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Henry Ford: A Difficult History (Advanced Program) · Spotlight English: Advanced

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  Welcome to Spotlight Advanced. I'm Megan no Lette and I'm Bruce sculland Spotlight uses
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  a special English method of broadcasting. It is easier for people to understand no
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  matter where in the world they live. It is the year nineteen ten.
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  A man walks along the floor of a factory. He wears a clean suit
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  and tie. All around him men work on conveyor belts. These moving tables
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  bring pieces of machinery to the men. They build the machines together. Soon
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  the machines begin to take shape. They are cars. The man in the
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  suit smiles. He has many reasons to be happy. His name is Henry
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  Ford, and this is his factory. His cars have made him one of
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  the most successful men in the United States. People all over the world know
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  his name. But Henry Ford also has a secret. He is an anti
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  Semite, a person who hates the Jewish people. Henry Ford will always be
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  known for his success. In some ways, he changed the world, but
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  his views also hurt many people. These views will forever change how people see
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  him for the worse. Today's Spotlight is on the complicated legacy of Henry Ford.
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  Henry Ford was born in eighteen sixty three in the United States to a
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  family of farmers. His parents were not wealthy, and Ford did not complete
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  much schooling. Instead, his family expected him to work on the farm,
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  but Ford believed his life could be different. He soon saw that he had
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  a talent for working with machines. He especially loved working on cars. He
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  even began building his own. These cars were so successful that he was able
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  to start his own company. But soon Ford saw that there was a problem.
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  During that time, cars took a very long time to build, and
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  there was no single way of making them. Each car was different and every
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  part was special to each car. This made cars cost a lot of money.
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  Ford believed that he could make cars more quickly without spending as much money.
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  Instead of building cars one at a time, he would make car parts.
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  Any part would work in any of his cars, and the parts would
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  fit together easily. This would save his workers time and make the job easier.
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  Ford also invented the assembly line. The assembly line is a method of
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  working. In an assembly line, workers stand along moving tables. These slow
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  moving platforms bring parts to the workers. They put parts together as these come
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  down the line, so they do not have to spend time carrying the parts
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  around. Ford's methods were very successful. Soon he was able to create the
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  Model T. At the time, the Model Ta costs less money than any
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  other car in the world, even poorer people could buy one, so Ford
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  sold many more and other car companies. Soon the Ford Motor Company was the
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  biggest car company in the United States, and everyone began to copy Ford's methods.
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  Even today, companies use methods like those invented by Henry Ford. By
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  the end of nineteen fifteen, Henry Ford was one of the wealthiest people in
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  America. He was also one of the most popular. People used him as
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  an example of the American dream. This is the belief that anyone in the
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  United States, no matter how poor, can become a success. But Ford
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  also believed many false and dangerous things. In the nineteen tens, he read
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  a book called the protocol Holes of the Elders of Zion. This false document
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  claims to be a Jewish plan to secretly take over the world. It was
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  created in Russia to justify Jewish persecution. But Ford did not know this writing
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  was not true. He believed what he read, and he began to spread
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  his beliefs to other people. For example, he went on a camping trip
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  with several friends. During that time, he spoke a lot about his antisemitic
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  beliefs. One of his friends wrote about it in his personal notes. He
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  blames all evil on the Jews or the Jewish business owners. The Jews caused
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  the war. The Jews caused an increase in stealing all over the country.
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  The Jews caused the Navy to perform poorly. Henry Ford began to blame the
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  Jewish people for everything in the world that he did not like. He even
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  blamed them for jazz music and some popular clothing styles. He had no evidence,
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  but he was sure he knew something no one else did, and soon
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  he began to tell the world. In nineteen eighteen, he bought a newspaper
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  company. It was called The Dearborn Independent. He used the newspaper to spread
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  his anti Semitic beliefs. He encouraged many of his workers to buy copies.
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  The places that sold his cars gave them away. He published a book called
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  The International Jew and some people began to listen. Hacia Diner is a teacher
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  of American Jewish history. She spoke to PBS about why this was so dangerous,
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  what Henry Ford says, people stop and listen. There are people who
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  wanted him to run for president in the nineteen twenties. If some local food
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  server says something anti Semitic, well, nobody cares. Somebody may listen,
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  they may repeat it, but it will not spread far. But Henry Ford
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  was able to gain a national audience with his words. This made him a
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  very dangerous person. Henry Ford's words caused bad things to happen, and they
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  spread farther than the United States. Adolf Hitler was the leader of Nazi Germany.
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  He was also an anti Semite and he believed many of the same things
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  as Ford. He is also to blame for the Holocaust. The Holocaust was
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  the deaths of over six million Jewish people and five million others hated by the
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  Nazis. In nineteen twenty five, Hitler wrote a book. It was called
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  Mine Camp or My Struggle. In the book, he called Forge's work very
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  important. The International Jew gave him and many other Nazis hatefilled ideas. Ford
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  did not kill any Jews himself, but people used his work to make a
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  case for murder. Today, people still read The International Jew. The book
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  is not based on facts, but people still believe it. The book says
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  it is right to hate the Jews when times are difficult. The book gives
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  them someone to blame. Bill McGrath is a rider at Bridge Magazine. In
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  twenty nineteen, he wrote about Ford's anti Semitism. The Internet age has given
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  Ford's anti Semitic literature a strong new life. It has been a century since
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  Ford bought The Dearborn Independent, it has been over seventy two years since his
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  death, but his hate is stronger than ever. It grows on websites where
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  people who hate Jews talk to each other. By the end of his life,
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  Henry Ford denied his anti Semitic beliefs. He saw pictures of the Holocaust
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  and he could not continue to hate the Jews. He stopped publishing The Dearborn
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  Independent, and his children used much of his money to fight hate. Yet
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  Ford is a difficult person to talk about today. The Ford Motor Company is
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  one of the largest vehicle companies in the world, and Ford created modern manufacturing.
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  Henry Ford helped create some of the good things in the modern world,
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  but he also helped create an evil that continues to this day, and it
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  may not be possible to separate the two. History is filled with people with
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  complicated pasts. How should we think about them? Is the good they do
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  worth more than the bad? You can leave a comment on our website or
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  email us at Radio at Radio English dot net. You can also comment on
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  Facebook at Facebook dot com slash Spotlight Radio. The writer of this program was
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  Dan Christman. The producer was Dan Christman. The voices you heard were from
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  the United States and the United Kingdom. Or quotes were adapted for this program
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  and voiced by Spotlight. You can listen to this program again and read it
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  on the internet at www dot Radio English dot net. This program is called
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  Henry Ford A Difficult History. You can also get our programs delivered directly to
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  your Android or Apple device through our free official Spotlight English app. We hope
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  you can join us again for the next Spotlight program. Goodbye,