James Couzens, secretary of the Ford Motor Company, reported to its stockholders at the first annual meeting on October 15, 1903 that in the four months of its existence the company showed a clear profit of $36,957. This was little short of fabulous, for it exceeded the entire cash investment made at and since the launching of the firm. That very day the stockholders urged their directors to “take necessary steps to obtain foreign business.”

Couzens had already moved in that direction. As early as July he had appointed a Canadian distributor—the Canada Cycle and Motor Company Ltd. of Toronto—and the sixth Ford car built had been shipped to that agent on August 1. In September Couzens and Henry Ford had selected R. M. Lockwood to handle all other marketing abroad.

These actions and that of the stockholders in October had been taken in the face of grave difficulties. The company leaders—Henry Ford, who had developed the car, John F. and Horace E. Dodge, owners of the factory that produced its chassis, and Alex Y. Malcomson, the coal merchant who had furnished the chief propulsive force for launching the firm—must all have been aware, as Couzens was, that early in July the undertaking had barely tipped the scales from failure to success.