Henry Ford is my man.
Ford was a self made man, essentially grew up a poor farmer, had a knack for mechanical things early on. Passed on the family farm, became a machinist and then engineer working for Edison before revolutionizing the Auto Industry.
Ford put the world on wheels, and while we often think of the casual uses of cars, the real value was how much more productive it made the average person, the hours of labor spent dealing with beasts of burden. The number of lives saved by being able to get a sick or injured person to medical attention will never be known. An cars brought freedom of movement to many. He did this by making cars affordable, but paying his workers twice the going rate.
But there was a price to pay with Ford. If you took one of those good jobs at his plant, you gave up all privacy and were required to live by Henry's moral code. Ford developed what was called the Ford Sociological Department, they were morality Police. It started out as a team of 50 “Investigators” eventually morphed into a team of 200 people who probed every aspect of their employees lives. And I mean every aspect.
Investigators would show up unannounced at your home, just to make sure it was being kept clean. They’d ask questions that were less appropriate of a car company, than they were for the modern-day CIA. They’d query you about your spending habits, your alcohol consumption, even your marital relationships. They’d ask what you were buying, and they’d check on your children to make sure they were in school.
Women weren’t eligible, unless they were single and had to support children. Men weren’t eligible unless the only work their wives did was in the home.
They were Henry Ford’s personal morality enforcers, making sure that everyone who took one of his paychecks lived up to his standards. Those standards included patriotism and assimilation, especially when it came to language. This wasn’t just a wanton disregard for other cultures (though that wasn’t not a part of it), but rather a safety issue. In a time of massive amounts of immigration from Europe, all Ford workers had to speak English. On the factory floor, a simple miscommunication could get someone killed. This is the duality of Henry Ford. He had strict rules, but he had his own reasons. If you wanted his benefits, you had to pay his price.
Ford had a school, to teach you English and help you get citizenship. He offered Low- or no-cost loans were on offer for buying new homes and furniture, lawyers were available for everything from citizenship applications to property purchasing, and a team of 10 doctors and 100 nurses was on staff to take care of employees and their families who fell ill, and also to advise on hygienic issues.
Then there was his famous anti-semitism. He hated Jews and had no problem saying it. It was so well known, Henry Ford is the only American mentioned in Mein Kampf. Ford and Hitler admired each other, Ford accepted the Grand Cross of the German Eagle, the Nazi regime’s highest honor for foreigners. Ford sold truck plans and built a plant in Germany. Ford continued to run that plant until halfway through 1942. American GIs were shocked when they took over the plant and found documents of Ford and Germany coordinating production well into WWII.
On the other hand, Ford motors produced like crazy for the War effort, they set up plants in approximately 12 states and 5 foreign allied nations. They produced bombers, tanks, jeeps, trucks, half-tracks........... over One Million Combat vehicles plus all kinds of other manufactured supplies. Ford provided leaderhip, training and technical support to the allies all over the globe to produce war materials.
Henry Ford did great things for us, but there was always a price. IMO, the guy was a Fascist. I've never heard that said before, but he was a great Collectivist.
