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Ford, Henry; Marshall, Louis; Bernstein, Herman; Sapiro, Aaron : HENRY FORD'S RETRACTION AND APOLOGY TO THE JEWS

New York: Press of Clarence S. Nathan, Inc., 1927

1st edition. Original paper wrappers, 16mo (small), 7 pages ; 25 cm (folded to 14 cm in wrappers). "Correspondence between Henry Ford, Louis Marshall and Herman Bernstein. Settlement of Aaron Sapiro's and Herman Bernstein's libel suits" (From the front cover). “During the 1920s, Henry Ford gained as much fame for his antisemitic views as for his cars. His newspaper, the Dearborn Independent, published dozens of articles between 1920 and 1925 naming prominent Jewish Americans as conspirators in a plot to overthrow governments all over the world. Though hardly the first of their kind, the accusations in the Dearborn Independent represented the broadest, most sustained published attack on individual Jews and Jews as a group in the nation’s history. The articles created clear grounds for defamation and libel actions against Ford and the newspaper, and several were filed. In 1927 one lawsuit, Sapiro v. Ford, made it into court, generating international headlines, only to end in mistrial. Ford then disposed of the distasteful affair by signing a statement in which he apologized for the wrongs he had 'unintentionally' done to Jews. Ford's campaign against the Jews, as historians have recognized, reflected the renewed racial tribalism that characterized post-World War I American society” (Woeste, “Insecure Equality: Louis Marshall, Henry Ford, and the Problem of Defamatory Antisemitism, 1920-1929” in Journal of American History, Dec. 2004). The importance of the end result, here spelled out in this rare period publication, was summarized by Robert Rifkind in his 2008 examination “Confronting Antisemitism in America: Louis Marshall and Henry Ford”: “Putting aside historical revisionism, it becomes clear that the Ford apology achieved a number of things no libel suit could have achieved. First, in broad and unambiguous strokes, Ford repudiated the defamation of Jews in general and not merely the particular claims asserted in the lawsuits. Second, the apology did so with dispatch rather than after further protracted delay. Third, Ford undertook to withdraw The International Jew from circulation both in the United States and abroad, and at least while Marshall remained alive, he seems to have done so. A jury sitting in an action for monetary damages could not have compelled such a result. And finally, a confession, retraction, and apology appearing in Fords name and over Ford’s signature carried the impressive force of a world-famous man—a force that twelve anonymous jurors, easily dismissed as misled by lawyers’ wiles, could never have had” (American Jewish History, Vol. 94, No. 1/2, March/June 2008, pp. 71-90). SUBJECT(S): Antisemitism -- Michigan -- Dearborn. Jews -- Trials (Libel) -- Antise´mitisme -- Juifs -- Proce`s (Diffamation) -- Dearborn independent. OCLC: 264355930. OCLC lists only 3 copies worldwide (Harvard, YIVO, Yale Law), none outside the Northeast. Light wear to wrappers, number penned on cover, no other markings, folded text pages inside extremely clean, an exceptional copy of this rare and very important imprint. Very Good Condition (holo2-148-4-E).

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