Ford Speaks

"No other man ever achieved so much publicity and talked so little for publication." This is a broad, unverifiable statement--but who will doubt it?

"No other living man in private life can lay claim to so widely known a name." This is another broad statement--but what artist in any art, what business man in any business, what scientist in any science can rival him?

"No other American except the President of the U. S. can command such instant attention for any public statement." This is a third generalization--but what politician does not envy him that?

And all because his name has been printed in "tin" on the running-boards of 12,200,000 flivvers.

Last week he opened his mouth. Occasionally reports of his remarks have appeared in Collier's Weekly, but rarely has he given interviews to newspapermen. Four years ago he gave an interview to correspondent Wilbur Forrest. Nowadays Mr. Forrest lives in Paris--as correspondent of The New York Herald-Tribune. But he has been home on vacation. So he traveled to Dearborn, Mich., and elaborated two days' interviews into four articles that appeared last week.

His interviews with Mr. Ford were not confined to any particular subject; they were general interviews embracing all matters on which Henry Ford had opinions and about which he could be induced to talk, and there were a good many. For example, when the correspondent was there a corner of Mr. Ford's laboratory had been canvased off, he had imported a dancing master, Benjamin B. Lovett, from Massachusetts, and was having him teach classes old fashioned reels, the Portland Fancy, Money Musk, the Fisher's Hornpipe, Pop Goes the Weasel, waltzes, polkas, the ripple, quadrilles, barn dances. Mr. Ford does not like modern dances, thinks the old ones will come back, is preparing a book to show why. He has also written a pamphlet against cigaret smoking and a discourse on why English should be a universal language. He collects American antiques. He has built a golf course for his employes and plays on it. He has opinions on politics; opinions and a hand in business. Age (62) cannot wither his infinite variety. He is always riding in many vehicles.

Some of Mr. Ford's deliverances:

Aeronautics. "I experimented twelve years with my motor car before I was convinced that it represented a lasting and stable product for the public. I have now only started to experiment with the airplane. And let me tell you that the commercial airplane is as yet a considerable distance of being a success. . . .

"The airplane motor is still unreliable--a delicate, quivering mechanism. Its vibration is so intense that there is little guaranty under such strain that it will remain intact over considerable distances. The airplane game depends greatly at present upon the flying ability of the man in the pilot's seat. Our daily trips to Chicago and Cleveland are about 90% skill of the men at the throttle. Stunt flying, as I see it, is about 98% of the same element. . . .

"We have discovered by careful reckoning that the net costs of transporting air freight are from 13 to 15c. a pound. There is obviously a commercial profit if you can charge more than that and get the business. Come back in two years and we will tell you more about commercial and practical aviation."

Business and Politics. "The nation is on the most solid basis it has enjoyed for years, under the leadership of a President whose ability and balance are beyond question. President Coolidge should and likely will be reflected to another term in the White House when his present term expires."

Shipping. "Ford ships on the high seas and lakes now number five,* and they will increase as our needs require. They are carrying Ford products overseas and returning with cargoes of any profitable character.

"We have determined that the $100 minimum wage, even with the large crews which we carry, leaves us a substantial profit, and all talk that this is a blow to the American merchant marine or other shippers is bunk. The big shipping companies do not pay decent wages merely because they do not have to. They are interested in keeping their men away from conditions in which they might enjoy the advantages that good wages bring. They want their sailors to remain in ignorance of the better things in life in order that there will be no demand for better wages and conditions."

Language. "Speech is one of man's most marvelous tools and there is a direct relation between the kind of speech which he uses and the kind of work he does. A good and experienced engineer can tell what language a machine has ' been built in just by looking at it. There are some languages in which a machine cannot be built at all. There are some languages in which it would be impossible efficiently to manage a factory.

"The English language is the world's tool of industry, colonization and the bringing of prosperity to every kind and degree of man. It is the world's language."

Said John Erskine, author and Professor of English at Columbia University:

"This report of Mr. Ford's rather fantastic ideas makes good hot-weather reading, but in one respect they are to be taken seriously. They will be quoted undoubtedly in other lands and will provide another unfortunate illustration of the self-sufficiency which seems to be the ideal just now of many otherwise able Americans.

"In the field of business I thought it was money rather than English that talked, and in the realm of the spirit perhaps greater progress is made in other languages."

Said Prof. William E. Wild, onetime Professor of Economics at Christian College, Allahabad, India:

"Mr. Ford is right in his historicity but not in his reasoning. English is becoming the dominant language of trade because English-speaking people have developed industrially and commercially, not because English is a better or more forceful language than any other. Arabic, for example, is a far more flexible language than English, but the Arabs have not an industrial development that forces their language to include scientific terms.

"In the colleges of the Orient, scientific subjects are taught in English--not because English expresses the ideas better but because the textbooks have been written in English. Mechanics and engineering, being comparatively new, are in the languages of their discoverers. In India, China, Syria and Turkey, the teaching of science is in English, but it is not so in Japan.

"A few English words will become universal. Take the Ford car, for example. In India they refer to any car as the 'motor gari' and the Ford is the 'Fordt motor gari'."

*The Oneida, now unloading at Bordeaux to bring back a commercial cargo; the Onondaga, in the Caribbean returning with 1,600,000 ft. of lumber from Seattle whither she took Fords; the East Indian being reconditioned at Chester, Pa; the Henry Ford II and Benson Ford (named after a young son of Edsel) in the neighborhood of the Sao Canal, one carrying Ford products, the other returning with a commercial cargo. All carry the "Bluebird" ensign chose by Mr. Ford himself; cf. Maeterlinck.