The evasive methods employed by Henry Ford with regard to his anti-Jewish charges were further illustrated when Congressman Sol Bloom made public the reply he received to his first letter to Henry Ford, urging the Detroit manufacturer to produce proof of his charge that the United States Federal Reserve System is under international control.
Congressman Bloom did not receive a reply directly from Henry Ford, but is in receipt of a letter from W. J. Cameron of the editorial department of the “Dearborn Independent.” Mr. Cameron’s letter read in full:
“This is to say that your letter of December 23rd has been received and its contents noted. We thoroughly agree with you that ‘our government’s finances should be entirely free from any vestige of alien domination, regardless of individualities, of race, country, creed, group or any other affiliations.”
On receipt of this letter, Congressman Bloom directed another letter to Ford, quoting therein the communication from Mr. Cameron.
“This is not an answer to my letter,” Mr. Bloom wrote, “still less an answer from you. While appreciating Mr. Cameron’s courtesy, what I asked is your proof that the Federal Reserve system is internationally controlled, as you charge.
“I am aware that the ‘Dearborn Independent’ is published under your auspices but it is quite without standing except as your mouthpiece. I am unable to secure copies of it in Washington from any source other than a few beneficiaries of its free list, and from the Congressional Library. I am aware also that much of the printed matter which appears with your ostensible indorsement is quite new to you when officially called to your attention.
“For example, you will recall your testimony at the trial of your suit against the ‘Chicago Tribune’ for referring to you as an anarchist, because of the pamphlet, ‘Peace versus War,’ alleged to have been written for you by your publicity agent, Theodore Delavigne. When questioned concerning one of the pamphlet’s assertions, did you not answer, ‘Delavigne didn’t show it to me’? As to another, did you not reply, ‘I was responsible but I didn’t see it’? And so on. You will agree with me that this leaves altogether too much to a publicity agent’s imagination in a case which involves your charge that the Federal Reserve system is internationally controlled. Unless a publicity agent has again taken the liberty of committing you to asserting what you know nothing about, you did make this charge.
“You say, too, that you have evidence to substantiate it. You seem reluctant to place such evidence before the Congress. Yet you state that you are willing to put an independent searcher after the truth in touch with the information on which you base your conclusions. If I sent to you, would you do this for me?–so that, if there is evidence to support your claim that the Federal Reserve system is internationally controlled, I can press that charge. In any event, I am determined not to let your charge drop until it is substantiated or disproved.
“You have the choice: (1) Of repudiating responsibility for a charge made by the ‘Dearborn Independent,’ a publication generally regarded as speaking with your voice, as you doubtless will be glad to do if it has misrepresented you. (2) Of furnishing proofs to support your accusation. (3) Of confessing that you have charged what you cannot prove. (4) Of running away from what you have charged.
“Of all these alternatives it would seem to me that the least acceptable to you would be that of running away.”
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