River Falls journal. [volume] (River Falls, Pierce County, Wis.) 1872-2019, 1912-07-18
A Little Journey to the Work
shop Of Henry Ford
BY Ebert HUBBARD

! Thomas Jefferson was the first,
last and only Democrat that this
country has produced.
With him died the race. But the
principles for which he stood are
gradually coming in. Some day
we will catch up with Thomas
Jefferson.
Jefferson wrote the Declaration
of independence. He also is the
man who made the Louisiana
Purchase, buying at a fraction of
a cent per acre the territory that is
prehaps the most valuable and pro-
gressive of all territory acquired by
the United States.
As a business proposition the
Louisiana Purchase was the wisest
transaction ever carried through by
an American.
i Thomas Jefferson was also the
inventor of the mold-board pillow.
! The shovel-plow that merely
! agitated the soil. goes back to the
time of Cincinnatus before
| but the pillow that turned the furrow
dates back from Seventeen
| Hundred Seventy-six.
| The best in the philosophy of
Abraham Lincoln came from his
close reading and study of, and
admiration for Thomas Jefferson.
| Efficiency, effectiveness, USE
fulness, health, cooperation,
simplicity, truth-these were the
big items that made up this big
and unique character.
He was a public servant. He
did his work and held his peace.
Jefferson was the third president
of the United States. He was the
only president we have had who
had red hair; and If l knew of a
presidential candidate who had a
similar hirsute color-scheme /
would vote for Him regardless of
party.
| Henry Ford, inventor and
manufacturer of the Ford auto
mobile, always reminds me of
Thomas Jefferson,
Ford is slender in build;
moderate, active, earnest, intelli-
| gent, sympathetic, kind. He is
always well-always at work.
He has the ability to cooperate
with vast number of people. He
is wise, able and safe leader. He
is a teacher, and teacher of
teachers. Instinctively he is a
farmer, lover of the great out-of-
doors, and is on good terms with
the birds, bees, butterflies, flowers
and trees, as every man is, who is
on good terms with himslef.
Henry Ford is Public Servant.
With it all he has the far-reaching
persistency and honesty and the
impelling love of truth that mark
the extraordinary individual.
In the office of the Ford Motor
Company l saw an autographed
picture of Thomas Edison and
below were the words-written in
that unmistakable hand of the
telegraph operator, who prides
himself on legibility:
!; ITO Henry Ford-one of
group of men who have helped
to make the U. S. A. the most
progressive nation in the world
Thomas A. Edison"
If ever a man wrote Declaration
of independence in the autom obile
, business, it was Henry Ford, who
fought. singlehanded, the Selden
patent; beaten in the lower
court, and finally winning in higher,
with argument so strong and
effective that the opposition had no
heart to carry the suit farther.
Instead they gave dinner to
Henry Ford and produced the Pipe
of Peace. Henry Ford is not a
smoker, but in this one instance he
broke the rule.
But the news of legal victory had
; TO be given out by the defeated, for
in the character of Henry Ford there
|, is no such thing as exultation in
success nor dependency in defeat.
He had not tried his case in the
newspaper. He allowed the
opposition to announce their own
defeat and to do it their own way.
He moved along the even tenor
of his path, with full faith that
eventually, in the words of his old
friend John Burroughs, Mine own
shall come TO me-"
(. Victor Hugo says that whenever
you think out thing with your
head and make it with your hands il