Page:The Triumph of an Idea.djvu/129

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THE REBUILDING OF AN INDUSTRY 117

markets for Great Britain, Ireland, and some of the British possessions. With a frontage on the Thames, the plant has facilities for water, rail, and motor transport, and its principal fuel for producing 30,000 kilowatts of electric power is the London refuse which for hundreds of years was burned. In style the buildings are like those at River Rouge, but they were put up by British labor and with British materials, and all the machinery was built in England. The manufacturing and labor policies are the same as in the American factories.

Besides the manufacturing centers in America and England, the smaller Ford plants, some of them used for manufacturing and all of them for assembly and distribution, continued active through 1930 and into 1931, when the depression caused a slackening. To name only a few of the plants which served every quarter of the globe, these may be listed: Buenos Aires, Lima, Montevideo, São Paulo, Pernambuco, and Santiago de Chile. The South American branches were linked directly with Dearborn and River Rouge, while in Germany, France, Holland, and Belgium the same policy was pursued as in Great Britain: the organization of separate companies, with part of their stock held by citizens of those countries.

Ford went ahead with the outside activities which had always interested him. Education of children and young men in the practical arts was one of them. He has characterized it as "education for leadership." The beneficiaries are residents of neighborhoods near his plants and experimental farms, largely the families of employees.

Headquarters of the system are the Edison Institute of Technology at Dearborn and the historic exhibit known