In November 1915, a car stopped at the entrance to the house of American businessman Henry Ford in Detroit. Out of this came Rosika Schwimmer and Louis P. Lockner, two people who were to convince Ford to do something that seemed impossible. Schwimmer was a Hungarian writer, a prominent figure in the feminist movement, and a suffragette. Lockner was previously secretary of the International Federation of Students. Now, with World War I in full swing, the two worked to achieve world peace.
From the beginning of the war, Schwimmer advocated the mediation of neutral nations to bring about an end to hostilities, and in April 1915 she had succeeded in persuading the International Congress of Women at The Hague to support this policy. She worked with Jane Addams, iconic American activist, sociologist, and reformer, to demonstrate that both neutral and belligerent nations were receptive to such mediation. In August 1915, a statement by Ford made him a potential ally in her eyes: speaking to reporters he declared that he was prepared to devote all his fortune and all his life to the achievement of peace. Notably, Ford was a famous pacifist: the men in his family had not volunteered for military service, and, at the time, he was one of the few Detroit businessmen who did not profit financially from the war, as he did not supply the belligerents with war material like other fellow countrymen.
In the meantime, Schwimmer had arrived in America, where she was to give a series of lectures, and she had taken care to bring with her the documents which she had collected with Jane Addams, which proved that all countries were ready to enter into some kind of dialogue. After Ford’s encouraging statement, he wrote to him. The two met, she showed him the relevant documents (the validity of which has been disproved today) and he was soon convinced: “Well, let’s get started. What do you want me to do;”.
For his part, Lockner had come to Detroit trying to secure a meeting with Ford himself. Having just returned from a joint hearing with the president of the Fifth International Peace Conference, David Starr, with President Woodrow Wilson, Lockner felt that if the president saw more public appeals for peace being made, he might call a conference in Washington, where representatives of neutral countries would be present. The ultimate goal was the formation of a commission, which would work for “continuous mediation” and would be accepted by all the warring parties.
In their joint meeting, the two pacifists managed to convince Ford and on November 21, having already temporarily settled in New York, he called a meeting of leading figures of the time, academics and intellectuals to organize his project. At one point, Lockner joked, “Why don’t we get a special ship to send the delegates [στην Ευρώπη]?”. Jane Addams rejected the idea as a showy move. Ford, again, approved it for exactly the same reason. By evening, he had chartered the ocean liner Oscar II, named after the pacifist king of Sweden. Having laid the foundations of his plan, he headed to Washington accompanied by Lockner, to seek the cooperation of President Wilson so that the operation would become an official American mission.
But President Wilson could not give his approval. “If you think you cannot act, I will,” said Ford, and he put his words into action. A few days later, he called reporters: “One should try to do the greatest good, to as many people as possible, right? We’ll try to get the kids out of the trenches before Christmas. I have chartered a ship, and some of us are going to Europe,” he announced.
In fact, many of Ford’s friends and associates, such as Thomas Edison and President Wilson’s former Secretary of State William James Bryan, refused to join the expedition. Still others, like Jane Addams, who became seriously ill and needed surgery, were unable to come. However, after nine days of preparation, on December 2, 1915, in Hoboken, New Jersey, the “Peace Ship,” as it was called, carrying Ford and several activists originally bound for Norway, was ready to set sail. A crowd of thousands gathered at the harbor to bid farewell to the ship, singing “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier.”
The press of the time had mixed reactions to Ford’s peacekeeping operation. Some saw it as a noble and ambitious undertaking, a mission by citizens who wanted an end to a war that seemingly no one wanted. Still others could not see this venture succeeding, scorning the activists and accusing Ford of showmanship.
The journey of the “Ship of Peace” did not begin with good omens. Before they reached Norway some sickness broke out on board. Ford himself became seriously ill with influenza. So when they reached Oslo, Ford was forced to cut short his trip and return to America to recuperate. The publications of the time mocked the businessman, christening the ship “Ship of Idiots”.
But things were not going so well for those who remained on board. Most on board distrusted Swimmer, believing her to be a spy for the Central Powers. On the other hand, activists could not agree on their strategy: some believed that an unconditional armistice should be signed, others believed that the Allies should dictate the terms of the peace, while others were in favor of the disarmament of the parties involved.
Finally, the “Ship of Peace” arrived in Stockholm, where the Conference of Neutrals for Continuing Mediation met. Despite the fact that various foreign ministers of neutral nations met with the American mission and acknowledged the conference, the disagreement over strategy and the inherent difficulty of the undertaking effectively doomed the conference and Ford’s effort. He himself, disheartened, stopped supporting the effort financially and morally in the spring of 1917. Meanwhile, as early as December 7, 1915, five days after the start of the trip, President Wilson had called in a speech to Congress for America to prepare on the war and increasing the country’s military forces, a development that had not helped the already divided activists. The United States officially entered the war on April 6, 1917.
In any case, Ford’s mission may not have had the desired effect, but it was not unimportant: it was a large-scale mobilization that brought the issue of peace to the fore. As he himself said, despite the taunts he suffered: “I wanted us to have peace. At least I tried to make it happen. Most didn’t even try.” However, after the United States entered the war, Henry Ford became the largest manufacturer of Liberty Motors for warplanes.
Column editor: Myrto Katsigera, Vassilis Minakakis, Antigoni-Despina Poimenidou, Athanasios Syroplakis
