However, Henry Ford has two other great interests besides automobiles. They are boys and birds. His only child is a bright and earnest boy but Mr. Ford does not forget other boys in doing for his own. There are always a dozen or more boys that he is training and helping to prepare for life, thus giving to the world strong, helpful citizens.
As for birds, he has built two hundred bird houses in the grounds of his home. They are heated with electricity in winter so as to keep the birds’ drinking water from freezing, and by a clever arrangement of tubes, food can be sent electrically to each little house. Recently Mr. Ford brought from England three hundred and eighty song birds not native to the United States. They settled down and built nests in his trees and shrubbery. He hopes to have them increase and add to the beauty of our natural life.
His interest in birds and out of door life has been strengthened by his long friendship with John Burroughs, the naturalist, and the two have had many tramps and camping trips together. These excursions are Mr. Ford’s vacations and he likes to take them with this 130 great nature lover or with his other good friend, Thomas A. Edison, with whom he is most congenial.
Having no bad habits, perfect health, never being tired, willing to listen to others, able to decide quickly, and world-wide in his interests, Henry Ford is one of the twentieth century’s greatest public-spirited business men. No better illustration can be found than the fact that although Mr. Ford did not believe in war and was a man of peace, yet when the United States entered the World War, he hastened to Washington, offered his great factory to the government to make war supplies, and began running night and day to furnish our country with war-time necessities. If some one wished to choose for him a coat of arms they should select, “A file and hammer crossed, a warm, glowing heart placed above them,” while the words,
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“I love, I build, I give.” |
should be written underneath. This should be sufficient to describe the nature of the kindly, frank and unassuming man, who, with a large amount of money coming in each month, cares nothing for it as money but wishes to use it to promote the good will of the world.
BEN B. LINDSEY
Late one afternoon a tired judge was seated at his bench in the city of Denver. The docket showed that the next case to be brought before him was one for stealing. Anxiously he waited for the hardened criminals to be brought in, when lo and behold! three boys hardly in their teens were brought before him.