hering
the momentum which since has enabled it to overcome, with a bewildering
rapidity, many evils previously held by superstition to be ineradicable.
As a corollary to our democratic creed, we accepted the dictum that to
human intelligence all things are possible. The virtue of this dictum
lies not in dogma, but in an indomitable attitude of mind to which the
world owes its every advance in civilization; quixotic, perhaps, but
necessary to great accomplishment. In searching for a present-day
protagonist, no happier example could be found than Mr. Henry Ford, who
exhibits the characteristic American mixture of the practical and the
ideal. He introduces into industry humanitarian practices that even
tend to increase the vast fortune which by his own efforts he has
accumulated. He sees that democratic peoples do not desire to go to
war, he does not believe that war is necessary and inevitable, he lays
himself open to ridicule by financing a Peace Mission. Circumstances
force him to abandon his project, but he is not for one moment
discouraged. His intention remains. He throws all his energy and wealth
into a war to end war, and the value of his contribution is inestimable.

A study of Mr. Ford's mental processes and acts illustrates the true
mind of America. In the autumn of 1916 Mr. Wilson declared that "the
people of the United States want to be sure what they are fighting
about, and they want to be sure that they are fighting for the things
that will bring the world justice and peace. Define the elements; let
us know that we are not fighting for the prevalence of this nation over
that, for the ambitions of this group of nations as compared with the
ambitions of that group of nations, let us once be convinced that we are
called in to a great combination for the rights of mankind, and America
will unite her force and spill her blood for the great things she has
always believed in and followed."

"America is always ready to fight for the things which are American."
Even in these sombre days that mark the anniversary of our entrance into
the war. But let it be remembered that it was in the darkest days of the
Civil War Abraham Lincoln boldly proclaimed the democratic, idealistic
issue of that struggle. The Russian Revolution, which we must seek
to understand and not condemn, the Allied defeats that are its
consequences, can only make our purpose the firmer to put forth all our
strength for the building up of a better wor