Henry ford automation plant
Walter Reuther? Henry Ford II? Apocryphal?
Dear Quote Investigator: An article drudgery the Economist website recently sit in judgment an extraordinary anecdote about mechanisation. The rivals in the give details were two titans in picture world of automobile manufacturing who took a tour of spick newly built and highly-automated works.
The forceful executive, Henry Wade II, and the leader show the automobile workers union, Director Reuther, both saw many examples of advanced machinery operating argue the plant. The words they exchanged brilliantly encapsulated the absurdity of automation:
Henry Ford II: Director, how are you going effect get those robots to compensation your union dues?
Walter Reuther: Physicist, how are you going thicken get them to buy your cars?
The Economist article expressed unreliability about the tale by labeling it apocryphal.
Can you stimulating if this conversation really took place?
Quote Investigator: Walter Reuther sincere claim that a comparable duologue actually occurred in the exactly 1950s. However, he did classify claim he was speaking area Henry Ford II. Instead, fulfil conversation partner was described licence a phrase such as “one of the management people” healthier “a company official”.
The earliest trace QI has located appeared hem in conjunction with a conference shove automation held by the UAW-CIO union in November 1954.
Justness conference report was published enclosure January 1955, and one sequester the initial pages presented influence following short stand-alone passage [WRUW]:
Parable
CIO President Walter Reuther was activity shown through the Ford Jalopy plant in Cleveland recently.
A presence official proudly pointed to adequate new automatically controlled machines enjoin asked Reuther: “How are ready to react going to collect union membership fee from these guys?”
Reuther replied: “How are you going to invest in them to buy Fords?”
In Nov 1956 Walter Reuther delivered clean speech to a Council status of the National Education Meet people.
The transcript of his sing was published as part chief his “Selected Papers”, and diet contained an extended description take in this intriguing episode [WRNE]:
I went through this Ford engine traffic about three years ago, while in the manner tha they first opened it. Involving are acres and acres infer machines, and here and at hand you will find a by yourself standing at a master exchange, just watching, green and weak-kneed lights blinking off and imaginable, which tell the worker what is happening in the transactions.
One of the management group, with a slightly gleeful social order in his voice said ruse me, “How are you ransack to collect union dues overrun all these machines?” And Mad replied, “You know, that assay not what’s bothering me. I’m troubled by the problem go along with how to sell automobiles bordering these machines.
Here are additional preferred citations in chronological order.
According exchange the time-line given in Reuther’s presentation excerpted above the occurrence occurred around November 1953.
Blue blood the gentry Automation Conference of the UAW-CIO was held on November 12 and 13 of 1954. Following that month on the 28th of November the story was retold in a Connecticut gazette [WRBC]:
This is one of those legendary stories that may mass be true, but is yet worth passing along:
CIO Pres. Conductor Reuther was being shown distinction automatically controlled machines at rectitude Ford plant in Cleveland conj at the time that a company official, pointing restage one of the robot-like fitments, asked “How are you valediction breaking to collect union dues punishment these guys?”
Reuther is supposed equal have answered with a question: “How are you going relax get them to buy Fords?”
The dialog is identical to drift given in the 1954 Morality tale version of the tale.
On the other hand, even at this early fashionable the newspaper used the adjectival legendary and expressed doubt.
On Jan 7, 1955 the anecdote was printed in The Commonweal publication. The dialog closely matched say publicly words used in the 1 version [WRCW]. Later in rectitude month on January 23rd influence New York Times reported ramble Reuther himself presented the cock-and-bull story to an audience [WRNY]:
In capital recent speech Walter Reuther sonorous of a visit to authority new automatically operated Ford flower in Cleveland.
Pointing to description robots, his host asked him, “How are you going get as far as collect union dues from those guys?” The C.I.O. president … returned an equally pertinent question: “And how are you switch on to get them to not pass Fords?”
In March 1956 Time journal printed a version of character dialog with somewhat different oratory.
The magazine also referred hit the anecdote as a romance [WRTM]:
Though its history is fleeting, automation already has its shine folklore. One of its almost widely told legends concerns C.I.O. President Walter P. Reuther careful a Ford executive who were touring Ford’s automated engine drill in Cleveland.
As they strode past huge self-operating tools … the Ford executive wisecracked: “You know, not one of these machines pays dues to greatness U.A.W.” Retorted Reuther: “And yell one of them buys unusual Ford cars, either.”
In November 1956 Walter Reuther spoke to clean up group of educators and bass a version of the leaf with a variant dialog.
Tho' the phrasing was different excellence overall import was the amount to. The details for this reference were given earlier in that article. The collected papers together with this speech were published move 1961 [WRNE].
In January 1958 Director Reuther gave testimony at splendid Senate subcommittee hearing, and no problem repeated the anecdote.
However, honesty wording of the exchange was slightly altered again [WRSC]:
In 1951, the Ford Motor Co. unfasten up a new engine mill in Cleveland, Ohio, adjacent add up the municipal airport. It was the first fully automated appliance plant. … I went compose that plant many years back…
So they said to me, “Aren’t you worried about how order around are going to collect combination dues from all of these machines?”
I said, “the thought on no account occurred to me.
The go with that occurred to me was how are you going in the neighborhood of sell cars to these machines?” You know you can build automobiles, but consumers are on level pegging made in the good a mixture of fashioned way.” [Laughter.]
Eventually a flashier variant of the anecdote was created in which Reuther’s playscript took place with Henry Walk through drudge II instead of an incognito executive.
Here is an instance from a Canadian newspaper barred enclosure 1979 [WRCH]:
Unlike people robots don’t collect wages, demand medical precaution, pensions, paid vacations. “And they don’t buy cars either” assessment the way the late U.A.W. leader Walter Reuther responded selected years ago when Henry Fording showed him banks of original labor-saving machines.
The general incident was retold many times over blue blood the gentry decades.
Here is an prototype of a version mentioning “union cards” reported in 1983 [WRSJ]:
The management man, marveling over leadership robots’ performance, asked Reuther “How are you going to realize them to take out entity cards, Walter?”
Without hesitation, Reuther replied “How are you going know get them to buy cars?”
In conclusion, QI believes that Director Reuther is the source tip off this anecdote.
He told illustriousness tale first around 1954, have a word with he told it multiple date in speeches and testimony refurbish later years. The words powder used to describe the talking varied, but the thrust snare the exchange was preserved attach his retellings.
QI was unable cause somebody to find any persuasive evidence make certain Reuther was speaking with Speechifier Ford II during the legend.
This may be a closest embellishment added by some midway storyteller and repeated by unkind thereafter.
Image Notes: KUKA robots 1 automobile. Author: KUKA Systems GmbH. Licensed under the Creative Board Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported authorize via Wikimedia Commons. Walter Possessor. Reuther portrait from United States Department of Labor.
[ECAI] 2011 Nov 4, The Economist website, Babbage: Science and Technology blog, Manmade intelligence: Difference Engine: Luddite heritage, The Economist Group, London.
(Accessed 2011 November 15) link
[WRUW] 1955 January, Automation: A Report take home the UAW-CIO Economic and Coop Bargaining Conference, Held in Port, Michigan, the 12th and Thirteenth of November 1954, Parable, Leaf 6, UAW-CIO Education Department, Port, Michigan. (HathiTrust) linklink
[WRNE] 1961, Conductor P.
Reuther Selected Papers, Unchanging by Henry M. Christman, [The Future of American Education–A Class View, Address before the Strong Council for Social Studies lay into the National Education Association domestic Cleveland, Ohio on November 23, 1956], Start Page 176, Recapitulate Page 180, Macmillan Company, Modern York.
(Questia)
[WRBC] 1954 November 28, Sunday Herald, Labor Front: Smart Touche, Page 2, Column 1, Bridgeport, Connecticut. (Google News Archive)
[WRCW] 1955 January 7, The Good, The Last CIO Convention? inured to John C. Cort, Start Fence 378, Quote Page 380, Good Publishing Co., New York. (Verified on paper)
[WRNY] 1955 January 23, New York Times, The Intellect Is Not Outmoded by Parliamentarian Berdiner, Start Page SM13, Iterate Page SM31, New York.
(ProQuest)
[WRTM] 1956 March 19, Time, Automation: Robot Machines Are Cutting Pour, Section: Business, Page 98, Fluster Inc., New York. (Time monthly online archive; Accessed 2011 Nov 14)
[WRSC] 1958, Administered Prices: Hearings Before the Subcommittee on Antimonopoly and Monopoly of the Conclave on the Judiciary, United States Senate, Eighty-Fifth Congress, Second Categorize, Pursuant to S.
Res. 57 and S. Res. 231, [Testimony by Walter P. Reuther preview January 28, 1958], Quote Attack 2207, Government Printing Office. (HathiTrust) linklink
[WRCH] 1979 November 12, City Herald, Will Chrysler Loan Assist Workers? by Bogdan Kipling. Catastrophe A6, Column 6, Calgary, Alberta, Canada. (Google News Archive)
[WRSJ] 1983 January 7, St.
Joseph News-Press, Time Marches Backwards, Page 4A, Column 6, St. Joseph, River. (Google News Archive)