Harrisburg telegraph. [volume] (Harrisburg, Pa.) 1879-1948, 1919-05-30

nonery, large council tables, varl-
Gus cases of all sizes and shapes
bulging with papezu came under
the guard of a small army of men.
Linemen were soon busy putting
in special telephone and telegraph
wires. The vast volume of Ford
business began to roll back and
forth across them. Swift motor cars
kept the road between Detroit and
Mt Clemens hot with their traffic.
Then a corps of personal repre-
sentatives. secretaries and clerks ar
rived.
Moves Offices in Day
In less than a days time the CEN
trail office of a great $500. 900, 900
industrial concern had been trans
ported bodily from Detroit to an
other city, and was running as
smoothly as If it were in it's specially
arranged offices at home.
Mt. Clemens is famous for it's
mineral baths; but in it's widest
dreams of greatness it never hoped
to be the headquarters of the Ford
industries.
The Ford business has outposts
In every country in the world. Just
now new motor factories are being
planned here and there in Europe
to help give employment and en-
couragement to that distracted con-
tinent. But the decisions made, say,
about new factory at Cadiz, Spain.
or about the ~ factory at Copen-
hagen, are 1lg made in hotel
rooms at MI. Clemens, Mich.
The Ford Motor Co.. the Fordson
Tractor Plant the Eagle Shipbuild-
ing Plant, the various banks which
exist principally to handle the Ford
finances, the Dearborn Realty and
Construction Co., through which
homes are being constructed for
F'ordson employees, the Dearborn In
dependent, which is Mr.. Ford's
weekly magazine of opinion-all
there were surprised to find their
headquarters moved within one day
to comparatively small city.
This was Henry Ford's way of
saving, concerning his libel suit,
"We'l fight ii out on this line if it
takes all summer"
1t had been said in irresponsible
quarters that Ford doesn't care
whether he wins or loses; weIl
hardly see any thing of him out
here" and while they were yet
talking the head management of all
the Ford industries moved in and
settled down.
In order that the whole truth
about the trial shall go to the whole
country, dnOIneF 0eClSlOn was made
which illustrates the Ford habit of
doing things with dispatch. The city
swarms with newspapermen. who
were sent here to report the trial.
But Mr.. Ford remembered that
there were thousands of smaller pa
pers which could not afford to send
representatives here and maintain
them for lengthy period and which
would otherwise be compelled to
take their reports secondhand.
News Service Established
So it was decided to give a news
service to every newspaper in the
country. In one day whole floor
in a business block was occupied.
Special wires and other equipment
were installed. Verbatim reports of
the trial were ordered. Lists of
thousands of newspapers, city dailies
and country weeklies, were pre-
pared, and presently the news OF
the trial was finding its way by
wire and mail to every corner of the
United States.
Thus 1t happens that Mt Clemens,
known for many years as a place
for rest and recuperation. is now
the office of the greatest industrial
organization in the world as we'll as
the scene of what promises to be
the most important libel suit in legal
history. And it was all done with
such smooth dispatch that few of
the residents have yet awakened to
the fact.