in their plants go to waste wholesale. Yes, and they sat up and said I was a sentimental idiot when I put in my system of taking care of the men in my place. They said it would not pay. Well, let them look over the books of the Ford factory and see how it paid—how it paid all of us."
Five months after Ford s new plans had gone into effect his welfare workers made a second survey.
Eleven hundred men had moved to better homes. Bank deposits had increased 205 per cent. Twice as many men owned their own homes. More than two million dollars worth of Detroit real estate had passed into the hands of Ford employees, who were paying for it on the installment plan. Among the 18,000 workmen only 140 still lived in conditions which could be called "bad" in the reports.
And the output of Ford automobiles had increased over 20 per cent.
That year, with an eight-hour day in force, and $10,000,000 divided in extra profits among the men, the factory produced over 100,000 more cars than it had produced during the preceding year, under the old conditions.
Cold figures had proved to the business world the "practical" value of "sentimental theories." Ford's policy had not only done away with the labor problem, it had also shown the way to solve the employers problems.
