Page:Henry Ford's Own Story.djvu/191

 shame, grief, wounds, death, ruin, starvation. War is the most hideous waste in the world."

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