Notations of a Luncheon at Ford Motor Company

Notations of a luncheon
FORD MOTOR COMPANY


Notes of conversation:
Alfred J. Lucking said: I see there is a terrific battle being fought today at Cambrai. I wish that all the generals, cabinet ministers, kings, presidents and commissioners could be thrown in there. I guess the war wouldn't last long.
Henry Ford: I guess they would find a way to stop the war. Cut out the money they make, and there's nothing in it for them, and they'd stop. It is the aristocracy and the capitalists that make these wars and continue these wars. There is no hate in the trenches.
The Pope proposed the same peace as Lansdowne, but they couldn't let the Pope make peace because that would leave him too high up.
Question: Do you think, Mr. Ford, that you accomplished any good by your Peace Expedition?
Henry Ford: No, I don't think so, because the men who are making money out of this war didn't want peace then, any more than they do now. I know the Kaiser would talk peace, but they wouldn't let me reach him.
Question: Who told you the Kaiser would talk peace?
Henry Ford: Why, everyone knew that, at that time.
Question: Do you really believe, Mr. Ford, that all the reports of German ambitions, brutalities and atrocities are untrue; that Germany is not a menace to the liberty of the world?
Henry Ford: No. No more than England or France. Didn't England threaten our Panama Canal, and scare Wilson to death, and make him crawl?
Question: How about the invasion of Belgium?
Henry Ford: If Germany hadn't invaded Belgium, France would have beat her to it. We can't destroy Germany, and we should not, because we have got to preserve a balance of power in Europe.
(Aside) Mention was made of the Franco-Prussian war.
Henry Ford: We'd have been in that too, if we hadn't had a war on with England at that time.
(Aside) Smith told a story of southerner who claimed that eighty percent of the slaves owned in south were imported through the port of New York.
Henry Ford: That's right. In every war, the men who make money out of it find an excuse to start it. Their excuse then was "freeing the slaves".

I don't believe anything I read about the war. All the papers, yes, and all the magazines, are bought up by the interests.

We have brought our manufacturing down to a fine point, and our science down to a fine point, and now, if we bring our agriculture down to a fine point, there won't be any more war.
Question was asked if Mr. Ford thought peace could be secured by Lord Lansdowne's plan.
Henry Ford: Of course we can end the war. Germany wants to disarm, and all we have got to do is to get Germany to promise to disarm.

The German people are all right. They are just like us. They are made to fight, just as we are being made to fight, and we don't know what we are fighting for.
Question: Why do you accept war orders, Mr. Ford? Certainly not to make money out of them, do you?
Henry Ford: Certainly not.
Question: Then, do you accept war orders for the good of the government, and the nation?
Henry Ford: Yes.
Question: Even when you think we are fighting an unrighteous war?
Henry Ford: I am making Liberty motors, not munitions.
Question: But those Liberty motors are munitions.
Henry Ford: There is a big difference.
Alfred Lucking: This government is forcing Russia to become a German ally.
Henry Ford: That's right. We are forcing them into it.
Question: Certainly, with anarchy in Russia, and an open Russian armistice, and separate peace with Germany, we cannot go on supplying money and material to Russia, can we?
Henry Ford: Certainly not.
Question: What if all the Russian securities in this country are repudiated?
Henry Ford: Well, all the wealth of the country is held by twenty percent of the population, anyway.
Question: What about the American widows and orphans who have bought these Russian bonds?
Henry Ford: Let them go to work. The sooner, the better.
Alfred Lucking: Some of these widows may be sick, and incapable of work.
Henry Ford: Let them get well again. That's the law of nature, anyway.
(Aside) Henry Ford is interested only in foreign-born laborers: no interest in his American workmen. He is tired of his sociological work: it was a plaything.
(Aside) American regular army officers will be good to carry out orders.
Henry Ford: I have a thousand men who, if I say, "Be at the north-east corner of the building at four o'clock," will be there at four o'clock. That's what we want obedience.