The enduring truth of the profitableness of Philip D. Armour’s apothegm, “Make and sell things that are ‘et’ up,” is not discredited by the automobile industry, for the use of the automobile “eats” up steel, brass, wood, rubber, leather, gasoline and many other natural resources. The automobile wears out and has to be replaced, so it properly comes in the category of things “et” up.
This truth, that the greatest profits lie in products that can be given general distribution, with a consequent large sale, which is one I have maintained in my book, “Making Money Make Money,” in my magazine, “Investing for Profit,” and in all my teachings on the science of investing, finds a splendid exemplification in the automobile industry’s success as a phenomenally profitable form of investment, and the circumstances of this success are but cumulative evidence of the soundness of my doctrine.
And the success of the automobile industry in the measure and with the speed it has achieved verifies not only this claim I have made and maintained, but confirms my contention of the value of co-operation.
I have preached co-operation as urgently as I have advocated, as the best objects of investment, the value of things used popularly and in quantities.
The “Story of the Automobile” could not have had written into it the glamour of the golden guerdons of Golconda but for Ford’s idea of quantity production, reinforced by co-operative standardization of parts. Co-operation between the manufacturers produced standardization, and standardization enabled quantity production, and the low price which quantity consumption warranted has caused automobiles to be bought by millions, and the purchase of the automobile in millions, instead of thousands, has made the hundreds of millions of dividends which this wonderful mine of profits has yielded.
The “Story of the Automobile” is one of the best and most notable proofs of two of my convictions bedded in the concrete of experience, namely, that the most promising investments are those made in natural resources and enterprises which the largest number of people can patronize, and that co-operation is one of the most effective forces in nature, and, therefore, applicable to the affairs of men as a beneficent influence, and, if efficient, the handmaiden of success.
The story of the automobile has herein been treated in a way that not only presents a graphic relation of the automobile’s development as an invention, its commercialization, its benefits to man and the position it occupies as a notable example of earning power, but in a manner that develops the many morals taught by its success. The method of treatment of the subject matter is uncommon, and, for this reason, interesting, I trust, to those who read the book.
The chapter contributed by Mr. Edward G. Westlake, automobile editor of the Chicago Evening Post, is a resume of automobile conditions from the intimate viewpoint of a writer who has specialized in the automobile, and enjoys a deserved reputation as the dean of the automobile editors of the daily newspaper press. Every one interested in automobiles will derive information and entertainment through reading Mr. Westlake’s presentation of the amazing features of automobile industrial figures. In it he states interesting facts not stated elsewhere in the volume.
The book’s interest and value as a contribution to automobile literature, of which there is not much in book form, would be less than they are, but for the participation in its preparation by the Business Bourse International, Inc., New York, whose vice-president, Mr. J. George Frederick, is one of the highest authorities on business economics.
The chapter by the Business Bourse deals with the automobile industry from the standpoint of the financial and investment aspects of the automobile, accessory and tire manufacturers’ securities, and Mr. Frederick’s reputation in the financial world is a guarantee of the authoritative accuracy of the facts presented in this chapter.