Following his years as president, Ford remained active in the Republican Party. Ford later told confidants that his father had first hit his mother when she smiled at another man during their honeymoon. While attending Yale Law School, Ford joined a group of students led by R. Douglas Stuart Jr., and signed a petition to enforce the 1939 Neutrality Act. Ford later told confidants that his father had first hit his mother when she smiled at another man during their honeymoon. While attending Yale Law School, Ford joined a group of students led by R. Douglas Stuart Jr., and signed a petition to enforce the 1939 Neutrality Act. The petition was circulated nationally and was the inspiration for the America First Committee, a group determined to keep the U.S. out of World War II. His introduction into politics was in the summer of 1940 when he worked for the Republican presidential campaign of Wendell Willkie (who was an interventionist vice an isolationist).