The Vagabonds

by Jeff Guinn

  Edison clapped Burroughs on the back and exclaimed, “These youngsters aren’t in our class at all.” Firestone confided to the press that prior to the tree-chopping, Burroughs had challenged Ford to a tree-climbing contest. The automaker felt his chances were better at chopping. Some press accounts nicknamed the naturalist “Battling Burroughs.” Virtually every article was accompanied by one or more eye-catching photographs of Burroughs and Ford in mid-swing. On Tuesday evening, the Vagabonds and their wives attended a lecture by Carl Lumholtz, who “informed them of the flora and fauna of the South Pacific.” This much more static activity was mentioned briefly in a few of the next day’s newspapers, and only after long, colorful accounts of the tree-chopping contest.

  * * *

  That was the extent of the Vagabonds’ public excursion in 1920, and it was enough. For days afterward, small-town newspapers lauded them in editorials (the Adams County Free Press in Iowa: “Four Great Americans Frolic for a Day”; in Arizona, the Bisbee Daily Review: “Famous Pals Play They’re Boys Again”). The Asheville Citizen-Times noted, “The four camp comrades seem to be having the time of their lives, as they always do when they take a vacation together. There is no guarantee of long years’ health and zest for living, but these things would come to more of us if the example set by Edison, Burroughs, Ford, and Firestone were more often followed.” Almost every story emphasized that the four men were on their annual vacation, but failed to mention that it lasted only two days.

  * * *

  Though they left Yama Farms and the press behind on November 17, the Vagabonds didn’t end their time together yet. Instead, they drove a short distance to Burroughs’s property Riverby, and stayed overnight with the old man there. There was a comfortable house on the grounds as well as Slabsides, a rough-hewn cottage well-known to Burroughs’s readers since the naturalist often wrote of staying there. He described it as an isolated place that provided him the privacy he needed to study nature, but in reality he’d built Slabsides as a retreat from his late, unbeloved wife, Ursula. It was there that he, Edison, Ford, and Firestone gathered for the late afternoon and early evening, just the four of them without wives or retainers, who probably remained back in the main house. They sensed, but almost surely didn’t say out loud, that this might be their last gathering that included the naturalist. In contrast to some earlier years, Burroughs was a genial host. Despite what Firestone described as “driving snow,” he insisted on preparing a meal for them himself, “brigand steak” cooked over an open fire, presumably one in a fireplace inside the cabin. It was a simple dish, essentially the most basic of shish kebabs—chunks of steak and bacon were alternately impaled on a thin, pointed stick, then placed over the flames. Afterward, the quartet rejoined the rest of the party in the main house. The next day found the Fords, Edisons, and Firestones on their way home.

  * * *

  Ford saw Burroughs again. As in several previous years, the naturalist spent the winter in California. On his way there in early December, Burroughs and Clara Barrus, an author-physician who’d become his close friend and occasional travel companion, stopped briefly in Dearborn to visit the Fords. Burroughs looked reasonably well. A day later, Burroughs told reporter Flora Ward Henline that “I feel better today than a year ago.” Henline described Burroughs as “walk[ing] with a springy step, usually in advance of his escorts.” But during his months in California, Burroughs faded. He was hospitalized for weeks with an irregular heartbeat, and by mid-March Barrus and his physicians there concluded that nothing more could be done for him. Barrus tried taking Burroughs home to Riverby by train so that he could pass his final hours in his favorite surroundings, but he died on the way. Ford, Edison, and Firestone attended his burial in Roxbury on April 3, 1921, which would have been Burroughs’s eighty-fourth birthday. Ford provided the cars for the funeral procession. Another mourner described Edison as “look[ing] very old and white-[haired] and sad.”

  * * *

  On November 2, 1920, voters went to the polls to elect America’s next president. President Wilson had some hopes of securing the Democratic nomination and seeking a third term, but his party preferred a new leader. No candidate emerged as the obvious choice. It took forty-four ballots at their convention before Democrats finally chose Ohio governor James M. Cox. Party enthusiasm for him was lackluster. No prominent Democrat was interested in running as Cox’s vice president. Thirty-seven-year-old assistant secretary of the navy Franklin D. Roosevelt was selected, mostly because of his famous last name—he was a fifth cousin to former Republican president Theodore Roosevelt. The Republicans took ten ballots before selecting Senator Warren G. Harding of Ohio as their standard-bearer. Harding was chosen because he got along well with his fellow senators and was a handsome man whom Republican colleagues believed looked presidential. He was joined on the ticket by Massachusetts governor Calvin Coolidge, who had gained national prominence for breaking Boston’s police strike in 1919.

  Cox and Roosevelt campaigned on a promise of continuing Wilson’s domestic policies, with special attention to unemployment and labor relations. They supported continued U.S. involvement overseas. Harding and Coolidge opposed the League of Nations or any similar concept. The Republican ticket advocated tax cuts, mostly for business, which they believed would create more jobs, and restrictive immigration policies, promising to make it harder for certain groups to enter the country. Most major newspapers savaged Harding editorially, noting his complete lack of legislative accomplishment as a senator and describing him as one of the most unqualified presidential candidates in the nation’s history. But Americans wanted a change, and there was strong sentiment. Harding and Coolidge won in a landslide.

  * * *

  The economic slump extended into 1921, but the national sense of panic gradually receded. The worst seemed over by spring. The only lingering damage was to farmers, who continued struggling. The country was now led by a president who advocated “a return to normalcy,” and exhorted voters during the 1920 campaign “to safeguard America first, to stabilize America first, to prosper America first, to think of America first, to exalt America first.” This, rather than unnecessary foreign commitments, Harding declared, defined “patriotic devotion.” The election results made it clear: After the trauma of world war and the blight of economic recession, Americans were ready to have fun again.

  Chapter Seven

  * * *

  1921

  In January 1921, Thomas Edison received an unwelcome letter from Harry A. Harrison, a director of Young Israel—the group’s stationery described it as “An Organization of Young Men Devoted to the Furtherance of Traditional Jewish Ideals.” Harrison began the January 14 missive with praise for Edison, declaring that “you are considered by the whole world at large as one who has brought comfort and relief to all of mankind.” A pointed question followed: “And since all your labor is directed towards making the world a better place to live in, and since it is every man’s duty to think and act in like manner, we would like to know your opinion as to whether Henry Ford is helping towards the progress of the world by attacking the Jews and by attempting to stir up ill-feeling where heretofore all has been peaceful and is in a state of friendship.” The letter concluded, “We hope to be enlightened by your answer, and would appreciate the courtesy of an early reply.”

  Edison’s response was disingenuous: “I know very little about Mr. Ford’s efforts, & do not want to get into any controversy about the English, Irish, Germans or Jews—or even Yankees.” In fact, Edison knew quite a lot. Just two weeks later, he sent a warm note of thanks to Ford for “the leather bound copy of . . . The International Jew,” the first of four collections of the Dearborn Independent’s series of antisemitic articles published by Ford in book form. Edison never gave any public indication that he entirely bought into the articles’ theme that Jews were engaged in a comprehensive plot to gain control of American finance, politics, and culture. But he did share Ford’s reservations about Jews in general and di
d nothing to discourage his friend’s printed assault on them.

  * * *

  The Ford-Edison friendship was at its very warmest in early 1921. With the previous year’s financial panic finally slackening, they were sufficiently encouraged to discuss a new professional collaboration. Edison still believed in the potential of electric cars and continued researching the development of a battery that would hold its charge longer than a few dozen miles. Now, at Edison’s request, Ford assigned some engineers to design a compatible chassis—together he and Edison planned to create an electric truck. Ford’s previous attempt to partner with Edison—1912–1913’s effort by the inventor to develop an efficient electric car storage battery—had failed, costing the automaker three-quarters of a million dollars or more. But Ford was still willing to gamble on Edison, and in spring 1921 he was again in the financial position to do so. When Ford Motor Company reopened its plants in February, it immediately began manufacturing—and selling—Model Ts at a record rate. Financial pundits predicted in 1920 that Ford might never regain his financial footing, if he was able to keep his company going at all. He delighted in proving them wrong, and Edison gloated along with him. On February 22, just after the Ford assembly lines were back in immediate, full operation, Edison fired off a congratulatory telegram to his friend: “How disappointed some people will be . . . over the news you send me. It will be an awful shock to them.”

  The next line of the telegram referenced their recent aggravation with a fellow Vagabond: “Firestone will now quit playing with rainbows and get down to earth.”

  When Ford shut down his factories in December 1920, the last automaker to do so, Firestone was in financial peril. At that point he apparently considered radical business options that his two friends disdained as fanciful, leading to Edison’s “playing with rainbows” observation. Ford had his secretary forward the telegram to Firestone.

  Ford’s announcement of his plants reopening was accompanied by a massive order for Firestone tires, which in turn allowed the tire maker to recommence his own manufacturing operations. Firestone wrote “Mr. Ford” that “I am sure you cannot fully appreciate what a help and inspiration you gave us when you instructed your factory to give us such a volume of business. It put new life into our entire organization, to say nothing of the necessary financial help it will give us.”

  Firestone couldn’t resist mentioning Edison’s comment: “Since I received your fine order for March shipments my mind has quit wandering or ‘chasing rainbows’ as Mr. Edison says, and I have settled down in the factory.” Of Edison himself Firestone wrote, “He has a keen comprehension of the psychology of things.”

  * * *

  About ten weeks later, Edison’s comprehension of psychology was called into public question. For years Ford was the Vagabond widely mocked in print, but in May 1921 it became Edison’s turn. The inventor was constantly critical of higher education, complaining that colleges failed to teach students anything practical to life and business. To ensure that his companies hired only the best-informed applicants, Edison developed a 146-question test for prospective employees. The test required very specific answers. The New York Times obtained a copy. On May 11 it published a story about the Edison quiz, including sample questions, and reader response was so intense that the paper printed the full test two days later. Some of the questions were standard, especially those focusing on American history (“Who was Paul Revere?” “Where did we get Louisiana from?”). A few could be expected from any business seeking employees with sufficient backgrounds in science and physics (“Name three principal acids.” “Of what is glass made?”). A few hinted at Edison’s growing interest in rubber-related research (“Where do we import rubber from?” “What is vulcanite and how is it made?”). But many could only be categorized as bizarre: “What country consumed the most tea before the war?” “Where do we get prunes from?” “What is the price of 12 grains of gold?” “What city in the United States leads in making laundry machines?” “What cereal is used in all parts of the world?” The latter was a trick question. The correct answer, according to the Edison test, was “No cereal is used in all parts of the world.”

  The Times articles were reprinted in many other papers. Some decided to administer the test themselves. The Chicago Tribune tried twenty of the questions on college students and reported that male students averaged 35 percent correct responses, and female students averaged 28 percent. A reporter tracked down Theodore Edison, currently an MIT sophomore, and convinced him to give his father’s test a try. Theodore’s score was not revealed, but the honest young man admitted that he’d failed, since, among other things, he didn’t know which states bounded Idaho. Edison, pressed by a reporter, admitted that after Theodore graduated, he’d give his son a job anyway.

  Fortunately for Edison, in July the press began writing stories that reflected better on him. The Vagabonds had announced another summer trip, and for at least part of the time a very special guest would join them.

  * * *

  For a while after the March death of John Burroughs, more Vagabonds trips seemed in doubt. Asked about it by a reporter at Burroughs’s memorial service, all Edison would say was, “Maybe.” But messages were already being exchanged between Ford and Firestone. The carmaker wanted a summer trip with his two surviving Vagabonds friends, and Firestone, as usual, was supposed to suggest a plan for one. Previously, one of the purposes of the trips was to gain attention for the possibilities of car travel, and that goal had been achieved. By 1921, autocamping had taken America by storm. But the proliferation of Americans out touring in cars and the thousands of autocamps springing up to accommodate them in towns across America complicated the Vagabonds’ own trip logistics.

  Only a few years earlier, they could choose almost any country road and count on having it virtually to themselves. They could stop for the night at whatever likely spot caught their collective eye, and relish the comfort of staff-cooked meals and leisurely campfire conversations in relative privacy. But now many roads were routinely busy; in a few areas in and around major cities there was even traffic congestion. Daytime stops in towns for meals or to purchase sundries had become problematic, because urban parking was suddenly a near-universal problem. Most town residences in 1921 did not include garages, so homeowners with cars had to park along curbs, and often there wasn’t enough curb to meet demand. There were no downtown parking lots for those who drove in to buy groceries or enjoy coffee and doughnuts in local cafés. In many American communities, downtown streets were attractively lined with trees. In one town after another, these were torn out to create additional parking for residents and visitors, and still there weren’t sufficient spaces. A multicar caravan like the Vagabonds’ might circle a block for hours, unless the town included a Ford dealership, in which case the cars could be parked in that lot.

  At night, the famous friends could no longer count on pitching their tents where they pleased. Farmers were far less likely to welcome campers, and it would never do for the famous Vagabonds to set up their tents in a town autocamp, where they would have to sleep and eat surrounded by hundreds or even thousands of strangers endlessly eager for autographs or handshakes. Ford, Edison, and Firestone wanted to appear of the people, but not cheek-to-jowl overnight with them. This was even more the case with their wives, who after the 1919 Yama Farms trip expected to be included on all future group excursions.

  That meant Firestone’s initial chore was to suggest a route that either avoided the most popular autocamping regions or at least allowed him and his friends some control over outsider access. His proposal in 1921, agreed upon by Ford and then Edison, was a trip through Michigan’s Upper Peninsula. Though there might be some auto traffic to contend with, there were still plenty of back roads and spectacular scenery. Best of all, Ford owned properties in the region—he’d purchased several lumber interests. At least some of the time, they would set up camp on Ford acreage, and guards could keep away everyone but those members of the press or
public that the group was willing to briefly entertain. While ordinary autocampers had to depend on ferries to cross portions of Lake Michigan, the Vagabonds could sail in style aboard the Sialia, Ford’s luxurious three-hundred-foot yacht. All that remained to be determined was the camping dates, but before Ford and Edison could coordinate their schedules for the Upper Peninsula, Firestone presented them with a new option.

  * * *

  Nineteen twenty-one would mark the Vagabonds’ fifth publicly announced trip—the first came in 1916, when Ford failed to join the others in New York and New England. The Everglades in 1914 was a private excursion, and California in 1915 was mostly traveled by train, with cars in use for only one day between Los Angeles and San Diego. The first few auto trips attracted national coverage not only because of the participants’ celebrity, but because they were vacationing by car. It was that rare. In 1921, Ford and Edison still ranked among the most famous Americans, but beyond that fame and the fancy trappings (staffs to set up and clean up campsites, chefs, tents with battery-powered lights), taking automobile vacations had become something that hundreds of thousands of other Americans did. It was possible that in the summers to come, interest in Vagabonds trips might begin dwindling until they were no longer considered particularly newsworthy at all. A fresh angle for press coverage—a “news peg,” in journalism terms—was needed, and in a May 26, 1921, letter to Edison, Harvey Firestone described a surefire one.