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388 MARINE the war all along the entire shipbuilding route. _ We should have started selling the ships im- "mediately when the price was good instead of hag- gling about the world market price. _ Every day since we should have been selling. Today we should be selling and if the ships can't be sold or given away, we should sink them and end the terrific financial strain of trying to operate or care for the idle vessels. When the armistice came, we had completed 553 ships. Effective cancellation at that time would have ended the program with. not more than 750 ships. Instead we went merrily along with our "balancing" plans, until we have completed 1539 ships over and above the 750 actually constructed in the war period. And with 1539 excess ships built under a criminal policy of winning a war already ended, we now have 1020 vessels laid up in idleness because of fio market, and no ability to find aematkets © . | What rebuttal can be found to the plan to sell or sink? The wooden boats cost $135,000 a month to keep in idleness. | With present losses put by Chairman Lasker at $300,000,000, a year he needs $125,000,000 more to keep the shipping board alive till the end of 1921. REVIEW September, 1921 And he calls this estimate a "competent incompetent guess." During the past year, the board spent $680,000,000 and the new. board can do little during the next year to cut down that colossal expenditure unless it wipes the slate clean of the main cost--the ships. Operations show a net loss according to shipping board bookkeeping standards of $10,000,000 a month; repairs add in another $2,000,000 monthly loss. ae When a government touches a private industry, the contact is leprous. The only cure is to remove the cause of infection before the whole system is poisoned. For the salvation of American shipping, now and in the future--for the protection of all American industries--for the sake of all American citizens, the government should get out of all business. Trying to patch up the present crazy quilt will not. do it. To help the government save many millions of dollars now being lost by deterioration and upkeep every month-- To help reduce our national budget and the tax- payers' burden-- Sei OR SINK THE SHIPS. Lasker Proves Board Control Ruinous ' HIS has been a very difficult thing to ascertain, The books are in deplorable condition. In any commercial institution they would not be called books at all. They were started in the stress of war and con- tinued in the stress of incompetency 'until Mr. Tweedale and the others are now trying to straighten them out. Any of our great corporations would have been -in receivers' hands long ago had its books been kept as those of this organization have been and are kept and the operations of the fleet necessarily must be just as incom- petent as the books could be in existence and be turned @ver 10 men to administer in the shape it is. Had the books been kept with a view to cheating and de- ceiving congress and the country, they could not have been kept in . much different shape than they have been and I measure the words I am using. It has almost worn me out physically and mentally to get anything from the books that could be regarded as com- plete. Last public 000,000, year, nominally out of the treasury, approximately $100,- actually authorized by con- gress, was expended on the shipping board. This sum represented the to- tal of appropriations. One might de- duce from this that only a hundred million was used by the board dur- ing last year. When I showed to the President the actual figures, he was shocked and dis- mayed that such a condition could exist. The board used in the last -fiscal year approximately $380,000,000.. Be- sides the $100,000,000 appropriated by congress, and $80,000,000 on hand at the beginning of the fiscal year, it sold assets for $200,000,000 all of which money went back into the enterprise. are because it is impossible to op- erate any business if there isn't a fig- ure on which re- > mote reliance can 3. be placed. In the presence | «of. .-the 1. Appropriated by congress................ Treasury credit on July 1, 1920 Received from sale of ships and other capital assets Sub total ... 4. Received from operation of ships Cee ee eer ee seee How the $680,000,000 Was Spent RECEIPTS tne $100,000,000 +a ce 80,000,000 Chee. oe 200,000,000 oes $380,000,000 Sse $300,000,000 eo eeee Peso ee er epeerreercece Seer eee sere see sree ere rece ees eeeeee ee eee ee er oases COMP Ceo ee errcece ree erro n erro eee cne Cee e errr e ee eee rene rer eee eee ee eeee Then in addition it received from op- eration of vessels, $300,000,000, which was also spent, thus making a total expenditure men who have had Otte ca ee EXPENDITURES MaTAN GS MERC G oc 60k. 6 6) a aualwieie 60s $680,000,000 by the shipping charge of the, Operating and general overhead expenses... .. oo. 3 ecco cocccccnncecccecn $409,000,000 board of $680,000,- eke foe 15 New ship BOM ee ook oof ovoe oo ooo ko ahccg cn 160,000,000 ; Construction of dry docks, marine railroads and vessel equipment. ... 0... 6,000,000 000. This $300,- months, I want to Miscellaneous inventory supplies (fuel, etc.).........+.--+seeeee. ec ce elle. 18,000,000 ; d a. : Advances to foreign branches and advances to receivers..................., 15,000,000 000,000 receive say it is inconceiv- ee ee a 72,000,000 from _ operations able that an insti- vot cen s caccccucccceccus $680,000,000 when _ deducted tution like this from the $680,000,- i i a oh