It was his objection to war, however, that got the “people’s tycoon” in the crosshairs of the “world’s greatest newspaper” later that same year in 1916. Ford the pacifist — whom the Tribune had praised in preceding years for elevating the working conditions of his employees with policies like a $5-per-day wage — irked the hawkish paper when he opposed President Woodrow Wilson’s plan to send troops to help put down insurgents like Pancho Villa along the Mexican border.
In a subsequent editorial, headlined “Henry Ford Is an Anarchist,” the Tribune labeled one of the country’s most powerful men an “ignorant idealist … and an anarchist enemy of the nation.” Then it was Ford’s turn to be irked, and he sued the newspaper for libel and $1 million in damages.
