Richmond Palladium (Daily), Volume 43, Number 253, 4 September 1918 — Page 3

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. hwt BUILDING OF OUR MERCHANT MARINE A WONDER TALE America Aroused to the Fact That the War First, Last and All the Time, Is a Question of Ships and Yet More Ships. NOW GOING OVERBOARD AT UNPRECEDENTED RATE roblem of Hurley and Schwab Is to Carry Our Armies to the Battle Lines, Keep Them Supplied With Food and Munitions, to Bring Back Our Victorious Legions After the War and Then Carry Our Exports to the Markets of the World and Bring in the Imports We Need. From Maine to Florida, from the' Great Lakes to the Gulf, from California to Washington, they are sliding down the ways, the vessels of this great new merchant marine upon whose construction nearly a half million shipbuilders are toiling, artisans who are not only giving their skill, but in many plants are devoting their unremunerated holidays to the task of getting afloat the largest number of ships in the shortest time. They know the need of haste. Urged on by Chairman Hurley of the Shipping PoH and his strong arm, Charles M. Schwab, Director General of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, they know ' that ships mean fighting power; they know that the Allies are drawing their strength from the sea, that in the last analysis the military problem is a tonnage problem, that for us and our Allies the war now is first, last and all the time a question of ships, and yet more ships. It was not until we were well Into the war that we awoky to the fact tliyt we could get nowhere without chips. Ami it was only a year and n month ago that the present Shipping Board was formed. At that time there was not a shipyard In which the newly constituted body could place an order. Today Chairman Hurley counts 102 yards with 828 ways engaged hi turning out ships for the needs of war. and with nn unusual vision that looks far Into the future he is also making provision for the needs of peace when this war is done. Fleet Will Win War. This broad view contemplates n program which will carry all of our nrmies to the hattle lines, keep (Ik'Iii supplied with food and munitions until the war Is nun, bring hack our victorious legions ami I lien carry our exports to the markets of the world nnd hriug in the Imports we need ; in a word, this new licet w are building will Insure the winning of the war and will then regain for us oui long lost place upon the sea. To show how far we have progressed from that August of a year 4-go, when save for the vessels that wrp being built for the nay and smder foreign contract our ship conir'K;'Jon was practically at a standr!!;. It need only be said that since Men we have completed nnd put Iu:o service 252 ships, aggregating

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.S.AURORA more than n million and a half deadweight tons, of the seagoing type, which is nearly three times as much as we had constructed during the three preceding years. To Illustrate the progressively increasing speed it is shown that, while February's launchings exceeded January's by only 57.300 tons, July's exceeded June's y 348,022 tons, the July launchings being 031,014 tons. In July alone we built 445,244 fnore tons than were constructed during the entire year ending Jn July. 1015. During the first seven months of this year we delivered 840.SSG more tons of shipping than was built in American shipyards in the years 1913 and 1010. Coon to Launch a Ship a Day. So much for accomplishment and Its augury for rapidly increasing production ns the yards get into their full stride. In one yard alone, the Hog Island, from which the first launching was made on August 5, there will he. when the yard is running at its full capacity, fifty vessels under const! uction at one time, with twenty-eight more in process of completion alongside Its 14,()Oo feet of outfitting docks. In a short time this yard will be launching a ship every day. The United States Is not only now building more ships than any other country in the world for that matter more than all the other countries of the world put together hut building them faster than the most visionary theorist conceived a year ago to be possible. The 5,500 ton collier Tuckahoe was completed In precisely 37 days. In pre-war days the contract for .he construction of a vessel of this size would have specified not less than a year. The other day the Great Lakes Engineering Works at Ecorse. Michigan, launched a 3.50U ton freighter In only 14 working days from date of keel laying. And out on the Pacific Coast the 12,000 ton Invincible was launched at the Bethlehem Union plant in only 24 working days after keel laying. Naturally the- first need of ships Is to defeat the Kaiser. Looking beyond that Chairman Hurley says : If 25.000,000 tons of American shipping can be kept busy in our own export pnd Import trade, then the development of a delivery service for other countries will keep

THE RICHMOND PALLADIUM AND SUN-TELEGRAM. WEDNESDAY, SEPT. 4,

1 m.mm-. 30,000,000 to 35,000,000 tons of American shipping employed. That is the tonnage which I estimate will be needed by the United Stales after the war." The surplus output of the American shipbuilding industry will be for export, like automobiles, sewing machines and agricultural implements and other important manufactures. Use For Ships After War. A comprehensive study of ocean commerce and its requirements lias been under way for several imtnths by the Shipping Hoard, and already many plans have been formulated by Chairman Hurley and his associates for placing in post war trades American made ships where they may most effectively serve this country and the rest of the world. It is taken for granted that no matter how many shijis may be built the transportational facilities on the seas, like those on land, will always be taxed to full capacity. Chairman Hurley's estimates of the ship tonnage that will be required after the war by the foreign ami domestic commerce of the Um'ted States have been calculated with a thoroughness approximating the precise computations given to the ship requirements for the military line of supplies to France. The studies undertaken to ascertain the estimates cover, perhaps for the first time certainly for the first time in American maritime history in scientific relation to cargo space and actual ship performances the great trades of the world down to the last detail. The Shipping Board lias set out not only to provide ships for the war and after but to Inform itself accurately and fully about the uses of and for them. The United States Is now the great reservoir from which supplies must be drawn. The enormous gain In our exports show how other uations are Increasingly looking to us to sustain them. In 1914 we exported about $2,500,000,000 worth of products. Last year our exports amounted to $6,231,000,000 or near-

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ly three times ns much ns In 1101. Of the more than six billions dollars' wortii of products exported from this country last year. $1,300,00O.IXH) were fodstuffs and food animals. Furthermore, our exports of foods to Europe are all the greater because of the saving in consumption of various foods the American people have been making. Although our exports may occasionally decline, still on the whole there is every probability of their Increasing. Not only during the war but after the war. Large areas of Europe are depopulated and devastated. Much of the rich wheatgrowing sections, including almost all of the winter-wheat producing areas of Russia, are in the Germans' possession. Conditions in Russia are chaotic. The western European Allies produced in 1917 about 222.00O.osm bushels less than the annual pre-war average. There was a great drop also in the wheat production of other European countries. Argentina. Australia and India are producing good crops. But there is no shipping to move It properly. Being thousands of miles nearer the scene, the United States is the one country looked upon for succor. While the war is on there is a big enough demand from our Allies in Europe for material of all kinds. We have to supply coal, steel, oil. cotton, lumber, rails, locomotives and a great quantity of other products. After the war when the job of rehabilitating Europe is put through, the demand upon this country for raw and manufactured material of all kinds will be enormous. We shall also have to replenish the depleted herds of Europe from our own cattle. So it is clear that besides the millions of tons of shipping urgently needed for the army and navy, we shall need a great permanent merchant marine. In 1914 only $100,000,000 of the more than $2,000,000,000 of our exports was carried in American vessels. Even now a great part of the cargo and passenger ships we are nsing are seized enemy vessels or requisitioned oi

chartered allied or neutral vessels. Cargo Carriers Run on Schedule. The fleet which is now under the control of the Shipping Board numbers 1.500 vessels. Over them is exercised an authority absolute as that which controls the movement of navy ships. The business of handling these ships efficiently and of having them where they should be, and at the time when they should be there, is a big undertaking. But it is being successfully accomplished and our cargo carriers now run on a schedule almost as definite as that of ocean liners before the war came to interrupt. Months ago Chairman Hurley saw the urgent necessity of a body of expert sea-strategists to administer oui merchant ships efficiently. The result of that decision was the creation, jointly by the United States Shipping Board and the Secretary of War, of the Shipping Control Committee. So this Committee came forthwith into dynamic reality, to become at once the biggest ship operator Jn the world. In previous wars military and naval strategists were thought the only necessary kinds. But this great world war has brought forth a new, distinctive kind of strategy to collaborate with the other two. In fact, were this modern strategy lacking, military ami naval strategy would be deprived of one great backing force indispensable to victory. . Of war colleges and general stalls much has been heard. But of America's commercial strategists of the seas little or nothing lias been said. Even if the name under which they operate the Shipping Control Committee of the United States Shipping Board Is mentioned, it lias so technical a sound that it conveys no popular meaning of the far-reaching results they are contributing to the war's success by their dextrous handling of the huge merchant fleets under the American flag. Able Men Direct Ships' Movements. At the head of this committee is P. A. S. Franklin, President of the International Mercantile Marine. Associated with him are two other experts, H. H. Haymond, president of the Clyde and Ma I lory steamship lines, and Sir Connap Guthrie, special representative of the British Ministry of Shipping in the United "fates. This committee has a corps of as

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sistants, experts who are familiar with the ocean trade routes of the world, and now for the first time in the history of navigation the whole of the terraqueous globe is being used as a chessboard. Charts prepared by another Important bureau, that of the Division of Planning and Statistics, presided over by Dean E. F. Gay, serve to guide the Shipping Control Committee in the assignment and direction of ships in the various trades listed as essential, and in which the requirements have been definitely fixed by the War Industries Board. If the charts show, for example, that the country is ahead on certain imports, like sugar or bananas or cocoa, the Shipping Control Committee can perceive those facts in a few moments and with equal celerity know how much tonnage it may take from those trades temporarily and put to work bringing in other essential commodities in which the movement may be behind the schedule of requirements. By juxtaposition" of requirements against deliveries the charts also show the Shipping Control Committee when any vessels may be spared from this or that commercial trade and released to the army. There are 2S trade regions on the Shipping Board's trade map of the world. A special staff of expert economists in the Shipping Board co-ordinates with the War Industries ami War Trade Boards, the Department f Commerce, the State Department find other branches of the government and through them wi'.h foreign governments in ascertaining and analysing exhaustively the shipping needs, past, present ami prospective, for these trade regions. So. now it becomes possible to determine with approximate precision t he future tonnage requirements, for specific example, of the South American trade. That rich continent, all authorities are agreed, will, after tne war. Inspire the greatest of ail commercial competitions among the nations requiring her indispensable raw materials and her market, for their surplus products. The Shipping Board, charged with the duty not only of developing the greatest manufacturing industry In the world, but handling ltsproduct. Is adequately Informed at the present moment how to estimate the prospective

shipping requirements for com

merce with South America. The' United States will be prepared to furnish that commerce with an ocean delivery service of 10,000,000 deadweight tons. ' The installation recently of a direct steamship line between New York and Chile and on the fastest time schedule ever known In the trade with the west coast of South America is a forerunner of the kind of service the Shipping Board plans to give from Its fleet. Great International Delivery Service "We are rap:dly building the mechanical equipment for regular steamship lines all over the world,'' to quote Chairman Hurley again. "The fast troop ship can be convened for combined passenger and cargo service and placed on regular lines, reaching the whole of Central America, South America, the Pacific and the British colonies. W shall undoubtedly have our own lines to Great Britain, European and Mediterranean ports. Our refrigerator ships, now carrying meat and dairy products to feed the allies, will carry meat, fruit, bufter, eggs and perishables to other coun tries. Our cargo ships can be organized on the triangular system, which has made British and German shipping profitable. "To keep this great new merchant marine busy we must have a radical change In American business thinking. Every manufacturer ami trailer in the United States, every banker, farmer, miner and consumer, must begin to think now about American merchant ships as n gre:it international delivery service. N longer must we be cc-itent to let our railroads stop at the ct-:in. They must be extended to reach clear around the globe." There Is another problem, that of manning the vessels when they re completed. When one of this v:it fleet of ships takes the water the time can be measured in weeks to her first voyage. With hundreds of these maiden voyages at hand, the question of crews becomes the next great consideration in the program of bridging the Atlantic with American vessels. But the work of preparing the vast fleet for sea service has been no more left to chance than the building itself. For more than a year the Shipping Board lias been organizing a training system by which skilled Americans, sailors and engineers, could he trained to serve as officers on merchant ships, and novices, from factory and farm, could be given their first steps toward service on deck and in engine room in the crews of those ships. Training 3,000 Men a Month. Through this system the Shipping Board is providing young, patriotic. ardent Americans at the rate of more than 3.000 men a month for service on the ships that Hurley and Schwab build. A squadron of training ships is maintained on the Atlantic, with a base at Boston, to drill these seagoing patriots; another on the Pa cific, with bases at San Francisco ami Seattle, and a ship has been authorized by the Board for both the Gulf and the Great Lakes, to ba based at New Orleans and Cleveland respectively. In referring recently n the train ing system of the Shipping Board, Chairman Hurley stated that It was the ambition of himself and his col leagues to place "100 per cent. American" crews on the new vessels tamed out for the Natioual fleet. "There was a time," he said, "not so very remote, when many people thought we were no longer a sea going people; that our glory on the seas departed with the square riggers. Those people were wrong. We are a seagoing people. More than 7,000 experienced men have been licensed as merchant officers since we went Into the war. iovr from every state In the Union young men are coming forward through the recruiting service of the United States Shipping Board and offering themselves for service in the crews of our new American ships.

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