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.
Zig-zagging 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."