The People's Tycoon: Henry Ford and the American Century (Vintage) (101 page)

Throughout the 1930s, Edsel had walked the same tortuous path laid out for him in the previous decade—serving as the titular head of the great automobile company as his father maintained control over all important decisions and undermined his authority at every opportunity. The son, with his deep sense of loyalty and obligation, had attempted manfully to fill this position of prominence without power. The fact that he had established a fulfilling personal life helped him persevere. He, his wife, Eleanor, and their four children had settled into their beautiful Cotswold-style house and estate, Gaukler Pointe. Though they still socialized occasionally with Henry and Clara, the families had grown apart. Edsel's personal separation from his parents provided an emotional buffer.
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Professionally, he could not escape so easily. Tightly bound to his father and the company, the younger Ford labored dutifully. On the surface, he maintained a fairly normal work life. As president, Edsel kept an office in the administration building in Dearborn and, with characteristic calm, kindness, and dignity, ran an office that was a model of courteous efficiency. Sitting at his clean and orderly desk, he oversaw the business endeavors of the company as he wrote memoranda, responded to reports, and consulted with executives. Intelligent and hardworking, Edsel had a command of all aspects of the company's commercial operations and was perfectly at ease in discussions about production, sales, advertising, and labor. Even Henry had to admit grudgingly that Edsel “knows everything that's going on everywhere. I don't know how he does it, but he does.” As an executive, his greatest strengths were an attention to detail and a belief in teamwork. Rather than issuing orders like his autocratic father, Edsel would listen carefully to managers' opinions, gather expert advice, and involve others in the decision-making process.
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Even as a young man, Edsel had appeared kindly, even-tempered,
unfailingly polite, and reserved, and these characteristics stayed with him as a middle-aged executive. “In fact, he practically never turned any executives away who came to see him,” reported A. J. Lepine, his administrative assistant. “He was there at the disposal of the executives of the company.” Even when visitors talked at too great a length, Edsel remained patient rather than abruptly terminating the meeting.
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But Edsel's controlled exterior occasionally cracked to reveal an inner turmoil. “He is high-strung, nervous; when he is talking to you he tears sheets of paper into little bits, rolls up the bits, and pops them into a wastebasket,”
Fortune
observed in 1933.”His voice and his manner are quiet.” Indeed, Edsel's reserve seemed to provide a defense mechanism against an intrusive world. An associate who worked closely with him noticed that he “rarely exhibited enthusiasm. He rarely ever exhibited extreme distaste, and…I never saw him enthused or laugh about anything with anyone. He was always very solemn, serious. You never knew what was going on inside of his head.” The younger Ford's emotional constraints seemed to mirror those imposed on him by his awkward professional situation.
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Art continued to be a passion in Edsel's life. An amateur painter, he dabbled at home for years before taking up photography as a hobby in the 1930s. His office displayed original paintings by the early-American painters Gilbert Stuart and John Trumbull. It was also decorated with several valuable antiques—Edsel had become an expert judge of colonial furniture—and the walls had been paneled in colonial style. Overall, the room exuded “a quiet dignity,” in Lepine's words. Edsel and Eleanor had started collecting fine art in the early 1930s, and their home was adorned with works by van Gogh, Raphael, Degas, Matisse, and Frans Hals. They were longtime supporters of the Detroit Institute of Arts, and Edsel donated many works to its museum and hundreds of thousands of dollars to help boost its collections. He served as a commissioner of the institution from 1930to 1943.

Edsel's most memorable artistic encounter came with the Mexican muralist Diego Rivera. An avowed communist and master of fresco, an artistic technique whereby paint was applied directly onto wet plaster, Rivera came to Detroit to put murals on the walls of the art institute's great garden court. Edsel paid for much of the project. The artist decided to depict the dynamic interaction of man and machine in this capital of automobile production and completed large portraits of assembly lines, machine shops, and chemical factories. The result was grandiose and controversial. Critics contended that the radical painter had created a grim picture of industrial Detroit and demanded that the murals be whitewashed or moved to a less conspicuous spot. Edsel, along with institute officials, held firm in
support of Rivera's work. “I admire Mr. Rivera's spirit,” Edsel told reporters. “I really believe he was trying to express his idea of the spirit of Detroit.”
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Edsel's artistic sensibility spilled over into what became his professional passion in the 1930s—car styling, in partnership with E. T. Gregorie. He had been involved in automobile design since adolescence and had overseen development of the stylish Lincoln luxury line of cars in the 1920s, but he became serious about design during the 1930s. Gregorie's taste for clean, graceful lines drew Edsel's attention. They collaborated on designing Ford models early in the decade, Edsel providing broad aesthetic directives and retaining final approval while Gregorie did the actual designs. The collaboration was so successful that Edsel established a design department in the company in early 1935 with Gregorie as its head.
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Operating out of the engineering building in Dearborn, Gregorie and his assistants worked closely with Edsel in designing the new Lincoln Zephyr line introduced in 1935, the Mercury line introduced in 1939, and the Lincoln Continental. These models had been developed at the urging of the younger Ford, who sought to present consumers with a range of automobiles at various prices to compete with those of General Motors. Henry, of course, had resisted diversification because of his loyalty to the old Model T idea of a functional, inexpensive car for the masses. He acceded only grudgingly to Edsel's position. The new automobiles appeared slowly in the late 1930s, and, as Gregorie acknowledged, Edsel's fondness for sleek, simple lines, dignity, and elegance pervaded their designs.
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But behind this elaborate façade of work and fulfillment, an old problem eroded the foundation of Edsel Ford's life. As everyone knew, including himself, his position of authority was essentially a sham. His father stymied him and kept the reins of power firmly in his own hands, as he had since 1919. And he wielded that power with little tact. “There were times when Mr. Ford's attitude toward Edsel, in my judgment, reached pretty close to the point of persecution,” Ernest Liebold said. Any action by the younger Ford was subject to the elder Ford's approval, noted another associate, and it was clear “that Henry Ford didn't trust Edsel's judgment too well.” For the company president, the situation was equal parts frustration and humiliation.
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A profound difference in temperament explained much of this division. Fred Black noted that, whereas Edsel believed in organization, cooperation, and teamwork, his father “was not an organization man. He wanted to call all the signals and carry the ball.” Edsel liked to gather facts, study them, and make deliberate judgments, but Henry made snap decisions based on intuition. Edsel listened carefully to reports on a situation as he considered
the merits of various actions and often asked executives to present both sides of a problem. Henry, detesting complexity, was impatient with any kind of presentation and “on the basis of a hunch would come to a decision.” Though Edsel was a model of courtesy and inclusion in his management practice, his father constantly pressured him to be tougher and more aggressive.
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This clash of sensibilities created many problems, such as Henry's contempt for Edsel's interest in automobile styling and design. Preoccupied with utilitarian issues of mechanical soundness and durability in Ford automobiles, he saw his son's aesthetic concerns as another sign that he was “too artistic for the automobile business.” He did little to hide his disdain. In the 1930s, Ford dropped by Emil Zoerlein's engineering shop and noticed the acoustical work being done to lower noise levels in automobiles. Zoerlein showed him sound meters the company had purchased as part of a cooperative program with the University of Michigan and explained that Edsel was monitoring test results. Henry sneered, “Well, as far as I'm concerned, you can take these instruments and throw them out in the lake.”
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Henry's suspicion of his son's artistic impulses translated into outright scorn for his friends and lifestyle. Since the 1920s, he had been convinced that Ernest Kanzler and “the Grosse Pointe crowd” were warping Edsel's character. He once uttered the supreme insult: “Kanzler and Edsel both ought to be bankers.” Henry never tired of railing about Edsel's “high living” and the snobby “ear-piddlers” who were corrupting him and trying to get his money. According to a close associate, Henry carefully checked on all the parties Edsel gave or attended, bribed a servant to provide information on his son's private affairs, and once drove to Edsel's home to smash up his son's stock of liquor and wine. Clara Ford, to a certain extent, shared her husband's disapproval of their son's lifestyle. At an exhibit of modernist paintings in the Ford Museum sponsored by Edsel and Eleanor, she recoiled and asked that they be removed. “They get their idea of art and liking for certain things from the Rockefellers,” she commented of her son and daughter-in-law. “She was
most
bitter!” noted an observer. “I could sense the feeling of bitterness, almost, toward her own son, because of his association with the Rockefellers.”
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By the 1930s, Edsel's resigned attitude toward his father's criticism was giving way to resentment. He began to betray to close associates a cynical attitude of “Oh, what's the use?” The gap between the elder and younger Fords opened a little wider every year as their working relationship eroded. “Relations between Edsel and Henry Ford were now strained almost to the breaking point, and it became increasingly difficult for father and son to work together on anything,” Charles Sorensen noted. Everyone who saw
them together perceived the tension. “I wondered often how close Mr. Ford and Edsel really were,” commented Emil Zoerlein. “Edsel always had a worried and a painful expression. Mr. Ford's expression was stern…. Mr. Ford and Edsel did not joke much with each other or tease each other.”
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Public issues also entered the picture. Throughout the Depression era, Henry and Edsel quarreled over the company's labor policies, as Ford's struggle against unionization pushed father and son in different directions. Henry used every weapon at his disposal to fight against union inroads. Edsel disagreed, largely on practical grounds. He argued for an accommodation with the unions, contending that opposition was costing more than would acceptance of a union shop, and bringing bad publicity, too. Father and son had many long, heated arguments over labor policy, both becoming convinced that the other's approach would doom the company.
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Another divisive issue concerned Franklin D. Roosevelt. Henry's hatred of the President was legendary, yet Edsel had developed a friendship with FDR. He had met Roosevelt during World War I, and throughout the 1920s and 1930s had contributed generously to his therapeutic center for polio victims in Warm Springs, Georgia. Edsel visited him there in 1928 and shortly afterward gave the New York governor one of the new Ford Model A's, asking only for an autographed picture in return. The families exchanged birthday cards and holiday greetings for many years, and Edsel came to admire FDR for his courage, resiliency, and personal warmth. Thus it was little wonder that father and son wrangled sharply with regard to the President. On the two occasions they met FDR, Edsel behaved with his usual grace and Henry did little to hide his contempt.
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In the early 1940s, the company's involvement in war preparation further strained the relationship. The younger Ford, with his father's approval, had negotiated a deal for the company to manufacture Rolls-Royce engines for the British. Then, suddenly, Henry decided to squelch the deal and told the newspapers of his decision before apprising his son. “Well, I can't understand Father's statement of this. We've talked it over,” a stunned Edsel told Fred Black. “He has never expressed any such attitude to me. It's very embarrassing to have this happen at this time, after a number of promises have been made.” Humiliated once again, Edsel was left to pick up the pieces as he tried to explain the broken agreement.
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Harry Bennett, whom Edsel despised and Henry revered, became a constant source of friction. Henry had made the boisterous security chief a constant companion by the 1930s. Not surprisingly, this wounded Edsel, who viewed Bennett as a vulgar, violent, ignorant man who encouraged all of his father's worst instincts. In turn, Bennett regarded Edsel as a snob who, in his words, “hadn't the respect I thought he should have for men who
came up through the ranks the hard way.” He denigrated Edsel at every opportunity, and Henry would hear no criticism of Bennett from his son. This warped dynamic reached a climax when Henry appointed Bennett head of labor negotiations, a decision that infuriated Edsel. As his surrogate son and real son battled, the old man made clear his preference. “Over and over Henry Ford told me what a problem Edsel was to him,” Sorensen reported. “Again and again I tried to impress upon him, without success, that his attempt to drive Edsel into line using Harry Bennett to annoy him and check his every move was breaking down Edsel's respect for him.” But Henry remained determined to use Bennett to toughen up his son.
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Ironically, as hostility between Edsel and Bennett mounted, Edsel's relationship with Charles Sorensen improved markedly. For many years, the two had been rivals. “I do think that the old man set Sorensen against Edsel a great many times, deliberately,” Lawrence Sheldrick said. “Edsel was aware of this, and I think it broke his heart.” By the late 1930s, however, much of the hostility between the two had resolved into a workable arrangement. Sorensen's rough, even brutal management methods still upset Edsel, and the latter's quieter ways annoyed the hard-driving production chief. But several factors drew them together—Henry's growing instability, fear of Harry Bennett's rising influence, and genuine concern about the future of the company. In fact, as relations degenerated between the two Fords, Sorensen tried to serve as mediator, encouraging Edsel to persevere and urging Henry to curb his abusive behavior.
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