The New York herald., 1922-05-07
FORD finds PEOPLE
UNEQUALAS HIS CARS
Striving to Make Them
Equal Blocks Progress,
Manufacturer Writes.
ASSAILS LEVELING IDEA
Cites Soviet Republic as
Prime Example of Waste
in Production.
MACHINE WORLD IN SUN
Starts Summarizing His Life
and Views Upon Conditions
He Has Found.

Henry Ford. Offering to the world
the story of his life and cross sec
ton of his mental processes. EN-.
phatically denies that all men are
equal and seeks to prove the assertion
by pointing to the little motor car OF
his devising. No two are alike. nc
two Eave the same habits. even II
they do come out of the same mold
any more than two human beings are
alike.
There can be no greater absurdity
and no greater disservice to humanit,
in general" Mr.. Ford writes. in col.
laboration with Samuel Crowther, il
McClure's for May. than to insist thai
all men are equal. MOST certainly ali
men are not equal and any democratic
conception which strives to make
men equal only blocks progress.
Men cannot be of equal service. The
men of larger ability are less numerous
than the men OF smaller ability; II Is
possible for a mass of the smaller men
to pull the larger ones down-but IN SO
doing they pull themselves down. 1t Is
the larger men who give the leadership
to the community and enable the smaller
men to live with less effort.
Leve1fnE Makes For Waste.
THE conception of democracy which
means leveling down of ability makes
for waste. We build our cars absolutely
interchangeable. All parts are as nearly
alike as chemical analysis, the finest
machinery and the finest workmanship
can make them. No fitting of any kind
Is required and it would certainly seem
that two Fords standing side by side
looking exactly alike and made so ex-
actly alike that any part could be
taken out of one and put into the other
would be alike. But they are not. They
have different road habits"
Mr. Ford maintains that he Is not a
reformer. He thinks there is entirely
too much reforming in the world and
that too much attention is paid to re-
formers. of which there are two kinds
both nuisances to his mind. The trouble
with reformers, he says, Is that they
want to smash things and have no us,
for facts. This leads him to an indict.
ment of Soviet Russia:
Mature has vetoed the whcle Sovie
Republic. For 1t sought to deny Nature
IT denied, above all else, the right to tn,
fruits of labor. In the United States
workman works eight hours a day; II
Russia he works twelve or fourteen. II
the United States II workman wishes t.
lay Off for day or a week. and is able
to afford it. there Is nothing to preven
him. In Russia. under Sovietism, tn,
workman goes to work whether he wants
1t or not
"TalISed to Stnrvation.v
"The freedom OF the citizen has dis
appeared in the discipline of a prisonlik,
monotony in which all are treated alike
That Is slavery. AS soon as she begar
to run her factories by committees they
went to rack and ruin; there was more
debate than production. The fanatic.
talked the people into starvation. Bol
shevism is now crying for the brains and
experience which II yesterday treated Sc
ruthlessly. All that reform did to Rus
sia was to block production
The Detroit manufacturer warns
against an element in this country who
he thinks, are attempting to do what tins
Bolshevists have done I'm Russia. and h,
utntlOHS III Tic sdfI1e DTehtn II IeTOrTlpl
other than the radical--the reactionary
He wants to go back TO some previous
condition." Mr.. Ford writes, mot because
1t was the best condition but because hs
thinks he knows about that condition
One of the counsels of caution
is to be very certain that we do not mis-
take a reactionary turn for return o.
common sense"
Some of Mr.. Ford's fundamental views
about the Importance OF labor and tn,
rights of labor are expressed In tn,
article, and a sample comment is:
There Is no reason why a man who
is willing to work should not be able tc
work and to receive the full value oi
his work. There is equally no reason
why a man who can but will not work
should not receive the full value of his
services to the community. He should
most certainly be permitted to take
away from the community an equivalen,
of what he contributes to IL. II he con.
tributes nothing he should take away
nothing. He should have the freedom
OF starvation. We are not getting any.
where when we insist that every mar
ought to- have more than he deserves
to have--just because some do get more
than they deserve to have"
Causes OF DepressiOn.
Here IL the way Mr.. Ford philoso.
phizes about the causes OF business de.
preston
1--WE were getting TO a place where nc
one cared about costs or service. Or.
ders came without effort. Whereas once
Il was the customer who favored the
merchant by dealing with him. condi.
tions changed until IL was the merchant
who favored the customer by selling tc
him. That Is bad for business. The
lack of necessity to hustle is bad foi
business. Business is never as healthy
an when, like n chicken. II must do q
certain amount OF scratching for what
Il gets. Things were coming too easily
There was n let down OF the principle
that an honest relation ought to obtain
between values and prices. The public
no longer had TO be catered to- There
was even public be damned attitude
In many places. IL was intensely bad
for business. Some men called the alb.
normal condition prosperity IL was
not prosperIty--it was just a needles,
money chase. Money chasing Is moi
business.
"It is the function Of business {,
produce for consumption and not foi
money or speculation. Producing foi
consumption implies that the quality oil
the article produced will be high and
that the price viii b. low: that tho
article be one which serves the peopls
and not merely the producer.
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