He also hired women and handicapped men at a time when doing so was uncommon. Part of his racist and anti-semitic legacy includes the funding of square-dancing in American schools because he hated jazz and associated its creation with Jewish people. In 1918, Ford's closest aide and private secretary, Ernest G. Liebold, purchased an obscure weekly newspaper for Ford, "The Dearborn Independent". The "Independent" ran for eight years, from 1920 until 1927, with Liebold as editor. Every Ford franchise nationwide had to carry the paper and distribute it to its customers. During this period, Ford emerged as "a respected spokesman for right-wing extremism and religious prejudice", reaching around 700,000 readers through his newspaper. The 2010 documentary film "" (written by Pulitzer Prize winner Ira Berkow) states that Ford wrote on May 22, 1920: "If fans wish to know the trouble with American baseball they have it in three words—too much Jew." In Germany, Ford's antisemitic articles from "The Dearborn Independent" were issued in four volumes, cumulatively titled "The International Jew, the World's Foremost Problem" published by Theodor Fritsch, founder of several antisemitic parties and a member of the Reichstag. In a letter written in 1924, Heinrich Himmler described Ford as "one of our most valuable, important, and witty fighters". Ford is the only American mentioned favorably in "Mein Kampf", although he is only mentioned twice: Adolf Hitler wrote, "only a single great man, Ford, [who], to [the Jews'] fury, still maintains full independence ... [from] the controlling masters of the producers in a nation of one hundred and twenty millions." Speaking in 1931 to a "Detroit News" reporter, Hitler said he regarded Ford as his "inspiration", explaining his reason for keeping Ford's life-size portrait next to his desk. Steven Watts wrote that Hitler "revered" Ford, proclaiming that "I shall do my best to put his theories into practice in Germany", and modeling the Volkswagen, the people's car, on the Model T. Max Wallace has stated "History records that ... Adolf Hitler was an ardent Anti-Semite before he ever read Ford's "The International Jew"." Under Ford, the newspaper also reprinted the antisemitic fabricated text "The Protocols of the Elders of Zion". On February 1, 1924, Ford received Kurt Ludecke, a representative of Hitler, at home. Ludecke was introduced to Ford by Siegfried Wagner (son of the composer Richard Wagner) and his wife Winifred, both Nazi sympathizers and antisemites.