Ford First

Queried an eager correspondent of Henry Ford over the telephone: "Do you know, sir, that the Chinese are sending you an invitation? They want you to become Honorary Economic Advisor to their new National Government!"

Six months ago Henry Ford, through his Shanghai representative Thomas Lowry, put substantially this proposition to the Nationalists: "If I pay you in advance the customs dues on Ford cars to be shipped to China during the next five years, will you spend the money to build a modern motor highway between Shanghai and your new capital, Nanking?" (125 miles).

Naturally such an offer was not sneezed at by the heads of a State both young and poor. With wily tact the Motor Man then and there employed several hundred Chinese at his Detroit works. By the time they are fully trained a new Ford assembling plant will be ready to receive them at Shanghai.

Naturally it was Henry Ford whom Nationalist China called upon, last week, to head a list of five U. S. citizens, all invited to become Honorary Economic Advisors: General Electric's Owen D. Young, famed Political Economist Jeremiah Whipple Jenks, Columbia University's Professor Edwin R. A. Seligman, and potent Washington Banker Robert N. Harper.