Tabor City tribune. (Tabor City, N.C.) 1946-1991, 1951-11-07
The Young Man Who Learned From FORD
Bv Samule T. Williamson

Bv Samule T. Williamson
One reason why we don't hear much about Horatlo
Aleer these days that people regard MS rags
TORCHES stories as out of date Why work too hard Got
car? television set? What do you want that you
can't get by Is or "a easy nsalments and on 4ohouf
week? If you do think up something new some Dig COM
panv has to make and will only pay you peanuts
All this is nonsense to Finn Heakon Magnus, late OF
Norway and of Newark n j. This sottspoken young
descendant of the Vikngs-he's only 43-has created
multi-milon dollar industry where none existed before
Only one thing he says keeps man down IN ths country
and that is the himself.
In the summer of 1925 Finn Magnus, then boy OF
IT, arrived at Ellis Island and landed at New 1orks Bat
terry graspng big vase In his pocket was $50 he 1ouh
lodging house. rented and went out TO LOOK lor
breakfast Then he got lost Knowing neither street nor
street number of his roomng house, and each house ana
street looking like the other, he walked around ana
around on the sidewalks of New York He never did lind
the place or his luggage.
But he still had S25 and before spent, he got
lob as stevedore on the tough Brooklyn docks Next ne
was dishwasher Then an elevator operator After that
factory stock clerk At length his first opportunity
The Ford Motor Company took him student.
Here the young Norwegian picked up something that
has become typicaly American drugstore sandwich
and corn on the cob the principles OF mass producuon
More people pirate about these principles than
them But never they expressed more clearly and
more simply than by the Magnus was working for
Mass production said Henry Ford is reproductive organ
ization that delivers in continuous quantities useful COM
modify of standard material workmanship and design at
minimum cost" At Ford Finn Magnus saw how mass pro-
ducon brought down costs that more might enjoy the
commodity Wha makes this country unique, ne decld-
3D. lis that good things are not for the few
He also learned another lesson the useful commodity
must be popular Henry Ford learning that lesson at
the same time Model was still useful but people were
no longer satisfied with it. Ford shut down to retoo tor
Model A, and Magnus was out of job.
His next Job was with cash register concern, but
the depression came there less cash and little need
for more cash registers One product however, which is
necessity in good and bad is buttons Finn Magnus
became night machine operator at the Button Corpora
ton of America He wasn't night machine operator very
long for he soon saw the production principles
he picked up at Ford applied to butonmakng we'll as
to putting automobiles together He found of eim-
ating waste of shorcutng production improving quail
ty and increasing profits Within nine years he
ntendent then general He was in his early thrt-
and what for most people was pinnacle OF success
but for Magnus it only the beginning
Some months after Pearl Harbor, he tried to buy a
harmonica 'None to be had the store clerk said Har-
monicas come from Germany and Japan Don't you know
there's on?'
"Why aren't they made in American he asked.
"Too expensive"
Harmonicas were made of wood and brass-8O sep
arae parts put together in $50 separate laborous, all
hand operations Each brass reed the reed plate which
is the music-making part of the instrument was hand
riveted and handtuned skill handed down from parents
to children.
"Why not mass produce them in plastics, the way
do buttons" Magnus asked.
"Rdiculous!" said plastics experts. "Impossible!
All that Magnus had to do was to find plastic which
would give off sweet musical sounds brass reed
Then he must mold plastic reed plate which all reeds
are in tune And get such delicate mold he must have
tolorances never before achieved with pastics
1t took Finn Magnus three years to accomplish these