John Ford (New York state senator)

John Ford (July 28, 1862 – July 1941) was an American lawyer and politician from New York.

Born in Orleans County, New York, he attended occasionally the district schools, and worked as a farm laborer. While working in the stone quarries of Medina, he learned privately, and attended Medina Academy for five months, so that he could go to college. In a competitive examination, he won a free tuition scholarship at Cornell University, and graduated four years later.

While at Cornell, he wrote the essay which won the first prize offered nationwide to senior college students by the American Protective Tariff League. After graduation, he became first an occasional contributor to, then associate editor, and finally editor of, the American Economist, the organ of the Protective Tariff League. For the 1892 presidential campaign, he published a Pocket Cyclopedia of Protection.

While writing for the newspapers, he studied law with Edmund L. Pitts, was admitted to the bar, and practiced in New York City.

Ford was a member of the New York State Senate (18th D.) from 1896 to 1900, sitting in the 119th, 120th, 121st, 122nd, 123rd New York State Legislatures.

In 1905, Ford was proposed as a fusion candidate for Mayor of New York, but the Republican party leaders would not commit themselves to municipal ownership of utilities, and the fusion did not materialize. Ford, who had been a Republican since he had entered politics, favored municipal ownership and joined William Randolph Hearst's Municipal Ownership League.

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