AT WAR FOR PEACE.

Taranaki Daily News, 25 October 1918, Page 7

AT WAR FOR PEACE.

HENHY FOKD-PACIFTST. "QUANTITY MAMIFACTUBER OF WAR" "I am a pacifist .so earnest'f&ir peace that I am righting: for. :■$ laJsthe Jimit of my mental, physical, and financial capacity . . . Wo., stand with: our heroie Allies." Thus* cabled Henry ford, "quantity'manufacturer'of war," to Edward Marshall, a writer in the Illustrated London News. "Not Jong ago thousands spoke of him as 'Henry Ford, the Pacifist.' It is rumored, .but not sure, (states Mr. Marshall) that he is to be one of Michigan's United States Senators, by the special request of President Wilson. Had anyono suggested this when the Great War was in its second year, the United States and the Allies would have been depressed by the sad thought that just one more foe of intervention was to have a powerful place in the United States, Now everyone understands that Henry Ford in the United States Senate would mean more efficient war. When his country became belligerent, Henry Ford (as they say in the United States) went to war with a capital 'W.'" It is an extraordinary fact that this man, who not so very long ago paid for and accompanied what was dubbed 'The Peace Ark' is to-day the unofficial .civilian who is more important to the conduct of the wax.than.any other in the world. One cannot compare his war services with those of a great general or a great admiral or a great law-maker, because the services of such men usually are intangible; they may be great, they may be never can be estimated exactly. Henry Ford's can be. They are visible on the sea in the presr ence of the 'Eagle' .boats, which, have begun to leave Detroit in - a steady, never-ceasing little naval parade, which will keep in line from mid-America to the European war zone as long as may be necessary. They are visible in 'baby* tanks —about which too much mast not be said at present, but which soon will begin to infest the battlefields. You have seen ants overrun a yard or two of garden' soil- Give Ford orders to do so, and he can send these little tanks like ants. ..... The quantity production, at low cost, of standardised Ford ears has become one of the world's wonders. Henry Ford has now applied his highly-developed genius to the quantity production, at low cost, of instruments of war. So Henry Ford, the 'pacifist' has become a quantity manufacturer of war."