o Earl’s pre-war ties to his Hollywood Jewish counterparts who supported and appreciated his forms of beautiful artwork (custom motoramic masterpieces in metal), resulted in an enthusiastic loyalty towards the Jews. The following quote is from a Feb. 12, 1996 USA TODAY new story on the centennial of the American auto industry [entire story is detailed further down at this section], "Earl got his start in Hollywood in the 1920s as a car customizer, making models longer, lower and sportier for movie stars."
o The bitter rivalry between Ford and Earl was as much about religion, politics and personal style as it was about cars. Ford’s anti-Semitism versus Earl’s loyalty towards his early Hollywood mentors; Ford’s utilitarian machines versus Earl’s colorful, ever-evolving confections; Ford's farm-boy aesthetic versus Earl’s Hollywood flair; Ford's nasty anti-labor union sentiments versus Earl’s effortless movement through the stratospheres of big business and show business.
Essentially, Ford was so caught up by the idea of Jewish financiers plotting to undermine the United States prior to World War Two he became a proselytizer for "The Protocols" in his newspaper, The Dearborn Independent. Adolph Hitler, an admirer of Ford, was introduced to "The Protocols" by the Nazi ideologue Alfred Rosenberg, and cited it in "Mein Kampf." More than 23 editions of the The Protocols were published by the Nazi party.
This 34-page 1939 newspaper, illustrated above, was dedicated to exposing how warped and un-American this powerful businessman had become prior to World War Two (Ford's rant against the Jews had been going on for nearly 20 years up to this time). Anyway, fast forward to the mid-1990s to find out how the minds running Detroit's auto industry decided it would be a good idea to simply prop "old master" Henry Ford up as the quintessential "great American auto pioneer of the 20th century." Regardless of Ford's checkered past, all the top leaders of GM, Ford and Chrysler's chose to go along with further canonizing Ford so the public could embrace him before, during and after the American auto industry's centennial celebration in 1996. Little did these leaders know, but they had just pined Detroit's future hopes on the wrong man to represent America's auto industry going forward into the twenty-first century.
Henry Ford's beliefs and core values around his movement of "Jews being the world's foremost problem" was an extreme negative proposition. By the late 1930s, Ford knew he was being used by Fascist groups all over the world and that reprints of his writings on "The Jewish Question" in his Dearborn Independent magazine had become a "best seller" among the Nazis. L.M. Birkhead headed the FRIENDS OF DEMOCRACY, INC. that printed all the supporting evidence in this 33-page newspaper, above. Being the national director, Birkhead's organization called "upon Henry Ford, as a loyal and liberty-loving American, to do the following:
Recant his beliefs on Jews being the world's foremost problem and for Ford to stop further publication and circulation of pamphlets and books containing copies of or extracts from the The Dearborn Independent articles." The main goal of the Friends of Democracy organization was to publicly divulge Ford's dramatic role of being in bed with Adolph Hitler and his deranged Nazism beliefs for a new world order. Thankfully this group of patriots [Friends of Democracy, Inc.] were successful in exposing Ford's bodyguard of lies and eventually made him publicly recant. If Ford hadn't recanted, he might well have been asked to leave American soil in 1941 -- when the United States entered WW II.
America's auto capital could sure use a new metaphorical leader to help drive Detroit upward and onward further into the 21st century. A lot can be learned on how America's auto capital blazed the trail for the rest of the players of the global automobile industry to become dependant on design
