Earthworm Tractor Company
Earthworm City, Illinois
Office of the Sales Manager,
October 9, 1928.
DEAR BOTTS : This will acknowledge your letter of September twenty-seventh, reporting the sale of one ten-horse-power Earthworm tractor to Signor Taddeo Ghini in Florence, Italy. We are, naturally, pleased that you put this over, but we must remind you that one sale every two or three months—which seems to be the rate you are now going at—is not enough to justify us in keeping you in Europe any longer.
You have been there seven months—long enough for a fair trial. During this time we have been paying your salary and all expenses for yourself and your wife. The results have not been sufficient to justify this expense.
You will doubtless remember that in a letter dated June tenth and in another letter dated September tenth we suggested that you make every effort to dispose of the tractors you had on hand and arrange your plans so that you and Mrs. Botts could come home in the near future. Apparently you have not yet been able to sell the tractors which you have with you, and, as far as we can tell from reading your reports, you have made no definite plans for returning to America.
As you have done nothing toward following out our suggestions, we now order you definitely to start back within two weeks at the latest.
If you cannot sell your tractors within that time—even by reducing prices—you will have to have them shipped back here.
Very truly,
GILBERT HENDERSON,
Sales Manager.
CABLEGRAM ROME ITALY OCT 20 1928
WEEK END LETTER
HENDERSON EARTHTRACT EARTHWORM CITY ILL
YOUR LETTER FORWARDED FROM MARSEILLES STOP CANNOT COME RIGHT NOW STOP HAVE BIG NEW IDEA
BOTTS
CABLEGRAM EARTHWORM CITY ILL OCT 22 1928
ALEXANDER BOTTS ROME ITALY
NEVER MIND BIG IDEA STOP COME HOME
HENDERSON
Alexander Botts
European Representative
for the
Earthworm Tractor
Hotel Excelsior, Rome, Italy.
Tuesday, October 23, 1928.
DEAR HENDERSON : Your cablegram arrived last night. At first I thought of wiring back to explain my plans, but I finally decided not to. About all I could have told you in a cable—unless I had made it very long and shockingly expensive—would have been the bare fact that I plan to stay over here quite a while longer. I would not have had the chance to give you all my reasons. And this might have worried you or even irritated you. You might have come to the erroneous conclusion that I was disregarding your instructions. Nothing could be further from the truth. I have always held you in the greatest respect, and I wish to assure you that I have given your letters and your cablegrams the most thoughtful consideration. But it has been impossible for me to take your remarks with any great seriousness because you are ignorant of certain vital facts and considerations which change the whole aspect of the situation. A smaller man, in my position, might have spoiled everything by giving you the stupid, literal type of obedience which is in vogue in the Army. But I prefer to follow the higher principle of discipline by which a subordinate obeys not the order which his superior has actually given him but rather the order which that superior would have given if he had known what he was talking about.
I want you to understand that I am not criticizing you in any way. Considering your ignorance, you acted, after all, in what was a very reasonable manner. I can imagine exactly how you thought the matter out. You probably said to yourself, “Here is old Botts claiming that he has a big idea. Well, he’s had big ideas before; and some of them, when he came to work them out, didn’t amount to bug dust. So we’ll just tell him to forget his schemes and come home.” And very likely your reasoning was pretty good.
The only trouble was that you didn’t know that this time I had a big idea that is not a little big idea but a very big big idea. It is really stupendous, and it will be a red-letter day for the Earthworm Tractor Company when I get it all worked out and put into action. And right at this point. Henderson, old boy, I want to put in a word of cheer for you personally. When I have achieved my big success over here, you may get to thinking about the fact that you ordered me to come home, and that if I had followed your directions the big opportunity would have been lost. This may have a tendency to make you feel pretty cheap, and maybe apologetic. You might even get the idea that I would be sore at you for attempting to block my plans. So I want to say right here and now that there will be no need for you to feel embarrassed or blame yourself at all. Any one of us is liable to make a mistake once in a while. And don’t worry about my attitude. I am not a man to harbor a grudge; especially when I know that this blunder of yours was made through ignorance and not through malice.
And now that I have explained my position in the matter of our business relationship, I will tell you all about my plans. It will be absolutely necessary for my wife and me to leave Italy in about two months. The reasons for this I will explain in due course. For the present, on the other hand, it is absolutely essential that we stay over here. The reasons for this I will explain at once. I have—as I have mentioned before—a new and very large idea. It is, in fact, a regular wow of an idea, and is the result of long-continued and highly concentrated thinking. It began to take form as long ago as September thirtieth. My wife and I—just back from Florence, where we had sold the ten-horse-power Earthworm to Signor Taddeo Ghini—were sitting in our room in the Grand Hotel Miramare & de la Ville at Genoa. We were talking about your letters of June tenth and September tenth.
“In some ways,” I said, “Henderson is right. We haven’t done as well as I had hoped.”
“We have made a certain number of sales,” said Gadget.
“Yes,” I said. “We sold three tractors to the man on the boat, four tractors and a lot of machinery to the American contractor at Tarascon ——”
“That makes seven,” said Gadget.
“We failed at Merano,” I continued, “but we certainly came through in Venice. It was a big day in my life when we actually succeeded in selling a tractor in that water-logged old town.”
“The one in Venice makes eight,” said Gadget.
“We sold six to the Italian Railroad Company, and six to those people in Russia.”
“That makes twenty,” said Gadget. “We won’t say anything about the one that ran over the cliff into the Bug River.”
“The less said about that,” I remarked, “the better. Then we sold four for Mr. McGinnis up in Germany.”
“Which makes twenty-four,” said Gadget. “Then one to that Frenchman, and one more down at Florence, making a grand total of twenty-six. That’s not so bad.”
“In many ways it is pretty good,” I said. “But Henderson claims most of our sales have been mere freak stunts. He is discouraged because we haven’t opened up any big, steady market. He seems to think conditions over here are hopeless.”
“Of course,” said Gadget, “conditions really are pretty bad. We have to sell our tractors at almost double the American price. How can we expect people to buy them when they can hire their work done by hand at about a third what it would cost at home?”
“If only we could reduce prices !” I said.
“We can’t,” said Gadget. “The freight and the duty are too high.”
“I wonder,” I said, “if there is any chance of wages in Italy going up ?”
“I doubt it,” said Gadget. “For one thing, all the employers and all the people with money think it is morally wrong to give the poorer classes more than they absolutely have to. That’s what disgusts me the most. It’s a cock-eyed theory. What harm could it possibly do to pay higher wages ?”
“You know the arguments,” I replied. “If you overpay the lower classes, you just naturally ruin them. The money does them no real good; all they do is spend it. Furthermore, they get exaggerated ideas of their own importance. They become lacking in respect for their superiors. They develop an improper taste for the sort of luxuries that belong by right only to the upper classes. And they are completely ungrateful. They never even thank you for the extra pay. But they become insubordinate and refuse to work if it ever becomes necessary to reduce their pay to a reasonable rate of fifty cents a day or whatever it is.”
“Shut up,” said Gadget. “It is all a lot of tripe and it makes me sick.”
“I know,” I said, “and it has exactly the same effect on me. But what can we do about it ?”
“Nothing,” said Gadget. “I suppose we’ll just have to make up our minds to be faintly nauseated throughout the rest of our stay.”
“All right,” I said. “So let it be.”
And for a while it was. We put in a couple of hard and discouraging weeks chasing around looking for somebody to buy our tractors, so that we could wind up our business and come home, according to your instructions. We had no luck at all. And Marco Manzione, the young Italian whom we had hired and who was up at Milan, kept sending us reports that he was not accomplishing anything either. But all this time—although I never suspected it—the beginnings of my big idea were slowly germinating in the deep and hidden chasms of my subconscious mind.
And then, all at once, things began to happen. One morning last week Marco called me up by telephone from Milan. This in itself was most sensational. Because when anybody in Italy actually uses the long-distance telephone, it always indicates that something highly unusual is going on. And this case was no exception. Marco was all in a flatter. He talked very fast. And as the connection was rotten and his English is none too good anyway, it took me quite awhile to get what he was driving at. Finally I gathered that one of the Earthworm tractors which we had sold last May to the railroad was working on a dirt-moving job at a place where they mere realigning the tracks not far from Milan. It had been doing the work so well that quite a number of people had gone out to observe and admire it.
“And this afternoon,” said Marco, his voice quivering with joy, “a wonderful thing will occur.”
“All right,” I said. “What will occur?”
“Our Earthworm tractor—I mean the one we sold to the railroad—is to be visited and inspected by a member of the cabinet—one of the highest officials in Italy.”
“Well, well,” I said. “Isn’t that nice ?”
“It is superb,” said Marco. “If we can get this man interested in Earthworm tractors, our fortunes are made.”
“Possibly so,” I said, “but probably not.”
“I assure you,” said Marco, “it is the chance of a lifetime. I called to see if you could come up at once. This is such an important occasion that I couldn’t take the responsibility of handling it all myself.”
“How long does it take to get up there ?” I asked. “Three or four hours, I think.”
“All right. Gadget and I will come along on the first train we can catch. Thanks for calling up.”
I told Gadget the news. We hurried down to the station. And we took a train that got us to Milan early in the afternoon. We found Marco waiting for us at the station.
“You are too late,” he said. “The plans were changed. The cabinet member had to leave for Rome at noon, so he inspected the tractor this morning.”
“Were you there?” I asked.
“I was.”
“And how did everything go ?”
“Not so good. Signor Botts—not so good.”
“That’s too bad. What happened ?”
“The man came. He saw the tractor at work. He talked with the operator. Then he talked to me. And I am pleased to say that he saw at once the possibilities behind the machine.”
“What did he say ?”
“He said that the Earthworm was far superior to any tractor he had over seen. He said it would be the perfect machine to use in building our proposed system of grand automobile routes, and that it would be invaluable in the army for moving supplies over rough country and pulling artillery.”
“A very sensible thought,” I said. “Did you tell him we would be glad to sell him as many Earthworms as he wants ?”
“I did.”
“What did he say?”
“He asked me if it were true that the machines were made only in America. I said that they were, and he then stated that it would be impossible in that case for the Italian Government to buy any of them.”
“Why” I asked.
“Because Italian industries must be encouraged. It is better, he says, to buy a poor tractor made in Italy than a good one from a foreign land. And that is the tragic part of the whole thing. He admires our Earthworm tractors, but he feels it would be wrong for him to buy them.”
“Possibly, from his point of view, he is right,” I said. “But it certainly is tough luck on us. You say he has gone back to Rome ?”
“Yes.”
“Then I guess this little episode is about over. But cheer up. If we can’t sell him, we may be able to sell somebody else. And as there doesn’t seem to be anything further for me and Gadget to do up here, we will return to Genoa on the next train.”
A half hour later we were rolling southward, and we got back here just in time for supper. During the entire train ride I kept meditating on the various phases of our European selling campaign. I continued this meditation while we were eating our evening meal. And all this time no ideas of any particular value seemed to emerge. But after we had finished supper and returned to our room, a remarkable phenomenon occurred. Suddenly, with no warning, all the chaotic thoughts and ideas which had been moving aimlessly through my mind for weeks clicked into place and formed, in the twinkling of an eye, a single magnificent and logical conception. I had hit upon the perfect plan for solving all our difficulties.
It was much the same sort of sudden inspiration as came to old Archimedes the day he was sitting in his bathtub, the chief differences being that my idea was probably better than his, and I have more sense than to go rushing about the neighborhood with no clothes on, shouting “Eureka.”
I did, however, slap Gadget on the back in a way that somewhat startled her, and I began to tell her all about it.
I will now repeat for your benefit the long, and no doubt rather tedious, conversation which I had with Gadget. I do this, not because my remarks were interesting—they were far too deep and intricate for that—but because if you struggle through them you will get at least a faint grasp of the basic facts concerning the mighty project I am about to launch.
“Congratulate me, Gadget,” I said. “I have hit upon a big, new idea. We must start an Earthworm tractor factory over here in Italy.”
“That doesn’t sound so big to me,” said Gadget. “And it’s not new. Mr. Henderson told us before we came over that if we worked up a large enough market the company might eventually build a European factory.”
“I know,” I said. “And he had the thing completely backward. My idea is that if we build the factory first, then we are absolutely sure to work up the market.”
“I don’t see that at all.”
“It was your idea, wasn’t it, that the two big factors working against us are the high price of the tractors and the low price of labor ?”
“Yes.”
“All right. We make the tractors in Italy. We save the freight. We save the duty. We can sell the machines just as cheap as we do in America.”
“We can’t unless we get a big volume of sales, so the factory can be run on a quantity-production basis.”
“All right,” I said. “We’re going to have a big volume of business.”
“How?”
“In the first place, we’re going to sell a whole lot of machines to the government. Did not that cabinet member say that he needed our machines for his army and his road building ? And did he not say that the only thing which kept him from buying them was the fact that they were built outside of Italy ?”
“But even if you do get a big government order,” said Gadget, “that won’t keep the factory running forever. You will still be competing with your machines against cheap manual labor.”
“Absolutely not.” I said. “It is on this subject of wages that my scheme rises to really sublime heights.”
“I don’t see how,” said Gadget.
“I am going to play a little trick on the entire Italian nation,” I said.
“I still don’t understand,” said Gadget.
“Well,” I said, “it’s going to be an imitation of a little trick that was once played in America. Probably you are too young to remember what happened on January 5, 1914.”
“I was in school at that time” said Gadget, “but I can’t say I remember anything that occurred on that particular day.”
“Probably you wouldn’t,” I said. “But it was, nevertheless, a date of national importance—as worth while remembering as October 12, 1492, or July 4, 1776.”
“All right,” said Gadget. “Go on and tell me what happened, if anything.”
“On January 5, 1914,” I said, “Mr. Henry Ford announced a minimum wage for all his employes of five dollars a day.”*
“Is that all?” said Gadget.
“That was enough. At that time the average factory worker thought he was lucky if he got two bucks a day. The news was discussed with bated breath in garages, in factories, in country stores, everywhere. There was one remark that I remember was repeated over and over again. ‘They say,’ some two-dollar-a-day mechanic would whisper, ‘that even the guy that sweeps out the shop gets five dollars a day !’ Then some one-dollar-a-day ditch digger would repeat in an awed voice, ‘Five dollars a day!’ And all the fifteen-dollar-a-week clerks and the thirty-dollar-a-month farm hands would sit around with their mouths wide open in astonishment. That guy with the broom became a national celebrity. People could see him in their imagination—the man with the broom—a simple-minded creature, infinitely lower in the scale of life than the man with the hoe. In his dense ignorance he was incapable of any such intricate job as tightening up Nut No. 64. And yet this hulk of primitive flesh, merely because he worked in the magic Ford factory, pulled down his five good bucks each and every day. It all sounded like a wonderful fairy tale.”
“How did it sound to other factory owners ?”
“Terrible. They were driven half crazy by all the help coming in, asking for more pay, and trotting out the morning paper where Henry Ford was quoted as saying that the way to make big profits was to raise wages and reduce prices.”
“And did these other employers raise wages ?”
“They had to, or all their men would have gone to Detroit. In order to pay the extra wages, they had to get more efficiency. To get more efficiency, they had to install labor-saving machinery and go into quantity production. To sell the extra stuff they made, they had to lower prices ——”
“And they all went busted ?”
“No. That’s the funny part of it. In places where they held wages down, they had a hard time. Wherever they raised wages they seemed to make more money than ever. And as soon as everybody had more money, everybody bought more stuff, and that made more business, which made more money. And that’s why wages in America are higher than anywhere else.”
“And you claim this was all caused by Henry Ford ?”
“Maybe,” I admitted, “he didn’t do so much as it seems he did. But he got in at just the right moment with the heavy publicity. And that’s just what I’m going to do over here.”
“You mean you actually think you’re going to force up wages and ruin the lower classes over here the way Henry Ford did in America ?”
“Exactly.”
“It seems to me you’re taking on a pretty big job.”
“I know it. But that only makes it more interesting. The first thing I want to do is get the Italian Government lined up. We’ll go down and explain to the officials what a grand thing it would be for everybody if we built an Earthworm tractor factory in Italy. It will give the government cheap tractors. And it will give the people high wages and general prosperity. In return, I’m going to ask for some special favors in the way of advance orders, free port privileges, and various other things. With the government on our side, we can’t help but succeed.”
“I am still a little skeptical,” said Gadget, “but it’s worth trying, anyway.”
“Then you’re with me?”
“With you absolutely,” said Gadget. “Hooray for the ruin of the lower classes !”
The above conversation I have repeated in full, so that—as I told you before—you could get a complete idea of what we are going to do. And now that you know what a splendid plan we have, you will, no doubt, want to begin preparing for action. A word of caution is, therefore, necessary. It will be all right for you to start planning on just where you will get the vast sums of money which will be needed. But don’t actually borrow the capital or send any large number of people over here until I give you the word that everything is settled, because there is always a remote possibility that things might fall through.
I will keep you informed as to the exact progress of affairs. Gadget and I have come down here to Rome. With the help of an Italian lawyer we have drawn up an agreement between the Earthworm Tractor Company and the Italian Government. It is very carefully written and covers all points with great clarity and thoroughness. We have requested an interview so we can present this document to some of the big bugs in the government. We’ll let you know how we come out.
Most sincerely,
Alexander Botts.
CABLEGRAM
EARTHWORM CITY ILL NOV 5 1928
ALEXANDER BOTTS ROME ITALY
YOUR LETTER RECEIVED STOP Et ROPEAN FACTORY IMPOSSIBLE AT THIS TIME STOP COME HOME AT ONCE
GILBERT HENDERSON
CABLEGRAM
ROME ITALY NOV 6 1928
GILBERT HENDERSON EARTHTRACT
EARTHWORM CITY ILL
HADNT I BETTER WAIT UNTIL I SEE GOVERNMENT OFFICIALS QUESTION MARK
BOTTS
CABLEGRAM
EARTHWORM CITY ILL NOV 7 1928
ALEXANDER BOTTS ROME ITALY
NEVER MIND OFFICIALS STOP COME HOME AT ONCE
HENDERSON
CABLEGRAM
ROME ITALY NOV 8 1928
GILBERT HENDERSON EARTHTRACT
EARTHWORM CITY ILL
HAVE DECIDED TO STAY A WHILE LONGER
BOTTS
CABLEGRAM
EARTHWORM CITY ILL NOV 9 1928
ALEXANDER BOTTS ROME ITALY
CANNOT BACK You ANY LONGER STOP HAVE STOPPED YOUR SALARY AND EXPENSE CHECKS
HENDERSON
CABLEGRAM
ROME ITALY NOV 10 1928
GILBERT HENDERSON EARTHTRACT
EARTHWORM CITY ILL
SAW ONE OF THE BIG BRASS HATS TODAY STOP GAVE HIM TENTATIVE WRITTEN AGREEMENT STOP HE PROMISED TO CONSIDER IT AND LET US KNOW HIS DECISION IN A FEW WEEKS STOP I AM AMAZED AT YOUR CABLEGRAM STOP MY EXPENSES HEAVY HOTEL AND CABLE BILLS VERY HIGH AM ALMOST OUT OF FUNDS NOT ENOUGH LEFT EVEN TO BUY PASSAGE HOME STOP YOU MUST CONTINUE SENDING CHECKS
BOTTS
CABLEGRAM
EARTHWORM CITY ILL NOV 12 1928
ALEXANDER BOTTS ROME ITALY
WE WILL SEND YOU NO MORE MONEY STOP BUT WE DONT WANT YOU MAROONED OVER THERE SO WE ARE MAILING YOU TWO TICKETS ROME TO NEW YORK
HENDERSON
Alexander Botts
European Representative
for the
Earthworm Tractor
Dear Henderson : If I did not have such a sweet disposition I would be sore as a boil. If I were to treat you as you deserve, I would resign and leave you flat. But my loyalty to the company is such that I am going to carry on a little longer.
I have tried to explain to you how important it is that I should remain here to close up this deal with the Italian Government. Apparently you are too dumb to understand.
Very well; I won’t argue with you. I will just stay on.
It is true that our funds are shockingly low, but we are far from helpless. I have paid Marco’s salary up to the end of the month, so he won’t rate anything more until December thirty-first. Gadget and I are moving from this expensive hotel today and taking a cheap light-housekeeping apartment down near the river.
And with my usual enterprise and resourcefulness I have got myself a job. It was yesterday morning that I heard of a vacancy on the staff of one of the local tourist agencies. I spent the whole day, with Gadget’s assistance, studying histories and guidebooks of the city of Rome. And late in the after-noon I descended on this agency with such a fluent and amazing line of talk that they at once hired me as a lecturer and guide on one of these rubber-neck wagons that takes Americans around to see the sights. I start work tomorrow morning. The pay is small, but it will be enough.
So you can keep your money. I won’t demean myself by asking for any more until I have put through this deal. And I don’t care whether you mail me those tickets or not. I can assure you that I shall have absolutely no use for them.
ALEXANDER BOTTS.
Alexander Botts
European Representative
for the
Earthworm Tractor
Dear Henderson : I called at Excelsior Hotel this morning and was much pleased to find that the two steamship tickets had arrived. It was most kind of you to send these over, and both Gadget and I want to thank you. In my letter to you a couple of weeks ago I believe I remarked in a rather high and mighty manner that I did not care whether you sent these tickets or not, and that I would have absolutely no use for them. Well, it turns out that I was wrong. We shall have to use them after all.
The reason for this change in our plans is that things are not going as well as I had expected. In the first place, the Italian Government is taking longer than I had expected to consider my proposition. It appears that I cannot hope to get their answer for another week or two.
In the second place, my job with the tourist agency was very disappointing. On the first morning, when I reported for work, the manager asked me to accompany a party which was going to visit St. Peter’s and the Vatican. This pleased me very much.
With the help of Gadget and the guidebooks I had worked up a very brilliant and impressive discourse about this great basilica and the famous residence of the Popes.
Unfortunately, however, I inadvertently got on the wrong bus, and it was not until after I had talked and rhapsodized for a half hour or more that I discovered I was giving the St. Peter’s lecture in a church known as St. John Lateran.
When we got back from the ride the cash customers made a great uproar about my mistake, and the manager was foolish enough to fire me at once. I explained to him that there was nothing wrong with my lecture, except that it was given in the wrong place, and I pointed out that my mistake was very natural, in view of the fact that I had never before visited either of these churches. Unfortunately, however, he was as unreasonable as some of the executives of the Earthworm Tractor Company, and he continued to insist that he wanted nothing further to do with me. In the end I saw that further argument was useless, and gracefully withdrew.
After this I spent day after day tramping the streets looking for work. But it seems almost impossible for an American to pick up a job in Rome. At any rate, I had no luck. And all the time our small supply of cash was steadily wasting away. Last night we spent our last lira, and our situation was becoming desperate.
But this morning, when the tickets arrived, they brought new hope. Gadget and I at once decided to swallow our pride and use them. Accordingly, I took them down to the steamship office and explained to the man in charge that I wanted to turn them in. He was very polite and allowed me the full value minus a very small cancellation fee. This gives us ample funds to live over here for several months longer, if necessary.
We are most grateful to you, Henderson, for getting us such expensive tickets, and for neglecting to have them restricted to our personal use only.
Yours appreciatively,
ALEXANDER BOTTS.
Alexander Botts
European Representative
for the
Earthworm Tractor
Dear Henderson : We are re still living comfortably on the proceeds of the tickets. But we shall soon need more funds, so I would like you to cable me a thousand dollars at once.
Yesterday I heard from the Italian Government. They have accepted my proposition, with only a few minor changes, and I have received the agreement duly signed by the proper authorities. This agreement I am sending along herewith for your ratification. Please don’t try to imitate the United States Senate and reject it just to show who is boss.
You will note that we agree to build a factory at Genoa and supply the Italian Government with as many tractors as they want. We agree to pay a minimum wage of one hundred lire a day. For the first year, if we desire, the factory may be a mere assembly plant; parts may be brought in at a very low duty and made into complete machines. We also have free port privileges, which means that we pay no duty at all on parts which are assembled into tractors and then shipped on to other countries. The government agrees to buy eight hundred tractors of various sizes. I am told that if these are satisfactory they will want a good many more.
In addition, I am pleased to report that my Russian venture has begun to bear fruit. Mr. Krimsky appeared the other day and handed me an order for five hundred machines to be used on the new Soviet collective farms. We can save a lot of freight on this order by shipping the parts to Genoa, assembling them there, and shipping the completed tractors on to Odessa. I also inclose an order just received from the Italian Railroad System for fifty tractors—a mere trifle, it is true, but one that we ought not to utterly despise. The Italian orders, of course, are void unless the machines are assembled in Italy.
This morning there was an account in the local newspaper of our proposed factory and the wages we are going to pay. Gadget overheard a group of workmen discussing the news. “They say,” said one of them, “that even the man who sweeps out the shop will get one hundred lire a day !”
Truly, history is repeating itself.
Yours,
ALEXANDER BOTTS.
CABLEGRAM
EARTHWORM CITY ILL DEC 19
ALEXANDER BOTTS ROME ITALY,
YOUR LETTER RECEIVED STOP CONGRATULATIONS STOP WE HAD NO IDEA YOU COULD GET SUCH LARGE ORDERS AND SUCH FAVORABLE TERMS STOP BOARD OF DIRECTORS AT SPECIAL MEETING HAS DECIDED TO SEND OVER LARGE FORCE OF ENGINEERS AND TECHNICAL MEN WITH SUPPLIES AND MATERIALS TO INSTALL FACTORY AS SOON AS POSSIBLE STOP AM CABLING ONE THOUSAND DOLLARS AS REQUESTED STOP YOU WILL PLAN TO STAY OVER THERE INDEFINITELY
HENDERSON
CABLEGRAM
ROME ITALY DEC 20 1928
GILBERT HENDERSON EARTHTRACT
EARTHWORM CITY ILL
THANKS BUT GADGET AND I HAVE DECIDED TO RETURN TO AMERICA STOP WE ARE LEAVING MARCO IN CHARGE HERE
BOTTS
CABLEGRAM
EARTHWORM CITY ILL DEC 21 1928
ALEXANDER BOTTS ROME ITALY
CANCEL SAILING STOP WE NEED YOU OVER THERE
HENDERSON
RADIOGRAM
SS JUPITER DEC 24 1928
GILBERT HENDERSON EARTHTRACT
EARTHWORM CITY ILL
ALL THE DIFFICULT WORK IS NOW FINISHED SO THE ORDINARY MEN YOU ARE SENDING OVER CAN CARRY ON STOP WE ARE ALREADY ON THE BOAT ONE DAY OUT FROM NAPLES STOP SORRY TO DISOBEY ORDERS AGAIN BUT WE HAVE TO GET HOME SO THAT ALEXANDER BOTTS JUNIOR WILL BE BORN ON AMERICAN SOIL STOP MERRY CHRISTMAS TO ALL
ALEXANDER BOTTS
*
9 hours a day, six days a week. At the same time he reduced the price of the Model-T from 600 dollars to 200 dollars, yet when he died, Henry Ford had between 700 and 900 million dollars (95% of the shares) to his name, and the company was debt free. Proving that one can still become rich while the poor gets a little richer. (Related reading about the (alleged) fight between Henry Ford type industrialists and internationalists/mercantilists traders for the sake of trade : Arthur Nelson FIELD, The Truth about the Slump)
To what may it lead when all those Chinese, who produce all those things North Americans buy, are unable to purchase what they produce ?...