IV 

110TH CONGRESS 

2D SESSION H. RES. 1445 

Commending the General Motors Corporation on the occasion of its 100th 

anniversary. 

IN THE HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES 

SEPTEMBER 16, 2008 

Mr. KILDEE (for himself, Mr. DINGELL, Mr. ROGERS of Michigan, Mrs. MILLER of Michigan, Ms. SUTTON, Mr. EHLERS, Mr. KNOLLENBERG, Ms. 

KAPTUR, Mr. LEVIN, Mr. STUPAK, Mr. CAMP of Michigan, Mr. HOEKSTRA, Mr. MCCOTTER, Mr. WALBERG, Mr. UPTON, Ms. KILPATRICK, Mr. 

VISCLOSKY, and Mr. CONYERS) submitted the following resolution; which 

was referred to the Committee on Energy and Commerce 

RESOLUTION 

Commending the General Motors Corporation on the occasion 

of its 100th anniversary. 

Whereas General Motors Corporation (GM) traces its history 

to September 16, 1908, when its colorful founder William 

C. (Billy) Durant incorporated the company with a visionary idea that several car makers combined under one 

company umbrella would be more effective and have more 

growth potential than one brand on its own; 

Whereas by 1916, the General Motors family included the 

legendary Chevrolet, Oakland (later Pontiac), GMC, 

Oldsmobile, Buick, and Cadillac brands and under 

Durant’s successor, Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. (often called the 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with BILLS
2 

•HRES 1445 IH 

father of modern management), GM soon adopted the 

equally revolutionary strategy of ‘‘a car for every purse 

and purpose’’, dividing the vehicle market into price segments ranging from low-price to luxury and targeting 

each brand and model of General Motors to a distinct 

segment, something no other manufacturer or marketer 

had ever done; 

Whereas this milestone innovation, plus the equally unprecedented innovation of the annual model change, enabled 

General Motors to become America’s number one seller of 

vehicles in 1926, a position the company still holds today; 

Whereas in the 1930s, with the Great Depression, tensions 

in the workplace spread across America, setting the stage 

for the historic GM ‘‘sit-down’’ strike in Flint, Michigan, 

which led to General Motors becoming the first company 

to recognize the United Automobile Workers of America 

(UAW), soon the country’s largest union, and new health 

care and pension benefits first negotiated between the 

UAW and GM in 1950 became the norm for all American 

industry in the second half of the twentieth century; 

Whereas with America’s entry into World War II, no company converted faster or more comprehensively to wartime production than General Motors, leading to it being 

called the greatest industrial transformation in history, 

with more than 200 plants in North America shifting to 

the production of airplanes, tanks, machine guns, and 

other military vehicles and goods in a matter of months; 

Whereas General Motors alone supplied the forces of the 

United States with more than $12 billion in military 

goods (several hundreds of billions when converted to today’s dollars), more than any other company, leading the 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with BILLS
3 

•HRES 1445 IH 

late management theorist Peter Drucker to go so far as 

to say that ‘‘General Motors won the war for America’’; 

Whereas in September 2001, GM’s ‘‘Keep America Rolling’’ 

Program is credited with jump-starting the American 

economy in a period of great financial uncertainty and 

anxiety following the terrorist attacks and the worse loss 

of life and destruction on American soil since Pearl Harbor; 

Whereas since its inception in 1908, GM has sold more than 

308 million cars and trucks in the United States and 

more than 445 million worldwide and nearly 1 million 

Americans earn their living either building or selling GM 

vehicles; 

Whereas in the past seven years, GM’s capital investments in 

the United States have totaled more than $31 billion, 

more than double and triple those of foreign automakers 

with U.S. operations; and 

Whereas GM is committed to playing a leading role in providing meaningful solutions to address America’s energy 

needs and to remove the automobile from the environmental equation with advanced technology and alternate 

sources of propulsion that will include the first mass-produced extended range electric vehicle, the Chevy Volt, in 

2010: Now, therefore, be it 

1 Resolved, That the House of Representatives com2 mends and congratulates the General Motors Corporation 

3 on the occasion of its 100th anniversary. 

Æ 


jlentini on PROD1PC65 with BILLS