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MARINE REVIEW ; fail. Americans have invested nearly $200,000,000 in ships built in foreign countries, officered and manned by foreign subjects, sailing under foreign flags, and carrying perhaps one-third of the total foreign commerce of the United States. It is commonly and frequently said that our laws do not permit Americans to buy foreign ships, the answer to which is. that American citizens now own between 1,500,000 and 2,000,000 tons of foreign shipping. They have invested in foreign shipping because it is more cheaply built and more cheaply operated than American shipping is. It is only pos- sible for Amer- icans tO suc- cessfully com- pete with for- eign ships in our ocean trade by themselves owning foreign ships, and they do so. The 39,- ooo §=©3. American boiler makers and iron ship builders that i represent ~un- derstand _ this, and we realize, as perhaps Con- gress does not, and aS we are sure the people do not, that the denial of pro- tection to Am- efican ships in the deep sea trade amounts to a denial of employment for men. OL © our Craft cal <2 our trade .in.. the United States --that the in- jury falls upon American -la- ber, -dad. not upon American Capital. It). 4s idle to tell us that "Awe can prosper by ac- cepting the for- eign. rates _ of wages: we could not if we would, and we would not if we could. We want to be as good as other American workingmen in every respect; we want to earn as good wages, to enjoy as many of the necessaries, the comforts and the luxuries of life as the rest of our fellow- workingmen do, and since acts of Congress have created and long maintained a high standard of wages for American workingmen in all other trades than ours, we still cling to the hope--long deferred, to be sure--that Congress will yet see, and then rectify, the injustice it does to American workingmen employed in 'building ships through its persist- ent refusal to protect American ships that compete with for- eign ships in our over-sea trade. Refusal to protect American ships in our deep sea trade, I repeat, is in effect absolute protection for foreign ship The Counterfeit Presentment of the Caravel of Christopher Columbus as She Sailed into New York Harbor in 1893. builders and foreign ship owners. They, and their friends and business connections in the United States, and the free trade advocates, constitute every element of opposition to protection for American shipping. Not only American workingmen are injured by Congress's refusal to protect American ships in the deep sea trade--the nation as a whole is injured--vitally injured. Merchant ships and citizen seamen are an indispensable resource of national defense; they constitute an auxiliary to our navy; they are the sources upon which the navy alone can draw for rein- forcement ; lacking mer- chant ships and citizen seamen, the navy is in Stave peri: i is weak where it should be strong. More than that, our Tivals are strong through Gur. iftiaction: they are strong where we are weak; our coin- tierce gives them employ- Ment, gives them experi- ence, gives them skill. In a mo- inent~ this: ad- vantage may be utilized by our foreign rivals, who may _ be- come our ene- mies, = {0 ate tempt our de struction or our Subjection. Again, lacking ships and sea- men OF "Our own, and being dependent whol- ly upon foreign shipping as we ane; We "are. at all times ex- posed to the possible and wholesale with- drawal of for- eign shipping, through the necessities of foreign countries, should they become em- broiled in war. Then we should be without the means to send our surplus products abroad, production would be cur- tailed in the United States, employment would be cut down, consumption would diminish, and industrial paralysis would herald widespread misery. We need the means for building our own merchant ships, kept in a constant state of efficiency and prosperity, just as much as we need the means for build- ing our: warships. We need a great navy to protect our commerce, our interests, our seacoast, and for the mainte- nance of the Monroe Doctrine. But our navy is, and will constantly remain, perilously weak and unsupported so long as we lack a great, efficient, prosperous and adequate mer- chant shipping of our own. SANTA MARIA,