# Why Henry Ford Fought the Selden Patents

The Sun, January 14, 1906, Third Section, Page 13. The "Selden Patents" were held by George B. Selden.
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69th REGIMENT ARMORY
| 6 Cylinder Touring Car | - | $ | 2500 | 4 Cylinder Touring Car | - | $ | 2000 |
| 4 Cylinder Runabout | - - | $ | 500 | 2 Cylinder Touring Car | - | $ | 1000 |
Why Henry Ford Fought the Selden Patents
It was not merely to save? the royalty demanded by the Trust for the right to manufacture gasoline automobile under the Selden patents, for the enormous funds paid out in legal expenses by the Ford Motor Co., in fighting unaided and alone the Selden patents, would have paid the royalty on thousands of cars; but because Mr. Ford was an originator of the gasoline driven automobile, and build and operated cars .... the so called Selden patents; because he had spent a lifetime in developing the gasoline car and because he knew it was the product of his own brain and no man on earth was entitle to any "rake off" from that particular car.
And further, because he did not believe in limiting the output and price, which naturally would retard the development of the automobile and keep from the public the benefit of the results of thousands of minds that were .... on this great industry, even if it did offer the company a chance for larger profits by holding up the people and confining the output to only such as would meet with the approval of the Trust, and thus stifle genius, progress and development.
Mr. Ford is an enthusiast on the future of the motor vehicle. He believes it will replace the horse in a very few years, for business as well as for pleasure, whether for traming, trucking or hauling passengers in the city, or pulling the plow, nay wagon or reaper on the farm, and it is only a question of a very few years before all this will be accomplished.
But this great development could not come if the gasoline automobile output was Trust controlled. Mr. Ford has no quarrel with the Trust or its ideas. He is perfectly willing to allow them to conduct their business to suit themselves, provided they do not interfere in any way with his ideas and he is allowed to pursue his own course and work out his own inventions unhampered and without interference.
And what is the result of this stand taken by the Ford Motor Co.? More independents are manufacturing cars to-day than are built under the so-called Selden patents.
The Ford Motor Co. alone carried on this great fight, and because they called a halt to the bluff put up by the Trust, hundreds of non licensed factories started up all over the U.S., turning out thousands of cars and giving employment to hundreds of thousands of men, and in every way the Automobile industry and the public at large have been benefited and every man of brains has been given an opportunity to develop his own ideas and give? benefit therefrom.
But that is not all. It has enabled the Ford Company to carry out its plans of building the highest grade Touring Car for $2,500.00 by building them in quantities never before attempted and a 4 Cylinder Runabout for $500 by building more of them than the combined output of all the Automobile factories in the U.S. And at the same time, every individual one of those cars, either Touring Car or Runabout, gets the same care in manufacturing, assembling and testing as if only a few hundred were built, besides the benefit of the absolute accuracy of each part insured by being made by special machinery, the same as the high grade watch.
The Ford Company are willing to accept as a profit on each Runabout a sum very little in excess of the amount the Trust Cars have to "put up" into the "restriction" fund. There is nothing charged up to the purchaser of the Ford Car, but real value in car, no experiments, no losses, no licenses.
The 6 Cylinder Ford is a marvel built in quantities of one Thousand every car exactly alike, every part of every car built by a machine to build that part, and every part perfect.
American genius and enterprise have brought about the time when Automobiles are built in America by the same methods that are enabling American goods to surpass all others in the world's markets.
Who wants anything better than an American watch, and American Sewing Machine, an American Yacht, an American Bicycle or an American locomotive? It is impossible to put real value into an Automobile of the type of the Model "K" built in "Ford quantities" and charge more than $2,500.00 without charging too much.
The fact that a manufacturer of small quantities does a lot of fussing? ??? and sling? and has to charge that waste time up on every car, does not make his car any better and on the contrary is not to be compared with the accurate machine which produces a thousand parts, every one exactly alike and perfect.
All this comes from the unrestricted development of the Automobile. All this has been made possible because the Ford Motor Co. started in business with this one great principle in view - to take the Automobile out of the list of luxuries and put it into the class of necessities, and have not allowed any man or set of men to interfere or dictate to them as to how many cars they should build, or what price they should get for them.