The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work

parts can be manufactured over here and assembled in Government 
factories under Sorensen’s guidance? Can assure you positively this 
suggestion is made in national interest and if carried out will be done 
by the Government for the people with no manufacturing or capital-
ist interest invested and no profit being made by any interests what-
ever. The matter is very urgent. Impossible to ship anything adequate 
from America because many thousand tractors must be provided. 
Ford Tractor considered best and only suitable design. Consequently 
national necessity entirely dependent Mr. Ford’s design. My work 
prevents me coming [to] America to present the proposal personally. 
Urge favorable consideration and immediate decision because every 
day is of vital importance. You may rely on manufacturing facility 

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180  •  The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work
for production here under strictest impartial Government control. 
Would welcome Sorensen and any and every other assistance and 
guidance you can furnish from America. Cable reply, Perry, Care of 
Harding “Prodome,” London.
PRODOME.
I understand that its sending was directed by the British Cabinet. We at 
once cabled our entire willingness to lend the drawings, the benefit of what 
experience we had to date, and whatever men might be necessary to get pro-
duction under way, and on the next ship sent Charles E. Sorensen with full 
drawings. Mr. Sorensen had opened the Manchester plant and was familiar 
with English conditions. He was in charge of the manufacture of tractors in 
this country.
Mr. Sorensen started at work with the British officials to the end of having 
the parts made and assembled in England. Many of the materials which we 
used were special and could not be obtained in England. All of their facto-
ries equipped for doing casting and machine work were filled with munition 
orders. It proved to be exceedingly difficult for the Ministry to get tenders of 
any kind. Then came June and a series of destructive air raids on London. 
There was a crisis. Something had to be done, and finally, after passing to 
and fro among half the factories of England, our men succeeded in getting the 
tenders lodged with the Ministry.
Lord Milner exhibited these tenders to Mr. Sorensen. Taking the best of them 
the price per tractor came to about $1,500 without any guarantee of delivery.
“That price is out of all reason,” said Mr. Sorensen. “These should not cost 
more than $700 apiece.”
“Can you make five thousand at that price?” asked Lord Milner.
“Yes,” answered Mr. Sorensen.
“How long will it take you to deliver them?”
“We will start shipping within sixty days.”
They signed a contract on the spot, which, among other things, provided 
for an advance payment of 25 per cent of the total sum. Mr. Sorensen cabled 
us what he had done and took the next boat home. The 25 five per cent pay-
ment was, by the way, not touched by us until after the entire contract was 
completed: we deposited it in a kind of trust fund.
The tractor works was not ready to go into production. The Highland Park 
plant might have been adapted, but every machine in it was going day and 
night on essential war work. There was only one thing to do. We ran up an 
emergency extension to our plant at Dearborn, equipped it with machinery 
that was ordered by telegraph and mostly came by express, and in less than 
sixty days the first tractors were on the docks in New York in the hands of the 

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The Tractor and Power Farming  •  181
British authorities. They delayed in getting cargo space, but on December 6, 
1917, we received this cable:
London, December 5, 1917.
SORENSEN,
Fordson, F. R. Dearborn.
First tractors arrived, when will Smith and others leave? Cable.
PERRY.
The entire shipment of five thousand tractors went through within three 
months and that is why the tractors were being used in England long before 
they were really known in the United States.