ted every time, it is only
natural to ask what there is about him, after all, that is so great.
Though the American people differ widely in their answers to the above
query, most of them admit that he towers above the rank and file of
American politicians in his pronounced Christian integrity, in his
willingness to sacrifice for the sake of principle, and in his ability
to move men with speech, for no doubt he is one of the greatest
orators this continent has ever produced.

* * * * *

"_You shall not press down upon the brow of labor this crown of
thorns. You shall not crucify mankind upon a cross of gold._"

--W. J. BRYAN'S CROSS OF GOLD SPEECH.

HENRY FORD

In the year 1879, there was a sixteen year old boy living in the
country near Detroit, Michigan. He was not fond of farm work but
nevertheless he did his share in helping his father, who was a thrifty
farmer. Day after day, this boy trudged back and forth two and
one-half miles each way to the school house. In his spare hours when
he was not farming, he had fitted up a work shop for his own use.
There was a vise, a bow-string driven lathe and a rudely built forge.
He had made these tools himself and was very proud of them. When he
was only a small boy, he had made his first tool by taking one of his
grandmother's knitting needles, heating it red hot and plunging it
into a bar of soap as he bent it into shape. Then he added a wooden
handle that he had whittled and the tool was done.

As soon as he had something with which to work, he began to take to
pieces all manner of things just for the fun of putting them together
again. He says: "I must have taken apart and put together more than a
thousand clocks and watches." He thought it would be a fine thing to
be able to make many good watches, and to make them all alike. He
never realized this dream, but in later life he did make a good
automobile, he made many of them, and he made them all alike.

[Illustration: HENRY FORD
In His First Motor Car]

His first step towards this great business undertaking happened before
he was seventeen years of age, when he left his father's farm and went
to Detroit to work as a mechanic in a shop. He never returned to the
farm, although for a time he lived on some land his father had given
to him, and conducted a lumber business. All the time he was
experimenting, and he wanted to make somethin