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"MEN, MOTORS, AND MARKETS
by Dean Russell


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by Dean Russell
The TVA Idea

Men, Motors, and Markets

Translator of Frederic Bastiat’s The Law

SPECIAL EDITION — Privately printed for the Atwood Vacuum Machine Company
Copyright 1959 by Dean Russell
All rights reserved
Printed in U. S. A.


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Contents

Chapters

10.
11.

. How to Disemploy a Slave
. They Raced Them Around the World
. If War Should Come
. From the Cradle to the Grave
. Meanwhile, Back on the Farm
. How to Stay Alive on the Roads
. The Last Billionaire

Dedication

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50 years of service as an
internal auto body
hardware supplier

e 5 plants totaling 10 acres under roof

1800 employees
e Door hinges, door latches, hood hinges, hood latches, trunk hinges,

trunk locks, seat adjusters, props, window regulators, parking
brake mechanisms and contract assemblies.


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Dedication

There are around 4,300,000 privately owned businesses in the
United States, and more than four million of them are classified
as “small businesses.” Every day, almost 1,000 new companies
join the parade — and about 500 drop out.

Among these typical small businesses that generate the pri-
mary strength of a free America are the companies that produce
parts for the large automobile manufacturers. There are many
thousands of them — if you include firms like the hunting and
trapping company in Alaska that supplies the tough walrus hides
that are used for friction drives in coil winding machines. More
than 80 per cent of the total automobile parts business, however,
is done by around 400 companies.

About 50 per cent of every General Motors car is composed of
parts made by independent suppliers. For Ford, the figure is 59
per cent — and for Chrysler, 65 per cent. The parts supplied by
these outside producers range from complete frames and radiators
to seat covers and light bulbs.

Currently, these independent producers sell about $3 billion
worth of original equipment each year to the automobile com-
panies — plus $2 billion worth of tires, batteries, and other re-
placement parts directly to the public. They employ more than
400,000 persons.

During the early history of the automobile industry, practically
every part of the car was produced by the independent manufac-
turers of parts. The automobile companies merely assembled the
parts into a complete car. And as often as not, it was the parts
manufacturers, instead of the automobile companies, who were
responsible for dramatic improvements to the car — curtains,
windshields and wipers, electric ignition, lighting, self-starters,
and so on. And still today, the automobile companies depend to
a large extent on the engineering genius of the parts makers for
new ideas on how to improve the manufacturing processes and
quality of parts for each successive model.

Among the pioneer producers of automobile parts was the At-
wood Vacuum Machine Company of Rockford, Illinois. It was
founded in 1909 by two brothers, J. T. and S. B. Atwood — and
Mr. Seth B. Atwood is still active as Chairman of the Board. This
Special Edition of “Men, Motors, and Markets” is issued in com-
memoration of the Fiftieth Anniversary of that event.


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Chapter 1 |
HOW TO DISEMPLOY A SLAVE

The year 1787 covered two events that were to have a profound
effect on the American people and the way we live. First, and
by far the most important, the founders of this nation met in
Philadelphia to draft a constitution for a new idea in govern-
ment. Second, the free state of Maryland granted to Oliver
Evans a patent on his drawings for a new idea in transportation
— “a Steam-Carriage . . . to move . . . without the aid of animal
force” on the roads of that state.

In September of 1787, the work of that Constitutional Con-
vention was finished and submitted to the people of the 13 in-
dependent states for their approval. Some 18 months later, the
new government came into formal existence. And on December
14, 1792, Evans petitioned it to grant him a national patent to
replace his several state patents for a “land carriage without
cattle.”

It took Oliver Evans another 13 years to actually construct
his self-propelled road vehicle. Like the Constitution, its birth-
place was also Philadelphia. On or near the tenth day of July,
1805, his steam vehicle, the Orukter Amphibolos, moved pon-
derously up Market Street under its own power to Center
Square. America’s first “automobile” was on the road — and
no newspaper bothered to record either the date or the event
itself! For several days thereafter, Evans entertained the good
people of the City of Brotherly Love by driving his vehicle
around the square. Then, since his machine was built to operate
on both land and water, he astounded them by driving it into
the Schuylkill River. (That same idea was used with great suc-
cess some 137 years later by our armed forces in World War
Two.) In 1813, Evans predicted that “The time will come when
the people will travel [in road carriages] . . . almost as fast as
~ birds can fly.”


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This book is dedicated primarily to the second of the above
early landmarks in American history — the birth and growth of
the automobile and its impact on the way we live. But the fun-
damental ideas contained in the first one — that is, a free
people operating under a representative form of government in
a competitive economy — will necessarily play a vital part in
the story.

While Oliver Evans built the first American road vehicle that
ran under its own power, he was by no means the “father” of
the automobile. A French artillery captain, Nicholas Cugnot,
was ahead of him by 36 years. In 1769, he used a steam engine
as the source of power for a self-propelled gun carriage. That
clumsy, three-wheeled, barely workable vehicle has an excellent
claim to first place in the direct ancestry of the magnificent au-
tomobile you drive today.

The first passenger automobile — invented by Richard Trevit-
hick — began operating on the roads of England in 1801. The
patented plans of Oliver Evans’ proposed steam-powered ve-
hicle were readily available in England during the 1790’s, and
it is generally presumed that Trevithick was familiar with them.
In turn, it is certain that the published details and drawings of
Trevithick’s successful road carriage had been studied by Evans
before he completed his own amphibious model in 1805. And
both of them, of course, were familiar with the stationary steam
engine that had been invented long before their time.

Actually, Hero of Alexandria may have started the whole
thing about 130 years before the birth of Christ when he in-
vented a sort of toy that was run by steam. But for the next
1800 years, that magnificent source of power lay largely dor-
mant. While several men in various countries experimented
with steam power in the 1600s, it wasn’t until 1705 that
Thomas Newcomen developed the first workable steam engine.
It was used to pump water from British coal mines. That en-
gine, however, was too primitive for general use. It remained for
James Watt, beginning in 1762 and continuing through 1782, to

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a”
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Photo Courtesy A.M.A.

ANCESTOR OF THE AUTOMOBILE
Reconstruction of Cugnot’s 1769
Artillery Carriage

Photo Courtesy Duncan, H. O.
“The World on Wheels"

Trevithick’s First Carriage
(From 1801 Patent Application)


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Sir Goldsworthy Gurney’s Passenger Bus
London to Bath, 1829

Photos Courtesy G-M


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perfect a practical and versatile steam engine that could be
used as the source of power for factories, ships, trains, and au-
tomobiles. That event ushered in the modern machine age. And
as we shall shortly see, the increasing growth of steam-powered
factories and transportation facilities was soon to have a most
dramatic impact on the way people lived and thought — includ-
ing their attitude toward the age-old institution of human
slavery. While the automobile itself played only a small and in-
direct part in the abolition of slavery, it is still a recordable fact
that it, too, helped to destroy that most ancient curse of mankind.

Well before 1800, Watt’s steam engine was being used exten-
sively by various English manufacturers — in flour mills, brew-
eries, textile factories, and so on. William Murdock, the inventor
of gas lighting, also used that source of power for a crude train
that ran on oak rails in British quarries and coal pits in 1784.
And in 1815, another Englishman, George Stephenson, con-
verted Murdock’s primitive seven-mile-an-hour locomotive into
the early Nineteenth Century model that was soon doing 70
miles an hour on metal rails. The steam (and sail) ship “Sa--
vannah” crossed the Atlantic from Georgia to Liverpool in
1819. In Springfield, Massachusetts, in 1825, Thomas Blanchard
produced the first practical steam road carriage in America. In
addition to easy steering, it contained the then-novel feature of
a workable reverse gear.

Throughout this period, those “steamers” were becoming in-
creasingly popular in England. Sir Goldsworthy Gurney built a
succession of them after 1820. The model he built in 1829 made
a sustained journey from London to Bath and return, a distance
of 200 miles at a speed of 15 miles per hour. During the early
1830’s, more than a hundred steam automobiles of various de-
signs were operating on the roads of England. Six of them were
large passenger buses, built by Walter Hancock. In a period of
three months, one of his buses traveled 4,200 miles and carried
12,761 passengers, without an accident or serious delay. By the
mid-1830’s, steam engines were the source of cheap power for

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an extensive industrial complex (manufacturing and transporta-
tion) in Western Europe and the United States. For better or
for worse, the modern age of mass-produced and low-cost in-
dustrial products was in full swing.

Karl Marx (and others) reached the conclusion that it was
unquestionably for the worse. And, admittedly, they produced
some telling evidence and persuasive ideas to support their con-
victions. But perhaps they were so busy slashing at the indi-
vidual trees that they had no idea at all of the vast forest with
which they were dealing. They condemned the age of mechani-
cal power because it brought women and children into the de-
plorable factories of that era — at meager wages and long hours
of killing labor. But the picture they drew was far from com-
plete because, among other things, they utterly ignored the part
that the mechanical revolution in transportation and production
was playing in the abolition of the most ancient curse of man-
kind — legalized human slavery.

We know that the institution of slavery is as old as the re-
corded history of man. For example, it appears in the laws of
Hammurabi. We know, further, that it continued to exist
throughout most of the world until well into the Nineteenth
Century. There is, however, no general agreement as to the
principal cause of its abolition.

It is certainly safe to say that government itself wasn’t re-
sponsible for abolishing human bondage. If a government wants
to stay in business, its actions must generally reflect the atti-
tudes and desires of the people under its authority. So the ac-
tual laws that were written against slavery were primarily
acknowledgements of an existing situation that had developed
from other causes.

Nor was education, as such, responsible for ending slavery;
the educated classes throughout the ages had generally toler-
ated, justified, and supported the institution. If they hadn’t, it
couldn’t possibly have continued to exist. And to say that the
people in general were responsible for abolishing human bond-

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age, still leaves unanswered their reasons for doing so. Was the
answer Christianity? To some considerable extent, yes. But if
that were the primary answer, one would still be faced with the
awkward task of explaining why we Christians required some
1900 years to complete the job. The Columbia Encyclopedia
(and other standard references) acknowledges the great part
played by Christianity, and then goes on to the part played by
machinery and the capitalist economy:
“The introduction of Christianity is generally thought to
~ have had little effect [on slavery during the first few hundred
years of the Christian Era], though it did mitigate condi-
tions by inculcating principles of humanity, and it did give
hope and courage to the long-oppressed classes. . . . In
Western Europe, outright slavery had largely disappeared
by the later Middle Ages, though it still remained in such
manifestations as the use of slaves on galleys. . . . The Brit-
ish, the Dutch, the French, the Spanish, and the Portugese
all engaged in the [African] slave traffic [beginning in the
Sixteenth Century and continuing well into the Nine-
teenth). . . . The British, in abolishing slavery, were pri-
marily motivated by economic, not humanitarian, interests.
While the institution produced great wealth under the mer-
cantilist system, it became unprofitable with the rise of

industrial capitalism.”
That industrial capitalism included steam ships, steam trains,

and steam automobiles — as well as steam-driven machines in
~ factories.

H. G. Wells, in his “The Outline of History,” discusses the
same idea:

“A vast proportion of mankind in the early civilizations
was employed in purely mechanical drudgery. At its onset,
power-driven machinery did not seem to promise any re-
lease from such unintelligent toil. . . . [But as the mechani-
cal revolution] went on, the plain logic of the new situation
asserted itself more clearly. Human beings were no longer

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wanted as a source of mere indiscriminated power. What
could be done mechanically by a human being could be
done faster and better by a machine.”

Whatever else slaves might be used for, it is dead certain that
they could never be trusted with the responsibility of operating
the power-driven ships, trains, automobiles, and factory ma-
chines that were becoming increasingly common in the western
world of the late Eighteenth and early Nineteenth Centuries.
Thus the ever-present moral arguments against slavery were
soon buttressed by the overriding economic arguments against it.

Beginning in 1833, Parliament rapidly outlawed the practice
of slavery throughout the vast British Empire. (In the home
islands themselves, a 1772 court decision had already decreed
that the 15,000 or so imported slaves in Britain at that time
were automatically free men because “as soon as a slave set his
foot on the soil of the British islands he became free.””) Slavery
in the French Empire was abolished in 1848. Russia liberated
her slaves in 1861. Slavery in the Dutch Empire was outlawed
in 1863. Brazil continued the practice until 1888. Even today,
slavery continues to exist in various nations and areas where
the primary source of transportation and power has long been
the muscles of men and animals. *

Of course, it could have been merely a remarkable coinci-
dence that slavery diminished as mechanical sources of power
and transportation increased, but that hardly seems likely. Sup-
pose, for example, that the automobile industry could produce
170 million cars in a slave society; what in the world would it
do with them! But what about slavery in the United States?
Since this nation had as many or more machines than the
others, why wasn’t slavery voluntarily abolished here? The his-
tory of human bondage in the United States also lends support
(with a reverse twist) to the theory that machines, rather than
morality or education, may have been of primary importance
in determining the issue of slavery. Roger Burlingame, in his
“Backgrounds of Power,” explains that reverse twist while dis-

*Information on present-day slavery may be secured from the “United Nations Com-
mittee on Slavery.”

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cussing Eli Whitney’s 1793 invention of the gin for cleaning
cotton:

“The gin led directly to a social, economic, and political
crisis. By increasing a hundredfold the productivity per
worker in separating short-staple cotton from its tenacious
seeds, it produced an unbalance between cleaning and
picking, planting and cultivation. The faster the cotton
was cleaned, the more labor was required in the field. Thus
slavery, moribund in 1790, became a dominant insti-
tution. . ..”

The idea of human slavery was completely foreign to the
precepts on which this nation was founded. And when the Con-
stitution of the United States was drafted, the founders wrote
into it the first necessary steps toward its abolition. Thus it is
probable that this country would have led all others in abolish-
ing human slavery, if Whitney had invented a cotton picker
along with his cotton cleaner.

Before the cotton gin, not much cotton was grown in the
South because it was too expensive to clean by hand — even
when the hands belonged to a slave. But Whitney’s first crude
machine enabled a man to clean 50 pounds of cotton a day,
and rapid improvements to the machine soon doubled that
amount. The resulting demand for cotton caused its cultivation
to become highly profitable. But picking cotton was such a
backbreaking and monotonous task that it was the last job a
free man would take. Since there was no machine to relieve the
drudgery of the job — and since no education or skill was re-
quired — it automatically fell to slaves.

Before Whitney’s invention, slavery was rapidly becoming
both unprofitable and immoral — in Alabama as well as in
Massachusetts. But with the gin, slave labor became highly
profitable in the hot areas of the country where cotton could
be grown. In due course, most educators, legislators, and
churchmen in the South were soon defending or tolerating the
“peculiar institution” — or were remaining discreetly silent

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about it.

A modern cotton picking machine would have been of vast
help in abolishing slavery by again making it uneconomic, and
thus permitting the long-suppressed moral ideas against it to
take effect. But, most unfortunately, such a machine was not
invented for more than a hundred years after the gin. Thus the
issue of slavery in the United States was settled by a fratricidal
war. The side with the best factories and transportation won,
and the slaves were set free. That was as it should have been.
But it is to be hoped that a few of the victors stopped to ponder
the probability that it was more a matter of climate and eco-
nomics, rather than morality and government, that determined
which side was which. |

As we have noted, the labor-saving machines that helped to
disemploy the slaves of the Nineteenth Century were generally
based on the steam engine of Newcomen and Watt. In that
early period of steam-powered vehicles, England was unques-
tionably the leader. It held that leadership for many years in
the development of locomotives, ships, and stationary steam
engines for factory uses. But England lost out in the develop-
ment of road vehicles because of restrictive legislation. Begin-
ning in 1835, legal restrictions against automobiles on English
roads became increasingly severe. It was claimed that those
heavy steam cars were scaring horses and ruining the road sur-
faces. Finally, in 1865, Parliament decreed that no self-propelled
~ vehicle could operate on English roads unless it was preceded
by a man on foot carrying a red flag. The law wasn’t repealed
until 1896.

But in spite of those restrictions, various inventors continued
their efforts to find a better source of power than steam for
their automobiles. For example, Robert Anderson, a Scotsman,
used a primitive electric motor as the source of power for a
road carriage in Aberdeen in 1839. Toward the end of the cen-
tury, vehicles that drew their power from electric batteries were
to become exceedingly popular in both Europe and the United

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States. They served as the first taxicabs before 1890.

If just one person had to be selected as the “father” of the
gasoline automobile, that person would unquestionably be
Jean Joseph Etienne Lenoir of Luxembourg. In 1860, while
living in Paris, he secured a patent on the world’s first useable
internal combustion engine. Like its impractical predecessors,
it was a two-stroke mechanism that employed an electric spark
to ignite a mixture of illuminating gas and air. The main dif-
ference was that Lenoir’s engine worked. In fact, it was so suc-
cessful that he attempted to install it in a road carriage. But he
soon decided that liquid petroleum would be a better fuel for
an automobile than was illuminating gas. So he built another
engine for that purpose. At an unspecified date in 1863, he in-
stalled his new engine in the carriage he had already built, and
drove it from his Paris carriage factory to Joinville-le-Point and
back. He covered the 15 miles in three hours, including stops.
For several years thereafter, he continued to drive his automo-
bile around Paris. But he seemed to regard it merely as a per-
sonal hobby while he devoted his full efforts to producing his
highly successful stationary engines.

Three young Germans — Nikolaus Otto, Gottlieb Daimler,
and Karl Benz — were greatly influenced by the work of Le-
noir, whom they knew personally. Beginning in 1860, they were
all soon working on new engines. In 1877, Otto secured a patent
‘on his four-cycle engine, and is thus generally credited with an
invention that Siegfried Marcus of Vienna had made four or
five years earlier — and that a Frenchman, Beau de Rochas,
had worked out in theory in 1862. During the year 1885, both
Daimler and Benz installed engines of their own designs in
crude road vehicles and ran them successfully. Those two names
soon became famous in the expanding automobile industries of
Germany and France in the early 1890's.

In the United States, George Brayton applied for a patent on
a gasoline engine in 1872. While his engine was used experi-
mentally to power a trolley car, it was never successful in a

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road vehicle. That was the engine, however, that inspired
George Selden to apply for the first American patent on a road
vehicle to be powered by an internal combustion engine using
gasoline. While the application was filed in 1879, it wasn’t
finally issued until 1895. Selden himself contributed absolutely
nothing to the development of the automobile.

The Duryea brothers (Frank and Charles), have generally re-
ceived credit for inventing and building the first gasoline auto-
mobile in America. It was publicly road-tested on September
20, 1893. But as frequently happens in this area of “firsts,” there
is considerable evidence to indicate that several others may
have been ahead of them with “experimental models.” It’s not
important — for the fact remains that the Duryea car was the
first practical or successful American gasoline automobile. The
magazine, Horseless Age, later estimated that during the early
1890’s, perhaps as many as three hundred other American tink-
erers and mechanics had been experimenting with their own
particular ideas as to how to build a “horseless carriage”!

In 1900, the first automobile show was held in Madison
Square Garden, New York City. Thirty-one different cars were
exhibited, of which not one is being manufactured today. That
same year, the first automobile advertisement appeared in The
Saturday Evening Post. The automobile age had arrived.

The above chronology of the early development of the auto-
mobile is, of course, absurdly sketchy. It completely ignores the
story of how both air and water were used to cool the engine.
It doesn’t even mention the fact that a hard-rubber tire was
first used in 1845 — nor the fact that without the modern air-
filled tire invented in 1889 by the Scotsman, John B. Dunlop,
there couldn’t possibly have been an automobile industry as we
now know it. No credit is here given to the many thousands of
inventors who made improvements upon the work of their prede-
cessors. The story of improved steering mechanisms and differ-
ential devices to permit vehicles to turn corners is skipped en-
tirely. And so on and so on.

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LE MUSEE DE —

aha A | farms A _ a
nena REELS reg _ OT AR

frie

Photo Courtesy L'Automobile, Paris

FIRST GASOLINE AUTOMOBILE
Reconstruction of Lenoir’s 1863 car

THE ELECTRIC “"HANSOM” WAS POPULAR IN THE 1890's

Photo Courtesy A M.A.
15


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16

Duryea Brothers’ 1893 “Horseless Carriage”

BP

FA

~ Photos Courtesy AMA.
The Stanley Twins in Their First “Steamer,” 1896


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There are two reasons for here offering such a brief history
of the ancestry of your modern automobile. First, we would
have to know who invented the wheel before we could allocate
credit to the inventors of the automobile. Actually, the auto-
mobile was invented by many thousands of persons. It is still
being invented today by any person who thinks of a way to
improve it. (One out of every six current patent applications is
still “automotive.”) In the year 2000, our grandchildren will
doubtless wonder how we ever managed to get around in those
old contraptions of the 1950’s. So the above chronology at-
tempts merely to hit the high spots. And even then, there is ho
sure way of knowing that the right persons were picked for
that. For example, the first vehicle that looked even remotely
like an automobile as we know it today was constructed in
1892 by the Frenchman, Emile Levassor, who merely combined
the various inventions of others into an integrated whole.

The second reason for such short treatment of the ancestors
of the automobile is that this study is not offered as a history.
The primary objective of this book is to ask why certain things
happened in this area, and to speculate as to what those events
have meant to mankind in general. For example, we have al-
ready briefly examined the part played by mechanical power
and transportation in the abolition of human slavery. Another
(and far less important) event in the story of the automobile
was the battle for supremacy among steam, electricity, and
gasoline as the source of power. Why was gasoline the winner?
What effect, if any, did that decision have on our economy and
life in general?

Each of those three sources of power had its advantages and
disadvantages. Steam gave smooth acceleration, and the driver
didn’t have to worry about shifting gears or stalling on a hill.
Perhaps its greatest advantage lay in the fact that it was the
logical and best known source of power during the early stages
of the development of the automobile. But even the best of the
steam vehicles still had to be “fired up” before they would run,

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and the drivers of the early models needed considerable engi-
neering skill. For a long trip, there was no convenient way to
carry the heavy load of necessary fuel. Even so, for many years
after 1896 and the appearance of the Stanley Steamer (and the
White Steamer and others), thousands of inventors, investors,
and customers continued to bet their time and money on the
future of the steam-powered automobile. Those “steamers”
were still manufactured and entered in the annual Automobile
Show as late as 1923. Even today, when they appear in the
various shows and parades of old automobiles, they attract far
more attention than do the old electrics.

But electric power was quiet, clean, and safe. And the me-
chanical requirements for that source of power were the
simplest of the three. Unfortunately, the fuel load (battery) was
extremely heavy, the radius of operation was short, and the
necessity of recharging the battery was even more annoying
than getting up steam in a boiler-powered car. Even so, the fact
that women could easily start and safely drive the electric cars
delayed for several years the final decision for gasoline as the
best source of power.

Unfortunately for the backers of gasoline power, their early
engines were noisy and complicated to operate. Also, they
seemed always to be breaking down. In both fact and song, the
driver frequently had to “get out and get under.” But gasoline
meant a quick-starting vehicle with great power in comparison
to its weight. The early gasoline cars were far more adaptable
to the horrible road conditions of that time. It was compara-
tively easy to carry sufficient fuel for a reasonably long trip.
Better still, gasoline was widely available even at that early
stage. And the discovery of vast reserves of oil in Texas in 1901
insured a plentiful and cheap supply of that handy fuel. But
probably most important of all, the purchase price of the
gasoline-powered cars was generally lower than that for steam
or electricity.

Whatever their reasons, at the turn of the century the people

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began buying more gasoline cars than steam or electric ones. In
a free economy, that fact always determines the winner. Thus
the automobile is almost solely responsible for bringing into
existence the oil industry as we know it today — and for send-
ing our geologists, engineers, and businessmen scurrying all
over the world in a continuing campaign to find and develop
even more sources of that vital fuel.

This brings us to the beginning of the Twentieth Century and
what has been aptly called “the age of the automobile.” By
then, human slavery had long since disappeared from the
United States. But human drudgery was still with us. As we
shall see, the automotive industry was destined to play a large
part in reducing that drudgery while increasing the earning
capacity of the people in general — and thus contributing ma-
terially to a higher level of living for all.

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20


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Chapter 2

THEY RACED THEM
AROUND THE WORLD

In 1908, a “race around the world” for stock cars was sponsored
by The New York Times. The race was from New York City to
Paris — by way of Alaska and Siberia — and was open to all
comers. There were scores of applicants from several countries,
including four Americans. But when the race finally started
from Times Square on February 12, there were five foreign
entries and only one American — a Thomas “Flyer” driven by
Montague Roberts, and with George Schuster riding as me-
chanic. Some 200,000 New Yorkers cheered the contestants on
their way. Newspaper coverage and popular interest remained
high throughout the race. :

Only two of the six cars made it across the United States —
the American entry and a German “Protos” — with the Flyer
‘ahead by about a month. In San Francisco, the mechanic
Schuster became the driver, and the car was shipped to Alaska
for the second leg of the around-the-world race. At that point,
however, the judges decided not to go through Alaska as
planned but to ship the two cars direct to the Siberian seaport
of Vladivostok and to continue from there. Because the Ameri-
can entry was so far ahead when the change was made, Schus-
ter was awarded a 30-day “credit” over his rival when they re-
sumed the race toward Paris from Vladivostok — by way of
Manchuria, Russia, and Germany.

Schuster rolled into Paris four days behind his German rival.
But because of the 30-day credit the Flyer had piled up in the
United States and Alaska, the American entry was declared the
winner by 26 days. Schuster arrived in Paris 170 days after
leaving New York. One admirer of the fantasies of Jules Verne
added 10 days for shipping the Flyer across the Atlantic and
reported the story under the title, “Around the World in 180

21


===== PAGE 26 =====

Days.” Schuster was actually on the road (or, at any rate, driv-
ing on land) for 88 days and a total distance of 13,431 miles.
That victory (and the resulting publicity) rescued the Thomas
Motor Car Company from a shaky financial position and turned
it into a highly profitable enterprise.

Before 1908 and that “around the world” feat, American cars
were generally considered inferior to the European makes — by
American purchasers as well as others. But after winning that
test for ruggedness (plus another award the same year for ex-
cellence of manufacture), American cars soon became popular
all over the world. That second award, for “standardization and
interchangeability of parts,” was made to Cadillac by the Royal
Automobile Club of London. Three Cadillacs had been selected
at random from stock in the United States and shipped to the
officials of the Club in England. Under their supervision, the
cars were completely disassembled and the parts were piled in-
discriminately together. Cadillac mechanics then assembled
three cars from the thoroughly mixed parts. The cars were put
through various road tests, with all three Cadillacs making per-
fect scores. That “Sir Thomas Dewar trophy” was won again
by Cadillac in 1913 for its electrical starting, lighting, and igni-
tion — the only automobile ever to win the trophy twice.

The Cadillac is still with us. But the Flyer is now merely an-
other of the more than 2700 brand names that have long since
ceased to exist. For advertising purposes, however, today’s
automobiles are still climbing mountains and crossing deserts
all over the world. Apparently, speed and performance records
still have a powerful appeal for potential purchasers. That tried
and true type of advertising probably started way back in 1865
with Sylvester Hayward Roper and his “improved steam car-
riage.” To show the excellence of his road carriages, he pitted
one of them against a racing horse and a running man in a
mile race at Poughkeepsie, New York. The man covered the
mile in 5 minutes and 20 seconds. The horse did it in 2 minutes
and 37 seconds. But the steam carriage won the contest with a

22


===== PAGE 27 =====

Alexander Winton
and His Dos-A-Dos

Photos Courtesy A.M.A.

Indianapolis Speedway, 1909 23


===== PAGE 28 =====

24

lh

\
|

Mrs. Joan Newton Cuneo

Photos Courtesy A. M.A.


===== PAGE 29 =====

time of 2 minutes and 20 seconds. |

The first real automobile race in the United States was spon-
sored by the Chicago Times-Herald on Thanksgiving Day,
1895 — from Chicago to Evanston and return. The total prize
money at stake was $5,000. Six cars started the 52 mile race. A
“Duryea” gasoline car, driven by Frank Duryea himself, was
the winner. He averaged a little less than seven miles per hour
over fearfully bad roads in snow and mud. But even then, he
still defeated an imported Benz that had been a prize winner
in the Paris-Bordeaux race earlier in the year. The $2,000 first
prize money was of great help to the newly established Duryea
Motor Wagon Company in Springfield, Massachusetts. In 1896,
that company produced 13 gasoline motorcars.

In 1897, Alexander Winton raced one mile in one minute
and 48 seconds in a car of his own design. Later in the year, he
drove the car 800 miles from Cleveland to New York in 10
days. Those two feats made the Winton a strong rival of the
Duryea. When a 10 mile race sponsored by the Chicago Inter-
Ocean in September of 1900 was won by Winton in 16 minutes
and two seconds, his cars became the most popular in the nation.

By the end of 1900, there were something like 100 manufac-
turers of automobiles in the United States. Among those manu-
facturers were Ford, Olds, Winton, the Duryea brothers, F. E.
and F. O. Stanley, James Packard, the General Electric Com-
pany, and those six Mack brothers who built their first experi-
mental “bus-truck” in Brooklyn, New York in 1900. Total
production for the year was 4,192 vehicles — steam, electric,
and gasoline. |

In 1901, young Roy Chapin drove a one-cylinder Oldsmobile
from Detroit, across Canada, down the towpaths of the Erie
Canal, and on to the Automobile Show in New York City. That
seven-and-one-half-day trip caught the public fancy — and
Oldsmobile sales shot up from 425 in 1901 to 2,500 in 1902.
The following year, an Olds racing car at Daytona Beach cov-
ered five miles in six and one-half minutes — and sales

25


===== PAGE 30 =====

continued upward. That was also the year that three cars were
driven across the continent from San Francisco to New York
— a Winton, a Packard, and an Oldsmobile. (The Winton,
driven by Dr. H. N. Jackson, did it first, May 23 to July 26.)
In 1904, the Olds Motor Works sold 5,000 of its “curved-dash
runabouts” at $650 each “with mudguards.” That was more
than 20 per cent of all the automobiles produced in the United
States during the year. The next year, Gus Edwards wrote “In
My Merry Oldsmobile,” and total production of both the
curved-dash and straight-dash models was 11,500 cars. Unques-
tionably, the Oldsmobile was the first mass-produced and low-
priced automobile in the world. Even so, the manufacturers of
the more than one million horse drawn vehicles in 1905 con-
tinued to expand their facilities.

The girl and the automobile were early the subject of popular
songs and plays. The song “Love In An Automobile” appeared
in 1899. It was soon followed by “The Automobile Honey-
moon.” Other song writers tried their luck with titles like “Take
Me Out In A Velie Car” and “Give Me A Spin In Your Mit-
chell, Bill.” The stage first saw the automobile in 1904 in “The
Great Automobile Mystery.” In his report on the play, one
critic punned, “The tragedy scenes are breathed hard a la
Panhard.”

In 1903, the Neustadt-Perry Company of Saint Louis decided
to capitalize on the fact that many Americans still wanted to
build their own automobiles “Just like the Duryea Brothers.”
At a greatly reduced price, that company would ship all the
necessary parts for its complete car — plus easy-to-follow in-
structions for putting it together. (Since today’s automobile has
some 15,000 parts, a diagram for assembling one might now be
a bit more difficult to follow.)

Meanwhile, the future “master of mass production,” Henry
Ford, had devised a scheme to bring himself and his automobile
to the attention of the American people. The scheme was sim-
plicity itself: He built a racer and challenged the informal

26


===== PAGE 31 =====

champion, Alexander Winton, to a 10 mile race. Winton ac-
cepted and, on October 10, 1901, the race was held on a track
near Detroit. Henry Ford was the winner. His time of 13 min-
utes and 24 seconds brought him national acclaim. For several
years thereafter, Ford kept himself and his cars in the limelight
by building two more racers — the “999” and the “Arrow” —
and hiring Barney Oldfield to drive them. That winning com-
bination soon became world famous, and Henry Ford was on
his way. *

From Ben Hur to the current winner of the Indianapolis In-
ternational Sweepstakes, mankind has always enjoyed a race.
In the days of Imperial Rome, the winners of the big chariot
races became rich and famous. (While there is no specific in-
formation on the subject, it is logical to assume that the manu-
facturers of the winning chariots did all right too.) And so it
was in the early days of the automobile industry. For example,
Barney Oldfield’s favorite story was about how he and Henry
Ford had made each other — with Barney claiming that he did
much the better job! And still today, our response to the idea
of a race is so natural that even when an expectant mother fails
to get to the hospital on time, the newspapers almost always
use the phrase “loses race with stork.”

One of the most famous sporting events of all time was the
annual race for the Vanderbilt Cup. The first race covered a 30
mile course on the roads of Long Island in 1904. It was won by
a French Panhard that had a top speed of 90 miles an hour.
The last Vanderbilt Race, in 1916 at Santa Monica, California,
was also won by a French import. In between, the sponsor twice
attempted to cancel the race because of the appallingly high
rates of death and injury to both drivers and spectators. But
popular demand wouldn’t permit it. The 1906 race attracted
300,000 spectators — the largest crowd ever to attend a sport-
ing event in America.

*For the most part, Ford Motor Company, Fisher Body, General Motors, and Chrysler

are not mentioned in this summary chapter of the automobile industry from 1900 to
1929 because each is discussed in a separate chapter.

27


===== PAGE 32 =====

When William K. Vanderbilt, Jr., first announced his spon-
sorship of the race, his hope was that the gruelling race track
tests would lead to safety and mechanical improvements to the
automobile in general. In addition, as a car fancier and racing
driver himself, he wished to bring recognition to American cars
and drivers. Both aims were accomplished, but the huge crowds
seemed far more interested in the sheer excitement of the race
than in “improving the breed.” In some respects, the event was
not entirely dissimilar from those chariot races in the Circus
Maximus of old Rome.

It is obvious, of course, that speed was the objective of those
races. But increased speed throughout the early history of the
automobile industry brought improved engines, tires, and fuel
— and more safety devices to protect the driver. Those me-
chanical and safety features soon appeared, in turn, on the
stock commercial models. Several automobile manufacturers
considered racing so important to the success of their companies
that they kept a team of racing drivers permanently on their
payrolls. *

But perhaps the Glidden Tours of 1905-1913 were far more
successful in “improving the breed” of cars for everyday use
than were all those races combined. Those tours were especially
successful in calling attention to the frightful road conditions of
the United States in the early 1900’s. Charles J. Glidden was a
wealthy “telephone” man who, after retiring from active busi-
ness in 1900, became an ardent motor tourist and voluntary
press-agent for the automobile. In 1904, he participated in a
publicity feat that was designed to feature the thrills and pleas-
ures of both the automobile and the Louisiana Purchase

*The Elgin Road Race (1900-1933) provides a side light on the influence of famous
racers. In the early 1900’s, no red-blooded American male would even consider wear-
ing an “effeminate” wrist watch. But then the Elgin Watch Company began its
sponsorship of that famous road race — and showed pictures of Barney Oldfield, Louis
Chevrolet, Bob Burman, Eddie Rickenbacker, Ralph De Palma, Wilbur Shaw, and
other racing champions wearing wrist watches! That same tried and true advertising
idea is still being widely used today in various fields of merchandising. It still works
wonderfully well.

28


===== PAGE 33 =====

Pierce-Arrow, 1910

Photo Courtesy AM.A.

Photo Courtesy A.M.A.

“It Will Never Replace Us Horses” 29


===== PAGE 34 =====

Mrs. John Ramsey and her three companions drove this 1909 Max-

well-Briscoe 4,200 miles from New York to San Francisco, June 9
— August 6, 1909.

Jul aad of

Photos Courtesy A.M.A.

30


===== PAGE 35 =====

Centennial (or Saint Louis Fair). Seventy automobiles in two
groups started to the Fair from Boston and New York. Sixteen
days later, 50 survivors got there to participate in Automobile
Day. |

Mr. Glidden later equipped his English Napier automobile
with a second set of wheels that could be used on railroad
tracks. Accompanied by his wife, he continued on to San Fran-
cisco by “rail” on the second leg of a leisurely journey that was
to take them by boat, road, and “auto rail” into 39 countries all

around the world. But meanwhile, he had offered an expensive

trophy to the winner of an annual tour based on that successful
New York to Saint Louis trip.

The first one was held in July of 1905, over a winding route
from New York City to Bretton Woods, New Hampshire and
return — a total distance of 870 miles. Those Glidden Tours
were not races but “controlled performance tests” run under the
direction of the American Automobile Association. The winner
was determined by total performance — driving skill and me-
chanical ability of the operator, performance of the automobile,
and other criteria that varied from time to time. Percy Pierce,
driving his Pierce Great Arrow, was the winner of the first
Glidden Tour. The next three tours were also won by his
Pierce-Arrows. An Alco was the winner of the fifth.

There was one woman driver among the 34 entries in that
first Glidden Tour of 1905 — Mrs. Joan Newton Cuneo, driving
a White Steamer. She was wearing the traditional feminine at-
tire of long skirt, ample petticoats and a monstrous hat. Per-

“haps that was the reason why, on the first day out, she ran into
another car and slipped over the edge of a small bridge into the
stream below. While she wasn’t injured, her car didn’t fare so
well. The newspapers, of course, featured both her courageous
entry and her inglorious exit; it was good copy. Men readers
enjoyed the story immensely; they saw the humor in it. Women
readers also enjoyed the story; perhaps they detected in it a
vision of the better life that the automobile was to bring

31


===== PAGE 36 =====

to them.

Those Glidden Tours were designed strictly for amateurs.
Each year, the Tour was held in a different part of the country
and over various types of terrain. The primary purpose of the
Tour was to publicize driving for pleasure instead of records,
reliability instead of speed, practical family and business needs
instead of the unusual and bizarre. In those Glidden Tours, it
was usually the customers — not the manufacturers — who
were using their own money to advertise the excellence of the
product! Even so, those comparatively tame and leisurely tours
soon declined in popularity, and disappeared — while the in-
creasingly exciting speed races continued to attract vast crowds.

The best known of them all, and the one that still packs them
in every year, is the 500 mile Memorial Day Sweepstakes at the
Indianapolis Speedway. The first 500 mile race on that enclosed,
two-and-one-half-mile-long, circular track in 1911 was won by
Ray Harroun, driving a Marmon “Wasp” at an average speed
of 74.6 miles per hour. To help him watch his competitors from
all angles, Harroun installed the first rear view mirror that ap-
peared on any American automobile. (It had been used on
French cars about five years earlier.) During the race, one driver
was killed and several more were injured. The 77,000 viewers
of that first marathon increased to 100,000 the next year, and
then steadily upward to the current 200,000 or so. There have
been 48 deaths and several hundred serious injuries since the
track opened in 1909. |

During the 1958 race, there was a spectacular pile-up of 13
cars — and one driver was burned to death as the crowd
screamed in horrified fascination. The winner of the race was
Jimmy Bryan. His average speed was 133.79 miles per hour. He
was driving a Belond Special — the same car in which Sam
Hanks had set the all-time Indianapolis speed record of 135.6
miles per hour in winning the previous year’s race.

Since the Indianapolis “500” is supposed to be the equivalent
of 50,000 miles of ordinary driving, the owners and supporters

32


===== PAGE 37 =====

of the track claim that the race still serves the purpose of testing
and improving the automobile. They point to the fact that, over
the years and still today, automobile tires have been improved
steadily because new processes and methods had to be devel-
oped to permit them to bear up under the high speeds and
stresses demanded by the race. And among the several me-
chanical advances that have been tested on the Speedway are
high-compression engines, fuel injection, safety glass windows,
Ethyl gasoline, and the French invention for independent wheel
suspension.

In the early 1900’s, those races, tours, and endurance con-
tests unquestionably served a useful purpose. It was important
to produce cars that would stand up under rough treatment,
that could go 40 miles an hour, that were more comfortable and
safer. Speed races and other contests served as the universal
testing grounds for those purposes. But today, automobile
manufacturers have their own specially constructed testing
grounds where they can and do discover the complete perform-
ance characteristics of their products.

During the past 40 years, the various contests for more speed
have become totally unrelated to the automobile as we know it
or ever will know it. For example, the current speed record is
403 miles per hour — set by Captain George Eystron in 1947.

But because races played an important part in the develop-
ment of the automobile, the highlights of various of those con-
tests are here included in this summary of the early days of the
automobile industry. For example, in 1906 a Buick won the
1,000 mile free-for-all at the Empire City track. But of far more
importance, the vital need for trucks was dramatically called to
the attention of Walter C. White of the White Motor Company
when he was trying to ship supplies from Los Angeles to the
victims of the San Francisco earthquake. (At the time, he or-
dered all White dealers in California to put every available
vehicle at the disposal of the stricken city, and he personally
led a loaded caravan of those passenger cars from Los Angeles

33


===== PAGE 38 =====

to San Francisco.) Within a year, both White and International
Harvester were producing trucks. |

It was during this early period of the automobile that Carrie
Nation discovered she could get even more newspaper coverage
for her saloon-smashing crusade if she drove her car to the
saloon she had selected to wreck. And two leading suffragettes,
Alice Burke and Nell Richardson, attracted attention both to
themselves and their cause by crusading by automobile. In re-
porting the 1906 Automobile Show, the New York American
headlined its story: AUTO STYLES ARE CHANGING TO
MEET DEMANDS OF WOMEN — THE HAND THAT
ROCKS THE CRADLE HAS A LOT TO DO WITH THE
SELECTION OF THE FAMILY CAR. And in 1907, Dr. Han-
nah Graham, a woman physician in Indianapolis, joined the
increasing number of doctors who were making their house
calls in an automobile instead of a horse and buggy.

An American finally won a Vanderbilt Cup — George H.
Robertson, driving a Locomobile, in 1908. That race was run
on the first real concrete road built in America — 11 miles long,
24 feet wide, banked curves, privately owned by the Long
Island Motor Parkway Company, and open to the public on a
toll basis. During the year, 61 new makes of automobiles were
offered to an increasingly interested public. And various types
of self-starters began to be featured by almost all car manufac-
turers. In 1909, more than 124,000 passenger cars were pro-
duced, plus 3,300 trucks and buses. And in 1910, the American
La France Fire Engine Company offered its first motorized
vehicles.

By 1911, women drivers had become so numerous that they
caused little comment — other than the traditional, ever-present,
and scathing masculine remarks about “women drivers,” of
course. But the hand-cranking of those balky monsters (espe-
cially in cold weather) seemed to remain forever beyond their
powers. Then Charles F. Kettering applied his genius for elec-
tricity to the self-starter that had been invented as early as 1895.

34


===== PAGE 39 =====

Photos Courtesy A.M.A.

An Early Pick-Up
35


===== PAGE 40 =====

36

WORLD WAR ONE

® Cat

Photos Courtesy White Motor Co.


===== PAGE 41 =====

Of the two men who deserve the most credit for turning the
self-starter from an unpredictable gadget into a dependable
servant, certainly Mr. Kettering should be placed first. The
other man is Vincent Bendix for his invention of the “Bendix
drive” coupling for electrical self-starters. Perhaps that practical
self-starter in 1911, rather than a constitutional amendment
in 1920, deserves a lion’s share of the credit for “emancipat-
ing” women. Since it was soon followed by improved roads.
and the mass production of under-five-hundred-dollar auto-
mobiles, women were almost as free to travel as were men.
(Today, 46 per cent of all women over 15 years of age have
drivers licenses.)

Also in 1911, those famous double-decker buses first ap-
peared on Fifth Avenue. And later on that year, the U. S. Court
of Appeals decreed that Henry Ford and others had not in-
fringed upon George B. Selden’s patent for a gasoline auto-
mobile. Freed from that threat of patent monopoly, the industry
produced 200,000 passenger cars and 11,000 trucks and buses
during the year. And the real commercial possibilities of the
truck were vividly dramatized the following year when a Pack-
ard truck carried a three-ton pay load from New York to San
Francisco in 46 days.

In 1914, more than 400 different automobile manufacturers
were in business. They produced more than a half-million pas-
senger cars.

Along about this time, Model T Ford jokes began sweeping
the country. Henry Ford’s personal favorite concerned a man’s
death-bed request that his Model T be buried with him because
he had never yet been in a hole it couldn’t get him out of.
Throughout this period, those hundreds of automobile manu-
facturers were also searching frantically for some slogan that
might catch the public eye. Among the many thousands of
efforts were, “He who looks before he leaps, buys a Blair and
buys for keeps” and “Buy a Bates and keep your dates.”

When the nation went to war in 1917, all car and truck

37


===== PAGE 42 =====

manufacturers automatically offered their full services and fa-
cilities to the government. The industry quickly began turning
out vast quantities of shells, depth bombs, airplane bombs, tor-
pedo directors, airplane bodies and parts, tractors, tanks, and
guns. In November of 1918, the automobile industry was pro-
ducing 1,000 Liberty airplane engines a week — and Ford had
the Eagle submarine chaser in quantity production. By the end
of the war, 92,000 trucks had been shipped to Europe — plus
many more thousands of cars for ambulance and staff work.
Lord Curzon of the British War Cabinet said that the war could
not have been won without the motor vehicles and other ma-
terials produced by the automobile industry. Actually, the full
potential of the lusty young automobile giant for war produc-
tion was just beginning to be realized when the conflict ended.

This subject of the automobile industry and armament pro-
duction is discussed more fully in the next chapter. It is suffi-
cient here merely to record the additional fact that the part
played by the internal combustion engine (on wheels and in the
air) during World War One gave birth to an entirely new con-
cept of war tactics. While it was not realized at the time, the
idea of mechanized “blitzkrieg” was born in 1914 when about
4,000 French reserve troops were packed into 700 taxicabs and
rushed from Paris to the Marne to attack the flank of the ad-
vancing German cavalry and foot soldiers.

(Apparently, that unexpected feat so astounded the Germans
that the Von Schlieffen Plan to end the war in a hurry was
thrown off schedule long enough to permit a reorganization
of the retreating and seemingly demoralized allied armies.)
The appearance of the tank in 1916, and the increasing use of
the airplane in the last two years of the war, merely confirmed
the fact that a new form of warfare had arrived.

The industry quickly reconverted from war production and, in
1919, produced almost two million cars and trucks. From 1920
to 1925, well over 200 new automobiles were introduced to the
American public. Among them were the Chrysler, Ricken-

38


===== PAGE 43 =====

backer, Star, and Wills Sainte Claire. Production of cars and
trucks passed the four million mark in 1923. And in 1925, the
production of closed cars finally exceeded the production of
open models — from 10 percent in 1919 to 90 percent in 1929.

The closed automobile body (first used in France in 1902)
was of vital importance to the American people and the way
we live. When the closed car was offered at a price comparable
to the open car, the seasonal nature of automobile making and
selling was over. The car was thereby converted from a fair-
weather luxury into a year-around necessity. The automobile
industry as we know it today was in full swing.

39


===== PAGE 44 =====

40


===== PAGE 45 =====

Chapter 3
IF WAR SHOULD COME . ..

In 1957, the number of cars stolen in the United States was
greater than the number of cars produced in Russia — 264,000
versus 113,600. While the figure for car thefts in the Soviet
Union is unavailable, it automatically has to be lower than our
own. The figure for car thefts among the head-hunters of Cen-
tral New Guinea is also exceedingly low.

Be that as it may, the fact that more than twice as many pas-
senger cars are stolen in the U. S. as are produced in the
U. S. S. R. does suggest the vast difference between the pro-
ductivity of the economic systems of the two countries.

The communist officials have always been exceedingly sensi-
tive about their inferior record of production and the resulting
subsistence level of living in Russia. They have often gone to
great lengths to persuade their people that communism is more
productive economically — and more desirable socially — than
the free market and the free ballot. From 1930 through 1940,
their chief propaganda weapon for that purpose was the depres-
sion and the resulting human suffering in the United States. To
help develop that theme, they imported a few American movies
based on the worst features of that sad decade. But even though
the communists selected only the most distorted or extreme
examples to show to their people, the results were sometimes
the reverse of what they had in mind. According to popular
report, “The Grapes of Wrath” was one such movie that
backfired.

When the Russian people saw that depression movie about
jobless, homeless, and hungry Americans, they were supposed
to become convinced that they themselves were indeed fortu-
nate to be living under a communist system. But instead, their
general reaction was one of envy — for they saw that even the
“poorest” family in America owned a truck! They saw that

41


===== PAGE 46 =====

family load its meager possessions on the truck and travel
across half a continent to hunt for work in another state. And
that poorest family in the depths of the depression still had
enough money to buy the gas and food to get there.

The overwhelming majority of the Russian people had far
less money, food, clothing, and furniture than even those
poorest Americans during that distressing period, and none of
them owned a truck. Even if they had, their government for-
bade them to leave their villages and to travel around Russia
to look for a job. Thus the movie only deepened the conviction
of many Russians that capitalist America was still the promised
land to which so many of their fellow-countrymen had migrated
before the communists abolished their freedom to leave. Need-
less to say, the movie was soon withdrawn from circulation.

True enough, the 1930-1940 depression brought great suffer-
ing to the American people. Thirteen million were out of work
in 1933. As late as 1940, there were still around nine million
unemployed. Industry, of course, suffered in proportion. The
automobile industry was especially hard hit after its previous 30
years of almost uninterrupted progress and prosperity.

From 1900 to 1930, more than 45 million cars, trucks, and
buses had been produced in the United States. In 1929, produc-
tion of automobiles and trucks was well over five million — 4.6
million passenger cars and 771,000 trucks and buses. During the
five years from 1925 to 1930, about 75 new makes of cars had
been introduced. They included the Graham-Paige, Durant,
La Salle, and Cord. A national “drive yourself” chain was es-
tablished, the Aerocar house trailer made its appearance, coast-
to-coast bus service was inaugurated, and diesel powered trucks
began to serve as the work horses of America. The catchy slogan,
“Two cars in every garage,” was heard with increasing frequency.

Then came 1930. Production of cars and trucks dropped to
less than half of the previous year’s record. In 1931, ’32 and ’33,
production dropped still lower. In 1934, ’35, ’°36 and ’37, auto-
mobile production began a slow but steady climb. Then, in

42


===== PAGE 47 =====

1938, it dropped back to the 1930 level. During those eight
years, the rate of failure among automobile producers was ex-
ceptionally high. For awhile, the mighty giant was sick unto .
death. But beginning in 1939, the automobile industry surged
rapidly upward to heights then undreamed of.

‘The communists have long alleged that the capitalist econ-
omy must have constant wars in order to survive. They con-
tinue to make that vicious statement even though they are well
aware that it was war itself that destroyed the growing capital-
ism of Russia and permitted the communists to seize power.
The wars of this century have severely restricted (and in some
cases, completely abolished) the private accumulation and own-
ership of capital all over the world. But in spite of that undis-
puted fact, millions of otherwise sane people still parrot the
communist line that capitalism (private ownership) thrives on
war! The truth, of course, is just the reverse. The highest profit
years for the big automobile manufacturers (as well as for the
large industrial companies in general) have consistently oc-
curred during years when the United States was at peace.

Soon after the death of Stalin in Russia, a slight crack ap-
peared in the customary communist line. For example, in his
public speeches, Premier Khrushchev began to admit that the
people of the capitalist west (especially those in the United
States) might actually have a higher level of living than those
of the socialist east. He exhorted his people to work harder and
to save more, so they too could have better housing, clothing,
and food within a few more years. But even as he admitted that
the capitalist nations are ahead of Russia in their production
of consumer goods and services, Khrushchev proudly boasted
that the communists are leading in the production of arma-
ments. Aside from what that boast does to the communist line
that it is capitalism that gears its economy to armaments, there
is also serious doubt as to its accuracy.

It is possible, of course, that an all-out war between Russia
and the United States would be over in a matter of hours —

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with a hundred million or so people in both nations destroyed
by atomic blasts and the resulting fall-out. In that case, the few
survivors would hardly be interested in arguing the relative
merits of the two types of economy. But if the war were to last
long enough to be decided by total productivity, the odds would
be overwhelmingly in our favor. Perhaps a brief examination
of the record of the automotive industry during World War
Two might be of considerable help in visualizing that fact.

In his glowing tribute to “Detroit” in 1946, General Dwight D.
Eisenhower was doubtless merely using that handy name as a
symbol of the contribution that American industry in general
had made to the war effort. For obviously, the contribution of
Detroit would have been largely ineffective without the oil and
rubber industries, without the fantastic quantities of food pro-
duced on our farms, without the ship builders, the steel makers,
the airplane companies, and a host of others. But General
Eisenhower was referring specifically to the automobile indus-
try when he said, “Detroit, that to most of us before the war
meant only trucks and automobiles, came to mean, in war,
practically everything we needed to defeat the enemy. Every
man in our Armed Forces who marched or rode or sailed or
flew into combat was armed and equipped to an appreciable
extent by this city.” Here follows a summary of the story be-
hind that remark.

In May of 1940, President Roosevelt asked William S. Knud-
sen to leave his job as president of General Motors and come to
Washington to organize and direct the nation’s rearmament
program as head of the Office of Production Management.
Mr. Knudsen unhesitatingly accepted the opportunity to be of
assistance to his adopted country.

In September of that year, Knudsen attended the board
meeting of the Automobile Manufacturers Association in New
York. His purpose was to explain to those men the desperate
position of the British forces and our own appalling lack of
preparedness, especially in the air. Since the United States was

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Photos Courtesy U.S. Army

Deep in Germany
45


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Photos Courtesy U.S. Army

Savenna River, Italy
46


===== PAGE 51 =====

not then at war, he could only ask their voluntary cooperation
in a program to remedy that situation. But Mr. Knudsen knew
his men; their cooperation was instantaneous and complete.

Ten days later, the representatives of more than a hundred
manufacturers of automotive products and parts met in Detroit
and organized the Automotive Committee for Air Defense. The
famed General “Jimmy” Doolittle (then a major) was techni-
cal advisor.

In the summer of 1941, the Society of Automotive Engineers
sponsored the War Engineering Board to pool the facilities of
the entire industry’s laboratories for war work. And within a
few days after Pearl Harbor, the total automotive industry was
voluntarily organized into the Automotive Council for War
Production, with Packard’s Alvan Macauley as president. There
was no ‘“‘czar” over the industry; none was needed to secure the
maximum cooperation and production from the automobile
manufacturers. Mr. Macauley mostly performed the clearing-
house function of coordinating toward a common objective the
voluntary efforts of men who had so recently been fierce com-
petitors. But now all machines, plants, patents, personnel — all
resources of any nature — were pooled for the common objec-
tive of victory. If the automobile men themselves were not sur-
prised at the results, certainly the Germans and Japanese were!
Here follows a summary of the contribution made to the war
effort by the automotive industry.

During the two years before the United States was officially
at war, all of the automobile companies were beginning war
production of some sort. In 1940, Dodge was building special
trucks — and White Motor Company was building scout cars
— for the U. S. Army. Packard started to build Rolls-Royce
aircraft engines, and Ford began building Pratt and Whitney
aircraft engines.

During 1941, Buick built an entirely new aviation engine
plant. Oldsmobile began producing shells. Pontiac began work
on the Oerlikon anti-aircraft gun. And various other divisions

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===== PAGE 52 =====

of General Motors were producing machine guns. Chrysler
began the mass production of tanks — from a completely new
factory that had been designed, built, and tooled within seven
months after K. T. Keller and his associates were shown a
model of the tank the Army wanted. Chrysler also completed
its first anti-aircraft gun. Ford Motor Company began produc-
ing combat cars, and started building its famed Willow Run
plant for aircraft production. Willys delivered its first Jeeps.
White was producing half-tracks, tank destroyers, and cargo
trucks. Studebaker began the production of aircraft engines.
All this was going on while the industry was steadily increasing
its regular production of cars and trucks for civilian use. Thus,
when war came, all of the automobile companies had already
gained some experience in the production of armaments.

In December of 1943, the Automotive Council for War Pro-
duction announced that 1,038 automotive plants of all cate-
gories had so far produced $13 billion worth of war materials.
In February of 1944, figures were released showing that the
“Detroit region” was responsible for 13.6 per cent of the na-
tion’s total production for war. In December of 1944, the Auto-
motive Council announced that the industry had produced $9
billion worth of armaments during the year, and that the cost
to the government had been reduced by one-third of the 1941
price. Also in December, it was revealed that the United States
had supplied Russia with more than 345,000 motor vehicles,
plus comparably large quantities of other war materials. (Total
U. S. war aid to Russia exceeded $11 billion, plus extensive
United Nations Relief and Rehabilitation aid after the war).

During the war, the automotive industry supplied the Armed
Forces with all armored cars of all types. It also produced 87
per cent of all aircraft bombs, 75 per cent of all aircraft engines
and 50 per cent of all Diesel engines, 10 per cent of completed
airplanes, 85 per cent of the steel helmets, 57 per cent of all
tanks, 47 per cent of the machine guns and 56 per cent of the
carbines, 10 per cent of the torpedoes, 10 per cent of the land

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mines and 3 per cent of the marine mines. In addition, the auto-
motive industry also produced huge quantities of such things as
gyrocompasses, automatic pilots, mess kits, tent heaters, range
finders, bomb sights — and several billion rounds of small-
caliber cartridges.

By the end of the war, the automotive industry had delivered
$29 billion worth of war products. That was about 20 per cent
of the national output for that category. As General Eisenhower
said in 1946, “The weapons of war came to us in the field in
such numbers that the Allies were able to bury the enemy under
weight of metal. . . . We were in a position to sacrifice metal to
save American lives.” In that statement can be found the real
meaning of “Detroit” as a symbol of our industrial production
for war; it permits us to expend metal instead of American lives.

Along with the above production record, the automotive in-
dustry also had to produce the parts necessary to keep in service
the motor vehicles already in existence. If anyone still had any
doubt that the automobile was a necessity instead of a luxury,
that doubt was soon dispelled with the coming of war. Millions
of people literally had to have them in order to get to and from
their jobs that were essential to the war effort. When production
of automobiles for civilian use was stopped in early 1942, there
were about 33 million cars, trucks, and buses registered in the
United States. At that point, some short-sighted planners in
Washington seriously curtailed the production of parts that
would be necessary to keep those vehicles in service for essen-
tial uses and personnel — doctors, war workers, farmers, nurses,
firemen, policemen, teachers, and so on. Fortunately, better
thinking soon recognized the fact that parts production should
be increased over customary and former levels, since there
were not going to be any more cars and trucks to replace those
that would have to be junked for lack of replacement parts.
The proper permission was given, and the automotive industry
produced the necessary parts to keep our civilian motor fleet in
running order for essential services throughout the war. The

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value of parts and accessories produced rose steadily from $553
million in 1940 to over one billion dollars in 1945.

As far as the American motorist who already owned a car
was concerned, the war ended on August 14, 1945. On that day,
gasoline rationing ended — and the joyous cry, “Fill ’er up,”
was again heard throughout the land. (Thirteen years later the
25 service stations in Moscow were finally permitted to sell
gasoline without rationing coupons to the 28,000 privately
owned cars in the Soviet capital that contained some five mil-
lion people.) From the same viewpoint, the war had already
started to end for the automobile industry on the previous
July 1, when the manufacturers were permitted to begin re-
tooling for civilian production. But unfinished war contracts,
plus reconversion and labor problems, permitted only 69,532
passenger cars to be produced before the year was out. During
1946, however, more than three million cars and trucks were
produced for a clamoring public that wanted to buy between
15 and 20 millions of them at once.

The next year, production reached almost five million — plus
the staggering total of $2.35 billion worth of replacement parts.
In 1948, production went over the five million mark — includ-
ing the one-hundred-millionth motor vehicle built in the United
States. The following year, production jumped to almost 6.3
million cars, trucks, and buses. And in 1950, it soared over the
eight million mark. In June of that year, in Korea, we went to
war again.

Once more, the automotive industry began turning out arma-
ments in huge quantities. The managers and employees of the
various companies were now thoroughly familiar with the
process. And they were generally able to supply the Armed
Forces with whatever they wanted, while continuing to produce
millions of passenger cars for the seemingly insatiable civilian
demand — 5.3 million passenger cars in 1951, and 4.3 million
the following year.

In 1955, the industry produced the all-time record of 9,169,-

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Photos Courtesy U.S. Army

Malimba River, Guadalcanal

51


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Photos Courtesy U.S. Army

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===== PAGE 57 =====

276 cars, trucks, and buses. At the same time, it was continuing
to produce vast quantities of armaments for the Armed Forces
in our continuing “cold war” with Russia. Meanwhile the entire
Russian automotive industry produced a total of only 445,300
cars, trucks, and buses for that year.

If the Russian leaders fully understood the actual and poten-
tial productive capacity of our automotive and other industries
for both war and peace, it is doubtful that they would ever de-
liberately challenge us to a head-on clash. But in spite of some
recent evidence to the contrary, there is still grave doubt that
they do really understand it. For example, you are doubtless
familiar with the story of the reaction of the visiting Russian
officials in Detroit when they saw the crowded parking lots
around the various automobile plants. They assumed that those
cars belonged to the owners and managers of the factories —
as would be the case in their own country. Thus they expressed
the opinion that the plants obviously couldn’t be very efficient
if that many bosses were needed to run them. They refused to
believe that those thousands of magnificent automobiles be-
longed to the men who were working on the assembly lines.
They just laughed at that explanation because they had been
taught that it couldn’t possibly be true.

We would be foolish indeed to assume that the Russians
doubt their own propaganda. They honestly believe that we
would like to destroy them. And they further believe that, if
war comes, they can destroy us. We, in turn, are firmly con-
vinced that the Russian communist leaders plan to conquer the
world. And further, we are confident that we can stop them
militarily, if it comes to that. Thus we must face this harsh fact:
As long as those diametrically opposed beliefs continue to exist,
there can be no real peace. Since we seem destined to continue
to live under an armed truce of uncertain and precarious dura-
tion, we are fortunate indeed that our automotive industry is
now designed to produce with equal ease vast quantities of
weapons for war or automobiles for peace.

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Chapter 4
FROM THE CRADLE TO THE GRAVE

According to tradition, a baby’s first word is supposed to be
“mama.” But the first clear and distinct word uttered by this
writer’s son was “car.” Perhaps it was because he had an excel-
lent view of the street from his dressing table and play pen,
and his parents entertained him by pointing at the passing
automobiles and saying, “See the big car.” His first conscious
effort to distinguish between red and black came from watching
and identifying automobiles. And his first rational idea of
danger was derived from the constant drilling of his parents on
the subject of streets and cars. That first word was truly appro-
priate — for as long as he lives, it is certain that an automobile
will play a vital part in all his activities. He had his first auto-
mobile ride at the age of five days when he came home from
the maternity hospital. The chances are that he’ll ride to school
in a car or bus. Surely he will do a large part of his courting in
a car — and will share it with his bride on their honeymoon. In
one way or another, the automobile will necessarily play an
important part in his business career. And when he dies, his
journey to the cemetery will also be by motor vehicle.

Doubtless, you are well aware of the importance of the auto-
mobile in the way we live. Since you probably own one, you
hardly need to read a book to find that out! But even so, it’s
highly doubtful that most people actually do realize just how
vital the automobile and the automotive industry have become
to our daily activities — to our economy, our social life, and
even our government.

First and most important, machines of all types are today
supplying the equivalent energy of about 800 strong men for
every person in the United States. And those ‘“mechanical
slaves” will happily work 24 hours every day when needed.
Some wag once wryly joked, “Not only did the machine free

35


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the slaves — why, it even freed the horses!” And in a manner
of speaking, so it did. With all that cheap mechanical horse-
power available, the flesh and blood originals just couldn’t
compete. More than 90 per cent of that mechanical horsepower
is supplied by our automobiles, trucks, buses, and tractors. Now
let’s briefly examine a few of the specific results of that develop-
ment in our daily lives.

Start with yourself and the most obvious example of all: How
do you get to work? In 1957, almost 68 per cent of us went by
private automobile. (And for the most part, even those of us
who used public transportation rode a bus — or a train pulled
by a Diesel engine that was manufactured by an automobile
company!)

There’s a one in seven chance that the job you’re going to
depends directly on the manufacture, distribution, service, or
use of motor vehicles. An unknown (but certainly still greater)
number of jobs are indirectly affected by motor transportation
— doctors, salesmen, migratory workers, schools, forestry,
shopping centers, restaurants and, to varying extents, almost
any other job or industry you care to mention. If there were no
automotive industry, about 700,000 businesses (or almost one
of each six businesses now in existence) would be gone — along
with the more than 10.3 million jobs that are now directly de-
pendent on “highway transportation” in one form or another.

Most of those jobs are among the highest paying in the na-
tion. In automobile manufacturing, wages average 22 per cent
higher than the average for “all manufacturing” in the United
States. In rubber, the figure is 26 per cent higher — and in pe-
troleum, 30 per cent higher. The jobs and wages provided by
the airlines and railroads are also heavily dependent on the
automotive industry that manufactures so many of the engines
and parts used by those forms of transportation. To a lesser
but still important extent, all forms of water transportation look
to the automobile companies for engines and parts. (They also
look to them for considerable business, such as the 373,000 cars,

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trucks, and buses we exported in 1957; and the 273,000 we
imported.)

The best customer of the steel companies is, of course, “high-
way transportation,” including the building of the roads them-
selves. But the vital part played by the automotive industry in
our daily lives is perhaps most dramatically illustrated by our
dependence on it for our food.

The story of farming and the automobile is told in the next
chapter. Here it is enough to point out that modern farming is
absolutely dependent on tractors, trucks, combines, and similar
machines manufactured by the automotive industry. And when
the food is produced, about 90 per cent of it goes to market by
highway. As a result, we city dwellers today are completely de-
pendent upon the products of the automotive industry for the
growing and transporting of our daily food. We also look to it
for our fire engines, fuel trucks, police cars, snow removal
equipment, sanitation trucks, ambulances, and so on. City life
as it is lived today could not possibly have developed without
the internal combustion engine on wheels.

Outside of the cities, we 40 million or so suburbanites have
also based our way of life on the automobile. Without it, we
could never have built those millions of wonderful homes out
in Sunshine Acres or Fresh Air Heights. Imagine trying to raise
a family in the suburbs without milk trucks, bakery trucks,
laundry trucks, fuel trucks, parcel delivery trucks, mail trucks,
grocery delivery trucks, garbage trucks, paper delivery trucks,
ambulances and doctors’ cars, school buses, repairmen’s trucks,
dry cleaning trucks, and the other motor vehicles that make
deliveries of various kinds to your door. Imagine not having
even a first car to jump into for a fast trip to those convenient
out-of-town shopping centers and super markets!

In short, modern suburban living is completely dependent on
the automotive industry — not only for transportation but, to a
considerable extent, for refrigerators, stoves, heating and cool-
ing equipment, washers, dryers, bicycles, sporting equipment,

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and so on. Without the automobile industry, most of the 25
per cent of us who now live in suburban areas would have to
crowd ourselves back into the towns and cities — or along the
street car and railroad tracks — as was necessarily the case be-
fore the automobile came along. The current problem of park-
ing space for cars is indeed serious, but it is not even remotely
as serious as the pre-automobile problem of living space for
children. Unquestionably, our children profited most of all
when the automobile made it possible for us to live in the sub-
urbs while commuting to our jobs in the city.

True enough, even if we lived in cities without automobiles,
most of us would still try to take trips out of them by whatever
conveyances were available, as did our parents and grand-
parents before us. For we are a traveling people. Actually,
thousands and thousands of Americans have been born while
their parents were making a trip. Sometimes it was on a ship
when the parents were immigrating to the United States. Some-
times it was in a covered wagon while the parents were
struggling westward in one of those famous prairie schooners.
Sometimes it was on a river boat or a steam-driven train.
(Nowadays, many of the children among the three million
people who live in one million trailers are quite scornful about
houses that have no wheels.) Travel is in our blood; if it hadn’t
been, there wouldn’t even be a United States.

Even our appeals to patriotism are often based on our love of
travel! The slogan, “Join the Navy and see the world,” is far
more in harmony with our nature than is the plea, “Uncle Sam
needs you.” The record is clear that we will fight if we must,
but we want a handy foreign language phrase book issued along
with the rifle. While we soldiers were only joking when we re-
ferred to our “all expenses paid, vacation trip abroad,” the joke
still indicated that we considered ourselves tourists as well as
soldiers. The record is conclusive, however, that we prefer to
pay our own way in our own automobiles — with a camera
instead of a gun.

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CVE

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Photo Courtesy AM.A.

wi

Photo Courtesy Chrysler Corp.

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60

Photo Courtesy G-M

Photo Courtesy Paramount Photo Studio
Huntington Woods, Mich.


===== PAGE 65 =====

Almost 80 million of us had operators’ licenses in 1957. And
more than 73 per cent of American families then owned one or
more automobiles. (Almost 13 per cent of us owned two or
more.) Excluding all military vehicles, there were 68.5 million
cars, trucks, and buses registered in the United States in 1957.
(Bumper to bumper, they would form a line well over 200,000
miles long.) We drove them a total distance of 643 billion miles
over our 3.5 million miles of roads and streets, while consuming
more than 52 billion gallons of motor fuel and 107 million gal-
lons of antifreeze. Passenger cars accounted for well over 500
billion miles of that incomprehensible total.

A large portion of those miles were driven by the four out of
five families that take their vacations by car. The combined
records of our 27 largest national parks show that 20.3 million
of us in six million cars were visitors in 1957 — Yellowstone,
Grand Canyon, the Great Smokies, Mammoth Cave, and so on
over the length and breadth of the nation. The Army Engineer
recreation areas and the U. S. Forest Service reported well over
100 million visitors during the year. Something like 11 billion
miles were traveled on hunting and fishing trips. Our Canadian
and Mexican neighbors doubtless sometimes suspect that most
Americans who own cars have driven them across the border
for a visit. And an increasing number of us are shipping the car
along with the trunk when we set out to see Europe.

The “vacation industry” in the United States is absolutely de-
pendent on the automobile. In more than half of our states, that
industry ranks among the top three. In New Jersey, New Mex-
ico, and Florida the tourist business tops the list. All of our
resorts depend on the automobile to some considerable extent,
and many of them wouldn’t have even one guest without it. By
1957, the automobile had brought into existence some 34,000
motels, tourist courts, and trailer parks — and some 4,700
drive-in movies, as well as a few hundred summer theatres and
music festivals. The tens-of-thousands of home owners who still
accommodate overnight guests have built their modest busi-

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nesses on the automobile. And, of course, the owners and em-
ployees of some 450 automobile race tracks understandably
look with favor upon the automobile industry — as do the per-
sons whose jobs depend on the printing and distributing of 300
million giveaway road maps each year. Finally, the high value
of many of those magnificent beaches in Florida, California,
Virginia, and most other states is based solidly on the avail-
ability of the automobile. Without it, they would again become
merely barren stretches of uninhabited and valueless sand.

It has long been claimed that our educational system is re-
sponsible for welding America’s diversified peoples into one
nation. True enough, a common educational background does
serve that purpose. But reading about how other people live is
not nearly so effective as actually traveling among them. The
automobile — and the automobile alone — has made that pos-
sible on a large scale. We easterners no longer merely read
about rodeos or see them only in movies; millions of us get in
our cars and drive west to watch them in action. The New Eng-
lander is convinced that he has been exposed to another
language — as well as to another way of life — when he heads
his car back north from his trip to South Carolina. While the
far-westerner may display his P. C. D. P. sticker (Pacific Coast
Displaced Person) when he drives east, at least he learns how
the other half lives. A Texan, viewing that spot from where a
shot was heard around the world, may not dress or think quite
like his Massachusetts compatriots — but the fact remains that
he has driven a mighty long way to satisfy his desire to actually
stand on the ground that is as hallowed to him as the Alamo.

Before the automobile, we often depended on the Sunday
evening lecturer with his illustrated slides to tell us about the
peoples, problems, and terrain of our vast nation. Now we
pack the kids in the back seat and head north, east, south, and
west to see for ourselves — and to take our own billions of
travel pictures. Our children (along with their parents) cannot
help but be impressed by the varied peoples and resources they

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meet and see as they drive around the United States. Perhaps
the trips are fast — and, admittedly, they are frequently super-
ficial — but even so, it’s still better than merely reading about
our triumphs and tragedies in a book. We are not yet “one
people in thought and act” (pray God we never will be), but
those millions of yearly inter-sectional visits do give us some
idea of how our fellow-Americans work, play, and attempt to
settle their own particular problems — be they industrial, racial,
or geographical. We thereby learn first-hand that those prob-
lems are seldom as simple as the demagogues would have us
believe. Surely such knowledge makes us better people and bet-
ter Americans. Without the automobile, that superior type of
education just wouldn’t be possible for most of us. Thomas A.
Edison had that fact in mind when he said, “The great value of
the automobile is not the fact that it has made it easier and
quicker and cheaper to go places, but the fact that it has in-
spired several million people to go.”

From 1900 through 1957, the American automotive industry
produced 166 million cars, trucks, and buses — with a total
value of more than $176 billion, excluding all federal excise
taxes. How many hundreds of billions of dollars in taxes have
resulted from the sale and use of those vehicles is not known.
But recent yearly taxes derived from “highway transportation”
will offer some idea of the magnitude of governmental income
from that source. For example, $8.8 billion was collected by
special motor vehicle taxes in 1957 — federal excise taxes on
automobiles and fuels, tolls, specific local taxes, registration
fees, and state gasoline taxes. That figure does not include the
$1.82 billion paid in direct federal, state, and local taxes in
1957 by General Motors (exclusive of all excise taxes), nor the
hundreds of millions paid by the various other automobile
manufacturers.

Nor does that almost $9 billion special tax include the taxes
paid by the more than 43,000 franchised automobile dealers
who had invested about $5 billion in their businesses that em-

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ployed around 700,000 persons in 1957. Nor does it include
the taxes paid by more than 182,000 filling stations and almost
19,000 auto supply shops that, along with those dealers, sold
$53 billion worth of automobiles, parts, and fuel during the
year. The total taxes paid by some 87,000 independent repair
shops is unknown. And, of course, there is no possible way to
estimate the personal income taxes paid by the employees of
those small businesses, plus the employees of related businesses
such as parking lots, map makers, taxicab and bus companies,
terminal and trucking companies, auto laundries, car rental
agencies, and so on. Nor is there any way to determine the
federal and state taxes paid on the dividends received by mil-
lions of Americans who have invested their savings in the auto-
motive and related industries.

That almost $9 billion direct tax on motor vehicles also does
not include taxes paid by the banks and finance companies that
extended $16.7 billion in credit for the purchase of automobiles
in 1957, or taxes from the insurance companies that handled
$4.5 billion in premiums from automobile insurance in 1956. It
would be difficult to estimate how much of the taxes paid by
newspapers, magazines, and radio and television companies
came from the more than $200 million of motor vehicle adver-
tising in 1956. Nor do we have a proportionate tax figure for
the manufacturers of the vast quantities of materials and equip-
ment produced for the automobile in 1957 — 107 million rubber
tires, 52 billion gallons of gasoline, 44 per cent of all sheet steel,
32 million batteries, 5.5 million radios, 400 million pounds of
textiles for upholstery, and vast quantities of clocks, glass,
chemicals, electrical equipment, lead, nickel, machine tools, and
SO on.

One might guess that total taxes originating from “highway
transportation’ in all its many ramifications could be even as
much as 25 per cent of all state and federal taxes now collected.
But since it is impossible to know, for example, how much of
the income tax of restaurant employees should be allocated to

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Photo Courtesy White Motor Co.

Photo Courtesy A. M.A.

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66

RE a EE

TEA

Photo Courtesy White Motor Co.

Photo Courtesy Miller Meteor Co.


===== PAGE 71 =====

automobile customers — or what percentage of a doctor’s in-
come could logically be credited to the availability of his car
— that figure must necessarily remain a questionable guess.

We don’t have to guess, however, at the fact that 24 cents of
every dollar spent for the purchase of automobiles is for taxes
— $600 of the price of a $2,500 car in 1957 went to the govern-
ment. Of total state tax revenues, 29 per cent comes from taxes
on motor vehicle fuels and licenses. In Nebraska and New Jer-
sey, almost half comes from those two sources. When Oregon
levied the first modest gasoline tax of one cent a gallon in 1919,
no one then dreamed of the vital part that taxes on motor fuel
would come to play in state finances. In 1957, California raised
over $297 million from its tax of six cents on a gallon of gaso-
line. In 14 other states, the tax per gallon was higher than six
cents. Actually, it is impossible (and probably meaningless) to
attempt to estimate the total taxes resulting from the auto-
mobile in all its uses. It is enough to say that the loss of that
source of taxation would result in financial chaos and the col-
lapse of our economy as we know it today. As a New York
Times report on May 25, 1958 phrased it: “For all this nation’s
vaunted industrial diversification, this one key industry has an
almost controlling effect on the economy.”

The importance of the automobile in the lives of our children
has already been mentioned. But perhaps the primary reason
that they were featured ahead of their mothers is because the
mothers prefer it that way — for it is unquestionably true that
the automobile has also brought vast improvements into the
economic and social lives of women.

From the very beginning of the automobile, women began to
look upon it as the answer to their prayers for a convenient and
economical way to visit their neighbors and relatives, to go to
the city to shop, to enjoy an evening or a Sunday drive in the
country, to participate in a more enjoyable social life — in
short, to have a few brief respites from the brutalizing sameness
of the lives that so many of them led. The mass-produced and

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low-priced automobile served that purpose well. But even more,
“both the car and the industry played a vital part in bringing
another type of freedom to women — freedom to earn their
own livelihoods without being absolutely at the mercy of the
whims of man.

By 1900, the number of women who were working in offices
and factories was already in the millions. But it was still
frowned upon as an insult to the men folks; for people might
think that the father or husband couldn’t support them. Regard-
less of such social disapproval, they continued to pour into the
factories and offices. By 1910, almost seven million women were
employed in the United States. By 1930, the figure had risen to
nearly 11 million. In 1955, about 21 million women (more than
one-third of all women over 14 years of age) were working at a
job for pay. In the “automotive and equipment” industry, 15
per cent of all employees were women. (It had exceeded 25
per cent during World War Two.)

But perhaps the indirect influence of the automobile in bet-
tering the lives of women is more important by far than the
direct jobs it provides them. Examples of that influence are
found throughout this study — more jobs and better wages for
husbands and fathers, improved farming and better food, ac-
cess to better schools and medical service, better sanitation,
vacations, suburban living, labor-saving appliances for the
kitchen, and so on through scores of necessities, conveniences,
and comforts that couldn’t possibly have come into existence
without the automobile. Perhaps among the improvements
should be listed the more comfortable and practical clothing for
women that developed along with the automobile. Perhaps not.
Automobile or no automobile, women’s clothing styles seem
always to be changing anyway.

In their monumental study of how the people lived in “Mid-
dletown,” in the mid-1920’s, the Lynds asked hundreds of per-
sons for their ideas about what event or development had
exercised the most influence on the way people lived in that city.

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Some talked about government. Others mentioned electricity,
education, religion, and so on. The shortest reply was offered
by an old man who had originally come to that section of the
country by oxcart. He said he could summarize all the impor-
tant changes that had occurred in his lifetime in just four let-
ters, “A-U-T-0.”

In those four letters, he reached the same conclusion as the
Hoover Research Committee on Social Trends during the 1920’s
and early 1930’s: “It is probable that no invention of such far-
reaching importance was ever diffused with such rapidity or so
quickly exerted influences that ramified the national culture,
transforming even habits of thought and language.”

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Chapter 5
MEANWHILE, BACK ON THE FARM . ..

Do you remember the good old days? Of course you do, since
the good old days generally refer to whatever existed a few
years ago. Apparently, it was almost always wonderful.

For example, veterans derive a peculiar pleasure from remi-
niscing about the good old days when they were being shot at.
Successful business and professional men enjoy reliving in
imagination their earlier days when they were jobless and didn’t
know where their next meal was coming from. Escapees from
city slums often rhapsodize about those good old days when
they were snitching apples and baiting cops. But of all the good
old day categories, probably more nostalgic nonsense has been
spoken and written about life on the pre-automobile farm than
any other. |

Actually, life on the farms of the United States before 1900
was a generally harsh existence. The entire family usually
worked from dawn to dusk for six days every week, plus a half
day of chores on Sunday. Social life and contact with the out.
side world were severely limited by bad roads and poor trans-
portation. Vacations were rare or non-existent. In most cases,
children were put to work just as soon as they were physically
able to chop down a weed or milk a cow. At best, education
was always severely limited, and sometimes there weren’t any
schools at all. There was little income with which to buy con-
veniences and comforts; stark necessity was the general rule of
purchase. Sickness, accident, and death were frequent visitors.
The nearest doctor was many hours away, if available at all. It
was a generally lonely and undesirable life, and the farmers
themselves were well aware of its shortcomings. But what could
they do?

Well, there wasn’t too much they could do about it — until
automobiles, tractors, trucks, and other similar machines were

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offered to them at the low prices they could afford to pay. Then
they could do plenty. And they did.

The most startling thing they did was summarized by the
President in his 1958 farm message to Congress: “A century
ago, an American farm worker fed himself and three others.
Today he feeds himself and twenty others. A century ago, our
population was 82 per cent rural. Today it is only one-third
rural, and only 12 per cent of our population actually live on
farms. Farm production per man hour has doubled since 1940.
There has been more change in agriculture within the lifetime
of men now living than in the previous two thousand years.”

Of course, that fantastic improvement in farm production
was not due to automotive equipment alone. A vital part has
been played by new vaccines and new techniques in animal
husbandry, better fertilizers and seeds, improved farming and
marketing methods, weed killers, insecticides, sprays, plant
hormones — and even radio-isotopes. But the fact remains that
new and improved automotive machines deserve the lion’s
share of the credit.

In 1900, only a dozen or so farmers owned cars. There
weren’t any gasoline tractors or trucks on the farms. About 20
million horses and mules pulled the plows, wagons, and primi-
tive reapers. By 1910, farmers owned 50,000 cars and 1,000
tractors. There still weren’t any trucks for farm use.

The Department of Agriculture estimated that, in 1957,
farmers owned 4.3 million cars, 2.9 million trucks, 4.6 million
tractors, and unnumbered millions of special engines and ve-
hicles that enable them to produce more in less time and at
less cost. Many of those tractors are equipped with self-
starters and power steering. In addition to its ordinary field
work, the modern tractor has attachments for pumping, lifting,
digging, sawing, arc-welding, spraying, and other types of
work. Today’s trucks are also most versatile in their uses. The
horsepower supplied by the 20 million horses and mules on the
farms of 1900 has increased to around one billion “mechani-

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Photo Courtesy Ford Motor Co.

Photo Courtesy A.M.A.

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74

Photo Courtesy Massey-Ferguson Co.

Photo Courtesy A. M.A.


===== PAGE 79 =====

cal” horses today. And the trend is steadily upward.

For the long-range future, certainly one of the most signifi-
cant contributions made by automotive machines on the farm
is this: The number of horses and mules has steadily declined
from its 1925 peak of 25 million down to about 3.6 million in
1957. 1t is estimated that the amount of land needed to feed
one horse can be used to feed four persons. Thus, millions of
acres of land that were once used to grow food for animals are
now available to grow food for humans.

With their machines (and egged on by government price
supports), the American farmers now produce so much food
that it is politically embarrassing. In an effort to stop it without
displeasing the farmers, the government sometimes pays them
to destroy their crops. At other times it pays them not to pro-
duce crops. Still the surplus food accumulates. The government
buys the surplus and stores it away in caves, tents, ships, build-
ings, and even on the open ground. But the flow of food from
our mechanized farms continues to increase. The government
gives it away or sells it at distressed prices. But the surplus
grows. There is no end in sight.

As a result, we have this strange development: Throughout
history, untold millions of human beings have starved to death.
Thirty years ago, millions of Russians were dying because they
didn’t have enough to eat. In your lifetime, famines have
swept across India, China, and other nations. Even today —
tonight — millions of persons will still go to bed hungry. But
in the United States, the present administration may be voted
out of office unless it devises a politically acceptable scheme to
make food more scarce! While that may sound somewhat
Alice-in-wonderlandish, you need only read your daily paper
to confirm it. |

The problem of how to dispose of our surplus food has now
become a purely political issue. Thus it is outside the scope of
this study. We are here primarily concerned with the part
played by the automotive industry in increasing the farmer’s

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productive power and helping him to develop a more desirable
way of life in general. Presumably, more food, more leisure,
and a higher level of living are automatically desirable.

Cyrus Hall McCormick invented his first primitive reaping
machine in 1831. But someone was ahead of him by 1800 years
or so. A Roman historian in the first century of the Christian
Era, Pliny the elder, recorded the fact that “in the vast domains
of the provinces of Gaul, a large hollow frame, armed with
teeth and supported on two wheels, is driven through the stand-
ing wheat, the beasts being yoked behind it; the result being
that the heads of the grain are torn off and fall within the
frame.”

McCormick’s machine offered many improvements over that
early Roman-French model, but the source of its power was
still beasts. The efficient combine was yet many years away.
Cumbersome steam threshers began to move under their own
power on a few farms as early as the 1860’s. And a few primi-
tive and experimental steam tractors appeared soon afterward.
But horses were to continue in the ascendency until the Twen-
tieth Century and the coming of the lightweight and all-purpose
gasoline tractor and the modern gasoline combine.

Even so, those primitive reapers (combined with John
Deere’s 1837 steel plow) made it possible for pioneers to settle
and cultivate the vast plains of the American west. As the ma-
chines improved and increased, the amount of labor required
to cultivate an acre of wheat (from plowing to delivering the
wheat to the granary) steadily decreased. With the hand labor
of 1830, almost 58 hours were required. With the machines of
1896, it took only nine hours. In 1940, only four hours were
needed. With today’s tractors, seeders, combines, trucks, and
similar equipment, the job can be done in about three hours.

The present-day farmer can plow one acre in 48 minutes,
against two hours and 36 minutes in 1920. Today he can dig
60 post holes in two and a half hours, versus 10 hours in 1920.
A mechanical cotton picker performs the labor of more than 80

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hand pickers. (It would be absurd indeed to imagine that un-
economic slave labor would have continued to be used for pick-
ing cotton if that machine had been available a hundred years
ago.) Today, a mechanical green-bean picker does as much
work as 50 manual pickers. As a result of using those machines,
American farmers increased their production by 35 per cent
between 1940 and 1955 — with no increase in acreage, and in
spite of a 28 per cent decrease in farm workers!

The automobile also uses a surprising number of farm prod-
ucts in its construction. Among the obvious ones are cotton,
wool, and hides. Among the not so obvious ones are corn, flax-
seed, and soy beans. In 1956, around 2.5 million acres of farm
land were needed to grow the products used by the automotive
industry in the form of paints, seat coverings, and other acces-
sories — even though the farmers were meeting increasingly
heavy competition from the producers of synthetics such as
nylon, orlon, rayon, and such.

Finally, according to the 1957 figures, more than one-half of
all fruits and vegetables are carried by trucks to produce
markets throughout the country; for frozen foods, the figure
rises to 70 per cent. Around 85 per cent of all livestock goes to
market in trucks. One hundred per cent of all live poultry, and
99.8 per cent of all shell eggs, move to market over the high-
ways. Milk delivery — from farmer to city consumer — is a
trucking operation. Of total farm products, about 90 per cent
goes to market by motor transportation. It also works the other
way around; most of the things that the farmer buys also come
to him by truck.

The above summary of increased production on the farms
since 1900 explains why 88 per cent of the American people can
now live in urban and industrial centers instead of on farms.
The figures themselves tell why farmers can afford to have tele-
vision, airplanes, and vacations abroad. They also suggest why
there is now little or no distinction in either appearance or in-
come between the businessman who owns and operates a large

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farm and the businessman who owns and manages a fair-sized
factory. The primary cause of any differences between farmers
and urbanites in former times was primarily ISOLATION. And
the primary reason for the abolition of those differences was the
AUTOMOBILE.

Put those two words side by side. ISOLATION — AUTO-
MOBILE. They don’t belong together. You might as well try to
mix oil and water. The automobile deserves an honored place
in history because — even if it had done nothing else — it per-
mitted the farmer and his family to leave the farm whenever
they felt like it and to go wherever they wished. The heart of
the matter is found in the answer of a farm wife to an investi-
gator for the United States Department of Agriculture who had
asked her why they had a car but no bathtub. She replied,

“Why, you can’t go to town in a bathtub.”

But as could have been predicted, the bathtub soon followed
the car to the farm. So did the daily newspaper and the latest
magazines. So did many other conveniences and necessities.
For a moment, let’s examine a few of the more important be-
fores and afters.

High on the list is education. Many of the inventors of the
automobile, as well as the founders of the various companies,
were farm boys who had to walk two or three miles to get to
the traditional little red school house and its McGuffey readers.
In their reminiscences, those old timers seem always to have
been walking through the snow and mud on bitter cold days.
But they weren’t exaggerating (at least not too much) because
farm boys before 1900 only went to school during the worst
months of the winter when farm work was at a minimum.
When they got there, they usually found the customary one-
room country school with one teacher for all classes.

The automobile changed all that. The farm boy now walks
only to the road in front of his house. The school bus provides
portal to portal transportation. It is probable that the average
town pupil has to walk farther to get to school than does the

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Photos Courtesy A.M.A.

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===== PAGE 84 =====

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Photo Courtesy A.M.A.

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Photo Courtesy Chrysler Corp.

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===== PAGE 85 =====

average farm boy!

In 1956, more than 10 million pupils travelled to school in
160,000 school buses and other vehicles regularly used for that
purpose. The overwhelming majority of them were from farm
and suburban areas. Those buses travelled about five million
miles each school day, plus more millions of miles on those
yearly student excursions to Washington and other places of
historic interest. And almost 1,000 “bookmobiles” regularly
brought the latest best-sellers and technical publications to mil-
lions of farm people.

The 200,000 “one-room schools” of 1916 have now decreased
to around 40,000 — and the modern consolidated schools are
replacing more of them every month. Even in the rural schools
that still remain, most of the teachers live in town and drive
to work.

It is logical to assume that any differences between city and
consolidated-county schools today are determined more by the
goals of the pupils than by an inherent difference in academic
standards and facilities. But until the automobile came along,
the country boy was at a severe educational disadvantage when
compared to his city cousin.

In addition to better education for farm boys and girls, the
automobile soon enabled farm wives to by-pass those sparsely-
stocked crossroads stores of 1900 and to drive right on to the
county seat or a large city. There she could observe the latest
styles in clothing and furniture, and see those new-fangled
movies or listen to a popular lecturer. The car permitted home
demonstration agents from the colleges and governmental agen-
cies to come to the farms to teach the wives the latest advances
in cooking, canning, decoration, and sanitation. The refrigera-
tion and household appliance divisions of the automobile com-
panies also supplied the farm wife with a host of low-priced
and easily-financed appliances to decrease her drudgery. That,
in turn, gave her more time to enjoy the new way of life that
the automobile had opened up to her.

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Farm wives began to join clubs and to take a more active
part in church work, P. T. A., and politics. The crossroads
church with its circuit-riding minister began to disappear as the
farm families joined town and city churches. Without the auto-
mobile, the life of the farm woman would necessarily have re-
mained the drab and lonely existence it had always been — and
the suicide rate among desperate, drudge-ridden, and isolated
pre-automobile farm women would doubtless have continued
at its customary high level.

And without the automobile, farm people in general would
have continued to die unnecessarily because the doctor
couldn’t get there in time — or, even if he could, because he
couldn’t take them to a hospital.

Many doctors, in their waiting rooms, feature a picture of the
old family practitioner of many years ago at the bedside of a
sick child. When you look at it, you just know that (outside the
picture and the house) faithful old Dobbin is waiting patiently
to pull the good doctor in his buggy to another desperately ill
person. Nostalgia is a wonderful thing; it helps to keep us sane
and happy. But it is fortunate indeed for farm people that the
automobile replaced the horse as the source of transportation
for doctors. |

Since the advent of the automobile, the death rate in this
country has dropped by about 50 per cent. Actually, the auto-
mobile deserves almost no direct credit for that record. The big
gains came from improved sanitation, immunization, drugs, and
better medical knowledge in general. But indirectly, the auto-
mobile obviously played a part, especially in better medical
service for the farmer.

Before the automobile, the country doctor frequently had
little choice but to use the farm kitchen as his operating room.
For even if there was time to get the patient to a hospital, the
rough journey in a buggy or wagon was likely to prove fatal.
The mortality rate from either procedure was distressingly high.
But in this automobile age, we don’t have country doctors any

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more; we have city doctors who use their automobiles to visit
their patients who live on farms. A comfortable ambulance is
always at hand. And a modern hospital is usually less than an
hour away. The kitchen operation is now a thing of the past.
Farm people receive the same medical service as city people,
including mechanized pulmotors and rescue squads, traveling
X-ray laboratories, mobile dental offices and health units,
and so on.

It is true that another form of violent death has accompanied
the advance of the automobile. While that story is reserved for
the next chapter, here is an idea worthy of some consideration:
If we were still faced with the pre-automobile days of crowded
city living — with numerous livery stables and filthy, unpaved,
horse-inhabited streets — the result might well be an increase
in the death rate from diseases that would be far in excess of
current automobile deaths. While that possibility in no way
makes death by automobile any more desirable or excusable, it
could serve to put the issue in better focus.

As mentioned earlier, farming today has become an acute
political problem. And it is assumed by many farmers that their
increased share of the good things of life is due primarily to
governmental action. It is not here recommended that farmers
give thanks to any program or person for their good fortune.
By and large, they themselves have earned it by hard work and
intelligent management. But if they must have a symbol to
honor for their material well being, they could hardly do better
than to feature the automotive industry with its cars, trucks,
tractors, and refrigerators. For those things, more than any-
thing else, were responsible for bringing farmers into the main-
stream of American life.

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Chapter 6
HOW TO STAY ALIVE ON THE ROADS

In 1873, the legislature of Wisconsin offered a $10,000 prize to
encourage the private development of a “cheap and practical
substitute for the horse” on the roads of the United States.
Some 80 years later, General Motors returned the compliment
by offering a $25,000 prize for a practical plan whereby the gov-
ernment might build better roads on which people could run
their substitutes for the horse.

Two years after the Wisconsin Legislature offered that
prize, it was won by a steam vehicle designed by E. P. Cowles.
The practicality of his horseless carriage was proved by “racing”
it against another steamer — from Madison to Green Bay and
back. It took about a week to make the 200 mile trip. The delay
was caused by the vehicle rather than the roads. And the legis-
lators were so dissatisfied with the result that they gave him
only half of the promised prize money.

By the time of that 1953 General Motors contest (won by the
New York City Commissioner of Parks, Robert Moses), the
quality of the vehicles was far superior to the quality of the
roads on which they traveled. And the number of cars on them
exceeded the capacity of those roads by several millions. That
G-M contest was doubtless of value as a novel way of calling
the problem to the attention of the American people and en-
couraging them to pressure our legislators into the long-overdue
highway building program that is now under way.

The Federal Highway Act of 1956 is the heart of the greatest
public works program in the history of the world. During the
next 13 years, the government of the United States has prom-
ised to construct more roads than the Roman Empire built in
500 years. In fact, it has been estimated that this 13-year pro-
gram is probably bigger than all the world’s previous road
projects combined up until the beginning of this century. This

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current United States road building program is more than 60
times greater than was the Panama Canal project. By 1971,
more than $50 billion worth of new and improved roads may
have been added to what we now have. If all federal, state,
county, and local road building is included (both maintenance
and new construction) it now seems probable that the rate of
spending for roads throughout the 1960’s will be more than 11
billion dollars yearly. Whatever else it may or may not do, that
expenditure will go a long way toward bringing our highway
system into harmony with the job it should be doing.

One part of the program calls for a 41,000 mile Interstate
Highway System. The width will range up to eight lanes, de-
pending on traffic needs. And the right-of-way will contain ade-
quate space for future expansion. Those roads are to be so
solidly built that parts of them may still be in use hundreds of
years from now. They are being designed to accommodate the
anticipated traffic needs of 1975. The Interstate Highway Sys-
tem will connect 48 states, 42 of the state capitals, and more
than 90 per cent of all cities with a population of 50,000 or
more. In length, it will measure only a little over one per cent
of our total road system. But it is expected to carry more than
20 per cent of the total traffic. When it is completed, a person
can drive from coast to coast and from border to border with-
out ever encountering a traffic light. The nation will be criss-
crossed by four magnificent super-highways from east to west,
and eight from north to south. From an engineering viewpoint,
they will be the safest highways ever built. It is estimated that
they will save 3,500 lives yearly.

During its peak construction years, that new highway pro-
gram will consume between five and six million tons of steel
and more than 110 million barrels of cement annually. The
number of direct jobs created will run between 250,000 and
300,000 — plus countless indirect jobs in the industries that will
supply the machines and materials.

Who will pay for all this? You will, of course — along with

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===== PAGE 91 =====

Photos Courtesy AM.A.,

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===== PAGE 92 =====

“©


===== PAGE 93 =====

all other taxpayers. But the payment will be handled in various
ways. The federal government will pay 90 per cent of the cost of
the Interstate Highway System; each state will pay the remain-
ing 10 per cent of the cost of that portion within its borders.
The system will be toll free — except in a few cases where ex-
isting toll roads may be incorporated into the system for a
limited period of time. (This program could well mean the end
of the idea of paying for roads by directly charging the users.)
Nor will the new roads be paid for by the sale of bonds; al-
though a few states may use that customary method to raise
their 10 per cent, the main idea is that they are to be built on a
pay-as-we-go basis.

That’s the announced federal highway building program, and
it is now underway. But the chances of its being completed on
schedule, or at the estimated cost, are so slim as to be dis-
counted completely. (Already, at the end of 1958, the original
estimates for both cost and completion date are being dras-
tically revised — especially the cost estimates.) True enough,
a government can build excellent roads, and build them fast.
Adolph Hitler proved that fact conclusively when he criss-
crossed Germany in a few years’ time with those magnificent
super highways. But, fortunately, we don’t live under a dictator-
ship. The price we must pay for our more desirable type of
government, however, is almost always delay, poor service, and
high costs in those areas where the government has assumed
responsibility for supplying economic goods and services. While
freedom is well worth that price, perhaps more thought should
be given to devising ways and means to decrease our depend-
ence on government in this strictly economic area of producing
a product and service we need, want, and are willing to pay for.
Even in the complicated area of roads, the problem is funda-
mentally no more unsolvable than the related problems of rail-
roads, air lines, large utilities, pipe lines, telephones, and toll
roads. But since we Americans have decreed that our govern-
ment must assume full responsibility for providing us with ade-

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quate roads, certainly we should at least continue to write to
our state and federal congressmen and ask them to please do
the best they can. It does seem a shame, however, that we must
appeal to a man’s patriotism and political aspirations to en-
courage his support for a strictly economic problem such as
more and safer highways.

The automobile industry, of course, has been actively cam-
paigning for better roads for the past 50 years. While one ob-
vious reason for their interest is the sale of more cars, they are
also acutely aware of the frightful slaughter of men, women,
and children that occurs on our inadequate highways every
year. The story of the Automotive Safety Foundation is one ex-
ample of what the automobile industry is doing to help decrease
that slaughter. The story starts in 1935, with the August issue of
The Reader’s Digest.

That issue contained one of the most effective magazine arti-
cles ever written. It was called “And Sudden Death,” and the
reader was advised to skip that particular article if he had a
weak stomach. In vivid language, it described the gruesome re-
sults of automobile accidents, “ . . . . the flopping pointless ef-
forts of the injured to stand up; the queer, grunting noises; the
steady, panting groaning of a human being with pain creeping
up on him as the shock wears off . . . . the slack expression on
the face of a man, drugged with shock, staring at the Z-twist
in his broken leg, the insane crumpled effect of a child’s body

after its bones are crushed inward . . . . an hysterical woman with
her screaming mouth opening a hole in the bloody drip that
fills her eyes and runs off her chin . . . . the raw ends of bones

protruding through flesh in compound fractures, and the dark
red, oozing surfaces where clothes and skin were flayed off at
once . . .. the three bodies out of one car so soaked with oil from
the crankcase that they looked like wet brown cigars and not
human at all; a man, walking around and babbling to himself
oblivious of the dead and dying, even oblivious of the dagger-
like sliver of steel that stuck out of his streaming wrist; a pretty

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girl with her forehead laid open, trying hopelessly to crawl out
of a ditch in spite of her smashed hip.” And so on and so on,
with word-picture after word-picture of the fearful results pro-
duced by speed, alcohol, neglected roads, inadequate traffic
laws and enforcement, emotional instability, recklessness, and
just plain stupidity.

The article was effective for two reasons: First, most of the
many millions of persons who read it were shocked into driv-
ing more slowly and more carefully — for awhile. But that
soon wore off and the blood continued to flow. Second, and of
more permanent value, the public furor that resulted from the
article caused the leaders of the American automobile industry
(and other industries) to wonder if there was something they
could do as private citizens to slow down the annual slaughter
on our highways.

But what could they do? Of course the manufacturers could
build more safety features into their cars. But they had already
been doing that about as fast as practical safety devices became
commercially feasible. (Today, the automobile manufacturers
spend almost $6 million annually on engineering research that
directly results in more safety features in their cars.) Their sur-
vey of the situation, however, showed that the main trouble lay
with the driver of the automobile — and the manufacturers
couldn’t very well control him. The next culprit was the roads
— and the government had reserved that job for itself. The
third cause of the slaughter was poor enforcement of laws and
penalties against reckless driving — and that was also a func-
tion for which government had assumed responsibility. So since
they couldn’t control the driver, couldn’t build good roads, and
couldn’t pass and enforce laws against stupid driving, just what
could they do?

The final decision of the automobile manufacturers was to
use their money and influence in a permanent educational cam-
paign and research program. They hoped thereby to persuade
the American people in general to do what the automobile

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manufacturers couldn’t do themselves — to demand from their
government more and better roads, better laws for safe driving,
strict enforcement of the laws, and any other feasible measures
that would decrease the needless slaughter of men, women, and
children on our highways. At the same time, it was anticipated
that the campaign would influence the people themselves to
become safer drivers.

To implement their decision, the Automobile Manufacturers
Association established the Automotive Safety Foundation in
1937 “. .. to promote the mutual interests of the public and
the automotive industries by encouraging the safe and efficient
use of streets and highways . ..”

In the beginning, the membership of the Automotive Safety
Foundation (ASF) was mostly vehicle manufacturing com-
panies. But today, it has grown to about 600 companies and
associations from many different fields — automotive, oil, rub-
ber, steel, cement, insurance, banking, advertising, and others.
One-half of the budget of this non-profit organization is con-
tributed by the members of the Automobile Manufacturers
Association; the other half by interested companies and per-
sons outside that Association. While the automobile manufac-
turers work extensively through their Safety Foundation, they
also support various programs directly — such as AMA’s 1958
grant of $150,000 to the Cornell University Crash-Injury Re-
search Program.

In 1937 when ASF was founded, deaths from automobile ac-
cidents totaled almost 40,000; and non-fatal injuries were about
1,400,000. That was 13.3 deaths per 10,000 registered motor
vehicles, and 14.7 deaths per 100 million miles driven.

In 1957, the actual number of deaths and injuries was about
the same as in 1937. But deaths per 10,000 registered vehicles
had decreased from 13.3 to 5.8, and deaths per 100 million
miles driven had decreased from 14.7 to 5.9. Thus the death
rate per mile driven has dropped by 60 per cent. The current
rate versus the 1937 rate represents a 20-year saving of more

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THOUSANDS OF
TRAFFIC DEATHS

NUMBER OF DEATHS
PER 100 MILLION VEHICLE MILES

100 37.5
4
V4
Vd
v4
4
4
v4
80 77 30.
4
¢
4
EXPECTED TRAFFIC DEATHS ’
PROJECTED AT 1937 RATE Re
~~ SCALE Rg
60 22.5
Cd
4
+7
~~”
Ld
-
-
=
-
ld
= OTA
40 -_ TRAFFIC DEATHS 15.
TLL LLL
20 -T 7.5
ACTUAL DEATH RATE
PER 100 MILLION VEHICLE MILES TRAVELED
SCALE ~~
0 al
1937 1947 1957

93


===== PAGE 98 =====

on

”.

RE ad RAE
me Bea

Photos Courtesy A.M.A.

94


===== PAGE 99 =====

than a half-million human lives, the prevention of injury to
some 18 million persons, and the saving of perhaps $50 billion
in lost wages, property damage, medical expense, and insurance
overhead.

Obviously, that magnificent record was not due solely (or
even primarily) to the efforts of the automobile industry
through its Safety Foundation. Many other private organiza-
tions — especially the American Automobile Association and
its state and local affiliates — have campaigned for better roads
and more realistic safety laws for the past 50 years. Likewise,
many governmental organizations have necessarily been in-
volved in all these road and safety campaigns. The separate
and concerted efforts of hundreds of private and governmental
organizations were necessary to bring about that 60 per cent
reduction in the annual rate of slaughter on our highways. But
since space doesn’t permit a listing of their names and accom-
plishments — and since this book is primarily about the auto-
mobile industry — the ASF is here offered merely as an
example of the general type of work being done by all of them
in the areas of safety and roads.

In 1937, only a few cities had traffic engineers. When police-
men were stuck with traffic duty, they often felt somewhat like
soldiers on KP. Only a handful of our schools and colleges had
any courses or programs for safety education. Research facilities
for traffic problems were almost nonexistent. Traffic laws varied
radically from community to community and from state to
state. In the few states that required a driver’s license, the pur-
pose was usually to raise revenue rather than to control unsafe
drivers. And as often as not, fines for traffic violations were
. levied for the same purpose. In general, the politicians still fol-
lowed the traditional “pork barrel” approach to highway con-
struction — and the already-inadequate roads were steadily
falling further behind the increasing use and development of
automobiles.

The responsibility for the sorry situation belonged to every-

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body, and thus to nobody. Death ruled the road in that misty
no-man’s-land that is so often found between governmental
ownership and private use of economic facilities in a demo-
cratic country. Politicians were elected to office by blaming the
automobile manufacturers; and the manufacturers, in turn,
claimed that the responsibility belonged to government. Mean-
while, the users of the manufacturers’ cars and the government’s
roads continued to kill and maim each other by the millions.
The extent of that slaughter can best be visualized from this
one harsh fact: The number of killed and injured persons on
our highways since 1900 exceeds by far the number of killed
and injured American soldiers in all our wars combined.

When the leaders of the automobile and related industries es-
tablished the Automotive Safety Foundation, they realistically
faced this fact: In our form of government, the political leaders
generally do whatever they think the most voters want them to
do. Conversely, and by the nature of a democracy, the political
leaders seldom initiate a program unless there is good evidence
that the voters want it and are willing to pay the price in one
form or another. (This is merely an observation on how politics
works, not a criticism of politicians; for if they want to stay in
office, they can’t very well do otherwise.) Thus the number-one
problem for ASF and the hundreds of other organizations in-
terested in the same problem was to arouse and educate the
American people in general to the point where they would de-
mand better safety enforcement and better highways, and
would also show a willingness to pay for them. While the de-
tails of the engineering, legal, and financial solutions to the
problem were important, they were secondary to public edu-
cation; for unless there was an effective public demand for
them, the remedies could never be applied.

The ASF began its ever-growing and never-ending educa-
tional program by joining with 11 other similar organizations
in developing the Standard Highway Safety Program For States
in 1937. Later on, that idea grew into the Action Program of

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the President’s Committee for Traffic Safety, which correlates
the activities of the many organizations that are attempting in
various ways to decrease the annual slaughter on our highways.
At most, the automobile manufacturers deserve only a small
fraction of the credit for the resulting decrease in the death
rate. But, once again, the various programs participated in by
their Safety Foundation will serve as a fair example of the types
of work that are also being done by the others.

The Automotive Safety Foundation has participated in sur-
veys and studies to upgrade our traffic courts, to strengthen
licensing requirements, and to encourage safety teaching in our
schools. (In addition, it should be noted that 8,676 cars, valued
at $20.5 million, were made available during the 1957-58 school
year by automobile dealers to help teach our young boys and
girls how to drive better.)

ASF has helped to establish safety engineering and training
centers at various universities. It also supports research projects
and programs to solve the fearful problems created by traffic in
our crowded cities, to reorganize outmoded local and state traf-
fic and highway departments, and to build better and safer
roads. Above all, along with hundreds of other organizations
that are interested in decreasing highway accidents, the ASF
attempts in every possible way to create an informed public
opinion that will demand better highways and more effective
safety enforcement.

Unquestionably, the various local, state, and national safety
programs have produced excellent results. In a few states and
communities, the job has been done so well that the death rate
has been reduced to one-half of the national average. Thus it is
self-evident that the annual slaughter could be immediately
and drastically reduced in the high-death states and cities — if
the voters demanded it and would approve a small increase in
taxes to pay for the necessary safety programs that have al-
ready been tested elsewhere and proved effective. But consider-
ing the size and inherent difficulties of the overall problem, a

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remarkably superior job has still been done on a national basis.

Since almost 80 million of us fallible and emotional human
beings have licenses to drive a projectile that can be as lethal
as a bomb, the continuing seriousness of the problem before us
cannot possibly be overstated. Better highways, safer cars, and
stricter law enforcement against reckless driving will unques-
tionably help — especially better highways. But the most ef-
fective approach to the problem on a long-term basis would be
to make it permanently profitable, as well as humanitarian and
patriotic, for persons and organizations to work toward a de-
crease in the death rate on our highways. That is not now
the case.

When you stop and think about it, every automobile casualty
insurance company would probably go broke if a way were
found to stop all automobile accidents! It so happens that the
casualty insurance companies are among the leaders in devising
better methods and more campaigns for safety. They are doing
an excellent and selfless job. (Actually, on a short term basis, it
1s to their financial advantage to work for a decrease in highway
accidents.) Even so, there is something unrealistic in an ar-
rangement whereby a businessman is expected to work for an
immediate decrease and the eventual abolition of his source of
income. Apparently, there is not even one organization in our
entire nation that would directly and permanently profit from
a radical decrease in the highway accident rate. In varying de-
grees, that includes automobile manufacturers, repair shops,
doctors, morticians, and hundreds of other businesses. If there
were no automobile accidents, a hundred thousand or more of
our government employees would also probably lose their jobs.
But if the accident rate increases, their particular jobs will
probably grow in importance and pay. Yet they, too, are ex-
pected to campaign actively for more safety devices and laws
— and they do.

In theory, it may seem surprising that persons will work to
decrease accidents when their immediate jobs depend on more

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accidents. But, consciously or subconsciously, those people are
doubtless aware that, in the long run, deaths and accidents are
not really profitable even to the persons who derive their cur-
rent income from them. Anyway, almost no human being likes
to equate a human life with a dollar bill. Even so, the harsh
fact remains that the jobs and incomes of hundreds-of-
thousands of persons would be enhanced by an increase in the
highway accident rate. To some considerable extent, those are
the same persons who are expected to work for safer highways!

It would be relatively simple to remove that inherent contra-
diction in our present arrangement by making it both profitable
and humanitarian for almost all of those organizations and
persons to devote their efforts wholeheartedly to more safety on
our highways. It could be arranged so that it would become
profitable to have no accidents at all, and unprofitable for all
concerned to have even one accident. Such is now the case in
coal mines, factories, railroads, department stores, and any
other place where the owners and managers are subject to per-
sonal responsibility for any accident that occurs on their
premises — and where the same owners and managers are
subject to personal reward for keeping those accidents to a
minimum. That is a wise arrangement indeed. It is almost cer-
tain that no person can resist both the humanitarian and the
profit motives combined. In addition, it would also be far
cheaper than is now the case.

Unfortunately, since nobody owns our roads, no “owner”
can be held legally responsible for what happens on them. Also,
the pay and promotion of the governmental managers is not
directly tied to a decrease in the accident rate. The net result
of that queer and uneconomic arrangement is that we users of
the highways have little alternative but to battle it out among
ourselves when we are involved in an accident.

The evidence is clear that almost 100 per cent of us are de-
termined to continue that archaic and unwise system of “pro-
tecting” our lives and property on the highways. As long as

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that remains true, we would be well advised to give our full
support to the hundreds of organizations that are now actively
and effectively campaigning for more and better safety meas-
ures. And most important of all, every person owes it to himself
to drive more carefully. Under any circumstances, that is the
first step toward a solution to this acute problem of highway
safety.

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Chapter 7
THE LAST BILLIONAIRE

A man named Albert Strelow once passed up a large fortune
because he thought the profits of Ford Motor Company were
too small.

Strelow was a hard-working carpenter who had established a
successful paint and carpenter business in Detroit around 1900.
In 1903, he reconditioned an old wagon shop he owned, and
rented it out for $75 a month to the newly-formed Ford Motor
Company as its first headquarters and factory.

The founders of that company had lots of ideas and plans,
but not much cash. So they offered their landlord a five per
cent interest in the company for $5,000. He took it.

The new company was successful from the start. Strelow got
more than $15,000 in dividends over the next four years, plus
an exceptionally high increase in the value of his stock. Then
he heard about a promising gold mine in Canada. So he sold
his 50 shares of Ford stock for $25,000 — and bought into the
gold mining venture. As sometimes happens, the mining ven-
ture proved to be more glitter than gold, and Strelow lost his
money. Some years later, he applied to the Ford Motor Com-
pany for a job.

If he had held on to his stock for another 12 years until
Henry Ford bought out his minority stockholders, he would
have received a total return on his $5,000 investment of about
$18 million.

A Detroit school teacher risked her savings of $100 in the
new venture in 1903. When she sold her single share in 1919,
she had received a total return of $355,000 on her investment.

A young clerk invested $1,000 in cash — plus a note for an
additional $1,400 — and went to work for the new company.
He used a small part of his dividends to pay off his note and
to buy a few more shares of stock. After 16 years, he sold his

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stock for $30 million.

Nobody really knows how much Henry Ford himself got. At
one time, he was offered a billion dollars for his company. By
then, he had drawn many millions in dividends and salary, and
had extensive other holdings.

Can the effort and contribution of any one man really be
worth a billion dollars to his fellow men? This writer casually
put that question to 29 of his friends, associates, and acquaint-
ances. All of them are college graduates. All of them hold
executive positions in various companies. The question was
put to them in such a way that they had no idea they were
being interviewed. In different ways and in different words,
each of the 29 replied that no man could possibly be worth a
billion dollars to his fellow men. Admittedly, 29 is a small sam-
ple, but it is here assumed that the result of the test generally
represents the viewpoint of most business leaders in America
today. Perhaps their viewpoint is the correct one. Perhaps it
isn’t. At any rate, the career of Henry Ford should be examined
before a final decision is made. Just how did he manage to gain
control of a billion dollars and more? Did he really earn it?

Henry Ford had already been in two unsuccessful automo-
bile manufacturing ventures before 1903 and the founding of
the Ford Motor Company. In none of the three ventures did
he put up any actual cash. In each instance, he swapped his
mechanical know-how and improved motor for an interest in
the company — always a minority interest — and went to work
for the company on a salary basis.

In the third and successful venture, Henry Ford and most of
his partners were soon in strong disagreement on company
policy. Ford wanted to use almost all of the company’s earn-
ings for expansion. Most of the other stockholders favored a
more even split between expansion and dividends.

But most controversial of all was Henry Ford’s obsession
with the idea that he could make a good car for $500 that
would be bought by millions of Americans! That’s what he

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wanted the company to do. But in the early 1900’s, Ford’s vision
of a mass-produced and low-priced car to put an entire nation
on wheels seemed like a crazy idea to his partners and
stockholders.

The controversy continued. So Ford decided that the best
solution to the problem was to gain control of the company
for himself. And that’s what he did.

Alexander Malcomson, the man who was Henry Ford’s equal
partner in establishing the company, sold his 255 shares to
Ford for $175,000. That was about seven times their original
value. That purchase — added to his own original 255 shares
— made Ford the majority stockholder in the 1,000-share com-
pany. Thus, in 1906, he became his own boss, and thereafter
did mostly as he pleased.

In 1919, after a suit by the minority stockholders compelled
him to pay bigger dividends, Ford decided to buy out the re-
maining stockholders and become sole owner of the company.
He did, and the company became a totally family-owned
enterprise. |

There may have been no Ford Motor Company without the
original financial backing of Malcomson. That is a debatable
proposition. But this much is certain: There would have been
no Ford Motor Company — and no Model T — without
Henry Ford.

This study is not intended to deny in any way the vital con-
tributions of men like Edsel Ford, John and Horace Dodge,
James Couzens, Walter Flanders, Norval Hawkins, Peter Mar-
tin, Harold Wills, Charles Sorensen, William Knudsen, and the
many others who devoted their genius to the success of the
Ford Motor Company. Henry Ford could not have done it
without their help. But while acknowledging the vital part
played by Ford’s partners and employees, this chapter is pri-
marily the story of Henry Ford himself. Was hts contribution
to the American people worth the billion dollars he got from
them in profits? Just what did he do for that money?

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Some of Ford’s critics claim that Henry Ford himself con-
tributed few, if any, truly new and original ideas to the devel-
opment of the automobile. For example, they point out that
Ford once defeated a patent infringement suit against his com-
pany by proving that his automobile engine was basically the
same engine that had been invented in France in 1860 by Jean
Lenoir. -

Who deserves the credit for the mass production and effi-
ciency concept of an assembly arrangement that brought the
work to the man, instead of the other way around? At the Ford
Motor Company, that idea was developed into an art that
astounded everyone who saw it. But as Ford himself wrote,
“The idea [for a moving assembly line] came in a general way
from the overhead trolley that the Chicago packers use in dress-
ing beef.” Actually, the basic idea had been used successfully
more than a century before either the meat packers or Ford
Motor Company adapted it to their particular needs. In fact,
the original idea may well have been conceived by the Venetian
shipbuilders who were “mass producing’ boats in the Thir-
teenth Century.

Ford’s policy of taking a small profit on many units, instead
of a large profit on a few units, had been profitably used by
many producers in other lines long before Henry Ford began
producing his Model T. And several of those earlier manufac-
turers were also aware that it’s good business to service the
product you manufacture and sell.

Specialization, division of labor, and interchangeable parts
were standard practices among American gun makers long be-
fore Henry Ford was born. (The builders of the great cathe-
drals in Europe during the Eleventh Century were also familiar
with those ideas.) And the first manufacturer who ever had
trouble with a supplier of raw materials or parts was well
aware that vertical integration — Ford’s program to own or con-
trol his sources of supply — may be profitable from several dif-
ferent viewpoints.

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According to Mr. Ford himself, he gained his success by
basing his actions on these five ideas and principles:

1. He observed that the American people could use millions
of cars.

2. It was obvious to him that a durable and inexpensive
single model was necessary to meet that need and demand.

3. He decided that the needed millions of vehicles could be
produced both cheaply and profitably by weaving together
both new and old technological elements into an industrial
complex designed to mass produce the type of car he had
in mind. |

4. His actual experience soon confirmed his belief that price
reduction would result in market expansion.

5. He was of the opinion that high wages would mean more
customers and, as a result, more profits.

Whether or not Henry Ford contributed new ideas, or merely
improved upon existing ideas, is not at all vital to this story.
The important question is this: Why was he so much more suc-
cessful than his early competitors who had full access to the
same ideas and inventions?

Well, there were two primary reasons. First, he and his asso-
ciates applied and perfected all the above ideas (and many
more) better than had ever been done before. Second, Henry
Ford had a vision that drove him on. He actually wanted the
American farmers and factory workers to own and drive their
own cars. He dreamed of a world in which everyone would be
prosperous and happy. As he said, he put service first and the
profits just naturally followed.

It can’t be proved, but perhaps Ford’s vision was a more
powerful incentive than his profits. At any rate, he often
claimed it was. We are safe in assuming that if either the profits
or the vision had faltered in the beginning, there would have
been no Ford Motor Company as we know it today.

Let’s examine that vision — Henry Ford’s “crazy idea” that
he could build a car so cheap and so good that millions of

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people would buy one. When he first talked about it, most of
his listeners tended to dismiss him as a crackpot. But as we
know, Mr. Ford stayed with his idea. And his famous Model T
made its appearance late in 1908.

In the beginning, the price was not $500 but $825. But even
so, as the advertisements said with some justice, “No car over
$2,000 offers more except in trimmings.”

True enough, there were no trimmings — and the car wasn’t
exactly beautiful to gaze upon. But it was simple to operate and
repair, and it generally got you where you wanted to go. If
there happened to be a good road handy, the Model T would
operate just fine on it. But its specialty was rough roads, mud
holes, ruts, and bridgeless streams — just the sort of practical
and rugged vehicle demanded by the road conditions of that
time. And Henry Ford was right — the people began buying
them by the thousands, then by the hundreds-of-thousands,
and finally by the millions.

In 1909, the Ford Motor Company produced and sold 10,607
cars. That was less than 10 per cent of the total number of cars
produced and sold by the entire automobile industry that year.

By 1914, Ford had 42 per cent of the total business with
248,307 Model T’s. Meanwhile, his price had dropped to $440,
with a promise to refund $50 of that price to all purchasers
during 1915 if the company sold 300,000 cars during the year.

That goal was easily exceeded and the refunds promptly
made. Anyone could buy a car for $390. And old but still serv-
iceable Model T’s could be had for less than $100. Henry Ford’s
crazy idea of a mass-produced and low-priced automobile was
no longer considered crazy. His concept of an America on
wheels was well on its way to reality.

It was also in 1914 that Mr. Ford initiated his revolutionary
policy of a minimum wage of $5 for an eight-hour working day.

The automobile workers had always earned a higher wage
than their counterparts in other industries. If they hadn’t, they
would never have left their old jobs in the first place — espe-

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Model T

Photos Courtesy Ford Motor Co.

1903-1959



===== PAGE 112 =====

Photos Courtesy Ford Motor Co.

Now

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===== PAGE 113 =====

cially not the trained mechanics that the new industry had to
have. But Ford’s $5 minimum was more than double the going
rate!

The automobile workers had also generally worked shorter
hours than employees in the older industries. But Ford’s policy
was an eight-hour day at a time when twelve hours was still the
standard in many places.

The announcement of that revolutionary labor policy of Ford
Motor Company caused a riot in Detroit. More than 10,000
men actually stormed the plant in their frenzy to get jobs.

Also in 1914, the profits of the Ford Motor Company ex-
ceeded $30 million. Most of that belonged to Mr. Ford himself,
and as majority stockholder he controlled the disposition of all
of it.

Here is what Henry Ford gave in return for that multi-
million-dollar profit. He produced an excellent car for $390. He
paid wages twice as high as his competitors. He cut the work-
ing day down to eight hours.

In 1921, a depression year, Ford produced and sold 845,000
Model T’s. That was almost 55 per cent of the total passenger
automobile business. It was, of course, a better car than the
one of 1914. The price was also lower — $325. And the Ford
employees were earning higher wages. Henry Ford’s personal
profit for the year was about $75 million.

In 1923, Ford produced more than two million cars and
trucks. Every few seconds, a new Model T rolled off the end of
that world-famous assembly line. But even so, Ford sales
dropped to less than half of the total automobile business for
that year.

In 1925, the Ford Motor Company sold about 1.5 million
cars — and its percentage of the total sales for the industry
dropped closer to 40 per cent. In 1926, Ford’s percentage of the
business dropped to about 33 per cent, and the outlook was
for a continued steady decline.

On May 26, 1927, Henry Ford produced his last Model T.

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After making 15 million of them, he stopped production and
closed down his plants. Why?

The answer is simplicity itself. The American people had
stopped buying them! They bought some, of course, but not as
they used to. They were buying cars made by Ford’s competi-
tors — Chevrolet, Overland, Dodge, Essex.

In an effort to hold his market in the mid-1920’s, Henry Ford
chanted his magic formula once again. Raise wages, he said.
And increase production, improve the product, and cut prices.
It was done. For a short while during that period, the Model T
“Runabout” was priced at $260.

That tried and true formula had always worked before. It
had always brought more sales and more profits, not less. It
had made Henry Ford a billionaire. But this time, it didn’t
work. After 1924, sales and profits continued downward. The
consumers preferred to pay a higher price for a Chevrolet.
Ford’s declining profits soon turned into heavy losses. What
had happened?

In the early 1920s, Ford’s competitors had decided that the
American people were willing to pay a higher price for a more
stylish car, a closed car, a more comfortable car, a car with a
gear shift and similar mechanical improvements. Mr. Ford dis-
agreed, and stayed with his rough-and-ready Model T.

He was wrong and his competitors were right. The consumers
said so, with their own money — and Henry Ford’s Model T
was through. Later on, he came back with his Model A, but
that is another story. (Ironically, the vast changes brought
about by the Model T seem to have made the instrument of the
change itself obsolescent!)

True enough, no one man was responsible for putting Amer-
ica on wheels and for perfecting machines that enabled farmers
all over the world to produce more in less time and with less
toil. And no single person, however dedicated, deserves more
than a fraction of the credit for creating completely new indus-
tries and changing the living and thinking habits of the people

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===== PAGE 115 =====

of an entire nation. It required the full time and best efforts of
many men to supply the tools and know-how that enabled mil-
lions of workers to earn more by producing more, and thus to
lead more comfortable and happier lives. But, unquestionably,
Henry Ford was the leader of the few thousands who do de-
serve the credit for it.

Was Ford’s leadership and contribution worth the billion
dollars and more that he got in profits? Or did Henry Ford
profit at the expense and loss of his customers and the Ameri-
can people in general?

Well, first, he didn’t force anyone to buy his product. He
couldn’t. Millions of free and independent persons voluntarily
chose to exchange their hard-earned money for a Model T,
rather than to buy something else with it. In fact, they some-
times put their names on a list and waited many months for
delivery.

Those purchasers of Model T’s were of the strong opinion
that they profited by the exchange. That’s the only reason they
bought them. And when they no longer considered the Model T
a good buy, they bought the product offered by Ford’s
competitors.

Beyond any question, the employees of Ford Motor Com-
pany were sure that they profited by swapping their labor for
Ford wages. There were hundreds of eager applicants for every
available job.

Ford’s dealers, agents, and sub-contractors profited greatly
from their business with him. There was much competition for
those Model T agencies. And many of the dealers became mil-
lionaires in their own right. |

The Ford Motor Company was naturally one of the nation’s
largest taxpayers, as well as the source of the earnings of
hundreds-of-thousands of other taxpayers. So the government
certainly profited in many ways — including war production —
from Ford’s efforts. |

From a social viewpoint, Henry Ford was a pioneer in hiring

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Negroes, physically handicapped persons, and old people who
wanted to work but couldn’t get jobs elsewhere. He also hired
hundreds of probationary ex-convicts who otherwise would
have been kept in prison. Certainly they profited. The Ameri-
can people in general also profited greatly when Henry Ford
fought and defeated the “Selden patent” that once threatened
to monopolize and hamstring the young automobile industry.
The living and working conditions of industrial employees
throughout the country (and in various foreign nations as well)
were improved immeasurably when Mr. Ford gave the archi-
tect, Albert Kahn, free rein to express his revolutionary ideas
about changing the dark and dismal factories of the early 1900’s
into the bright, clean, and airy places that are now the general
rule. And we should never forget that Henry Ford offered a
new car at the lowest price the world has ever known — $260.

By any meaningful and realistic test, Henry Ford earned
every penny of his vast fortune. It was rightfully his to do with
as he chose. It so happens that he chose to establish the Ford
Foundation to give most of it away for the purpose of hospitals,
education, and other similar projects for the general public.

We American people have now arranged our government
and economy so that there can never again be another billion-
aire. In a democracy, we have the political right to do that if
we want to. But that fact has no bearing whatever on whether
or not the services of a person may be worth a billion dollars
to his fellow men.

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Chapter 8
HOW TO GET TO THE TOP

The gasoline automobile was largely invented by Europeans,
mostly French and German. The Daimler Motor Company of
Germany was producing cars for export before 1890. By the
time the Duryea brothers built their first automobile in the
United States in 1893, gasoline cars were racing all over the
excellent highways of France. That first Duryea car ran, but it
didn’t run far. It is preserved in the Smithsonian Institute —
in a somewhat modified and rebuilt form. Mechanically, it was
vastly inferior to its European predecessors. And anyway, the
poor roads in the United States at that time would soon have
shaken it to pieces.

At the time the Duryea brothers were wondering if their
“horseless carriage” would even run, the Parisian automobile
firm of Panhard-Levassor was actually selling its remarkably
modern cars from an illustrated catalogue. Eight years or so
were to pass before the United States could boast of such an
accomplishment. Even so, after the turn of the century, the
automobile soon became commonplace in the land of its adop-
tion, while it remained a mere plaything of the rich in the lands
of its birth. Why?

Many answers have been offered to explain that fact, such as
the greater need for transportation in the United States, the
technical skills found among our people, our greater purchasing
power, our compelling desire to keep up with our neighbors in
material possessions, a favorable political climate, and so on.
Each of those reasons is valid, especially the one concerning
political climate. But within that setting of a favorable political
climate, perhaps the biggest reason of all has been largely over-
looked — the American’s desire to get to the top or to become
his own boss.

At the beginning of this century, anyone could go into the

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automobile business if he had a few thousand dollars — or if
he had mechanical ability and could find someone to finance
him. For example, as we have already noted, Henry Ford never
originally invested a penny in the three automobile companies
with which he was associated. And the total “paid in” capital
of Ford Motor Company in 1903 was only $28,000. Thousands
of persons became part or sole owners of automobile com-
panies with an original investment of little more than the
proverbial shoestring.

There was absolutely no barrier against entry into the field
because of race or religion. A man with a yellow or black skin
was just as privileged to begin producing automobiles as was
the man with the white skin. A Moslem had the same opportu-
nity as the Christian and Jew. The immigrant was on an equal
footing with the native born. Patent applications for new inven-
tions didn’t ask about the race or religion of the inventor. In
short, the business of building and selling automobiles was open
to anyone who wished to try; no quarter was asked, and cer-
tainly none was given.

The new industry offered full opportunity for the traditional
American dream of getting rich quick or becoming one’s own
boss. From 1900 to 1925, more than 1,400 automobile com-
panies were formed by thousands of people. The overwhelming
majority of those early automobile producers came from poor
or middle class families. Only a handful were wealthy when
they started. And in proportion, those with money failed just
as fast as those without. The financial background of the pro-
ducer was unimportant; if a person had the ability to produce,
manage, and sell, he got to the top in a hurry. The automobile
industry was an example of that American dream at its best.
It still is.

Some people will scoff at that statement. Included among the
scoffers will be a considerable number of impatient or frus-
trated persons on all levels of management. They will claim
that while the average man may have full opportunity in text-

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book theory, he doesn’t have much of a chance in actual
practice.

Well, let’s see — by beginning first with General Motors, a
widely-owned stock corporation, and briefly examining the
backgrounds of its presidents.

The surest way to get to the top in a hurry is, of course, to
organize your own company. Then you can start at the top.
That’s what William C. Durant did back in 1908 when he or-
ganized General Motors Corporation.

True enough, Durant came from an old Massachusetts-
Michigan family that was certainly financially comfortable, but
that fact played no part whatever in his career in the trans-
portation business. He entered it by manufacturing road carts.
In 1885, he bought the patent rights to a two-wheeled “im-
proved suspension’ cart for $1,500 — and gave up his success-
ful insurance agency to devote full time to his new interest. He
went into business with another young man, Josiah Dallas Dort,
a hardware clerk, in Flint, Michigan, who put up $1,000 for a
half interest in the venture. Since they had no plant of their
own, the partners originally contracted with various other com-
panies to make the carts for them at $8 each. Then they sold
them for $12.50 each, a surprisingly low price for such a cart.
The two young men soon owned their own carriage company,
and their production of the road carts rapidly increased to
50,000 yearly. Before he was 40, Durant was a millionaire.

When the new and foundering Buick Motor Company was
looking for additional capital in 1904, the owners approached
Durant. Even though the company had produced only 16 cars
the previous year, Durant was most interested. In October of
1904, he became chief executive officer of the reorganized and
greatly expanded company. In 1908, Buick manufactured 8,487
cars in the largest automobile plant in the world. That was the
year Durant established General Motors by completing a merger
of Buick, Oldsmobile, and Oakland — three of the largest
companies and most respected automobile names in the indus-

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try. Within the next two years, “the world’s best salesman and
greatest promoter” added 17 more companies to General

Motors. But he overreached himself in the process.
In 1910, General Motors was threatened with receivership as

a bankrupt company. Two eastern bankers finally agreed to
supply the capital needed to prevent receivership, if Mr. Durant
would resign. He did — but as we shall see, he was soon to re-
turn. Meanwhile, the bankers successfully operated General
Motors under “interim control” while they searched for a new
chief executive. They finally selected Charles W. Nash in 1912.*

It is doubtful that even Horatio Alger could have visualized
such a rugged path to the top as the one followed by Charles
Nash. When he was six years old, his parents separated, and
their young son was “bound out” to a Michigan farmer as a
chore boy. In return for his services until he reached the age of
21, the farmer was to feed him, clothe him, provide him a place
to sleep, and permit him to go to school for three months each
winter — if young Charles cared to walk two miles through the
snow to get to school. (He did.) On his 21st birthday, Nash was
to receive three suits of clothes and $100 in cash from his
employer.

The terms of the arrangement were not quite as bad as they
may sound. In effect, the farmer was expected to treat the boy
pretty much as one of his own children. There is no evidence
to indicate that young Charles was treated unjustly or more
harshly than other farm boys in the 1870s. Even so, when he
was 12 years old, he ran away. In a neighboring community, he
found a job as an apprentice to a farmer who was also a part-
time carpenter. It was a room and board arrangement, plus a
little actual cash. Over the years, young Nash developed into a

*Technically speaking, Durant was not president of the company he founded and di-
rected. He assigned the title to two other men during 1908-1910. And when the bankers
assumed control, they also assigned the job temporarily to two more men during 1910-
1912 while they were looking for a man to fill the job permanently. Thus, because of
the merely nominal nature of the title during that period, those four men are not here
discussed. But even if they were, it would not materially change the story.

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respected and successful carpenter and farm manager.

At the age of 28, Charles Nash left the farm and moved to
town. Eventually he found a job at $1.25 a day as a trimmer for
the Flint Road Cart Company. In three months, he became
superintendent of 150 men. That cart company became the
Durant-Dort Carriage Company. As we know, one of the own-
ers of that carriage company organized General Motors in
1908. William C. Durant thought highly enough of the work of
Nash to recommend him for the presidency of the Buick Motor
Company — the keystone of G-M — in 1910. Nash’s superior job
of reorganizing and expanding that company caused him to be
elected to the presidency of General Motors itself in 1912.
Later on, he left General Motors to assume control of the
Thomas B. Jeffery Company, which soon became the Nash
Motor Company. (Today it’s the American Motors Corporation.)

When William Durant stepped down as top man in General
Motors, he didn’t depart from the automobile business. He or-
ganized the Chevrolet Motor Company in New Jersey in 1911.
The rise of Chevrolet under Durant’s direction was both fast

and profitable.
Throughout this period, Durant was planning and working

to regain control of General Motors. He knew he couldn’t do it
by himself. So he persuaded his Delaware neighbor, the
E. I. du Pont de Nemours Company (and family), to enter the
automobile business with him. By September of 1915, the
Durant-du Pont combination (plus their friends, business asso-
ciates, families, and the Chevrolet Motor Company) had pur-
chased enough General Motors stock to give them working
control of the corporation. The next year, General Motors had
a new president — William C. Durant.

When Durant was again in control of the company he had
founded, he plunged back into the expansionist policy that had
brought him to grief in 1910. During the war years, his policy
worked well. But during the 1920 depression, General Motors
once more found itself in an over-extended position. The price

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of its stock began a rapid decline on the market. In an effort
to halt it, Durant himself began buying every share that was
offered for $20 or less. In short order, he had committed him-
self to more than $35 million — and the stock was still falling.

Aside from Durant’s personal speculation, General Motors
itself was also in a shaky financial position. It needed an $80
million loan to permit it to consolidate its over-extended plant
and inventory. One condition of the necessary bank loan to
G-M in 1920 was that the corporation be reorganized under a
new president. So once again, William C. Durant was forced to
resign. As he had done on the previous occasion, Durant at-
tempted a comeback with another automobile company —
Durant Motors. His announced objective was to expand it into
a rival of General Motors. But the magic touch was gone;
Durant Motors was a costly failure. In 1936, Durant filed a
personal bankruptcy petition in which he listed his total liabili-
ties at $914,000 and his total assets at $250. The founder and
two-time chief of General Motors ended up as the working
proprietor of a bowling alley. But to the last, he remained ex-
pansionist in his outlook; when he died in 1947, he was talking
about a plan to expand his bowling alley into a national chain.

At the bankers’ suggestion, a man with extensive corporate
business experience, Pierre S. du Pont, was elected president of
General Motors in the 1920 reorganization. Even with him at
the helm, the company still lost $38 million in 1921 — but
that’s the last time it ever suffered a loss on a total year’s
operations.

Thus the background of the first three operating presidents of
General Motors: Durant, flamboyant promoter; Nash, farm
boy who made good; du Pont, business-trained scion of one of
the richest industrial families in America. In 1923, the vice
president in charge of operations, Alfred P. Sloan, Jr. succeeded
to the presidency. At the time, Mr. du Pont said of him: “The
greater part of the successful development of the corporation’s
operations — and the building up of a strong manufacturing

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and sales organization — is due to Mr. Sloan.”

Alfred Sloan was graduated from the Massachusetts Institute
of Technology in 1895. Soon thereafter, he went to work for
the Hyatt Roller Bearing Company as an engineer and sales-
man. He was president of the company in 1916 when it was
merged with four other accessory and parts companies into
United Motors Corporation. He was also president of that com-
bination in 1918 when the Durant expansion program brought
it into General Motors. Thus Mr. Sloan’s entire career was in
the automobile business. He came from “a family background
of learning and culture but in no sense of wealth.”

The next president of General Motors, William S. Knudsen,
was an immigrant who had been a bicycle mechanic in Den-
mark. When he arrived in America, he was not, as has so often
been reported, penniless; he had $35. And he immediately set
out to see if he could add something to it. For three years, he
worked at various odd jobs of a mechanical nature. At age 23,
he got a job as a mechanic with the John R. Keim Mills in Buf-
falo, a factory that made metal parts for various automobile
companies — mostly Ford. When Ford Motor Company
bought the Keim Mills, they automatically got Knudsen. He
worked his way to the top echelon in that company by estab-
lishing Ford assembly plants all over the country. In 1922, he
was hired by Mr. Sloan to manage the Chevrolet Division of
General Motors. When Alfred Sloan became chairman of the
board in 1937, Mr. Knudsen succeeded him as president.

Thus the first five operating presidents of General Motors:
Durant and Sloan, from ‘“financially comfortable” backgrounds;
du Pont, rich family; Nash and Knudsen, apprentice carpenter
and immigrant mechanic.

In 1941, another engineer became president of G-M,
Charles E. Wilson. His school-teacher parents were neither rich
nor poor. When Wilson was graduated from Carnegie Tech in
1909, he went to work for Westinghouse as an electrical engi-
neer. In 1919, he was hired by General Motors to be chief

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engineer and factory manager of its Delco-Remy electrical divi-
sion. Over the years, he held successively more important jobs
in various divisions of G-M. When the directors of General
Motors were looking for a successor to Knudsen, they decided
that engineer Wilson was the best man available to direct the
operations of the corporation under the prevailing cir-
cumstances.

The successor to Wilson, Harlow H. Curtice, answered the
following classified ad in The Flint Journal of April 23, 1914:
“WANTED — a high grade young man for office position re-
quiring some bookkeeping experience. A fine opportunity for
the right applicant.” Since 20-year-old Harlow Curtice had re-
cently studied accounting at Ferris Institute, he got the job as
a bookkeeper for The AC Spark Plug Company, a subsidiary
of General Motors. After holding successively more important
jobs in that spark plug company, and then in the Buick Divi-
sion of G-M, Mr. Curtice was elected president of General
Motors in 1953.

When Harlow Curtice retired in 1958, the title of chief execu-
tive officer of General Motors was vested in a new chairman of
the board, Frederic G. Donner. At the same time, an engineer,
John F. Gordon, became president and chief operating officer.
Chairman Donner rose to the top job in G-M along the finan-
cial route. After graduating in 1923 from the University of
Michigan (Phi Beta Kappa), he spent the next three years with
a Chicago accounting firm. He was hired by General Motors in
1926. At age 38, Mr. Donner was elected vice president of G-M
in charge of its financial staff. The new president of General
Motors, John Gordon, was graduated from the Naval Academy
in 1922, and then went on to the University of Michigan for a
master’s degree in mechanical engineering. He started with
G-M in 1923 as a laboratory assistant at 60 cents an hour. Both
of those men came from family backgrounds that were exceed-
ingly modest from a financial viewpoint.

There we have the briefest possible biographies of the eight

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1912 Chevrolet

1959 Chevrolet

1903 Buick

TT

1959 Buick 121


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1904 Olds

1959 Olds

1902 Cadillac

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1959 Cadillac


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operating presidents of General Motors Corporation. One was
born rich. Five were born into middle class families, ranging
from low to upper. Two were from poor families. In view of
that record (not untypical of American industry in general), it
is difficult to understand how any reasonable person could give
even passing consideration to the idea that only the privileged
few can get to the top in industrial America; that the “average
man” doesn’t have much chance in an economy where the pro-
ductive facilities and resources are privately owned.

All eight of those men got to the top because the Board of
Directors (who had been elected by the stockholders) thought
that each one was the best possible man available at the time
to manage the destiny of General Motors. And when the time
comes for those directors to select still another president for
G-M, they will give primary consideration to these two qualifi-
cations: First, he must understand the automobile business as
well as, or better than, any other available person. Second, he
must have superior knowledge of General Motors and its par-
ticular problems. Thus it is practically certain that the next
president of G-M is already an employee of the corporation.

There are also other requirements — personality, fundamen-
tal knowledge of economics and politics, general appearance,
speaking ability, public service record, respect for and from
other people, and so on through a long list of specifics and in-
tangibles. The amount of stock owned by the candidate will
not influence the judges one way or the other. While the
winning candidate obviously can’t be a man without friends, he
most definitely won’t be chosen because of personal friendships.
In short, the winner will be selected by the Board of Directors
solely because, all things considered, they think he is the man
most likely to insure the continued success and prosperity of
General Motors.

But how about the family owned or controlled company? Is
ability also the determining factor there? Well, as merely one of
many possible examples, let’s again look briefly at the family-

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owned Ford Motor Company.

It is generally conceded (this writer has found no exception)
that Henry Ford’s only son, Edsel, was one of the top automo-
bile men of his time. He began working in his father’s factory
as soon as he was big enough to paste stamps on envelopes.
Over the years, he did all sorts of jobs in the company. From
the beginning, he was specifically trained to become president
of the extensive Ford operations. And in due course, he was
appointed to that position. Since he died while his father was
still active in the company, we can never know just what he
might have done if the entire responsibility had been his. But if
Edsel Ford had been in the market for a new job, there is no
question but that several large automobile companies would
have been most pleased to hire him as chief executive officer.

The grandson, Henry Ford II, is now president of Ford
Motor Company. The evidence is clear that he was and is the
man for the job. After he became chief executive officer, both
the competitive and profit positions of the company improved
markedly. That is the best possible test of a person’s ability to
run a business. If both the competitive and the profit positions
of the company were to begin a steady decline together, you
may rest assured that someone else would eventually be
running the company. That is just as true for a family corpora-
tion as for a general stockholders corporation, possibly even
more so, because the family controlled corporations can usually
move faster. If they fail to move in time, the result is both sure
and simple — like any other company in a competitive econ-
omy, they go bankrupt.

One of young Henry Ford’s first actions when he assumed
responsibility for the direction of Ford Motor Company in
1946, was to bring in the best talent he could find to help him
run the business. The top jobs (for example, chairman of the
board) are as open to the man named John Doe or Ernest
Breech as they are to the grandsons named Ford. Ability is just
as welcome (and just as highly rewarded) in a family corpora-

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tion like Ford as it is in a general ownership corporation
like G-M.

Finally, the 1985 president-to-be of General Motors (or of
United States Steel or any other widely-owned industrial cor-
poration) is probably one of the young men among that batch
of business and engineering graduates that the company hired
more or less routinely last June. No one could possibly pick
him out at this time. But in due course, he will begin to show
his superiors that he is capable of holding a top job in the com-
pany. When he does, he’ll get it. In a free society and competi-
tive economy, it’s just that simple.

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Chapter 9
HOW MUCH IS AN EXECUTIVE WORTH?

A favorite newspaper feature is the yearly “best” list of such
things as best dressed women, all-star baseball and football
teams, most important politicians, and so on. One such annual
list that arouses much interest is the names and salaries of the
men and women who earned $100,000 or more during the year.

While the president of a steel company led the list for 1957,
a dozen or so top executives from the automobile industry
were, as usual, among the runners-up. The list also included
the customary sprinkling of personalities from the entertain-
ment world — sports, movies, stage, radio and television.

Both the highly paid entertainers and the high salaried busi-
ness executives are, of course, subject to the same high tax rate
on their incomes. But the spontaneous reaction of the general
public toward the tax payments of those two groups seems
quite different. There is little doubt that the sad plight of the
highly taxed entertainers often tends to arouse our sympathy.
That general reaction is pin-pointed most clearly in the case of
the popular and appealing winners on television quiz shows.
Most of us seem instinctively to wish that there were some way
they could keep more of their winnings.

The general public seldom reacts in the same way toward the
business executive and his equally enormous tax payments. The
distinction can, of course, be partly explained by the American
tradition of admiration and good wishes for “little people”
who suddenly make good. But a more basic reason for the dis-
tinction may be somewhat as follows: We are well aware that
the top people in the entertainment world have real talent. We
know for sure that Perry Como can sing better than we can,
and that Helen Hayes is a superior actress. We know that in-
fluence and pull have no particular bearing on their popularity.
If we could sing as well as Patti Page — or act as well as Jack

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Benny — we are confident that we, too, would soon be earning
those top salaries. We do not begrudge the high salaries that
are paid to baseball players like Ted Williams and Stan Musial
because we have no doubt that they earn them. And we know
further that if we could hit a baseball better than they can, we
would soon have similar jobs at still higher pay.

But those top salaried businessmen — well, somehow, that’s
different. We ourselves work hard in the same commercial
world with those executives, and we can’t seem to break into
that magic top circle. So, since our own abilities aren’t recog-
nized as fast as we think they should be, perhaps ability really
hasn’t too much to do with it after all. In fact, many of us are
probably reasonably sure that we could do just as good a job as
our bosses — who seem mostly to perform merely the function

of delegating the real work on down the line to us underlings.
That hazy concept of the purpose and function of the highly

paid business leader is involved in all employee-employer rela-
tionships — in the automobile industry and elsewhere. Since
those relationships are vital to our society, it might be of some
value to try to find out just what services those executives do
perform in return for their large salaries. And since, for many
years, Walter P. Chrysler of automobile fame was paid more
than a million dollars a year, let’s start with him. Who paid
him 300 or 400 dollars an hour — and for doing what?

Chrysler was an especially prominent member of that leg-
endary “rags to riches’ group that is encountered so frequently
in the automotive industry. In many ways, his career was a
close parallel to that of the fabulous Henry Ford himself. Kan-
sas was still a frontier state when Walter Chrysler was born
there in 1875. During his childhood, Indian raiders were still
scalping an occasional settler in the isolated sections of that
state.

While young Walter was completing the sparse schooling
available in his small town of Ellis, he ran a milk route for his
mother, sold calling cards, worked as a delivery boy and swept

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floors for the railroad. At the age of 18, he was hired as an ap-
prentice machinist by Union Pacific at 5 cents an hour — bring
your own tools. After more than three years as an apprentice
with that railroad, he quit his 15 cents an hour job and went
with Santa Fe as a journeyman mechanic at the top pay of 27
cents an hour. Several years (and several railroads) later, he
had worked himself up to master mechanic with the Colorado
and Southern at $115 a month. At age 30, he was earning $140
a month as foreman of two divisions of that railroad. A year
later (with still another railroad), he was making $160 a month.
Another year and another railroad later (the Chicago Great
Western), he reached $200. After two years there, he was pro-
moted to superintendent of motive power at $350 a month —
the top mechanical job in railroading.

His next step appeared to be in reverse — back into overalls
at $275 a month for American Locomotive Company in the
manufacturing end of railroading. But within two years, he was
works manager at $8,000 a year. He had been raised to $12,000
when General Motors offered him half that amount to become
works manager of Buick in 1911. He took the job and the
$6,000 cut in pay — and moved his wife and four children to
Flint, Michigan to begin one of the most remarkable careers
that can be found in an industry that is filled with remarkable
careers.

In 1914, Walter Chrysler was making $25,000 a year. The
next year, he was general manager of Buick at $50,000. In
1916, he had a clear choice of becoming a partner in a rival
automobile company — or remaining as the new president of
Buick at $500,000 a year. After some hesitation, he decided to

stay with Buick.
From a salary of $6,000 to $500,000 in five years is a fairly

good jump in pay — especially when the income tax on it was
almost nothing. It becomes even more remarkable when we
learn that Chrysler’s total yearly income was actually in the
vicinity of a million dollars a year because he chose to accept

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almost all of his pay in the form of General Motors stock. Let’s
see if it is possible to discover why someone thought he was
worth that kind of money.

When Walter Chrysler started with Buick, the company was
producing about 45 cars daily. Within six months, and with es-
sentially the same men and equipment, he had increased pro-
duction to 75 cars a day. He quickly followed Henry Ford’s
lead in installing a moving assembly line for more efficient pro-
duction. And he adapted to automobile production the excel-
lent cost accounting system he had learned at American
Locomotive. For the first time in the history of the company, it
then became possible to figure in advance the exact cost of pro-
ducing a Buick.

In 1915, Buick production exceeded 44,000 cars. One year
later, it reached 125,000. Meanwhile, Chrysler was drawing on
his long experience as a master of machines and a manager of
men to improve the quality of the Buick automobile while
steadily decreasing the cost of producing it. And also mean-
while, the value of General Motors stock (of which Buick was
the keystone) was steadily rising. While many persons were re-
sponsible for the success of General Motors during those years,
no one questions the fact that Walter Chrysler was primarily
responsible for Buick’s magnificent production and profit rec-
ord. Rather than lose his vast knowledge of machines, methods,
and men (especially to a competitor), the officials of General
Motors made him that fabulous offer. Perhaps he would have
stayed for less, but it is by no means certain.

Over the next three years, both General Motors and Buick
continued to expand — with Buick accounting for almost half
of G-M’s total profits during that period. In 1919, Walter P.
Chrysler, president of Buick and vice president of General
Motors in charge of operations, found himself in almost com-
plete disagreement with the policies of his boss, the equally dy-
namic William C. Durant. So, even though he was offered still
more money to stay on, Chrysler decided to retire — age 45, a

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multi-millionaire.

As could easily have been predicted, the retirement was
strictly temporary. Mr. Chrysler often joked that he actually
did intend to retire, but that his wife didn’t like him hanging
around the house all day. So after a few months of boredom,
he let it be known that he was again in the market for another
job. He soon got one — in fact, two at the same time.

The 1920-21 depression was a disastrous time for automobile
companies. When it hit, almost all of them were in an over-
extended and vulnerable position. During that period, more
than half of them failed, were reorganized, or were absorbed by
other companies. As we already know, Walter Chrysler’s former
employer, General Motors, was in serious trouble along with
the rest. But the two companies that here concern us are
Willys-Overland and Maxwell-Chalmers.

A group of banks held $50 million in notes of the Willys-
Overland Company, and $26 million in notes of the Maxwell
Motor Company. Since both of those long-time producers of
automobiles were faced with immediate bankruptcy, the note-
holders organized themselves into management committees to
save whatever they could from the debacle. None of them knew
much about the business of operating an automobile company.
So it is hardly surprising that they turned to a man who did —
Walter Chrysler.

First, he was asked to act as the bankers’ representative in
the management of Willys-Overland. A year later (and with
the agreement of Willys), he undertook the reorganization of
Maxwell at the same time. His conditions for accepting the two
jobs were similar: First, he was to be in full charge. Second, for
a period of two years, Willys-Overland was to pay him a salary
of one million dollars a year, net. And Maxwell was to pay him
$100,000 a year, plus an option on a large block of stock. The
bankers and the companies quickly accepted his terms.

In both companies, in turn, Chrysler followed much the same
procedure. He began by making various needed changes in man-

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agement. A few officials lost their jobs, many others had to ac-
cept a heavy cut in salary, and there was a general shifting
around of responsibilities. He sold a number of both com-
panies’ less productive properties, and consolidated others. He
also disposed of large amounts of surplus inventory. He per-
suaded various manufacturers and suppliers to cancel the
too-heavy commitments for parts and materials that had been
placed with them by both companies. He even negotiated more
favorable terms for both Willys-Overland and Maxwell from
the very bankers who had hired him to save their money! In
due course, he brought in a few new men and began the neces-
sary research for a better car. And, although his primary job
was “managerial fireman” (especially at Willys-Overland), he
automatically gave much thought and time to the problems of
how to improve production and sales.

When his two years were up at Willys-Overland, the banks
had been paid back more than half of their loans. The remain-
der of that debt was retired by a bond issue, and the company
was put through receivership and reorganized under new man-
agement. By then, Walter Chrysler was devoting his full energies
to Maxwell. Perhaps a subconscious reason that had caused
him to accept stock, instead of more money from Maxwell, was
that he had been smitten by that wonderful but rugged Ameri-
can dream of “going into business for yourself.”

Soon after he had accepted the Willys-Overland job offer,
Walter Chrysler had commissioned a team of consulting engi-
neers — Fred Zeder, Owen Skelton and Carl Breer — to design
a better engine for a new car for that company. They did, but
Durant Motors eventually bought it for the Flint car. When
Chrysler became top man at Maxwell-Chalmers, he hired those
three engineers as a team to become a part of that organization.
Under the leadership of Fred Zeder, Chrysler himself worked
along with the others in building a new engine for a Maxwell
car. When the engine was finished, they were so impressed with
its performance that they decided to design a completely new

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Th FRST PLYMOUTH

1928

PLYMOUTH

1959

34 dn

DE SOTO

133

1959



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1925

CHRYSLER

1959

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car around it. The startlingly new “Chrysler” was unveiled in
the lobby of the Hotel Commodore in New York City in Janu-
ary of 1924. It was an instantaneous success.

The next year, Maxwell Motor Corporation went through a
friendly reorganization and the Chrysler Corporation was born.
At that point, the new company was thirty-second down the line
among producers of automobiles. The new president and chief
stockholder of Chrysler Corporation set out to improve that
position. He began by hiring a few more selected men with the
various talents that a large company must necessarily have.
Chief among them was K. T. Keller, a fellow-mechanic he re-
membered from his days with General Motors.

Mr. Keller had begun his career as an apprentice mechanic
in the Westinghouse machine shop. At age 24, he was assistant
to the superintendent of the Westinghouse automobile engine
department. Later, he was a foreman for the Metzger Motor
Car Company. At age 27, he became the master mechanic of
Buick. His boss there was Walter Chrysler. Mr. Keller was
general manager of the Canadian Division of General Motors
when Mr. Chrysler offered him the job of general manager of
Chrysler Corporation in 1926. He took the job — and eventually
succeeded Walter Chrysler as president in 1935. (The third and
current of the three Chrysler presidents is L. L. Colbert, 1950,
whose legal work for the corporation had so impressed both
Chrysler and Keller that they hired him as general counsel for
the company in 1933.)

With his team of engineering, production, marketing, and legal
specialists — plus the financial genius of B. E. Hutchinson
whom he had hired as treasurer in 1921 — Walter Chrysler was
soon challenging the top leadership of the automobile industry.
In addition to launching two new cars in 1928 — Plymouth and
De Soto — the Chrysler Corporation also bought out and
absorbed the Dodge Brothers automobile company. In less than
a decade, Chrysler Corporation rose from its thirty-second spot
to the number two position behind General Motors in the pro-

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duction of automobiles. And, along the way, Walter Chrysler
became an exceedingly wealthy man.

Most of us can appreciate the logic of a high salary and other
benefits to the person who builds a small business into an in-
dustrial giant. Such a man becomes everybody’s favorite; even
his competitors generally admire and respect him. The stock-
holders naturally think he’s wonderful because he makes them
a lot of money. The employees like him because their jobs be-
come the most desirable and most secure in the industry. The
customers obviously prefer him to his competitors because he
gives them a better product at a better price. To the public in
general, he often becomes a kind of folk hero. Since the story
of his drive to the top is usually a dramatic one, his name is
constantly in the newspapers and magazines. In some respects,
such a man often enjoys the popularity that is usually reserved
for a top movie star or sports figure. His high pay isn’t begrudged
because everybody has a pretty good idea of what he has done
for it. Walter Chrysler held such a position in general public
esteem. So did Henry Ford and a score or more other pioneers
among those early automobile men.

But when the company is firmly established and the “second
and third generation” management takes over — well, that’s
different. The drama is usually gone. People imagine that the
hard part has already been accomplished, and that now it’s only
a simple matter to keep the company going. It is generally as-
sumed that it should be easy enough to find any number of men
capable of doing that — and at a comparatively modest salary.
But as is only too well illustrated by the decline and fall of 25
or so companies that were once giants in the automobile busi-
ness, such men are exceedingly rare.

Actually, the management that could have prevented the de-
cline and failure of any one of those companies would have
been just as valuable to the owners and employees and customers
as was the management that built it into a profitable enterprise
in the first place. That’s why it is almost impossible to overpay

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the management of a large corporation that shows a constant
growth and profit over the years. But for some strange and
most unfortunate reason, the fact that superior management is
a rare quality isn’t understood at all by the general public. For
if we did understand it, we would also understand why they are
worth exceptionally high salaries.

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Chapter 10
WHERE MEN ARE FREE TO TRY

Over the past two centuries, millions of men have used count-
less billions of words in an effort to describe the essence of the
idea that is summed up in the word “America.” We have
national, state, and local contests for pupils who write essays on
“What America Means To Me.” We have an “I Am An Ameri-
can Day” at which top speakers try to capture the spirit behind
those words. Sermons and books are devoted to the theme. It is
a favorite subject for newspaper editorials throughout the year.
But no one has ever yet told the story to the satisfaction of all
concerned. No one ever will. It’s too big, and it means different
things to different people. But certainly one of the many ideals
that are typical of America is that men shall be free to choose
the careers they wish to follow, and that they shall stand or fall
on the wisdom of their own choices and the results of their own
efforts. Perhaps the following brief story of the parallel careers
of two men will serve to illustrate one aspect of that ideal in
practice.

Elliot J. Russell (of whom you never heard) and Frederick J.
Fisher (the eldest of those seven famous “Body by Fisher”
brothers) were those two men. And as we shall see, they had
considerably more in common than a middle initial. They were
fairly close to the same age. The grandfathers of both had mi-
grated from Europe to the United States in search of a better
opportunity for their skills and talents. Both boys completed
“grammar school” in their respective states of Virginia and Ohio.
Both then became skilled craftsmen in trades based on horse-
drawn transportation; Russell was a top-notch harness maker,
and Fisher was an equally expert carriage maker. Both left home
at the turn of the century to seek their fortunes elsewhere — the
one to Manning, South Carolina, the other to Detroit, Michigan.
Both of those skilled craftsmen quickly found jobs — the one

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in a combination livery stable and harness shop, the other in a
company that made bodies for both horse-drawn vehicles and
those new-fangled horseless carriages. And in due course, their
respective employers made both of them superintendents over
many men. But neither was satisfied to stop there; each wanted
to go into business for himself. And since they lived in a country
where a man controls his own fate, they both did it.

Within a month of each other in the summer of 1908, two
more small businesses were started on their uncertain ways to-
ward success or failure. One was named the Russell Harness
Shop in Burlington, North Carolinas the other was known as the
Fisher Body Company in Detroit, Michigan. The first one in-
volved a total capital of perhaps around $5,000 — and the pro-
prietor was the sole owner. The other one had a paid-in capital
of $30,000 — supplied by Fred J. Fisher, his partner and
younger brother Charles T., and their uncle Albert. Both of those
small businesses were successful from the start. The Russell
Harness Shop soon expanded into bigger quarters, and the work
force was increased from one to four. The Fisher Body Com-
pany also soon needed more space and more employees.

As you are doubtless well aware, the similarity of those
parallel stories ends at this point. But the fact that one of those
men became exceedingly wealthy, while the other one didn’t, is
merely incidental to this story. The point of interest here is that
both men were free to try. Both did try.

Before we continue the story, let’s pause a moment and im-
agine that some newspaper in 1908 had conducted a “public
opinion survey” concerning the probable success of those two
men. Both were in their thirties when they established their
businesses. Both were skilled and ambitious artisans who were
tops in their trades, and both possessed a native intelligence that
was surely well above average. While no two men are ever equal
in these respects, let’s assume that the people being interviewed
would have been unable at that point to observe any particular
difference in their degrees of skill, ambition, and intelligence.

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The key survey question would probably have been something
like this: “One of these young men has stated that the automo-
bile will never displace the horse, and thus he is casting his lot
with the animal that has served man since the dawn of history.
The other is of the opinion that the automobile is far more than
a passing fad and a plaything of the rich, and thus he is risking
his money and his future on that new form of transportation.
Which do you think will be the more successful?”

There is almost no doubt that the horse-conscious people of
that day would have voted overwhelmingly for the cautious and
realistic maker of saddles and harness. After all, 52 of those new
automobile companies had failed in the depression of the previ-
ous year! So the young man who would deliberately choose to
base his future on such an uncertain business as building bodies
for automobiles, must be foolish indeed. And he shouldn’t blame
anyone but himself for what would probably happen to him.

Fortunately, the decision to try or not to try was left to the
judgments of the two individuals concerned, instead of to the
majority of the people. There was no law and no tradition to
prevent either of those men from following his own ideas as he
saw fit. Each of them had an equal chance to realize the full
potentialities of his skills and wisdom. It was strictly the personal
choice of each man as to how he would use his time, talents, and
money. That is the traditional American concept of equality of
opportunity. Under that concept, what one does with his oppor-
tunities (if anything), isn’t too important; that’s his problem, and
he should be eternally grateful it is. Even the level from which
he starts isn’t at all vital; while it’s certainly nice to be fortunate
enough to begin with a superior education and a large amount
of capital, that is totally unrelated to equality of opportunity.
And fortunately for most of us, it isn’t necessary for ultimate
success. The only really vital issue is that no law shall prevent
the ambitious person from trying. That’s the essence of equality
of opportunity, and it’s worth fighting for.

The end of the story of the harness maker is quickly told. For

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many years, he earned an excellent living for his family. In due
course, he was making the harness for most of the horses in his
community. And his reputation as an artist in leather became so
widespread that his finely-tooled saddles for show horses found
a ready market well beyond his own community. Then one day,
he lost his biggest account — the fire department of Burlington
switched from horses to trucks. That was a vast improvement
for everybody concerned — except, perhaps, the harness maker
and his employees. He had to let one man go. Then another.
Finally there were no employees. He was back where he had
started. One of his grandsons recently summed it up rather
neatly when he quipped, “Grandpa bet on the wrong horse.”

Thousands of those “horse oriented” small businessmen all
over the nation were suffering the same fate. Almost none of
them failed in the traditional sense; they just sort of slowly de-
clined and withered away with the horse. But hundreds of similar
small businessmen were astute enough to realize what was hap-
pening. They understood that the horse age was drawing to a
close, and that the future belonged to the automobile. So they
converted from making equipment for horses to making equip-
ment for automobiles. Unquestionably, the most successful
among them were Fred J. Fisher and his brothers.

When the Fisher Body Company was formed, there were
more than 100 firms in the Detroit-Flint area making bodies for
both automobiles and horse-drawn vehicles. One was the largest
automobile body maker in the world — the C. R. Wilson Com-
pany for which both of the elder Fisher brothers had worked.
One of the reasons that quickly established Detroit as a center
for automobile production was the availability of so many car-
riage makers in the area; both the required skill and the needed
wood products were immediately available to supply the bodies
for those early automobiles that were mostly conventional
buggies without the customary horse.

The Fisher tradition of fine workmanship in body building
started with the grandfather in Germany. His son carried on the

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1959 American Motors Rambler 4 door

1959 American Motors 2 door American

143
1959 American Motors
Metropolitan



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Studebaker-Packard Corp.

1959 Lark Station Wagon


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tradition in Norwalk, Ohio. In turn, most of the grandsons
learned the same trade by working in that small family business.
So it was only natural that they should have given due consider-
ation to the possibility of building bodies for the carriage with-
out the horse. From the beginning, they were thinking in terms
of closed bodies for automobiles. And during their first two
years as a company, they experimented with a few single orders
for individual persons who wanted closed bodies built on the
automobiles they had already bought. It was not until 1910,
however, that they got their first big order — 150 closed bodies
for Cadillac.

Soon thereafter, they took a lead in the body building business
that they never lost. In 1916, their plant had a capacity of
around 400,000 bodies a year — still mostly open bodies, of
course. At that time, their corporation was valued at about $4
million. Three years later, it was worth around $45 million.

Then William Durant’s expansion program for General
Motors reached out for the Fisher Body Corporation — with
mixed results. Most of the Fisher Body products were already
being sold to G-M, but by no means all of them. In turn,
General Motors bought most of its bodies from Fisher, but it
also had other sources of supply. Even so, the mutual depend-
ence was such that both were naturally concerned about the
future relationship between them. For obvious reasons, neither
wished to become completely dependent on a single customer
or a single source of supply. Apparently, G-M was the more
worried of the two. But when Durant first offered to buy Fisher
Body, he received a flat refusal. It seems that for two or so years
previous to that time, the Fisher brothers had been considering
the possibility of making cars as well as bodies. If such a venture
were successful, obviously they would no longer have to worry
about a customer for their bodies! But they finally decided
against it. Thus when Durant of G-M called again, they were in
a mood to listen. In 1919, General Motors bought three-fifths
of Fisher Body for $27.6 million, with the understanding that

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the Fishers were to continue to manage it. In 1926, G-M pur-
chased the other two-fifths through an exchange of stock.

If the Fishers had decided to build their own car, the history
of the automobile business might well have been considerably
different from what it is today. But at best, that is pointless
speculation. Beginning in 1919, the Fishers cast their lot with
General Motors. By 1927, three of the brothers were on the
G-M Board of Directors. In due course, a fourth one also be-
came a director. It is often written and said by responsible
people in Detroit that General Motors as we know it today is
certainly as much — and possibly more — the handiwork of the
Fishers as of any other comparable group.

“Body by Fisher” was already a valuable sales point for an
automobile before General Motors bought control of the com-
pany. After that, it became even more so. That famous emblem
that identifies a Fisher body was derived from the designs of two
of the world’s most famous coaches — Napoleon’s coronation
coach and the one he used for his marriage to Marie Louise.
The Fishers wanted that emblem to represent both quality and
style. From the day they made their first car body, they devoted
their fabulous energies and skills to the building of a body that
wouldn’t rattle and squeak after a few miles of use over the
rough roads of that time. They were eminently successful.

After joining General Motors, the Fisher Body Division of
that company continued to contribute to the advancement of
comfort and safety in automobile bodies. Its No Draft Ventila-
tion system of the early 1930’s was particularly notable. But,
next to the perfecting of the closed body itself, the greatest ad-
vance in automobile body building was the discovery of a prac-
tical way to paint them in the early 1920’s. That development
was not due to the efforts of Fisher Body as such. It was a joint
General Motors-du Pont project. But since automobile bodies
were concerned, naturally the Fishers were in it from the
beginning. :

Henry Ford once said that “any customer can have a Ford

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First closed Body by Fisher, 1910

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AND NOW

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car painted any color he wants, so long as it is black.” At the
time, most people probably interpreted his remark as merely
another one of those famous Model T jokes. Perhaps a few might
have thought of it as an unfortunate example of arrogance. The
remark, however, was actually prompted by an entirely different
reason. In the early 1920’s, the time required to paint a car in
color varied from 15 days for the cheaper models up to 30 days
for the more expensive ones. There just wasn’t enough covered
storage space in all Detroit and Flint to hold the number of cars
that rolled off those assembly lines in a period of 20 days or so.
Thus, literally, they couldn’t be painted in colors. One automo-
bile manufacturer humorously suggested that the needed drying
space for such a job would require that a roof be built over the
entire state of Michigan. At any rate, the cost of building the
needed storage space — plus the cost of painting the cars and
holding them off the market for three weeks while they were
drying — would certainly have added 50 to 100 dollars to the
sales price. But as long as the finish was the customary black
enamel, the job of painting and heat-drying a car body could be
completed in an hour or so. Thus Ford’s classic statement was
based on the economics of the situation, not on humor or arro-
gance. If the cost could have been held down, those Model T’s
would have appeared in every color of the rainbow. (In fact, as
any Ford man will proudly inform you, quite a few of those
Model T’s were both enclosed and colored.)

General Motors was, of course, having the same trouble. While
many of its Fisher bodies did appear in color, the added cost was
naturally passed along to the purchaser. But since it was obvious
that the customers wanted their cars in color, G-M appointed a
“Paint and Enamel Committee” under the direction of its Re-
search Director, Charles Kettering, to see what could be done.

That 1921 committee first consulted the paint and varnish
manufacturers. The committee asked them to produce a paint
that would dry in less than 17 hours instead of the customary
17 days. The paint must also be as inexpensive as the current

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enamel process. In addition, it must be available in all colors,
and last as long as the automobile body itself. Those paint
manufacturers said it couldn’t be done.

General Motors’ paint committee soon discovered that toy
manufacturers were already using a cheap, colored, and fast
drying lacquer with a cellulose nitrate base. The only trouble
with the lacquer was that it dried too fast. In fact, it dried be-
fore it could even be sprayed on the car! That lacquer, how-
ever, did supply a clue to the solution. Cellulose nitrate or “gun
cotton” is the base of smokeless powder. So the G-M paint
committee decided to consult the chemists of du Pont, the na-
tion’s largest producer of smokeless powder. Strangely enough,
they discovered that those chemists were already working on
the problem for another reason. So the scientists of General
Motors and du Pont joined forces, with those of du Pont play-
ing by far the leading role in the search. In 1923, they found
what they were looking for — a lacquer finish that could be
manufactured cheaply in any color, could be applied and dried
in seven hours, and was even more durable than enamel. (They
soon discovered that it also served equally as well as an attrac-
tive finish for furniture, radios, refrigerators, and other similar
equipment.)

The 1924 Oakland line of cars was the first to appear with
the new colored finishes. They were a sensation. The next year,
all General Motors cars were available in various colors at no
increase in price. While the cheapest of those G-M “Body by
Fisher” cars still cost $100 or so more than Henry Ford’s
Model T, the customers began switching by the hundreds-of-
thousands from black and open Fords to colored and closed
Chevrolets. Certainly those closed and colored bodies by Fisher
were a primary reason for General Motors rapid surge into
first place ahead of Ford in the mid-1920’s.

When people are free to try, it’s impossible to predict either
the results or the winners. But one thing can be predicted: We
consumers will thereby have the best possible chance of getting

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whatever it is we most want. More progress and prosperity for
more people will come from that type of economy than from
any other. Another vivid example of how it works can be found
today in the no-holds-barred competitive struggle that is being
waged by American Motors Corporation to persuade you to
buy its small or compact car instead of a big car. (The same
thing, of course, also holds true for Studebaker-Packard with
its Lark.)

American Motors came into existence on May 1, 1954,
through a merger of Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Motor Car
Company. Shortly thereafter, the various banks that held mil-
lions of dollars in notes on that company would gladly have
sold them for less than 50 cents on the dollar. For it seemed
almost certain that American Motors was soon to suffer the
same sad fate as all the previous producers of small cars in the
United States — starting with the one and two passenger Cycle-
cars of 1913 and continuing over the years with the Whippet,
Austin, Willys, Bantam, and others. But American Motors did
not fail — for the simple and conclusive reason that we con-
sumers began buying Ramblers.

Why we began buying them is of no importance to this
study. Whatever our reasons, our purchases increased in 1956.
The trend continued steadily upward in 1957 and 1958. While
“big three” sales were declining, Rambler sales shot up to a
new high. According to three important measurements that
were available in the last week of 1958 — sales, plant expan-
sion, and stock market prices — it appears that the “big three”
could easily become the “big four.” And according to those
same tests, Studebaker-Packard also shows signs of climbing
back to the heights once held by its ancestors.

There is absolutely nothing to prevent American Motors
from displacing General Motors as the top producer of auto-
mobiles — if it can supply us consumers with a product we
want at a price we are willing to pay. Contrary to all the er-
roneous reasoning you may have heard about “monopoly” in

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the automobile industry, consumer approval is still the deter-
mining factor for success. Without it, no company (regardless
of size or resources) can continue to stay in business. No com-
pany has ever had a monopoly in the automobile industry. In
no sense does a monopoly exist today. Nor can a monopoly
ever exist in an economy that permits you and me to compete
— along with Willys Motors, Checker Motors, International
Harvester, General Electric, Mad Man Muntz, the Aluminum
Company of America, Westinghouse, Volkswagen, and any
other organization that might think it profitable to begin pro-
ducing automobiles. All of those above organizations — plus
more than 10,000 others — either have produced cars, are now
producing them, or would be most happy to enter the automo-
bile business if they believed they could improve upon either
the price or the quality of the cars now being offered to us. We
need a law to protect us against General Motors just about as
much as we need a governmental decree to ban the common
cold.

It is completely pointless to argue that companies should be
of a certain size, or that we should or should not have small
cars, or cars with or without chrome. For as long as men are
free to try, you will soon be offered any type car you want.
And, as usual, the manufacturer who offers us what we want
(at a price we are willing to pay) will become both wealthy and
big. The manufacturer who tries to sell us a car we don’t want
— or tries to charge us more than we are willing to pay for it —
will go bankrupt.

That’s the heart of our competitive economy and its resulting
high level of living. For purely selfish reasons, we consumers
decide which automobile manufacturer shall fail and which
shall succeed — and that’s the way it should be.

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Chapter 11
THE SILENT PARTNER

As we noted in the first paragraph of this brief study of the
automobile, Oliver Evans was granted a patent for a self-
propelled road carriage during the same year that the founders
of this nation drafted the Constitution of the United States. In
the preceding chapters, a summary of the development of the
automobile — and its widespread impact on the way we live —
has been given. This concluding chapter is dedicated to the role
played by a “silent partner” — government — in the develop-
ment of the automotive industry as we know it.

We Americans are only 6.4 per cent of the world’s popula-
tion, living on less than six per cent of the world’s land area.
But we produce more than 60 per cent of the world’s cars,
trucks, buses, tractors, and other such automotive equipment.
We also lead every other nation in the production and use of
steel, rubber, oil, clothing, books, housing, medicines, meat,
milk, and almost any other product or service that the people
want or need. The reason for our productive leadership is not
natural resources; for several other nations equal or excel us in
that respect. Nor are we inherently more intelligent than others;
for, after all, we Americans are merely a conglomeration of
peoples from every nation on the face of the globe. And cer-
tainly we don’t work any harder than the people of various
other countries. Thus the only major difference between us and
others would appear to be our form of government. For a mo-
ment, let’s return to that Constitutional Convention of 1787
and try to discover just what those founding fathers were trying
to accomplish.

The primary objective of our forefathers was to insure maxi-
mum freedom of action and equality of opportunity to every
citizen in his personal and business affairs. To insure that pri-
mary objective of the Revolution, the founders of this nation

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designed a cumbersome governmental system of checks and
balances, of limited powers, and much division of those powers
between the federal and state governments. And by arranging
for frequent elections of officials, they hoped thereby to prevent
any one person or group from holding for long the few powers
that the government did have. With a few minor exceptions,
the founders did all in their power to bar the government from
the general area of economic activities. In fact, they deliber-
ately designed one of the most economically inefficient forms of
government ever known. The reason for that becomes more
understandable when we remember that they had just led a
successful rebellion against the planned economy of the govern-
ment of King George III. They were in no mood to endorse in
a new form what they had just rejected in an old form.

Except in time of war, the government wasn’t expected to do
much of anything. And it didn’t. It bumbled along slowly and
inefficiently, generally doing only those few things that had to
be done in order to keep it operating at all. On occasions, the
duly elected and appointed officials of our government rose to
great heights of statesmanship. On other occasions, they sank
to equally great depths of sordid log-rolling. All in all, the sys-
tem of government established by our forefathers was a pretty
good mechanism to insure the primary objective for which it
was established — maximum freedom for the individual
citizen.

In the area of economic goods and services, the government
generally confined itself to encouraging and aiding others (both
persons and companies) to exploit, develop, and settle the na-
tion. Throughout the early history of our nation, the main high-
ways were generally built and operated by private turnpike
companies. Water transportation was controlled by private in-
terests. The railroads were all privately owned. The active part
played by government varied from nothing to very little in
meeting the economic needs and desires of the people. Never
before in the history of the world had a government sat idly by

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while its people did almost anything they wanted to do. And as
a direct result of that inactivity, this nation experienced a re-
lease of human energy and accomplishment that astounded
the world.

Were there injustices? Of course there were. Was there suffer-
ing? Yes, there was. Did some persons exploit other persons?
They did. Were the votes and influence of some senators and
governors for sale? They were — and they were bought. Was
there any favoritism? There was indeed. Were there many ex-
amples of greed, stupidity, and outright criminality? Yes, there
were countless such examples — by both governmental and
private interests.

Point out all the mistakes and evils you wish (they are easy
enough to find), and then look again at the overall record.
Never before in all history were so many people so well fed,
clothed, and housed. There was more laughter and human hap-
piness in this land than in any other. Never before had the
world ever witnessed such an outpouring of the material things
of life — as well as an unparalleled abundance of charity, love,
and respect for the individual person. Thousands and hundreds
of-thousands of schools and churches sprang up across the land.
Here the Biblical injunction to feed the hungry and clothe the
naked became a part of our daily lives. Provision was made for
the widow and the orphan, the sick and the poor, the halt and
the blind. We first helped ourselves, and then we helped our
less productive neighbors — both at home and abroad. For the
most part, our government remained strictly passive in the
market place. It seldom concerned itself with what was pro-
duced or how it was distributed. And millions of people from
lands where governments actively participated in both produc-
tion and distribution, came pouring into the United States.

They came in search of opportunity for themselves and thei1
children. Here a man could work for others or for himself. Here
there was no state religion, no heredity nobility, no rigid class
barriers, and, especially, no governmental controls over eco-

155


===== PAGE 160 =====

nomic affairs. Here a man was his own master, and both he and
his children could rise as high as they were capable of rising.
Many of them became rich and famous, and almost all of them
improved their lot in one way or another. There were no price
controls, and food and manufactured products were both plen-
tiful and cheap. There were no wage controls, and wages were
the highest in the world. There were no limits to the profits a
man could make, but he had to produce something the people
wanted to buy before he could make any profit at all. We were
the “melting pot” — for dreams and economic ideas, as well as
for persons with different backgrounds. We were a brawling,
sprawling melange of all races, religions, nationalities, and
languages. Among us were the ambitious and the lazy, the
weak and the strong, the fool and the genius, evil men and
honorable men. We could (and did) tolerate strange religious
ideas. We could (and also did) tolerate equally foolish ideas
about carriages that would run without horses.

Meanwhile, the government continued its traditional policy
of doing mostly nothing — except to act as a sort of referee
that did a reasonably fair job of restraining murderers, robbers,
and outright frauds. The government didn’t concern itself at all
about Oliver Evans and his ideas for a road vehicle that would
run under its own power. True enough, the new government
granted him a patent, but what he did with it was strictly up to
him. When Charles Goodyear patented his method for vul-
canizing rubber in 1844, the government obviously knew about
it since a patent was involved. But it showed no further interest
in the process. (The commissioner who issued that patent,
Henry Ellsworth, stated in his 1844 Annual Report that “The
advancement of the arts from year to year taxes our credulity
and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human
improvement must end.”)

As far as can be determined, the government knew nothing
at all about the world’s first oil well that was brought in by
E. L. Drake at Titusville, Pennsylvania in 1859. The govern-

156


===== PAGE 161 =====

a. The first wheel. A section of log. d. Roman chariot wheel. 300 A.D.
b. Babylonian chariot wheel. 4000 B.C. Wood, highly decorated.

Wood held with copper clamps. e. American Covered Wagon wheel.
c. Egyptian chariot wheel. 1500 B.C. 1750. Wood with iron fire.

Wood with rawhide tires. f. American automobile wheel. 1906.
Wooden spokes with pneumatic tire.

157


===== PAGE 162 =====

Photo Courtesy Goodyear Rubber Co.

RUBBER

Photo Courtesy American Petroleum Institute

158


===== PAGE 163 =====

ment had neither encouraged nor discouraged him. The prob-
lem of what to do with the oil (if anything) was left strictly
with “Colonel” Drake. In due course, the government also is-
sued patents on several types of internal combustion engines
that had been invented or improved upon by its free citizens —
but that’s all it did. And when John B. Dunlop, a Scottish vet-
erinary surgeon living in Belfast, Ireland, first developed his
idea for an air-filled rubber tire, neither London nor Washing-
ton knew anything about it. Dr. Dunlop was merely trying to
devise some way to prevent his young son from shaking himself
to pieces as he rode his iron-tired bicycle over the cobblestoned
streets of that city. When his idea proved to be a practical suc-
cess, both his government and ours learned about it only when
he applied for a dual patent in 1889. While bicycle companies
in both countries were most interested in his invention, neither
of the two governments appeared to care about it one way or
the other.

When, in 1893, the Duryea brothers used a by-product of
Colonel Drake’s oil to supply the power for their “horseless
carriage,” our government had no idea at all that America’s first
practical automobile was finally in operation. The officials in
Washington couldn’t have cared less.

Nor did the government have any interest at all in the first
factories built specifically to manufacture automobiles in 1899
— the Olds gasoline cars in Detroit, Michigan and the Stanley
Steamers in Tarrytown, New York and Bridgeport, Connecti-
cut. The government treated R. E. Olds and those twin brothers
(F. O. and F. E. Stanley) exactly as it was later to treat Henry
Ford and the thousands of other persons who went into the
automobile business — it just ignored them entirely. When,
over the years, almost all of those automobile companies failed
and went out of business, the government did nothing. When a
few of them succeeded and made fortunes for the owners, the
government continued to do nothing.

Nor did the government in any way encourage Captain

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Anthony F. Lucas as he began drilling into those strange
“dome formations” he had observed all along the coasts of
Louisiana and Texas. Actually, Captain Lucas was mostly in-
terested in finding salt and sulphur. He was about as astounded
as anyone else on January 10, 1901 when his drilling rig was
hurled skyward by the fantastic gusher of oil he had tapped at
“Spindletop” near Beaumont, Texas. There was a good market
for sulphur and salt, but about the only use for oil lay in the
kerosene that could be refined from it. One cynic looked at that
160 foot geyser of gas and oil and asked Lucas, “What are you
going to do with it — feed it to the longhorns?”” Captain Lucas
found the answer to his problem in Detroit, not in Washington.
In due course, the booming automobile industry began using
so much gasoline — the “useless” by-product of oil — that mil-
lions of persons all over the world were soon depending on it
for their livelihoods. Until the oil industry was a highly success-
ful business, the government left it completely alone.

In short, it is safe to say that the government played no part
whatever in the development of the automobile and the primary
industries based on it — except the crucially vital part of doing
absolutely nothing, one way or the other. And for that, we are
forever indebted to the founders of our nation who deliberately
planned it that way.

True enough, the government did build almost all of the
roads the automobile now runs on. But it is doubtful if anyone
will claim that our highways have kept pace with the develop-
~ ment and needs of the automobile. Even if the proposed Inter-
state Highway System is completed, the overall road situation
will still be grossly inadequate for the amount and type of traf-
fic it must carrv.

A student of this problem once succinctly summed up the dif-
ference between public and private development of transporta-
tion facilities in this novel manner: Suppose, he said, that
around 1900, the government had decided to assume full re-
sponsibility for developing and building automobiles — and

160


===== PAGE 165 =====

had left the building of roads to private enterprise. What might
have happened? He predicted that, under those circumstances,
we would today have a highway system far superior to the few,
crude automobiles that would have been produced by govern-
ment. (And he might well have added that a privately-owned
“General Roads Corporation” would probably be running a
national contest to solicit ideas whereby government might be
encouraged to build more and better cars to run on the private
highway system.) Actually, of course, we can never know what
might have been. But we do know beyond any shadow of a
doubt that the government’s roads have not kept pace with the
development of the automobile.

In no sense is this a criticism of government as such. Ac-
tually, when all is said and done, our government has done a
far better job of road building than we had any reason to ex-
pect. And as time goes on, perhaps it will do an even better
job. Even so, we are fortunate indeed that the developing and
building of our automobiles, railroads, and airplanes was left
mostly to private initiative. We are further fortunate that the
actual building of our highways is also done by private con-
struction companies, with the government confining itself to a
supervisory capacity. Otherwise, the present deplorable situa-
tion might well become intolerable.

Be that as it may, the traditional American role of govern-
ment as a “silent partner” has been steadily changing over the
past 50 years or so in all economic areas. It is changing because
we citizens want our government to become more active in our
daily affairs. In no sense is the change due to any “plot,” either
foreign or domestic. We ourselves demanded it and voted for
the persons who promised to do it. And as was to be expected,
we are getting what we want.

Perhaps we are wise enough (and are now experienced
enough) to keep our active and largely unrestricted government
within reasonable bounds. Perhaps we aren’t. No one can say
with absolute certainty. But this much is sure: The continuing

161


===== PAGE 166 =====

trend toward more active participation by our government in
our daily affairs and problems is a complete reversal of the
principles laid down by the founding fathers in 1787.

Today, it is becoming increasingly popular to scoff at their
concepts of eternal principles, personal responsibility, and se-
verely limited governmental powers. Those ideas of our fore-
fathers are now often called “horse and buggy” principles that
might work in a frontier community but not in an industrial
age of rapid transportation and communication. The fact re-
mains, however, that it was those “horse and buggy” principles
themselves that caused the development of the automobile and
the countless other products and services that have made this
earth a more pleasant place to live. Conversely, the world-wide
situation that has been threatening for so many years to plunge
us back into the barbarism of complete governmental controls
is due almost exclusively to a rejection of those principles and
concepts — in all nations, including our own.

162


===== PAGE 167 =====

The conviction that success will come to “the man who builds
a better mousetrap” is traditional among American business-
men — including, of course, those persons who invent and
manufacture the thousands of parts and accessories that make
up a finished automobile. The story of the Atwood Vacuum
Machine Company is offered here as an example of that theory
in practice.

In 1909, two young brothers — J. T. and S. B. Atwood —
established a small company in Rockford, Illinois to manufac-
ture those newfangled vacuum cleaners that enabled the house-
wife to do a better cleaning job with less effort. While the new
venture was successful, it could hardly be called spectacular.
After several years in business, the two brothers themselves
were still a noticeable percentage of the work force.

Then, in 1916, came the idea for the better mousetrap.
Seth B. Atwood became the proud owner of a new Maxwell —
but the doors rattled something awful. Instead of merely com-
plaining to the manufacturer, however, “S. B.” invented a
“door bumper” that stopped the rattling. In due course, almost
all of the automobile companies were installing those “door
silencers” on their new cars. During the middle 1920’s, the At-
wood Vacuum Machine Company reached a yearly output of
21 million of those adjustable steel stampings with rubber in-
serts for doors.

Today, the company manufactures a complete line of “body
hardware” — hood, door, and trunk hinges; seat adjusters;
door latches, trunk and hood locks, brake mechanisms, and
other assemblies: With 1,800 employees — and five plants in
Canada and the United States — it is a highly successful manu-
facturer of automobile parts and other equipment.

Throughout its 50 years of operation, the Atwood Vacuum
Machine Company has remained a family enterprise. In 1953,
Seth B. Atwood moved up to chairman of the board, but still
remains as active and forceful as ever. His son, Seth G., suc-
ceeded him as president. And if one of the young sons of the

163


===== PAGE 168 =====

new president should develop both the desire and the ability to
follow the family tradition, doubtless he also will have ample
opportunity to try his hand at running the business at some
future time. That possibility — freedom to build for one’s chil-
dren and for one’s children’s children — is unquestionably the
mainspring of America’s greatness. Without it, the dream that
has been America would be finished.

The author is pleased to dedicate this Special Edition of
“Men, Motors, and Markets” to the Golden Anniversary of the
Atwood Vacuum Machine Company and the ideal it represents.

Seth B. Atwood, Chairman of the Board, receives a golden trowel from the
contractor as the cornerstone for a new plant is laid. At his left is his
brother James T. Atwood, Chairman Emeritus, and at his far right is his
son Seth G. Atwood, President.

164


===== PAGE 169 =====

Bibliography

Allen, F. L. The Big Change. N. Y., 1952.

Anderson, Rudolph. The Story of the American Automobile.
Washington, 1950.

Automobile Manufacturers Association, Detroit: 4 Chronicle of
the Automobile Industry in America, 1893-1953. Automo-
bile Facts and Figures (Annual). Motor Truck Facts
(Annual).

Bathe, Granville, and Dorothy. Oliver Evans. Philadelphia,
1935.

Beasley, Norman. Knudsen: A Biography. N. Y., 1947.

Borth, Christy. Masters of Mass Production. N. Y., 1945.

Burlingame, Roger. Backgrounds of Power. N. Y., 1949.

Chrysler, Walter, and Boyden Sparkes. The Life of an Ameri-
can Workman. N. Y., 1950.

Cleveland, R. M., and S. J. Williamson. The Road is Yours.
N.Y. 1951.

Cohn, David. Combustion on Wheels. Boston, 1944.

Denison, Merrill. The Power to Go. N. Y., 1956.

Doolittle, J. R. The Romance of the Automobile Industry.
N.Y. 1916.

Epstein, Ralph. The Automobile Industry. N. Y., 1928.

Ford, Henry, and Samuel Crowther. My Life and Work. Gar-
den City, 1922.

Ford, Henry, and Samuel Crowther. Today and Tomorrow.
Garden City, 1926.

Garrett, Garet. The Wild Wheel. N. Y., 1952.

Glasscock, C. B. The Gasoline Age. N. Y., 1937.

Holbrook, Stewart. The Age of the Moguls. Garden City, 1953.

Kennedy, E. D. The Automobile Industry. N. Y., 1941.

Kouwenhoven, John. Made vn America. Garden City, 1948.

Lewis, Eugene. Motor Memories. Detroit, 1947.
Lynd, Robert, and Helen. Middletown. N. Y., 1929.

165


===== PAGE 170 =====

- MacManus, Theodore, and Norman Beasley. Men, Money and
Motors. N. Y., 1929.

Merz, Charles. And Then Came Ford. Garden City, 1929.

Morris, Lloyd. Post Script to Yesterday. N. Y., 1947.

Musselman, M. M. Get A Horse! N. Y., 1950.

Nevins, Allan, and Frank Hill. Ford: The Times, The Man,
The Company. N. Y., 1954.

Nevins, Allan, and Frank Hill. Ford: Expansion and Chal-
lenge. N. Y., 1957.

Partridge, Bellamy. F%ll 'er Up! N. Y., 1952.

Pound, Arthur. The Turning Wheel. Garden City, 1934.

Richards, William. The Last Billionaire; Henry Ford. N. Y.,
1948.

Seltzer, Lawrence. A Financial History of the American Au-
tomobile Industry. Boston, 1928.

Sinsabaugh, C. G. Who, Me? Detroit, 1940.

Sloan, Alfred P., Jr., and Boyden Sparkes. Adventures of a
White-Collar Man. N. Y., 1941.

Stark, George. City of Destiny. Detroit, 1943.

U. S. Committee on the Judiciary (Senate). A Study of the
Antitrust Laws. Washington, 1956.

U. S. Federal Trade Commission. Report on Motor Vehicle In-
dustry. Washington, 1939.
Plus various releases and booklets from the American Au-
tomobile Association, the Automotive Safety Foundation,
the Chrysler Corporation, the General Motors Corpora-
tion, the Ford Motor Company, and others.

166


===== PAGE 171 =====

Index

A improvement in, 33, 37
Accident rates, 82, 92, 93, 95, increased use of, 21, 33, 55,
98 82
Action Program of the Presi- insurance companies and, 98
dent’s Committee for investments, 101, 114, 118
Traffic Safety, 96 monopoly and, 151
Advertisements, 28n parts manufacturers, 1, 163
Agriculture and automobiles, production. See Production
71, 75, 82 : races, 21, 28n
American Locomotive Com- small, 151
pany, 129 taxation and, 63, 89
American Motors Corporation, vacation travel and, 58
117, 151 wages, 56, 106, 127
Americanism, 113, 139, 153, war effects on, 38, 44, 47, 50
163 women and, 31, 34, 67
Anderson, Robert, 12 see also, name of automobile
Armament production, 38, 44, or company under subject
47, 50 Automobile Manufacturers
Atwood, J. T. and S. B,, 1, 163 Association, 92
Atwood Vacuum Machine Co., Automotive Council for War
1, 163 Production, 47, 48
Automobile industry Automotive Safety Foundation,
agriculture affected by, 71, 90, 92, 96
75, 82
Atwood Vacuum Machine B
Co., 1, 163 Benz, Karl, 13
competition and, 110, 149 Billionaires, 101
development of, 3 Blanchard, Thomas, 7
education affected by, 63, 78, Brayton, George, 13
90, 95 Breer, Carl, 132
electric power of, 18 Bryan, Jimmy, 32
executives in, 101, 113, 127 Buick Motor Company, 115,
Fisher Body Company of, 129, 130
139, 145 Burke, Alice, 34
free enterprise and, 113, 139, Burlingame, Roger, 10
153, 163
German, 13, 21, 113 C
government and. See C. R. Wilson Company, 142
Government Cadillac, 22, 145

167


===== PAGE 172 =====

Capitalism Durant-Dort Carriage Co., 117

American, 113, 139, 153, 163 Durant Motors, 132
industrial, 9 Duryea, Frank and Charles, 14,
production under, 41, 153 25, 113
“Russian view of, 42
slavery affected by, 8, 11 E
Chevrolet Motor Company, E. I. du Pont de Nemours Co.,
117 117, 150
Christianity and slavery, 9 : Education
Chrysler, Walter P., 128 effects on, 63, 78, 90, 95
Chrysler Corporation, 135 safety, 97
Communism and production, slavery and, 8
41, 53 Edwards, Gus, 26
Competition, automotive, 110, Eisenhower, Dwight D., 44
149 Electric power, 18
Constitutional Convention, 3, Elgin Road Race, 28n
153 Ellsworth, Henry, 156
Consumption. See Production Employment
Cotton gin and slavery, 11 executive, 101, 113, 127
Cowles, E. P., 85 Ford, 112
Cugnot, Nicholas, 4 slave, 8, 11
Cuneo, John Newton, 31 women, 67
Curtice, Harlow H., 120 England
D automobile club in, 22
Daimler, Gottlieb, 13 slavery in, 10
Daimler Motor Company, 113 steam engine in, 4, 12
Death rate, 82, 92, 93, 95, 98 Evans, Oliver, 3, 153
Depression, 41, 131 Executives, automotive, 101,
Detroit automotive industry, 113, 127
44, 139 Eystron, George, 33
Dewar, Thomas, 22 |
Dodge Brothers, 135 F
Donner, Frederic G., 120 Farming. See Agriculture
Dort, Josiah Dallas, 115 Federal Highway Act of 1956,
Drake, E. L., 156 85
Driver education, 63, 78, 90, Fisher, Frederick J., 139
95 Fisher Body Company, 139,
Dunlop, John B., 14, 159 145
du Pont, Pierre A., 118 Flint Road Cart Company, 117
Durant, William C., 115, 117, Food production, 75
130, 145 Ford, Edsel, 124

168


===== PAGE 173 =====

Ford, Henry Graham, Hannah, 34

investments of, 114 Gurney, Goldsworthy, 7
painted cars of, 146  H
race cars and, 26 Hancock, Walter, 7
success of, 101, 105 Hanks, Sam, 32
Ford, Henry II, 124 Harroun, Ray, 32
Ford Foundation, 112 Highways ’
Ford Motor Company, 101, government, 85, 89, 160
114, 119, 124 politicians and, 96
France safety and, 85
automotive industry in, 13, transportation on, 56
39,113 Hoover Research Committee
steam engine in, 4 ~~ on Social Trends, 69
Free enterprise. See Capitalism Hutchinson, B. E., 135
G Hyatt, Roller Bearing Com-
Gasoline engine, 13, 18, 113 pany, 119
General Motors Corporation I
Chrysler, Walter P. in, 129 Income
executives of, 115 automotive, 56, 106
Fisher Body Company and, executive, 101, 113, 127
139, 145 : investments and, 101, 114,
highways and safety program 118
of, 85 Indianapolis Speedway, 32
Paint and Enamel Commit- Industry P 4
tee of, 149 automobile. See Automobile
Germany industry
automotive industry in, 13, oil, 156, 160
13 Insurance, automobile, 98
race cars in, 21 Internal combustion engine,
Glidden, Charles J., 28, 31 38, 159
Glidden Tours, 28 Interstate Highway System, 86,
Goodyear, Charles, 156 160
Gordon, John, 120 Investments, automotive, 101,
Government 114, 118
automotive industry and,
153, 160 JS
farmers affected by, 75 John R. Keim Mills, 119
highways, 85, 89, 160 K
noninterference of, 156 Kahn, Albert, 112
safety education and, 97 Keim Mills, 119
slavery and, 8 Keller, K. T., 135

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===== PAGE 174 =====

Kettering, Charles, 34, 149 Orukter Amphibolos, 3

Khrushchev, Nikita, 43 Otto, Nikolaus, 13
Knudsen, William S., 44, 119
P
L : .
Paint and Enamel Committee
Labor. See Employment of G-M, 149

Lenolr, Jean Joseph Etienne, Panhard-Levassor, 113

Parts manufacturers, 1, 163

Levassor, Emile, 17 Patens, 13, 37, 112, 156, 159

Louisiana Purchase Centennial,

23 Politicians and highway safety,

Lucas, Anthony F., 160 Power, source of, 17
M Production

Macauley, Alvin, 47 agricultural, 71, 75
Malcomson, Alexander, 103 armament, 38, 44, 47, 50
Management, automotive, 101, Detroit, 44, 139

113, 127 free enterprise and, 41, 113,
Marx, Karl, 8 139, 153, 163
Maxwell-Chalmers, 131 mass, 25, 101, 110, 150
Maxwell Motors Company, 131 Russian, 41, 53
McCormick, Cyrus Hall, 76 taxation and, 63, 89
Medical care, 82 war, 38, 44, 47, 50
Memorial Day Sweepstakes, 32 Profits, automotive, 101, 114,
Metzger Motor Car Company, 118

135 Public works, highway, 85, 89,
Model T, 106 160
Monopoly, automotive, 151
Moses, Robert, 85 R :
Murdock, William, 7 Races, automobile, 21, 28n

Richardson, Nell, 34
N Roberts, Montague, 21

Nash, Charles W., 116 H.. 34
Nash-Kelvinator and Hudson Rea aes3 ’

Motor Car Co., 151 Roper, Sylvester Hayward, 22

Nash Motor Company, 117 Royal Automobile Club of

Nation, Carrie, 34 London, 22

Neustadt-Perry Company, 26 Russell, Elliot, J., 139

Newcomen, Thomas, 4 Russell Harness Shop, 140
0 Russia, production in, 41, 53

Oil industry, 156, 160

Oldfield, Barney, 27 S

Olds, R. E., 159 : Safety and highways, 85, 96

170


===== PAGE 175 =====

Salaries, executive, 101, 113, effects on, 3, 56

127 public vs. private, 160
Schuster, George, 21 safety, 85
Selden, George, 14 Travel, automotive, 58
Selden patents, 37, 112 U
Sir Thomas Dewar trophy, 22 United Motors Corporation,
Skelton, Owen, 132 119
Slavery, 8, 11
Sloan, Alfred, Jr., 119 i 4
Songs about automobiles, 26 Vacation industry, 58
Speculation, 101, 114, 118 Vanderbilt, William K., 28

Vanderbilt Cup, 27, 34

Sport , 21,28
ports car races n Verne, Jules, 21

Standard Highway Safety

Program for States, 96 14
Standard of living Wages. See Income
American, 41, 81, 112, 114, War
153 automobile industry and, 38,
Russian, 41 44, 47, 50
slavery and, 8, 11 economic effects of, 42
Steam engine, 3, 12, 17 Watt, James, 4
Stephenson, George, 7 Wells, H. G., 9
Stock car races, 21, 28n Westinghouse, 135
Stockholders, automotive, 101, White, Walter C., 33
114, 118 Whitney, Eli, 11
Strelow, Albert, 101 Willys-Overland Company,
131
Taxation. 63 89 Wilson, Charles E., 119
Thomas B. Jeffery Company, Winton, Alexander, 25, 27
117 Women and automobiles, 31,
Thomas Motor Car Company, 34, 67
22 7
Transportation Zeder, Fred, 132

agriculture and, 71, 75, 82

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