The Leader Enterprise And Press

HENRY FORD'S EXPERIENCE

From the Florida Times-Union:

Generally speaking we are ready to bet on anything the Havana Post says, but here is a statement that we cannot vouch for:

Ford's profits last year were only a million dollars a week. And he has not even a floor sweeper who gets less than five dollars a day.

If Ford's profits amounted to a million dollars a week last year that was $52,000,000 for the year or five per cent interest on $1,040,000,000. If this is true we have one billionaire located and his name is Henry Ford. John D. Rockefeller will have to take a back seat.

We do not believe that Henry Ford's profits were as large as stated. But there is no doubt of the fact that they were enormous. This man in Michigan has emerged from poverty and attained one of the highest places in wealth in the last few years and his career is instructive.

It is well known that Mr. Ford is paying the highest wages of any employer on earth. He was not compelled to pay them. Already paying reasonable wages he suddenly announced that he would pay a minimum of five dollars a day. He did this while other manufacturers were clamoring for a tariff high enough to double their pay-rolls to protect them against the pauper labor of Europe. Mr. Ford made no such demand. He asked no help from the government.

He went ahead on his own hook and put in force an unprecedentedly high scale of wages.

At the same time he was selling his product cheaper than any of his competitors and has presented in his success a wonderful combination—that of paying the highest wages, selling the cheapest product and making the most money. His competitors who are charging three or four times as much for their cars as he is charging and who are paying much lower wages than he is paying are left by him far behind in the race of affluence.

Henry Ford cares nothing for a protective tariff. He said he would not object if all duties were wiped off the statute books as far as his products are concerned. He finds it pays to practice the golden rule without preaching it while others are busy trying to find out if it pays to preach it while not practicing it.