He is remembered today with a complex mixture of admiration for his accomplishments, appreciation for his philanthropic legacy, as well as condemnation for his disregard for the safety of his workers and his cold, plutocratic detachment which invariably put profits before people.

My responsibility involved the application of financial method, for finance could not exist in a vacuum but had to be integrated with operations.

The fundamental conception of the advantage to be secured in this business, we said, was expressed by cooperation and coordination of our various policies and divisions.

[It] Enables the Corporation to direct the placing of additional capital where it will result in the greatest benefit to the Corporation as a whole.

A side effect of the new cash system was that it broadened the supply of credit available to General Motors. By establishing good working relationships with a large number of banks we were able to develop extensive lines of credit which could be drawn on if the need arose. By reducing our cash balances in banks, this system also enabled us to inves

When first-car buyers returned to the market for the second round, with the old car as a first payment on the new car, they were selling basic transportation and demanding something more than that in the new car. Middle-income buyers, assisted by the trade-in and installment financing, created the demand, not for basic transportation, but for progr

That still left us with the problem of finding the right combination of freedom for the divisions and control over them. The combination could not be set once and for all, of course. It varies with changing circumstances, and the responsibility for determining administrative organization is a continuing one.

From the inside the picture was not quite so good. Not only were we not competitive with Ford in the low-price field — where the big volume and substantial future growth lay — but in the middle, where we were concentrated with duplication, we did not know what we were trying to do except to sell cars which, in a sense, took volume from each other.

We have not bought our way into operations, we have built them up.