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3. Henry Ford's Man
- Wayne State University Press
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C H A P T E R Henry Ford's Man H, .ENRY FORD was no mystic or genius. He was a responsible person with determination to do his work as he believed it should be done. This sense of responsibility was one of his strongest traits. I often tried to persuade Mr. Ford to diversify his business ; get into the food-producing field, because he liked farming, or take up something like Sears, Roebuck or Marshall Field. He would have nothing to do with the idea. "I don't want any more business," he said. I also tried to get him to expand the auto field. I felt we could build a near monopoly. "Let us shoot at seventy-five per cent of market requirements," I urged. "I don't want any more than thirty per cent," he replied. How right he was! If Ford Motor Company had seventyfive per cent of the auto business today, it would be prosecuted as a monopoly. He actually welcomed the competition that was looming before us, though in later years he had suspicion amounting to hallucination that bankers and General Motors were out to ruin him. This ability to sense signs of the times and to counteract forces that showed danger signals was almost uncanny. I 24 3 HENRY FORD'S MAN 25 would go to him with problems that looked insurmountable. Nothing appeared to frighten him. In the early days of the New Deal he was threatened with all sorts of government reprisal for defying the National Industrial Recovery Act, that the government would take over his company if he didn't sign up and display the Blue Eagle. He replied, "Go ahead. The government will then be in the automobile business . Let's see if they can manageit better than I can." That stopped General "Iron Pants" Johnson and President Roosevelt. There is no doubt that Henry Ford had courage. Probably he will never be glorified for his Peace Ship excursion; but no one can tell me it didn't take courage to undertake it. It took courage, too, to fight the Selden patent, to hold to his fixed idea of a cheap car, to battle dividend-hungry boards of directors, to build River Rouge plant in the face of stockholder opposition. By nature he was a happy person. Despite his lack of close friends and the aloof life he lived, he enjoyed being with a group of his men developing some project. Up until his old age he delighted in practical jokes. Back in days when we were designing Model T, we set up a target range for 22caliber rifles on the third floor of the Piquette Avenue plant, and Henry Ford used to join us Sunday mornings for shooting matches. We kept our rifles in a cabinet which I built in the drafting room. Sometime during one week Ford opened the cabinet and changed the sights on my rifle so that when I aimed at the target the bullet went galley west. It took me some time to realize what was wrong, but after I figured it out and we had our laugh, I readjusted my sights to accuracy by clamping the rifle in a vise, then firing it and setting the sights to bear on the bullet hole. After World War I, and during our strange adventure in the railway business with the rust-streaked Detroit, Toledo [34.237.140.238] Project MUSE (2024-03-29 15:00 GMT) 26 MY FORTY YEARS WITH FORD & Ironton Railroad, Mr. Ford pulled a monumentalhoax on me. While we were on an inspection trip, I received a telegram stating that our tractor plant at Dearborn was on fire and about to burn to the ground. I was wild. I wanted the train stopped so that I might hire a car and drive to the disaster; but before I had bitten my nails down to the quick, Bill Cowling, D.T. & I.'s traffic manager, confessed that Henry Ford had put him up to sending the wire. On a later trip Ford tripped Cowling on the same trick. On the outskirts of Springfield, Ohio, our train was flagged, and Cowling was told of a big wreck down near Ironton, our southern terminus. He, too, went wild and burned up the wires ordering all available wrecking equipment to the scene. Nearly two hours later we arrived: we found no wreck, only a convention-on-wheels of cranes and some angry crews blowing off as...