"Up to twelve o'clock we made 4,023 headlights, 2,438 tail-lights, and 1,192 ceiling lights."

We looked at our watches.

It was a quarter-past twelve.

"I receive information about the production every hour," the manager added, and hung the paper on the nail.

We again drove to the Ford office. This time we were met by Mr. Cameron, who came out hurriedly to greet us and asked us to come in. In his office, Mr. Cameron counted us with his eyes and asked that another chair be brought in. We sat in our overcoats. We were not comfortable in them, but when we finally decided to take them off Henry Ford appeared in the doorway. He looked quizzically at his guests and bowed. There was a bit of commotion accompanied by handshaking, and, as a

result of this transmigration, Ford found himself in that corner of the room , where there was no chair. Mr. Cameron soon rectified matters. Ford sat down in a chair, crossed his legs, and lightly began swinging one leg over the other. He was a thin, almost flat, slightly stooping old man with a clever wrinkled face and silver hair. He wore a new grey suit, black shoes, red necktie. Ford looked younger than his seventy-three years, and only his old brown hands with their swollen knuckles betrayed his age. We were told that occasionally in the evenings he goes out dancing.

We began at once to talk about the midget factories.

"Yes," said Mr. Ford, "I see the possibility of creating small factories, even steel foundries. But so far I am not yet opposed to large factories."

He said that he sees the future country covered with small factories, sees the workers liberated from the oppression of traders and financiers.

"The farmer," continued Ford," makes bread. We make automobiles. But between us stands Wall Street, the banks, which want to have a share of our work without doing anything themselves."

At this point he quickly waved his hand before his face, as if he were chasing away a mosquito, and said:

"They know how to do only one thing—to scheme tricks, to juggle money."

Ford detests Wall Street. He knows full well that if Morgan is given even one share of stock, all the other shares will soon likewise be his. The Ford enterprise is the only one in the United States not dependent on the banks.

In the course of the conversation, Ford was constantly moving his feet. He either pressed them against the desk or crossed his legs, holding them up with his hands, or again placed both his feet on the floor and began to sway. His eyes are set close together, the prickly eyes of a peasant. As a matter of fact, he looks very much like a sharp-nosed Russian peasant, a self-made inventor, who suddenly had his beard shaved off and put on an English suit of clothes.

Ford goes to work when all the others go and spends his entire day at the factory. To this very day not a single blueprint goes out without his signature. We have already said that Ford has no office of his own. Cameron had this to say about him :

"Mr. Ford circulates."

How much strength and will a man must have in order to circulate with such ease at the age of seventy-three!

The Ford method of work long ago exceeded the limits of mere manufacture of automobiles or other objects. Yet, although all his activities and the activities of other industrialists have transformed America into a country where no one knows any longer what will happen tomorrow, he continues to tell himself and the people around him:

"That is no concern of mine. I have my task. I make automobiles."

In farewell, Henry Ford, who is interested in the Soviet Union and is quite sympathetic to it, asked us:

"What is the financial situation of your country now?"

The day previous we happened to have read in Pravda the famous article by Grinko, and were, therefore, able to give him the very latest information.

"That's very good," said the amazing mechanic, smiling suddenly the wrinkled smile of a grandfather. " Don't ever get into debt, and help one another."

We said that that is how we usually do things, but nevertheless promised to transmit his words verbatim to Michael Ivanovich Kalinin.

Again there was a little commotion accompanied by handshaking in farewell, and the inspection of one of the greatest sights in America— Henry Ford—came to an end.

17 That Horrible Town, Chicago

A WEEK had passed since our departure from New York. We gradually developed a system of travel. We spent the nights in camps or tourist homes, that is, ordinary little houses where the owners rent to travellers cheap, clean rooms with wide comfortable beds, on which you will inevitably find several thick and thin woollen, cotton, and quilted blankets, commodes with mirrors, a rocking-chair, a wall closet, a spool of thread with a needle stuck into it, which touches your heart, and a Bible on the bedtable. The masters of these houses are workers, small merchants, and widows, who successfully compete with hotels, driving the owners of the latter to commercial philosophy. Frequently along the road we met advertising signs of hotels which quite nervously pleaded with travellers to come to their senses and return their goodwill to the hotels.

LET YOUR HEART FILL WITH PRIDE WHEN YOU UTTER

THE NAME OF THE HOTEL IN WHICH YOU STOPPED

These were veiled slurs against the unknown tourist homes and camps.

"No, no, gentlemen," said Mr. Adams when dusk was falling and it was necessary to consider a lodging for the night. "I ask you seriously, do you want your heart to fill with pride? It is very interesting when a heart fills with pride while the purse is emptied in proportion."

No, we didn't want our hearts to fill with pride! So, as soon as it grew dark and our mouse-coloured car drove along the residential part of the next small town, be it Syracuse or Vienna, we stopped near a house which was distinguished from the other houses of the city only with the placard: "Rooms for Tourists." We entered and said in an uneven chorus: "How do you do?" to which we forthwith heard in response another " How do you do? " and from the kitchen emerged an elderly person in an apron and with knitting in hand. Here Mr. Adams took the stage. A child or a court investigator could very well envy his curiosity. Small, fat, impatiently moving from one foot to the other and wiping his head with a handkerchief, delighted with an opportunity to converse, he methodically squeezed out of the hostess all the local news.

"Surely!" he exclaimed, upon learning that the town had two thousand population, that there had been a lottery the day before, that the local doctor was about to get married, and that not long ago there was a case of infantile paralysis. " Surely! Of course!"

He asked the hostess how long she had been a widow, where her children were studying, what was the price of meat, and how many more years she had to make payments on her house at the bank.

We were already in our beds on the second floor, when from below we still heard:

"Surely! Surely!"

Then our ears would hear the creaking of the wooden stairway. Mr. Adams was walking upstairs and stopped for a minute at the door of our room. He was overcome with the desire to talk.

"Gentlemen," he asked, "are you asleep?"

Receiving no reply, he proceeded to his room.

But in the morning, at seven o'clock sharp, he would take advantage of his uncontested right as captain and chief of the expedition, would noisily enter our room, fresh, shaven, in suspenders, with drops of water on his eyebrows, and shout: