WEBVTT

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Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Megan
no Lette and I'm Bruce sculland Spotlight uses

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a special English method of broadcasting.
It is easier for people to understand no

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matter where in the world they live. It is the year nineteen ten.

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A man walks along the floor of
a factory. He wears a clean suit

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and tie. All around him men
work on conveyor belts. These moving tables

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bring pieces of machinery to the men. They build the machines together. Soon

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the machines begin to take shape.
They are cars. The man in the

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suit smiles. He has many reasons
to be happy. His name is Henry

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Ford, and this is his factory. His cars have made him one of

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the most successful men in the United
States. People all over the world know

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his name. But Henry Ford also
has a secret. He is an anti

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Semite, a person who hates the
Jewish people. Henry Ford will always be

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known for his success. In some
ways, he changed the world, but

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his views also hurt many people.
These views will forever change how people see

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him for the worse. Today's Spotlight
is on the complicated legacy of Henry Ford.

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Henry Ford was born in eighteen sixty
three in the United States to a

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family of farmers. His parents were
not wealthy, and Ford did not complete

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much schooling. Instead, his family
expected him to work on the farm,

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but Ford believed his life could be
different. He soon saw that he had

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a talent for working with machines.
He especially loved working on cars. He

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even began building his own. These
cars were so successful that he was able

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to start his own company. But
soon Ford saw that there was a problem.

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During that time, cars took a
very long time to build, and

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there was no single way of making
them. Each car was different and every

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part was special to each car.
This made cars cost a lot of money.

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Ford believed that he could make cars
more quickly without spending as much money.

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Instead of building cars one at a
time, he would make car parts.

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Any part would work in any of
his cars, and the parts would

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fit together easily. This would save
his workers time and make the job easier.

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Ford also invented the assembly line.
The assembly line is a method of

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working. In an assembly line,
workers stand along moving tables. These slow

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moving platforms bring parts to the workers. They put parts together as these come

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down the line, so they do
not have to spend time carrying the parts

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around. Ford's methods were very successful. Soon he was able to create the

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Model T. At the time,
the Model Ta costs less money than any

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other car in the world, even
poorer people could buy one, so Ford

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sold many more and other car companies. Soon the Ford Motor Company was the

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biggest car company in the United States, and everyone began to copy Ford's methods.

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Even today, companies use methods like
those invented by Henry Ford. By

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the end of nineteen fifteen, Henry
Ford was one of the wealthiest people in

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America. He was also one of
the most popular. People used him as

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an example of the American dream.
This is the belief that anyone in the

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United States, no matter how poor, can become a success. But Ford

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also believed many false and dangerous things. In the nineteen tens, he read

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a book called the protocol Holes of
the Elders of Zion. This false document

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claims to be a Jewish plan to
secretly take over the world. It was

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created in Russia to justify Jewish persecution. But Ford did not know this writing

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was not true. He believed what
he read, and he began to spread

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his beliefs to other people. For
example, he went on a camping trip

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with several friends. During that time, he spoke a lot about his antisemitic

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beliefs. One of his friends wrote
about it in his personal notes. He

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blames all evil on the Jews or
the Jewish business owners. The Jews caused

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the war. The Jews caused an
increase in stealing all over the country.

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The Jews caused the Navy to perform
poorly. Henry Ford began to blame the

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Jewish people for everything in the world
that he did not like. He even

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blamed them for jazz music and some
popular clothing styles. He had no evidence,

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but he was sure he knew something
no one else did, and soon

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he began to tell the world.
In nineteen eighteen, he bought a newspaper

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company. It was called The Dearborn
Independent. He used the newspaper to spread

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his anti Semitic beliefs. He encouraged
many of his workers to buy copies.

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The places that sold his cars gave
them away. He published a book called

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The International Jew and some people began
to listen. Hacia Diner is a teacher

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of American Jewish history. She spoke
to PBS about why this was so dangerous,

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what Henry Ford says, people stop
and listen. There are people who

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wanted him to run for president in
the nineteen twenties. If some local food

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server says something anti Semitic, well, nobody cares. Somebody may listen,

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they may repeat it, but it
will not spread far. But Henry Ford

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was able to gain a national audience
with his words. This made him a

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very dangerous person. Henry Ford's words
caused bad things to happen, and they

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spread farther than the United States.
Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany.

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He was also an anti Semite and
he believed many of the same things

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as Ford. He is also to
blame for the Holocaust. The Holocaust was

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the deaths of over six million Jewish
people and five million others hated by the

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Nazis. In nineteen twenty five,
Hitler wrote a book. It was called

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Mine Camp or My Struggle. In
the book, he called Forge's work very

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important. The International Jew gave him
and many other Nazis hatefilled ideas. Ford

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did not kill any Jews himself,
but people used his work to make a

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case for murder. Today, people
still read The International Jew. The book

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is not based on facts, but
people still believe it. The book says

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it is right to hate the Jews
when times are difficult. The book gives

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them someone to blame. Bill McGrath
is a rider at Bridge Magazine. In

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twenty nineteen, he wrote about Ford's
anti Semitism. The Internet age has given

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Ford's anti Semitic literature a strong new
life. It has been a century since

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Ford bought The Dearborn Independent, it
has been over seventy two years since his

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death, but his hate is stronger
than ever. It grows on websites where

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people who hate Jews talk to each
other. By the end of his life,

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Henry Ford denied his anti Semitic beliefs. He saw pictures of the Holocaust

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and he could not continue to hate
the Jews. He stopped publishing The Dearborn

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Independent, and his children used much
of his money to fight hate. Yet

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Ford is a difficult person to talk
about today. The Ford Motor Company is

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one of the largest vehicle companies in
the world, and Ford created modern manufacturing.

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Henry Ford helped create some of the
good things in the modern world,

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but he also helped create an evil
that continues to this day, and it

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may not be possible to separate the
two. History is filled with people with

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complicated pasts. How should we think
about them? Is the good they do

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worth more than the bad? You
can leave a comment on our website or

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email us at Radio at Radio English
dot net. You can also comment on

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Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight
Radio. The writer of this program was

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Dan Christman. The producer was Dan
Christman. The voices you heard were from

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the United States and the United Kingdom. Or quotes were adapted for this program

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and voiced by Spotlight. You can
listen to this program again and read it

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on the internet at www dot Radio
English dot net. This program is called

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Henry Ford A Difficult History. You
can also get our programs delivered directly to

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your Android or Apple device through our
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you can join us again for the
next Spotlight program. Goodbye,