Henry Ford’s Own Story/Chapter 21
CHAPTER XXI
EARLY MANUFACTURING TRIALS
Again Henry Ford's talent for friendliness helped him. Wills, who had been working with Ford as a draughtsman, came with him into the new company. He had a few hundred dollars, which he was willing to stake on Ford's ability. Couzens, who had helped organize the first company, came also, and turned his business talents to the task of raising capital to start the new concern.
While he was struggling with the problems of organization, Henry Ford rented an old shack on Mack avenue, moved his tools from the old shed, and, with a couple of machinists to help him, began building his cheap cars.
News of his venture spread in Detroit. The cars sold before they were built. Men found their way to the crude shop, talked to Ford in his greasy overalls, and paid down deposits on cars for future delivery. Often these deposits helped to buy material for the same cars they purchased.
Ford was working on a narrow margin. Every dollar which could be squeezed from the week's earnings after expenses were paid went directly into more material for more cars. At first his machinists went home at the end of their regular hours; then Ford worked alone far into the night, building engines. Before long the men became vitally interested in Ford's success and returned after supper to help him.
Meantime a few men had been found who were willing to buy stock in the new company. It was capitalized at $100,000, of which $15,000 was paid in. Then Ford set to work in earnest.
The force was increased to nearly forty men, and Wills became manager of the mechanical department. Carloads of material were ordered, on sixty days' time, every pound of iron or inch of wire calculated with the utmost nicety so that each shipment would be sufficient to build a certain number of completed cars without the waste of ten cents worth of material.
Then Ford and Couzens set out to sell the cars before payment for the material came due. Ford set a price of $900 a car, an amount which he figured would cover the cost of material, wages and overhead and leave a margin for buying more material.
A thousand anxieties now filled his days and nights. Fifteen thousand dollars was very little money for his plant; wages alone would eat it up in ten weeks. The raw material must be made into cars, sold, and the money collected, before it could be paid for. Many times a check from a buyer won the race with the bill from the foundry by a margin of hours. Often on pay day Ford faced the prospect of being unable to pay the men until he should have sold a shipment of cars not yet built.
But the cars sold. Their simplicity of construction, their power, above all their cheapness, in a day when automobiles almost without exception sold for $2,500 to $4,000, brought buyers. In a few weeks orders came from Cleveland for them; shortly afterward a dealer in Chicago wrote for an agency there.
Still the success of the venture depended from week to week on a thousand chances. Ford, with his genius for factory management, reduced the waste of material or labor to the smallest minimum. He worked on new designs for simpler, cheaper motors. He figured orders for material. His own living expenses were cut to the bone—every cent of profit on sales went into the factory.
Nearly a thousand cars were sold that year, but with the beginning of winter sales decreased, almost stopped. The factory must be kept running, in order to have cars for the spring trade. Close figuring would enable them to keep it open, but an early, brisk market would be necessary to save the company in the spring.
In this emergency Ford recalled the great advertising value of racing. He had designed a four-cylinder car to be put on the market the following year. If he could make a spectacular demonstration of four-cylinder construction as compared with the old motors, the success of his spring sales would be assured.
Ford announced that in November he would try for the world's speed record in a four-cylinder car of his own construction.
The old machine in which Barney Oldfield had made his debut as an automobile driver was brought out and overhauled. The body was rebuilt, so that in form it was much like the racing cars of to-day. Ford himself remodeled the motor.
The test was to be made on the frozen surface of Lake St. Clair. The course was surveyed. On the appointed day, with Ford himself as driver, the motor car appeared for its second trial.
A stiff wind was blowing over the ice. The surface of the lake, apparently smooth, was in reality seamed with slight crevices and roughened with frozen snow. Ford, muffled in a fur coat, with a fur cap pulled down over his ears, went over it anxiously, noting mentally the worst spots. Then he cranked the car, settled himself in the seat and nodded to the starter. The signal came, Ford threw on the power and was off.
The car, striking the ice fissure, leaped into the air, two wheels at a time. Ford, clinging to the tiller, was almost thrown from his seat. Zigzagging wildly, bouncing like a ball, the machine shot over the ice. Twice it almost upset, but Ford, struggling to keep the course, never shut down the power. He finished the mile in 39 1-5 seconds, beating the world s record by seven seconds.
The success of next year's sales was certain.
The following day when Ford reached the factory, Wills met him with an anxious face. It was pay day and there was no money.
"We didn't bother you about it last week because you were so busy with the race," Wills said. "We thought up to the last minute that the check from Chicago would come. It was due two days ago. We wired yesterday and got no answer. Mr. Couzens left this morning on the early train to find out what is wrong. You know how it is; the men want their money for over Christmas. The Company wants men and they're offering more money than we can pay. I'm afraid our men will quit, and if they do and we can't get out the Cincinnati order next week"
Ford knew that to raise more money from the stockholders would be impossible. They had gone in as deeply as they could. To sacrifice a block of his own stock would be to lose control of the company, and besides it would be difficult to sell it. The company was still struggling for existence; it had paid no dividends, and other automobile manufacturers were already paying the enormous profits that led in the next few years to wild, disastrous expansion in the automobile business. The Ford company had no marketable assets—nothing but the rented building, the equipment and a few unfilled orders.
"Well, if we pull through the men will have to do it," said Ford. "I'll tell them about it."
That evening when the day's work was over and the men came to the office to get their pay they found Ford standing in the doorway. He said he had something to tell them. When they had all gathered in a group—nearly a hundred by this time—he stood on a chair so that all of them could hear what he had to say, and told them the exact situation.
"Now, men, we can pull through all right if you'll help out now," he concluded. "You know the kind of car we're selling, and the price, and you know what the new one did yesterday. We can get through the winter on our unfinished orders if we never get that Chicago check. Next year we'll have a big business. But it all depends on you. If you quit now we're done for. What about it, will you stay?"
"Sure, Mr. Ford." "You bet we will, old man!" "We're with you; don't you forget it!" they said. Before they left the plant most of them came up to assure him personally that they would stand by the Ford company. Next day they all arrived promptly for work, and during the week they broke all previous records in the number of cars turned out.
"War between capital and labor is just like any other kind of war," Henry Ford says to-day. "It happens because people do not understand each other. The boss ought to show his books to his employees, let them see what he's working for. They're just as intelligent as he is, and if he needs help they'll turn in and work twenty-four hours a day, if they have to, to keep the business going. More than that, they'll use their heads for him. They'll help him in hundreds of ways he never would think of.
"The only trouble is that people make a distinction between practical things and spiritual qualities. I tell you, loyalty, and friendliness, and helping the other man along are the only really valuable things in this world, and they bring all the practical advantages along with them every time. If every one of us had the courage to believe that, and act on it, war and waste and misery of all kinds would be wiped out over night."