How Firm a Foundation - Hank the Deuce, 'Ping' Ferry, and what to learn from them

National Review, June 16, 2003 by Neal B. Freeman

It's not always true that the good that men do lives after them: Many of the great fortunes of modern capitalism have been turned to the service of anti-market forces. Their great foundations, born of good intention and high purpose, have become the private bankers for modern liberalism. Exhibit A is the Ford Foundation.

At mid-century, the Ford family was confronted by three influences: its own awakening sense of charitable obligation; the mounting concern among its lawyers that the estate tax could dislodge the family from control of the Ford Motor Company; and the urgency felt by Ford PR executives to associate the family name, then clouded by controversy, with good works of the warm and fuzzy sort.

Thus was born the first American mega-foundation. Tens of millions, then hundreds of millions, and by now billions of tax-advantaged dollars were secured in a charitable endowment. The later history of the Ford Foundation has been one of trust betrayed -- and audacity rewarded. Consider the problem of the American Left at mid-century. They had grand designs, as ever -- vast plans for what other people should do with their time and their money -- but precious few resources. The truly left-wing capitalists -- the Cyrus Eatons and so forth -- were famous in a man-bites-dog way, but they were always few in number. To reshape the American economy in its own image, the Left resolved to use the assets of America's proto-capitalist, the first great entrepreneur of the American century: Henry Ford. Now that is audacity squared.

How did they pull off the ideological heist of the century? As they say on the TV cop shows, here's my theory of the crime. The patriarch of the Ford family at the time was Henry Ford II, to whom it fell to superintend not only the car company but also the new sideline activity, the Ford Foundation. He needed help. And of all the young executives recommended to him to tend the family's philanthropy, one in particular caught his eye: Wilbur H. "Ping" Ferry. Over the succeeding years, Ping Ferry would become such a cultish figure among philanthropists of a certain age that he was referred to with the same one-name reverence as Hollywood in the 1980s would bestow on Frank, or, today, Barbra.

What did Henry Ford see in Ping? First, like Henry, Ping was an Ivy Leaguer.

Second, like Henry, Ping had grown up in the fancy suburbs of Detroit. Third, and most important, Ping was the son of a president of the Packard Motor Company, another automobile manufacturer. In other words, at least by bloodline, Ping represented to Henry Ford that highest of all human life forms: a car guy. There were, however, a few things Henry Ford didn't know about Ping Ferry. First, he never got along with his father. Second, he had no use for the automobile business. And, most important, he was a dedicated leftist who despised corporate America and the rapacity of its market system. He found much to admire in world socialism and would soon become a leading figure in the unilateral-disarmament movement.

The key moment occurs in 1950, and it is described in Ping's authorized biography. Henry Ford and Ping meet for lunch in a private dining room at the Detroit Club, the downtown refuge for generations of industrial captains. Henry Ford has a couple of drinks before lunch and appears distracted by business concerns. He is, in fact, getting punched around in the marketplace by a little outfit called General Motors. Ping pulls out a huge bundle of paperwork. Ford asks, "What the hell is this?" Ping replies that they are grant applications and that each one will have to be read and evaluated. Ford responds: "Are you crazy? Just tell me what's in them."

This was a sad and important moment in the history of bureaucracy. It was the birth of the executive summary: the one-page cover sheet that presumes to distill the essence of the 40-page document to which it is affixed. In the hands of the skilled practitioner, the executive summary would become the Swiss Army knife of modern bureaucracy: a single tool capable of performing 28 discrete operations. It was at this moment in Detroit, in that dining room, that philanthropic power - - the power to advance certain ideas while starving others -- passed from the donor to the nonprofit manager, and -- in this case -- from the capitalist to the socialist. Over time, of course, these summaries began to reflect less and less the distilled essence of grant applications, and more and more the political agenda of Ping Ferry.

How many miles did Ping take when Henry Ford gave him that first inch? By the mid 1950s those same Ford PR executives who had been so happily present at the creation of the foundation were up in arms. They were getting an earful from their network of dealers around the country. The controversy stirred up by Ping and his left-wing grantmakers was now spilling back onto the company. Something had to be done to protect the franchise. In 1956, the extended Ford family -- in all its dysfunctionality -- gathered its declining influence and pushed through the board of directors a resolution forbidding the foundation's affiliates from hiring or awarding grants to members of the Communist party.