We did not want to borrow money but it so happened that at the
moment we were without a treasurer. To that extent the bankers had
envisaged our condition correctly. I asked my son Edsel to be treasurer
as well as president of the company. That fixed us up as to a treasurer,
so there was really nothing at all that the bankers could do for us.
Then we began our house-cleaning. During the war we had gone into many
kinds of war work and had thus been forced to depart from our principle
of a single product. This had caused many new departments to be added.
The office force had expanded and much of the wastefulness of scattered
production had crept in. War work is rush work and is wasteful work. We
began throwing out everything that did not contribute to the production
of cars.
The only immediate payment scheduled was the purely voluntary one of a
seven-million-dollar bonus to our workmen. There was no obligation to
pay, but we wanted to pay on the first of January. That we paid out of
our cash on hand.
Throughout the country we have thirty-five branches.
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