The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) (51 page)

The trial opened on May 12,1919, with the selection of a jury, a process that took four days. It was composed entirely of farmers. The primary attorney for the
Tribune
was Elliot G. Stevenson, who had represented the Dodge brothers in their suit against Ford; he was assisted by several other lawyers. The Ford team, led by Alfred Lucking, in their opening statement claimed that the
Tribune
had worked to embroil the United States in a conflict
with Mexico in 1916 as a way to keep the country out of the war in Europe, and that Ford had been libeled because he opposed American military action against its southern neighbor. Defense attorneys for the
Tribune
stated they would prove that Ford was indeed an “ignorant idealist” and that his pacifistic campaign had so weakened the military preparedness of the American government that he deserved the label of “anarchist.”

As the trial proceeded, expert witnesses called by each side pondered the meaning of anarchism and debated whether Ford's statements put him in that camp. His lawyers summoned figures such as Francis W. Coker, professor of political science at Ohio State University, who argued that the automaker's denunciations of war corresponded to those of such diverse thinkers as Victor Hugo, Martin Luther, James Russell Lowell, and Voltaire. Bishop Charles D. Williams of Detroit testified that Ford's antiwar views were more akin to Christian teachings than to anarchism. Professor William A. Dunning, chairman of the history-and-political-philosophy department at Columbia University, insisted that Ford's opinions were not anarchistic but common among thinkers ranging from the ancient Greeks to Dr. Samuel Johnson.
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The
Tribune
countered with witnesses such as Professor Andrew Reeves of the University of Michigan, who declared that Ford's ideas represented anarchistic hostility to government. But the newspaper's lawyers also employed a wider strategy. They called to the witness stand ordinary citizens from the Rio Grande region who recounted their victimization, frequently accompanied by tears, at the hands of Pancho Villa and his Mexican raiders. They summoned Texas Rangers, who told tales of gun battles along the border, all of which underlined the emergency situation to which the American government had responded. Such stories painted Ford's opposition to the deployment of American forces in rather dark colors. The defense also questioned his reputation as a reformer, suggesting that his inauguration of the Five-Dollar Day had been a clever ruse to hide his enormous profit-making. They depicted his proposal to fly an “international flag” at Highland Park during his antiwar campaign as a sign of anarchistic hostility to the American government.
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But the focal point of the
Tribune
's strategy, and the central drama of the trial, came when its attorneys called Henry Ford to the stand for cross-examination on July 14. The defense, as part of its strategy to establish a broad definition of anarchism and the phrase “ignorant idealist,” sought to prove that he was an untutored, unpatriotic extremist. Ford remained pinned on the stand for eight days of dissection. During this grueling ordeal, Elliot Stevenson's tactic was a simple one: to quiz Ford on basic matters of American history and government and thereby reveal the profound
ignorance that lay behind his antiwar fervor. By making Ford appear the fool, the
Tribune
team hoped to lend credence to its editorial description of him. As one of its attorneys said to a reporter, “This lawsuit is like the tenth baby in a family. We didn't want it, but now that we have it we wouldn't take a million dollars for it. It is worth that to show Ford up.”
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Ford proved to be more cooperative than anyone ever dreamed. Stevenson opened by asking him what the United States had been originally. Ford drew a laugh with his homespun parry: “Land, I guess.” After that, his performance plunged. When Stevenson asked about the date of the American Revolution, he replied that it was 1812. As titters went around the courtroom, Stevenson reminded the witness about 1776, but even with prompting, Ford was unable to list any causes for the Revolution. When Stevenson inquired about the 1812 conflict, Ford could only lamely offer, “It was one of aggression.” Piling error upon malapropism, Ford identified Benedict Arnold as a writer, described the Monroe Doctrine as “a big-brother act,” and identified a mobile army as “a large army—mobilized.” He could not recall the basic principles of American government. Confronted with words and phrases from his own antiwar statements, Ford proved equally inept. He defined ballyhoo as “a blackguard or something of that nature,” anarchy as “overthrowing the government and throwing bombs,” treason as “anything against the government,” and an idealist as “anyone who helps another to make a profit.”
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Ford's attorneys had foreseen this debacle and tried to avoid it. Operatives had gleaned information that
Tribune
attorneys were going to go after Ford on history questions, so they tried to coach him before his appearance on the stand. For several evenings, Lucking and his associates became tutors to a rather unwilling pupil. When the lessons began, Ford would wander to the window after a few minutes and observe “Say, that airplane is flying pretty low, isn't it?” Lucking would persuade him to return to his chair, but as the instruction proceeded Ford would again jump up, after a short time, and observe, “Look at that bird there, pretty little fellow, isn't it? Somebody around here must be feeding it, or it wouldn't come back so often.” After many such episodes, Ford's attorneys had thrown up their hands in frustration.
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Now, as he fumbled Stevenson's questions one after another, Ford maintained a curious pose on the stand. He seemed content to play the provincial rube. When an attorney asked him whether he would rather read something aloud or leave the impression that he was illiterate, Ford replied, “Yes, you can leave it that way. I am not a fast reader and I have the hayfever and I would make a botch of it.” But Ford occasionally grew testy and lashed out at his antagonist. At one point, as Stevenson badgered him about some
detail of American history, for example, Ford snapped back, “I could find a man in five minutes who could tell me all about it.” Overall, however, he presented a personal demeanor that was equal parts dignity, detachment, and long-suffering patience. A reporter described his strange serenity on the witness stand as his ignorance was laid open to public view:

But it was Ford's gaffe-filled testimony, not his philosophical demeanor, that created a sensation. Headlines described “Spectators Gasping at Ford's Story” and denounced his testimony as “A Shabby and Discreditable Hoax.” Editorialists guffawed and public figures chortled at Ford's ignorance. The New York
Times
opined that “Mr. Ford has been submitted to a severe examination of his intellectual qualities. He has not received a pass.” The Sioux City, Iowa,
Journal
contended that he had been “disclosed as a man with a vision distorted and limited by his lack of information. The public is disillusioned.” The New York
Post
claimed, “The man is a joke. He may not be an anarchist, but his mind is anarchic.”
The Nation,
with a more-in-sorrow-than-anger commentary, typified discussion in the national media: “The mystery is finally dispelled. Henry Ford is a Yankee mechanic, pure and simple, quite uneducated, with a mind unable to bite into any proposition outside of his automobile and tractor business…. He has achieved wealth but not greatness.”
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Then a startling thing happened. Many common citizens, small-town editors, village leaders, workers, and farmers throughout the United States rushed to Ford's defense. Arthur Brisbane, a Hearst columnist syndicated in many small-town newspapers, urged readers to show their support by mailing this form letter to the Ford Motor Company in Detroit: “Dear Ford: I am glad to have you for a fellow citizen and I wish we had more of your brand of anarchism, if that is what it is. Yours truly, (sign here).” Thousands did so, mounting a counterattack on Ford's persecutors from the provinces
and the working strata of American society in behalf of a man they viewed as their spokesman.
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Many of the letters pouring into the Highland Park offices went far beyond Brisbane's formula. Hundreds of working people, outraged by the attacks on Ford's character and intelligence during the trial, composed heartfelt missives of encouragement. Handwritten on stationery, ruled paper from a tablet, even postcards, these crude communications amounted to a huge outpouring of affection:

Such loyalty and love occasionally spilled over into rant, as with the irate correspondent who characterized Ford's antagonists as “half-baked lawyers employed by those pollywog editors.” He sarcastically suggested that the industrialist counter with his own questions: “Why does a brown cow that eats green grass give white milk? Who was the king of Ireland when the Chinese wall was built, and what are its dimensions? In what year and for what purpose was it built? Why do cats when making love make such a hell of a noise?”
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The case finally went to the jury on August 14, and the verdict offered an appropriate conclusion to this bizarre spectacle. After about ten hours of deliberation, the jury found that the
Tribune
was guilty of libel but awarded Ford only six cents in damages. Though both sides claimed victory in the courtroom, the real outcome had been decided in the court of public opinion. Ford's performance on the stand in Mount Clemens may have disgusted the American intelligentsia, but it only endeared him further to ordinary people. In the words of the Fairbury, Nebraska,
Journal,
“A few less smart-aleck attorneys and a few more Henry Fords, and the world
would have less troubles and more to eat.” Ford, added another small-town paper, ”comes nearer being typical of the average, energetic, courageous, honest, uncultured American than any other one man in this country…. A great heart beats in Henry Ford, and in his clumsy earnest fashion he is manfully trying to make all men happier.” The Chicago
Tribune
libel trial, like so many incidents in Ford's career, ended up as a triumph by enhancing his status as a man of the people.
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By the early 1920s, Henry Ford's views on modern society had become a staple of American public discussion. His legal wrangles with the Dodge brothers and the Chicago
Tribune,
and his high-profile camping trips, piled on top of the enormous publicity he had attracted earlier from the Peace Ship, the Senate race, the Five-Dollar Day, and the sociological department, made Ford a household name. His every utterance and activity was analyzed closely and reported to an interested public of millions. Newspapers and magazines scrambled to gain access to him, and his thoughts on everything from industrial relations to dietary issues, career paths to religious practices, international relations to modern marriage, went tumbling out into the public arena.

In part, this was Ford's own doing. Since his early days in the automo-bile-racing game, he had demonstrated a talent for generating publicity; by the 1910s, he had honed this skill to a sharp edge. As he once confided to an associate, “I don't care what anybody says, so long as they talk about Ford.” But gradually he ventured further and carved out a new role as an oracle. He began issuing pronouncements on the state of the nation and the world and spent increasing amounts of time and energy seeking the public limelight. Moreover, by the late 1910s he had created a publicity machine to aid him in popularizing his views.
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In many ways, this new public persona represented a significant change in Ford's life. Earlier public attention had focused on his company and his automobile, while Ford the man stayed in the background. Throughout the 1910s, however, growing public attention began to change him. “For many years Mr. Ford shunned the public gaze, refused to see reporters, modestly begged to be kept out of print; and then suddenly faced about, hired a publicity agent, [and] jumped into the front page of every newspaper in the country,” noted Samuel S. Marquis. Charles Sorensen, who worked closely with him for many years, offered a similar observation: “The world-wide attention accorded Mr. Ford changed him from a modest man content with remaining in the background to one who delighted to bask in the great
white light of publicity.” By the 1920s, some viewed this behavior rather cynically. Journalist E. G. Pipp, after leaving Ford's organization, claimed that the allure of fame had seduced his former boss. “All of his roads lead either to wealth, to power, or to self-glory, or to all three—for himself,” Pipp wrote bitterly. As another observer of Ford's career concluded frankly, he was “one of the most skillful and avid self-advertisers of the century.”
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