Генри Фордтың «Dearborn Independent» газеті

Former American newspaper established by Henry Ford

The Dearborn Independent, also known as The Ford International Weekly, was a weekly newspaper established in 1901, and published by Henry Ford from 1919 through 1927. The paper reached a circulation of 900,000 by 1925, second only to the New York Daily News, largely due to a quota system for promotion imposed on Ford dealers. Lawsuits regarding antisemitic material published in the paper caused Ford to close it, and the last issue was published in December 1927. The publication's title was derived from the Detroit suburb of Dearborn, Michigan.

In 1918, Ford's closest aide and private secretary, Ernest G. Liebold, purchased the Independent from Marcus Woodruff, who had been running it at a loss. The initial staff of the newspaper included E. G. Pipp, previously managing editor of the Detroit News, writers William J. Cameron (also formerly of the News) and Marcus Woodruff, and Fred Black as business manager. The paper was printed on a used press purchased by Ford and installed in Ford's tractor plant in The Rouge. Publication under Ford was inaugurated in January 1919. The paper initially attracted notoriety in June 1919 with coverage of the libel lawsuit between Henry Ford and the Chicago Tribune, when stories written by Pipp and Cameron were picked up nationally.

Henry Ford, a self proclaimed pacifist who opposed World War I, believed that Jews were responsible for starting wars in order to profit from them: "International financiers are behind all war. They are what is called the international Jew: German Jews, French Jews, English Jews, American Jews. I believe that in all those countries except our own the Jewish financier is supreme here the Jew is a threat". Ford felt that Jews, in their role as financiers, contributed nothing of value to society. He believed that Jewish businesses focused solely on price, and cheapened their products. Ford once bit into a candy bar and, finding it not as good as it once had been, said "The Jews have taken hold of it. They've cheapened it to make more money". In 1915, Ford blamed Jews for instigating World War I, saying "I know who caused the war: German Jewish bankers." In 1925, Ford said "What I oppose most is the international Jewish money power that is met in every war. That is what I oppose – a power that has no country and that can order the young men of all countries out to death." Ford ensured that everyone who worked for any of his companies accepted his views, and made sure not to hire a single Jew in office jobs, although he hired them for physical labor. So began the articles with themes of a worldwide conspiracy by Jewish super capitalists, that the Jews invented the stock market and gold standard just to corrupt the world and other peoples.

Pipp left the Independent in April 1920 in disgust with the planned antisemitic articles, which began in May. He later claimed that a major influence on the paper's antisemitism came from Boris Brasol, a White Russian émigré lawyer, writer, and conspiracy theorist. Ford did not write the articles. He expressed his opinions verbally to his executive secretary, Ernest Liebold, and to William J. Cameron, who replaced Pipp as editor. Cameron had the main responsibility for expanding these opinions into article form. Liebold was responsible for collecting more material to support the articles. One of the articles, "Jewish Power and America's Money Famine", asserted that the power exercised by Jews over the nation's supply of money was insidious, depriving farmers and others outside the banking coterie of money when they needed it most. The article asked the question: "Where is the American gold supply? It may be in the United States but it does not belong to the United States." It concluded that Jews controlled the gold supply and, hence, American money. Another article, "Jewish Idea Molded Federal Reserve System", was a reflection of Ford's distrust of the Federal Reserve System and its proponent, Paul Warburg. Ford believed the Federal Reserve system was secretive and insidious. These articles gave rise to claims of antisemitism against Ford, and in 1929 he signed a statement apologizing for the articles. While Henry Ford owned The Dearborn Independent, none of its content was directly written by him, including the "International Jew" series. However, the views expressed in the "International Jew" reflected Ford's own antisemitic views, especially because nothing was published without Ford's final approval. This series of antisemitic articles in the Dearborn Independent was published for a total of 91 weeks. The articles pinned cultural developments such as jazz, immoral books, flashy jewelry, and alcohol consumption on the Jews and Jewish influence. Partially attributable to his antisemitic beliefs, Hitler was a fan of Ford, and Hitler had a full length portrait of Henry Ford at the headquarters of the National Social Party.

During the Weimar Republic in the early 1920s, the Protocols was reprinted and published in Germany, along with anti Jewish articles first published by The Dearborn Independent and reprinted in translation in Germany as a set of four bound volumes, cumulatively titled The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem. Steven Watts wrote that Adolf Hitler "revered" Ford. He quotes Hitler as saying, "I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany", and says that Hitler modeled the Volkswagen, the people's car, on the Model T. Several themes from the Dearborn Independent articles appear in Mein Kampf. Hitler even quoted the Dearborn Independent in Mein Kampf and Henry Ford was the only American that Hitler specifically named: "Every year they [the Jews] manage to become increasingly the controlling masters of the labor power of a people of 120,000,000 souls; one great man, Ford, to their exasperation still holds out independently there even now." On February 1, 1924, Ford received Kurt Lüdecke, a representative of Hitler, at his home. Lüdecke was introduced to Ford by Siegfried Wagner (son of the famous composer Richard Wagner) and his wife Winifred, both Nazi sympathizers and antisemites. Lüdecke asked Ford for a contribution to the Nazi cause, though this is denied by the Ford Motor Company. In July 1938, prior to the outbreak of war, the German consul at Cleveland gave Ford, on his 75th birthday, the award of the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the highest medal Nazi Germany could bestow on a foreigner. James D. Mooney, vice president of overseas operations for General Motors, received a similar medal, the Merit Cross of the German Eagle, First Class.

There was much negative press about the Dearborn Independent within Jewish communities, but there was non Jewish negative press as well.

There are many accounts of Jewish organizations coming together to fight the Dearborn Independent. The first major antisemitic article about Jews was published on June 19, 1920. There were major repetitions on August 28, then again in February, March, and November 1921.

The Federal Council of Churches of Christ in America published a resolution condemning Ford's propaganda and beliefs. In January 1921, a statement titled "The Peril of Racial Prejudice" denounced antisemitism as un American and condemned the Independent for its antisemitic campaign. It was signed by more than one hundred prominent citizens of "Gentile birth and Christian faith", including President Woodrow Wilson, former president William Howard Taft, William Jennings Bryan, Clarence Darrow, Nicholas Murray Butler, Robert Frost, Samuel Seabury, Ida Tarbell, Paul Cravath and the presidents of Williams, Oberlin, and Dartmouth colleges as well as Princeton, Cornell, and Syracuse universities. However, this did not stop the Dearborn Independent from their negative press regarding Jews. San Francisco lawyer and Jewish farm cooperative organizer Aaron Sapiro filed a libel lawsuit in response. During the trial, the editor of Ford's "Own Page", William Cameron, testified that Ford had nothing to do with the editorials even though they were under his byline. Cameron testified that he never discussed the content of the pages with Ford, or sent them to Ford for his approval. Friends and business associates said they warned Ford about the contents of the Independent and that Ford probably never read the articles (he claimed he only read the headlines). Further court testimony alleged that Ford knew about the contents of the Independent in advance of publication. Investigative journalist Max Wallace noted that "whatever credibility this absurd claim [Cameron's denial] may have had was soon undermined when James M. Miller, a former Dearborn Independent employee, swore under oath that Ford had told him he intended to expose Sapiro."

The trial prompted the Anti Defamation League (ADL) to begin a concerted effort to oppose the Independent. An ADL led coalition of Jewish groups led the charge, and raised objections to Ford's writings in the Detroit press. The ADL also organized a boycott of Ford products, which was supported not only by Jews, but also by several liberal Christian groups. In December 1927, Ford gave in and abolished the paper. News reports at the time quoted him as saying he was shocked by the paper's content and unaware of its nature. Ford also wrote a public letter to ADL president Sigmund Livingston recanting his antisemitic views. Ford's 1927 apology was generally well received: "Four Fifths of the hundreds of letters addressed to Ford in July 1927 were from Jews, and almost without exception they praised the Industrialist." While most of the major national Jewish and non Jewish newspapers accepted Ford's apology, many local Jewish papers rejected it. In January 1937, a Ford statement to The Detroit Jewish Chronicle disavowed "any connection whatsoever with the publication in Germany of a book known as The International Jew."