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Our Need of Ships What it is Costing This Country to be Without an Adequate Merchant Marine aL alarming condition in which we find ourselves today because we have no merchant marine is entirely due to our own in- excusable neglect. Those today who are most frantic in appeals for help are' most to blame for our present situation. raiser of the south and the corn grower of the middle west that has prevented us today from having a merchant marine in this time of great stress to carry our foreign commerce and to bring home -American citizens now stranded in Europe. While we today regret this calamity that causes all to suffer, yet, in the fact that the farmer of the south and middle west is hardest hit there is a sort of retri- butive justice. The condition that has come upon us was a danger that was perfectly apparent to any one who has studied that question. I make no claim to be either a prophet or a statesman, but I have given some study to the shipping question. For a decade I have been trying to arouse the Congress and the country to our danger of being without ships to carry our foreign commerce. In a speech made on the floor of the House on Feb. 27, 1907, I used this language: Excerpt from Speech The pride, the patriotism, the honor and the safety of the Re- public imperatively demand that whatever the cost may be, no power shall drive our flag from the sea. : Our foreign commerce is to- day almost completely in con- trol of foreign nations. We are almost entirely dependent upon foreign ships to reach foreign markets. Most of the many mil- lion dollars' worth of products that go abroad each year must depend on a foreign flag to reach their purchaser. What would be our condition today if one of the leading shipping nations should become involved in war, or, worse still, if two such countries should go to war with each other and should withdraw from our carry- ing tradé, as they would, for war purposes the vessels now engaged *From the Railway and Marine News, Seattle, Wash. It has been the cotton in carrying American commerce? We can get some estimate of what would follow such a war by studying the results of Eng- land's contest with the Boers; and, strange as it may seem, the interest first and worst hurt was not the shipper, nor the import- er, nor the exporter, nor the manufacturer, but it was the farmer. The farmer discovered then that he was interested in shipping. England withdrew her best ships immediately and sub- stituted old, slower and inferior vessels to carry our trade. Not only were inferior vessels sub- stituted, but freight rates were immediately increased more than 30 per cent. From some ports on the Pacific coast freights were increased more than 150 per cent. On the Pacific the farmers had the price of their wheat re- duced 25 cents per bushel, be- cause of the increased price charged for foreign charters. England levied tribute upon the darmers.61 the Pacific coast. to pay the expense of the Boer War. She compelled every farm- er in America to contribute for that purpose. If such damage could come from a- war so insignificant, with our policy of each year more and more placing our commerce in the absolute control of for- eign ships, what would be the results that would follow in case of a war between England and Germany, or between either of them and another first-class power? Our foreign commerce would be destroyed, our vast over-sea commerce would be paralyzed, our crops would rot unharvested in the fields. Indus- trially this nation would suffer all: the worrors of war... The probability of such a war, of such conditions arising is much greater than is the. probability of our ever having any use for the magnificent navy we are constructing. While we most willingly spend millions each year for our navy to protect our commerce, we are unwilling to spend anything to prevent its By W. E. Humphrey destruction by conditions more likely to arise at any time when our navy would be entirely use- less. We are willing to spend millions to protect our commerce in time of war, but refuse to spend anything to protect it in the more perilous times of peace. Cost to Us of the War And what was the response to this appeal? What was the answer made to those who pointed out the pending danger to our country that is now wpon us? The only reply was "sub- sidy". Yet we have already lost more money that it would have taken to subsidize a merchant marine sufficient to carry our commerce for a quarter of a century, to say nothing of our lost trade and prestige. We are now daily expecting to be called upon to raise a hundred million dollars by war taxes--a war tax brought upon us in times of peace simply because we did not have the intelligence and patriotism to prepare for what could be plainly foreseen. This refusal to do anything for our merchant marine has been principally due to the fact that some gentlemen in order to keep in public place constantly cried out that they were against a "subsidy". If this European war lasts a year, it will cost this nation ten times more than it would have cost us to build up the greatest merchant marine that ever floated and maintain it for half a century. Let it not be forgotten that the only ships that are today under the American flag running across the Atlantic ocean are subsi- dized ships; that they are running to- day only because a Republican Con- gress had the wisdom and patriotism to place upon the statute books the subsidy act of 1891, an act that has been constantly condemned and de- nounced by those so-called patriots that have opposed our building a mer- chant marine. But where is the man today who would strike down this subsidy act-of 1891? Where is the man in America today who regrets that it is upon our statute books? If the bill that was filibustered to death in the Senate by two southern Democrats in 1907 had gone' upon the statute books we would today have 50 or more great modern steamships ba A a AB as