A MASTER BUILDER OF CARS

Shannon News, 7 September 1926, Page 4

A MASTER BUILDER OF CARS

♦ WALTER P. CHRYSLER. The record of Mr Walter P. Chrysler, as told by W. A. P. Jones In "Everybody's," is one of the prose epics of American industry. Mr Chrysler rose from the ranks. "At eighteen he built himself a steam locomotive, 4 Sin. long, complete even to air brakes, and ran it on a track in the back yard. . The lathe on which it was built he also designed and constructed. Shortly thereafter he wanted a shotgun. He could not buy one—so he made it." Trained as a youth in the United Pacific Railroad shops, Mr Chrysler ran the industrial gauntlet to works manager of the American Locomotive Company at Pittsburgh, and then left to go in as successor Of Mr Nash at the ,Buick plant in Flint, Mich., in 1911. When he left the presidency of the Bu'ick Company 1 ,he had increased production from about 30 cars a day to over 500, and the profits to General Motors had jumped to nearly 50,000,000 dollars a year. Then MrDurant called him to take charge of all production, in all General Motors units. In 1920 he went to whip the Willys-Overland into shape. Then came a hurry call to save the Maxwell Motor Company from the rocks, and within four years he had ' produced a new car under his own name that has proved exceedingly popular. . The most interesting part of the story is the statement of Mr .Chrysler's views on men and management. "I'll tell you the real secret of successful management is to get men to do things because they want to and j not because they have to. . '-It's lots of fun handling an organisation, and .more fun watching the men grow and preparing for the organisation's future. "One of these men is going to get my job. I'm going to find one of them matching his wits against mine more and more, and convincing me that he is right with increasing regularity. Some day he is going to do it once too often. Then I step out and he steps in. But not before."