Comment

Comment about Northville, Michigan, as told by a friend who spent Christmas there visiting relatives. It is a suburban community fifteen miles west of Detroit, which has suddenly found itself in the center of an economic maelstrom. Describes the town. Until recently, the main industries were a race track for trotting horses and the Ford Motor Company's Northville Valve Plant. In 1919, when Henry Ford was setting up satellite plants to feed automotive parts into his Detroit assembly lines, he turned a Northville sawmill into a factory and began producing valves for tractors and Model T's there the next year. This valve plant, which employed 230 people, closed down on Dec. 23. Workers had organized a last-minute effort to buy the plant for three million dollars. Ford turned them down on the ground that the factory was too old and too small to produce valves economically. Ford also said that the reduced demand for valves caused by the switch to smaller engines was an additional reason for the shutdown. The Northville Record pointed out that Ford now buys its valves from a non-union Eaton Corp. plant in Neb. Of the 230 employees, 43 have been placed in other Ford facilities or are eligible for retirement. This leaves Northville with 187 skilled and semi-skilled workers who will be unemployed. Tells about a story in the Detroit News on unemploymentNthe situation is getting desperate in and around Detroit. Writer's cousin said anyone who buys the Ford plant in Northville will have to continue to take care of the wild ducks who live in an adjacent millpond. For this winter Ford agreed to provide feed, and the city supplies manpower to distribute it.

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