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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty six 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 six,
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  Speaker 1: Making it Pay. When I saw thousands of men in
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  Speaker 1: Detroit alone, fighting like wild animals for a chance that
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  Speaker 1: a decent living wage, it brought home to me the
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  Speaker 1: tremendous economic waste in our system of doing business, Ford said.
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  Speaker 1: Every man in those crowds must go back to a
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  Speaker 1: job if he found one at all, that did not
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  Speaker 1: give him a chance to do his best work, because
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  Speaker 1: it did not pay him enough to keep him healthy
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  Speaker 1: and happy. I made up my mind to put my
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  Speaker 1: project through, to prove to the men who are running
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  Speaker 1: big industries that my plan pays. I wanted employers to
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  Speaker 1: see that when every man has all the money he
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  Speaker 1: needs for comfort and happiness, it will be better for everybody.
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  Speaker 1: I wanted to prove that the policy of trying to
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  Speaker 1: get everything good for yourself really hurts you in the end.
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  Speaker 1: He paused and smiled his slow, whimsical smile. Well, I
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  Speaker 1: guess I proved it, he said. Six weeks after the
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  Speaker 1: plan went into effect, in his factory. A comparison was
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  Speaker 1: made between the production for January nineteen fourteen and January
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  Speaker 1: nineteen thirteen. In nineteen thirteen, with sixteen thousand men working
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  Speaker 1: on the actual production of cars for ten hours a day,
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  Speaker 1: sixteen thousand cars were made and shipped. Under the new plan,
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  Speaker 1: fifteen thousand, eight hundred men working eight hours a day
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  Speaker 1: made and shipped twenty six thousand cars. Again, Ford had
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  Speaker 1: shown the value of that intangible and practical thing, a
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  Speaker 1: spirit of friendliness and good will. On the EBB tide
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  Speaker 1: of the enthusiasm which had stirred this country. At the
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  Speaker 1: announcement of his profit sharing plan, a thousand skeptical opinions arose. Oh,
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  Speaker 1: he's doing it just for the advertising. He knew right
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  Speaker 1: enough that he would make more money in the end
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  Speaker 1: by this scheme. He's no philanthropist. Ford wanted his new
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  Speaker 1: plan known. He wanted employers everywhere to see what he
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  Speaker 1: was doing, how he did it, and what the effects
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  Speaker 1: would be. He did expect the factory to run better,
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  Speaker 1: to produce more cars. If it had not done so,
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  Speaker 1: his plan would have been a failure. Do the thing
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  Speaker 1: that is best for everybody, and it will be best
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  Speaker 1: for you. In the end, that was his creed. He
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  Speaker 1: hoped to prove its truth so that no one would
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  Speaker 1: doubt it. Nor is Ford a philanthropist with the ordinary
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  Speaker 1: implications that follow that word. He is a hard headed,
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  Speaker 1: practical man who has made a success in invention an
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  Speaker 1: organization and the building of a great business. His contribution
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  Speaker 1: to the world is a practical contribution. His message is
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  Speaker 1: a practical message. This whole world is like a machine.
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  Speaker 1: Every part is as important as every other part. We
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  Speaker 1: should all work together, not against each other. Anything that
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  Speaker 1: is good for all the parts of the machine is
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  Speaker 1: good for each one of them. Or look at it
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  Speaker 1: as a human body. The welfare of one part is
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  Speaker 1: dependent on all the other parts. Once in a while,
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  Speaker 1: a little group of cells get together and takes to
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  Speaker 1: growing on its own account, not paying any attention to
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  Speaker 1: the rest. That is a cancer, and the end, what
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  Speaker 1: it takes from the rest of the body causes the
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  Speaker 1: death of the whole organism. What do those independent, selfish
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  Speaker 1: cells get out of it? I tell you, selfishness, trying
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  Speaker 1: to get ahead of the other fellow, trying to take
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  Speaker 1: away from other people is the worst policy a man
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  Speaker 1: can follow. It is not a practical viewpoint on life.
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  Speaker 1: Any man who is a success is a success because
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  Speaker 1: his work has helped other men, whether he realizes it
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  Speaker 1: or not. The more he helps other men, the more
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  Speaker 1: successful every one will be, and he will get his share.
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  Speaker 1: Putting his profit sharing plan into effect was not a
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  Speaker 1: simple matter of writing the checks. He had to educate
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  Speaker 1: not only other employers, but his own men as well.
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  Speaker 1: They must be taught the proper way to use money,
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  Speaker 1: so that it would not be a detriment to themselves
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  Speaker 1: or a menace to society in general. On the other hand,
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  Speaker 1: Ford did not believe in the factory systems in use abroad.
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  Speaker 1: He did not mean to give each of his workmen
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  Speaker 1: a model cottage with a model flower garden in front
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  Speaker 1: and a model laundry in the rear, and say to them,
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  Speaker 1: look at the flowers, but do not pick them. It
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  Speaker 1: will spoil my landscape effect. Look at the lawn, but
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  Speaker 1: do not cut it. I have workmen for that. He
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  Speaker 1: meant to place no restraints on the personal liberty of
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  Speaker 1: the men. He believed that every man, if given the opportunity,
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  Speaker 1: would make himself a good, substantial citizen, industrious, thrifty, and
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  Speaker 1: helpful to others. He meant his plan to prove that theory. Also,
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  Speaker 1: it has been rumored that the extra share of profits
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  Speaker 1: was given with a string to it. That is not so.
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  Speaker 1: There was no single thing a man must have to
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  Speaker 1: do to entitle him to his share. He need not
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  Speaker 1: own a home, start a bank account, support a family,
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  Speaker 1: or even measure up to a standard of work. In
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  Speaker 1: the shops, manhood and thrift were the only requisites, and
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  Speaker 1: the company stood ready to help any man attain those.
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  Speaker 1: The first obstacle was the fact that fifty five percent
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  Speaker 1: of the men did not speak English. Investigators visiting their
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  Speaker 1: miserable homes were obliged to speak through interpreters. A school
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  Speaker 1: was started where they might learn English, and the response
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  Speaker 1: was touching. More than a thousand men enrolled immediately, and
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  Speaker 1: when the plan was discussed in the shops, two hundred
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  Speaker 1: American workmen volunteered to help in teaching. So thoroughly had
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  Speaker 1: the forged spirit of helpfulness pervaded the factory, the paid
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  Speaker 1: teachers were dismissed, and now those two hundred men, on
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  Speaker 1: their own time, are helping their fellow employees to learn
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  Speaker 1: the language of their new country. Shortly after the newspapers
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  Speaker 1: had carried far and wide the news of Ford's revolutionary theories.
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  Speaker 1: A man knocked late one night at the door of
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  Speaker 1: the manager's home. Will you give me a job? He asked, why,
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  Speaker 1: I don't know who you are. The manager replied, I'm
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  Speaker 1: the worst man in Detroit, said the caller defiantly. I'm
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  Speaker 1: fifty four years old and I've done thirty two years
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  Speaker 1: in Jackson Prison. I'm a bad actor and everybody knows it.
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  Speaker 1: I can't get a job. The only person that ever
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  Speaker 1: played me true is my wife, and I ain't going
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  Speaker 1: to have her taking in washing to support me. If
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  Speaker 1: you want to give me a job, all right. If
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  Speaker 1: you don't, I'm going back to Jackson Prison for good.
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  Speaker 1: There's one man yet I want to get, and I'll
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  Speaker 1: get him. Somewhat nonplussed by the situation, the manager invited
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  Speaker 1: the man in, talked to him a bit, and called
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  Speaker 1: up Ford. Sure give him a chance. Ford's voice came
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  Speaker 1: over the wire. He's a man, isn't he. He's entitled
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  Speaker 1: to as good a chance as any other man. The
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  Speaker 1: ex convict was given a job in the shops for
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  Speaker 1: a couple of months. His work was poor. The foreman
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  Speaker 1: reported it to the manager. The manager wrote a letter
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  Speaker 1: telling the man to brace up. There was plenty of
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  Speaker 1: good stuff in him if he would take an interest
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  Speaker 1: in the work and do his best. The next morning,
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  Speaker 1: he came into the manager's office with his wife so
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  Speaker 1: broken up he could hardly hold his voice steady. That
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  Speaker 1: letter's the finest thing outside of what my wife has done,
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  Speaker 1: that I've ever had happened to me, he said. I
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  Speaker 1: want to stick here. I'll do the best I know how.
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  Speaker 1: I'll work my hands off. Show me how to do
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  Speaker 1: my work better. A couple of months later, he came
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  Speaker 1: into the office and took a small roll of bills
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  Speaker 1: out of his pocket. Say, he said, shifting from one
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  Speaker 1: foot to the other and running his fingers around the
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  Speaker 1: brim of the hat in his hands. I wonder if
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  Speaker 1: you'd tell me how to get into a bank and
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  Speaker 1: leave this and what bank. I'm wise about how to
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  Speaker 1: get in and take it out, but I ain't up
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  Speaker 1: to putting it in without some advice. To day, that
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  Speaker 1: man is living in his own home, which he is
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  Speaker 1: paying for on the installment plan, and he is one
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  Speaker 1: of the best workers in Detroit, a good steady man.
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  Speaker 1: His chance appearance resulted in Ford's policy of employing convicts
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  Speaker 1: wherever his investigators come across them. Nearly a hundred ex criminals,
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  Speaker 1: many of them on parole, are working in his shops
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  Speaker 1: to day, and he considers them among his best men.
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  Speaker 1: No policy is any good if it cannot go into
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  Speaker 1: a community and take every one in it, young, old, good, bad, sick, well,
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  Speaker 1: and make them I'm all happier, more useful, and more prosperous,
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  Speaker 1: he says. Every human being that lives is part of
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  Speaker 1: the big machine, and you can't draw any lines between
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  Speaker 1: parts of a machine. They're all important. You can't make
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  Speaker 1: a good machine by making only one part of it good.
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  Speaker 1: This belief led to his establishing a unique labor clearing
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  Speaker 1: house in his administration, building a department that makes it
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  Speaker 1: next to impossible for any man employed in the organization
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  Speaker 1: to lose his job end of chapter twenty six.