(Jewish Daily Bulletin)
The boycott against Henry Ford, which started recently among Detroit retail grocers and market men, is rapidly reaching out to national dimensions.
Ford’s tremendous markets, originally started for Ford employees but now thrown open to the general public, are in full swing at Highland Park, Dearborn, and in the vicinity of other Ford plants, and are now being opened along Ford’s railroad, Toledo and Ironton.
Despite the fact that Ford’s markets undersell every retailer they compete with, his profits in this venture alone are reported to have been in excess of $1,000,000 last year.
Michigan retailers turned their Ford boycott first against wholesalers who delivered in Ford cars. They would not take goods from Ford delivery wagons. Now they are refusing to buy of wholesalers who sell to Ford for his marketing system.
The rapidity with which this boycott is reaching out is indicated by excerpts from this letter addressed to Henry Ford by L. F. Padberg, Secretary of the Missouri Retail Grocers’ and Merchants’ Association:
“Much bad feeling exists today in St. Louis and Missouri from the independent retail grocer and butcher toward the Ford Company on account of you operating retail meat markets and groceries in Detroit. Protests are coming in from all parts of Missouri steadily.
“In principle, why should you, after having been favored by God in acquiring your wealth, try to drive your fellowmen in other lines out of business.”
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
