THE CANDIDACY OF HENRY FORD
August 20, 1918
Every loyal American citizen in Michigan should read the last two numbers ofMr.George Harvey’s War Weekly. In these numbers there are quotations fromMr.Henry Ford’s speeches made two years ago and again since we entered the war.Mr.Ford has not questioned the accuracy of these quotations given byMr.Harvey.
Speaking of American flags over his own factoryMr.Ford said: “I don’t believe in the flag. When the war is over these flags shall come down never to go up again.”
The Sedition Act, approved by President Wilson, inflicts a maximum punishment of twenty years in the penitentiary for any man who, while we are at war, utters “language intended to bring the flag of the United States into contempt or disrepute.” During the last year many poor and ignorant men have been convicted and sentenced for using language thus forbidden by law. In my view the fact thatMr.Ford is an enormously wealthy man ought not to give him immunity from the law if he cannot show that he did not use the language quoted in the War Weekly. But whether or not amenable to the law, no patriotic American can afford to put in the Senate, perhaps to help negotiate the peace treaty, a man who announces that as soon as peace comes he wishes to haul down the American flag and never again to hoist it. To send such a man to the Senate professing such sentiments under existing conditions would give the enemy a wholly wrong idea of the pacifist sentiment in our country. There is nothing in the world which would now help Germany as much, or give her so much heart in her struggle for the overthrow of liberty and democracy as the belief that men professing such sentiments would have part in the peace negotiations on behalf of this country.
Among the further utterances ofMr.Ford (as given in the War Weekly) is one that he does “notbelieve in patriotism” and that he does not care any more for the United States “than for China or Hindustan.” The man who does not believe in patriotism is not fit to live in this country, still less to represent it in the Senate. If these words ofMr.Ford mean anything, thenMr.Ford is unpatriotic and has no more right to sit in the United States Senate than a Hindu or a Chinaman. UnlessMr.Ford can show that he never uttered these words no man worthy to be called an American, and least of all any religious or patriotic man, can afford to support him for the Senate.
Mr.Ford has been given immensely valuable war contracts of the Government. No doubt he has executed them as well as the thousands of other contractors who now render service to the Government for pay. But no service he can thus render the Government can offset the frightful damage he did our people by the lavish use he made of his enormous wealth in a gigantic and profoundly anti-American propaganda against preparedness and against our performance of international duty during the two and a half years before we entered the war. This crusade against righteousness included the sending of the ridiculous “peace ship” to Europe. This particular manifestation was too absurd even to do harm, but so far as it had any effect at all it encouraged Germany to believe that we were as neutral between right and wrong as Pontius, and that as far as we were concerned she could safely proceed with wrongdoing because we held the scales of judgmenteven between the wrongdoer and his victim. The crusade also included an extraordinary series of advertisements issued long after the Lusitania was sunk, in whichMr.Ford violently opposed and denounced preparedness, advocated and approved the McLemore resolutions, and announced that it was our duty to keep out of war; and not merely himself kept silent about the wrongdoing of Germany, but assailed those who set forth this wrongdoing on the ground that they “had bred racial hatred by the printing of incendiary news stories and articles.” It may well be doubted whether this propaganda did not do more damage to the American people than the propaganda carried on at the same time by Ambassador Bernstorff.
If we had seen our duty and had fully prepared during these two and a half years, either we would never have had to enter the war or we would have brought it to a close immediately after we entered it. The best and bravest of the young men of the Nation are now paying with their blood for our unpreparedness and therefore for the pacific propaganda quite as much as for the pro-German propaganda carried on in this country during the two and a half years before we entered the war. But wealthyMr.Ford’s son is not among these men. He is of draft age. He applied for exemption. The local board refused his application. He applied to the President. The President did not act for two months. Then the revised draft regulations were promulgated, andMr.Ford was excepted under the deferred or exemptedclass which included a married man with a child, however wealthy that man might be. He has exercised his legal right. Very many thousands of young Americans, men of small means who are not sons of multi-millionaires, have declined to take advantage of this legal right. They have left their wives and babies to go to war for a great ideal, for love of country, for love of liberty and of civilization. ButMr.Ford’s son stays at home. These other young Americans face death and endure unspeakable hardships and misery and fatigue for the sake of America and have surrendered all hope of money-getting, of comfort and of safety. But youngMr.Ford, in ease and safety, is in the employ of his wealthy father.
In private relations I understand thatMr.Ford is an amiable man. But I am not dealing with him in his private relations. I am discussing him as a candidate for high office. We are bound truthfully to set forth what we believe will be the effect of his election, and therefore we are bound to say that it would be damaging to the United States and would be encouraging to Germany. No patriotic American should supportMr.Ford.