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: | | Knlists Shipping Board Biliaves This Country Must Build Sixty-Five 3,000-Ton Wooden Vessels Monthly to Convince Germany of Hopelessness of Submarine Campaign chairman of the United States shipping board, is convinced that one imperative necessity in winning the war is to convince the German government that our forests and machine shops can turn out merchant tonnage faster than the submarines can sink it. Investigations of the board, he states, convinced the’ members that American ship yards could turn out wooden vessels of 3,000 tons at the rate of 200,000 tons a month, beginning Oct. 1, without interfering with the construction of steel ships now under AA cave: DENMAN, San Francisco, - way. We can have 800 to 1,000 of these ships in 14 months’ time, says Mr. Denman, and their speed would be from 10 to 12 knots per hour. If we can accomplish this, he adds, we can write off any sum that such an enterprise would cost and feel that it had been spent with profit. As a measure of educating the Middle West to the, necessity of shipping under the American flag, he says, it is proposed to take the men from the semi-military colleges in the west, put them on the vessels as gunners, and teach them to love the sea. This standardization plan is one of the two chief measures the shipping board is putting for- ward to prepare for war. The other is the pass- age of the amendment to the shipping bill, which was held up by the senate filibuster and which will be taken up at the present extra session of congress. This amendment provides for the commandeering of ships owned by American corporations of which foreigners own all the stock. There are ships of 750,000 total tonnage which might be commandeered under the provi- sions of the bill, Mr. Denman says. A STILL greater problem, however, was to build many more ships, and the first difficulty that arose was the in- ability to get steel workers away from more needful tasks, including naval con- struction. “The supply of skilled steel workers is limited.” Mr. Denman said recently, “and .when it became apparent that the building of merchant ships would be de- layed on that account, the board started work on its plan of standardizing wooden construction. We have been at work since late in February on the plan. There are wooden vessels on the Pacific coast constructed to carry 3,600 tons deadweight. The parts of such ships will be standardized so as to allow them to be cut at various mills in the timber regions, either on the Pacific coast, the south, or the New England coast. These parts, cut at many mills, will be sent to yards at different points, where they may be assembled. Getting Ship Carpenters ‘With the growth of steel ship con-. struction the supply of ship carpenters has been growing smaller constantly, and that is one of the difficulties which we face in the construction of wooden ships. We have planned, however, to get the services of house carpenters, with a skilled ship’s carpenter over every seven or eight of them. These ships may be turned out at the rate of one every four months at first, and at a much greater rate when the plan is put into full operation. “The navy will take for merchant car- riers a very large tonnage of ships now in ordinary commerce for the purpose of carying coal, naval supplies and as a reserve against losses of such supply ships. The public may look for a great disruption of the mercantile carrier force as soon as hostilities commence.” Mr. Denman said that the proposed shipping bill will undoubtedly be passed at the extra session. Under it any ship being built by an American corporation of which foreigners own all the stock must either be put under the American flag and be subject to commandeering .in case of war, or else the corporation building it must tender it for sale to the government. : “As the law now stands,” he added, “under many of our yard contracts the ships when launched could sail away - without rendering any. service to the United States in return for our yard facilities. The disruption of our com- merce, due to the loss of the coast to coast fleet, now engaged in carrying sup- plies abroad, and the consequent dis- turbance of the flow of food supplies into our larger cities: had created a real emergency for many of our poorer citizens, even before the war began. “Some of the vessels now on the stocks, if brought under our flag, would undoubtedly relieve the condition. When the legislation is enacted, the foreign- owned vessels in our yards, carefully estimated at 750,000 tons, will pursue the private interests of their owners un- til necessity requires their commandeer- ing.” The shipping board is devoting all its time to preparedness problems, Mr. Den- man said. In perfecting the wooden ship plan, he said, one of the objects of the board was to arrange to build ships which would be useful after the war for ordinary commercial purposes. “Ninety per cent of the assistance which the country can render to the 156 allies in the war will be of a commer- cial nature,’ continued Mr. Denman. “It is in connection with the transportation of supplies to Europe that the United States must organize its energies to help to win the war. For two months the shipping board has been considering effective measures, and we have begun to organize our forces to the end of supplying transportation tonnage for the allies from a source which would not disturb the sources of steel ship building and general steel construction. “We on the west coast are familiar with the wooden ship which has plied up and down our coasts for many years. In this emergency all we could turn to were the forests, the wood worker, and the smaller boiler factories, and there lies the nucleus of a great fleet of wooden ships. 200,000 Tons a Month “Under a proper organization, with such a man as Mr. Goethals at the head of it, we could turn out wooden ships at the rate of 200,000 tons a moiith, without interfering with the steel trade of the country, and within seven or eight months from the time that construction started. These ships would be of about 3,000 tons each, would have a speed of 10 knots an hour in the peaceful sections of the Atlantic ocean, and in the sub- marine zone could be speeded up to 12 knots. It is possible that we could have 800 or 1,000 such vessels within 14 to 16 months’ time. “Assuming a high rate of destruction on the part of the German submarines, if this fleet could convince the German government that the construction of our — steel and wooden ship yards could keep pace with such destruction, they would