Original Source Documents: The Nation - December 14, 1940 - Page 595
The Nation - December 14, 1940 - Page 596
Contributor: Todd Paisley
Source: The Nation Digital Archives
Behind the Ford Contract
BY
EDWARD F.
McGRADY has many friends here.
He
was labor trouble-shooter for Newton D. Baker in the last war and for Hugh
Johnson during the NRA. His appointment to a similar position under Secretary
of War Stimson has won wide approval. This is the story of the first of the hot
potatoes he must handle. HIS friends say that he thrives on them.
The story concerns Henry Ford and the readiness of the Administration
to keep its word to labor. “In times of emergency even more than !n ordinary
times,” Secretary Stimson told the A. F. of L. convention at New Orleans on
November 18, “the responsible trade union is an indispensable Instrument of
national well-being because through it the free cooperation of labor is
enlisted and assured in the national task which confronts us.” Presumably the
Defense Commission agrees. For in the statement of labor policy Issued by It on
August 31 it said that “all work carried on as part of the defense
program should comply with federal statutory provisions affecting labor.” The
Wagner Act was specially mentioned in that statement as one of the statutes to
be enforced on defense contracts. Ford, with no fewer than six Labor Board decisions
outstanding against him, one of them already upheld in the United States Circuit
Court, is the country’s foremost violator of the Wagner Act. Yet he has just
been awarded his second contract.
This new contract involves some unusual angles here brought
to public attention for the first time. The excuse for the first contract,
awarded the day after the election, was the desperate need for plane engines.
Ford was given a $122,000,000 contract for some 3,000 air-cooled Pratt and Whitney
engines. There is no such excuse for the second contract, which was cleared by
the Defense Commission on November 27. This is a $2,000,000 contract, of which
$600,000 is for light five passenger cars and $1,400,000 for trucks. Both cars
and trucks could have been purchased elsewhere. If Mr. McGrady will investigate
that part of the contract which is for trucks he will find that certain
officials of the Defense Commission and the War Department have gone out of
their way to favor Ford. He will learn not only that the award of this contract
to Ford has angered labor’s representatives on the Defense Commission and precipitated
a bitter behind-the-scenes fight but also that It has disgusted many ranking
officers of the army. For Ford is being permitted to “muscle in”
and reap the benefit of an important new development in mechanized warfare,
with great peace-time potentialities, although the army itself and a small
manufacturer cooperating
with the army did the pioneering. Mr. McGrady will discover that the Defense Commission cleared the
Ford contract even though Ford has yet to
meet the army’s specifications for these trucks. Pressure is now being brought
to bear by Ford and by his friends
on the commission and in the War Department to change the specifications to meet what Ford can produce
rather than what the army needs.
The “trucks,” as they are called in the Defense Commission
release, are actually not trucks at all but
a new type of
four-wheel-drive midget car which can serve many purposes. It can go
cross-country. It can be used for reconnaissance. It can be converted into a
moving machine-gun nest. It can bring up supplies to men and fuel to tanks. The
idea for such a car seems to have originated several years ago with Lieutenant
Colonel Robert G. Howie, stationed at
The Ford Company had been watching developments closely.
Ford representatives appeared at the Bantam plant after the first contract was
awarded. I am told that they
said they were not interested in bidding on the midget military car but wanted
to see if they could sell Bantam the Ford motor or any parts They examined the
drawings and discussed plans with Bantam officials. After the test at
Huge orders for ten-and-a-half-ton trucks go to General Motors on the ground that to give one
manufacturer a large order permits “standardization.” But although 8,000 or
10,000 of these midget cars are all that the army is likely to want, the orders
are to be split among three manufacturers on the ground of “developing
additional sources of supply.” Ford may or may not be able to meet
specifications and begin production at once. Bantam needs the order, and
Behind Ford’s eagerness to get the contract is the hope
that after the war this midget car can be developed into an all-purpose farm
machine which can pull a plow by day and take the family to the movies at
night. The “bottleneck” is the Spicer axle used in these cars, and the next
step will be an attempt to obtain priority for Ford on the axles. This
contract, though cleared by the Defense commission, cannot take effect until
Ford meets army specifications or the specifications are changed. There is
still time to show labor that the Defense Commission and the War Department
intend to keep their promises.
