INTERN,'ATIONAE TRADE AXD OUR MERCHANT MARINE—
THE QUESTION OE MARITIME SUPREMACY AND
TRADE PRIMACY IS NOT A PARTISAN QUESTION,
BUT OUR OPPONENTS SEEM SO TO REGARD IT
SPEECH
HON. J. SLOAT FASSETT
OF NEW YORK
HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES
TUESDAY, MAY 26, 190S
45952—7871
WASHINGTON
1908
/Kz Ó
SPEECH
op
II OX. J.' S LO AT LAS SET T.
Mr. FASSETT said :
Mr. Speaker: However gentlemen may differ in other re¬
spects, there is 110 room for an honest difference of opinion among
patriotic Americans as to the desirability of restoring our
merchant marine to its former position of importance upon the
high seas. Its languishing and dying condition has been a mat¬
ter of regret and humiliation for fifty years, and yet Congress
lias taken no effective steps to enable American mariners to
meet their deep-sea rivals successfully in the contest for carry¬
ing our own goods into the markets of the world. Ninety per
cent of the markets of the world are to-day accessible only
by water. The great international contests of modern times
are not concerned with armored navies and 13-inch guns, but
they have to do with trade, with commerce, with the interchange
of products of industry, and the weapons used are skill and
thrift, labor, tariffs, and subventions and subsidies. The univer¬
sal cry from every civilized nation is trade and ever more
trade, markets and ever more markets, as the power to produce
overtakes by leaps and bounds, with the application of steam
and electricity, the power to consume and the rivalry for access
to the markets and the possession of the markets of the world
intensifies. It not only intensifies in energy and aggressiveness,
but it intensifies in necessity and utility. Adequate markets
for the consumption of our surplus products are indispensable,
for they have to do with the welfare of our laboring people,
our manufacturers, and our merchants. They touch the pros¬
perity of the farm and of the workshop, as well as of the count-
iDghouse.
The situation is such that we can not any longer afford to
ignore it. The body of our merchant marine lies prostrate and
bleeding before us. The situation is too serious to be ignored
in the interest of a mere' academic attitude of mind. It is a
question of national protection, of national security, and of the
universal welfare of all classes and of all interests among all
our people and not of a construction of the Constitution.
It is of twofold significance. First, we should have the carry¬
ing capacity, giving us access to the markets of the world for
the purpose of commercial profit; second,.we should have a
navy and a body of seamen in constant readiness to assist our
armored ships in case-of conflict for the purpose of national
security.
The growth of this country during recent years in almost
every direction, and in almost every department, has been
45032—7ST1 3
á
stupendous and amazing; It lias readied proportions so ample
as to lie practically beyond comprehension; expressed in terms
of dollars and of tons the figures actually bewilder us. In a
comparatively few years we have rjuadruplcd the number of
farms, increased the quantity of their output and their value
more than sevenfold. The output of our manufacturing estab¬
lishments alone exceeds annually the value of all the exports
of all the exporting nations of the world, ourselves included, by
more than one thousand millions of dollars.
Our production of minerals equals the output of our factories;
our railroads have increased so tremendously that if put in
one single line they would reach to the moon; our telegraph
wires have increased by hundreds of thousands of miles; our
telephone wires have reached an equal distance; our interstate
commerce reaches proportions far in excess of all the exports
and imports of all the exporting and importing nations in the
world, ourselves included. For the past seven years we have
grown richer at the rate of ÇS,000,000 each day, holidays and
Sundays included.
The great prosperity which has blessed this country has been
for 110 single class, hut has reached to the poorest paid toiler
in the most crowded cities of the land. Our people constitute
SO,000,000 of the best housed, best fed, best clothed people in
the entire world, whose children have the amplest opportunity
and the broadest outlook of any of the children in the whole
round circle of this earth. We live on a higher plane of jihysical
comfort; we pay the highest wages in the world, and the out¬
put in any line of human endeavor is higher in this country
for individual workmen than anywhere else in the world. Al¬
most all of our multiform enterprises are protected by a system
of tariff laws so adjusted as to overcome the natural disad¬
vantages against which otherwise we would he compelled to
struggle, such as the lower plane of living and the lower wages
of labor prevailing in other countries of the world. We pro¬
tect the farmer aud the artisan ; we protect the mechanic and
the manufacturer; we protect the output of the North, the
East, the South, aud the West, and under the stimulus of this
protection the creative energies of the American people have
surprised and bewildered the world.
But there is one industry—one calling, not less noble than
scores of others thus carefully protected—which seems to have
been systematically neglected, if not wholly despised, and that
is the carrying of our own goods to the markets of our neigh¬
bors. Ninety per cent of the people of this world who are pos¬
sible customers of ours must be reached by means of the deep
sea. We furnish 14 per cent of the export trade of the world—•
we carry less than 1J per cent of it. We pay ?210,000,000 each
year for freight and passenger service on the deep seas, of
which ships bearing the American flag receive less than 10 per
cent. In 1S10 we carried 90 per cent of our foreign trade; in
1SG0, with 1,200,000 tonnage of registered vessels, we carried
Où per cent of our foreign trade; in this year of grace we have
only nine sea-going steam-propelled vessels carrying our goods
ou "the Atlantic, with a tonnage less than 90,000, and on the Pa¬
cific only seven steam-propelled vessels, with less than 50,000
tons.
43932—7ST1
5
One of the great problems confronting the manufacturers of
the United States is liovv to extend profitably our trade in the
yet undeveloped markets of the world.
No missionary is so efficient in the real development of trade
as a proper means of transportation and communication.
What would we think of the sagacity of John Wanamaker
if he hired Siegel & Cooper to deliver his goods for him? But
that'is just precisely what we are doing in the great markets
of the world. Not a single ship carrying the American flag
sails to South American seaports south of the Carribean Sea,
and only four small steamers there. We are the best cus¬
tomers of South America. We buy 30 per cent of what Brazil
sells, and we sell Brazil less than 13 per cent of what she
buys. We sell China 10 per cent of what she buys. We sell
Africa less than 11 per cent of what she buys. We sell all
South America less than 5 per cent of what she buys. Our
best customers by sea are England and Germany and Japan,
but England and. Germany and Japan carry the goods. The
markets where we must go for future growth, the so-called
" undeveloped markets," are the markets whither we are
sending no American vessels. The reasons for this condition
of affairs are not far to seek. If two ships of equal capacity
and equal intelligence in direction and. administration leave a
port, that ship will obtain the business which can render the
same service for the least money, and the ship can render equal
service for the least money which costs the least to build and
the least to maintain and operate, and if two ships cost the
same to build and the same to maintain and operate, then that
ship can carry trade the cheapest which receives the most
artificial assistance in the way of government subsidy or gov¬
ernment retainer. The ships of the United States have to meet,
a handicap at each one of these three necessary steps. It costs
more to build ships in the United States because it costs more
to pay every man who labors on any part of the vessels of the
United States, and it costs more to pay every man because our
system of tariff has lifted up the whole plane of living and
the entire wage scale to a point it has not reached in any other
country in the world. We are committed to the policy of pro¬
tection. Our entire industrial, commercial, and social system
are tuned up to it, and the American people will never consent
to abandon it.
It costs from 25 per cent to 40 per cent more to build an
American ship and equip it than in any other country. If it
costs $400,000 to build a ship in America, it would cost $300,000
to build the same ship in England. It would cost 5 per cent,
or $20,000, to borrow the money in America and 3 per cent,
or $0,000, to borrow the money in England, and there you have
a handicap of $11,000 a year, which must be overcome before
the American boat can meet the English boat on even terms.
It will cost each boat 5 per cent for depreciation. It will cost
each boat 0 per cent for insurance; but for the ordinary re¬
pairs it will cost the English ship 2£ per cent, while it will cost
the American ship 3£ per cent, and there is a handicap of
$4",000 more before the American ship can meet the English
ship on equal terms.
It will cost 25 per cent more to feed the crew of an American
ship than to feed the crew of an English ship. It costs from 25
45052—7871
G
per cent to CO por cent more to pay the crow of an American
ship than it docs the crew of an English ship, and these two
additional handicaps must be met and overcome before the two
ships can compete on an equality of terms. If by greater in¬
genuity or the application of better machinery, or by the will¬
ingness of the American sailors to live on a lower plane than
their brothers who work on the land, it would he possible to
equalize these differences, there still remains the handicap of
subsidies. All of our opponents and all of our commercial rivals
subsidize; little Japan subsidizes over $4,COO,COO a year, and
she is driving us off tlio Pacific. Germany subsidizes by giving
over $5,000,000 a year in cash and by giving rebates and favor¬
able differentials on freights carried on government railroads
to he exported on German ships. She subsidizes sufficiently
to give the German vessels an advantage over their competitors.
The Hamburg-American and the North German Lloyd lines
have themselves, in the last eighteen years, increased more than
two millions of tonnage in registered deep-sea vessels. One line
of boats alone, the German-IIamhurg-Ameriean, has paid in ten
years .$.">1,000,000 in dividends, an average rate of over 7 per
cent—120 per cent of their invested capital. This is a signifi¬
cant contrast to our own dwindling merchant fleet. France
subsidizes $9,000,000 a year.
England subsidizes not less than $7,000,000 a year, and
always she subsidizes when necessary to meet the competition
of her rivals. Itecently she presented to the Cimard Company
two of the most superb steamships in the world—750 feet long,
costing $G,500,000 each. These boats were bestowed upon the
Cunard people upon terms which substantially amounted to a
gift; the Cunard Company has only to make an income over
operating expenses. This is competition that no individual or
corporation can successfully meet and overcome. The Lusitania
and the Maurctania, 40,000 tons each, able to carry each 10,000
soldiers, fully equipped and armed, are living off our commerce.
If either of them could be lifted on end, it would tower 250 feet
higher than the Washington Monument—living off our com¬
merce in times of peace, to utterly destroy us in times of
war, together with our commerce ! These two boats alone can
carry as many men and munitions of war as all of our Atlantic
merchant vessels combined.
The most prejudiced^ind must admit that this is an unnatural
and an unhealthy condition of things, and the intelligent observer
realizes at a glance that it is an entirely unnecessary condition
of things ; it is not necessary for us, who have succeeded in every
single direction to which we have turned our attention, to be
whipped by all the world, including the newest comers into the
family of nations, on the high seas; our people have proven
time and again their masterfulness and their natural supe¬
riority at sea.
This condition of things has come from our indifference and
from our squeamislmess, but as that great Secretary of State,
Thomas F. Bayard, so well said, " When foreign nations do not
hesitate to pour wealth into the laps of our trade rivals, the
time has come for us to cease to be squeamish."
Even as I speak we may get the news that Japan has pur¬
chased the Pacific Mail and taken five of our steamers off of the
Pacific. The great prizes of the future in trade are to come from
43032—7S71
1
deep-sea trade. We may feel indifferent, because just now, in
spite of the tremendous activities of all our great enterprises
everywhere, our capacity to consume has outstripped our capac¬
ity to produce, but this can not long endure. In the new South
during the last ten years there has been an increase of 680 per
cent in manufactures and in eighteen years an increase in the
manufacture of textiles of 1,000 per cent, and even at that we
are only manufacturing less than 0,000,000 of the 13,000,000
bales of cotton we produce annually.
In Pittsburg and its environments is originated in iron and
steel and their allied products a greater tonnage than originate
in similar lines in all Germany or England. It has been found
in the last five years almost impossible to get enough either raw
material or finished products to feed the hungry maw of the ex¬
panding and extending American people. Nevertheless, the pro¬
ducing capacity is overtaking the consuming capacity, and when
it is overtaken, what then? Either we must shut our factories
and turn out our employees or we must open up markets and dis¬
pose of our goods elsewhere on the face of the earth. We must
imperatively then get our share of the undeveloped markets of
the world.
It will then become a Question of commercial life and health
and of national safety, and no longer a theme for academic dis¬
cussion. Under such circumstances as these we should no longer
be content to trust to our trade rivals, who are running neck
and neck with us, to obtain these very same undeveloped mar¬
kets of the world, to carry our goods. We could not afford to
take the risk ; we could not afford to handicap ourselves in the
slightest degree. People of our iugeuuity, of our shrewdness, of
our ability should concentrate and bend the necessary effort to
open up and hold these outlying markets for the relief of our
home manufacturers. Our rivals are subsidizing against us to
the extent of $30,000,000 per year. To equalize Od overcome
that rivalry and deadly stimulus it has never yet been esti¬
mated we would require over $9,000,000 or $10,000,000 per year.
But even though it required $30,000,000 per year to overcome
and meet these subsidies against us we could well afford to do it.
You will remember there are two great American questions
put to every proposition:
First. Is it right?
f Second. Will it pay? O
Both questions being answered in the affirmative, there usually
is no further hesitation, and we embark upon the enterprise.
Let me call your attention to the figures in tile case. It will
pay to subsidize even to the extent of $50,000,000 per year, pro¬
vided that by so doing we can secure all we now pay to our
rivals for carrying our own goods. We now pay a total of say
$210,000,000 a year for ocean freight and passengers. Of this,
not to exceed 10 per cent is paid to American bottoms. Ten per
cent is equal to $21,000,000, so that our rivals receive $180,000,-
000 of our own good money to build up and sustain their heavily
subsidized merchant navies, rivaling us in times of peace and
threatening us in times of war. Now, then, if a reversal of our
present policy by an outlay of $50,000,000 Would result in a re¬
versal of present conditions, giving us the 00 per cent of the
traffic and leaving the 10 per cent to our rivals, we sliould'brlng
45932—7871
8
Into American possession a clean advance over what we now
receive of $08,000,000, or $118,000,000 per year over and above
the $00,000,000 subsidy, and the energizing influence of this
money'wouid flow into American instead of rival channels.
I!ut there is another aspect besides the commercial aspect
which should give serious concern to all patriotic citizens, and
that is this—even though it may be and doubtless is true that
American capitalists can now and do own and maintain and
conduct at a profit ships under foreign flags, and thus are even
now securing a part of their earning power to the advantage of
this country—we are confronted with the startling consideration
that ships thus owned and controlled are manned by foreign
crews, are operated under foreign flags, under the direction of
foreign officers, and afford, therefore, no recruiting reserve for
the American Navy in times of war.
IVe have expended $000,000,000 upon our Navy; we have a
splendid Navy, superbly officered and superbly manned, magnifi¬
cently equipped—a Navy that can meet any other navy on equal
terms; a Navy that would give an account of itself under any
circumstances—but we were unable to send that Navy to the
Pacific without hiring from our rivals ships for colliers and in¬
cidental services. When we had the Spanish war wo were
unable to get American ships to do the work, and this was right
at home. When we wanted to send our Navy to the Pacifie,
we had to get four ships from Norway and twenty-four from
Knglnud—the lowest American bid for carrying coal was $8
per ton, and the foreign bid was $5.85.
If, by any mischance or freak of fate, war were to be de¬
clared this moment between us and any other naval power,
these twenty-eight ships which we have hired would become
contraband of war and would be under obligations to incur
either the risk of capture or make for the nearest neutral port.
Our fleet, Qipplcd for the want of coal, could go no farther
than the steaming radius of tho battle ships.
If such should come—which God forbid—and we were faced
with the necessities of war, and if our Navy and our Army1
should undertake to meet ideal conditions and strike the swift¬
est possible blow with the greatest possible force, at the greatest
possible distance from home, we should find ourselves utterly
unable to meet conditions. We could not embark a single
Army division of 20,0<©nen, fully armed and fully equipped and
prepared at any point, either on the Atlantic or Pacific coast.
,We could not supply the auxiliary transports and hospital
ships and other necessary ships for the Navy alone, to say
nothing of supplying ships to carry and provide for troops. We
should be reduced, iu spite of our glorious Navy, to the ridieu-
• lous and dangerous, if not the fatal, absurdity of operating our
fleet within sight of shore and waiting to receive the attack of
the'enemy at the enemy's own pleasure and in the enemy's own
good way.
If we were to undertake to build for the nation's ownership
an adequate supply of the right kind of ships and auxiliaries
for the complete auxiliary Navy, and a complete fleet to move
not less than two Army divisions at any given momnet, the
initial cost to the Government would be not less than $200,-
000,000, hut the outlay of $200,000,000 would mean an annual
fixed charge of 3 per cent for interest; 5 per cent for matn-
45952—7S71
9
tenance—for iron ships only last twenty years—C per cent
for insurance ; 3J per cent for repairs ; not less tlian C per cent
for salaries and labor; C per cent for food, and G per cent for
fuel, or a grand total expenditure of $71,000,000 in the way of
fixed charges. If this were done, and the American people
would meet such an outlay to maintain our national honor, we
would have the difficulties and friction contingent upon finding
the men and officers, and of controlling and disciplining them,
and there would be the increased expense for mere operation,
for so large a body of ships and men could not he kept in abso¬
lute stagnation in times of peace. They would have to be con¬
stantly occupied to keep them in proper condition for immediate
response in times of peril.
To build and maintain and man all the extra ships needed to
make the Navy useful to its best degree, and the Army valuable
at the most essential point, would thus be the most ex¬
pensive possible way to meet an end so desirable and so es¬
sential. Whereas, by a patriotic, intelligent and farsighted
policy of proper distribution of subsidies, which is pursued by
every one of our trade and naval rivals, we could build up, as
once before we had, a peerless merchant marine which would
carry our flag into every sea and our ships into every port, and
be developing our foreign trade in times of peace and training
men and officers for our protection in times of war.
But, it may be objected, we can not dip into the Treasury for
individual or private purposes. I reply, this would be dipping
our hands into the National Treasury for the highest possible
public interest; for our safety in times of war and for our
welfare in times of peace. We can meet the world in competi¬
tion on equal terms. But for years there has ceased to be
natural competition on the open seas. We have handicapped
ourselves by the high cost of production resulting from our high
protective tariff, and our rivals have handicapped us further by
their unstinted subsidies to their merchant navies.
If mere cheapness be our cry, then why not open our coast¬
wise trade? Norwegian vessels can do the work, German ves¬
sels can do the work, Japanese vessels can do the work, 40 per
cent cheaper than our coastwise vessels do now. They would
do it with cheaper built ships, built by cheaper paid men, living
on cheaper food, but they would do it and we would see our
coastwise trade, which now employs over 0,000,000 tons, collapse
more suddenly and more completely than our foreign trade has
done. And, also, we should see collapse every American ship¬
yard, save those only which we subsidized in the way of vastly
profitable contracts in building battle ships. By thus protecting
our coastwise trade we are to that very extent encouraging indi¬
viduals and corporations contrary to the teachings of the strict
constructionists.
The Democratic opposition so solidly made to giving subsidies
either in the way of return for carrying the mails or as a re¬
ward for carrying tonnage seem to be based, if one can judge
from the arguments which have been presented in this Chamber
upon the other side, upon the idea that it is improper to make
direct appropriations for such a purpose ; that in so doing in
some way we give an improper advantage to some individual or
corporation. Gentlemen forget that it is impossible to benefit
everybody without giving a benefit to somebody. AVc have been
4D932—7871 /
10
for many years in tlic liabit of appropriating for the general
welfare by means of gifts and subsidies and encouragements
and protection to special Interests. Even the most broadly con¬
ceived measure for the most universal benefits must work out
its results by application to certain special localities and to cer¬
tain special interests and to certain individual enterprises.
We gave cheerfully for years a subsidy to the Southern Rail¬
way Company of nearly $105,000 annually to benefit all the peo¬
ple by special acceleration and improvement of the mail facili¬
ties through the few States traversed by the Southern Railway
Company. For every 7 cents the United States pays out for
transporting through the mails newspapers and second-class
periodicals it receives in return but 1 cent, and for every mil¬
lion dollars it receives from this source it pays out seven mil¬
lions. This is in the interest of the distribution of intelligence.
Whether one is inclined to quarrel with it or not to quarrel with
it, it is a subsidy, and it is a subsidy of a special interest, the
first beneficiary being the individuals who own the newspapers
and the second-class periodicals. Ultimately there is undoubt¬
edly a benefit wide enough to justify the coutinucd expenditure.
We have not hesitated to provide millions for the irrigation
of arid lands. The general benefit of this is indisputable, but
the same principle is involved. Only recently this House ap¬
propriated from the l'ublic Treasury $250,000 for the benefit of
sufferers from a cyclone that swept through a part of the
Southern States. The Democratic Representatives from those
same States oppose a ship subsidy, and oppose it on the ground
that it appropriates public money to individuals, hut they do
not hesitate to appropriate this quarter of a million dollars to
lite people whose homes and buildings were burned down and
who were made penniless by a eatastrophy beyond their control.
It was a meritorious outlay, no doubt, but it could not be de¬
fended on any grounds which would not equally iuclude a sub¬
sidy to American shipping.
We have not hesitated to give billions of dollars' worth of
bonds and lands to railroads to secure better trade facilities be¬
tween the States inside continental lines; we have not hesitated
to give billions of dollars' worth of land to individual citizeus,
in order that they might bnild homes, rear families, and make
expanding home markets for manufacturers to sell goods to and
the railroads to carry freights to and from.
We have not hesitated to spend $300,000,000 for a Panama
Canal. Since 1SSS we have appropriated nearly $300,000,000
to improve our rivers and harbors. We have not hesitated to
appropriate for 40 and 50 foot channels in some favorite
harbors, and we have not a single American ship to go through
the Panama Canal for foreign trade when built, nor a single
ship of any kind requiring 40 or 50 foot channels in any harbor.
We have done everything, everywhere, for every kind of trade
and every kind of industry and every kind of manufacturing
except shipbuilding enterprises for the high seas. We have
generously built up a navy of fighting ships of sufficient strength
to protect us upon the high seas, and we have absolutely almost
nothing on the high seas to protect, and will soon lose what we
have. We have sixteen battle ships, going now to Pacific
waters, and with them are attending convoys, and our deep-
45052—7871
11
sea-going steamships in all the world on both oceans are just
sixteen, of which only seven are on the Pacific.
What are the remedies? The remedies proposed are:
First. Free ships, by which is meant that we shall have the
privilege of buying ships in the markets of the world and regis¬
tering them under the American flag. That would bring us at
once to an even keel with our competitors, so far as the first
cost is concerned. The objection would be that it would be
just so much business taken away from our own shipyards. It
must be remembered that already we allow the importation of
all materials to be used in the construction of a ship, free of
duty, with one limitation, which seems to be a serious objection,
that the ship forfeits its right to engage in a coastwise trade
at any time for more than two months.
The next remedy suggested is differential duties, or rebate on
duties on all goods imported in American bottoms. There are
two objections to this:
First. That fully half of the goods we import are on the free
list and could not receive any differential doty.
Second. We ' have many treaties with our different trade
rivals, absolutely guaranteeing that their goods shall he re¬
ceived on equal terms with our own, and to violate these trea¬
ties might lead to war.
The next proposition is just the converse—that we should
pay a bounty ■ on outgoing goods in American bottoms. The
objection to this is that we have the same number of treaties
which guarantees that no such differentiation shall take place.
The third remedy is that of giving direct subsidies based on
service, either in the way of carrying mails or freights, or mak¬
ing certain speed. This method is pursued by all of our rivals.
In addition to direct subsidies some of them give encouragement
in the way of retainers or rebates. Fngland, for instance, pays
an annual retainer to over 32,000 seamen and pays a handsome
bonus for mail contracts.
In addition to direct subsidies, Germany pays in the way of
rebates on the state railroads on freight charges on goods to be
exported in German bottoms.
Japan subsidizes in more ways than one, and the significant
proposition is that they all subsidize enough.
The 'objection raised against direct subsidies is purely aca¬
demic, and whatever force it has applies only to subsidies made
with a view to commercial expansion. It must fall to the
ground when brought to hear on the proposition of national de¬
fense. We pay $140,000,COO a year in pensions on account of
wars that have been and for the encouragement to volunteers
in wars that may be.
We expend $125,000,000 every year to take care of our Navy;
we expend $00,000,000 a year to take care of our Army; we ex¬
pend $25,000,000 a year for fortifications, and $10,000,000 or
$15,000,000 a year to maintain light-houses and other 'similar
services.
We begrudge nothing for the national defenses in this way
which appeals to us directly, but in order to make valuable
the outlay which we have already incurred, and in order to
utilize in time of peril the defenses we have already provided,
we must have a merchant navy. Wc have neglected altogether
too long; we have not only neglected, but it' almost seems that
43932—7871
12
Tro Lavo been inspired to assist our rirais, We pay .$700,000
por year to American vessels for carrying the mails to Europe;
last year wo paid almost as much to foreign vessels, and this
year we will be paying $000,000 to foreign steamboats for
carrying our mails. AVhen we turn to the other side of the
account and see if our few struggling steamships have received
encouragement from their trade rivals, we discover a situation
in decided contrast to our own generous courtesy.
If two ships are leaving New York at the same time, we
send our mail by the fastest ship, whether American, English,
or German. In return, we get not one dollar in payment for
bringing home the foreign mail. A letter over there may wait
a week unless the individual correspondent puts the name of
the ship hi* which it is to travel on the envelope. They simply
will not send outgoing mail by American steamers, even if,
as sometimes happens, they make the quickest time. It has
been known that our ships in a year received $10,000 for bring¬
ing home foreign mail, but usually it is less than $2,000. We
seem rather to enjoy being imposed upon and discriminated
against by our rivals, and patiently turn one cheek and then
the other to their stinging slaps. We submit to being handi¬
capped and destroyed at sea as pleasantly as though it were
a huge joke, but when that strenuous time shall come, when
our gifted manufacturers have tilled up the home markets to
overliowing, and we shall consume less than we produce, then
there will be attention given to the demands of a situation
that will be intolerable, and then we will hasten to undo the
wrong of the last five decades and will adopt a policy equally
enlightened with that of our opponents, and we shall wonder
what insanity possessed us that we deliberately manacled our¬
selves in the great race for commercial supremacy.
I would be glad to have every ship we sail built in American
yards, by American labor, receiving American wages, but if
to bring the reluctant into line it is necessary to permit the
purchase of cheap ships, built abroad by cheap labor, the vast
interests beyond that would make me reasonably content to
have the ships bought where they could be bought the cheapest,
because of the grave consequences which would ensue if sud¬
denly there should be war between any two first-class nations.
Do our merchants forget what happened when Englahd con¬
ducted a little war down in Africa? Do they remember how
freight rates went up and their goods were shut out from
foreign markets? What would happen to the 9,000,000 bales
of cotton and the millions of bushels of wheat and corn if
Germany and England, or England and Japan, or Japan and
the United States should go to war to-morrow? They would
be burning corn in Iowa, wheat in Nebraska, and cotton in
New Orleans, and what would become of the hundreds of mil¬
lions of dollars' worth of manufactured articles we now sell
abroad? We would have the goods, but no means to get them
to market.
While we have been going swiftly down hill in the amount
of tonnage engaged in foreign trade, our trade rivals have been
growing at a tremendous rate, and largely at our own expense.
In a few years the merchant marine of Japan has grown to
over 2,000,000 of tons; England, to over 16,000,000 of tons;
Germany has increased to over 2,000,000 tons in ten years, and
France has grown with great rapidity. We alone have lost
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ground and have to-day less than 00,000 tons in the Atlantic,
and 50,000 tons in the Pacific, and even this is in a languishing
condition.
It is not that we are not able to do wort cheaply where once
we get a fair foothold, for our railway rates all through this
great country and the rates for the transportation of freight on
the Great Lates are the cheapest in the known world. We have
recently enacted, very properly, the so-called Hepburn hill,
which takes away from the transportation companies the right
to fix rates at their own pleasure, even to meet an emergency.
Our trade rivals are not handicapped by any such rules or
restrictions, and English merchants and Japanese merchants
and German merchants by fixing rates at sea practically con¬
trol them on land, and a new element of danger thus confronts
Americans interested in deep-sea transportation.
One of the most interesting and serious problems confronting
us to-day, serious in its far-reaching importance to every na¬
tional interest, is the problem of reviving our merchant marine,
and reestablishing our ancient supremacy on the seas. The
great prizes of the future are to be won from the waters, not
from the lands. AvTe have no alternative but that of subsidy.
There is nothing else just as good. Our political well-beiug
and our social integrity and health are all wrapped up in de¬
veloping a merchant navy large enough to carry all of our goods
to all the open and opening markets of the world in times of
peace, and strong enough, in cooperation with our Army and
Navy, to protect our coasts, as well as our commerce, in times
of war. This can be done, as matters are at present, only by
putting up our subsidies, or putting down our wages and reduc¬
ing our scale of living, but the scale of living will not go back¬
ward ; that is too dear a price to pay. Our trade rivals subsidize
and flourish. We are living on a high plane, and our commerce
is perishing. AVe can not and will not reduce the comforts in
the lives and homes of our American working people, either at
sea or on land, so we must come squarely to the line and give
aid, and give it quickly, and give it abundantly in the form of
adequate subsidies for services rendered and to be rendered.
We must give it not because it will be of advantage to indi¬
viduals here and there, but in spite of that fact; not because
it will increase the revenues of corporations engaged in deep-
sea commerce, but in spite of that fact. AVe must give it in
this way, because it is necessary for the well-being of all our
citizens; because it enables us in times of peace to obtain
security in times of war ; we must do it to insure the best inter¬
ests of our future; we must do it because it will pay to do it
and because it is right to do it. AAre must subsidize because it
is the only way; because we must be prepared to meet the call
of our manifest destiny; because we can not shirk the burden
put upon us by circumstances, and we must do it quickly—■
before our ships are all gone, and before our sailors have all
disappeared. It is not a question of pride; it is not a question
of pleasure; between failure and success, we must choose suc¬
cess; between humiliation and victory, wo must choose victory.
AVe must choose to meet our rivals as gloriously on the seas as
we have ever met them on the land. To maintain our merchant
victories by land we must arrange for merchant victories at sea.
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