In the first years of the Ford Motor Company, James Couzens had been more responsible than even Henry himself for its success. But Ford took a more active role in his company after the Model T debuted; and Couzens, who hated sharing power as much as Ford did, started looking for other outlets for his talent. His last great contribution to Ford was instituting the $5 workday in early 1914 – which kicked off America’s modern middle class.
However, Ford’s doubling the wages of its workforce was not taken well by other industrialists. The New York Times wrote that Ford’s largesse would create serious disturbances in America. The Wall Street Journal accused the company of “economic blunders, if not crimes;” while the president of Pittsburgh Plate Glass said, “This would mean the ruin of all business in this country. Ford himself will surely find that he cannot afford to pay $5 a day.”
James Couzens knew that all of these assertions were flat-out wrong. He’d run the numbers and predicted that the Ford Motor Company would make more money than ever. And it did.