It was asserted that the Ford Motor Company, unable to pay the enormous sums accruing if the Seldon patent was upheld, would be one of the companies to fail. Buyers were urged to play safe by purchasing a recognized car--a car made by the licensed manufacturers. Ford, already involved in a business fight against the association and its millions, thus found himself in danger of losing the confidence of the public. The story of those years is one which cannot be adequately told. Ford was working harder than he had ever done while he was building his first car in the old shed. He was one of the first men at the factory every morning, and long after Detroit was asleep he was still hard at work, conferring with lawyers, discussing with Couzens the latest disaster that threatened, struggling with business problems, meeting emergencies in the selling field, and always planning to better the factory management and to lower the price and increase the efficiency of the car. The car sold. Ford had built it for common men, for the vast body of America's middle-class people, and it was cheap enough to be within their reach. Ford knew that if he could keep their confidence he could win in the end. He met the attack of the A. L. A. M. by printing huge advertisements guaranteeing purchasers of his cars from prosecution under the Seldon patents, and backed his guarantee by the bond of a New York security company. Then he appealed the patent case and kept on fighting. In 1908 the farmer boy who had started out twenty years before with nothing but his bare hands and an idea found himself at the head of one of America's largest business organizations. That year his factory made and sold 6,398 cars. Every machine sold increased his liabilities in case he lost the patent fight, but the business was now on a firm foundation. Agencies had been established in all parts of the world, orders came pouring in. Profits were rolling up. Ford found his net earnings increasing faster than he could possibly put them back into the business. At the end of that year he and Couzens sat in their offices going over the balance sheets of the company. The size of the bank balance was most satisfactory. The factory was running to the limit of its capacity, orders were waiting. Prospects were bright for the following season. Ford leaned back in his chair. "Well, I guess we're out of the woods, all right," he said. He put his hands in his pockets and looked thoughtfully at the ceiling. "Remember that time in the Mack avenue place," he began, "when that Chicago check didn't come in, and we couldn't pay the men?" "I should say I do! And the day we got the first order from Cleveland. Remember how you worked in the shop yourself to get it out?" "And you hustled out and got material on sixty days' time? And the boys worked all night, and we had to wait till the money came from Cleveland before we could give them their overtime? That was a great bunch of men we had then."