“Most of ’em. With the new system running—who needs skill! The man who places the nut doesn’t turn it—the man who turns it doesn’t tighten it.”
“On the chassis assembly line a continuous line of men, each doing one single action—over and over for eight hours …”
Stan interrupted, “Long ago I told you—monkeys! Lines of monkeys as far as the eye can see.”
“You know the new conditions, John?” Johann thinking he had written his wife sooner than he should have, sounded worried.
John hastened to reassure him. “Nothing for us to be worried about. One of the conditions to qualify for profit sharing is that a man must have been employed by the company for a period of no less than six months, he must be married …” Stan cursed. John continued, “… the only earner in his family. Bachelors do not qualify, unless they can prove they are the sole breadwinners of their family.”
Stan leaned back in his chair. “My friend, it’s called profit sharing, so that if the company has no profit, what’s to share?!”
Hannah motioned to Fritz it was getting late. Jane put away her mending, picked up the soda pop bottle holding her lovely rose and, saying, “Good night,” followed John upstairs.
Jane tended the rose until all her efforts were in vain, then pressed it between pieces of John’s blotting paper and laid it to rest beside Teresa’s letter.
By the time Hannah commemorated the birth of George Washington with her special sour cherry pies, Detroit, with its beckoning Five-Dollar-Day, had taken on the characteristics of a boomtown. Saloons and brothels, pool parlors, cardsharps, con men and shantytowns; in this era of mass emigration, the beginnings of overcrowding soon to be slums, appeared. The Ford Motor Company, following its founder’s credo that better pay made a better man, now formed an organization whose overall purpose was to make certain that the company’s willing generosity to share its profits would go only to those worthy of it. The Sociological Department, one of Henry Ford’s pet projects, employed men given absolute autonomy to inspect, evaluate, report on the habits, living conditions, and morals of Ford employees. When the first rumors of this new department and its purpose filtered down the vine, Hannah was livid.
The mere idea that a total stranger would have the right to enter her house without needing her permission, then once inside investigate her cleanliness, both actual and moral, made her so furious, for once words failed her. Fritz and John kept insisting that the Sociological Department had been formed solely for the purpose of giving aid to those newly arrived, uneducated immigrants from such poverty-stricken regions as the Ukraine, Eastern Europe, and southern Italy, who could not be expected to fend for themselves, manage sensibly their new exorbitant wage. Therefore, the Geiger boardinghouse, with its occupants all being respected long-standing Ford employees, English speaking, some even in possession of “First Papers” towards American citizenship, would be safe, exempt from any and all inspections.
“Hannahchen, I am tired of telling you—the Boss only wants to help. There are men with wife and many children, all of them living in one room, no running water, no heat, outhouse in the back alley, rats running everywhere. Ford wage, first big money they have ever seen, so suddenly he feels like a big shot in America, gets drunk, whores, gambles. So, when Ford money gone—what happens? Family starves.”
“Listen to him, Hannah,” John tried to help Fritz. “This new venture only proves what a great humanitarian Henry Ford is. A true guardian of the men.”
Hannah, ladling out potato soup from the big tureen, passed soup plates down the table without comment. Jane, dispensing beer from a big glass pitcher, knew Hannah was angry but didn’t exactly understand why.
After supper, the men and Jane settled in their usual places. Hannah remained in her kitchen, its door closed.
John lit his cheroot. “I was told the Boss is going to start a school program for all the non-English-speaking workers that have flooded in.”
“Now that’s a good idea! I haven’t heard anything I could understand in months!” Rudy was pleased.
“Somebody said we’ve got now more than twenty nationalities. Is that true?” Fritz looked at Carl.
“Double that. It’s like a Tower of Babel on the line.”
“Why start a school at all—monkeys don’t need to talk.” Stan opened his paper.
“At the moment, the count of non-English-speaking men is around three thousand,” offered Johann.
“Three thousand pupils! Quite a school!” Jimmy took out his pipe.
“I heard it’s going to be in some big hall—with words written on blackboards and teachers making them repeat after them,” Zoltan continued.
“You’re kidding!”
“Now, that’s really right for your monkeys, Stan.” Johann laughed.
“Those poor bastards are so frightened to lose their jobs, they’ll do anything the Boss orders.”
“Oh, come on, Stan. It’s not orders exactly. He’s offering these men advantages so they can better themselves.” Jimmy corrected.
“Uh-huh! Just see if anyone refuses.”
Zoltan put down his paper. “They want those of us educated who speak English to volunteer one evening a week to …”
“To do what? Spank the kiddies?” Stan laughed.
Zoltan ignoring him, continued, “It’s going to be done like this. First, you print a word on your blackboard, then—pointing to it with your ruler, pronounce it, then have them repeat it after you, until they get it right.”
“How many teachers per how many men?” Fritz wanted to know.
“Exactly I don’t know, but something like forty for each section of, say, fifty men.”
“That’s nearly two thousand men! Under one roof? All yelling out words—all at the same time?” Even John had to laugh.
“Did I say monkeys? I take it all back. No, my friends, we’ve got ourselves two thousand parrots!”
Jimmy lit his pipe. “Joke if you must Stan, but I hear those are the orders. One evening a week is going to be school night and some of us should volunteer. Diplomacy, my friends. Diplomacy!”
“You going to?” asked Rudy.
“Most probably. John, what about you?”
“I think it’s a good idea.”
“Mr. Ford’s or you volunteering?” Fritz asked.
“Both. All he wants is to give these men a chance to be good Americans. In order to do that, they must understand as well as speak the language.”
“I’m going with you, just so I can hear two thousand parrots repeat after me ‘Bless America and its almighty God, Henry Ford!’”
“That’s not funny, Stan. You have no cause to say something like that.” Fritz sounded shocked.
Carl rose. “It’s late. Tomorrow again I have new men to train.”
John motioned to Jane to pack up her sewing.
“Me too—and I tell you, if they understood just a little of what I was saying, it would be a lot easier.”