to which, because of the delicate
labor required, it seemed at first unadapted. He soon found that it was
cheaper to ship the parts of ten cars to a central point than to ship
ten completed cars. There would therefore be large savings in making
his parts in particular factories and shipping them to assembling
establishments. In this way the completed cars would always be near
their markets. Large production would mean that he could purchase his
raw materials at very low prices; high wages meant that he could get the
efficient labor which was demanded by his rapid fire method of campaign.
It was necessary to plan the making of every part to the minutest
detail, to have each part machined to its exact size, and to have every
screw, bolt, and bar precisely interchangeable. About the year 1907
the Ford factory was systematized on this basis. In that twelvemonth it
produced 10,000 machines, each one the absolute counterpart of the other
9999. American manufacturers until then had been content with a
few hundred a year! From that date the Ford production has rapidly
increased; until, in 1916, there were nearly 4,000,000 automobiles
in the United States--more than in all the rest of the world put
together--of which one-sixth were the output of the Ford factories. Many
other American manufacturers followed the Ford plan, with the result
that American automobiles are duplicating the story of American
bicycles; because of their cheapness and serviceability, they are
rapidly dominating the markets of the world. In the Great War American
machines have surpassed all in the work done under particularly exacting
circumstances.

A glimpse of a Ford assembling room--and we can see the same process in
other American factories--makes clear the reasons for this success. In
these rooms no fitting is done; the fragments of automobiles come in
automatically and are simply bolted together. First of all the units are
assembled in their several departments. The rear axles, the front axles,
the frames, the radiators, and the motors are all put together with the
same precision and exactness that marks the operation of the completed
car. Thus the wheels come from one part of the factory and are rolled on
an inclined plane to a particular spot. The tires are propelled by some
mysterious force to the same spot; as the two elements coincide, workmen
quickly put them together. In a long room the bodies are slowly advanced
on moving platforms at the rat