Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1921-07-25
ANOTHER FORD STORY

TJENRY FORD has Just been telling the
IL country how, when buying had slowed
down and depression was over the land and
the report Of his financial ruin was ac-
cepted in Wall Street and emissaries of
bank syndcates were hurrying to Detroit
to dictate terms, he, unadcd was putting
his organization safely on the high road to
increased prosperity and increased produc-
ton. The narrative is, in its way, an
epic of business.
Henry is an odd sort Of man. He IS not
easy to understand. He entcrtains mex
plicnble and sometimes dangerous delusons.
It is held against him, not without some
justice, that his method of production means
death to the creative instinct of all his
workmen. Yet he did captain great in
dustrial organization and innumerable little
industrial organizations and all their de-
pendent men. women and children safely
through a condition of affairs that brought
hardship or wreck to others. He continued
to produce, to make money. n stand off the
sharks, to pay wages. And he did a vast
lot to dispel the hysteriR of cost boosting
and TO bring about the reversal of CONNER
cial thought and practice that was impera-
lively necessary to the we'll being and the
economic safety of the country. For that
reason and for the inner meanings of his
efforts and his achievement he is well worthy
of study
Mr.. Ford did what might have been done
by every other business man who could sup
port himself in crisis by faith in himself,
faith in his product and. above all, faith in
the country. In April, 1910, he had
S20,000,000 in cash to meet obligations
totaling $4,000 900, and only five months
in which to make up the difference. 1t Is
characteristic of Henry that he charged him
self inexorably with $1,000 900 required to
pay the usual bonus to his men and that he
coolly set down that sum in the aggregate
of his immediate liabilities. Then he made
a survey to learn how much Of the material
on hand could be turned into dollars in the
shortest possible space of time.
Again an inspiration struck him. He
reduced the retail price of his cars and he
sold his output for less than the cost of
manufacture. Was that n great sacrifice?
Let us see. BY being the first big manu-
facturer of useful and needed article to
slash prices to the bone. Mr.. Ford again
got in on the ground floor Again he was
the early bird. lie was carried nobly along
on the very peak Of the wave of new buying
which he had done most to create. Others
followed on q Stacking tide Henry was up
ahead. in comfortable water. riding swiftly
forward. He deserved to be there. There
can be no denying that, for he had acted
Conventional minded bankers. who saw
man in need Of ready money selling his pos
sessions for less than he could have got by
holding on, said not un3aturally that that
man was crazy. But Henry was far from
crazy. Having broken the spell and started
Ford cars rolling outward, he set about
without the loss of a minute to make every
possible dollar out of these cars by new
economies of manufacture.
There had been. he said. a great increase
Of axity in his plant. Thousands of war
jobs and ornamental foremen were still being
maintained. So clerks were offered jobs in
the shops, every ounce of human energy ex-
pended was made to produce something
marketable. Waste was eliminated, over
stocks of material were turned into cars
and into cash before new purchases were
made, and because the Detroit plant opened
up in full swing after n shut down of only
six weeks new life entered into all of the
workmen. Wh@e before he needed fifteen
men per car per day, he now has nine.
Cars were produced more swiftly. BY sys-
tematic liquidation of reserve stocks, by
getting his whole organization to turn fin
ished product into cash, by making day to-
day purchases of raw materials until the
trouble passed, the Ford organization was
relieved from the necessity of borrowing a
cent from Wall Street And, what is more
1t was started toward the period in which
it is making more automobiles than 1t ever
made before under the old wage schedu IS.
but at labor cost lower than labor costs
ever were per machine in the Detroit fac
tory.
Its faith" snid Henry. Faith and
work and a rule learned from my father,
who used TO tell me never to buy anything |
didn't need and to sell anything that had
no use for