The Wild Wheel by Garet Garrett

Author:Garet Garrett [Garet Garrett]
Language: eng
Format: epub, pdf
ISBN: 978-1-61016-288-3
Publisher: Pantheon Books Inc.
Published: 1952-11-06T16:00:00+00:00

4

THE next thing the seven minority stockholders heard from Ford was very bad news for their pockets. From then on, Ford told them, the Ford Motor Company would pay dividends of only $1,200,000 a year. Roughly, that was one tenth of what it had been paying; and they could take it or leave it. All earnings over that would be returned to the business.

The Dodge brothers went to court, seeking an order to compel Ford to distribute the Ford Motor Company’s earnings to its stockholders; pending the outcome of the action they asked that the one-hundred-million-dollar expansion program be enjoined.

The trial was a transposed version of “Who Stole the Tarts?” Sense made nonsense and nonsense made sense and the sanity of language was imperiled.

Seven investors who had already got their capital back a thousand times were hurt and demanding relief because their dividends had been reduced to 60 per cent a year.

The greatest profit maker of the age was in flight from profits and always had been and that was how he made them.

A company might make awful profits in spite of itself. Its profits might get so big that it could not afford to distribute them.

The Mad Hatter said it all began with the twinkling of the tea.

“The twinkling of what?” said the king.

“It began with the tea,” the Hatter replied.

“Of course, twinkling began with the tea,” said the king. “Go on.”

“I’m a poor man,” the Hatter went on—

Ford said: “We don’t seem able to keep profits down. It has been my policy to force the price of the car down as fast as increased production would permit.”

The Dodge lawyer said: “Your conscience would not let you make such awful profits?”

Ford said: “I don’t know that my conscience has anything to do with it.”

The Dodge lawyer said: “Why did you say it wasn’t right to make such awful profits if it wasn’t your conscience?”

Ford said: “It isn’t good business.”

The Dodge lawyer said: “You started in to make money, didn’t you? That was why the company was organized?”

Ford said: “I didn’t give it much thought. The best way to make money in business is not to think too much about making it.”

The Dodge lawyer said: “But you got a lot of money out of it, didn’t you? And you still do, don’t you?”

Ford said: “The money is not mine to do with as I please. The men who work with me have helped to create it. After they have had their wages and a share of the profits, it is my duty to take what remains and put it back into the industry to create more work for more men at higher wages.”

The Dodge lawyer said: “Your controlling idea, since you have all the money you want, is to employ a great army of men at high wages, reduce the selling price so that a lot of people can buy a car cheap—give everybody a car who wants one?”

Ford said: “If I did all that the money would fall in my lap.

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