Henry Ford II, chairman of the Ford Motor Co., praised the United Jewish Appeal for demonstrating “the value of private, voluntary aid in meeting the needs of people outside our own national borders.” He spoke at the United Jewish Appeal Midwest Leadership Institute held here yesterday.
“Voluntary giving is more than an expression of compassion or a demonstration of democracy’s ideals,” he said. “It is a frame of mind that is essential to democracy itself. A people who are willing to turn all their problems over to government have lost the will to govern themselves.”
American business should stop being indecisive about its social responsibilities, Mr. Ford stated. “Decisiveness is the stamp of the successful businessman and I suggest that there be no further hesitancy about plunging our businesses wholeheartedly and unapologetically into the social and public stream. As I see it, there is no longer anything to reconcile between the social conscience and the profit motive.”
The Institute, the traditional springboard for the annual UJA national drive in the Midwest, also heard Max M. Fisher of Detroit, UJA general chairman; Israel’s Ambassador to Canada Gershon Avner; Rabbi Herbert A. Friedman, UJA executive vice-chairman; Charles H. Jordan, executive vice-chairman and director general of the Joint Distribution Committee; and Joseph Meyerhoff of Baltimore, chairman of the UJA’s Israel Education Fund. Leonard Laser of Chicago served as chairman of the Institute which was attended by 900 Jewish leaders from this area.
The Archive of the Jewish Telegraphic Agency includes articles published from 1923 to 2008. Archive stories reflect the journalistic standards and practices of the time they were published.
