by Jeff Guinn
The carmaker was never seriously considered as a presidential candidate again.
Chapter Ten
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1924
Henry Ford was mostly disdainful of books and those who loved them. In his opinion, people “read to escape thinking.” So far as Ford was concerned, being literary-minded was symptomatic of an escalating national softness, with far too many people content to lounge poring over pages instead of getting on their feet and doing something: “Book sickness is a modern ailment.”
But in this as in almost everything else, Ford was contradictory. He had nothing against people reading the right books, starting with the beloved McGuffey readers of his own childhood (which influenced Ford’s adult antisemitism) and extending to the works of certain authors and poets who, to Ford’s mind, celebrated appropriate American qualities and history. Henry Wadsworth Longfellow was one of Ford’s elect, and in October 1923 the carmaker was able to add a momentous Longfellow artifact to his growing collection of Americana memorabilia. This one couldn’t be stored with the other collectibles in a Ford warehouse back home in Michigan. Rather than a first edition tome or an original manuscript, it was an endangered edifice—Sudbury, Massachusetts’s, Wayside Inn, beloved of Longfellow and immortalized in his Tales of a Wayside Inn, which included the epic poem “Paul Revere’s Ride,” originally published in 1861 in The Atlantic Monthly and reintroduced as “The Landlord’s Tale” by Longfellow in the Wayside Inn collection two years later. The inn opened in early Colonial America, survived the Revolutionary War, served generations of travelers heading in and out of Boston, and finally fell into apparently permanent disrepair in the early 1900s. Ford purchased it with the aim not only of restoring the inn, but of eventually surrounding it with authentic period structures (among them an old-fashioned schoolhouse and a gristmill). Then the property would, he hoped and believed, remind modern-day Americans of their tougher-minded forebears and rouse them from their current sloth.
The restoration process took many months. Money was no object. When a major road had to be rerouted to preserve the inn’s intended Colonial-era atmosphere, Ford paid for it. The carmaker also built an additional first-floor living quarters for himself—he intended to stay there often. Ford fixated on even the smallest details. Over the years on his various journeys, the carmaker kept an undated, near-illegible series of pocket notes, brief stream-of-consciousness thoughts and reminders he jotted down in pencil on the pages of small notebooks. These ranged from the mundane (“1 lb. of sugar,” “Pure play camping boys”) to the philosophic (“Study what [a] young fellow knows,” “Where does the money come from but the land”) to the cryptic (“Mrs. Edison what station did you get kicked off at”). A few were frankly antisemitic (“Who is behind the League of Jew?” “A republic is in competition with the J[ews]”). One was obviously scribbled during an early Ford inspection of his new property in Sudbury: “Way Side—every damn picture is crooked.”
But by August 1924 the pictures were straightened, and Ford felt the Wayside Inn was sufficiently restored to host the Vagabonds on a summer trip that retained certain parameters but was altered in one significant way—they’d drive during the day, seeing interesting places and things, but utilize the inn as their nightly base. If they did find themselves too far afield to return to Sudbury, they’d overnight in some cozy hotel. Tents would no longer be involved—the wives had never been enthusiastic campers. When Ford and Firestone initially suggested a trip to the Rocky Mountains, Clara Ford said she “would not be up to it.” Something less strenuous would appeal to her more—Clara’s suggestion was the White Mountains of New Hampshire, and only if they would be “stopping at hotels.” Firestone as usual was amenable to whatever the Fords wanted, and Edison found the proposed trip acceptable, too.
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It’s possible that Clara Ford made her excuse to avoid camping and suggested hotels instead because Edison wasn’t up to a more strenuous trip. Firestone passed along the hotels-rather-than-camping suggestion to the inventor in a July 1 letter. Edison, as usual, sent back his opinion via a letter written by one of his secretaries. He scribbled his approval in the margin of Firestone’s note: “This would suit me as I am not sure of my health.” That specific message was meant for the secretary, not for Firestone or, especially, Ford. Edison was a proud man. The articles about his alleged serious illness or death came close to ruining the 1923 Michigan trip for everyone. A year later, he did not want the slightest hint of requiring special concessions because he really was in poor health, probably a recurrence of the neuralgia that periodically plagued him. A primary if unspoken rule in his close friendship with Ford was that neither should burden the other with admissions of uncertainty or weakness. They could, and did, rail in private conversation and correspondence about frustrations with outside sources—Jews, unions, greedy and mindless Washington politicians—but never about personal problems. When either had personal advice for the other, it was passed along via third parties, as when Edison’s secretary wrote Ford’s assistant that the inventor hoped Ford would drop his libel suit against the Chicago Tribune, or through some of Edison’s comments to the press about his friend’s presidential ambitions. (Their 1919 campfire conversation about Ford’s race for the U.S. Senate was an aberration.)
Mina Edison remained fiercely protective of her husband, and she was certainly aware that his health was not robust during the summer of 1924. Mina understood Edison well, and realized he’d never make such an admission to Ford himself. She may have done the next best thing—passed information about the inventor’s health to Clara Ford. Clara enjoyed ruddy good health, but claimed indisposition so that Edison could avoid both camping and admitting to Ford that he was the one not up to it.
Edison’s pride was preserved, and alternate plans made. Instead of camps, they’d stay at the Wayside Inn in Sudbury, and, if the mood struck them, use it as a base for daily jaunts out into the New England countryside. Everyone would be spared nights on cots and bathing in streams. As a bonus, every news story mentioning the location would be free advertising for its restored period-piece rooms and dining facilities, all now available to the discerning modern-day New England traveler.
The new plan suited Edison perfectly. For the inventor, it was a much needed opportunity to escape creative frustrations. He’d spent much of 1924 trying to resuscitate his failing phonograph business. Preparations for intense rubber research took up additional time—it would require another two years of preliminary study before Edison felt he’d accumulated enough data to undertake full-scale experimentation, aiming to discover which latex-bearing plants would flourish properly in America as well as a cost-effective means of extracting the latex and refining it into rubber. It was a slack time for actual invention in his New Jersey laboratory. Over the course of his career, Edison applied for and received 1,093 patents, more than any other American. But the majority of these came before 1914; during the years that he made summer trips with Ford and Firestone, Edison managed just 55 patents, compared to 256 in the three years (January 1880—December 1882) when the phonograph and incandescent bulb established him as the world’s preeminent inventor. Many of the latter 55 involved Edison’s storage battery, which never achieved marketability. Edison was beginning to be asked now in interviews just when he would unveil something new and wonderful to dazzle the public again. He had nothing specific to report.
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Other than the purchase and renovation of the Wayside Inn, Ford had not had an especially productive 1924, either. Now that he was no longer running for president, he allowed the Dearborn Independent to resume its attacks on Jews; these often concentrated on alleged Jewish plots to take control of American farming. Ford’s personal attention was elsewhere. As the months passed, he was no closer to attaining ownership of the dams and properties at Muscle Shoals. As promised, President Coolidge had not opposed the proposed purchase, but Senator Norris of Nebraska, Coolidge’s fellow Republican, still did, and his
obstinacy influenced enough other senators to keep the matter tied up in committee limbo. Patience was never Ford’s strength; he chafed at the ongoing delay. Every wasted moment delayed the beneficent bestowal of cheap hydroelectric power to the sprawling Tennessee Valley—Ford knew that he could make this fine thing happen quickly if only the government would get out of his way. The carmaker’s place in U.S. history was already assured; in February 1924, a much discussed study by University of Michigan president M. L. Burton proclaimed Ford, Edison, Theodore Roosevelt, and Orville Wright the most outstanding men so far in the twentieth century, with Ford cited for “industrial development [of cars] leading to a new social order.” (Edison was simply lauded for “his inventive genius.”)
But Ford had no interest in laurel-resting. It seemed to him that Norris’s opposition to the Muscle Shoals purchase might be swept away if only Coolidge came out forcefully in favor of the sale. Having already spoken out on behalf of the president’s reelection, in July 1924 Ford took his support a step further. Every Ford dealer in the nation received from the Michigan home office a 9x13 “tinted halftone photograph” of Coolidge, and the Houston Chronicle reported that “the inference is drawn that the picture is to be placed in a conspicuous place.” The gesture would surely remind the president that Ford was more than upholding his end of their informal bargain.
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Ford would have served himself better by focusing on his car business instead. Though in 1924 there was no apparent obvious cause for concern—the Model T still dominated the market, with sales up as much as 25 percent from just a few years earlier—there were signs that indicated, to someone more observant, the competition was catching up.
In the sixteen years since 1908 when Ford first introduced his signature vehicle, competitors grudgingly came to accept that they could not match the Model T’s utilitarian virtues and cheap price. Flat-out copying would do little good—the Model T had captured the minds and pocketbooks of a general public eager to get out on the roads in automobiles that had previously been the exclusive playthings of the rich. Having a car, albeit a bare-bones Model T, elevated its owner in personal prestige, proof of moving beyond the crushing cares of subsistence existence. There was exhilaration in being a consumer. Even better, ownership of a Model T virtually guaranteed almost indefinite four-wheeled mobility. The cars were built to last. In 1924, many early Model Ts still trundled their owners about, never flashy, in every way efficient, always dependable, much like the man whose company assembled them. And, just as Ford never saw any reason to change himself, he felt no pressure to change the Model T, either, or to augment it with flashier models. Ford ignored the urging of his son, Edsel, and company officers to give customers alternatives. To Ford’s mind, what was good enough in 1908 was still good enough in 1924 and forever after that. At Ford Motor Company, his was the only opinion that ultimately counted.
Ford’s stubbornness gave competitors the opening they needed. In particular, when Alfred Sloan took over General Motors in 1923, the new boss emphasized a marketing plan based on Americans wanting not just transportation, but selection. Enough people now owned cars so that ownership itself was no longer special. What was going to matter soon was driving a car that reflected the personality, the specialness, of the individual owner. That meant offering cars in colors spanning the rainbow, and models that changed every year or two, adding chrome, shifting bumper shape, allowing consumers the opportunity to showcase ownership of the very latest styles. There would always be certain makes and styles so costly that only the wealthy could afford them, like Cadillacs and Lincolns, but with the evolving need of rank-and-file car buyers to own something different, lower-end Chevrolets and Oldsmobiles could be and were spruced up as appealing alternatives to the dull Model Ts. Now that U.S. roads were being vastly improved at a rapid rate, the Model T’s acclaimed smoother drive over rough surfaces no longer mattered. The Model T still cost less—but who wanted to appear cheap?
Had the Vagabonds ventured further afield on their 1924 trip, away from the relatively concentrated region of Sudbury and its Boston environs, they might have noticed that the Model T was no longer the near-exclusive vehicle of choice for autocampers. America’s highway adventurers were increasingly out to see-and-be-seen in snappy, colorful cars, and this contributed in turn to the gradual demise of autocamps and the emergence of motels. After buying an attractive Chevy or Olds to drive in, few wanted to clutter the flashy image by cramming the car full of bulky camping gear. They wanted to stay in places that included some kind of convenient parking, and what the market demanded, savvy entrepreneurs were pleased to make available.
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In 1924, Henry Ford acknowledged none of this. On June 4, the ten-millionth Ford vehicle—of course, a Model T—rolled off the assembly line and, with considerable fanfare and attendant press coverage, was driven cross-country from New York to San Francisco. Two months later, the Vagabonds’ trip to Sudbury was announced, with a kickoff event planned that would simultaneously advertise the newly restored Wayside Inn and emphasize Ford’s ongoing allegiance to American farmers, recently the core of his political support and still the most reliable purchasers of his Model Ts and tractors. It would be a Wednesday, August 13, gala on the inn’s grounds, with spaces allocated for games (horseshoes, baseball, tug-of-war), exhibits (the latest Ford tractors, various demonstrations of plowing techniques they made possible), a band concert, a parade, and even, it was rumored, a speech by Mr. Ford himself. A nursery was set up so that mothers “could leave their offspring under expert care” and enjoy themselves accordingly. All members of the Middlesex County Farm Bureau and Extension Service were invited, and admission was free, though everyone was asked to provide their own picnic lunches. It would be, advance publicity declared, “a get-together of neighbors and fellow-workers [with] an emphasis on play rather than on work.”
The gathering was hugely successful. Major newspapers sent reporters to describe the scene, and press accounts estimated between two thousand and three thousand farmers and their families came to Sudbury and enjoyed a rapturous time. Ford and Firestone circulated, shaking hands and chatting. The Edisons were detained in New Jersey (the inventor hosted a luncheon for his distributors the day before) and arrived in Massachusetts too late on the 13th to participate. Ford never made a formal speech; at one point he stepped up on a makeshift stage to say that “We’ll restore the old inn. We want to make it pleasant here,” adding that he hoped to shake hands and talk with as many attendees as possible. When Ford did, he warned about the dangers of coffee, tea, and tobacco, which he predicted would be “legislated out of existence, not by law but by common sense.” The carmaker said that he, Edison, and Firestone planned “several jaunts” while in New England. The representative of a local boys club presented Ford with a 1790s hoe, and when he stumbled trying to offer just the right remarks, Ford graciously covered for him by saying he’d unsuccessfully scoured the state of Michigan for just such a relic.
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The newspaper reports printed on Thursday were gratifying, and so was the rest of the week at Wayside Inn. For the first time on any of their trips, the Vagabonds didn’t embark each day on photo-friendly visits to Ford-owned properties or various local attractions. They spent the next few mornings and afternoons strolling the inn grounds; Edison surely made suggestions about a location for the proposed gristmill. In the evenings there were tasty meals cooked in the inn’s kitchen (Ford, having strong beliefs on proper diet, insisted on whole wheat bread), and after-dinner entertainment was provided by local dance instructor Benjamin Lovett, who taught the Fords and Edisons and Firestones dance steps popular with original New England colonists. Everyone had a good time. If they wished, they could have stayed for the entire duration of their vacation. For a change, the famous men and their wives enjoyed considerable privacy. Besides staff, they had the Wayside Inn to themselves. The press was gone; reporters for major newspapers and wire services who remained in the region were
two hundred miles away, camped outside the tiny community of Plymouth Notch, Vermont, where President Calvin and First Lady Grace Coolidge were spending their own late-summer retreat.
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It may have been the lure of additional publicity, and the desire of the other two Vagabonds to get their share of it—the stories about Ford’s farmer-friendly picnic didn’t help sell a single Edison phonograph or Firestone tire. All three Vagabonds surely sensed an opportunity to remind Americans (and, in Ford’s case, legislators still debating his offer for Muscle Shoals) that they could speak to the president as peers, virtual equals—Coolidge, in turn, would certainly relish reiterations of their support for him in his November bid for reelection. And, probably, Ford, Edison, and Firestone grew bored after only a few days of strolling the grounds and dancing the nights away at the Wayside Inn. Relaxation was fine, but they were men who felt constantly compelled to accomplish something. A highly publicized call on the president and his wife in their quaint country surroundings would benefit everyone involved. Warm greetings on a front porch, a Coolidge-conducted tour of his birthplace, lunch at the Coolidge family table, a postprandial chat with the president, strolling nearby fields while photographers and reporters looked on from a respectful distance, a final late afternoon visit with the media when the Vagabonds would again pledge their political support . . . the president might even say a few words favoring Ford’s purchase of Muscle Shoals. In any case, the headlines and stories would practically write themselves.