19153 Ford and the Peace Crusade 



of the wounds of a continent? What shall you do to keep 

 our nation firm on the basis of law and right? 



Never in the history of the world was the need of wise 

 leadership greater than now, never were the stakes so great, 

 never was blind action more futile. Effort misdirected may do 

 harm at times, but very little good. "Small efforts," said 

 John Stuart Mill, "do not produce great effects; they produce 

 no effects at all." Hence the need for strong effort, for clear- 

 headed, uncompromising wisdom; and the possession of such 

 wisdom is the birthright of the educated man. 



There are three duties before the world today. These are 

 to keep America law-abiding, to stop the killing, somehow, 

 when we can . . . and to strengthen the human conscience 

 so that such a world crime may never occur again. In this 

 work, let us hope, each of you may find his part in its complete- 

 ness. It will test the mettle of the world's manhood for the 

 next fifty years, and it will give in full measure the long-sought 

 "Moral Equivalent of War." 



An event of unprecedented character and uni- The 

 versal interest marked the end of the year. This was " Oscar11 " 

 Henry Ford's Peace Crusade, which left New York 

 December 4 on the steamship Oscar II. The story 

 of that spectacular venture has been many times 

 told, but rarely sympathetically. It is only fair to 

 say, however, that it was a serious attempt to stop 

 the war, and if successful would have been a world 

 service of incomparable value. 



Ford, a man of kind heart and somewhat unso- 

 phisticated mind, is a genius without parallel in his 

 way, being (as all know) one of the outstanding figures 

 in American business. The initial suggestion of a 

 peace demonstration in Europe came from a clever 

 young woman possessed of boundless audacity though 

 not noted for discretion; the idea was then taken up 

 enthusiastically by Rosika Schwimmer, a visiting R 0s ika 

 journalist from Budapest, and a few ladies in 



mer 



n 681 3 



