Page:Henry Ford's Own Story.djvu/151

 than he had ever done while he was building his first car in the old shed. He was one of the first men at the factory every morning, and long after Detroit was asleep he was still hard at work, conferring with lawyers, discussing with Couzens the latest disaster that threatened, struggling with business problems, meeting emergencies in the selling field, and always planning to better the factory management and to lower the price and increase the efficiency of the car.

The car sold. Ford had built it for common men, for the vast body of America s middle-class people, and it was cheap enough to be within their reach. Ford knew that if he could keep their confidence he could win in the end.

He met the attack of the A.L.A.M. by printing huge advertisements guaranteeing purchasers of his cars from prosecution under the Seldon patents, and backed his guarantee by the bond of a New York security company. Then he appealed the patent case and kept on fighting.

In the farmer boy who had started out twenty years before with nothing but his bare hands and an idea found himself at the head of one of America's largest business organizations. That year his factory made and sold 6,398 cars.

Every machine sold increased his liabilities in case he lost the patent fight, but the business was now on a firm foundation. Agencies had been established in all parts of the world, orders came pouring in. Profits were rolling up. Ford found