Henry Ford — Quick, short facts and stories
Bedridden men
In his book «My Life and Work» he wrote about a case when Ford Corporation employed bedridden men who were just able to sit up. Work and ability to do something made these people get better faster. This demonstrates that if given a chance and if distracted from their illness, men can be very productive and have a very high level of motivation for work. Here is what Henry Ford said about it:
«We have experimented with bedridden men—men who were able to sit up. We put black oilcloth covers or aprons over the beds and set the men to work screwing nuts on small bolts. This is a job that has to be done by hand and on which fifteen or twenty men are kept busy in the Magneto Department. The men in the hospital could do it just as well as the men in the shop and they were able to receive their regular wages. In fact, their production was about 20 per cent., I believe, above the usual shop production. No man had to do the work unless he wanted to. But they all wanted to. It kept time from hanging on their hands. They slept and ate better and recovered more rapidly.»
Driving Lanchester
Henry Ford and his colleagues studied every car in order to discover if it had features that could be developed and adapted. They needed to know if anyone has anything better than they had. For this reason they used to buy one of every new car that came out. This car was used for a while, put through a road test, taken apart, and studied as to how and of what everything was made. Every little while after they bought a new car it got into the newspapers and somebody remarked that Ford didn’t use the Ford. Once they ordered a big Lamchester — which was supposed to be the best car in England. It stayed in their Long Island factory for several months and then Henry Ford decided to drive it to Detroit. There were several of them and they had a little caravan — the Lanchester, a Packard, and a Ford or two. Henry Ford was in Lanchester when they were passing through New York and when the reporters came up they wanted ti know right away why he was not riding in a Ford. His reply was:
«Well, you see, it is this way, I am on a vacation now; I am in no hurry, we do not care much when we get home. That is the reason I am not in the Ford.»
Reincarnation theory
Henry Ford believed in Reincarnation. In an interview to San Francisco Examiner (26 August 1928) he said that had adopted theory of Reincarnation when was 26. He admitted that religion couldn’t answer his questions and even work couldn’t give him complete satisfaction because of its futility in case there wasn’t way to use this experience. Discovering of Reincarnation made him feeling as if he had found a universal plan and allowed him to realize that there was a chance for all his ideas.
Mistakes
Henry Ford once claimed that he never made a mistake in his life. He said in an interview: «Never! And neither did you ever make a mistake — or anybody else. For what purpose do you suppose you are living on earth? Do you know what you are here for? l’ll tell you what every living person is here for, and that is to get experience. That’s all we can get out of life.»
Henry Ford as a pacifist
Henry Ford is famous for being a pacifist and always against a war. He financed a pacifist expedition to Europe during WWI and was involved into producing of military aircrafts in order to supply Europe and to help to make peace there. He claimed that every man who deliberately devotes his life to the trade of a soldier was either lazy or crazy, and, unhappily, most of them were merely lazy, so it’s impossible to put them in asylums. He was sure that many of those business men who were working «hand in glove» with the military men, they were those, who start, drive and end the wars.
Village and city
Henry Ford was very interested in developing village industries. He built small factories in Michigan so that people could work and farm during different seasons. His idea was also to use agricultural products in industrial production, including soybean-based plastic automobile components.
Public apologies to Jews
After several of his articles were republished by different magazines with remarks and misunderstood, Henry Ford was proclaimed as an enemy of Jewish nation by some of organizations. In order to calm the situation down and to make everything clear, he made an official statement in the American Jewish Year Book (1927). In this statement he explained what exactly happened with those articles of his and how everything happened.
He said: «Had I appreciated even the general nature, to say nothing of the details ,of these utterances, I would have forbidden their circulation without a moment’s hesitation, because I am fully aware of the virtues of the Jewish people as a whole, of what they and their ancestors have done for civilization and for mankind and toward the development of commerce and industry, of their sobriety and diligence, their benevolence and their unselfish interest in the public welfare.»
And then added: «Those who know me can bear witness that it is not in my nature to inflict insult upon and to occasion pain to anybody, and that it has been my effort to free myself from prejudice. Because of that I frankly confess that I have been greatly shocked as a result of my study and examination of the files of The Dearborn Independent and of the pamphlets entitled „The International Jew.“»