Who IS Henry Ford?

History's Bitterest Revenge: to Pigeon-Hole Him as a Rich Man

Dr. Marquis, eminent divine of Detroit, has known Henry Ford for 20 years. Dr. Marquis went along on the Peace Ship; was employed for five years as " sociologist" head of the Ford plant; became so interested in the mind of Henry Ford that Ford psychology became his major study. Dr. Marquis' book,* cleverly written, is an examination of the Ford halo. It leaves that halo very big if somewhat tin.

According to Ford's ex-pastor and ex-employee:

The Ford fortune is perhaps the cleanest ever made. That fact gives a titanic leverage to his anti-capitalist catapult. "If there are any who would like to see Mr. Ford lose out, they are not in the ranks of Labor." As a plain matter of fact that cannot be said, for example, of Labor's attitude toward Judge Gary.

If it is said that Ford made money out of his labor policy, the answer is that the policy is not copyrighted. Other business men are at liberty to adopt it.

But Henry Ford, like the rest of us, is discontented. "Money means nothing to me," he says. " There is nothing I want that I cannot have. But I do not want the things money can buy." He wants to be known as an original thinker in national and international problems. There he fails.

For one thing, Henry Ford cannot cooperate. " If our Government were an absolute monarchy, a one-man affair, Henry Ford would be the logical man for the throne." The Ford administration would economize by dispensing with Cabinet and Congress. " Transference of the Ford organization to Washington could be accomplished in a single section of a Pullman car, with one in the upper and two in the lower berth."

Autocracy, successful in business, is not always effective in government. That is why even Mr. Edison, life-long friend, will not vote for Ford for President.

Similarly, since he is not a majority stockholder, he does not work with the church; although if he did we would have " ecclesiastical conventions meeting annually to devise ways and means for using a surplus" instead of covering a deficit.

Even his hospital must be his alone. He returned the money of

Mrs. Ford attends to common charity. Her husband hates it. He once gave $17 to a man and it ruined him; since then he has given men just jobs, jobs and more jobs.

Baptized into the Episcopal Church, he has never taken the trouble to leave it. But " he is not an orthodox believer according to the standards of any church I happen to know." Theology interests him. He believes, or did once believe, in reincarnation. Morally, he has reached first base on a clean private life, simple tastes, wholesome pleasure and a happy home.

Disregarding " social" nonsense, Mr. and Mrs. Ford built their permanent home on the banks of the Rouge in Dearborn, where they were boy and girl lovers together--in sight of the cottage where they dreamed the future together. The house is large, not pretentious; there are servants, but the footman does not laugh up his sleeve while " Mr. Ford takes the jackets off his potatoes boiled-with-the-skin-on." Over the fireplace is inscribed: " Chop your own wood and it will warm you twice."

We learn also from Dr. Marquis:

Henry Ford is hopelessly indebted to his former executives, such as Senator Couzens, whom he has made rich, but whom he ruthlessly " scrapped." It is the moral and personal indebtedness which is the only kind Ford does not know how to pay.

Henry Ford, "behind a Chinese wall" of isolation, is one of the most difficult men in America to see, although "when you once get to him he is the soul of geniality."

Henry Ford loves nature and children, but his chief hobby is work.

Edsel Ford is almost as big a man as his father, and has more breadth of mind and understanding. He is completely whitewashed from the charge of being a slacker in the war.

A conclusion: " The man who attempts to do sensational things entirely out of his sphere and beyond his power will, in time, wear down the public's confidence in his judgment. Henry Ford is not so widely admired as he once was. Grant that a man is sincere in trying to do what he is not fitted to do, that will not prevent men mingling pity with their admiration. And pity, when too frequently aroused, is in danger of turning into a mild contempt."

* HENRY FORD, an Interpretation--Samuel S. Marquis--Little, Brown ($2.50)