Jasper County Democrat, Volume 21, Number 91, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 February 1919 — America's Need of a Merchant Marine During die Transition Period [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

America's Need of a Merchant Marine During die Transition Period

By CHARLES M. SCHWAB

We may construct one hundred million tons of ships, but they will have no value to this great nation of ours unless we do what ia more important than the construction of Bhipe, and that is to devise the ways and means for their operation. A great merchant marine is essential to the United States. Its successful operation is not for the benefit of any one man or class of men, or for any one branch of business, but it is for the good of every individual citizen of the United States. I do not care what plan, in the opinion of our great legislators at Washington, may be best

for the operation of these ships, so long as they are operated economically and so long as the expense of operation is not borne by any one or few but by the whole people. No American shipbuilding can be profitable or successful or enlist private capital today as shipping is now operated. I do not care in what form the people pay the bill. If the government operates the ships themselves and operates them at a loss, the people pay the bill. If the ships are operated by private concerns and a loss accrues that is made up in some form of subsidy, the people pay the bill. Ido not hesitate to say, however—not as a politician, because in that I have never had any part —that the real development of any great enterprise depends on the individual initiative of the American business man. I do not believe that we will ever get the full economical development of any great branch of American industry that is not developed under private enterprise and by private capital. Our great outlet for all manufactures must be foreign markets. _ How are we going to get into the foreign markets? The shipyards of the United States during the year 1919 are capable of producing with ease and economically between eight million and ten million tons of ocean shipping. The total ocean tonnage which the United States will possess at the end of that period will, if properly and economically operated, furnish a merchant marine that should make our industries secure in this transition period.