Henry Ford’s Own Story |
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FORD sat in his little car, white, shaken, dusty the track champion of this country.
He was surrounded by a small crowd of auto mobile 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 ex ception 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 main tained 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 or ganization, 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 ar ranging 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 busi ness venture into the hands of an obstinate me chanic 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 draughts man, was another. With Tom Cooper, the bi cycle 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 firs-: racer. Coffee Jim, professing him self satisfied with the results of the race doubtless he had judiciously placed some bets on it had left Detroit in the meantime, but Ford nev ertheless counted the loan among his liabilities.
"Think you can beat that car?" Cooper in quired.
"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 some body, sure."
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