A Ship for Peace

In the early afternoon of December 4, 1915, a crowd estimated at anywhere from 3,000 to 15,000 braved the brisk weather at a pier in Hoboken, New Jersey, in order to witness the sailing of the Scandinavian-American ship Oscar II. The ship was set for a scheduled ten-day trip across the Atlantic Ocean to Christiania (today Oslo), Norway.

As the ship prepared to leave, the crowd sang and cheered as bands played such rousing songs as “I Didn’t Raise My Boy to Be a Soldier” and “Onward, Christian Soldiers.” The biggest cheers, however, were reserved for the sponsor of this unusual adventure: famed automaker Henry Ford. The previous summer Ford had declared his willingness to devote his fortune to ending the fighting in Europe between the Allied Powers, led by Great Britain and France, and the Central Powers, dominated by Germany and Austria-Hungary.

Unable to discover any just reasons for the war, Ford believed that some nations “were anxious for peace and would welcome a demonstration for peace.” With the encouragement of Rosika Schwimmer, a Hungarian author, lecturer, and peace advocate, Ford had secured passage on the Oscar II for about sixty delegates in support of his mission. These delegates would attempt to halt the bloody trench warfare being fought with such deadly weapons as the machine gun and poison gas through the establishment of a neutral commission that would offer negotiation among the nations then at war.

Indiana educator and woman’s rights leader May Wright Sewall was one of the more than a hundred people, including such famous individuals as inventor Thomas Edison, reformer Jane Addams, and former president William Howard Taft to receive invitations from Ford to join him on the voyage. The first word of the trip came to Sewall in late November when she received a telegram from Ford, followed three days later by a letter in which the automobile maker spelled out in more detail his reasons for asking her to join him and others on the trip. “From the moment I realized that the world situation demands immediate action, if we do not want the war fire to spread any further,” Ford wrote, “I joined those international forces which are working toward ending this unparalleled catastrophe.”

In describing her fellow delegates for her friends in Indianapolis, Sewall agreed that no one had an “exalted position; not one bearing the stamp of worldwide recognition.” Through their work, however, Sewall said the delegates hoped to accomplish three goals: to secure the public’s attention, turning it from war to peace; to stimulate other private efforts and encourage workers to seek peace in every country; and confirm on all those involved their resolution to work for a permanent peace.

Before embarking on his peace crusade, Ford had met with President Woodrow Wilson to try to convince him to appoint an official neutral commission, which Ford was willing to back financially. Although noting he agreed in principle with the idea of mediation to stop the war, Wilson skillfully avoided endorsing Ford’s proposal.

Press reaction to Ford’s mission had been, at best, mixed. Some newspapers gave the automobile tycoon high marks for his good intentions, but most were skeptical about his chances at accomplishing his mission. The New York Evening Post boldly predicted that Ford’s plan would “be acclaimed by thoughtful hundreds of thousands the world over as a bit of American idealism in an hour when the rest of the world has gone mad over war and war preparedness.” Other newspapers were unstinting in their scorn, calling the effort “one of the cruelest jokes of the century” and “an impossible effort to establish an inopportune peace.”

When the Oscar II steamed away on December 4, it had onboard peace delegates described as “negligible” in standing by some observers. The group, however, included a respectable number with solid reputations, not only Sewall, but magazine publisher S. S. McClure, Reverend Jenkin Lloyd Jones, and Judge Ben Lindsey. Also on the ship were approximately 25 students representing institutions as diverse as Vassar, Princeton University, Purdue University, and the University of California at Berkley. There were also fifty members of the press, including reporters from United Press, the Associated Press, and the International News Service.

In assessing her fellow delegates for her friends in Indiana, Sewall acknowledged that no one in the party had an “exalted position; not one bearing the stamp of worldwide recognition.’ [I would argue she missed one person—herself.] She added, however, that none of the delegates were “hair-brained lunatics bent on a fool’s errand—but rather a company of clear-headed but simple-hearted men and women, with no illusions in regard to ourselves but with the faith that any one of us, much more all of us with God, constitutes a majority in the council where each next stop along the path of human progress is determined.”

Through their work, Sewall said the delegates hoped to accomplish three goals: to secure the public’s attention, diverting it from war to peace; to stimulate other private initiatives and encourage workers for peace in every country; and confirm on all involved their resolution to work for a permanent peace.

Once at sea, the delegates attempted to establish a regular routine. Each day at 11:00 a.m. the students met to learn more about the attempt to bring an end to the fighting in Europe. Each session opened with a talk by one of the delegates on a subject in which they were regarded as an expert. The delegates themselves listened to similar speakers daily at 4 p.m. and 8:30 p.m., becoming better acquainted with each other through such gatherings.

Sewall’s optimism and dedication to the peace process impressed other delegates. One of them, John D. Barry, an essayist, poet, and critic, said that in spite of Sewall’s age she proved to be one of the “most useful members of the party, keen, and quick of mind, bubbling over with information and observation, humorous, kindly and above all human.”

Ford’s goodwill to all on the voyage tamed the hearts of some of the cynical newspapermen. Florence Latimore of Survey magazine later related that a reporter had confided to her that his employers had told him to produce satirical articles about the trip, but after seeing Ford’s face he could not bring himself to follow their orders. Still another newsman told Latimore: “I came to make fun of the whole thing, but my editor is going to have the surprise of his life. I tell you I believe in Henry Ford and I’m going to say so even if I lose my job for it.”

Other reporters remained unconvinced and treated the voyage with derision. A London newspaperman even went as far to send a fake story about Ford being held prisoner in his cabin, chained to his bed by his staff. But when the Oscar II’s captain, J. W. Hempel, who reviewed all messages sent from the ship, took some of the more insulting stories to Ford, he responded kindly, telling Hempel: “Let them send anything they please. I want the boys to feel perfectly at home while they are with me. They are my guests. I wouldn’t for the world censor them.”

Legend has it that one delegate became so upset about what he viewed as an inaccurate report from Hoosier Elmer Davis, covering the voyage for the New York Times, that he called him “a snake in the Garden of Eden.” Davis responded by forming what he described by a Snakes in the Garden of Eden Club.

The real blowup came when the ship received a wireless report about a speech to Congress by Wilson calling for increased military preparedness. In trying to craft a response to the speech, sharp disagreements erupted among the delegates, with some calling for immediate disarmament and others arguing that countries should have the necessary means to defend themselves. Although the argument ended in a compromise, the incident prompted reporters to wire stories back to their newspapers about “mutiny” and “war” breaking out on the peace ship.

Early in the morning on December 18, the Oscar II docked in Christiania, Norway. Physically, Sewall said, Norway gave the delegates a cold welcome, as the weather was reportedly the chilliest in more than a hundred years. The peace expedition had barely had time to settle into its new setting when it received a bitter blow: Ford had decided to go home. Unable to shake the cold he had caught on the voyage, and encouraged to do so by his staff, Ford had decided to leave in time to catch a ship bound for America.

According to Louis P. Lochner, Ford’s private secretary, who had been “deeply shocked” by his boss’s appearance when he visited Ford in his hotel room, the automaker told him: “Guess I had better go home to mother [his wife Clara]. You’ve got this thing started now and can get along without me.” Lochner attempted to convince Ford to stay with the expedition, but failed.

Upon his return to America, Ford told the media he had not deserted the Peace Ship and offered no regrets for sponsoring the expedition. He noted that “the sentiment we have aroused by making the people think will shorten the war.” With Ford’s departure, the delegates turned for leadership to a committee. Policy matters were handled by Schwimmer and finances were the responsibility of Ford staff member Gaston Plantiff. (Ford is estimated to have spend a half-million dollars on the expedition, approximately $15.5 million today.)

The peace expedition spent a week in Stockholm, developing a regular schedule. Each morning at 10:00 a.m. the delegates met to discuss the day’s activities. From 11:30 a.m. to 1:00 p.m., the group hosted a reception at the hotel open to the public. The delegates had time to themselves until 4:00 p.m., when the expedition hosted a second public reception.

Sewall observed that visitors to the receptions seemed to fall into four categories: teachers, feminists, social reformers, and students. “I was particularly interested in the university students,” she said, “who, although it was their holiday week, called in great numbers. I was amazed by both the intelligence, and by the lively interest in serious subjects of these young people, whom I was mentally comparing with my young countrymen and countrywomen of student age to the distinct disadvantage of the latter.”

In order to reach the group’s final stop, the Netherlands, the delegates had to travel, via a sealed train, through German territory, a feat accomplished through the help of the American minister to Denmark. Once in the Netherlands, the group selected delegates for a proposed Neutral Conference for Continuous Mediation, which had its headquarters in Stockholm and worked to negotiate an end to the war.

With this final task completed, the delegates and students could finally return home. On January 15, 1916, the delegates left port aboard the SS Rotterdam for the voyage back to America (the students had left four days earlier on another ship).

For Sewall, the “spectacular pilgrimage” had been a success, as it had “concentrated the thought of the distracted world upon this hope with a force that assures its achievement.” She felt proud of the work done by her and her fellow delegates. “To have advanced its [peace’s] arrival by one hour,” Sewall said, “is adequate compensation for the cost in money, time and sacrifices of the Expedition if multiplied a thousandfold.”

Sewall’s view was shared in part by one of the reporters aboard the Oscar II, Elmer Davis. Although he considered the trip a “crazy enterprise,” Davis, looking back on the voyage in an essay published in 1939 as Europe seemed on the brink of another war, said that any effort, “however visionary and inadequate, to stop a war that was wrecking Europe, appears in retrospect a little less crazy than most of the other purposes that were prevalent in Europe in 1916.”