Page 40 - Copshaholm Curriculum Book_2015

Oliver Family History 14

tractors pulling a 55-bottom Oliver gang plow set another record by plowing an acre in
less than four minutes, a far cry from the days when a farmer walked eight and one-
fourth miles behind a team of horses and plow to turn an acre.

When World War I broke out in 1914, J.D. prepared for troubled times. “We shall
not attempt to profit by present conditions,” he wrote. After the U.S. entered the war in
1917, J.D. was called to Washington to confer with the nation’s food administrator,
Herbert Hoover. But the war not only had to be supplied with arms and food. It also
had to be financed. J.E. and Frank Hering, an Oliver vice-director, criss-crossed
Indiana setting up fund-raising and bond-selling committees in every community. J.D.
organized 22,000 schoolteachers to sell thrift stamps for bond purchases through
school children to their parents. He often brought down the house when he spoke of
“the fires of hell licking their lips in joyful anticipation of the advent of Kaiser Wilhelm”
(the German war leader). In addition, to ease the food shortage for employees in South
Bend, J.D. established a community garden. Fifty acres near the plant were divided into
50 by 100 foot patches. The families of 301 workers participated in the project. J.D.
awarded $50 in gold for the best crop return.

After World War I, demand for tractor-pulled farm implements increased rapidly.
It was estimated that 250,000 tractors would be built in 1919. Oliver Chilled Plow Works
expected to put 750,000 plows behind the 100,000 tractors International Harvester and
Henry Ford and Son would build. To this end the Olivers launched an extensive
expansion program, and in the next four years conducted the biggest building and real
estate activity, exclusive of the Hamilton plant construction, in the company’s history.
More than $3 million went to acquire branch house properties, $160,000 for new
buildings at the South Bend plant, and $1 million to erect 160 greatly needed workmen
houses.

An innovation at the time was the company’s voluntary introduction of a pension
plan, providing for a pension and automatic retirement for an employee who had
reached the age of 70 and had been with the company 20 years. No pension was to be
more than $100 per month or less than $12.

In a realignment of company responsibility to ease some of his burdens after
World War I, J.D. had relinquished some of his duties, including that of plant manager.
An operating committee for general management was set to be directly responsible to
J.D., who retained the presidency. This committee included James Oliver II, vice-
president; Joseph D. Oliver Jr., treasurer; H. Gail Davis, assistant treasurer; and C.
Frederick Cunningham, secretary, a post that had been left vacant by the death of J.D.’s
brother-in-law George Ford in 1917. Gertrude Oliver Cunningham and Susan Catherine
Oliver, daughters of J.D., were elected to the board of directors.

When the 1920s arrived, business indicators looked good, but disaster was
ahead. Farm prices began to drop. Farmers were unable to pay debts and stopped
buying agricultural implements. The company held the largest stock of manufactured
goods and the largest stock of raw materials in its history, all purchased at high wartime
prices. Because of its strong financial condition, Oliver Chilled Plow Works weathered
the crisis. J.D., however, had not fared so well in spite of the appointment of the
operating committee. In October 1923, he fell victim to a four-month illness, described
as “tired break-down,” from which he never fully recovered. He resigned many of the
outside directorships he held and gave up the presidency of the Purdue University