My Life and Work by Henry Ford and Samuel Crowther
CHAPTER XIX
9105 words | Chapter 28
WHAT WE MAY EXPECT
We are--unless I do not read the signs aright--in the midst of a change.
It is going on all about us, slowly and scarcely observed, but with a
firm surety. We are gradually learning to relate cause and effect. A
great deal of that which we call disturbance--a great deal of the upset
in what have seemed to be established institutions--is really but the
surface indication of something approaching a regeneration. The public
point of view is changing, and we really need only a somewhat different
point of view to make the very bad system of the past into a very good
system of the future. We are displacing that peculiar virtue which used
to be admired as hard-headedness, and which was really only
wooden-headedness, with intelligence, and also we are getting rid of
mushy sentimentalism. The first confused hardness with progress; the
second confused softness with progress. We are getting a better view of
the realities and are beginning to know that we have already in the
world all things needful for the fullest kind of a life and that we
shall use them better once we learn what they are and what they mean.
Whatever is wrong--and we all know that much is wrong--can be righted by
a clear definition of the wrongness. We have been looking so much at one
another, at what one has and another lacks, that we have made a personal
affair out of something that is too big for personalities. To be sure,
human nature enters largely into our economic problems. Selfishness
exists, and doubtless it colours all the competitive activities of life.
If selfishness were the characteristic of any one class it might be
easily dealt with, but it is in human fibre everywhere. And greed
exists. And envy exists. And jealousy exists.
But as the struggle for mere existence grows less--and it is less than
it used to be, although the sense of uncertainty may have increased--we
have an opportunity to release some of the finer motives. We think less
of the frills of civilization as we grow used to them. Progress, as the
world has thus far known it, is accompanied by a great increase in the
things of life. There is more gear, more wrought material, in the
average American backyard than in the whole domain of an African king.
The average American boy has more paraphernalia around him than a whole
Eskimo community. The utensils of kitchen, dining room, bedroom, and
coal cellar make a list that would have staggered the most luxurious
potentate of five hundred years ago. The increase in the impedimenta of
life only marks a stage. We are like the Indian who comes into town with
all his money and buys everything he sees. There is no adequate
realization of the large proportion of the labour and material of
industry that is used in furnishing the world with its trumpery and
trinkets, which are made only to be sold, and are bought merely to be
owned--that perform no service in the world and are at last mere rubbish
as at first they were mere waste. Humanity is advancing out of its
trinket-making stage, and industry is coming down to meet the world's
needs, and thus we may expect further advancement toward that life which
many now see, but which the present "good enough" stage hinders our
attaining.
And we are growing out of this worship of material possessions. It is no
longer a distinction to be rich. As a matter of fact, to be rich is no
longer a common ambition. People do not care for money as money, as they
once did. Certainly they do not stand in awe of it, nor of him who
possesses it. What we accumulate by way of useless surplus does us no
honour.
It takes only a moment's thought to see that as far as individual
personal advantage is concerned, vast accumulations of money mean
nothing. A human being is a human being and is nourished by the same
amount and quality of food, is warmed by the same weight of clothing,
whether he be rich or poor. And no one can inhabit more than one room at
a time.
But if one has visions of service, if one has vast plans which no
ordinary resources could possibly realize, if one has a life ambition to
make the industrial desert bloom like the rose, and the work-a-day life
suddenly blossom into fresh and enthusiastic human motives of higher
character and efficiency, then one sees in large sums of money what the
farmer sees in his seed corn--the beginning of new and richer harvests
whose benefits can no more be selfishly confined than can the sun's
rays.
There are two fools in this world. One is the millionaire who thinks
that by hoarding money he can somehow accumulate real power, and the
other is the penniless reformer who thinks that if only he can take the
money from one class and give it to another, all the world's ills will
be cured. They are both on the wrong track. They might as well try to
corner all the checkers or all the dominoes of the world under the
delusion that they are thereby cornering great quantities of skill. Some
of the most successful money-makers of our times have never added one
pennyworth to the wealth of men. Does a card player add to the wealth of
the world?
If we all created wealth up to the limits, the easy limits, of our
creative capacity, then it would simply be a case of there being enough
for everybody, and everybody getting enough. Any real scarcity of the
necessaries of life in the world--not a fictitious scarcity caused by
the lack of clinking metallic disks in one's purse--is due only to lack
of production. And lack of production is due only too often to lack of
knowledge of how and what to produce.
* * * * *
This much we must believe as a starting point:
That the earth produces, or is capable of producing, enough to give
decent sustenance to everyone--not of food alone, but of everything else
we need. For everything is produced from the earth.
That it is possible for labour, production, distribution, and reward to
be so organized as to make certain that those who contribute shall
receive shares determined by an exact justice.
That regardless of the frailties of human nature, our economic system
can be so adjusted that selfishness, although perhaps not abolished, can
be robbed of power to work serious economic injustice.
* * * * *
The business of life is easy or hard according to the skill or the lack
of skill displayed in production and distribution. It has been thought
that business existed for profit. That is wrong. Business exists for
service. It is a profession, and must have recognized professional
ethics, to violate which declasses a man. Business needs more of the
professional spirit. The professional spirit seeks professional
integrity, from pride, not from compulsion. The professional spirit
detects its own violations and penalizes them. Business will some day
become clean. A machine that stops every little while is an imperfect
machine, and its imperfection is within itself. A body that falls sick
every little while is a diseased body, and its disease is within itself.
So with business. Its faults, many of them purely the faults of the
moral constitution of business, clog its progress and make it sick every
little while. Some day the ethics of business will be universally
recognized, and in that day business will be seen to be the oldest and
most useful of all the professions.
* * * * *
All that the Ford industries have done--all that I have done--is to
endeavour to evidence by works that service comes before profit and that
the sort of business which makes the world better for its presence is a
noble profession. Often it has come to me that what is regarded as the
somewhat remarkable progression of our enterprises--I will not say
"success," for that word is an epitaph, and we are just starting--is due
to some accident; and that the methods which we have used, while well
enough in their way, fit only the making of our particular products and
would not do at all in any other line of business or indeed for any
products or personalities other than our own.
It used to be taken for granted that our theories and our methods were
fundamentally unsound. That is because they were not understood. Events
have killed that kind of comment, but there remains a wholly sincere
belief that what we have done could not be done by any other
company--that we have been touched by a wand, that neither we nor any
one else could make shoes, or hats, or sewing machines, or watches, or
typewriters, or any other necessity after the manner in which we make
automobiles and tractors. And that if only we ventured into other fields
we should right quickly discover our errors. I do not agree with any of
this. Nothing has come out of the air. The foregoing pages should prove
that. We have nothing that others might not have. We have had no good
fortune except that which always attends any one who puts his best into
his work. There was nothing that could be called "favorable" about our
beginning. We began with almost nothing. What we have, we earned, and we
earned it by unremitting labour and faith in a principle. We took what
was a luxury and turned it into a necessity and without trick or
subterfuge. When we began to make our present motor car the country had
few good roads, gasoline was scarce, and the idea was firmly implanted
in the public mind that an automobile was at the best a rich man's toy.
Our only advantage was lack of precedent.
We began to manufacture according to a creed--a creed which was at that
time unknown in business. The new is always thought odd, and some of us
are so constituted that we can never get over thinking that anything
which is new must be odd and probably queer. The mechanical working out
of our creed is constantly changing. We are continually finding new and
better ways of putting it into practice, but we have not found it
necessary to alter the principles, and I cannot imagine how it might
ever be necessary to alter them, because I hold that they are absolutely
universal and must lead to a better and wider life for all.
If I did not think so I would not keep working--for the money that I
make is inconsequent. Money is useful only as it serves to forward by
practical example the principle that business is justified only as it
serves, that it must always give more to the community than it takes
away, and that unless everybody benefits by the existence of a business
then that business should not exist. I have proved this with automobiles
and tractors. I intend to prove it with railways and public-service
corporations--not for my personal satisfaction and not for the money
that may be earned. (It is perfectly impossible, applying these
principles, to avoid making a much larger profit than if profit were the
main object.) I want to prove it so that all of us may have more, and
that all of us may live better by increasing the service rendered by all
businesses. Poverty cannot be abolished by formula; it can be abolished
only by hard and intelligent work. We are, in effect, an experimental
station to prove a principle. That we do make money is only further
proof that we are right. For that is a species of argument that
establishes itself without words.
In the first chapter was set forth the creed. Let me repeat it in the
light of the work that has been done under it--for it is at the basis of
all our work:
(1) An absence of fear of the future or of veneration for the past. One
who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure
is only the opportunity more intelligently to begin again. There is no
disgrace in honest failure; there is disgrace in fearing to fail. What
is past is useful only as it suggests ways and means for progress.
(2) A disregard of competition. Whoever does a thing best ought to be
the one to do it. It is criminal to try to get business away from
another man--criminal because one is then trying to lower for personal
gain the condition of one's fellow-men, to rule by force instead of by
intelligence.
(3) The putting of service before profit. Without a profit, business
cannot extend. There is nothing inherently wrong about making a profit.
Well-conducted business enterprises cannot fail to return a profit but
profit must and inevitably will come as a reward for good service. It
cannot be the basis--it must be the result of service.
(4) Manufacturing is not buying low and selling high. It is the process
of buying materials fairly and, with the smallest possible addition of
cost, transforming those materials into a consumable product and
distributing it to the consumer. Gambling, speculating, and sharp
dealing tend only to clog this progression.
* * * * *
We must have production, but it is the spirit behind it that counts
most. That kind of production which is a service inevitably follows a
real desire to be of service. The various wholly artificial rules set up
for finance and industry and which pass as "laws" break down with such
frequency as to prove that they are not even good guesses. The basis of
all economic reasoning is the earth and its products. To make the yield
of the earth, in all its forms, large enough and dependable enough to
serve as the basis for real life--the life which is more than eating and
sleeping--is the highest service. That is the real foundation for an
economic system. We can make things--the problem of production has been
solved brilliantly. We can make any number of different sort of things
by the millions. The material mode of our life is splendidly provided
for. There are enough processes and improvements now pigeonholed and
awaiting application to bring the physical side of life to almost
millennial completeness. But we are too wrapped up in the things we are
doing--we are not enough concerned with the reasons why we do them. Our
whole competitive system, our whole creative expression, all the play of
our faculties seem to be centred around material production and its
by-products of success and wealth.
There is, for instance, a feeling that personal or group benefit can be
had at the expense of other persons or groups. There is nothing to be
gained by crushing any one. If the farmer's bloc should crush the
manufacturers would the farmers be better off? If the manufacturer's
bloc should crush the farmers, would the manufacturers be better off?
Could Capital gain by crushing Labour? Or Labour by crushing Capital? Or
does a man in business gain by crushing a competitor? No, destructive
competition benefits no one. The kind of competition which results in
the defeat of the many and the overlordship of the ruthless few must go.
Destructive competition lacks the qualities out of which progress comes.
Progress comes from a generous form of rivalry. Bad competition is
personal. It works for the aggrandizement of some individual or group.
It is a sort of warfare. It is inspired by a desire to "get" someone. It
is wholly selfish. That is to say, its motive is not pride in the
product, nor a desire to excel in service, nor yet a wholesome ambition
to approach to scientific methods of production. It is moved simply by
the desire to crowd out others and monopolize the market for the sake of
the money returns. That being accomplished, it always substitutes a
product of inferior quality.
* * * * *
Freeing ourselves from the petty sort of destructive competition frees
us from many set notions. We are too closely tied to old methods and
single, one-way uses. We need more mobility. We have been using
certain things just one way, we have been sending certain goods
through only one channel--and when that use is slack, or that channel
is stopped, business stops, too, and all the sorry consequences of
"depression" set in. Take corn, for example. There are millions upon
millions of bushels of corn stored in the United States with no
visible outlet. A certain amount of corn is used as food for man and
beast, but not all of it. In pre-Prohibition days a certain amount of
corn went into the making of liquor, which was not a very good use for
good corn. But through a long course of years corn followed those two
channels, and when one of them stopped the stocks of corn began to
pile up. It is the money fiction that usually retards the movement of
stocks, but even if money were plentiful we could not possibly consume
the stores of food which we sometimes possess.
If foodstuffs become too plentiful to be consumed as food, why not find
other uses for them? Why use corn only for hogs and distilleries? Why
sit down and bemoan the terrible disaster that has befallen the corn
market? Is there no use for corn besides the making of pork or the
making of whisky? Surely there must be. There should be so many uses for
corn that only the important uses could ever be fully served; there
ought always be enough channels open to permit corn to be used without
waste.
Once upon a time the farmers burned corn as fuel--corn was plentiful and
coal was scarce. That was a crude way to dispose of corn, but it
contained the germ of an idea. There is fuel in corn; oil and fuel
alcohol are obtainable from corn, and it is high time that someone was
opening up this new use so that the stored-up corn crops may be moved.
Why have only one string to our bow? Why not two? If one breaks, there
is the other. If the hog business slackens, why should not the farmer
turn his corn into tractor fuel?
We need more diversity all round. The four-track system everywhere would
not be a bad idea. We have a single-track money system. It is a mighty
fine system for those who own it. It is a perfect system for the
interest-collecting, credit-controlling financiers who literally own the
commodity called Money and who literally own the machinery by which
money is made and used. Let them keep their system if they like it. But
the people are finding out that it is a poor system for what we call
"hard times" because it ties up the line and stops traffic. If there are
special protections for the interests, there ought also to be special
protections for the plain people. Diversity of outlet, of use, and of
financial enablement, are the strongest defenses we can have against
economic emergencies.
It is likewise with Labour. There surely ought to be flying squadrons of
young men who would be available for emergency conditions in harvest
field, mine, shop, or railroad. If the fires of a hundred industries
threaten to go out for lack of coal, and one million men are menaced by
unemployment, it would seem both good business and good humanity for a
sufficient number of men to volunteer for the mines and the railroads.
There is always something to be done in this world, and only ourselves
to do it. The whole world may be idle, and in the factory sense there
may be "nothing to do." There may be nothing to do in this place or
that, but there is always something to do. It is this fact which should
urge us to such an organization of ourselves that this "something to be
done" may get done, and unemployment reduced to a minimum.
* * * * *
Every advance begins in a small way and with the individual. The mass
can be no better than the sum of the individuals. Advancement begins
within the man himself; when he advances from half-interest to strength
of purpose; when he advances from hesitancy to decisive directness; when
he advances from immaturity to maturity of judgment; when he advances
from apprenticeship to mastery; when he advances from a mere _dilettante_
at labour to a worker who finds a genuine joy in work; when he advances
from an eye-server to one who can be entrusted to do his work without
oversight and without prodding--why, then the world advances! The
advance is not easy. We live in flabby times when men are being taught
that everything ought to be easy. Work that amounts to anything will
never be easy. And the higher you go in the scale of responsibility, the
harder becomes the job. Ease has its place, of course. Every man who
works ought to have sufficient leisure. The man who works hard should
have his easy chair, his comfortable fireside, his pleasant
surroundings. These are his by right. But no one deserves ease until
after his work is done. It will never be possible to put upholstered
ease into work. Some work is needlessly hard. It can be lightened by
proper management. Every device ought to be employed to leave a man free
to do a man's work. Flesh and blood should not be made to bear burdens
that steel can bear. But even when the best is done, work still remains
work, and any man who puts himself into his job will feel that it is
work.
And there cannot be much picking and choosing. The appointed task may be
less than was expected. A man's real work is not always what he would
have chosen to do. A man's real work is what he is chosen to do. Just
now there are more menial jobs than there will be in the future; and as
long as there are menial jobs, someone will have to do them; but there
is no reason why a man should be penalized because his job is menial.
There is one thing that can be said about menial jobs that cannot be
said about a great many so-called more responsible jobs, and that is,
they are useful and they are respectable and they are honest.
The time has come when drudgery must be taken out of labour. It is not
work that men object to, but the element of drudgery. We must drive out
drudgery wherever we find it. We shall never be wholly civilized until
we remove the treadmill from the daily job. Invention is doing this in
some degree now. We have succeeded to a very great extent in relieving
men of the heavier and more onerous jobs that used to sap their
strength, but even when lightening the heavier labour we have not yet
succeeded in removing monotony. That is another field that beckons
us--the abolition of monotony, and in trying to accomplish that we shall
doubtless discover other changes that will have to be made in our
system.
* * * * *
The opportunity to work is now greater than ever it was. The opportunity
to advance is greater. It is true that the young man who enters industry
to-day enters a very different system from that in which the young man
of twenty-five years ago began his career. The system has been tightened
up; there is less play or friction in it; fewer matters are left to the
haphazard will of the individual; the modern worker finds himself part
of an organization which apparently leaves him little initiative. Yet,
with all this, it is not true that "men are mere machines." It is not
true that opportunity has been lost in organization. If the young man
will liberate himself from these ideas and regard the system as it is,
he will find that what he thought was a barrier is really an aid.
Factory organization is not a device to prevent the expansion of
ability, but a device to reduce the waste and losses due to mediocrity.
It is not a device to hinder the ambitious, clear-headed man from doing
his best, but a device to prevent the don't-care sort of individual from
doing his worst. That is to say, when laziness, carelessness,
slothfulness, and lack-interest are allowed to have their own way,
everybody suffers. The factory cannot prosper and therefore cannot pay
living wages. When an organization makes it necessary for the don't-care
class to do better than they naturally would, it is for their
benefit--they are better physically, mentally, and financially. What
wages should we be able to pay if we trusted a large don't-care class to
their own methods and gait of production?
If the factory system which brought mediocrity up to a higher standard
operated also to keep ability down to a lower standard--it would be a
very bad system, a very bad system indeed. But a system, even a perfect
one, must have able individuals to operate it. No system operates
itself. And the modern system needs more brains for its operation than
did the old. More brains are needed to-day than ever before, although
perhaps they are not needed in the same place as they once were. It is
just like power: formerly every machine was run by foot power; the power
was right at the machine. But nowadays we have moved the power
back--concentrated it in the power-house. Thus also we have made it
unnecessary for the highest types of mental ability to be engaged in
every operation in the factory. The better brains are in the mental
power-plant.
Every business that is growing is at the same time creating new places
for capable men. It cannot help but do so. This does not mean that new
openings come every day and in groups. Not at all. They come only after
hard work; it is the fellow who can stand the gaff of routine and still
keep himself alive and alert who finally gets into direction. It is not
sensational brilliance that one seeks in business, but sound,
substantial dependability. Big enterprises of necessity move slowly and
cautiously. The young man with ambition ought to take a long look ahead
and leave an ample margin of time for things to happen.
* * * * *
A great many things are going to change. We shall learn to be masters
rather than servants of Nature. With all our fancied skill we still
depend largely on natural resources and think that they cannot be
displaced. We dig coal and ore and cut down trees. We use the coal and
the ore and they are gone; the trees cannot be replaced within a
lifetime. We shall some day harness the heat that is all about us and no
longer depend on coal--we may now create heat through electricity
generated by water power. We shall improve on that method. As chemistry
advances I feel quite certain that a method will be found to transform
growing things into substances that will endure better than the
metals--we have scarcely touched the uses of cotton. Better wood can be
made than is grown. The spirit of true service will create for us. We
have only each of us to do our parts sincerely.
* * * * *
Everything is possible ... "faith is the substance of things hoped for,
the evidence of things not seen."
THE BOOK ENDS
INDEX
Absentees discharged,
Accidents, safeguarding against; causes of
Advancement, personal
Advertisement, first, of Ford Motor Co.
Agents,
Agriculture, a primary function
Ainsley, Charles
Alexander, Henry, drives Ford car to top of Ben Nevis, 4,600 feet,
in 1911
Antecedents, a man's, of no interest in hiring at Ford factory
Assembly of a Ford car; first experiment in a moving assembly line,
April 1, 1913; results of the experiment
Automobile, public's first attitude toward
Automobile business, bad methods of; in its beginnings
Bankers play too great a part in business; in railroads
Banking,
Bedridden men at work,
Benz car on exhibition at Macy's in 1885,
Birds, Mr. Ford's fondness for
Blind men can work,
Bolshevism,
Bonuses--_See_ "Profit-Sharing"
Borrowing money; what it would have meant to Ford Motor Co. in 1920
British Board of Agriculture,
British Cabinet and Fordson tractors,
Burroughs, John
Business, monopoly and profiteering bad for; function of
Buying for immediate needs only,
Cadillac Company,
Capital,
Capitalist newspapers,
Capitalists,
Cash balance, large
Charity, professional
City life,
"Classes" mostly fictional,
Classification of work at Ford plants,
Cleanliness of factory,
Coal used in Ford plants from Ford mines,
Coke ovens at River Rouge plant,
Collier, Colonel D. C.
Competition,
Consumption varies according to price and quality,
Convict labour,
Cooper, Tom
Cooperative farming,
Cork, Ireland, Fordson tractor plant
Corn, potential uses of
Costs of production, records of; prices force down; high wages
contribute to low
Country, living in
Courtney, F. S.
Creative work,
Creed, industrial, Mr. Ford's
Cripples can work,
Cross, John E.
Dalby, Prof. W. E.,
Deaf and dumb men at work,
_Dearborn Independent_,
Dearborn plant,
Democracy,
Detroit Automobile Co.,
Detroit General Hospital, now Ford Hospital,
Detroit, Toledo and Ironton Railway, purchased by Ford Motor Co.,
in March, 1921,
Development, opportunity for, in U. S.,
Diamond Manufacturing Co. fire,
Discipline at Ford plants,
"Dividends, abolish, rather than lower wages,"
Dividends, small, Ford policy of,
Doctors,
Dollar, the fluctuating,
Drudgery,
Eagle Boats,
Economy,
Edison, Thomas A.,
Educated man, an; definition of,
Education, Mr. Ford's ideas on,
Educational Department,
Electricity generated at Ford plants,
"Employees, all, are really partners,"
Employment Department,
Equal, all men are not,
Experience, lack of, no bar to employment,
Experiments, no record of, kept at Ford factories,
"Experts," no, at Ford plants,
Factory, Ford, growth of,
Factory organization, function of,
Failure, habit of,
Farming, lack of knowledge in, no conflict between, and industry,
future development in,
Farming with tractors,
Fear,
Federal Reserve System,
Fighting, a cause for immediate discharge,
Finance,
Financial crisis in 1921, how Ford Motor Co. met,
Financial system at present inadequate,
Firestone, Harvey S.,
Flat Rock plant,
Floor space for workers,
Flour-milling,
Foodstuffs, potential uses of,
Ford car--
the first, No. 5,000,000,
the second, introduction of,
in England in 1903,
about 5,000 parts in,
sales and production--_See_ "Sales"
Ford, Henry--
Born at Dearborn, Mich., July 30, 1863,
mechanically inclined,
leaves school at seventeen, becomes apprentice at Drydock Engine
Works,
watch repairer,
works with local representative of Westinghouse Co. as expert in
setting up and repairing road engines,
builds a steam tractor in his workshop,
reads of the "silent gas engine" in the _World of Science_,
in 1887 builds one on the Otto four-cycle model,
father gives him forty acres of timber land,
marriage,
in 1890 begins work on double-cylinder engine,
leaves farm and works as engineer and machinist with the Detroit
Electric Co.,
rents house in Detroit and sets up workshop in back yard,
in 1892 completes first motor car,
first road test in 1893,
builds second motor car,
quits job with Electric Co. August 15, 1899, and goes into
automobile business,
organization of Detroit Automobile Co.,
resigns from, in 1902,
rents shop to continue experiments at 81 Park Place, Detroit,
beats Alexander Winton in race,
early reflections on business,
in 1903 builds, with Tom Cooper, two cars, the "999" and the
"Arrow" for speed,
forms the Ford Motor Co.,
buys controlling share in 1906,
builds "Model A,"
builds "Model B" and "Model C,"
makes a record in race over ice in the "Arrow,"
builds first real manufacturing plant, in May, 1908,
assembles 311 cars in six workings days,
in June, 1908, assembles one hundred cars in one day,
in 1909, decides to manufacture only "Model T," painted black,
buys sixty acres of land for plant at Highland Park, outside of
Detroit,
how he met the financial crises of 1921,
buys Detroit, Toledo & Ironton Ry., March, 1921,
"Ford doesn't use the Ford,"
Ford, Edsel,
Ford Hospital,
Ford Motor Co., organized 1903,
Henry Ford buys controlling share in 1906,
how it met financial crisis in 1921,
thirty-five branches of, in U. S.
"Ford, you can dissect it, but you cannot kill it,"
Fordson tractor,
prices,
genesis and development of,
cost of farming with,
5,000 sent to England in 1917-18,
Foreign trade,
Gas from coke ovens at River Rouge plant utilized,
"Gold is not wealth,"
"Good feeling" in working not essential, though desirable,
Government, the function of,
Greaves, R. N.,
Greed vs. service,
Greenhall, Gilbert,
Grosse Point track,
"Habit conduces to a certain inertia,"
Highland Park plant,
Hobbs, Robert W.,
Hospital, Ford,
Hough, Judge, renders decision against Ford Motor Co. in Selden
Patent suit,
Hours of labour per day reduced from nine to eight in January, 1914,
"Human, a great business is too big to be,"
Human element in business,
Ideas, old and new,
Improvements in products,
Interstate Commerce Commission,
Inventory, cutting down, by improved freight service,
Investment, interest on, not properly chargeable to operating expenses,
Jacobs, Edmund,
"Jail, men in, ought to be able to support their families,"
Jewish question, studies in the,
Jobs, menial,
"John R. Street,"
Labour,
the economic fundamental, and Capital, potential uses of,
Labour leaders,
Labour newspapers,
Labour turnover,
"Lawyers, like bankers, know absolutely nothing about business,"
Legislation, the function of,
Licensed Association,
"Life is not a location, but a journey,"
Light for working,
Loss, taking a; in times of business depression,
Manchester, Eng.,
Ford plant at,
strike at,
Machinery, its place in life,
Manufacture, a primary function,
Medical Department,
Mexico,
Milner, Lord,
Models--
"A,"
"B,"
"C,"
"F,"
"K,"
"N,"
"R,"
"S,"
"T,"
changing, not a Ford policy,
Money,
chasing,
present system of,
what it is worth,
invested in a business not chargeable to it,
fluctuating value of,
is not wealth,
Monopoly, bad for business,
Monotonous work,
Motion, waste, eliminating,
Northville, Mich., plant, combination farm and factory,
Oldfteld, Barney,
Opportunity for young men of today,
Organization, excess, and red tape,
Overman, Henry,
Otto engine,
Overhead charge per car, cut from $146 to $93,
Parts, about 5,000, in a Ford car,
Paternalism has no place in industry,
"Peace Ship"
Philanthropy,
Physical incapacity not necessarily a hindrance to working,
Physicians,
Piquette plant,
Poverty,
Power-farming,
Price policy, Mr. Ford's,
Producer depends upon service,
Production,
principles of Ford plant,
plan of, worked out carefully,
(For production of Ford cars, _see_ "Sales" and table of
production on p. 145)
Professional charity,
Profiteering, bad for business,
Profit-sharing,
Property, the right of,
Profit, small per article, large aggregate,
Profits belong to planner, producer, and purchaser,
Price
raising,
reducing,
"Prices, If, of goods are above the incomes of the people, then get
the prices down to the incomes,"
"Prices, unduly high, always a sign of unsound business,"
Prices of Ford touring cars since 1909,
Prison laws,
"Prisoners ought to be able to support their families,"
Railroads,
active managers have ceased to manage,
suffering from bankers and lawyers,
folly of long hauls,
Reactionaries,
Red tape,
"Refinancing,"
Reformers,
Repetitive labour,
"Rich, It is no longer a distinction to be,"
Right of property,
River Rouge plant,
Routine work,
Royal Agricultural Society,
Rumours in 1920 that Ford Motor Co. was in a bad financial condition,
Russia, under Sovietism,
Safeguarding machines,
"Sales depend upon wages,"
Sales of Ford cars
in 1903-4, 1,708 cars,
in 1904-5, 1,695 cars,
in 1905-6, 1,599 cars,
in 1906-7, 8,423 cars,
in 1907-8, 6,398 cars,
in 1908-9, 10,607 cars,
in 1909-10, 18,664 cars,
in 1910-11, 84,528 cars,
see also table of production since 1909,
Saturation, point of,
Saving habit,
Schools,
trade,
Henry Ford Trade School,
Scottish Reliability Trials, test of Ford car in
Scrap, utilization of,
Seasonal unemployment,
Selden, George B.,
Selden Patent,
famous suit against Ford Motor Co., in 1909,
Service,
principles of,
"the foundation of real business,"
"comes before profit,"
Simplicity, philosophy of,
Social Department,
Sorensen, Charles E.,
Standard Oil Co.,
Standardization,
Statistics abolished in 1920,
Steel, vanadium,
Strelow's carpenter shop,
Strike, the right to,
Strikes,
why, fail,
Suggestions from employees,
Surgeons' fees,
Sweepings, saving, nets $6,000 a year,
Titles, no, to jobs at Ford factory,
Tractor--_See_ "Fordson"
Trade, foreign,
Trade schools,
Henry Ford Trade School
Training, little, required for jobs at Ford plants,
Transportation, a primary function,
Turnover of goods,
Union labour,
Universal car, essential attributes of,
Vanadium steel,
Ventilation of factory,
Wages,
minimum of $6 a day at all Ford plants,
are partnership distributions,
fallacy of regulating, on basis of cost of, living,
sales depend upon,
minimum of $5 a day introduced in January, 1914,
danger in rapidly raising,
cutting, a slovenly way to meet business depression,
high, contribute to low cost,
abolish dividends rather than lower,
War,
opposition to,
Ford industries in the,
Waste,
vs. service,
eliminating,
Weeks-McLean Bird Bill,
Weight, excess, in an automobile,
Welfare work--_See_ "Social Department," "Medical
Department," and "Educational Department."
Winton, Alexander,
Women, married, whose husbands have jobs, not employed at Ford plants,
Work,
its place in life,
the right to
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