Yorkville enquirer. [volume] (Yorkville, S.C.) 1855-2006, 1922-04-04
TROUBLESOME Mr.. FORD
Why the Manufacturer Is Objection.
able TO Wall Street.
VESTED INTERESTS ARE OPPOSED
If the Automobile Man Succeeds in
Carrying out His Ideas, the Result
Will be a Revolution in Established
Conditions.

| SOHuikiSuSs s
For all practical purposes the Amer
cen manufacture of aluminium is in
the hands of few men. Suppose you
were making aluminium by the pound
and selling it by the pound, and new
competitor, lifting his head above the
horizon. promised to make it by the
carload and sell it by the ton?
Little is heard of the electric fur
mace or the making of electric steel.
If you were In this shy, retiring, half
furtive business, suppose q man an-
nounced plans for making such steel
by the tFairiload and selli,ig it In car
lots?
| Or take the fertilizer business,
where the sources Of available nitrates
are in your grip in the shape Of
Chilean nitrate bed concessions. The
farmer and explosive maker are eat
ing out of your hand. You are put
ting out fertilizer that Is IA per cent.
useful and So per cent "filler."' What
If you faced competition with q pro-
duct far more plentiful and rs per
cent more useful at a price cut so low
that you shuddered at the mention of
it," N F.'f
| Or suppose you had much money
in hydro electric development, every
thing pretty much to your liking, the
future charted but, rates satisfactory,
and a rank outsider ctepped in threat
ening. to upset everything pay better
wages, extend developments and cut
rates? Or II you were in the coal
line, how about 1t If some menace
were about to wipe out a market for
6,50O,0Oo tons OF coal yearly? Or II
you we're in the coking industry and
your ammonia by-product, used in nj
trogen fertilizers and what not, was
threatened by enormous massas OF
| nitrogen jerked out OF the alr?. :, Or
interested in railway that hauled
coal and phosphate rock, and a pair
Of new dams in a river was about to
| divert much heavy tonnage from cars
or barges? Or in the juteo bag busi-
ness and were about to lose s2,0OO,OO0
annually because a way had been
found to concentrate shipments? ?~ y
ALI these are TsnpposItions and by
wny of Indicating the industrial, COM
mercial and financial hornets nest
stirred up by Henry Ford's dream Of
industrial empire at Muscle Shoals,
with it's nitrate and hydro electric
plants and navigation possibilities.
They light, more orsless diinly, the
reasons that may be Back of the agori-
izing and propagandlzing under way
against the Ford Alabama project by
the fertilizer, light, metal, waterpow-
er and industrial- chemical interests.
For all these things and more are
on the Ford program SO far rs 1t has
been revealed He proposes to take
with government consent, cheap
money" and Favorable lease condi-
tions," and with these develop mighty
vaterpowers in the center Of a great
region stuffed with lime and phos-
phate rocks, dotted with coking plants
and hills full of coal beds. From
waterpower, coke and rocks he plans
to create four great rnatters-nitrogen
fixatioh, electric furnace development
end navigation and transportation i'm
provement
Nitrogen fixation means cheap, con-
contracted fertilizers in large tonnage,
and for this the cotton and corn belts
will rise up and call him blessed.
Chilean nitrate's grip will be loosed
and there will be more crops with less
labor, greater earning capacity per
mt.ri and farm, and a mighty encour-
agement to the man between the plow
handles. To the nation Ford offers
cheap, large scale explosive produc-
ton in wartime, absolute indepen-
dence to Chile and the banishing Of
that nightmare Of some disaster to
the Panama Canal, cutting us off
from our raw explosive material sup
ply.
Electric furnace development as
visioned by Ford means improved
steel production, relief from that Old
Man of the Sea, Pittsburgh Plus,
help to building and industry, phos-
phoric acid for potash fertilizer and
still more help to farmers through
cheap fertilizer and more crops with
less labor. Out or these furnaces he
proposes vast production of light met
ais, steels, aluminums, ferro- alloys and
poison gas materials, with resulting
military preparedness and sounder
national security. With this come
cheaper and wider use of motorcars
and their cheaper operation. 1t will
be recalled that Henry Ford is in the
motorcar business.
Navigation improvement of the Ten
nessee river will make it possible for
the coal, fertilizers, raw rock phos-
pilates light metals, acids and gases
to move to farms and factories in
the Mississippi Basis or to the sea
by boat. The Ford idea is to make
real use Of the inland rivers, to trace
q national policy in which waterways
are paid for by waterpower and to Of