Radio broadcast .. (1922-30)

"Cooperative Competition"* The Agreement of Automobile Manufacturers of Vision to Exchange Patents, and the Resulting Growth to the Industry. Cannot a Similar Agreement Well Form the Basis for the Settlement of Present and Future Radio Disputes? By JOHN K. BARNES Financial Editor of The World's Work A'ER the automobile had passed the "horseless carriage" age of the late nineties, and the pleasure of skimming over the roads without a slow-going horse ahead of one overcame the public ridicule that greeted the first cars, it became evident that this infant industry had been born with a silver, if not a gold, spoon in its mouth. The making and selling of four thousand curved-dash Oldsmobiles in 1903 showed many people the possibilities in the business. The early dreams of Charles E. Duryea, Elwood Haynes, R. E. Olds, and other pioneers were coming true. Then began the great growth of the industry. The bicycle manufacturers followed Alexander Winton and E. R. Thomas into this new field. The wagon makers, led by the Studebakers and Mitchell, became interested. The Cadillac Company and the Ford Motor Company sprang up and became successful. ; Henry B. Joy, Buick, Marmon, and others, in addition to those who had been trained at the 'Olds Motor Works in Detroit, started with companies of their own. In the next few years rnany others entered the industry. And there was enough business for all, for the public demand for automobiles grew beyond all expectations. Companies which had good management, sufficient capital, and produced cars that the public liked made large profits. But the industry was not without its failures — many of them. Young men of mechanical bent but little manufacturing ability got into it. Some were financed by rich fathers and then that backing was withdrawn before they had established a place for their cars. In fact one of the great drawbacks in the whole industry was the lack of capital. Bankers were almost unanimous in the belief that the "craze" for automobiles would die out. Then later they complained that there were already too many companies in the field; they would From an article in THE WORLD'S WORK, May, 1921. not risk their money in new ventures. If the industry had not been established on a cash basis at the start, and if the parts-makers had not extended liberal credit to the companies, this timidity of capital might have proven fatal to the young industry. It certainly would have retarded its marvelous growth. Fortunately there were a few rich men who had the vision of the future of the automobile and were willing to risk their money in it. But when the 1907 money panic came a good many automobile companies went under. And in 1910 the death rate was as high as one a week. Among the men with money who became interested in the business was Henry B. Joy, of Detroit, known by his friends as Harry Joy. He not only invested his money, but went into the industry himself and became an important element in its successful development. He had tried to buy one of Henry Ford's early experimental cars, but Mr. Ford had told him to wait for the next one, that it would be a better car. , Meanwhile Mr. Joy heard of the phaeton Col. J. W. Packard was making in Warren, Ohio, and he went down there and got one. At that time, Mr. Joy and Mr. Emory W. Clark, now president of the First and Old Detroit National Bank, were making plans to start in the banking business. After Joy got his Packard phaeton, however, Clark saw little of him for a month or more. Joy was out on the roads around Detroit at all hours, in and under his new car, testing it and tinkering with it. His enthusiasm for the automobile grew rapidly and it was contagious enough to influence other Detroit men of means to put money into the building of a large factory in Detroit for the manufacture of the Packard car in quantities. Col. Packard was to come on from Warren to run it. At the last minute, however, he could not come, and it devolved upon Joy to take charge of this four hundred thousand dollar plant. The first year the company lost two hundred thousand dollars. The factory became known around Detroit