Leadership

Soon after this I returned to Washington and made my headquarters in the War Building with Colonel Scott. As I had charge of the telegraph department…

"Yes, I know that," he said, "but I know the men and Thomas will be the first to say that Sherman is the man for the work. There will be no trouble…

When I was called to Washington in 1861, it was supposed that the war would soon be over; but it was seen shortly afterwards that it was to be a…

I remember being deeply affected by the reception I met with when I returned to my division. The men of the eastern end had gathered together with…

During the Civil War the price of iron went up to something like $130 per ton. Even at that figure it was not so much a question of money as of…

In like manner the demand for locomotives was very great, and with Mr. Thomas N. Miller[24] I organized in 1866 the Pittsburgh Locomotive Works,…

In this way was organized in 1862 the firm of Piper and Schiffler which was merged into the Keystone Bridge Company in 1863--a name which I…

The Judge, however, lived to believe differently. The bridge remained until recently, though strengthened to carry heavier traffic. We expected to…

When the work was finished, I had the Colonel with me in St. Louis for some days protecting the bridge against a threatened attempt on the part of…

He put his finger there upon one of the secrets of success. They did belong to somebody. The president of an important manufacturing work once…

"Ah, gentlemen," I said, "there is the point. A little more money and you could have had the indestructible wrought-iron and your bridge would…

There was a pause; then the president of the bridge company, Mr. Allison, the great Senator, asked if I would excuse them for a few moments. I…

Mr. Garrett promptly replied that when the interests of his company were at stake it was the best always that won. His engineers had reported that…

The negotiation was still unsatisfactory to me, because we were to get all the difficult part of the work--the great spans of which the risk was then…

This was the arrangement which gave us what were then the gigantic contracts of the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad. It is needless to say that I never…

The Keystone Works have always been my pet as being the parent of all the other works. But they had not been long in existence before the advantage…

Andrew Kloman had a small steel-hammer in Allegheny City. As a superintendent of the Pennsylvania Railroad I had found that he made the best axles.…

"It is all very well for you, gentlemen, who work one day in the week and are masters of your time the other six during which you can view the…

As I became acquainted with the manufacture of iron I was greatly surprised to find that the cost of each of the various processes was unknown.…

The Siemens Gas Furnace had been used to some extent in Great Britain for heating steel and iron, but it was supposed to be too expensive. I well…

Our strict system of accounting enabled us to detect the great waste possible in heating large masses of iron. This improvement revealed to us a…

It was in 1862 that the great oil wells of Pennsylvania attracted attention. My friend Mr. William Coleman, whose daughter became, at a later date,…

What surprised me was the good humor which prevailed everywhere. It was a vast picnic, full of amusing incidents. Everybody was in high glee;…

To-day Oil Creek is a town of many thousand inhabitants, as is also Titusville at the other end of the creek. The district which began by…

This forty-thousand-dollar investment proved for us the best of all so far. The revenues from it came at the most opportune time.[28] The building of…

My investments now began to require so much of my personal attention that I resolved to leave the service of the railway company and devote myself…

Twelve years of pleasant intercourse have served to inspire feelings of personal regard for those who have so faithfully labored with me in the…

Thenceforth I never worked for a salary. A man must necessarily occupy a narrow field who is at the beck and call of others. Even if he becomes…

The sum was soon made in oil stock by the investment of a few hundred dollars which "Vandy" had saved. This was the beginning of our excursion. We…

Protection has played a great part in the development of manufacturing in the United States. Previous to the Civil War it was a party question, the…

Capital no longer hesitated to embark in manufacturing, confident as it was that the nation would protect it as long as necessary. Years after the…

We could now (1907) abolish all duties upon steel and iron without injury, essential as these duties were at the beginning. Europe has not much…

I was surprised to find how very different was the state of affairs in New York. There were few even of the business men who had not their ventures…

All these allurements I declined. The most notable offer of this kind I ever received was one morning in the Windsor Hotel soon after my removal to…

We have only started on our development of our country--we have not as yet, with all our talk of wonderful progress, done more than scratch the…

I have no quarrel with the general attitude of scoffing at new ideas. It is better to be skeptical of all new ideas and to insist upon being shown…

The natural thing to do is to work--to recognize that prosperity and happiness can be obtained only through honest effort. Human ills flow largely…

Russia could not get along without intelligence and experience. As soon as she began to run her factories by committees, they went to rack and ruin;…

One of the counsels of caution is to be very certain that we do not mistake a reactionary turn for a return of common sense. We have passed through a…

The primary functions are agriculture, manufacture, and transportation. Community life is impossible without them. They hold the world together.…

There is plenty of work to do. Business is merely work. Speculation in things already produced--that is not business. It is just more or less…

The welfare of the country is squarely up to us as individuals. That is where it should be and that is where it is safest. Governments can promise…

There is little chance of an intelligent people, such as ours, ruining the fundamental processes of economic life. Most men know they cannot get…

The economic fundamental is labour. Labour is the human element which makes the fruitful seasons of the earth useful to men. It is men's labour…

It is very easy, unless one keeps a plan thoroughly in mind, to get burdened with money and then, in an effort to make more money, to forget all…

The producer depends for his prosperity upon serving the people. He may get by for a while serving himself, but if he does, it will be purely…

Money comes naturally as the result of service. And it is absolutely necessary to have money. But we do not want to forget that the end of money is…

On my own farm at Dearborn we do everything by machinery. We have eliminated a great number of wastes, but we have not as yet touched on real economy…

Lack of knowledge of what is going on and lack of knowledge of what the job really is and the best way of doing it are the reasons why farming is…

The way to attain low-priced, high-volume production in the factory or on the farm--and low-priced, high-volume production means plenty for everyone-…

We are constantly experimenting with new ideas. If you travel the roads in the neighbourhood of Dearborn you can find all sorts of models of Ford…

1. An absence of fear of the future and of veneration for the past. One who fears the future, who fears failure, limits his activities. Failure is…

3. The putting of service before profit. Without a profit, business cannot extend. There is nothing inherently wrong about making a profit.…

There was too much hard hand labour on our own and all other farms of the time. Even when very young I suspected that much might somehow be done in a…

During all this time I kept my position with the electric company and gradually advanced to chief engineer at a salary of one hundred and twenty-five…

I have the dynamo that I first had charge of at the Detroit Edison Company. When I started our Canadian plant I bought it from an office building…

The Edison Company offered me the general superintendency of the company but only on condition that I would give up my gas engine and devote myself…

I rented a shop--a one-story brick shed--at 81 Park Place to continue my experiments and to find out what business really was. I thought that it must…

Business men believed that you could do anything by "financing" it. If it did not go through on the first financing then the idea was to "refinance."…

I determined absolutely that never would I join a company in which finance came before the work or in which bankers or financiers had a part. And…