The potters herald. [volume] (East Liverpool, Ohio) 1899-1982, 1941-07-03
The Cherry Tree
Where We Hdtchet Out
The Truth
. FORD AND ROCKEFELLER
. GOOD PUBLICITY
BIRTH OF COMPANY UNION
. AN INTERESTING PHASE

L
That Henry Ford has gone plump
for CIO, label and all, is no longer
news. But there is something that
rises up out of the mists of the past
in this whole interesting business.
! There is something just a bit rem
iniscent of the conversion of the late
John D. Rockefeller in the flop Of
Henry Ford.
Both Rockefeller and Ford were
(Ford still is) intense and unbending
individualists, as were so many Of the
plummeting barons of the nineties.
Between Rockefeller and Ford there
were differences in some Characters
tics, but the idea that cts all mine''
was dominant in one as in the other.
Both eXemplified the baronial idea
carried over into a newborn Ameri-
can industrialism.
But about the odor of the Ford
over-turn, let us see.
X X X
There will be still many who re-
member the days of the Rockefeller
empire of absolution. With no need
to doubt that Rockefeller believed
himself absolutely and even piously
right, he had built an immense indus
trial combination in oil and in coal.
His might ramifed into many places.
But the growing determination of
workers to stand up for themselves
brought on rebellion against the great
mans power.
One night, like lightning flashing
out through dense black clouds, came
what was soon to be known as the
Ludlow massacre, at Ludlow, Colo,
one of the Rockefeller coal mines. A
tent colony of striking miners was
shot up and fired and the turn of the
Rockefeller fortunes was upon the
aging emperor of oil.
X X X
Something had to be done and
quickly. Rockefeller was among
those pictured by the cartoonists of
the day as having huge paunches
and with clothes checked all over by
dollar signs.
So Rockefeller engaged w. L. Mac
kenzie King and later equipped HIM
self with the services of the late pub
licity expert, Ivy Lee. Rockefeller
"got good" He first developed the
company union idea on a large scale,
under the tutelage of these two gen.
tlemen. He cast off the trappings of
imperialism and took upon himself the
trappings of what was sold to the
public as form of liberalism, or in
dsutrial progressivism.
1t was all done with considerable
speed and, guided by Lee, the Rookie
fel!er reputation was mended and
patched until finally there emerged,
in place of the dollar marked tyrant,
a venerable gentleman who gave
away new dimes and played a dod-
dering bit of harmless golf.
The company union idea got such a
grip that it persists today.
x X X
The enlightened self-interest that
enables a Rockefeller today to sit high
in the councils of the most progress
sive and pro-labor government this
nation has ever known is quite an
other chapter and is not here under
discussion. We speak only of the
great emperor who came to the part
ing of the ways, even as Henry Ford
has done.
Ford, today, is reminiscent of Rock
| efeller. What inner motivation there
may be, what advice may have been
thrown into his teeth, we cannot and
do not know.
But that self-preservation made it's
mperious demands at the long-de-
layed crisis in the Ford life span can
not be doubted.
1t looks like a conversion in ex-
tremity-a religion taken aboard in
desperation 1t is an interesting phase
of American industrial evolution
He who said 81 will never yield"
| has done a strange and amazing thing
| which history must yet appraise.-
CMW.