Business: Boom, Shortages, Taxes, War

(7 of 9)

Even among steelmen, Girdler had always been a lone wolf, a throwback to the days of Carnegie and competition. He approached the defense program from a viewpoint opposite to that of the pack. There was a fight inside the industry over Washington's proposed steel expansion; there were long and hard negotiations over the terms on which the Government should finance the new mills, and there was pressure to prorate the expansion so that no competitor could expand out of line. But while the others horsetraded with Jesse Jones, and the steel supply got shorter, Lone Wolf Girdler had already launched a vast expansion of electric furnaces (which make special arms steels), much of it with Republic's own money. In 1940 Girdler passed Timken as No. i producer of electric steels; in 1941 he more than doubled this lead even though Timken expanded, too.

Girdler is also an enthusiast for the light metal revolution, by which aluminum, magnesium, etc. are overtaking steel in importance every year. Here, in 1941, he took an even more spectacular plunge. He made steel his part-time job, helped put together the biggest U.S. aircraft combine, and became its executive head.

In California breezy Major Reuben Fleet's huge Consolidated plant had for months been a headache to the Army & Navy. The situation did not warrant a strong-arm purge, such as the Army had used on Air Associates; but a production and engineering shakeup was called for. The Government was utterly unequipped to provide it. Sensing this, Girdler seized the opportunity of doing what was, after all, a businessman's job. He and associate Victor Emanuel engineered the stock deal whereby Aviation Corp. bought Fleet out, and Girdler—now Washington's fair-haired boy—took over the job of making Consolidated tick for the Army & Navy.

Neither in steel nor in aircraft was Girdler afraid of overexpansion. In both he was being competitive and individualistic. Consolidated planes will carry many a bomb before they carry passengers and freight; but on that day Girdler (or his heirs) will have a commanding position in the new transport industry.

The Symbol. The most spectacular comeback of 1941 was that of an even more aboriginal capitalist than Tom Girdler. Nobody had hated Roosevelt as had Henry Ford. All his life he had fought Wall Street bankers; when Washington became the nation's banker, his hatred of bankers and the New Deal merged. In addition, he hated war worse than he hated Hitler. Yet in 1941 Henry Ford joined Roosevelt's Army in a way that put OPM to shame.

Henry Ford fired Bill Knudsen as his general manager in 1921. At least it would be characteristic of Ford if he thought of Knudsen as a discharged employe. When Roosevelt picked Knudsen (rather than, for example, Edsel) as his top production man, it was received in Dearborn merely as new evidence that Roosevelt never did anything right.