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of the world become developed in the art of self-support, commerce will get
back to that basis. Business will once more become service. There will be no
competition, because the basis of competition will have vanished. The varied
peoples will develop skills which will be in the nature of monopolies and not
competitive. From the beginning, the races have exhibited distinct strains of
genius: this one for government; another for colonization; another for the
sea; another for art and music; another for agriculture; another for business,
and so on. Lincoln said that this nation could not survive half-slave and half-
free. The human race cannot forever exist half-exploiter and half-exploited.
Until we become buyers and sellers alike, producers and consumers alike,
220 • The Expanded and Annotated My Life and Work
keeping the balance not for profit but for service, we are going to have topsy-
turvy conditions.
France has something to give the world of which no competition can cheat
her. So has Italy. So has Russia. So have the countries of South America.
So has Japan. So has Britain. So has the United States. The sooner we get
back to a basis of natural specialties and drop this free-for-all system of grab,
the sooner we shall be sure of international self-respect—and international
peace. Trying to take the trade of the world can promote war. It cannot pro-
mote prosperity. Some day even the international bankers will learn this.
I have never been able to discover any honourable reasons for the begin-
ning of the World War. It seems to have grown out of a very complicated
situation created largely by those who thought they could profit by war. I
believed, on the information that was given to me in 1916, that some of the
nations were anxious for peace and would welcome a demonstration for
peace. It was in the hope that this was true that I financed the expedition to
Stockholm in what has since been called the “Peace Ship.” I do not regret the
attempt. The mere fact that it failed is not, to me, conclusive proof that it was
not worth trying. We learn more from our failures than from our successes.
What I learned on that trip was worth the time and the money expended.
I do not now know whether the information as conveyed to me was true or
false. I do not care. But I think everyone will agree that if it had been possible
to end the war in 1916 the world would be better off than it is today.
For the victors wasted themselves in winning, and the vanquished in resist-
ing. Nobody got an advantage, honourable or dishonourable, out of that war.
I had hoped, finally, when the United States entered the war, that it might
be a war to end wars, but now I know that wars do not end wars any more
than an extraordinarily large conflagration does away with the fire hazard.
When our country entered the war, it became the duty of every citizen to do
his utmost toward seeing through to the end that which we had undertaken. I
believe that it is the duty of the man who opposes war to oppose going to war
up until the time of its actual declaration.
My opposition to war is not based upon pacifist or non-resistant principles.
It may be that the present state of civilization is such that certain interna-
tional questions cannot be discussed; it may be that they have to be fought
out. But the fighting never settles the question. It only gets the participants
around to a frame of mind where they will agree to discuss what they were
fighting about.
Once we were in the war, every facility of the Ford industries was put at
the disposal of the Government. We had, up to the time of the declaration
of war, absolutely refused to take war orders from the foreign belligerents.
It is entirely out of keeping with the principles of our business to disturb the
routine of our production unless in an emergency. It is at variance with our
Things in General • 221
human principles to aid either side in a war in which our country was not
involved. These principles had no application, once the United States entered
the war. From April, 1917, until November, 1918, our factory worked practi-
cally exclusively for the Government. Of course we made cars and parts and
special delivery trucks and ambulances as a part of our general production,
but we also made many other articles that were more or less new to us. We
made 2 1/2-ton and 6-ton trucks. We made Liberty motors in great quantities,
aero cylinders, 1.55 Mm. and 4.7 Mm. caissons. We made listening devices,
steel helmets (both at Highland Park and Philadelphia), and Eagle Boats,
and we did a large amount of experimental work on armour plate, compen-
sators, and body armour. For the Eagle Boats we put up a special plant on
the River Rouge site. These boats were designed to combat the submarines.
They were 204 feet long, made of steel, and one of the conditions precedent to
their building was that their construction should not interfere with any other
line of war production and also that they be delivered quickly. The design
was worked out by the Navy Department. On December 22, 1917, I offered to
build the boats for the Navy. The discussion terminated on January 15, 1918,
when the Navy Department awarded the contract to the Ford Company. On
July 11th, the first completed boat was launched. We made both the hulls and
the engines, and not a forging or a rolled beam entered into the construction
of other than the engine. We stamped the hulls entirely out of sheet steel. They
were built indoors. In four months we ran up a building at the River Rouge
a third of a mile long, 350 feet wide, and 100 feet high, covering more than
thirteen acres. These boats were not built by marine engineers. They were
built simply by applying our production principles to a new product.
With the Armistice, we at once dropped the war and went back to peace.
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