and social problems for which he could discover no acceptable solution. But why expect him to? His apologia, if one is required, is the American standard of living, the power of machines that made it possible for this nation in two world wars to escape the frightful human toll of the war of hordes. The rest is up to the philosophers."

Other magazines, less modest, donned the philosopher's garb which Life had forsworn and inquired into the real meaning of Ford's life.

"Henry Ford was as American as Pike's Peak," wrote Ira E. Bennettin the National Republic:

It was only in a giant land of free men that he could have developed himself and his work … The USA offered opportunity to a free man to develop the gifts which God bestowed upon him. The result was an astounding phenomenon of production on a continental scale, and that application of revolutionary processes that have spread benefits to all mankind, including the enemies who would destroy such free enterprise … Any Russian, Communist or otherwise, who should try to follow the path blazed by Henry Ford would be slaughtered as soon as the NKVD could amass the damning evidence of his individualism … When the New Deal was in its poisonous heyday Henry Ford refused to comply with its impudent demands. He detected the inherent baseness and un-Americanism of the NRA and its defeatist "blue eagle" of industrial servitude to bureaucracy … He could have been a billionaire thrice over if he had been eager to make money. But he did not crave wealth. He used money as a tool or necessary adjunct of operations … A free country enabled him to acquire this money-tool … No greedy state-tyranny snatched away in taxes the money that freely flowed toward Henry Ford in payment for his enterprise … He saw the dangers of communism in 1917 … Until his last breath he resisted the encroachments of communism in whatever guise it assumed … Is it true that the US is now committed to a tax policy that will forever destroy the possibility of developing private enterprise on a scale like Henry Ford's achievement? Is it possible that a new theory of government is killing individual enterprise by preventing it from accumulating and using capital as a tool of industry? Some observers think so … The conflict between Americanism and communism sharpens the point of the argument in favor of individual freedom, including freedom to use money for industrial development. Let the showdown come—the sooner the better.

In identifying Henry Ford with the "free enterprise system," in identifying "free enterprise" with Americanism, and in regarding Ford's career as proof of the superiority of that system over all others, the National Republic was simply stating what the vast majority of the written media of public opinion had already in large measure affirmed. Not only Ford himself, but the economic system of which he was held to be the proudest product, was granted the high sanction of patriotism. More powerful support the press could hardly have offered; and it was as if in recognition of this that Ford Times—official house organ of the Ford Motor Company—felt no apparent need to make an original contribution to the discussion, as the Standard Oil Company had done when Rockefeller had died, but instead contented itself with quoting what others—political figures, industrialists, labor leaders, and the press—had said. The image that the Company wished the American people to have of Ford was embodied in the poem declaimed by Edgar A. Guest on the Columbia Broad-casting System during the Ford Hour:

Not many came to earth so wise,
   So tender and so true
To show what faith and enterprise
   And willing hands could do.
  Who proved how great a man can be,
   And gave so much to us,
Now Lord, we give him back to Thee
   A soul victorious.

Not always had such pleasant verse been composed about Henry Ford. An amateur poet writing in the United Auto Worker had once expressed his feelings regarding Ford and the Ford Sunday Evening Hour in phrases considerably more pungent, if no more complex, than those of Edgar Guest:

Now the music dies out in the distance,
They announce a lovely old hymn,
Giving all glory to God
And singing their praises to him.

But I wonder if those up in heaven
Ever look down from above
And see guns, tear-gas and night-sticks,
A symbol of Ford's brand of love.

Do you think, Henry Ford, you exploiter,
You can buy with this kind of stuff
The thanks and goodwill of thousands
Who haven't nearly enough?

So you might as well keep your music
And shut old Cameron's yap,
For while we enjoy your music
We haven't time for your crap.

So we'll stick to the union forever,
Yes, forever and a day,
Till the power of Ford has vanished
And the workers have gained a new day.

Clearly such an estimate rested upon quite different criteria—both of Ford and of business enterprise—than those used by Edgar Guest. Only a decade and a half before Ford's death, the author of one of the country's most highly acclaimed novels—applying criteria which he considered relevant to the circumstances of the times—concluded:

Henry Ford as an old man

is a passionate antiquarian,

(lives besieged on his father's farm embedded in an estate of thousands of millionaire acres, protected by an army of servicemen, secretaries, secret agents, dicks under orders of an English exprizefighter,

always afraid of the feet in broken shoes on the roads, afraid the gangs will kidnap his grandchildren,

that a crank will shoot him,

that Change and the idle hands out of work will break through the gates and the high fences;

protected by a private army against

the new America of starved children and hollow bellies and cracked shoes stamping on souplines,

that has swallowed up the old thrifty farmlands

of Wayne County, Michigan,

as if they had never been). [John Dos Passos, The Big Money, 1936]

But the passing of even so short a span as fifteen years gave rise to new problems, softened former appraisals, and—with both—created the possibility of rephrasing the discussion of the entrepreneur in terms which had-greater relevance to the needs of the period. Certainly the American press was virtually unanimous in presenting Ford in such a way as to elicit the widest possible approval both for himself and for the economic system which he was held to represent. The methods by which this was accomplished consisted largely of a series of statements which tended to identify both Ford and that economic system with service to the needs of the people and with those cultural values which were the objects of deepest loyalty and affection and which were held to be in gravest danger.

So far as Ford himself was concerned, discussion of his role as a businessman was hardly more important than discussion of the nonbusiness phases of his life. That he had had an amazingly successful business career, that mis success had been based on the combination of personal abilities and a society which rewarded possession of such abilities, and that his business activities—while profitable to himself—were important primarily because of the effect they had in raising the standard of living—all of this was, of course, emphatically affirmed. But no less emphasized was the fact that Ford was more than a businessman. He had been patriot, sportsman, philanthropist, scientist, philosopher, sociologist, reformer, economist, teacher, historian, and, above all, a simple homebody. That a few, reading the accounts of Ford's career at the time of his death, might have discerned contradictions in the roles imputed to him was doubtless of less significance than the fact that a great many could find in those accounts such a range of gratifications as to make possible the eliciting of a favorable response.

And gratifications enough there were.

For the multitudes who already felt that a career such as Ford's was one of social utility and whose system of values sanctioned such activities, the portrayal of Ford by the press was gilt for the lily. Not all, however, felt so firmly that such careers were socially useful, that the success attained by Ford or other great entrepreneurs was to be attributed solely to their ability, that opportunities for advancement were distributed equally throughout the social structure, that they owed "honor and service" to the economic organization of which Ford was a part, or even, indeed, that it was desirable to show devotion to a society in which upward progress—even if based on superior abilities—was measured in terms of added income received at each rung of the ladder. When the victory is always to the swift, the slow grow weary of perpetual defeat and may begin to argue either mat no one ought to race for bread and butter or that the rules of the contest are unfair and in need of change. The majority of large businessmen may believe that ability—without qualification—is at the root of economic success and give no place to "pull" or "luck," but only a minority of unskilled workers believes so. Every successive penetration down-ward into the social structure reveals an increasing number of persons who deny that success is a function of ability and that opportunity is distributed equally.

In this gap between economic reality and acceptance by all of that reality lurked the danger to business enterprise and to the sense of common purpose vital to the functioning of society. To bridge this gap by informing the American people of the new significance of the entrepreneur in the changing conditions of American life was the achievement of the press. From the praise which the press bestowed upon Ford those who had attained even a moderate degree of economic success could take comfort, for they had a convincing demonstration that their activities were appreciated and that the system which maintained and encouraged those activities was being staunchly defended. But satisfactions could be derived by others as well. Henry Ford had indeed been a hero, but a special kind of hero. He had been, the press insisted, a hero in spite of himself, a man who would have liked nothing better than to be simply father and husband in his own house.

How was it possible to resent his superior position? Had he not remained unspoiled despite his success; had he not abundantly demonstrated that he was made of the same clay as others; had he not shown solicitude for the welfare of those who had not even the slightest claim on him? And had he not, moreover, constantly emphasized that success was not a proper goal for mankind; that he personally had not followed its siren song; and that the only true goal was that of service to one's fellows? From this even the unsuccessful could draw assurance, for they had it from the mouth of Ford himself that not wealth, but virtue, counted. By this standard, so the unsuccessful might infer, who could say that the successful were really worthy and the unsuccessful unworthy? And so far as Ford himself was concerned, if it was position in the hierarchy of virtue, not in that of economic status, which really counted, and if Ford's position in the former was at the apex, then who could deny that he deserved the tributes he received? Judge not the man of business by his balance sheets, the press admonished its readers, for by that standard what would be the verdict as to you? Judge him as ye would wish to be judged—by a higher standard of accounting, the standard of morality. This was, to be sure, emphasis upon the personal qualities of the entrepreneur, but it was not emphasis upon those qualities which had characterized discussion of early nineteenth-century entrepreneurs. Then the press had been concerned with stressing those aspects of character and personality which made of the entrepreneur a unique individual, which set him apart from his fellows. Now the press stressed less those qualities which helped account for his success than those which he had in common with all others, those which drew him into and made him part of the great mass of mankind.

Nor was this the only difference between early and late newspaper discussion of great entrepreneurs. Gone was the early implication that the entrepreneur was a free-swinging individual, unaffected by considerations of time and place and circumstance and restricted only by the potentialities of his own character. The unique qualities of American social and economic organization were given full, even lavish, credit as conditions without which entrepreneurial success was an impossibility. Only in America did opportunity exist and only in America was entrepreneurial talent recognized and nourished. But the argument did not work in reverse. Society could be expected to do no more than to interpose no obstacles in the path of success; it could not guarantee success. Failure remained a function of the individual for which society was not accountable. No less an authority than John D. Rockefeller had stated one side of the case:

… the failures which a man makes in his life are due almost always to some defect in his personality, some weakness of body, or mind, or character, will, or temperament. The only way to overcome these failings is to build up his personality from within, so that he, by virtue of what is within him, may overcome the weakness which was the cause of his failure. It is only those efforts the man himself puts forth that can really help him … It is my belief that the principal cause for the economic differences between people is their difference in personality, and that it is only as we can assist in the wider distribution of those qualities which go to make up a strong personality that we can assist in the wider distribution of wealth.

Nowhere, at the time of Ford's death, was the special relationship between entrepreneur and system, success and failure better expressed than in the Grand Forks Herald: '"American System' Made Ford's Rise Possible"—this was the title of the editorial. But—and this was the concluding sentence of the same editorial—"Not everyone can hope to become a Ford, for his was a rare combination of vision, mechanical ability, and perseverance."

The effect of such an explanation, of course, was to allow the economic system to be included in a consensus of approval, by making it responsible for permitting success, and yet at the same time to exclude it from the arena of potential controversy, by making the individual responsible for failure.

But in still another way did the press clothe business enterprise in a coat of armor that had the magical property of warding off blows even before they were struck. By identifying enterprise with the nation itself, the press was able to invest the one with the qualities of the other, to enlist in the cause of an economic system the patriotic sentiments of love and loyalty usually associated with defense of the nation.

In one sense, this was an effort to influence the thought of individual men—and therefore their action—by the use of a symbol which embodied widely held concepts of morality, tradition, religion, and patriotism, with the ultimate end of attaining a social order in which, in part through the acceptance of that symbol, all groups would participate harmoniously and act in the manner that had come to be expected of them. "When you affect the economic thought of the people, you automatically affect their political thought," said one spokesman of the business community, and the press had at its disposal powerful weapons for the affecting of both. Not the least powerful of those weapons was the virtual monopoly of the daily press in the purveying of ideas. Who beside a scattered handful of radical and trade union papers expressed a dissenting opinion?

As to the majority opinion, it performed two basic functions. In the first place, the nature of the newspaper discussion of Ford was such as to encourage emulation and win acceptance because, in Walter Lippmann's phrase, the drama of his career was presented as having originated in a setting realistic enough to make identification possible and as having terminated in a setting romantic enough to be desirable, but not so romantic as to be inconceivable. In the second place, the nature of the relationship that was alleged to exist between career and system was such as to permit the system to become the object of approval while insulating it from criticism. The system was responsible for the success of the successful; it was not responsible for the failure of the failures.

The judgment of the trade union editor—"Great riches may or may not have turned Henry Ford's head. But they surely reached the heads of the editorial writers"—was too harsh. Modern journalism "tended to speak the language of corporate business instead of that of the little fellow … not because it is corrupt and venal but because it is itself a big business, a powerful institution with its interest vested in conservative economics."

That journalism did, indeed, "speak the language of corporate business" is quite clear.

For years those who sought to interpret business enterprise to the public had shown increasing sensitivity not only to attacks on individual entrepreneurs but on the system of enterprise itself. Reviewing the history of corporate public relations in the thirtieth anniversary issue of his magazine, B. C. Forbes recalled that in the very first month of its publication he had asked: "Is it to be Democracy or Socialism?" and that in almost every succeeding issue he had hammered at the theme that unless it could be "so consistently and convincingly demonstrated to the people of humble social status that their attitude toward business and toward business men" should "be one of respect and esteem … the present economic order, cannot, to my mind, last." The cure for "economic illiteracy"—then as now—lay in proof to the public that the "basis of modern business is Service," and demonstration of that proof called for "the most energetic efforts of every agency in the land capable of reaching the public: daily and weekly newspapers and other periodicals, owners of radio stations, educational institutions from primary schools to universities, commercial banks and savings banks, as well as all other financial organizations, insurance companies, stock exchanges and all their members, manufacturers, distributors, retailers, chambers of commerce, trade associations, every enlightened, responsible citizen." Businessmen were alarmed that "the US working class" might be "entirely losing faith in capitalism's ability to maintain employment, let alone guarantee prosperity and avoid wars"; that increasing leisure for "the worker" gave him "more time to think up grievances, more inclination to listen to agitators"; and in that frame of mind even the use of the term "workshop" by the League of Women Voters was evidence of the use of "revolutionary idiom." Attacks on business enterprise and concern lest its environment be altered led businessmen to the conclusion that explanations attuned to the needs of the times were required if the public's faith in business were to be maintained and "a whole nation's economic virtue" protected.

But how was this to be accomplished? James Young, of the National Advertising Council, gave a general answer when he stated, "Advertising techniques effectively employed can more powerfully influence social action than any other means of communication." The reply of the public relations director of the General Foods Corporation, far more specific, revealed the degree to which presentation of Ford by the press conformed to the pattern of presentation preferred by business enterprise itself:

I am convinced that this process of identifying business with the great goals of the human race, the great but simple goals, is all that can maintain today's free corporate system. We have achieved mass production … and nowhere have achieved mass serenity of the peoples of this land. Instead we have only contributed to their growing frustration, their decreasing stability, their reduced happiness … Let us never for one moment give up our magnificent technologies. But do let us use our every power to identify the owners and managers of those technologies with the simple goals—better education for everybody's children, better health and nutrition, better housing, better opportunities based on ability, more security for the aged and infirm, more respect for the opinion of any man who has opinions.

"The employer organizes the forces of production. He is the natural leader of his workmen," said the National Association of Manufacturers, and "should bring to bear constantly upon them influences for right thinking and action for loyalty to the common enterprise." And how was the employer to do this? By taking "his place alongside of home, and school, and church" as the Ford Motor Company had done when it presented its employees with a list of publications it would be pleased to have them read; by revealing—again as the Ford Motor Company had done in the case of Henry Ford—that "the guiding SPIRIT OF SERVICE," not profit, is the motive of enterprise; by showing that in all essential respects employer was like employee. The General Motors Corporation illustrated these principles admirably in the definition of a businessman which it presented in the magazine it publishes for its employees:

A businessman is one who invests his money in an enterprise which gives employment and provides a regular income to himself and others.

For example, a man paid by GM to drive a truck is an employe. If he saves enough money to start his own trucking business, He's a Businessman.

Although the truck driver is now a businessman, he is pretty much the same fellow as when employed by GM. He looks the same and has the same friends.

True, his responsibilities are very much greater … but otherwise he is no different personally than he was before.

In such fashion, too, had Henry Ford been presented by the daily press—different from others only in that he was an employer, which was not such a difference after all.

Nor was this the only parallel in discussion of business enterprise between the daily press and corporation press. No less than the former did the latter identify business enterprise with the nation itself. In the lexicon of corporation house organ editors, "the American system" and "the competitive system" were one and the same, and criticism of the one, which meant criticism of the other, was therefore "alien."

"It belongs to all of us," said Uncle Sam pointing to a map of the United States labeled "BUSINESS"; and in defense of what that map symbolized, the General Motors Corporation told its employees: "Of course, there are faults in the American system. Our society is made up of millions of people, none of whom is perfect, so our system cannot be perfect. But our system can be improved, and without changing its form."

In writing their obituaries of Henry Ford, therefore, the daily newspapers were defining the role of the entrepreneur in a manner parallel to that utilized by enterprise itself. In the performance of that task, presentation of factual detail was of less importance than pronouncement of judgment. Years before, Mark Twain, seeing the distinction between the two, offered to pay for the privilege of editing his own obituary:

Of necessity, an Obituary is a thing which cannot be so judiciously edited by any hand as by that of the subject of it. In such a case it is not the Facts that are of chief importance, but the light which the obituarist shall throw upon them, the meanings which he shall dress them in, the conclusions which he shall draw from them, and the judgments which he shall deliver upon them. The Verdicts, you understand … not their Facts, but their Verdicts.

With respect to Henry Ford, the verdict of the press was as clear as it was decisive. In his life the American people might see dramatic confirmation of two fundamental precepts: entrepreneur was linked to community by the common attributes of humanity and by principles of motivation which guided his activities in the direction of service to all; enterprise was linked to nation by identification with patriotism and historical tradition. At no time, at least not since the death of Stephen Girard in 1831, were American entrepreneurs given more reason to feel that their activities were thoroughly in accord with national aspirations. In 1947, to be sure, the entrepreneur did not mean to the American people what he had meant in 1831. Emphasis upon personal uniqueness and, with it, the belief that character determines fate had largely disappeared; but they had disappeared because the new conditions of American society imposed new requirements and gave opportunity for new meanings to be seen in the lives of businessmen. Absent was the uniqueness of the entrepreneur, but present was identification with his fellows; absent was the implication that entrepreneurial qualities were everywhere and always applicable, but present was the understanding that entrepreneur and social system were inseparable. The entrepreneur had, indeed, "built himself into the history" of his country.