Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1916-01-24

a monkey wrench and a set of blue
| prints and capful of brains. Success
here doesn't mean merely money bag
ging.
There's Henry Ford. for example:
Every one knows Ford's story. and
| how he proved that it pays to stuff
| pay envelope. 1t is big thing for the
I inglorious Swoboda who gets s. day
/ from Ford for work that he used to get
] So for. But Ford has proved that it is
| a bigger thing for Ford. He used to
hire $4,000 men in the course of the
year to keep the gaps filled in his fac
| tory force of 10000 men. 1t cost $50
| to break a man in. Now his faithful
10000 hang on to their jobs like bank
tellers. That saves clear million dol
lars each year for Ford, not to speak
of the better quality and larger guam
tity of work he gets from his men.
Modest Beginnings of Big Men.
Jim" Couzens. who was Ford's right
hand man until they fought over peace.
began as car checker at $40 a month.
Fisher and Davis, partners in one of
the big firms, worked on the same
bench as body finishers at $3.50 day.
Earl Wells drove delivery wargon for
SO a week. These men all stand for
something besides money. Almost every
big man YOU hear of in Detroit stands
for something besides money. Even
that prosperity of Detroits stands for
something besides money. Detroit's
theory seems to be that if you need
money all you have to do is to make
something that has to do with an au-
tomobile. But if you're really going to
weigh anything on the city scales you
must do something more.
Don't think of US as phiianthro-
piSts, warns every one in Detroit
We're hard business men. We do
these things because it pays"
That may be a pose and it may not
be Here's one reason why Detroit is
particularly prosperous just now
apart from the imperial buying power
of the United States-and if there is a
faint of selfishness in it the present
writer would like to have it pointed
out. Automobile making is a seasonal
occupation. Usually the makers begin
to lay men off in July. In 1914 the
slump came sooner than was expected
long before the war did-so that when
cold weather came the streets were full
of men who had spent their savings.
The board of commerce will con-
slider the labor situation.
The reporter who printed that para
graph in Detroit paper built great
deal better than he knew or than any
one thanked him for at the time. That
day twenty men invaded the Hobbies of
the Board of Commerce building. The
next day more came. They did not ask
help. They wanted work. At one time
it is estimated that there were $4,000
men out of jobs. The board of COM
merce tackled the job before 1t man.
fully.
A Genius With an Idea.
One day c. B. Warren. then president,
had an inspiration.
This isn't a charitable or soco-
logical problem he wrote to his fell
low members. These men don't want
the board to play Lady Bountiful to
them. with pals of hot soup and red
flannel muff1ers. 1t is an industrial
problem. We have given these men
work in good times. 1t is up to us to
stand by them when times are bard
To put it briefly, that is what Detroit
did. The manufacturers gave work to
the men who most needed it, instead of
tons of coal and pounds of liver. Oh,
yes. coal and food were given, too. but
the main thing was the work the men
wanted. Factories ran on part time
instead of being closed. Repairs were
made that would usually have been put
off to the busy season when plenty of
money was coming in Some had falth
enough to build additions Makers
piled up mountains of spare parts.
They had no more use for those spare
parts than blind man has for but
tarfy net, but the men got the work.
The man who had s75 in the bank got
no work until it was gone. No ore
was pauperized by charity.
Then the United States suddenly de-
cided that il wanted millions of dollars
worth of automobiles. Just the other
day the statesmen of one Of these COM
panies that turn out cars like house
wife does cookies met at dinner and
ordered s22.500.000 worth. Detroit
could not have supplied the demand If
il had not been for that winter work.
Her factories were ready for capacity
output. A cordillera of spare parts
waited for an army of assemblers
Then the workman seemed to do better
work and more of 1t. He had been re-
lieved of worry. Detroit thinks it
has taken a step. a least toward work
ing out the solution of one of the most
vexing questions of industrialism to-
day.
smacking it's lips
Local Reasons for Prosperity.
There are other strictly local reasons
why Detroit prospers. 1t is a new.
clean city, with no tenement problem
and no grades that balk street-car
transportation and no slum factories to
impede dividends. 1t goes at big ques-
tons in a big way. just as it does at
it's immigration kink. Three-fourths of
Detroit's population are foreign born
or of foreign extraction. Sixty-one per
cent of the applicants for work In the
1919 stump COulu lOl Sptdh
Not half the foreign born are natural
lied. There could easily be a problem
here.
SO Detroit is trying 10 educate her
workmen. She isn't doing the best she
can of course. but she is at least doing
something. They are given course
in citizenship and taught little of
what this country may mean to them
and what il should mean to their sons.
Detroit is paying her workmen well,
Ia hat &c hn
rule in her factories. She has a good
reason for both courses. Detroit says
lit pays Detroit's insstence that her
course is one of enlightened selfishness
lis party supported by her manufac-
turers' attitude toward strikes.
The workmen may have all the
unions they want" says the Detroit
employer. but when they strike We
fight them to the last pound. We all
get together. Strikes do not pay"
But that is wandering from the point
Of this story-that is. that Detroit
poets record-beating year in 1915,