The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) (67 page)

But Dahlinger's relationship with his boss was more complex than it appeared. Ford was genuinely fond of him and appreciated his loyal friendship. At the same time, however, Ford accorded him little respect. Periodically he would administer “an awful licking” to Ray, chewing him out for poor performance, threatening his job security, and reducing his responsibilities. Such encounters would leave Dahlinger “scared to death,” but he always rebounded and came back for more. “He seemed to be a hound for being kicked around” by Ford, noted one observer. Sometimes Ford intimidated Dahlinger in subtle ways, such as deliberately instructing that equipment be stored in spaces Ray was using for his work, or calling him at all hours of the day or night to run errands. Occasionally, Ford would even publicly embarrass Dahlinger. Knowing the underling's penchant for embellishing stories to exaggerate his own importance, Ford would stop Dahlinger in mid-sentence and tell him to start over and tell the truth. It seems clear that the two men were involved in a complicated dynamic of sex and power, in which the cuckold was utterly dependent, both psychologically and materially, upon the man who was cuckolding him.
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Eve Dahlinger faced no such ambiguity in her relationship with Ford. She was widely recognized, in the words of engineer Harold Hicks, as “quite a power in the Ford organization.” Her assertive personality, in concert with her well-known closeness to Henry Ford, made her a fearsome figure. The fact that her father had a Ford agency in Ferndale, a Detroit suburb, and her brother had one in Highland Park, provided additional evidence of Eve's special pull. Her authority also stemmed partly from respect for her competence and intelligence. She was generally considered to be “the brains of the [Ford] farm,” and most assumed that she was the reason Ray had been made superintendent. By the late 1920s, she was supervising many of the activities in Greenfield Village, including the several schools on the premises. She also helped train the servants who worked at Fair Lane. According to an admiring associate, “Mrs. Dahlinger was the go-getter type and got things done with dispatch, without red tape.” In the blunt assessment of another, “She gave orders like a man.”
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The crucial event in the Ford-Dahlinger relationship occurred on April 9,1923, when Eve gave birth to a son, John, in Henry Ford Hospital. Ford appeared at the hospital immediately after the birth and showed a keen interest in the new baby. He hired the maternity-ward nurse to accompany
the infant to the Dahlinger home and take care of him. A few days later, he gave Eve the baby crib in which he had slept as a child. When only a month old, young John received his first present from Ford, a Shetland pony. In such fashion the industrialist lavished attention upon the boy, a pattern that would hold throughout his childhood.
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Over the next several years, Ford sent a caravan of gifts for the child. These included a rocking horse, a miniature gardening wagon and tools, a small-scale motorized roadster, a small horse-drawn sleigh, a miniature electric car, a horse-drawn buckboard, a red bike, a trick horse from the Ringling Brothers Circus, and a small tractor. At age seven, young John Dahlinger received perhaps his most prized gift—a race car from the 1923 Indianapolis 500 that had its engine governed and its interior modified to allow him to reach the pedals. The delighted boy spent hours speeding about the half-mile horse track on the Dahlinger estate.
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Ford also communicated personally with John. On his sixth birthday, in 1929, when Ford was away on a business trip, he sent the following telegram: DEAR JOHN HAPPY BIRTHDAY MUCH LOVE HENRY FORD. Ford also talked regularly with him. “I learned even as a small child that wherever I was, Mr. Ford was sure to show up,” Dahlinger recalled later. “He would find me, come upon me casually and sit down beside me, starting a casual conversation and imparting his philosophy or knowledge about life as he poked a stick at the ground. He seemed bent on telling me how to live, how to think, how to grow up to be part of his empire.” These visits would often take place on Sunday afternoon, when Ford would take John for long rides up and down the River Rouge, trying to instill in the youth “his principles and prejudices.”
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In fact, Ford regularly visited the Dahlinger estate throughout the 1920s and 1930s, coming by boat, bicycle, or, later in life, by chauffeur. He would see John, and then spend private time with Eve, or “Billy.” Ray disappeared during most of these visits. According to John Dahlinger, Ray would typically come out of the house and Ford “would call out and say, ‘Hello there, Ray. Is Billy home?’ Then he'd go to see Mother, and they'd go cycling together. Dad would go driving off in his car. He accepted it. It was our way of life.” In turn, young Dahlinger became a regular visitor at Fair Lane, where he played with Ford's grandchildren, Henry, Benson, Josephine, and William. The Ford-Dahlinger personal connection was unbreakable. “My parents and I always had access to the Fords,” John stated. “We had a private telephone line to Fair Lane.”
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The obvious question concerned John Dahlinger's patrimony. Was he Henry Ford's son? Circumstantial evidence—Ford's constant personal attention to Eve, the mansion and privileged position in the organization
for Eve and Ray, the attention and gifts lavished on the boy—suggests strongly that he was. Eve Dahlinger, even several decades after Henry Ford's death, refused to divulge the nature of their private relationship, but she provided several hints. When John was old enough to understand and confront his mother about the rumors of his paternity, she replied, “I don't want to talk about it.” Since that was her habitual response when she did not want to admit something, John noted, he immediately concluded that the rumor was truthful. Another time, he asked Eve if Mr. Ford loved him, since the older man seemed so concerned about his welfare. Eve responded, “Mr. Ford loves you very much, much more than I can express. And someday he wants you to help him run his whole company.” John continued, “Does he love me like you do?” She replied, “Yes, that's the way he loves you.” Thus, when Eve did deign to talk about it, even obliquely, her words suggested that Ford was the father.
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Irving Bacon, the Ford artist-in-residence, encountered Henry and Eve's relationship a number of times. When Ford sent Bacon to the Dahlinger household to do some decorative painting, the artist noticed the large number of expensive toys on the porch, which had to have come from Ford. When John was a bit older, the artist complimented the mother on her son's polite behavior and good nature. Eve gave Bacon a curious look and replied, “He has more sense than someone else I know.” The artist reacted impishly: “I wonder who she meant?” Bacon's own conclusions about the boy's patrimony appeared clearly in the late 1920s. Asked by Ford to do a series of paintings based on his early life at the farm in Dearborn, the artist sought a boy model to help him accurately portray the youthful Ford. He did not look long before selecting John Dahlinger. Henry approved the choice and told Eve, in his typically dry way, “Well, John will do. It's close enough.”
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In fact, the relationship between Henry and Eve became something of an open secret in the Ford organization. Rumors ran rampant about John Dahlinger's status as a love child. Many employees speculated privately about the situation, although none would comment publicly. Harold Hicks, for instance, told an interviewer many years later that Ford had him design a fancy barn for the Dahlingers that included a kitchen, toilet, and lounge. “The lady slept in the house, and he [Ray] slept in the barn,” he explained. Hicks quickly added, “That was the story, anyway, but I'd better shut up.” Not only were employees afraid to cross Ford, but they were reluctant to alienate Eve Dahlinger herself.
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Henry Ford's attitude toward women probably played a role in this tangled affair. Though holding to the traditional Victorian view that females were morally superior, he displayed a misogynistic streak. Privately, he
declaimed against women's influence in the world and drew examples from the Bible to warn John Dahlinger that “women were behind all evil.” He also had a roving eye, and had at least one awkward dalliance with a servant girl at Fair Lane. Thus he seems to have officially honored the tradition of female virtue while privately disparaging it. Harold Hicks once joked that a prominent engineer had ensured his demise at Ford Motor Company because of a fondness for women. Ford's reply revealed much about his underlying attitude: “Women! Why, Hicks, women don't do you any harm. You can screw any woman on earth, excepting for one thing; never let your wife find out.”
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In less crass fashion, Ford publicly explained his views on adultery with words that may have illuminated his own situation. In a 1923 interview, he was asked to comment on men's proclivity to engage in affairs when they reached their forties. His response—that women needed to practice forbearance, and men needed to understand their own weakness—seemed to have a personal resonance. Men, he argued, are “simply trying to hold on to their youth. I say to the woman whose husband is in this situation: Treat it like the measles! It's a disease that strikes lots of people. That's all it is, at the most. Help your husband through it. Stand by. Don't let it hurt you. Don't let it break up your home.”
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Henry's decades-long relationship with Eve Dahlinger raised equally intriguing questions about Clara's attitude. Given the widespread rumors about her husband and his young female assistant, and the fact that the Dahlingers were ensconced in grand style next to Fair Lane, it is impossible to believe that she was unaware of the situation. In fact, several incidents revealed her irritation. In the late 1920s, Irving Bacon did a painting of the grand banquet hosted by Ford to honor Thomas Edison and celebrate the opening of the Edison Institute. The canvas included Eve Dahlinger as one of the onlookers. A few days later, Ford appeared at his studio and exclaimed, “Take her out. Mrs. Ford wouldn't like her to be in it.” As Harry Bennett put it plainly, “Mr. Ford admired Mrs. Dahlinger a great deal. Mrs. Ford did not.”
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Yet some evidence suggests that Clara, for all of her resentment, may have tacitly agreed to look the other way. A genteel, dignified woman, she shared neither her husband's robust physical energy nor his habit of displaying affection. Whereas Henry would grab her hand or stride up and throw his arms around her, Clara viewed such demonstrations as unladylike and studiously avoided them. Rosa Buhler, the head maid at Fair Lane, reported that Mrs. Ford abhorred any kind of physical display with her husband. Moreover, it is likely that Clara had a hysterectomy in 1907, at age forty-one. Several physicians examined her in the fall of that year, before she underwent major surgery at Harper Hospital, probably the best medical
facility in Detroit. This procedure incurred a payment of $2,700 to Dr. William F. Metcalf, who specialized in “Abdominal & Pelvic Surgery.”
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When one considers that Clara turned fifty in 1916, it seems reasonable to suspect that she may have lost interest in the physical side of marriage while remaining fully confident of her husband's love and respect for her. Henry hinted at this scenario. Fred Black recalled that, though Ford was not partial to ribald stories, when he did tell one it “had a very definite point.” At lunch one day, he told a story about a young man who ventured into a bordello only to be shocked when he spotted his elderly Uncle Charlie sitting in the parlor with a young, scantily clad woman on his lap. When the embarrassed youth expressed his surprise, Uncle Charlie replied, “Well, James, I find the active cooperation of these young ladies to be far more satisfying than the passive acquiescence of your Aunt Jane.” If Ford's joke reflected the state of affairs at home, Clara may have found Henry's affair with Eve to be acceptable as long as discretion kept it officially private.
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The fact that Clara eventually developed an odd friendship with Eve Dahlinger lends credence to this view. By the 1930s, Eve was serving as a kind of secretary to Mrs. Ford, at least part-time, helping her with correspondence and to arrange social events. Clara began to depend on Eve, writing instructions about various tasks to be fulfilled, handing over shopping lists, and complaining about work that was falling behind at Fair Lane. A nurse at the Fords' summer home discovered the relationship between Eve and Clara. A local doctor was treating Mrs. Ford for arthritis, but when the nurse offered assistance, Eve refused the help. “Mrs. Dahlinger didn't even want me to know that she had it,” the nurse reported. That Eve felt protective of Clara's privacy about a matter of personal health suggests the closeness of their friendship.
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The scene of Henry Ford's death may have clinched the case for Clara's acceptance of her husband's special relationship with Eve. When he became quite ill, late one evening in April 1947, the Ford maid and chauffeur located Henry's doctor and eldest grandson, both of whom rushed to Fair Lane. A phone call also went out to another residence. When Henry Ford II and the physician arrived, about an hour later, Ford had expired. But Eve Dahlinger was already present, summoned by Clara. She was standing at Ford's bedside to say her last goodbye.
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Henry Ford's long, intimate relationship with a woman thirty years his junior, like his attraction to New Thought and physical culture, reflected his instinct for cultural innovation. In many ways, Ford's new morality was that of modern America. Like the millions of Americans who were buying Model T's in the 1910s and 1920s while jettisoning traditions of self-restraint, Ford was reveling in a culture of mental and physical abundance.

In the late 1920s, Henry Ford became one of Will Rogers' favorite topics. In addresses, articles, and radio commentaries, the popular humorist frequently joked about the industrialist's traits and influence in modern America. Ford “changed the habits of more people than Caesar, Mussolini, Charlie Chaplin, Clara Bow, Amos ‘n’ Andy, and Bernard Shaw,” Rogers once claimed. He poked fun at the Model T, noting that in Ford's America “a man's castle is his sedan.” Noting Ford's often expressed belief that a university education needed to be more oriented toward practical job skills, Rogers quipped, “If Henry Ford can educate a college boy to make a living right after he gets out of college, Ford is really the greatest living American.”
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