Few things infuriate me more than the “we can’t judge historical figures based on what we think now” canard, particularly in relation to racism and anti-Semitism — both of which people around the world and in the United States have been fighting for centuries.
Let’s take our old friend Henry Ford, for example, the only American mentioned fondly by Hitler in “Mein Kampf.” (Granted, mentioned only twice).
In 1920, thousands of Jewish Americans and others were so repulsed by Ford’s anti-Semitism (particularly the publication of a version of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion by Ford’s newspaper) that the Anti-Defamation League released a pamphlet condemning it.
Not only that, 100 “eminent Americans” signed on to “The Perils of Racial Prejudice” to condemn the release of “The International Jew” (which was how the Protocols were repackaged). books.google.com/books/about/Th…
Among those eminent Americans were W.E.B. Du Bois, William Jennings Bryan, and even WOODROW WILSON, a giant racist, who STILL thought that Ford had gone too dang far.
Ford was even sued for libel against Jewish Americans, in the case Sapiro v. Ford. dalnet.lib.mi.us/henryford/docs…
Here’s a lengthy paper on Nazism and Henry Ford (and on the relationship between Fordism and fascism): ghi-dc.org/fileadmin/user…
By the way, that ADL pamphlet is fantastic reading.
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