VI
Sometime in the twenties Henry Ford had come for a winter’s vacation and lived on an estate in Altadena not far from our home. Henry fancied himself a sociologist, an economist, and an authority on what should be done for his country. I wrote a note offering to call, and received an invitation. I duly presented my card to the guard at the gates and was admitted. I found the unpretentious great man in the garage with his son, Edsel, busy looking over some junk they had found in this rented place. They had in their hands a discarded carburetor and were twisting it this way and that, trying to figure out what purpose the various openings could have served. I don’t think I quite knew what a carburetor was, so I was not able to help.
Presently we went into the house; Henry’s wife was there, a quiet little woman—I can’t recall anything that she said. Henry had a great deal to say, and his wife listened. Henry thought he knew what was wrong with America and told me. I saw that he liked to talk, and I let him, only putting in a mild suggestion now and then. That suited him, and when I left he suggested that I should come again and we would take a walk in the hills.
So we took a walk. Henry was a spare man and a fast walker even on hills. I expressed the opinion that the American people needed educating on economic questions, and Henry agreed with me. I asked him why he didn’t do some of the educating himself, and the idea pleased him. I suggested that he start a magazine, and he said he thought that when he got back to Dearborn he would buy one. I suggested some of the topics for the magazine—“Production for Use” and “Self-Help Co-operatives”—and Henry said those things sounded good to him. He did start a magazine. It was the Dearborn Independent; and from the outset it was the most reactionary magazine in America.
I had told Henry about King C. Gillette and his books. Gillette was another multimillionaire, not quite so multi as Henry, but plenty. Henry was interested. He consented to come and exchange ideas with Gillette, and the appointment was made. A houseboy and two schoolboys whom my wife employed for work on the place just couldn’t be persuaded to do any work that morning. They lined up beside the drive to see the Flivver King and the Razor King come in. (Razor King is a pun, but it was made by fate, not by me.)
The Flivver King was lean and spry, and the Razor King was large and ponderous. They sat in easy chairs in front of our fireplace and exchanged ideas. As I wrote shortly afterward, it was like watching two billiard balls—they hit and then flew apart, and neither made the slightest impression upon the other. America remained and still remains what it always was—a land of vast riches and cruel poverty. Gillette’s book fell flat, and Henry’s magazine died unmourned.
As fate willed it, I was to have more to do with Ford, indirectly. And though I never heard from him again, I feel quite sure that he knew what I did—and didn’t like it. In the thirties, the CIO set out to organize industrial workers, including those who worked in the big automobile plants. Henry Ford was blindly and stubbornly opposed to unionization and declared that he would close his plants rather than have them organized. There was a strike, and he fought ruthlessly. Frank Murphy, mayor of Detroit, said to me at the dinner table of Rob Wagner in Beverly Hills: “Henry Ford employs some of the worst gangsters in Detroit, and I can name them.”
Because I had known Ford, I was much interested in what was going on; as usual, I decided to make a novel of it. I called the book Flivver King, and when it was done I sent a copy of the manuscript to one of the strike leaders in Detroit. I expected a prompt response and was not disappointed. They wanted that story, and they wanted it quickly. I offered them 200,000 pamphlet copies to be retailed at fifty cents a copy. However, I insisted on having the book done by my own printer, a union shop, because I wanted the plates and the control. After some dickering they accepted the offer, and the result was that in Ford plants all over the world Ford workers could be seen with a little green paperbound book, folded once lengthwise and stuck in their back pants pocket. I was told that they put it there on purpose, where it could be seen. It was a sort of badge of defiance.
The story of the humble mechanic who had built the first self-moving vehicle in his own garage and had revolutionized the traffic of mankind all over the world—look at it now!—was a wonderful story, and I would have been a bungler if I had not made it interesting.
Ford’s battle with the union had a surprising ending. He suddenly gave way and permitted his plants to be organized. It wasn’t until some years later that I learned the reason—his wife told him that if he did close the plants she would leave him. I can’t reveal the source of this information, but I know that it is true. As I have already related, I had met Mrs. Ford during my acquaintance with her husband. She had scarcely said a word and had never expressed an opinion during my arguments with Henry. But she had listened. She couldn’t have heard such arguments as mine very often in her life—and perhaps they played a part in persuading her that Ford’s workers should be allowed to have a union. It pleases me to believe that.