The following text may have been generated by Optical Character Recognition, with varying degrees of accuracy. Reader beware!

DEVOTED TO NAVIGATION, COMMERCE, ENGINEERING AND SCIENCE. ESTABLISHED 1878. PusLisHED Every THURSDAY BY THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO. Incorporated. OPT RUSRIN cis sos cise ra hiek « veweelyoeuees Manager Capt. JoHN SWAINSON........0--2-000> Abie editor CLEVELAND, CHICAGO. Vestern Reserve Building. Royal Insurance Building. SUBSCRIPTION. One copy, one vear, postage paid........... eases se p2,00 One copy, one year, to foreign countries..........-.. $3.00 Invariably in advance. ADVERTISING. Rates given on application. Sere: Pose ae ag pe ee - All communications shoui. be addressed to the Cleveland office, THE MARINE RECORD PUBLISHING CO. Western Reserve Building, Cleveland, O. Entered at Cleveland Postof.ice as second-class r.:ail matter. No attention is paid to anonymous communications, but the wishes of contributors as to the use of their names will be scrupulously regarded. CLEVELAND, O., JULY 17, 1902. Tureats by a private citizen and Ex-Inspector of ‘Steamboats seems to have been turned awry since the de- cision of the license granting board at Buffalo. Ah well! the “best laid plans of men and mice,” etc. ne e_ataEEEES Supervistnc Inspector-General James A. Dumont, of the Steamboat Inspection Service, is to be congratulated on the ability and erudition displayed by his subordinates. at Buffalo, in their decision this week regarding the license ‘cancelling cases. oo ee own Ai hail! May the knowledge of duty well done be a -pbalm to the minds and consciences of the Buffalo Local Inspectors of Steamboats. They have outshone and eclipsed all former action in the safe guarding of officers’ licenses and passed to one side the most influential, though ill-advised pressure that could have been brought to bear upon them or their colleagues at other ports. ———— Rear Apmirat Marcus LowtHeEr, who joined the Brit- ish navy in 1831, writing to the United Service Gazette of nautical terms, says that in the old days port and star- board were in use for steering, and no mistakes were ever made by the helmsmen; besides, they had been the “cus- tom of the sea” beyond the memory of man. Some sup- pose the two to be confounded, but sailors always put a ‘strong accent on star and none on board. These words have a fullness wholly wanting in “right and left,” both weak words, especially left, difficult to be heard in a breeze ss # or Tae seven-masted steel built schooner Thomas W. Lawson, launched at Quincy, Mass., last Thursday, may be considered as a one man notion, not exactly a freak, but as showing no indication of a new departure in the shipbuild- ing are. There are thousands’ of steel vessels afloat, equipped and rigged to the best possible’ advantage for their special, or: the general trade, and we can say of. this, the first seven-masted fore-and-after ever built, that the rig, except for the New England coasting trade, is not al- ways found to be the most seawoftthy, the handiest and best. THE MARINE RECORD. ALIEN SEAMEN. The periodical flurry indulged in by immigration officers, at the behest of labor unions, regarding alien seamen sailing on vessels engaged in the lake trade if ‘again to the fore this week at Toledo and Ogdensburg, N. Y: he officers of the Lake Seamen’s Union, in its past and palmiest days never even thought of interesting the members of that organization in the question of a sail- or’s nationality, well knowing, that no law, in any part of the world, prevented a seaman from shipping, or a ves- sel from obtaining a crew at any port where such were required. It is a well known law that under ordinary conditions the officers of an American vessel must be citizens of the United States, and, as engineers are licensed officers, they also, must, perforce, be citizens of the country, native or naturalized. It is also generally known that any alien who, in the manner provided for by law, has declared his intention to become a citizen of the United States, and who shall have been a permanent resident of the country for at least six months immediately prior to the granting of such license, may be licensed, as if already naturalized, to serve as an engineer or pilot upon any steam vessel subject to the provisions of Revised Statutes 4399-4500, and that this law has been in force for nearly 30 years, also as approved in 1896. There is no'law extant which says that all the seamen of a merchant vessel must be citizens of the United States, yet the way is made easy for their becoming such, in proof of which we quote from the Revised Statute 2174: “Eyery seaman, being a foreigner, who declares his’ in- tention of becoming a citizen of the United States in any competent court, and shall have served three years on board of a merchant vessel of the United States sub- sequent to the date of such declaration, may, on his appli- cation to any competent. court, and the production of his certificate of discharge and good conduct during that time, together with the certificate of thts declaration of. intention to become a citizen, be admitted a citizen of the United States; and every seaman being a foreigner, shall after his declaration of intention to become a citizen of the United States, and after he shall have served three years, be deemed a citizen of the United States for the purpose of manning and serving on board any merchant vessel of the United States, anything to the contrary in any act of Congress notwithstanding, but such seaman shall, for all purposes of protection as an American citizen be deemed such, after the filing of his declaration of intention to be- come such citizen.” While it might be to the best interests of citizens en- gaged in lake sailing, to debar all men or women of other nationalities from engaging to work on board an American vessel, it is open to doubt if such a measure would re- dound towards the easiest flow of commercial progres- sion, and, whether on the other hand, it might not be considered as an uncalled for hindrance to commerce, and as an interference with the rights and privileges of private citizens in the successful prosecution of their business and liberties. ‘The question, therefore, resolves itself into the fact, that, however much we might like to see none but citizens’ employed on lake vessels sailing under. the American flag, there is no law authorizing, or rather compelling such a condition to prevail, the spasmodic and ill advised efforts of immigration officers and others to the contrary notwithstanding. é Quoting from a Toledo daily newspaper of even date, the situation is placed in the following form: “Another flagrant violation of the alien contract labor law was unearthed yesterday morning by Col. Morrow, immigrant inspector, who discovered three Canadians em- ployed on the steamer D. W. Rust, an American pro- peller owned by Capt. L. S. Sullivan, of this city, and now lying at the Hocking dock. The three Canadians are M. M. Phillips, of Picton, Ont,, employed as watch- man, Sarah Kelly, employed as cook, and a boy whose name was not learned and who was discharged yesterday. Colenel Morrow will deport Phillips, but the cook, who has already taken out an oath of intention to become a citizen of. the United States, was placed under bond to take out the final papers. The penalty for a violation of the alien contract labor law is one year in the penitentiary cr $1,000°fine or both. It has not yet developed who is responsible for bringing the Canadians here, but Capt.’ L. S. Sullivan, owner of the Rust, claims he did not know -anything concerning the Canucks or their presence aboard the vessel.” The alien contract labor law does not apply to sailors in exactly the same way as it does to workers on shore. The sailor, of any nationality, is not imported: to labor, he enters into no agreement while in a foreign country, or JULY 17, 1902 the land of his nativity, to carry out the provisions of a certain contract. He is engaged on the spot to perform immediate labor after the manner of his calling and this too, irrespective of his nationality, but in every sense as bearing on his previous condition and seryitude,, though, in so far as the special service,is concerned, the, cgnten- tion would apply with equal force, in the case of skilled labor on shore. However, it, goes without saying, that there are a large number of foreigners sailing in American bottoms engaged in the lake service, and to refuse shipping them, much less insisting upon their deportation, would be quite as ridiculous as illegal. Before this everyday problem assumes a more stren- uous attitude, it would be well for those most interested to obtain a positive ruling regarding the shipment of crews, from the highest possible. authority, who, in this instance, is the Secretary of the Treasury. The question of the status of foreign seamen thus being decided and settled properly, as it should be, would prevent the periodi- cal recurrence of annoyances to masters and owners of floating property engaged in the lake trade. Foreign born seamen. have a right to ship or they ought not to be car- ried, they have a right to labor under the Stars and Stripes or they should be pulled off every craft on which they sail, by the law abiding officers of the immigration bureau. care ————————eee LICENSES PROTECTED. Commend us to the decision arrived at this week by the local inspectors of steamboats at Buffalo and the appar- ent trend of thought and ruling observed by the officers holding similar positions at Chicago. In the action brought by a towing company to suspend, or cancel the licenses of tugboatmen, because they refused to accede to the demands of their employers, there was more at stake than those engaged in the suit appeared to comprehend, though in some instances, the knave acted the fool part in complaisantly shielding his bearing from the dangers of the ignorant results which he hoped would obtain at the close of the burlesque. tor : _A syndicate of wealthy capitalists owning the majority of tugs in service at lake ports, offered certain terms of employment and renumeration thereof to licensed officers. On the offer being rejected, steps were taken and the machinery of the government put in force to take away the officers’ licenses, and this, not as a means of starving them into submission, but as it would appear, to be from a spirit of retaliation, as the men being deprived of their licenses would no longer have been available for service, hence, they and their dependents might go and starve for all that their former employers cared, or rather, that was the point desired, and to which action was taken so that they might be driven thereto. a; Under the foregoing conditions the Rrcorp, consistently and single handed fought against the licenses being brought into question in any form. ‘The revocation of the license of a tugboatman bore a direct and absolute re lation to that held by the officer of an ocean liner, and meant no less, or no more, in their respective waters. In this instance, the dispute was solely one of labor and its terms, as opposed to, and distinct from, technical skill and special qualifications, and these are the only grounds and features on which the issuance of licenses are, or can be based. It is beyond the bounds of reason or common sense to even imagine that those engaged in the prosecution for the revocation: of the officers’ licenses, acted fairly with them- selves, their knowledge or consciences. It seemed as if they were trying to deceive the licensed officers, the gov- ernment, and bluffing themselves into an attitude whereby a stampede might result, and a weak-kneed minority bend their necks to the yoke of intolerable and illegal servitude. Never has such luminous intelligence received so severe and deserved a technical and legal castigation, or the steamboat. inspection service the merited praise to which it. is now so justly entitled through the decision of the upright and circumspect rulings of its officers at Buffalo. rs Subject of Insurance.—A carrier’s liability for carrying goods on deck is a proper subject for marine insurance. Ursula Bright: S$. .S. Co., Limited, vs. Amsinck et al. 115 Fed. Rep. (U. S.) 2g2. :