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31 - Henry Fords Own Story by Rose Wilder Lane · Henry Fords Own Story

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  Speaker 1: Chapter thirty of Henry Ford's Own Story. This LibriVox recording
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  Speaker 1: is in the public domain. Recording by Leanne Howlett. Henry
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  Speaker 1: Ford's Own Story by Rose Wilder Lane, Chapter thirty, The
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  Speaker 1: best Preparedness. Henry Ford saw that the meaning of his
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  Speaker 1: work was about to be lost. He was in for
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  Speaker 1: the greatest fight of his life. He counted his resources.
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  Speaker 1: The mammoth factory was still running to capacity. The farm tractors,
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  Speaker 1: which would mean so much an increased production of food
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  Speaker 1: and greater comforts for millions of farmers, were almost ready
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  Speaker 1: to be put on the market. His plan for profit
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  Speaker 1: sharing with the buyers of his cars had recently been announced.
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  Speaker 1: Three hundred thousand men in this country would have, during
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  Speaker 1: nineteen fifteen an actual proof in dollars and cents of
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  Speaker 1: the practical value of operation of Ford's principle that helping
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  Speaker 1: the other fellow will help you. Those men would share
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  Speaker 1: with him the profit, which would add still more millions
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  Speaker 1: to his credit. Ford had these things. He had also
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  Speaker 1: a tremendous fortune at his command. He cast about for
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  Speaker 1: ways of using that fortune in this fight, and again
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  Speaker 1: the uselessness of money was impressed upon him. Money is
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  Speaker 1: of no real value. Whatever he says, what can I
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  Speaker 1: do with it now? I cannot pay a man enough
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  Speaker 1: to make him change his real opinions. The only real
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  Speaker 1: resource this country has now is the intelligence of our people.
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  Speaker 1: They must think right. They must know the true principles
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  Speaker 1: on which to build a great, strong nation. They must
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  Speaker 1: hold firm to the big, true things, and realize some
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  Speaker 1: way they must be made to realize that they are practical,
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  Speaker 1: That ideals are the only practical things in this world.
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  Speaker 1: It is to everybody's interest to do right, not in
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  Speaker 1: the next world, nor in a spiritual way only, but
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  Speaker 1: in good, hard dollars and cents business value. Let's be practical.
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  Speaker 1: Suppose we do prepare for war. Suppose we do take
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  Speaker 1: the energies of our young men and spend them in
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  Speaker 1: training for war. Our country needs the whole energy of
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  Speaker 1: every man in productive work, work that will make more food,
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  Speaker 1: more clothing, better houses. But suppose we turn that energy
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  Speaker 1: from real uses, train it to destroy instead of to create.
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  Speaker 1: Suppose we have half a million young men ready to fight.
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  Speaker 1: What weapons shall we give them. Shall we give them
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  Speaker 1: guns they will be out of date? Shall we give
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  Speaker 1: them poisonous gases or disease germs, Or shall we invent
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  Speaker 1: something even more horrible? As fast as we make these things,
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  Speaker 1: other nations will make worse ones. Shall we turn our
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  Speaker 1: factories into munition plants? Shall we build dreadnoughts the submarine
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  Speaker 1: destroys them. Shall we build submarines other nations will make
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  Speaker 1: submarine destroyers. Shall we build submarine destroyers? Other nations will
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  Speaker 1: build war aeroplanes to destroy them? We must make something
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  Speaker 1: worse than the aeroplanes, and something worse still, and then
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  Speaker 1: something still more horrible. Bidding senselessly up and up and up,
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  Speaker 1: spending millions on millions, trying to outdo other nations which
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  Speaker 1: are trying to outdo us. For if we begin to
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  Speaker 1: prepare for war, we must not stop. We cannot stop.
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  Speaker 1: I read articles in the magazines saying that we might
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  Speaker 1: as well have no navy at all as the one
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  Speaker 1: we have, That we might as well have no army
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  Speaker 1: as the army we have, if this country should be invaded.
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  Speaker 1: Yet we have already spent millions on that army and
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  Speaker 1: that navy. Let us spend millions more and more millions
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  Speaker 1: and more, and still, unless we keep on spending more
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  Speaker 1: than any other nation can spend, we might as well
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  Speaker 1: have no army or navy at all. And yet there
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  Speaker 1: are people who think that to begin such a course
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  Speaker 1: as practical is good common sense. I tell you, the
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  Speaker 1: only real strength of a nation is the spirit of
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  Speaker 1: its people. The only real practical value in the world
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  Speaker 1: is the spirit of the people of the world. There
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  Speaker 1: were animals on the earth ages ago who could kill
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  Speaker 1: a hundred men with one sweep of a paw. But
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  Speaker 1: they are gone, and we survive. Why because men have minds,
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  Speaker 1: because they use their minds in doing useful things, making
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  Speaker 1: food and clothes and shelters. A few hundred years ago,
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  Speaker 1: no man was safe on the street alone at night.
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  Speaker 1: No woman was safe unless she had a man with
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  Speaker 1: her who was strong enough to kill other men. We
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  Speaker 1: have changed all that, how by force, No, because we
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  Speaker 1: have learned in a small degree that there are better
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  Speaker 1: things than force. We have learned that to look out
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  Speaker 1: for the interests of every one in our community is
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  Speaker 1: best for us. In the end, let us realize that
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  Speaker 1: to think of the welfare of the whole world is
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  Speaker 1: best for each one of us. We do not carry
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  Speaker 1: a gun, so that if we meet an Englishman on
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  Speaker 1: the street and he attacks us, we can kill him.
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  Speaker 1: We know he does not want to kill us. We
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  Speaker 1: know that the real people of the whole world do
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  Speaker 1: not want war. We do not want war. There are
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  Speaker 1: only a few people who think they want war, the politicians,
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  Speaker 1: the rulers, the big business men who think they can
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  Speaker 1: profit by it. War injures everybody else, and in the
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  Speaker 1: end it injures them too. The way to handle the
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  Speaker 1: war question is not to waste more and more human
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  Speaker 1: energy in getting ready to hurt the other fellow. We
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  Speaker 1: must get down to the foundations. We must realize that
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  Speaker 1: the interests of all the people are one, and that
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  Speaker 1: what hurts one hurts us all. We must know that,
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  Speaker 1: and we must have the courage to act on it.
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  Speaker 1: A nation of a hundred million people, of all nationalities
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  Speaker 1: and races, we must work together, each of us doing
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  Speaker 1: what he can for the best good of the whole.
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  Speaker 1: Then we can show Europe, when at last her crippled
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  Speaker 1: people drag themselves back to their ruined homes, that a
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  Speaker 1: policy of peace and hopefulness does pay, That it is practical.
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  Speaker 1: We can show them that we do mean to help them.
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  Speaker 1: They will believe it if we do not say it
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  Speaker 1: behind a gun, If we carry a gun. We must
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  Speaker 1: depend on the gun to save our nation. We must
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  Speaker 1: frankly say that we believe in force and nothing else.
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  Speaker 1: We must admit that human brotherhood and ideals of mutual
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  Speaker 1: good will and helpfulness are secondary to power and willingness
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  Speaker 1: to commit murder, that only a murderer at heart can
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  Speaker 1: afford to have them. We must abandon every principle on
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  Speaker 1: which our country was founded, every inch of progress we
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  Speaker 1: have made since men were frankly beasts. But if our
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  Speaker 1: country is not to go down as all nations have
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  Speaker 1: gone before her, depending on force and destroyed by force,
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  Speaker 1: we must build on a firm foundation. We must build
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  Speaker 1: on our finest, biggest instincts. We must go fearlessly ahead,
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  Speaker 1: not looking back, and put our faith in the things
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  Speaker 1: which endure and which have grown stronger through every century
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  Speaker 1: of history. Democracy, every man's right to comfort and plenty
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  Speaker 1: and happiness, human brotherhood, mutual helpfulness. These are the real
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  Speaker 1: practical things. These are the things on which we can
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  Speaker 1: build surely and firmly. These are the things which will last.
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  Speaker 1: These are the things which will pay. I have proved
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  Speaker 1: them over and over again in my own life. Other men,
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  Speaker 1: so far as they have trusted them, have proved them.
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  Speaker 1: America has built on them the richest, most successful nation
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  Speaker 1: in the world to day. Just so far as we
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  Speaker 1: continue to trust them to build on them, we will
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  Speaker 1: continue to be prosperous and successful. I know this. If
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  Speaker 1: my life has taught me anything at all, it has
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  Speaker 1: taught me that I will spend every ounce of energy
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  Speaker 1: I have, every hour of my life, and the effort
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  Speaker 1: to prove it to other people only so far as
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  Speaker 1: we all believe it. Only so far as we all
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  Speaker 1: use our strength and our abilities not to hurt but
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  Speaker 1: to help other peoples, will we help ourselves. This is
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  Speaker 1: the end of my story and the beginning of Henry
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  Speaker 1: Ford's biggest fight. The end end of chapter thirty, end
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  Speaker 1: of Henry Ford's own story. How a farmer boy rose
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  Speaker 1: to the power that goes with many millions, yet never
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  Speaker 1: lost touch with humanity by Rose Wilder Lane recording by
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  Speaker 1: Leanne Howlett