He had applied his machine idea first to an engine, then to a factory; in time he was to apply it to society as a whole.
“That Christmas present of ours is paying better dividends than any money we ever spent,” he said to Couzens with a grin. “First thing we know, the men’ll be paying us back more than we gave them. Look here.” He spread on Couzens’ desk a double handful of letters from the men.
“They like it,” he said soberly. “Some of them say they were worrying about Christmas bills, and so on. Those checks took a load off their minds, and they’re pitching in and working hard to show they appreciate it. I guess in the long run anything that is good for the men is good for the company.”
In the months that followed he continued to turn over in his mind various ideas which occurred to him, based on that principle.
The Ford employees and agents now numbered tens of thousands. They were scattered all over the earth, from Bombay to Nova Scotia, Switzerland, Peru, Bermuda, Africa, Alaska, India—everywhere were workers, helping Ford. Black men in turbans, yellow men in embroidered robes, men of all races and languages, speaking, thinking, living in ways incomprehensible to that quiet man who sat in his office in Detroit, were part of the vast machine out of which his millions poured.
He thought it over—that great machine. He knew machines. He knew that the smallest part of one was as necessary as the largest, that every nut and screw was indispensable to the success of the whole. And while he brooded over the mighty machine his genius had created, the thought slowly formed itself in his mind that those multiplying millions of his were the weak spot in the organization. Those millions represented energy, and through him they were draining out of the machine, accumulating in a useless, idle store. Some way they must be put back.
“Everybody helps me,” he said. “If I’m going to do my part I must help everybody!”
A new problem filled his mind. How should he put his money back into that smooth, efficient organization in such a way as to help all parts of it without disorganizing it? It was now a part of the business system of the world, founded on financial and social principles which underlie all society. It was no small matter to alter it.
Meantime, there were immediate practical necessities to be met. His business had far outgrown the Piquette avenue plant. A new factory must be built. He bought a tract of 276 acres in the northern part of Detroit and began to plan the construction of his present factory, a number of huge buildings covering more than forty-seven acres.
In this mammoth plant Ford had at last the opportunity, unhampered by any want of capital, to put into operation his old ideas of factory management. Here 1800 men were to work, quickly, efficiently, without the loss of a moment or a motion, all of them integral parts of one great machine. Each department makes one part of the Ford car, complete, from raw material to the finished product, and every part is carried swiftly and directly, by gravity, to the assembling room.