It’s a story that reads as if it was ripped from today’s headlines. A wealthy businessman runs for national office, and loses. He demands multiple recounts, refusing to accept his loss. He hounds his winning opponent until he leaves office.
But this isn’t a modern story by any means. The wealthy businessman is Henry Ford, and this week in 1918, he lost a bid for the U.S. Senate.
Looking for peace
The story actually begins in 1915. And Henry Ford, always a pacifist, is a fierce opponent of World War I.
“I hate war, because war is murder, desolation and destruction, causeless, unjustifiable, cruel and heartless to those of the human race who do not want it,” he wrote in the Detroit Free Press in 1915. Soon, he fell under the influence of those calling for an end to the war through mediation. Ford approaches President Woodrow Wilson to send a commission to Europe to negotiate peace. Wilson likes the idea, but remains non-committal.
Dismissing Wilson as a small man, Ford naively charters the Oscar II to carry like-minded mediators to Europe to help bring an end to the war. The effort famously fails, but it instigates thoughts of not only of bringing an end to the war, but also Ford’s place in politics. It’s cemented when Ford, a Republican, campaigns for Democratic President Wilson’s re-election in 1916, appreciating his pacifist leaning.
A president approves
Two years later, with Wilson looking to ensure his proposal for the League of Nations will pass the Senate, he asks the 55-year-old industrialist to run as the Democratic candidate for Michigan in the 1918 election.
“At President Wilson’s request, I have decided to accept the nomination of Senator from Michigan if tendered to me,” Ford said in a statement. “I am ready and willing to do everything I possibly can to assist the President in this great work.”
At the time of the announcement, Michigan Democrats endorse Ford despite his party affiliation, and suggest that Republican candidates should withdraw and unite behind Ford. As you can imagine, the Republican State Central Committee was unmoved.
“The interference by the real head of the Democratic political organization in this country, in an effort to control the Republican Party’s affairs in a state of 100,000 Republicans, will not affect us. The Republican Primary will continue,” the organization replied.
This begged the question: Was Henry Ford a Republican or Democrat? To some, it didn’t matter.
“It would be hard to find any man less interested in party politics than Mr. Ford,” wrote The Detroit News. “It would be hard to imagine him consciously working in the interest of any one party if elected.”
Soon, Ford answered everyone’s question by running in both the Democratic and Republican primaries.
What happened next
A number of outraged Republicans rose up to run against Ford, something that didn’t happen on the other side of the aisle. Inevitably, Truman H. Newberry became the Republican nominee, and Ford’s antithesis.
While Ford was born a farm boy, Newberry was from an old elite Detroit family, having served as early director at Packard Motor Car Co. in 1903. He was appointed assistant secretary of the Navy by President Theodore Roosevelt in 1905 before becoming Secretary of the Navy in 1908.
Newberry proved a fierce candidate, accusing Ford of pacifism, anti-Semitism and trying to prevent his son, Edsel, from enlisting in the military. Newberry won the Republican primary; Ford the Democratic one.
During his campaign, Ford pledged to work for the repeal of patent laws as he felt they exploited consumers. He also supported women’s rights and the League of Nations. But he didn’t spend any money on his campaign, nor did he make any speeches. If people wanted him, he felt that they should vote for him
But the media continued to doubt the worth of his candidacy.
“Evidently Mr. Ford’s interest in the government of his country is not very deep, or very extensive, or very sure. Indeed, it is fairly certain that this is a significant fact in this matter,” The Hartford Courant wrote, “It is rather important that he should have something more than a casual or transitory interest in the kind of work which he would have to do.”
The New York Times put it rather succinctly. “His entrance into the Senate would create a vacancy both in the Senate and in the automobile business, and from the latter Mr. Ford cannot be spared.”
Ultimately, the answer would come Nov. 5, 1918, when Newberry won the race for Michigan’s Senate seat by 7,500 votes. That was a slim victory considering that two years later, 72% of Michigan voters voted for Republican presidential candidate Warren G. Harding.
Outrage and recounts
Almost immediately, those angered by the Newberry campaign’s egregious spending tactics erupted in a surge of opposition, according to the United States Senate Historical Office.
On Sept. 18, 1918, less than one month before the election, Ohio Senator Attlee Pomerene introduces a Senate resolution to investigate the Michigan election. Federal law set a $10,000 cap on primary expenses, whereas Michigan law set a $3,750 cap, not including advertising. Newberry had spent $176,000, a violation of the Federal Corrupt Practices Act on how much a Senate candidate could spend on his campaign. Then, having lost the election Henry Ford requests a recount in a petition to the Senate on Jan. 6, 1919.
Nevertheless, Newberry takes the oath of office on May 19, 1919, joining a Republican-controlled Congress with a two-vote majority. The day after, Ford submits another petition challenging the results of the election and accusing Newberry of illegal spending and intimidating voters. This leads the Senate to formally requesting an investigation into the election after referring the complaint to the Committee on Privileges and Elections on Dec. 3, 1919.
Ford persists, however, and Wilson’s Justice Department indicts Newberry and 16 other candidates for breaching the contribution caps in the Federal Corrupt Practices Act. Newberry is convicted in March 1920, and sentenced to Leavenworth for two years and fined $10,000. Newberry appeals to the U.S. Supreme Court, which overturns his conviction in May 1921, citing the judge’s misapplication of the law to the jury and a split majority decision stating that Congress could not supervise primary elections. Newberry is set free, but his seat retention is still an open question.
More setbacks for Ford
On Sept. 29, 1921, after conducting a recount of the general election ballots, the Committee on Privileges and Elections declares that Newberry had been legitimately elected senator and that charges of fraud and voter intimidation were unfounded. Exonerating the Senator, the Committee’s report recommends that the Senate declare Newbery duly elected.
The Senate debates the matter for three months before condemning Newberry for excessive expenditures but recognizing him as the newly elected senator from Michigan. The vote is largely split along partisan lines.
But the fight has taken its toll on Newberry, as he had lost a sizable number of Republican supporters. Facing a possible replay of the election from Ford, who remains angry and unwilling to accept the election results, Newberry resigns his Senate seat Nov. 18, 1922, returning to Michigan where lives until his death in 1945.
Henry Ford would outlive him by a little less than two years.
What a story! Thanks for pursuing this one Larry. A wealthy, headstrong, businessman with a huge ego is not a good bet for election to public office. Henry proved himself to be a flawed fellow, to be sure, particularly when it came to his blatant bigotry against particularly Jews. The making public policy should not be left to zealots.
Thanks Steve.