AN ARMY DEFEATED

A characteristic of the late period of prosperity was the fashion for hostile biographies of the great figures of American History, a fashion which virtually ended with the publication of Edgar Lee Master's "Lincoln the Man", and the death of Lytton Strachey. It is significant that the recent trend has been toward a harsh exposure of the foremost American capitalists, as though in vicarious revenge for the collapse which their system has suffered. The figures who were cynically endured in their decade of triumph are savagely caricatured today. Thus J. M. Leonard in "The Tragedy of Henry Ford" just published presents Ford as the small town mechanic who was borne to success in spite of himself by the enthusiasm for mass production. The famous occasion when Ford replied to the question, "Has there ever been a revolution in the United States?" with, "Yes, in 1812," is offered as a sufficient index of his intelligence. The Peace Ship and the five-dollar-wage are presented as the ineptitudes of naive paternalism.

The violence of this criticism is a natural reaction from the attitude which looked to him as the Messiah of the new Capitalism. In the last decade he was the prime example of the benevolent despot of big business, the man who led labor along the path of mild Socialism to the ultimate felicity of two cars in every garage. When the mirage faded, the tendency of the victimized rank and file naturally was to turn to the false leaders, among whom Ford was the foremost. But in reality he was much a victim as any.

The glib and shallow economics which were presented as the opinion of Henry Ford "and Samuel Crowther" are as utterly discredited as a system could well be. As an authority on economic problems he is not so much atacked as utterly forgotten. In indicating a new biographical trend, Mr. Leonard's book is interesting, but the attek is made on an army defeated, on a capitalist no worse than the generality of capitalists and by virtue of his very naivete a good deal better than most of them.