by Jeff Guinn
But by 1921, opposing the spread of unions became one of Ford’s public missions. He expected all workers, his own especially, to be appreciative of and loyal to their employers. Accepting a salary also meant accepting the responsibility of working as hard and efficiently as possible. Any attempt to form a union was in fact a declaration the employees intended that they rather than their employer would run things. Ford certainly wasn’t going to allow any unions in his shops. He didn’t doubt that some, perhaps many, of his workers read or heard about unions and were tempted to accept outside—socialist—help in organizing their own. This meant they didn’t appreciate all that Ford Motor Company did for them. To protect his company from insidious outside influence, Ford toughened up on management and workers alike. The Sociological Department was eliminated. Assembly line supervisors, in part from management direction and often on their own, cracked down further. Factory atmosphere became oppressive, with more pressure than ever to turn out perfectly assembled cars faster. Previously, it had been considered lucky, even an honor, to work line jobs at Ford Motor Company. Not anymore. Robert Casey, a retired historian for the Ford Museum in Dearborn, says that “Working for Ford came with lots of stress. It translated all the way down the line. Ford Motor Company ultimately became a grim place to work, top to bottom.”
Ford was more hands-on in January 1922 when he ordered that the Dearborn Independent’s ongoing series of antisemitic articles be immediately discontinued. Ford gave no explanation, but two reasons appear obvious. The first was financial. In late 1921 Model T sales remained strong, but there were dips in certain places, especially New York City, where the area sales manager believed that the Independent’s articles had sparked a Jewish boycott of Ford’s signature vehicle. There were additional sales blips in other states and regions with a significant Jewish population. When the first articles appeared in 1920, Ford discounted the possibility of Jewish consumer backlash, but now it was fact rather than speculation.
The other cause was political. Presidential candidates were rarely elected without carrying the electoral-vote-heavy states of New York and Ohio, both of which had significant Jewish populations. Most of the Midwestern and Western states, which comprised Ford’s primary political base, had relatively few Jews, but they also had less heft in the all-important electoral college. Future events would prove that Ford retained his antisemitic beliefs, but for immediate political expediency he chose to mute them.
Ford was also preoccupied with his autobiography—those with presidential ambitions routinely published ghostwritten, highly sanitized memoirs that were often stilted and virtually unreadable. Ford predictably wanted a book that appealed to the same hardworking middle-class voters who’d made his Model T the standard in automobiles. Samuel Crowther, his ghostwriter, concocted a conversational tome, and in 1922 My Life and Work became a bestseller.
All these activities kept Ford so busy that he apparently did not suggest a Vagabonds trip in 1922. Even if he had, it’s unlikely that Edison would have agreed. He, too, was otherwise engaged.
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In early 1922, Edison was in regular touch with Ford’s engineers about the proposed electric truck. Edison and his assistants always had multiple experiments and product tests ongoing in their laboratory, but this project had the boss’s particular attention. He believed they were close to perfecting a battery that would hold its charge long term, and sent on to the Ford engineering department a blueprint indicating that the battery should be placed under the seat. On February 21, Ford engineer “F. Allison” replied, congratulating Edison on his seventy-fifth birthday and explaining why the proposed positioning of the battery wouldn’t do:
This looks very good but would suggest that the Motor and Control be put under the Hood and also undersling the battery at rear if possible so as to throw as much of this load on rear . . . as possible. We are all very busy at the present time getting the Lincoln Plant into operation but I expect to be in New York very shortly . . . will have some drawings on Ford Electric Truck with me for your inspection.
Edison responded, “Will await your arrival which I hope will be soon,” before insisting that his placement of the battery must be followed. “One of the greatest things to make a success of a battery truck is to have battery under seat where it can be got at without trouble to the [driver]. If it is [placed inconveniently], they always neglect it [because] it is so unhandy. The life of the battery is 50% greater [under the seat.]”
Ultimately, the placement of the battery didn’t matter because plans for the Ford electric truck were eventually abandoned. Edison wasn’t much bothered. He’d learned during his long career that most experiments were unsuccessful—it was a matter of constantly trying lots of things, and making the most of those that panned out. Besides, a more important project dominated his thinking.
* * *
During 1922, and for the next few years, Edison spent considerable time reading rather than supervising work in the laboratory. He continued to be interested in rubber, specifically determining which latex-bearing plants could be grown in the U.S. in sufficient quantities. To do that successfully, Edison needed to study previous rubber-related research, and learn as much as possible about the rubber tree itself—why it wouldn’t grow in America, which of the plant’s properties might be artificially replicated in the laboratory. It would be foolish to attempt any experiments before he’d done his extensive homework. Edison was obsessed with the subject, as he’d been in his effort to develop a long-burning electric bulb suitable for homes and offices. That project took four years, from 1878 when Edison first focused on the problem to the late summer of 1882, when parts of New York City were lit with incandescent bulbs and Edison declared, “I have accomplished all I promised.” Now the inventor was ready to dedicate another four years or even more to providing America with the means of supplying its own rubber. As he began what would surely become a drawn-out process, the aging inventor was too preoccupied for a summer car trip.
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But if the Vagabonds didn’t hit the road in 1922, many other Americans did. Summer automobile travel, much of it extended autocamping, was becoming integral in national culture. It certainly helped that roads were getting better—gasoline taxes paid for much of the upgrade. Only three years earlier, an article in the Washington Evening Star warned motorists to bring along at minimum a tow rope, a wrench, a file “for cleaning ignition points,” a box of assorted nuts and bolts, a full set of spare tires, a chain, and a fire extinguisher. Now the roads were better, and if repairs were required there were garages in virtually every roadside town, and towing services available to haul autos out of ditches or gluey mud. A whole new industry had sprung up, too, dedicated to manufacturing products designed specifically for those traveling by car. Products like Coleman stoves (no need for campfires!) and trailers (why sleep in tents if it rained or was unseasonably chilly?) made autocamping far more comfortable. In just over another decade, Fortune magazine would conclude that accoutrements for road travel had grown into a $3 billion annual industry “based on the restlessness of the American people.” Nineteen twenty-one saw the opening of the first drive-in restaurant—for those in a hurry, no need to waste additional drive time getting out of a car to go inside and eat. In 1924 Rand-McNally would publish its first extensive U.S. road maps. Five years after that, the first public parking garage was opened in Detroit, and when other cities soon followed the problem of downtown parking was lessened.
So many Americans were autocamping that the free autocamps proliferating only a few summers earlier became impractical. Not everyone making use of them was on vacation. Migrant workers finding employment in the area set up shelters and stayed in place for weeks or even months, hoarding their earnings, not spending their travel money in surrounding businesses, which was the purpose of towns offering free camp space to tourists in the first place. Theft became a problem. Hoodlums posing as campers filched unguarded property at a frequently fearsome rate, and unless p
olice were called in it was difficult getting unwelcome individuals to leave. Since the camps themselves didn’t generate income, few towns were willing to pay for security guards. Because campers could stay at no cost, they often demonstrated little regard for the campgrounds, leaving piles of trash when they departed.
Beginning in 1922, the free camps were gradually replaced by pay camps, with travelers charged a dollar or two to stop and spend the night. The money generated paid for guards, which cut down considerably on theft and rowdy behavior. Rules regarding garbage were more strictly enforced. The problem remained of campers wanting to be up and out early, disturbing the sleep of others who were planning later departures—in another few years, the first pay facilities providing actual structures for overnight customers rather than empty camp space would gradually become the norm. Called “motor hotels” or “tourist courts,” soon they were popularly known as “motels.” Like their predecessor autocamps, the earliest of these were outside towns, but they eventually became downtown staples, too.
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But in the early 1920s, another form of traffic became common on U.S. roads: an ongoing migration of young rural Americans into the cities. The country was continuing its transformation from an agrarian to an industrial economy. Farmers never fully recovered from the 1920 economic crash. While parents stayed on, trying desperately to retain their property, to eke out their living selling crops at prices barely above the accumulated cost of planting, nurturing, and harvesting, their children were increasingly unwilling to settle for such a marginal life. There were jobs to be had in the cities, and even the lowest-paying of these still exceeded the income that most farmers could expect for their sweaty labor. And, besides, the cities offered fun—restaurants, speakeasies, dance clubs, movies, things their mothers and fathers did without and often considered corrupters of youth. Rural America remained mostly austere, lacking even that most basic of new luxuries, electric light—in 1923, just over 44 percent of American residences had electricity, but that fell to only 3 percent on farms. The Eighteenth Amendment had banned the sale of liquor except for certain medicinal purposes since 1920, but booze was always available to city folk in the know. The world was changing—throughout rural America, young people embraced the change, while their parents longed for a leader who would not only respect but somehow restore a sober, more sensible way of life. It was ironic that the man they believed would best represent them was in great part responsible for the cultural change they deplored. For Henry Ford’s presidential aspirations, man and moment had come together.
Farmers felt they could trust Ford—he was the son of a farmer, and married to the daughter of a farmer besides. In public statements he constantly defended the interests of farmers. Those offended by sexually charged music like jazz had no doubt Ford was like-minded. It was widely known that he hired sound engineers to record symphony orchestras, then sent the recordings to friends so they would have an alternative to suggestive, discordant modern music. Big-city press might criticize Ford, but the majority of his followers mistrusted everything about big cities, so when their newspapers made fun of Henry Ford, the man who shared their values, then they felt that the media was mocking them, too. Mean-spirited articles and editorials only made them support Ford more. Ford’s antisemitism was widely shared in Middle America, where in some states even Catholics were considered exotic and suspicious. Ford’s avowed opposition to drink was critical. Midwest country folk formed the backbone of the Prohibition movement. The anti-alcohol sentiment was so strong in these middle states that the Ku Klux Klan, driven for the time being from the South, found refuge there by urging support for the Eighteenth Amendment and improved public schools. There was no need for the KKK to emphasize its racist roots because in its new surroundings there were so few people of color. During 1922 alone, registered Klan membership in Indiana swelled from 445 to about 118,000.
Best of all, as an outspoken foe of Wall Street and the East Coast financial interests, Ford was deemed incorruptible. Though President Harding appeared personally uninvolved, in early 1923 there were the first exposures of corruption in his cabinet. The Senate began investigating complaints against Charles Forbes, head of the Veterans Bureau, who was accused of selling hospital supplies and cutting deals with shady contractors for substandard goods. Harding demanded Forbes’s resignation, and got it only after his appointee put the president off for days, allowing the press time to write additional stories about the scandal. Then Jesse Smith, who occasionally joined the president in White House poker games, was accused of backdoor business deals with bootleggers, and committed suicide. Other old friends of the president were rumored to be illicitly enriching themselves through their White House connections. They were nicknamed the Ohio Gang by the press. Henry Ford’s friends were Thomas Edison and Harvey Firestone. No one could imagine a Vagabonds Gang using their relationships with President Ford to fleece the public.
By the summer of 1923 it seemed possible that Ford could either seek the presidency as a Democrat or else wrest the 1924 Republican nomination from the incumbent president. Party affiliation meant nothing to Ford. But it would be difficult for leaders of either party to choose prickly, unpredictable Henry Ford as a standard-bearer. As a result of his carping about American government in general, Ford wasn’t esteemed by any of them, and the ongoing Muscle Shoals controversy only exacerbated the hard feelings. Senator Norris, the most outspoken opponent of Ford’s offer, was one of the most popular members among his Senate peers. But if there was a widespread groundswell of public support for the man from Michigan and the Harding administration continued awash in scandal, both parties’ reservations about Ford would pale beside their desire to control the White House. Gaining the Democratic or Republican nomination might be harder for Ford than winning the presidency. Even without him announcing his candidacy or a party adherence, “Ford for President” clubs began popping up, mostly in the Midwest. Media speculation about the 1924 election predicted Ford’s path to the White House. He’d certainly lose the heavily populated Northeast in the national election, and also the West Coast, but he’d sweep all of Middle America and would probably win most Western states besides, prevailing in the electoral college even if he somehow lost the popular vote to whomever either the Democrats or Republicans put up against him.
* * *
In July, Firestone began making preparations for another Vagabonds trip. This one would begin sometime in early August at Edison’s birthplace of Milan, Ohio, where residents would host a celebration honoring the inventor. Then the travelers would drive to Michigan’s Upper Peninsula, the same trip that was planned, then postponed, in 1921 to accommodate President Harding. Much of this trip’s post-Milan stages would highlight the achievements of Henry Ford, including visits to properties he owned alternating with stops in small towns, daily reminders to America that this was a highly successful man who never lost the common touch. The media would be invited along—some of the time a few reporters might even ride in the Vagabonds’ caravan. For two weeks, their stories of Ford and his stalwart friends would contrast with the latest revelations of Harding administration malfeasance. It seemed a foolproof plan.
And then, on August 2, President Warren G. Harding died.
Chapter Nine
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1923
Thomas and Mina Edison left West Orange by car on Wednesday, August 1. They planned to meet Harvey and Idabelle Firestone in Akron, stay a day or two visiting Mina’s relatives in the area, and then meet the Fords and begin the Vagabonds’ trip in Milan at the town’s celebration of its most famous son. Firestone, undoubtedly aware that Mina hadn’t enjoyed the 1921 excursion, was especially anxious that she have a good time on this one. In a July 19 letter, he urged Edison to bring his wife and be the Firestones’ houseguests just before its outset: “We have a good-sized place and grounds where I think we could make you very comfortable.” Edison was glad to get away from work for a while. He’d begun his first tentative experime
nts with potential sources of rubber, and initial results were discouraging. In mid-July, he’d sent a message to Ernest Liebold instructing him to “tell Ford that I have been experimenting a little with milk weed. . . . It is going to be a difficult matter to get a commercial process to get the latex out.” Firestone, too, was eager for the trip. In July he wrote Edison that “the going in the tire business has been a little rough in the last few months and a week or two in the woods with you and Mr. Ford ought to clear up the cobwebs a little bit.”
The press provided perhaps the most advance coverage of any Vagabonds trip. Some articles speculated about destination and duration (“The exact location has not been given out”; “Some place in Michigan or Wisconsin”; “Western New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio”; “Two weeks”; “About a month”). There were breathless headlines (“Wow! The World’s Brains Goes [sic] Out for an Airing”; “Three Monarchs of Industry to Try Gypsy Life”) and a few fawning small-town newspaper editorials (“They could surround themselves with every luxury . . . [but they choose to] get out in the open and live close to nature—simply”). Some wire service reports speculated that this trip was really intended as the kickoff of Ford’s campaign for the presidency: “Politicians are worried lest Ford come out of the . . . wilderness with his mind made up to enter the presidential race. In his latest interview, published in Collier’s last week . . . he said he could not foretell what would be in his mind a little later on. Politicians here have a hunch that Firestone and Edison may try to persuade Ford to become a candidate and will be successful.”