In the first terrible months of the war the American people, in horror, echoed that opinion. With the spectacle of half the world in bloody ruins before our eyes, we recoiled. We thanked God that our country remained sane. We saw a vision of America, after the madness had passed, helping to bind up the wounds of Europe, helping to make a permanent peace which should bring the people of the earth together in one fraternity.
By degrees that feeling began to change. We want peace. Are there a hundred men among our hundred million who will say they want war for war’s sake? We want peace—but—— We have begun to ask that old question, “Is it practical?” That vision of the people of the world working together, increasing their own happiness and comfort by helping to make happiness and comfort for each other—it is a beautiful theory, but is it not a bit sentimental? a bit visionary? just a little too good to be true?
“Here is a world where war happens,” we say. “If a war should happen to us what would we do? Let us begin to prepare for war. Let us take war into our calculations. Let us be practical.”
And Henry Ford, reading the papers, listening to the talk of the men in the streets, saw the object lesson of his great organization disregarded. He heard again the objection which had met every step of his life. “It is a good idea, but it is theoretical. It is not practical. It will not work. Things never have done that way.” He saw this country, already wasting incalculable human energy, destroying innumerable lives daily, because of a “practical” system of organization, preparing to drain off still more energy, still greater wealth, in preparation for a still more terrible waste.
The dearest principle of his life, the principle whose truth he had proven through a life of hard work, was in danger of being swept away and forgotten.
CHAPTER XXX
THE BEST PREPAREDNESS
Henry Ford saw that the meaning of his work was about to be lost. He was in for the greatest fight of his life.
He counted his resources. The mammoth factory was still running to capacity, the farm tractors, which would mean so much in increased production of food, in greater comforts for millions of farmers, were almost ready to be put on the market. His plan for profit-sharing with the buyers of his cars had recently been announced. Three hundred thousand men in this country would have, during 1915, an actual proof in dollars and cents of the practical value of coöperation, of Ford’s principle that “helping the other fellow will help you.” Those men would share with him the profit which would add still more millions to his credit.
Ford had these things; he had also a tremendous fortune at his command. He cast about for ways of using that fortune in this fight, and again the uselessness of money was impressed upon him.
“Money is of no real value whatever,” he says. “What can I do with it now? I cannot pay a man enough to make him change his real opinions. The only real resource this country has now is the intelligence of our people. They must think right, they must know the true principles on which to build a great, strong nation.