Why Folks Would Rather Have a Henry Ford as President, March 22, 1923

John-Henry

John D. Rockefeller is a generous man, and has given millions of dollars for the betterment of mankind. He is a religious man whose personal life is above reproach. But nobody has ever mentioned or thought of him as a candidate for President of the United States.

Henry Ford does not believe in “charity” so called. That is, he has never given a dollar to a college, a church or a hospital, so far as our knowledge extends. He has little use for “foundations” for medical research or for anything else. And yet there is a considerable element in this country in favor of his nomination for President by the Democratic Convention in 1924. We do not believe there is the remotest chance in the world for his nomination, but the fact that he has a large following for that exalted position is significant. Now why the difference in these two men in the world. Well, one difference is that Rockefeller made his money in collusion with Wall Street; Ford made his on the outside of that famous group of financiers and in antagonism to them. But there is another and better reason for the popu8lar favor Ford receives but that is denied to Rockefeller. Ford gives his money to men rather than institutions. He thinks the best help he can offer to a man is self help. While he sells the lowest priced automobile in the world, he pays the highest wages of any automobile manufacturer on earth. He encourages thrift in every way he can, and thousands of workmen under his plan are now homeowners and fine citizens who otherwise would be tenants and rovers over the face of the earth. Ford is not a “tight-wad” but he gives his money in a different way from Rockefeller and a way that pleases the common people. The very fact that he builds machines for the common folks fires the public imagination. The people know he is their friend, for he has proved it in a thousand ways, and they would like to have a friend of theirs in the presidency, notwithstanding he declares that “history is all bunk anyhow” and knows much less of books than of business. Old man John D. throws his dollars down form the pinnacle of financial greatness; Henry Ford stands on the ground and scatters his money amongst his comrades who have made him rich and whom he never forgets. And these are a few of the reasons why Henry Ford has bloomed forth as a candidate while John D. could not carry a county in the union.

--Charity and Children

From the editorial page of the Watauga Democrat, Boone, N.C., March 22, 1923