Tomas Bata
1876 -1932
A Message from Tomas Bata.
We are not afraid of the future. Millions of human beings know nothing of footgear of any kind whatever, and very few of the rest are well-shod. This best shows us how little we have accomplished so far, and what an immense task lies before the shoemakers of the whole world.
Tomas Bata started life as a poor boy but he did not dream of making millions, he seems, rather to be obsessed with the idea of helping his country and his people. In the young Bata there quickly ripens the wish and the determination to achieve something. He is a shoemaker - a practical man, but with a power of imagination amounting to genius. Thomas has visions of colossal factories, with the most modern machinery, installed in airy workshops, and a system of the most modern factory-hygiene. In those workshops, people freed from slavery and squalor are working for the realization of his great social ideal: the shoeing of millions.
Tomas Bata remained true to his dreams of "Good and cheap shoes, even for the very poorest, and high wages for all who worked for him".
He coined the motto "Our customers are our masters".
