DETROIT, Mich., Oct. 30.—Henry Ford, while paying compliments to Mayor Smith today, hit out at the “the American epidemic of organizations” engaged in church-baiting or interfering in devious ways with “the peaceable, progressive life of the race.”

“I'm not mentioning the Klan or the Mesons or the Knights of Columbus, but I'm including all of them,” he said. “A majority of the organizations thriving in the United States today are breeding spots or trouble that easily may enlarge into another war.”

Mr. Ford was referring particularly to organizations “which directly or indirectly seek to undermine any church,” and he declared that, “people who fight against religion haven't much religion to fight about.”

“Half of the ministers forgot their spiritual faction,” he said; “during the war they became simply mouthpieces for some organization at their elbow. Organizations stampeded the United States into war. Organizations will stampede us into another war again if we allow them to keep on. Man has yet to learn, apparently, how much farther he can go when he travels afoot, alone and across lots.”

Going back to the subject of “organizations,” Mr. Ford said:

“What does the fellow get out of it who goes into such organizations? I'll tell you. He gets led into trouble. We've had trouble right in our own plant. We employ a few men of this or some other fraternity, and before we are aware of it they have brought in more of their friends who wear their buttons, know their secret handshakes, have their secret passwords. They organize themselves into a troublesome clique. Well, we find this out eventually and we break it up. But we no sooner get one line broken up than another forms.

“Somebody organized England for war,” Mr. Ford commented, “and today 10,000,000 men who walked with eyes shut in that war organization are paupers in the most shameful dole system in history. I am surprised that so many men could fall so low in self-pride as to accept such a system. That's socialism at its worst.”

Mr. Ford said he knew nothing of the Ku Klux Klan, but continued, “I'll say this, most of these movements are organized by Wall Street, just as coal strikes are. They are comprised of hare-brained people who only lose the fee they pay for membership. I don't care which side of the question they take, they have no place in America. That goes for labor unions, too; they also are organized and used by Wall Street. But I repeat this: No person ever went in the door of any church and came out the worse for it. People who fight about religion haven't enough religion to fight about.”