Leo M. Franklin - Leo Franklin and Henry Ford

Leo Franklin and Henry Ford

An accidental result of Franklin's prominence in Detroit was his relationship with Henry Ford. In the early 1910s, Ford and Franklin lived on the same block of Edison Avenue (and were, along with Horace Rackham, the first three residents of the block). Ford would occasionally stop and chat with Franklin on his way to the Piquette Plant, and entertained Franklin in his home on social occasions. In 1913, Ford asked Albert Kahn (who, as well as being a Beth El congregant, had worked for Ford) to approach Franklin on Ford's behalf and offer him the use of a customized Model T for use on his pastoral rounds. Ford chose Kahn as an intermediary "lest would misunderstand his motive." Franklin, however, accepted Ford's offer, and Ford presented him with a new car every year for several years, even after Ford had moved to Dearborn.

However, in 1920, Ford began publishing a series of anti-Semitic "International Jew" articles in his paper, The Dearborn Independent. The articles took Franklin (and most of his Jewish colleagues) by surprise. Franklin believed Ford was, at heart, a good man and an ally; he wrote: "Such venom could only some from a Jew-hater of the lowest type, and here it was appearing in a newspaper owned and controlled by one whom the Jews had counted among their friends. It was veritably a bolt out of the blue."

Franklin was a member of the local Anti-Defamation League. As a friend of Ford's, and having easy access to his office, Franklin was delegated to discuss the matter with Ford. He paid Ford a visit and was on the verge of convincing him to issue at least a partial retraction when an intemperate telegram from Louis B. Marshall, president of the American Jewish Committee, hardened Ford's stance. Franklin left the meeting in disappointment, upset with Marshall's lack of tact (as Marshall was upset with Franklin's naivete). When the Independent continued to publish anti-Semitic articles, Franklin returned his latest customized Model T, with a letter of protest to Ford. Within days, Ford phoned Franklin, genuinely surprised that "good" Jews—like Frankin—would be opposed to what had been written. He did not, however, cease publishing the Independent.

That day came much later: in 1927, Ford endured a libel trial over the Independent that caused him to close the paper and issue a public apology. Franklin immediately wrote Ford, reminding him of their conversation seven years earlier but accepting his apology. Franklin did not, as some of his colleagues suggested, immediately approach Ford for a monetary example of his contrition. Instead, he preferred to keep Ford in his debt, saying, "let us be the creditors while he remains our debtor."

However, The International Jew, published in book form in the early 1920s, was still in print, and Ford did not respond to Franklin's requests to halt printing. Relations between the two men remained frosty, and they didn't directly communicate until 1938. Smarting from the fallout over his acceptance of a Grand Cross of the German Eagle from Nazi Germany, Ford asked Franklin to disseminate the message that he wished to hire displaced European Jews. Franklin worked with Ford to craft a message decrying the treatment of Jews and delivered the missive to Detroit's newspapers. Upon publication, antisemitic activists such as Father Charles Coughlin questioned its authenticity. Franklin was outraged, but Ford never publicly backed the statement.