Henry Ford’s legacy is enormous. With the Ford Motor Company still hugely relevant today, it’s hard to overstate how influential he was in the early 1900s. Here in the 21st century, it would be easy to assume that Ford was a terrible person based solely on his incomprehensible wealth, but he was one of the first big proponents of workers’ rights and he was responsible for the workweek dropping from six days to five (and he famously did NOT reduce workers’ wages).
Of course, he was also openly antisemitic, so he’s not exactly a beacon of grace. But while his automotive legacy lives on, his maritime legacy is all but forgotten. That legacy is the Peace Ship.
Ford debuted the Model T in 1908 and it didn’t take long for Henry to get tremendously rich and prominent. Wealth and prominence are access tools, so as World War I heated up in Europe, Ford decided to meet with President Woodrow Wilson about how to stop the fighting. Ford was publicly known as a pacifist and wanted to stage an “amateur diplomatic mission” to broker an end to the war, which is bonkers, but wealth has a way of distancing a person from reality.
Ford brought peace activist/journalist Louis Lochner with him on the White House visit, where President Wilson reportedly liked the emotional heart of the idea but not the reality of it. Wilson declined to make Ford’s mission an official US mission “on the ground that the venture was most unlikely to succeed.” Not exactly a ringing endorsement.
Ford was presumably not thrilled, but pressed on because he believed in the anti-war cause. He chartered an ocean liner named Oscar II and invited some big names in the anti-war movement to join him. The list included future Nobel Peace Prize winner Jane Addams, three-time presidential candidate William Jennings Bryan, and too-many-titles-to-list Thomas Edison. They all declined the invitations. But once again Ford was not to be deterred: If he couldn’t enlist the most famous people available, he would at least fill the ship with a team of 40+ reporters to help publicize his endeavor.
The goal was to bounce around Europe and stir up support for peace while (ideally) meeting with high-ranking government officials. What could go wrong?
The Peace Ship Sets Sail
With a “circus-like” atmosphere, the ship set sail from New Jersey on December 4, 1915. A band played the ship off and a crowd of 15,000 watched Oscar II disappear toward the horizon. A man who identified himself as Mr. Zero jumped in and tried to swim after the ship after not being allowed to join the mission on his own merits. Ho-hum.
A mere three days after setting sail, President Wilson addressed Congress and called for major increases to the US Army and Navy, though the United States was not formally engaged in the war yet. With the Oscar II full of pacifists, one might think this would elicit a hearty “no thank you” from all the passengers, but apparently it did not. A resolution was crafted and signed by many members of the party, but others stated that the resolution was unpatriotic (whatever that means) and refused. Tensions rose.
Tensions were one thing, but influenza was quite another. The virus hit the ship hard and one passenger died en route from complications of pneumonia. Ford was reportedly dead from the virus himself but was really just locking himself inside the cabin to rest (he did have the flu, just not a life-threatening case of it) and avoid press – the same press who he insisted on inviting to make sure the whole spectacle was properly covered.
The ship ultimately arrived in Oslo, Norway on December 18th. Disagreements were still rampant about whether President Wilson was an idiot or a genius, Ford was still sick, and the Norwegians were not impressed with whatever mission was being undertaken. Presumably they didn’t care because a genuine war was taking place not far from their soil. Ford spent the first several days hiding out in his hotel suite before giving a terse press conference where he – somehow – avoided talking much about the Peace Ship at all.
Plot Twist
Prior to starting this whole ordeal, one of the driving forces of Ford’s ambition was that a Hungarian journalist named Rosika Schwimmer contacted him about ending the war. She claimed to have obtained correspondence among higher-ups that showed a willingness to negotiate peace in Europe. Schwimmer did not show Ford any proof of this, but she did enough to convince him to undertake everything you’ve read so far.
Upon arrival to Oslo, and upon spending more time with Schwimmer, it became clear to Henry Ford that she had made the whole thing up. There were no documents. There was no willingness to mediate. There was no talk of peace. There was just a Hungarian woman.
On December 23, Ford left his hotel in Oslo, took a train to Bergen, spent the night, and hopped on a steamer bound for New York on December 24. He lasted a grand total of five days in Norway and his entire adventure was over within a month of when it began.
The Peace Ship’s Mission Continued!
To the credit of… somebody, I guess, the Peace Ship continued to travel without its benefactor and leader. Ford continued to pay for the ship’s expenses and financed the Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, which started about six weeks after Ford bailed on the continent. The conference did all it could to foster talks of peace, but they simply couldn’t get any useful government personnel to attend or see their side of the story.
Good intentions can only take a ship so far, as it turns out, and despite half a million dollars of 1916 money, this ship could go no further. The US was poised to formally enter the war and Ford more or less abandoned talks of creating peace. The Peace Ship was done, and widely considered a huge failure.
Perhaps it wasn’t all for naught, however, as the folly produced at least two wonderful quotes. The first was Henry Ford himself saying that the Peace Ship wasn’t a failure because it “got people thinking, and when you get them to think they will think right.” This, of course, has been disproven by the ensuing 100+ years of life in America.
The second banger of a quote – the one that really brings it all home – is from former US Senator Chauncey Depew. When asked about the Peace Ship, he said, “In uselessness and absurdity it will stand without an equal.”