Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Megan no Lette and I'm Bruce sculland Spotlight uses
a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
matter where in the world they live. It is the year nineteen ten.
A man walks along the floor of a factory. He wears a clean suit
and tie. All around him men work on conveyor belts. These moving tables
bring pieces of machinery to the men. They build the machines together. Soon
the machines begin to take shape. They are cars. The man in the
suit smiles. He has many reasons to be happy. His name is Henry
Ford, and this is his factory. His cars have made him one of
the most successful men in the United States. People all over the world know
his name. But Henry Ford also has a secret. He is an anti
Semite, a person who hates the Jewish people. Henry Ford will always be
known for his success. In some ways, he changed the world, but
his views also hurt many people. These views will forever change how people see
him for the worse. Today's Spotlight is on the complicated legacy of Henry Ford.
Henry Ford was born in eighteen sixty three in the United States to a
family of farmers. His parents were not wealthy, and Ford did not complete
much schooling. Instead, his family expected him to work on the farm,
but Ford believed his life could be different. He soon saw that he had
a talent for working with machines. He especially loved working on cars. He
even began building his own. These cars were so successful that he was able
to start his own company. But soon Ford saw that there was a problem.
During that time, cars took a very long time to build, and
there was no single way of making them. Each car was different and every
part was special to each car. This made cars cost a lot of money.
Ford believed that he could make cars more quickly without spending as much money.
Instead of building cars one at a time, he would make car parts.
Any part would work in any of his cars, and the parts would
fit together easily. This would save his workers time and make the job easier.
Ford also invented the assembly line. The assembly line is a method of
working. In an assembly line, workers stand along moving tables. These slow
moving platforms bring parts to the workers. They put parts together as these come
down the line, so they do not have to spend time carrying the parts
around. Ford's methods were very successful. Soon he was able to create the
Model T. At the time, the Model Ta costs less money than any
other car in the world, even poorer people could buy one, so Ford
sold many more and other car companies. Soon the Ford Motor Company was the
biggest car company in the United States, and everyone began to copy Ford's methods.
Even today, companies use methods like those invented by Henry Ford. By
the end of nineteen fifteen, Henry Ford was one of the wealthiest people in
America. He was also one of the most popular. People used him as
an example of the American dream. This is the belief that anyone in the
United States, no matter how poor, can become a success. But Ford
also believed many false and dangerous things. In the nineteen tens, he read
a book called the protocol Holes of the Elders of Zion. This false document
claims to be a Jewish plan to secretly take over the world. It was
created in Russia to justify Jewish persecution. But Ford did not know this writing
was not true. He believed what he read, and he began to spread
his beliefs to other people. For example, he went on a camping trip
with several friends. During that time, he spoke a lot about his antisemitic
beliefs. One of his friends wrote about it in his personal notes. He
blames all evil on the Jews or the Jewish business owners. The Jews caused
the war. The Jews caused an increase in stealing all over the country.
The Jews caused the Navy to perform poorly. Henry Ford began to blame the
Jewish people for everything in the world that he did not like. He even
blamed them for jazz music and some popular clothing styles. He had no evidence,
but he was sure he knew something no one else did, and soon
he began to tell the world. In nineteen eighteen, he bought a newspaper
company. It was called The Dearborn Independent. He used the newspaper to spread
his anti Semitic beliefs. He encouraged many of his workers to buy copies.
The places that sold his cars gave them away. He published a book called
The International Jew and some people began to listen. Hacia Diner is a teacher
of American Jewish history. She spoke to PBS about why this was so dangerous,
what Henry Ford says, people stop and listen. There are people who
wanted him to run for president in the nineteen twenties. If some local food
server says something anti Semitic, well, nobody cares. Somebody may listen,
they may repeat it, but it will not spread far. But Henry Ford
was able to gain a national audience with his words. This made him a
very dangerous person. Henry Ford's words caused bad things to happen, and they
spread farther than the United States. Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany.
He was also an anti Semite and he believed many of the same things
as Ford. He is also to blame for the Holocaust. The Holocaust was
the deaths of over six million Jewish people and five million others hated by the
Nazis. In nineteen twenty five, Hitler wrote a book. It was called
Mine Camp or My Struggle. In the book, he called Forge's work very
important. The International Jew gave him and many other Nazis hatefilled ideas. Ford
did not kill any Jews himself, but people used his work to make a
case for murder. Today, people still read The International Jew. The book
is not based on facts, but people still believe it. The book says
it is right to hate the Jews when times are difficult. The book gives
them someone to blame. Bill McGrath is a rider at Bridge Magazine. In
twenty nineteen, he wrote about Ford's anti Semitism. The Internet age has given
Ford's anti Semitic literature a strong new life. It has been a century since
Ford bought The Dearborn Independent, it has been over seventy two years since his
death, but his hate is stronger than ever. It grows on websites where
people who hate Jews talk to each other. By the end of his life,
Henry Ford denied his anti Semitic beliefs. He saw pictures of the Holocaust
and he could not continue to hate the Jews. He stopped publishing The Dearborn
Independent, and his children used much of his money to fight hate. Yet
Ford is a difficult person to talk about today. The Ford Motor Company is
one of the largest vehicle companies in the world, and Ford created modern manufacturing.
Henry Ford helped create some of the good things in the modern world,
but he also helped create an evil that continues to this day, and it
may not be possible to separate the two. History is filled with people with
complicated pasts. How should we think about them? Is the good they do
worth more than the bad? You can leave a comment on our website or
email us at Radio at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on
Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this program was
Dan Christman. The producer was Dan Christman. The voices you heard were from
the United States and the United Kingdom. Or quotes were adapted for this program
and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it
on the internet at www dot Radio English dot net. This program is called
Henry Ford A Difficult History. You can also get our programs delivered directly to
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you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,