And Henry Ford, reading the papers, listening to the talk of the men in the streets, saw the object lesson of his great organization disregarded. He heard again the objection which had met every step of his life. "It is a good idea, but it is theoretical. It is not practical. It will not work. Things never have done that way." He saw this country, already wasting incalculable human energy, destroying innumerable lives daily, because of a "practical" system of organization, preparing to drain off still more energy, still greater wealth, in preparation for a still more terrible waste. The dearest principle of his life, the principle whose truth he had proven through a life of hard work, was in danger of being swept away and forgotten. CHAPTER XXX THE BEST PREPAREDNESS Henry Ford saw that the meaning of his work was about to be lost. He was in for the greatest fight of his life. He counted his resources. The mammoth factory was still running to capacity, the farm tractors, which would mean so much in increased production of food, in greater comforts for millions of farmers, were almost ready to be put on the market. His plan for profit-sharing with the buyers of his cars had recently been announced. Three hundred thousand men in this country would have, during 1915, an actual proof in dollars and cents of the practical value of coöperation, of Ford's principle that "helping the other fellow will help you." Those men would share with him the profit which would add still more millions to his credit. Ford had these things; he had also a tremendous fortune at his command. He cast about for ways of using that fortune in this fight, and again the uselessness of money was impressed upon him. "Money is of no real value whatever," he says. "What can I do with it now? I cannot pay a man enough to make him change his real opinions. The only real resource this country has now is the intelligence of our people. They must think right, they must know the true principles on which to build a great, strong nation. "They must hold firm to the big, true things, and realize--some way they must be MADE to realize--that they are practical, that ideals are the only practical things in this world. "It is to everybody's interest to do right. Not in the next world, nor in a spiritual way only, but in good, hard dollars-and-cents business value. "Let's be practical. Suppose we do prepare for war? Suppose we do take the energies of our young men and spend them in training for war. Our country needs the whole energy of every man in productive work, work that will make more food, more clothing, better houses. But suppose we turn that energy from real uses, train it to destroy, instead of to create? Suppose we have half a million young men ready to fight? What weapons shall we give them?