The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) (47 page)

Once the United States entered the hostilities, the Ford Motor Company did indeed fully support the war effort. It used its mass-production methods to pursue two large projects: the making of thousands of ambulances, cars, and trucks for the armed forces, and the production of thousands of Liberty airplane engines. Two other projects—Eagle submarine-patrol boats and small, two-man “flivver tanks”—were aborted by the end of the war. In 1917–18, the company also participated enthusiastically in drives for Liberty Loans and the Red Cross, and pioneered in making films for military training and to publicize activities of various branches of the military.
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Ford's stalwart support for Wilson and his policies eventually produced a surprising result. The President called him to Washington in early June 1917—they met at Shadow Lawn, Wilson's summer place, and at the White House—and urged him to run for the United States Senate from Michigan in the 1918 election. Wilson saw Ford as someone who could win as a Democrat in a heavily Republican state, and who would support his policies, including the League of Nations. He told Ford that in difficult times men must give to their country and described him as “the only man in Michigan who can be elected and help to bring about the peace you so much desire.” Although not eager to run, Ford saw the President's appeal as a patriotic duty.
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The Michigan Senate race began in peculiar fashion. Ford refused to run in the traditional way, eschewing both campaigning and the established political parties. He entered the contest as a citizen candidate from outside the political system and ran in
both
the Republican and Democratic state primaries. During these races, he made clear his distaste for actively seeking office. In a private letter, he noted, “If the people of Michigan chose to elect me to that office I would accept it, but I will not lift a finger to bring it about.” Determined to avoid party affiliation and to exercise free and independent judgment, he dismissed politics as a dirty, unattractive business. As he put it, “I have already found from the Wall Street press that I have been guilty of breaking most of the ten commandments and the campaign has not yet fairly opened.” Gathering support from workers and farmers, Ford came in second in the Republican contest, but won an overwhelming victory in the Democratic primary.
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In the fall campaign, Ford's Republican opponent was Truman H. Newberry, a Detroit businessman and secretary of the navy in the Roosevelt
administration. With America's entry into World War I, Newberry became a lieutenant commander with a desk job in Washington, and then returned to Michigan in 1918. In the general election, he spent a great deal of money and followed a relentless schedule of speech-making. By contrast, Ford spent nothing and refused to campaign or give public speeches. Nonetheless, through interviews and press releases, the citizen candidate made clear his positions on several issues.

He pledged that, even though he would fully support the American war effort as senator, he would work for a resolution that “will give permanent peace to the world, and, I believe, infinite glory to the United States.” He fully supported Wilson's plan for the League of Nations and declared that when the war was over he would take down the American flag from his factory and “hoist in its place the Flag of all Nations, which is being designed in my office right now.” He promised not to accept a cent of profit from war production and polished his progressive credentials by endorsing women's suffrage.
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Ford provided perhaps the fullest explanation of his political sensibility in
World's Work
in September 1918. In a piece entitled “Why Henry Ford Wants to Be a Senator,” which listed him as the author, he explained that he was running only at the request of President Wilson and had no interest in politics as a profession. “I shall not spend a cent nor make a single move to get into the Senate,” he told voters. “I shall not have a campaign organization, nor pay any campaign bills.” Having already served the people by “giving them the best car they can get for their money,” now, if the voters so chose, he was willing “to do other things for the benefit of mankind.”

Ford outlined his key political concerns. At the top of the list, of course, was peace. “I am willing to fight only to put an end to all war,” he claimed, and promised to work toward finding ways of preventing armed clashes in the future and to work against “the kind of nationalism that tries to set one country up against another.” He listed consumer comfort as the second of his political goals. Everyone in the world, he insisted, deserved “a chance to get what he wants at a price he can afford to pay.” Human nature drove people to seek happiness and fulfillment, Ford believed, and they “cannot hope to be happy unless they are sure of a comfortable living with leisure in which to enjoy themselves.” He promised to pursue policies that would promote this goal, pledging to work for social and labor reform, and noting that the modern industrial revolution “has not benefited the common man so much as it has benefited the profiteer.” Finally, he promised to seek policies that would help farmers, decentralize industrial production, and develop new sources of power. Ford concluded, “Whatever will open up greater opportunities for comfortable, happy living for the ordinary man, and teach him
and his family how to make the best use of those opportunities, is the proper function of government.”
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A controversial personal issue arose during the course of the campaign. The fact that Edsel Ford, Henry's son, had secured a draft deferment to stay out of the armed forces and remain at work in the company aroused much criticism. Hostile newspapers pointed out, “Henry was more successful in keeping his boy out of the trenches than he was in getting other boys out by Christmas,” and suggested, “The people of Michigan are not going to send the father of a slacker to the United States senate.” The Newberry campaign picked up on this theme in a series of advertisements. “Truman H. Newberry is no new convert to preparedness,” said one. “He backs up his belief in preparedness by being in the service himself. His sons are in the service. His whole family is serving.” Another pictured Newberry and his two sons dressed out in military uniforms, along with the statement, “Truman H. Newberry believes in practical patriotism—So do his sons—They are all in the Service, just like lots of other fathers and sons.”
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Despite these attacks and his supine style of electioneering, Ford's idiosyncratic noncampaign gathered significant public support. He received endorsements from many prominent national figures. William G. McAdoo, Wilson's secretary of the treasury and a leading national Democrat, wrote, “You have shown yourself to be a real patriot, and those are the kind of men who ought to be sent to the Congress of the United States these days.” Bernard Baruch, chairman of the War Industries Board, said, “I am more than delighted that you are going into the race for the Senatorship, and I want to congratulate the State upon getting you to run.” John R. Commons, on the other hand, urged Ford to reconsider his candidacy: “Please do not consent. The Senate would smother you. You have bigger work, namely to finish your job and be the next President.”
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Ford's status as folk hero and reputation as a friend of the common man gained him much popular support. Many workers and farmers believed he would pursue their interests. Labor journals such as
The Union,
published in Indianapolis, editorialized that Ford's election to the Senate “would give labor a real representative in that body” and contrasted him with other big industrialists, who exploited their workers. Other reforming voices claimed, in the words of a newspaper headline, “Henry Ford Is Progressive, Therefore He Suffers Abuse.” As the accompanying editorial contended, “Henry Ford has incurred the bitter and deadly hostility of the privileged classes, of the predatory interests, of those who look upon the plain people as their rightful prey.”
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A particularly sympathetic and insightful assessment of Ford and his senatorial campaign appeared in
World's Work.
In a piece entitled “Henry
Ford, Amateur,” Frank Parker Stockbridge suggested that Ford's candidacy was fueled by a personal sensibility rather than a specific political agenda. After talking with Ford, he perceived no limitations on his ability—or, indeed, the ability of mankind—to change the world. Combining the peculiarly American traits of egalitarianism, experimentation, and practical achievement, Ford was defined by his

Here was a clear snapshot of Henry Ford the “amateur” citizen candidate— a man who refused to campaign, lacked respect for professional politicians, promised to bring fresh perspectives to public issues, believed that clear analysis and goodwill could solve problems, and exuded quiet confidence in his ability to reform the system. For many Michigan voters, the idea that Ford could remake government as he had remade the production of automobiles had great appeal.
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Yet Ford also aroused considerable opposition among segments of the population. Two issues particularly caused concern. Ford's highly publicized opposition to American preparedness did not sit well with a significant portion of the public. According to the South Haven, Michigan,
Daily Tribune,
Ford was “a leading figure among the pacifists who kept the country unprepared for the conflict that was inevitable, and who are responsible for the tremendous waste of blood and treasure that we must make to make up for those years of folly.” The Flint
Journal
agreed, noting that when Ford “took his shipload of squirrel food to The Hague …he was the joke of the world.” Now he had the nerve to run for the Senate, an act that prompted this conclusion: “As a come-back artist, Henry is the prize winner.”
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A sharp attack on Ford's pacifism came from Theodore Roosevelt. A strident supporter of American entry into World War I, the aging but energetic Roosevelt had tried unsuccessfully to raise a regiment, as he had done in the Spanish-American War, before proudly seeing several of his sons go
off to combat in the United States Army. Ford's pacifistic crusade had infuriated him, and his statements supporting President Wilson's plans for an international League of Nations now made Roosevelt nearly apoplectic. He burst into the Michigan election by lambasting Ford in a public letter that became the basis of an advertising campaign. In full-page ads in Michigan newspapers, the former President denounced Ford for the Peace Ship, his son's failure to enter the military, and his support for world government. In his unmistakable style, which mixed theatrics with sarcasm, Roosevelt declared:

In addition to suspecting Ford's views on war and peace, many voters also believed that his refusal to campaign for office smacked of high-handedness rather than virtue. It highlighted his central weakness as a candidate: a complete lack of political experience. Ford's success as an automobile manufacturer “is no proof that he is a master of public questions, that he has the qualifications of a statesman, that he can create, interpret, or guide and lead public opinion concerning those great problems of human conduct on which the destinies of nations turn,” a magazine article argued. Even his friends and admirers, noted one newspaper, “still question the wisdom of his entrance into politics.” Other commentaries were less delicate. Proclaiming that it was “A Hazardous Time to Take Chances,” the Oswosso
Times
concluded, “The chances are ten to one that as an United States Senator he would be a fizzle.” The Sanilac County
Times
agreed that “for the great state of Michigan to send a man with no more governmental experience than Henry Ford to Washington … would be a serious mistake.” The Grand Rapids
News
offered a biting conclusion: “Mr. Ford would be about as useful in the United States senate as a pastry cook would be at the head of a receiving line.”
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When Michigan voters went to the polls in early November, Ford lost the Senate seat to Newberry by the very thin margin of 212,487 to 220,054.
Ford demanded a recount—there was also an investigation by a federal grand jury into Newberry's excessively high spending—and it pulled him within five thousand votes of victory. But this was not enough. Though Ford had sought the office only reluctantly, he was unhappy about losing. Newberry's enormous campaign expenditures, Ford concluded, only proved that Wall Street “interests” lay behind his defeat. “If they would spend $176,000 to win a single Senate seat,” he complained to an associate, “we may be certain that they would spend $176,000,000 to get control of the country.”
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Ford had acquired a taste for the political limelight. A few years later, he would allow his name to be bandied about as a candidate for president, a political flirtation that had leading national politicians as well as commentators in an uproar for well over a year. Ford, it seems clear in hindsight, was a type that popped up periodically in American public life: the straight-talking nonpolitician who transcends party and promises to clean things up. Much like the protagonist in the 1930s Frank Capra film
Mr. Smith Goes to Washington,
Ford appealed to the public imagination as an honest reformer. “Mr. Ford Goes to Washington,” if never actually projected onto the screen of national politics, offered an enticing political fantasy to many.