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23 - Henry Fords Own Story by Rose Wilder Lane · Henry Fords Own Story

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty two of Henry Ford's Own Story. This LibriVox
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  Speaker 1: recording is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett.
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  Speaker 1: Henry Ford's Own Story by Rose Wilder Lane, chapter twenty two,
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  Speaker 1: Automobiles for the Masses. In a short time. Cousins return
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  Speaker 1: from Chicago, bringing not only the delayed check, but several
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  Speaker 1: orders as well, which he had obtained, largely because of
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  Speaker 1: the astounding record made by the Ford car in its
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  Speaker 1: race over the ice on Lake Saint Clair. The Ford
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  Speaker 1: Company was not yet firmly established, but prospects were bright.
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  Speaker 1: America was awakened to the possibilities of the automobile, not
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  Speaker 1: merely as a machine for spectacular exhibitions of daring and
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  Speaker 1: skill at track meetings, or as the plaything of wealthy men,
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  Speaker 1: but as a practical time and labor saver for the
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  Speaker 1: average person. The automobile industry rose almost overnight. Orders poured
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  Speaker 1: into the offices of companies already organized. New companies were
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  Speaker 1: formed by dozens, capitalized at millions of dollars. Fly by night,
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  Speaker 1: concerns sprang up like mushrooms, flooded the country with stock
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  Speaker 1: selling schemes, established factories where parts of motor cars bought
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  Speaker 1: elsewhere were assembled, Fortunes were made and lost and made again.
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  Speaker 1: Almost every day saw new cars on the market. Everyone
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  Speaker 1: wanted an automobile. It was a luxury. It appealed to
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  Speaker 1: our longing to have something just a little better than
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  Speaker 1: our neighbors could afford. At the same time, its obvious
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  Speaker 1: usefulness was an argument which overcame economy. The comic supplements,
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  Speaker 1: those faithful reflectors of American life in terms of the ridiculous,
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  Speaker 1: played with every variation of the theme. He mortgaged the
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  Speaker 1: home to buy an automobile amid this mounting excitement. In
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  Speaker 1: spite of millions to be made by building a car bigger, finer,
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  Speaker 1: more beautiful, and luxurious than those of his competitors, Henry
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  Speaker 1: Ford still clung firmly to his idea. He seems to
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  Speaker 1: have been, at that time the only automobile manufacturer who
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  Speaker 1: realized that the automobile supplied a real need of the
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  Speaker 1: average man, and that the average man is a hard working,
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  Speaker 1: frugal individual used to living without those things. He must
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  Speaker 1: mortgage his home to get. The automobile of those days
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  Speaker 1: was like a steam yacht. Ford says, it was built
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  Speaker 1: for only a few people. Now anything that is good
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  Speaker 1: for only a few people is really no good. It's
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  Speaker 1: got to be good for everybody, or in the end
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  Speaker 1: it will not survive. Radical philosophy that you might hear
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  Speaker 1: it from a street corner or one of that dissatisfied multitude,
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  Speaker 1: which will insist, in spite of all the good things
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  Speaker 1: we have in this country, that merely because those things
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  Speaker 1: are not good for them, they are not good. There
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  Speaker 1: is something of Marks in such a statement, something of
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  Speaker 1: George Washington, even something of Christianity. No wonder men were
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  Speaker 1: astounded by the notion that success could be founded on
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  Speaker 1: a theory like that. It's plain common sense, I tell you.
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  Speaker 1: Ford insisted, and in spite of good advice, in spite
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  Speaker 1: of sound business reasoning, that obstinate man went on in
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  Speaker 1: his own way and acted on that belief. The Ford
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  Speaker 1: cars were cheap, already under priced nearly one thousand dollars
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  Speaker 1: in comparison with other cars, they were to be sold
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  Speaker 1: still cheaper. Ford insisted every cent he could save in
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  Speaker 1: construction and factory management, and shrewd buying of material was
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  Speaker 1: deducted from the selling price. The car's soul orders accumulated
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  Speaker 1: faster than they could be filled in the shop on
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  Speaker 1: mac Avenue. The profits went back into the factory. More
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  Speaker 1: men were added to the pay roll, more machinery was installed,
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  Speaker 1: and still the orders came and the output could not
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  Speaker 1: keep up with them. Missus Ford could afford to buy
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  Speaker 1: her own hats instead of making them, to get a
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  Speaker 1: new set of furniture for the parlor, to purchase as
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  Speaker 1: many gloves and shoes as she wanted. She did these things.
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  Speaker 1: She even talked of getting a hired girl to do
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  Speaker 1: the cooking. But Ford himself made little change in his
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  Speaker 1: way of living. He had always dressed warmly and comfortably,
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  Speaker 1: eaten when he was hungry, slept soundly enough on an
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  Speaker 1: ordinary bed. He saw no way to increase his comforts
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  Speaker 1: by spending more money on himself. More than enough money
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  Speaker 1: to keep him comfortable. Is no use to a man,
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  Speaker 1: he says. You can't squander money on yourself without hurting yourself.
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  Speaker 1: Only a lubricant to keep business going. He continued to
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  Speaker 1: work hard, designing simpler, cheaper cars, struggling with business difficulties
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  Speaker 1: as they arose, planning a new factory. Most of all,
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  Speaker 1: he was interested in the new factory. The success of
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  Speaker 1: his four cylinder car provided money enough to warrant building it.
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  Speaker 1: At last, a small tract of land on Piquette Avenue
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  Speaker 1: was bought, and Ford prepared to move from the rented
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  Speaker 1: mac Avenue place. The Watch Factory dream was finally to
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  Speaker 1: be realized. Henry Ford declared that by a large equipment
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  Speaker 1: of special machinery and a sympathetic organization of the work,
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  Speaker 1: cars could be produced at a hitherto unheard of price.
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  Speaker 1: He planned to the smallest detail to the most minute
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  Speaker 1: fraction of space time labor the production of those cars.
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  Speaker 1: Every part was to be machined to exact size, No
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  Speaker 1: supplementary fitting in the assembling room to be necessary. From
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  Speaker 1: the time the raw iron entered one end of the
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  Speaker 1: factory till the finished car rolled away from the other end.
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  Speaker 1: There was not to be a moment's delay, a wasted motion.
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  Speaker 1: The various parts, all alike to the fraction of an inch,
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  Speaker 1: were to fit together with automatic precision, and Ford announced
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  Speaker 1: that he would produce ten thousand cars in a single year.
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  Speaker 1: The manufacturing world was stunned by the announcement, then it laughed.
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  Speaker 1: Very few people believed that Ford would go far with
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  Speaker 1: such a radical departure from all accepted practice. But the
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  Speaker 1: new building was finished, Ford installed his machinery according to
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  Speaker 1: his plans, and when the wheels began to turn, the
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  Speaker 1: world earned a new lesson in efficiency. Still Ford's success
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  Speaker 1: in the automobile field was not easily won. As a poor,
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  Speaker 1: hard working mechanic, he had fought weariness and poverty and
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  Speaker 1: ridicule to build his motor car. As an unknown in
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  Speaker 1: still poor, he had struggled for a foothold in the
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  Speaker 1: business world and got it. Now he was in for
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  Speaker 1: a long, expensive legal battle before he should be able
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  Speaker 1: to feel secure in his success. The Association of Licensed
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  Speaker 1: to Automobile Manufacturers, a combination of seventy three of the
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  Speaker 1: biggest motor car companies, brought suit against the Ford Company
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  Speaker 1: to recover tremendous sums of money because of Ford's alleged
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  Speaker 1: violation of the Selden patent. Selden held a basic patent
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  Speaker 1: covering the use of the gasoline engine as motive power
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  Speaker 1: and self propelled vehicles. When automobiles began to be put
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  Speaker 1: on the market, he claimed his right under that patent
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  Speaker 1: to a royalty on all such vehicles. Other automobile manufacturers,
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  Speaker 1: almost without exception, acceded to his claim and operated under
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  Speaker 1: a lease from him, adding the royalty to the selling price.
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  Speaker 1: Henry Ford balked he had been running a self propelled
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  Speaker 1: gasoline engine long before Selden had applied for his patent. Furthermore,
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  Speaker 1: the royalties interfered with the long cherished dream of cheapening
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  Speaker 1: his cars. He flatly refused to make the payments, the
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  Speaker 1: less ease of the Selden Rites, perceiving and forward a
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  Speaker 1: dangerous adversary in the automobile field, who would become still
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  Speaker 1: more dangerous if he succeeded in eliminating the royalty payments
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  Speaker 1: from his manufacturing costs immediately began to fight him, with
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  Speaker 1: all the millions at their command. End of Chapter twenty
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  Speaker 1: two