The Reminiscences of Mr. Bascop Mahaffey
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The Reminiscences of Mr. Bascom Mahaffey From the Owen W. Bombard interviews series, 1951-1961 Accession 65 Interview conducted: October 1953 Transcript digitized by staff of Benson Ford Research Center: November 2011 OCR: Please note that this file has been made searchable through the use of optical character recognition. However, the quality of the original materials is such that full text searching is only moderately reliable. Copyright: Copyright has been transferred to The Henry Ford by the donor, and is made available through a “Creative Commons License BY-NC-ND,” indicating that you may make certain noncommercial uses of this material, provided that you give attribution to The Henry Ford without further adaption or modification. 20900 Oakwood Boulevard · Dearborn, MI 48124-5029 USA [email protected] · www.thehenryford.org She Keainioceaeea of MR, BASCOM MASAFPKX Ford Motor Company Axculvee Oral Eiotory eoctiar: October, Tbe BeMt&sceoccs of m. BASCOK HaUABFiar These reminiscences ere the result of aa interview witti Mr. Baseom Mahsffey by m* Oust* Bombard on Just© ifc, 1951, at Mehmond ail, Georgia* this interview was tela under tbe ausploee of the Oral His* tory Section of the Fora vjotor Company Archives. Tbe interviewer's questions have been omitted from the ae- count. See questioning 't«s pri&arily in tits forw of topics nu^jae-oe.- to Mr. Mabaftey eoaceraiag wtiieli he miixt havo tsa&i intlauto ;.aovie 1<,-,. lo editorial insertions have been usee other than "^¾-- trie..: cynoar.i.v of the donor's activities and tins isaex. The language of tbe narrative is entirely toat of the donor. Be baa reviewed and corrected the lssaoscrlpt and by his signature be* low indicated that it is a correct copy of Me reEdai^ence*. This memoir is deposited in tbe fore Kotor Company Axssiil^s witb tbe understanding that it say se usee by ^ualiflel iauividuaJU ia Accordance witb accepted archival practice as administered by tbe Arcbivist. ii Mr# Basccas l«saff«y was bom ia t^uificy* Florida oa Deeester 16» li99* 8* 4#iae4 ti» JaoksoawLUg 'teaaca of the Ford Motor Coapiay ©a Septeatoer Xk, Igek where he wis aiaptoyoci ia various capacities including work ia tbe Body Bepaiia»at# assistant chief iaspeete** iai finally oa road service, la 1938 Mr. NMba££ay trmisferred to BieteonS HiU vimm he assumed responsibility for aU »achaaieal e^uipoeat ot the piaatatioa. lere Mr* Matoaffisy wit Mr. ieary Fori and discussed aaay sioctoasieal questions vita sis*, as wen as coasideriag plane for future operations at the plantation. Mdress s 601 Jucksoa Cvrent Vldalia, Coo/\.:i- ill MB* Wmm MAHAFFEY - CQSSSfTB Ford-f or-Pros ident • ..«•»»»».*».•..»...»•.»»»«•»•»• A Tobacco Plantation.• ........•.••.. Deaonatrating the Fordson A Branch Operation.««.##,*«*.».»»».•#*»»»»»»**«*•»* Mchaond' Bill Pimtatioa. *............«•««#•..*•» Bessy Ford at Richmond Hill Richmond Hill and the Future........ • I was bora in Quincy, Florida m. December i£, 1399» 1 vent with the Ford Motor Company September lU, tiy father, by tee way, was mm of tbe Heary-Fonl-fex'-.PresMeat men down ia Florida. Be always owned Ford product©. I don't recaU too much about what was being done down there in tbe Ford-for^Presideat movement. It wm at a tiae utien I wasn't particularly interested ia politics, and naturally, 1 didn't toow a heelt of a lot about politics* Polities today gets into the younger generation sore tbaa it did in tbe younger generation back then because tben we didn't come of votias age until ve were twenty-one-years-old. We were more or lose disgusted with tbe older generation in ix>litics; to put It that way, that's what it was. Sbere were eoamltteee that AM get together and advocate running Beery Ford for president. She uuestion of Republican and Democrat ease is tben aid. burst it -up. People didn't knov ia ttiooo days. Mr. Ford didn't express himself too much on ix>litics, taouvd. I understand be ran for the Senate oi: the ixaaocratic ticket iii u&d lost. He always claimed to be a Itopublicaa iuter, vnsn lie did talk about it, but that wasn't often, fhey didn't get very far with it. In other words, I tblnH be refused, and it stopped. My father always thought, like myself, that Henry Ford wae a great man ami esecutive. He thought tbat if a businessman was at tbe bead -1- of the Government, the conditions that te vas interested ia yrfamriiy, turpentine aad farming, would get tins right kind of direction in Government that would assist those fellcws aad usate it possible for them to survive. Back then, the turpentine asa were going broke, formers were under mortgages} things of" all -types like that were eoamon. It took a slave driver, you might say, to survive. My father had to work labor so cheap, aad eto everything he did. le had to watch that dollar la order to survive. Baths why 'te thought that Benry Ford would 'be the ma for the job. He baa* read, all about his theories and ideas 1» labor, about helping the coason laborer ami bringing his staadard of living up* Wall, naturally when you'd help him, you would help the otter man, the executives ana so forth of various coatsunlties« 8e also went down the Use with tils oa the Jew tpestica. 3¾ didn't thiak so such of them getting into business and monopolising •tilings like toey do, like th© Jew has monopolized, or tried to monopolise, the automobile industry. % to today there*s but oa« person responsible fur their aot having a complete monopoly oa tue autaaabile iaauatry, unci tuao pcrsxm is Henry Ford, ilobody but him is responsible for that, VhatiUj* taa general public will agree with that or not, 1 doa't know, "tot. 1 know it is true because I've been ia the automobile industry with Ford for a long, tiae, twenty-seven years to the date 1 gave. «2- Anyway, that's why ay father vas so such Interested in Mr, Ford being sleeted president. On the fans there I worked on Model T's end Fordson tractora aad assisted the J. S. fcbav Jiotor Company in yattia. on Foresaw tr..wtur demonstrations. I ©pent some time at cavtiillG, ,xist iaili;: .jcta di-t some logging work. That is where 1 started off on tbe Ford cars. I started with the Company by working first oa ay father's place with Ford products. Our plantation was what you ©old call, In that daj. aad liu~.» a modem plantation. It bad lots ox mdurtrovajd irrigation. In fact, my father spent a fortune ir* experiaental t.ork ia faming. 11« ;*rev cigar tobacco and it required moisture at a curtain tlue, sc we put in all undergrouni irrigation under our tobacco sheds and produced wbat we can a combination tobacco. We bad cheesecloth, irrigation ju-a slat; slate overhead, cheesecloth overhead, aad irris^ation, which j^ro- duced a high grade of tobacco. 'The difference ia tbe price of it wasn't enough at that time; today it is. It has been adjusted to where the farmer now can got oat aad put forth the necessary effort to proUuce a yrade of tobacco and get the right kind of price for it. Those ware adjustments tLut had to .be made over a period of tisej it took time to do it. I think at teat time the only difference was five cents, but my father and others in the county knew that tbe aamtfacturers would appreciate tbe difference -3- is toe quality of too wrapper oa tbe tobacco. Back then, they didn't pay GO much attention to the way ft cigar looked, the outside of it, the wrapper, as they do today. It must be free of as nany flaws as possible, particularly those hlr> grade cigars* Tbe Ford Motor Gos^any put oa demonstrntioiis oa our plaata- tlon throu^i the ford dealer there* Of course, when they came out there, and since ve had worked with all this stuff, Shaw always employed me to help them with the demaostmtlotts, being familiar vita various types of equipment that they were using, and using it every day. It was at the Floatation that I was in most of the a^Haoastru- tions of the «J. E. Shav Company, which vas the Ford dealer at that tiae. The demonstrations they put oa were at our place. They would bring equipment, their farm iinplemente aad several tractors aaa a portable model sawmill, dray© to haul logs onj and they would bring threaliinr machines, hay balers, different stock pullers, and tillage like that. We*d find a plot somewhere aod set it up out on the cap ox- side of one of the plantations, particularly some piece of land that we wanted to clear up. First, we would set the sawmill off on the. oi<ic, aa; cut toe timber off of it and haul it with these tractors and drays. Same of tana drays were Fords, but some were not* A great many of them were manufactured by other companies, but the idea was vhat they were tryia^ to put over. m wouM snake the logs with, toe Fordsua tractor and lo-i* thea with the Fordsoa tractor, thea haul thea* to IAW &-wolH cita ua.; Fordeon tractor. After we bad eat tbe lumber, wo'a haul It 01T v.. the dray. We were supposed to be going to the isoint of ski^ine; \iitii tbe lumber* 1¾® Ford Motor Ccegjaay took pictures am everything of the operation. «e dida*t have portable sawrdHs, because VK- bad two &9ali sawmills* they were steam operated, aad this was too smell a scale for us to pay a crew of men to operate.