Founders, Part 2 - Fisher's Conscience

Yesterday I mentioned the author that asked me, "Did Carl Fisher have a conscience?"
 
To be honest, I thought about that same question years ago. Carl pushed to stage races at the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in a seeming rush to recover on his investment. The August 1909 motorcycle meet was a fiasco, the track was falling apart and the renowned Jake DeRosier was badly injured when he flipped over his handlebars. With this foreshadowing, Fisher forged ahead with the first auto race meet which led to five people being fatally injured, two of them spectators. His drive and determination led to the success of Prest-O-Lite and made him and partner James Allison millionaires. In the process there were numerous explosions as the canister charging process of their compressed gas business proved dangerous work.
 
However, to arrive at the conclusion that Fisher lacked a conscience is a misunderstanding. Fisher showed a lot of compassion in many instances, most notably when an African-American laborer was severely burned when he fell into a vat of boiling tar during the paving process of the Indianapolis Motor Speedway in July 1909. Fisher ordered the man placed in his personal car and he and wife Jane raced to the nearest hospital. In an unsavory example of the unenlightened state of our country's culture at the time, the man was denied admittance due to his race. Livid, Fisher leveled a stream of hair curling obscenities at the hospital administrators. Panicked, he drove to the next hospital but the poor man died en route.
 
Demonstrative of Fisher's character in an age where blatant racism was the norm, Carl assessed men by their talents and contributions, not the color of their skin. His personal assistant and confidant, William Galloway was black. Fisher had little time for pretense, he was driven to achieve and pull the best from everyone that worked for him. If birds of a feather flock together, one need look no further than Fisher's long time partner at both the Speedway and selling automobiles, Arthur C. Newby. Newby, known as the quiet philanthropist is said to have saved hundreds from homelessness while deliberately avoiding recognition for doing so. As for Fisher, there is the story of when a Tennessee black women's college burnt to ground, he called the president and told them to rebuild it at his expense.
 
I think Carl was an impatient man. He always had to be first and I am sure he was not happy the Brooklands track in England - very similar to his vision of an automotive testing facility - was already in operation in 1907. Everything was a race to him, and he had to be first even if it meant taking chances. He was also a risk taker. His incredible promotions that involved him riding tightropes across 12 story buildings in downtown Indy demonstrate that his focus was less on risk than reward. Perhaps it was miscalculation for him to take excessive risk - in the end, he lost his fortune due to it - but it was also his nature. He always saw what was possible if he could just push that little bit harder. He probably processed any situation through that same value system. What's more the people around him were, as they said in the day, "always game."
 
Note: You can learn much more by reading Jerry Fisher's book on Carl Fisher.