The daily worker. [volume] (Chicago, Ill.) 1924-1958, 1927-04-12
Ford and SapirO---BrOthers
Under the Skin
PART II


showed that no organization to be formed unless
the growers of threeourths of the Burnley tobacco in
Kentucky, Indiana, Tennessee and Ohio became men,
bers Prior to the organization of this association, the
witness testified he explained the contract to divisional
meetings of bankers in three cities and to public meet
ings of growers in IL cities. He added that the as
ISOLATION was formed with about 10000 members
The following are excerpts from letter of protest
written to Ford personally by Walton Peteet, former
secretary of the national council Of the National Farm
ers' Cooperative Associations after the publication of
Sapiro story in which Peteet mentioned:
"This is intended personal letter to you because
have become convinced that your employees on the
Independent either gnorantly wlfuly pursuing
in your of action wholly at variance with
your policy and philosophy of life. The subject-matter
is important enough to receive the attention of man
busy with large affairs you are, if truth, justice
and honor between men are cardinal virtues.
"Your attack on cooperative marketing by farmers
is another matter. OF my personal knowledge, l tell
you that many of the statements about it in the Dear
born Independent untrue and the philosophy and
aim of the movement have been grotesquely misrepre
scented.
at is strange indeed that your employees should, in
your name seek to destroy movement which seeks to
do for agriculture what you trying to do for indus
try It to be another of paid writers writing
what they think will please and twisting the facts
that end and keeping you away from men who know
the real facts But the cooperative movement take
care of ITSELF"
This portion of the letter was admitted in evidence
over the violent protest Of Ford's attorneys
Sen. Jim Reed has spent hours bringing out the size
of the fees Sapiro received attorney expert and
ganizer for the various co-operatves The jury must
have the irony therein The largest total of fees
paid by any organization years period to Sapro
is undoubtedly niggardly when compared with the fat
retainer Missouri Jim must have received from Ford
for his services land his reputation) in this
And the total income of Sapiro for all the years in
question in this would be pin money to Reeds
Client Ford There would be irony in this of
IN hrnc +ba 4be
exploitation of which he charges Sapro guilty EX
poitaton being not only charged but emphasized the
comparison is almost automatic.
Behind this case is jealousy the uncompromising alb
solue jealousy Of of power in this anarcho cap
italstic system in which aim overthrow and al
most immeasurably improve upon. Though Ford has
made his billions and his reputation lndustrialis
he has always remained part farmer He is not of the
type of the landed arstocracy of pre-revolutonary
Russia, the type Of the save-ownng gentleman
planter of the Old South in the United States He is
the son of Michigan dirt-farmer. 1t remained for
Henry Fords to break at heart entirely away from
the SOIL First Henry Ford developed the tractor. It
partly country sentiment that caused him to
it the Fordson tractor He wanted his son, too, he
believed, benefactor to the farmer. Then he expert
mented in fertilizer in the effect the soil of the rota
ton of crops. Through machinery, chemistry zoology
and arithmetic he would introduce the eighthour day
and the equivalent of industrial efficiency into the pro-
ducton of crops In his effort get control of Muscle
Shoals he foresaw himself privately benefited fnan-
cally and publicly acclaimed the farmers friend
Since to be publicly acclaimed the farmers friend
would also in turn benefit him financially, this was so
much the better. Ford had developed hatred of Jews
presumably because when he in desperate fnan-
cal situation two three after the certain
Jewish banking circles refused to lend him money
his terms. When Sapiro became prominent as an
organizer of farmer co-operatives, Ford in him
only rival for the position of farmers friend Aaron
Sapiro also Jewish. Sapro had contacts moreover
with certain Jewish fnancers Jokes may even have
been cracked in the Ford offices about the nice fer
tilizer Sapiro, Barney Baruch Eugene Meyer Jr and
other Jews would make if moved down by Fordson
tractor At any rate the next best thing to attack
Sapros motives, character and very race in the Dear
born Independent. That the kind of thing Ford
bought the Dearborn Independent for. Whether the
Dearborn Independent told the truth about Sapiros
motives and character lbelled him is for the jury
to decide. All we need to know is that the Dearborn
Independent would have concerned itself about
Sapro, the farmers friend, if Henry Ford had not set
out to become the one and only farmers friend
To Ford organization for the sake Of exploitation has
become a mathematical abstraction. Toward the or
ganization of 100000 which he controls he is as in
human, in the strictly psychological sense as a man
can become. Putting it in another way, this organ
ization of 100000 men is nhuman to Ford as the
machines they operate. To Ford, the subor
dinate to the machines The machines remain They
continue to So long the machines continue to
operate the men may come and go. Their coming and
going simply raises the question of the cost of the
labor turnover shown the monthly balance sheet
These facts significant only when realize that
Ford himself is product of this final stage of CAPT.
talism the stage of Imperialism and both vertical and
lateral trusts In this stage of capitalism Ford could
not attain his success by other means He is at the
same time product and leader of the capitalist class
Puns are pleasant diversions. Then Aaron Sapiro and
Henry Ford in this captaistic school classmates
The economic analysis must be the final analysis at
this time in these matters And Henry and Aaron are
brothers under the skin. Sapiro, the marketing end
and Ford, on the producing end, merely on diff
ferent ends Of crosscut saw Both cutting their
profits out of the labor of Others And it can onv he