The Birmingham age-herald., 1922-11-30
CHANGE NOTED IN
 FORD HE AS ABOUT
 NEWS GOOD WILL
Thinks Money Greatest InCen- tive and Workmen Must Be Driven to Greater
 Tasks
CHAPTER w
 Lights


 It was toward the close of the year 1915 that I gave up the dean ship of St. Pauls cathedral, Detroit and took charge of the sociological department of the Ford Motor com pany. I continued in the employ Of the company for a period of & little more than five years.
 The sociological department--later known as the educational depart ment--had been organized early in the year 1914, at the time the Ford profit sharing plan. with it's Sb-a-daS minimum pay went into effect. To Mir. John R. Lee, who organized the department and conducted it's work for the first two years of It's exis- tence, credit is due, more than to any other one man, for devislng those unique humane policies which attracted worldwide attention and which gave a practical and helpful direction to the philanthropic im- pulses of MT. Ford. There Is in MT. Lee a rare combination of qualities which were needed at the time in the development of the personnel wcrk of the company.
 MT. Ford has way of making great things possible, of opening the door of opportunity for others. And fortunately for him, he has been able in the past to gather about him men who have been able to seize upon these opportunities and to use them in & way that has reflected great credit upon him and upon them selves. If 1t had not been for MT. Lee. I am inclined to think that the sociological work of the Ford Motor company would have taken it's course along lower and conventional lines. He is a man of ideas and ideals. He has a keen sense of justice and a sympathy with men in trouble that leads to an understanding of their problems. He has an unbounded faith in men. particularly in the down and outs" without which no man can do constructive human work. Under his guidance the de- partment put soul into the com pany and gave intelligent direction to the generous thought and will of Mir. Ford and Mir. Couzens toward their employees. MT. Lee must be credited with being one of the mak- CTS of the Ford Motor company on its human side.
 Ford Discusses Plans
 A few days after the profit shar- ing plan went into effect called upon Mir. Ford at his request. We sat in his office talking and looking out on great throng of men gath cred in the street below, drawn there in the hope that they might be able to obtain employment at the hither- to unheard of rate of pay. On many rrevious occasions he had talked over with me his desire to share in some practical manner his prosperity with his employees. As we sat there that morning he spoke at length of his plans and purposes, and of the mo- tsves back of them. I asked him why he had fixed upon s5 as the minimum pay for unskilled labor. Ills reply was, Because that is about tho least a man with a family can live on in these days. We have been looking into the housing and homo condi- tions of our employees and we find that the skilled man Is able to pro- vide for his family, not only the necessities, but some of the luxuries of life. He Is able to educate his children, to rear them in a decent ht me in desirable neighborhood But with the unskilled man it is different. He's not getting enough He isn't getting all that's coming to hins. And we must not forget that he Is just as necessary to in- dustry as the skilled man. Take the sweeper out of a shop and 1t would become in a short time an unfit place in which to work We cant get along without him. And we have no right to take advantage of him because he must sell his labor in an open market. We must not pay him a wage on which he can not pos sibly maintain himself and his fam lily under proper physical and moral conditions just because he Is not in Q position to demand more"
 "But suppose the earnings of a business are so small that it can not afford to pay that which, In your opinion, is living wage--what then?' asked.
 "Then there Is something wrong with the man who is trying to run the business. He may be honest. He may mean to do the square thing But clearly he isn't competent to con- duct g business for himself. for a man who can not make business pay a living wage to his employees has no right to be in business. He should be working for some one who knows how to do things. On the