Personal debt to Jewish-coded bankers seeded Ford’s anti-Semitic campaign

Evidence

Each of the factors that apparently impelled the extension of anti-Semitism after the Red Scare affected Henry Ford in an acute and special way. The economic slump of 1920 hit him hard and early. Swallowing his scruples, he had borrowed $75,000,000 in … 1919 from eastern bankers in order to buy out his partners. ‘The decline of sales in 1920 left him loaded with debts and unsold cars. His anti-Jewish campaign began in the midst of this crisis, and at first his propaganda presented the International Jew solely in the role of financier. Jewish bankers, according to the Dearborn Independent, operating through a vast international network, dominate the American economy. The great struggle of the hour lies between the contending forces of “international Finance” and “creative Industry,” and apparently the latter cannot triumph until control of the world is wrested from the Jewish money-kings.* Ford’s plunge into anti-Semitism resulted at least as much from political disillusion as it did from economic difficulties. — John Higham, Strangers in the Land, 1711