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

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  Speaker 1: Chapter twenty three 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 three.
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  Speaker 1: Fighting the Selden Patent. By sheer force of an idea
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  Speaker 1: backed only by hard work, Henry Ford had established a
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  Speaker 1: new principle of mechanics. He had created new methods in
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  Speaker 1: the manufacturing world, methods substantially those which prevail in manufacturing today.
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  Speaker 1: Now he entered the legal field. His fight on the
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  Speaker 1: Selden Patent, a fight that lasted nearly ten years, was
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  Speaker 1: a sensation not only in the automobile world, but among
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  Speaker 1: lawyers everywhere. The intricacies of the case baffled the jurists
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  Speaker 1: before whom it was tried time and again. Decisions adverse
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  Speaker 1: to Ford were handed down. Each time. Ford came back again,
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  Speaker 1: more determined than before, carried the contest to a higher court,
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  Speaker 1: and fought the battle over again. On one side, the
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  Speaker 1: Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers was struggling to save patent
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  Speaker 1: rights for which they had paid vast sums of money
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  Speaker 1: to maintain high prices for automobiles and to protect their
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  Speaker 1: combination of manufacturing interests. On the other, Ford was fighting
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  Speaker 1: to release the industry from paying tribute to a patent
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  Speaker 1: which he believed unsound, to smash the combination of manufacturers,
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  Speaker 1: and to keep down his own factory costs so that
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  Speaker 1: he could make a still cheaper car. With the first
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  Speaker 1: adverse decision, the ALAM carried the fight into the newspapers.
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  Speaker 1: Most of us can recall the days when from coast
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  Speaker 1: to coast, the newspapers of America blossomed with page advertisements
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  Speaker 1: warning people against buying Ford cars, asserting that ever ever
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  Speaker 1: owner of a Ford car was liable to prosecution for
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  Speaker 1: damages under the Selden patent rights. Those were chaotic years
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  Speaker 1: in the industry. The osteria which followed the huge profit
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  Speaker 1: making of the first companies, checked only temporarily by the
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  Speaker 1: Panic of nineteen o seven to eight. Mounted again in
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  Speaker 1: a rising wave of excitement, dozens of companies sprang up,
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  Speaker 1: sold stock, assembled a few cars, and went down in ruin.
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  Speaker 1: Buyers of their cars were left stranded with automobiles for
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  Speaker 1: which they could not get new parts. It was asserted
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  Speaker 1: that the Ford Motor Company, unable to pay the enormous
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  Speaker 1: sums accruing if the Selden patent was upheld, would be
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  Speaker 1: one of the companies to fail. Buyers were urged to
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  Speaker 1: place safe by purchasing a recognized car, a car made
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  Speaker 1: by the licensed manufacturers. Ford, already involved in a business
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  Speaker 1: fight against the Association and its millions, thus found himself
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  Speaker 1: in danger of losing the confidence of the public. The
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  Speaker 1: story of those years is one which cannot be adequately told.
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  Speaker 1: Ford was working harder than he had ever done while
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  Speaker 1: he was building his first car in the old shed.
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  Speaker 1: He was one of the first men at the factory
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  Speaker 1: every morning, and long after Detroit was asleep, he was
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  Speaker 1: still hard at work, conferring with lawyers, discussing with cousins
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  Speaker 1: the latest disaster that threatened, struggling with business problems, meeting
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  Speaker 1: emergencies in the selling field, and always planning to better
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  Speaker 1: the factory management and to lower the price and increase
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  Speaker 1: the efficiency of the car. The car sold. Ford had
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  Speaker 1: built it for common men, for the vast body of
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  Speaker 1: America's middle class people, and it was cheap enough to
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  Speaker 1: be within their reach. Ford knew that if he could
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  Speaker 1: keep their confidence, he could win. In the end, he
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  Speaker 1: met the attack of the A. L. A. M. By
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  Speaker 1: printing huge advertisements guaranteeing purchasers of his car from prosecution
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  Speaker 1: under the seldom patents, and backed his guarantee by the
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  Speaker 1: bond of a New York security company. Then he appealed
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  Speaker 1: the patent case and kept on fighting. In nineteen o
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  Speaker 1: eight to the farmer boy who had started out twenty
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  Speaker 1: years before with nothing but his bare hands and an idea,
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  Speaker 1: found himself at the head of one of America's largest
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  Speaker 1: business organizations. That year, his factory made and sold six thousand,
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  Speaker 1: three hundred ninety eight cars. Every machine sold increased his
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  Speaker 1: liabilities in case he lost the patent fight, But the
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  Speaker 1: business was now on a firm foundation. Agencies had been
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  Speaker 1: established in all parts of the world. Orders came pouring in,
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  Speaker 1: profits were rolling up. Ford found his net earnings increasing
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  Speaker 1: faster than he could possibly put them back into the business.
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  Speaker 1: At the end of that year, he and cousins sat
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  Speaker 1: in their offices going over the balance sheets of the company.
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  Speaker 1: The size of the bank balance was most satisfactory. The
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  Speaker 1: factory was running to the limit of its capacity. Orders
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  Speaker 1: were waiting, Prospects were bright for the following season. Ford
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  Speaker 1: leaned back in his chair. Well, I guess we're out
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  Speaker 1: of the woods, all right, he said. He put his
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  Speaker 1: hands in his pockets and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling.
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  Speaker 1: Remember that time in the mac Avenue place, he began,
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  Speaker 1: when that Chicago check didn't come in and we couldn't
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  Speaker 1: pay the men, I should say I do. And the
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  Speaker 1: day we got the first order from Cleveland, Remember how
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  Speaker 1: you worked in the shop yourself to get it out,
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  Speaker 1: and you hustled out and got material on sixty days time.
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  Speaker 1: And the boys worked all night, and we had to
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  Speaker 1: wait till the money came from Cleveland before we could
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  Speaker 1: give them their overtime. That was a great bunch of
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  Speaker 1: men we had. Then they began to talk them over.
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  Speaker 1: Most of them were managers of departments. Now one was
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  Speaker 1: handling the sales force. Another had developed into a driver
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  Speaker 1: and won many trophies and broken many records with the
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  Speaker 1: Ford car Wills was superintendent of the factory. I tell you, cousins,
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  Speaker 1: you and I have been at the head of the concern,
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  Speaker 1: and we've done some big things together. But if it
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  Speaker 1: hadn't been for the men, we'd be a long way
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  Speaker 1: from where we are today. Ford said, at last, now
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  Speaker 1: we have some money. We don't need for the business
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  Speaker 1: we ought to divide with them. Let's do it. I'm
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  Speaker 1: with you, Cousins said heartily, and reached for his pencil
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  Speaker 1: eagerly as two boys. They sat there for another hour,
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  Speaker 1: figuring they began with checks for the men They remembered.
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  Speaker 1: Men who had been with them in the first days
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  Speaker 1: of the company, men who had done some special thing
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  Speaker 1: which won their notice, men who were making good records
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  Speaker 1: in the shops or on the sales force. But there
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  Speaker 1: seemed no place to draw the line. After all, every
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  Speaker 1: man who's working for us is helping. Ford decided, let's
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  Speaker 1: give every one of them a Christmas present. Cousins agreed.
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  Speaker 1: We'll have the clerical to apartment figure it out. The
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  Speaker 1: men who have been with us longest, the most, and
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  Speaker 1: so on down to the last errand boy that's been
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  Speaker 1: with us a year. What do you say, Ford said, yes,
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  Speaker 1: with enthusiasm, and so it was settled. That year, every
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  Speaker 1: employee of the company received an extra check in his
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  Speaker 1: December pay envelope. Ford had reached a point in his
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  Speaker 1: business life where he must stop and consider what he
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  Speaker 1: should do with the money his work had brought him,
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  Speaker 1: and those extra checks were the first result for twenty years.
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  Speaker 1: Ford had spent all his energy, all his time and
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  Speaker 1: thought in one thing, his work. If he had divided
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  Speaker 1: his interests, if he had allowed a liking for amusement, ease,
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  Speaker 1: finer clothes, admiration to hinder his work in the old shed,
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  Speaker 1: he would never have built his car. If he had
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  Speaker 1: cared more for personal pleasure and applause than he did
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  Speaker 1: for his idea, he would have allowed his factory plan
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  Speaker 1: to be altered, twisted out of shape, and forgotten when
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  Speaker 1: he first found capital to manufacture them car. But from
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  Speaker 1: the day he left his farm till now he has
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  Speaker 1: subordinated everything else to his machine idea. He applied it
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  Speaker 1: first to an engine, then to a factory. He fought
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  Speaker 1: through innumerable difficulties to make those ideas into realities. He
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  Speaker 1: destroyed old conceptions of mechanics and a factory management. He
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  Speaker 1: built up a great financial success. Now he found himself
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  Speaker 1: with a new problem to face, the problem of a
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  Speaker 1: great fortune piling up in his hands. End of chapter
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  Speaker 1: twenty three