PAY BETTER WAGES, FORD'S 1923 ADVICE

Henry Ford
Washington Times-Herald
December 31, 1922

Advises Business to Drop Patronizing Air and Give More for Work.

RAPS "WELFARE" SYSTEM

Full Pay Envelopes Make National Prosperity, Says Manufacturer.

Get rid of the old attitude of "My good man, here's a shilling for you," and pay wages-the highest wages.  That is what makes prosperity.
This is Henry Ford's advice to American business men, contained in a New Year's message written especially for the International News Service.  The business outlook is favorable, says Ford.

By HENRY FORD.
(Copyright 1922, by International News Service.)

DETROIT, Mich., Dec. 30.—The New Year opens with a full slate.  Plenty of big jobs that were bungled in 1922 should be completed in 1923.  There is coal, for example.  With more coal in sight than ever before, actual suffering exists in the land.  Of course, when the people reach a certain degree of suffering, something happens-but only fools would wait till then.

UNFIT TO HIRE MEN.

Industry has continued unexpectedly all this winter and the outlook is favorable.  There are hindrances, of course.  Employers who are not fit to be employers, are one hindrance.  We have got to get rid of the old attitude of "my good man, here's a shilling for you" and pay wages-the highest wages.  That is what makes prosperity.

People can only buy with what they earn.  It is not the monied men who make business, but the wage earners.  We need more wages during the year and less of this "turkey at Christmas" system, less of this degrading "welfare" system that makes a lord of the boss and a pensioner of the workmen.

VLAUE OF MEN.

People don't want to hear this; they usually want statistical information.  Well, there will be a steady decrease in the value of figures until we begin to increase the value of men.

The prosperity of 1923 rests in the very things that most people ignore.  Young men of 1923 ought to study the money system of the country-not from books but from life.  The things that will be true ten years hence are not yet on the books.  Let young men quit depending on what they read and hear, let them dig into facts for themselves.  Put the money system on examination; put politics and business and every other vital thing under scrutiny, make 1923 a year of hard, persistent thinking, and not mere listening, and then it may be by 1924 that some solid ground will begin to appear beneath the nation's feet.