An accident which his father met with called him from Detroit to the Michigan farm, and this accident deprived the country of a 50-cent watch and gave it a $350 automobile instead. And most people will agree that it was a fair exchange and no robbery. Thomas A. Edison, strange as it may sound, was responsible for the practically universal use of the Ford automobile, for he it was, who, by the chance remark, “What you want to do to make money is to make quantity,” started Ford on his downward price career. We have it from Mr. Ford himself that he heard this statement by Edison, and that it so impressed him that he made it the rule and guide of his life; that he never renounced the idea. When, after building a motor that was a success and commanded the attention and capital of moneyed men in Detroit, Ford formed his first company to build his car, this great idea was obstinately adhered to by him, and was the cause of his falling out with his moneyed partners. They could not see the light which has given Ford his halo—the great white light of quantity production. This light burns with steady brilliancy because it is generated by the great principle of the greatest good to the largest number. Ford’s associates in his first company were not believers in this principle, evidently, because when they fell out with Ford about it, and Ford got out of the company to start the one he now controls, they went ahead making cars that sell today for from $2,300 to $3,900. But though they have made fair profits, they have not made the fabulous sums that Ford has, and one can only wonder how they feel about it, and if they realize the error of their views. They are probably wiser if not richer. The success of Ford’s idea of quantity sales demonstrates a great fact in the affairs of life. It is that fields of human endeavor are not exhausted or worked out until the human race has ceased to exist. Take any line of enterprise you will, and it has as many facets as a prism. An idea only is needed, which, if the right one, illustrates the enterprise as lights thrown on the prism cause it to sparkle in many colored rays.