Prager Tagblatt
- Wilhelm May Not Set Foot in Germany
- Reconciliation in Stages.
- Why I Am Introducing the Five-Day Working Week.
The Prager Tagblatt of 24 October 1926 carried a Berlin report that the Reich cabinet had discussed speculation, prompted by § 7 of the Hohenzollern settlement, that ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II might return to Germany; ministers judged such a return as a private citizen highly undesirable and impermissible, and the government said it had not known in advance that the clause offered him and his wife the palace at Homburg for life. A second Berlin dispatch quoted informed circles insisting that the Thoiry understandings with France still stood, provided the technical financial obstacles to German aid for France could be overcome. Beside them ran a signed column by Henry Ford explaining his five-day week: he argued that workers' leisure is neither lost time nor a class privilege and rejected a French scholar's claim that shorter hours lead to more drinking.
Translation
Wilhelm May Not Set Foot in Germany
Berlin, October 23. At yesterday's session of the Reich cabinet, the speculation attached to § 7 of the Hohenzollern settlement about a possible return of the ex-Kaiser Wilhelm II to Germany was discussed. The view in the Reich cabinet was that a return of the ex-Kaiser to Germany in his capacity as a private individual would be highly undesirable and could not be permitted by the government. As the "Voss. Ztg." reports, the Reich government had no knowledge, before the conclusion or before the publication of the settlement, of the content of § 7, under which the palace at Homburg vor der Höhe is placed at the disposal of the ex-Kaiser and his wife as a residence for life.
Reconciliation in Stages.
Berlin, October 23. Informed circles in Berlin emphasize that even after the first contact that von Hoesch had with Briand following his return to Paris, the foundations of the Thoiry agreements remain unchanged. The precondition for carrying out the action, they say, is that the technical financial difficulties standing in the way of implementing German financial aid for France be overcome.
Why I Am Introducing the Five-Day Working Week.
By Henry Ford.
Every employer must recognize that the leisure of the working person is neither "lost time" nor the privilege of a class. Recently a French scholar asserted that the increase in alcohol consumption was connected with the shortening of working hours, which gives workers more opportunity to drink. That does not hold true for America. The temperance movement and Prohibition have brought matters to the point where a day off no longer turns into a
Context
The Hohenzollern settlement behind § 7
The Hohenzollern settlement mentioned in this report was concluded on 15 October 1926 between the state of Prussia and the House of Hohenzollern, about a week before the cabinet meeting described here. The former princely properties had been confiscated in the revolution of 1918/19 but not expropriated, and after the referendum on the question failed on 20 June 1926, most state governments reached financial compromises with their former ruling houses fairly quickly. Because the Prussian agreement was a deal between the state and the dynasty, the Reich government stood outside it, which is consistent with its claim, reported via the Vossische Zeitung, that it had not known the content of § 7 in advance. The description of § 7 as granting Wilhelm II and his wife the palace at Homburg as a lifelong residence, and the cabinet's view that it would not permit his return, come from the newspaper's report; the sources used here do not document the clause itself or the legal basis on which Berlin could refuse him entry.
What Briand and Stresemann agreed at Thoiry, and why it faltered
Thoiry was the French village where the foreign ministers Aristide Briand and Gustav Stresemann met in September 1926, during the ceremonies marking Germany's admission to the League of Nations. Stresemann pledged material support to stabilize the franc, while Briand agreed to an early return of the Saar Basin and an early end to the military control and occupation of the Rhineland. The "German financial aid for France" in this dispatch refers to that bargain. The scope of the Thoiry resolutions was soon reduced because of objections from both the German and French governments, and the two countries' differences of interest proved too wide for a political entente. Scholars often regard the meeting as both the peak and the endpoint of the Locarno policy. Against that background, the insistence of informed circles in Berlin in late October that the Thoiry foundations remained unchanged, conditional on overcoming technical financial difficulties, reads as an effort to keep a faltering plan alive.
How far Ford's five-day week spread before 1938
Ford Motor Company announced the five-day, 40-hour week for its plants in September 1926, so the column printed here followed the announcement by roughly a month. Ford's prominence and size meant that other companies eventually followed, though some adapted the idea to their own needs; Kellogg's, for example, settled on 6-hour shifts. The labor historian Joseph McCartin, quoted by History.com, judges that the 40-hour week was not widely adopted until the government made it the law of the land. That came with the Fair Labor Standards Act of 1938, whose original version capped the working week at 44 hours and stipulated reductions to 42 hours after one year and 40 hours after two years. In October 1926, then, Ford was describing a policy of his own company, which became a general American standard only through legislation more than a decade later.
Leisure, drinking and Ford's view of his workers
Ford's argument that leisure is not "lost time" fits the economic philosophy later called Fordism, under which mass production requires mass consumption: Ford wanted his workers well-paid and well-rested so that they would use their leisure to buy more goods, including his cars. His rebuttal of the French scholar's claim about drinking also connects with his company's own labor practices. Under the earlier high-wage arrangement, workers at the Highland Park plant had to consent to inspections by the company's Sociological Department, which flagged workers for drinking or for reading radical, pro-union material. Reactions to the 1926 decision were mixed even among labor advocates, some of whom said it benefited the company more than the workers. The column's statement that the temperance movement and Prohibition had changed how Americans spent a day off is Ford's own assertion.
Original
Wilhelm darf Deutschland nicht betreten
Berlin, 23. Oktober. In der gestrigen Sitzung des Reichskabinetts sind die an den § 7 des Hohenzollernvergleiches geknüpften Vermutungen über eine mögliche Rückkehr des Exkaisers Wilhelm II. nach Deutschland erörtert worden. Die Auffassung im Reichskabinett ging dahin, daß eine Rückkehr des Exkaisers nach Deutschland in seiner Eigenschaft als Privatmann höchst unerwünscht wäre und von der Regierung nicht gestattet werden könnte. Die Reichsregierung hat, wie die " Voss. Ztg. " meldet, von dem Inhalte des § 7 des Vergleichs, durch den dem Exkaiser und seiner Gemahlin das Schloß Homburg vor der Höhe auf Lebenszeit als Wohnsitz zur Verfügung gestellt wird, vor dem Abschlusse bzw. vor der Veröffentlichung keine Kenntnis gehabt.
Versöhnung in Etappen.
Berlin, 23. Oktober. In Berliner unterrichteten Kreisen wird betont, daß auch nach der ersten Fühlungnahme, die von Hoesch nach seiner Rückkehr nach Paris mit Briand hatte, die Grundlagen der Vereinbarungen von Thoiry unverändert bestehen bleiben. Die Voraussetzung für die Durchführung der Aktion bestehe darin, daß die finanztechnischen Schwierigkeiten überwunden werden, die sich der Durchführung der deutschen Finanzhilfe für Frankreich entgegenstellen.
Warum ich die fünftägige Arbeitswoche einführe.
Jeder Unternehmer muß einsehen, daß die Muße des Arbeitenden weder " verlorene Zeit " noch das Privileg einer Klasse ist. Vor kurzem hat ein französischer Gelehrter behauptet, daß die Vermehrung des Alkoholkonsums zusammenhinge mit der Verkürzung der Arbeitszeit, die den Arbeitern mehr Gelegenheit zum Trinken gibt. Für Amerika trifft das nicht zu. Mäßigkeitsbewegung und Prohibition haben es soweit gebracht, daß ein freier Tag nicht mehr zu einem