End of Bat'a

Next to Henry Ford himself the world's foremost "Fordizer" has been Thomas Bat'a (pronounced Bahtya). Fifty-six years ago he was born to the wife of a poor cobbler in Zlin. He made Zlin the "Shoe Capital" of Europe. Last week he met his death at Zlin. One of his last philanthropies was a thumping gift which completely wiped out the civic debt of Zlin.

Because, like Henry Ford, he profoundly mistrusted financiers, Thomas Bat'a took care to remain the First Working Partner in a partnership which embraced all his employes. No one outside the partnership could own Bat'a stock. In Bat'a language the Bat'a newspaper of Zlin tersely announced the tragedy thus:

"Our First Working Partner, Thomas Bat'a, has been the victim of a terrible disaster. Despite heavy mist he decided to fly to Switzerland in the interest of the concern, which was dearer to him than life. We lose him at a moment when he had succeeded in relaying the foundations of our security and prosperity, and all must honor his memory by devotion to the work that was his life's ideal."

It was said at first that Thomas Bat'a's private plane had collided with a chimney of his plant, but when the mist cleared the chimney was seen to be unscarred. Some other cause produced the crash, the muffled explosion, the sudden burst of flame amid which died both Thomas Bat'a and an ace pilot who had flown him successfully around the whole of India.

"It is a shame that 30,000,000 Indians don't wear shoes!" Thomas Bat'a had cried in Calcutta. Then & there he bought a factory site. "We will sell to the Indian at 30-c- a pair," he prophesied, "serviceable cloth shoes with rubber soles."

Out of the burning wreckage frantic employes pulled Zlin's prophet, master and First Working Partner. He was carried to the morgue in the factory hospital. For almost an hour the production of shoes stopped, the Fordized conveyors halted. Then they began to move again. Thomas Bat'a would have wanted no interruption for his sake.

Mrs. Bat'a heard the news from Mr. Bat'a's stepbrother, Jan Bat'a. Said Jan, "There has been a terrible accident to Thomas' plane." Before he could break the news further Mrs. Bat'a collapsed in a dead faint. Swiftly the Bat'a secretariat moved to drape every factory window & door in black. But hardly was the draping finished, hardly were black flags hoisted to half-mast all over Zlin than the psychological error was realized. Down came the drapes and flags--"things which our First Working Partner would not have wished."

One of the Bat'a working partners is the young son of Premier Frantisek Udrzal of Czechoslovakia who dropped his Government work at Prague, rushed 170 miles to Zlin. When Premier Udrzal arrived the House of Bat'a was profoundly calm. Cash in bank totaled $2,500,000. Since the public held no Bat'a stock it could not crash. Quietly the Bat'a Board elected Jan Bat'a to be the new First Working Partner.

Bat'a facts are that the company has been selling this year for $1.50 shoes which it sold ten years ago for $6.60. Of the 23,000 working partners in Zlin last February, about one-third have had to be discharged from partnership, leaving some 15,000 still employed in Zlin last week. But there are Bat'a branches in 27 foreign countries. The total of Bat'a working partners throughout the world still exceeds 25,000. In 1931 the Bat'a plants were turning out 150,000 pairs of shoes daily (latest available figures) compared to the 190,000 daily production of U. S. International Shoe Co. (world's largest) in the same year.

Direct and simple, the Bat'a saga is the story of a will-to-power. When he was 18 Thomas Bat'a, the humble cobbler's son, was managing his own shoe factory with 50 working partners. He drank milk, urged them to drink milk, ruled them for what he conceived to be their own good (and his) with a will of iron. Today Zlin boasts the largest per capita per day consumption of milk on earth.

"Mr. Bat'a was devoid of sentiment except in one matter--that of the Bohemian Union Bank," said Director Vavrecka last week. "It was the Olmutz branch of that bank which 30 years ago extended him the loan that proved to be the turning point of his career. Till the day of his death Mr. Bat'a insisted that all the business of his huge concern should go through the little Olmutz branch bank."

Enemies of Thomas Bat'a called him a Wartime profiteer. Certainly the marching feet of Kaiser Franz Josef's men wore out millions of Bat'a shoes. After the feet ceased to march and the Austrian Empire collapsed Thomas Bat'a took his profits across the Atlantic, opened a shoe factory at Lynn, Mass, in 1922, learned all the tricks of Fordized technique. When the new Czechoslovakian Republic had been safely launched, Mr. Bat'a moved the machinery of his Lynn factory to Zlin in 1924.

Soon, despite mounting U. S. tariffs, he began and continued to offer Bat'a shoes in the U. S. at a price some 30% below U. S. cost of production. He pushed his cheap, Fordized shoes turned out by cheap Czechoslovak labor not only into the U. S. but into most of the countries of Europe and Asia. In Manhattan R. H. Macy & Co. sell Bat'a shoes, in Cleveland, The May Co. But in Chicago Marshall Field & Co. no longer handle Bat'a shoes, which are now sold there by 28 Bat'a stores.

As a supersalesman Tycoon Bat'a had at his disposal a fleet of ten airplanes strategically located. He used to boast to competitors, "The reason why you do not get ahead and I do is because you travel in wheelbarrows, while I travel in air planes." During most of the night before his death, Salesman Bat'a worked over the terms of a shoe contract he hoped to close in Switzerland. Rising at 5 a. m. he fumed at the fog & mist which made a take-off risky. Twice the pilot refused his mas ter's order to start. Finally at 6:30 a. m. Bat'a said, "We must start!"

What was there to fear? Bat'a, who had already flown more than 20,000 miles, was more than willing to take what seemed to him the smallest of chances. The plane's engine roared. It thundered across the perfectly smooth Bat'a Airfield, be gan to climb, disappeared into the mist.

After Thomas Bat'a's body had been embalmed the first thought of Jan Bat'a was to retrench. The Bat'a newspaper announced that the company had passed its dividend, that for the first time working partners will fail to receive their 10% return on the stock they hold. Under the Bat'a profit sharing system, half of each worker's profits has been automatically invested for him in Bat'a stock, thus making him a working partner.

Among wild rumors in Zlin last week was one that "the Bat'a warehouses are piled from cellar to roof with 25,000,000 pairs of unsaleable shoes." Contrary to his usual custom Tycoon Bat'a was not in the luxurious cabin of his plane when it took off but perched up beside the pilot. A story flew through Prague that the pilot, when found dead, had a bullet through his head. Even if this were true no coroner of Zlin could be expected to confirm a fact so damaging to the House of Bat'a. The bullet story was officially and vehemently denied.

One of the Bat'a Board members said, "Some time ago our First Working Partner remarked to me, 'If I should die I expect you to stand by the works for one year. Then, if you are unable to continue without me, you are free to do what you like.' "

To the Bat'a funeral last week flew Boston Merchant Edward A. Filene, no vender of Bat'a shoes. Mr. Filene was at Karlovy Vary (Carlsbad), Czechoslovakia when he heard the news.

Punctually at noon all Bat'a factory sirens began howling an eerie lament. Work ceased for the day. Again at 3 p. m. the sirens howled. In the factory yard a joint funeral service began for Thomas Bat'a and Pilot Heinrich Brouceck. Sixty thousand mourners, many of them peasants with black kerchiefs, marched past the catafalque hour after hour. In a husky voice that several times broke, Jan Bat'a read aloud Thomas Bat'a's will. It ignores his son Tommy as such, leaves all to the House of Bat'a as a family trust.

Raising his hand high at last Jan Bat'a took a solemn vow "in the presence of our dead chief to uphold his ideals: service to customers through cheap shoe production and service to fellow workers through high wages!"*

Humbly upon his father's bier was laid a bunch of white roses from his son with the inscription: "I promise, Tommy."

Finally the two bodies were buried near each other in a woodland cemetery. Roaring Bat'a planes dived and zoomed, strewed the graves with Zlin's summer flowers.

*Whether Thomas Bat'a ruthlessly exploited his working partners or made them comfortable & happy is the subject of bitterly controversial labor literature in Europe. In normal times the wage of expert Lynn shoemakers averaged $30 gold per week, expert Zlin shoemakers $13.50 gold. But the House of Bat'a claimed to provide married working partners with houses having bath and electric light for 45-c- per week, served restaurant meals at 8-c- each, "four meals a day" for 25-c-.

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