He had been studying relief plans, methods of factory management in Germany, welfare work of all kinds. When he had finished his consideration of those reports he threw overboard all the plans other people had made and announced his own.
“Every man who works for me is going to get enough for a comfortable living,” he said. “If an able-bodied man can’t earn that, he’s either lazy or ignorant. If he’s lazy, he’s sick. We’ll have a hospital. If he’s ignorant, he wants to learn. We’ll have a school. Meantime, figure out in the accounting bureau a scale of profit-sharing that will make every man’s earnings at least five dollars a day. The man that gets the smallest wages gets the biggest share of the profits. He needs it most.”
On January 12, 1914, Ford more than satisfied the expectant manufacturers of the world. He launched into the industrial world a most startling bombshell.
“Five dollars a day for every workman in the Ford factory!”
“He’s crazy!” other manufacturers said, aghast. “Why, those dirty, ignorant foreigners don’t earn half that! You can’t run a business that way!”
“That man Ford will upset the whole industrial situation. What is he trying to do, anyhow?” they demanded when every Detroit factory workman grew restless.
The news spread rapidly. Everywhere workers dropped their tools and hurried to the Ford factory. Five dollars a day!
When Ford reached the factory in the morning of the second day after his announcement, he found Woodward avenue crowded with men waiting to get a job in the shops. An hour later the crowds had jammed into a mob, which massed outside the buildings and spread far into adjoining streets, pushing, struggling, fighting to get closer to the doors.
It was not safe to open them. That mass of humanity, pushed from behind, would have wrecked the offices. The manager of the employment department opened a window and shouted to the frantic crowd that there were no jobs, but the sound of his voice was lost in the roar that greeted him. He shut the window and telephoned the police department for reserves.
Still the crowds increased every moment by new groups of men wildly eager to get a job which would pay them a comfortable living. Ford looked down at them from his window.