The Richmond palladium and sun-telegram. [volume] (Richmond, Ind.) 1907-1939, 1921-08-11
HENRY FORD
IS POTENTIAL
IN POLITICS
Figure Looms : Personality
lnjects Him into News
Every Few Days Moves
Commend Him to Public.
CAREER IS DRAMATIC
BY MARK SULLIVAN


WASHINGTON. D. c., Aug. IL
Barring one or two handieaps. Henry
Ford would be serious political po-
tentiality.
His figure is always among the
shadows in the back ground of the
Democratic party, and the quality of
personality which injects him into the
news every few days. usually in a
role that commends him to large
groups of the public causes him to
have a frequent place in the future
speculations of political managers
or course. not all of the recent pub
licity about Mr. Ford is founded on
facts. The dispatches from various
points which represent him as having
, made offers for many abandoned war
plants, and as intending to use these
plants to furnish the public with a
large number of commodities at Ford
prices, probably represent the hopes
of local communities which would like
10 see these plants start up again
rather than any definite action that
Mr.. Ford has taken.
Doubtless great many things are
being offered to Mr.. Ford, in these
days of forced liquidation, but there
Ford is accepting them all.
Muscle Shoals offer
The only war plant that Washing
ton knows Mr.. Ford to have made an
offer for is the government project
at Muscle Shoals, Ala.
1t is a fact that Mr.. Ford is in rego
tiation for that. although the initiative
came not from Mr.. Ford but from a
government official seeking to salvage
something. however little, out of the
seventy millions which the govern
ment has spent on a project still in
complete.
Mr.. Ford has considered this sug-
gestion favorably, has made a tenta-
tive offer, and may go further.
Whether he does or not the wide pub
licity given his announced purpose to
use the plant. if he gets it. in order
to make fertilizer for the farmers at
very low prices has helped him as a
public figure in the eyes of large
groups of voters who have already
been favorably impressed by his past
performances in the same direction
Of furnishing standard commodities
at low prices
Dramatic Career
Mr.. Ford last winter as being "in a
hole financially" as being about to be
trapped by Wall Street. as making a
dramatic escape from his situation by
sheer boldness and resourcefulness,
was SO likely to commend him to the
political sentiment of large sections
of the west that it might be suspected
of being manufactured publicity if so
many Wei informed persons did not
know the degree of truth in it.
The same might be said of the news
which pictures Mr.. Ford as a railroad
owner. reducing freight rates so ia ST
that the government machinery for
registering the reductions can't keep
up with him. Mr.. Ford, as the build
er and director of industrial plants, is
a sheer individual genius. He does II
all on a one-man basis.
Power of Personality
He does it through the power oil
his own personality in this line. II
this method has it's obvious advan
tages it has also its defects. Ford'S
personal achievements are in contrast
with the building up of great institu
tions which will run regardless of any
cne presiding genius.
tense and narrow genius for individ
ual management of industries, Ford
is a simple and wholly uneducate6
child 1t is his limitations outside his
own field that cause him to do things
that are absurd, wanton and grossly
unfair In the qualities ordinarily as
sociated with senator of the United
States, Ford is almost wholly lack
ing.
If Ford had come to the senate afte
his fight with Newberry four year:
ago, it is a guess what kind of public
figure he would cut today. Witt
, equal ease he might have become alb
surd or might have increased the par
ticular kind of stature that he has
There will be another senatorial eleC
ton in Michigan next year. And witt
the lack of outstanding presidentia
material in the. Democratic party. MI
Ford always has a tentative place il
the speculations of party leaders.
Copyright. 1921. by the New YorI
Evening Post, lnc.)