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November, 1914 upon the Atlantic under the American flag. We would have one-half that number or more upon the Pacific. 'These could have at once brought all American citizens in Europe. They would have saved this nation millions of dollars already lost in trade. They would be ready to serve us in time of war and we would not be placed in the perilous condi- tion that we are today with our troops in Mexico and our transports being used to bring civilians from Europe back to this country. If this law had gone upon the statute books it would have. saved..us all, this. loss,..and: it would have saved us the humiliation of having advertised to the world our ignorance, our weakness and our neg- ject. But those who shouted sidy" loudest and who posed as great patriots in fighting these bills are now standing before the country as the demonstrated enemies of the nation's hest interest and as the unconscious helpers of the great foreign steam- ship combine that has lived and fat- tened at the expense of the American people. vessels home I well remember that a distinguished Democrat, then the leader of the Dem- ocratic minority in the House, now a member of another body, replied to my plea for a merchant marine in the speech to which I have referred, that it was one of the most eloquent ap- peals for the American ship owner to get his hand into the national treasury that he had ever heard. This same gentleman today, now that the conditions have come upon us_ that I predicted would come, is frantic to throw open the doors of the national treasury to help cotton growers of the south: «Hesand his party are willing to spend millions now to se- cure a lot of foreign second-class ships, built by foreign cheap labor, to relieve them in this emergency, but they were unwilling then to spend anything to secure first-class ships built in American yards by American labor. For the first time in 25 years the subsidy cry of the demagogue 1s stilled in the presence of this great national emergency. The Democratic party that has so long denounced subsidy once more repudiates its plat- form and now passes a bill that con- tains a direct subsidy provision. Not only does this bill, passed by a Demo- cratic Congress and signed by a Dem- ocratic President, propose to pay 4 direct ship subsidy, but it is proposed to pay this subsidy directly out of the national treasury to foreign built ships. This is a subsidy proposition that the Republican party never ad- vocated. The Republican party has advocated "stibs & THE MARINE REVIEW a ship subsidy, but only that it be paid to American ships. Of all subsidy provisions that have ever been writ- ten upon our statute books this pro- vision of this Democratic law is the most indefensible. They have gone from one extreme to the other. From denouncing the proposal to pay a subsidy to American ships built in American yards they now favor pay- ing a subsidy to foreign-built ships built by foreign cheap labor. Everything Subsidized Except Shipping Of all popular cries that ever went up in this country for political purposes only this cry of "subsidy" was the most hypocritical and cowardly. It deceived a great portion of the Amer- ican people, and this fight against a so-called subsidy was largely created and greatly fostered through that por- tion of the American press that re- ceived a subsidy amounting to millions annually, paid in the shape of adver- tising by the giant foreign steamship combine. These advertisements were often accompanied by prepared edito- rials and press notices pointing out the great evil of Americans doing any- thing to build up our own shipping. These editorials constantly denounced "subsidy", and declared that it was to the great advantage of the Amer- ican people to have their commerce carried under a foreign flag: Think of the good faith and patriotism of publications of this character taking advertisements and receiving cash for them, and publishing these furnished attacks upon shipping legislation! Talk of being reformers or friends of the people! Think of the good faith and patriotism of the publishers, and especially of the magazines in this country that denounce subsidy, when the publishers in this nation receive a direct subsidy from the national treasury of more than $63,000,000 each year! This $63,000,000 is paid to these publishers "to make profitable an un- profitable business". It is paid out of the treasury of the United States by the people directly to these pub- lishers. The periodicals in this nation would want to start a revolution in this country if any other industry was so favored and subsidized as theirs. It is rather a discouraging lesson in patriotism to take up one of these periodicals during the last 10 years and see its great advertisements of foreign steamships for which millions of dollars were paid, and then re- member the giving of millions of dol- lars out of the treasury to keep in circulation these periodicals, and then read on its editorial page an inspired article by these "holier than thou" publishers about the iniquity of the government giving a subsidy to build up our merchant marine. 417 There never was any sincerity in this "subsidy" cry in practice in Con- gress or out of it. We subsidize everything in this country except our shipping. We subsidize agriculture more than $20,000,000 annually. We subsidize mining. We subsidize our rivers and harbors more than $50,000,- 000 annually, largely to accommodate foreign ships. We voted a subsidy to kill the cotton-boll weevil, to kill the cattle tick and the gypsy moth and for ten thousand other purposes. We subsidize everything on land and why? Because on land a specific part of every subsidy is spent in somebody's district, or directly benefits some one in some one's district. For 12 years I have been a member of Congress, and I challenge any man --Democrat, Republic or nondescript-- to show that he ever voted against any subsidy of any kind or character, great or small, that was to be expend- ed in his own district. You may search the records in vain and you will find no such exalted individual in either the House or the Senate. Here is the solution of the oppo- sition to a ship subsidy: No part of it would be expended directly in the district of the man who voted against it. But today conditions have changed and many of these patriotic gentlemen now believe that the money that they would take out of the treasury to se- cure foreign ships will directly benefit their district, and, of. course, they are in favor of it. And those who have formerly denounced it the loudest are now the most clamorous for a bill of this character. There will be no great American merchant marine built up under a Democratic administration. The Dem- ocratic party is irrevocably committed against any remedy that would be ef- fective. The Democratic party is hope- lessly committed to that sweet human delusion that you can "get something for nothing". The Democratic party is always wedded to something free. Free ships, free trade, free silver is the trinity of their deluded faith. For years they met every attempt to help American shipping by denouncing it as "subsidy" and declaring that the one thing necessary was free ships. They wailed about an imaginary shipping trust and insisted that if only the American citizen was permitted to go abroad and buy his ships that these foreign-built vessels under the American flag would soon crowd the seas. It was utterly useless to call their. .attention to. the facts. On the floor of the House I called attention to the utter absurdity of such claims. I pointed out that it was not the cost of the ship but the cost of operating the shipping that