RAISING CAPITAL
Ford sat in his little car, white, shaken, dusty--the track champion of
this country.
He was surrounded by a small crowd of automobile enthusiasts, promoters,
bicycle champions, all eager to meet and talk with the unknown man who
had taken the honors away from Winton. Among them was Tom Cooper.
Grasping Ford's hand, he looked with interest at the slightly built,
thin-cheeked man who had won the race, and said: "Bully work, the way
you handled her on that last turn. Whose car is it?"
"Mine," said Ford.
"I mean"--Cooper looked at the lines of the car--"I mean, whose engine
did you use?"
"It's my engine--I made it," Ford replied.
"The deuce you did!" Cooper exclaimed. "Well, I must say you did a good
job. I'd like to look it over some time."
"Sure; come out to my house any time. Glad to show it to you," said Ford
cordially.
It was the beginning of an association which was to be highly profitable
to both of them.
Other men of national prominence in the world of sports greeted Ford
enthusiastically as one of themselves, while the crowd in the grandstand
still cheered spasmodically. Reporters hurried up with camera men, and
Ford stepped back into the little car and posed somewhat sheepishly for
his first newspaper pictures. Men who had formerly passed him on the
street with a careless nod, now stopped him, clapped him on the shoulder
and talked like old friends.
He was beyond question the hero of the day. He took it all in a
matter-of-fact manner; his car had done no more than he had expected all
along, and it was the car, not himself, which filled his mind. He hoped
that the publicity would bring him the necessary capital to start his
factory.
Within a week he received offers from wealthy men of Detroit. The local
papers had printed pictures of Ford, his car and the old shed where it
had been built, with long accounts of his years of work and his efforts
to organize a company. Detroit had been awakened to the fact that there
was a real opportunity for men with vision and sufficient capital to
carry it out. But without exception these men insisted on one
thing--absolute control of the company to be organized.
From their standpoint that proviso was reasonable enough. If they
furnished the money and Ford merely the idea, of course they should keep
not only the larger share of the profits, but entire control of the
venture as well. Without their money, they argued, his idea was
valueless.
On the other hand, in spite of his eight years of struggle for lack of
capital, Ford still maintained that the idea was the really valuable
part of the combination. He insisted on controlling the organization
which was to manufacture his cars.
While he had been working alone in the little shed at night, he had
thought out his plan for a factory, mentally picturing its methods, its
organization, the handling of material from the raw iron to the finished
cars, fully assembled, rolling away in an endless line. He had figured
costs to the fraction of a cent; planned methods of arranging the work,
standardizing the product, eliminating waste and friction at every
possible point.
Now that the car was finished, the factory plan took its place in his
mind. He did not intend to abandon it until he had made it a reality. He
was going to build that factory, as he had built his engine, in spite of
any obstacles or opposition. To do it, he must control the company's
policies.
It was a deadlock. To the man with money it seemed sheer insanity to put
control of a business venture into the hands of an obstinate mechanic
who had happened to hit on an idea for an automobile engine. Ford would
not dispose of his patents on any other condition. In a short time the
discussions were dropped, and he was where he had been before the track
meeting.
That spectacular race, however, had brought him many acquaintances, and
many of them developed into close friends. James Couzens, a small
hardware merchant of Detroit, was one of them, and C. H. Wills, a
mechanical draughtsman, was another. With Tom Cooper, the bicycle
champion, they spent many evenings in the old shed, or on the front
steps of the Ford house, discussing projects for the Ford factory.
Couzens, who had a talent for business affairs, formed a plan for
interesting a small group of other merchants like himself and financing
Ford. He brought negotiations to a certain point and found himself
confronted again by their demand for control of the company.
"We must do something that'll show them that they've got to have you on
your own terms--something big--startling--to stir them up," he reported.
"How about winning another race?" Cooper suggested. "They're pulling one
off in Ohio this fall."
"No, it must be right here, so I can take my men out and let them see
it," Couzens objected. "It takes a lot to jar any money loose from those
fellows."
"I could enter at the Grosse Point tracks next spring," Ford said. "But
it wouldn't show them any more than they've already seen, if I race the
same car. I can't afford to build another one."
He was still in debt to Coffee Jim for the cost of his first racer.
Coffee Jim, professing himself satisfied with the results of the
race--doubtless he had judiciously placed some bets on it--had left
Detroit in the meantime, but Ford nevertheless counted the loan among
his liabilities.
"Think you can beat that car?" Cooper inquired.
"I know I can," Ford replied quietly.
"Then you go to it and build her. I'll back the scheme," Cooper said.
It was another debt on Ford's shoulders, but he accepted it and
immediately began to work on another racer. With the intention of
startling Couzens's group of sedate business men, he obeyed Cooper's
injunction to "build her big--the roof's the limit." The result was
certainly startling.
Four enormous cylinders gave that engine eighty horsepower. When it was
finished and Cooper and Ford took it out one night for a trial, people
started from their sleep for blocks about the Ford house. The noise of
the engine could be heard miles. Flames flashed from the motor. In the
massive framework was one seat. Cooper stood thunderstruck while Ford
got in and grasped the tiller.
"Good Lord, how fast do you figure she'll do?" he asked.
"Don't know," Ford replied. He put on the power, there was a mighty
roar, a burst of flame, and Cooper stood alone on the curb. Far down the
street he saw the car thundering away.
A few minutes later it came roaring back and stopped. Ford sat in it,
white.
"How far did you go?" Cooper asked. Ford told him.
"Do you mean to say she makes a speed like that?" Cooper ejaculated,
aghast.
"She'll make better than that. I didn't dare to give her full power,"
Ford replied. He climbed out and stood beside Cooper, and the two looked
at the car in awe.
"See here, I hope you don't think I'll drive that thing in the races,"
Cooper said after a time. "I wouldn't do it for a gold mine. You'll have
to do it."
"I should say not!" Ford retorted. "I won't take the responsibility of
driving her at full speed to win every race that was ever run. Cooper,
if that car ever gets really started it will kill somebody, sure."