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Captain Robert Dollar 1844— 1932 shipping men, Captain Robert Dollar, is dead in the eighty- ninth year of his life. Only a short time before announcement of his death,’ his doctor reported that he had ‘‘weathered another storm.”’ But it was not to be. He died at his home in San Rafael, Calif., early in the morning, May 16, of pneumonia. No other individual has done as much for the prestige of the American mer- chant marine. He was truly the “erand old man’’ of American ship- ping and was equally’ respected abroad and at home. He won and re- tained the confidence of political and business leaders the world over. In China, whose vast potential power he fully appreciated, his word was as good as his bond. Around his name gathers naturally the glamour and romance of a great leader. In a real sense he never sub- mitted to defeat. Some of his great- est accomplishments came at an age when most men are content to sit idly by. Practical common sense com- bined with an iron constitution, driv- ing energy, superb courage natural humor and reasoned optimism car- ried him on through tasks weaker men called impossible. In his eighty- seventh year he made his thirty-sev- enth business voyage to the Far East. He lived actively with good sense and unfaltering courage to the end. On Jan. 5, 1924 he initiated the round-the-world service of the Dol- lar line with seven of the President ships purchased from the United States shipping board. A venture which in the ensuing years has proved sound and profitable but at the time was looked upon as fool-- hardy in the extreme, an invitation to disaster, by many old experienced shipping men. Early in 1925 five additional President ships in the transpacific service were acquired from the shipping board. To cap his career and as an earnest of confi- dence in the line he had founded, an award was made of transpacific United States mail contracts in September, 1928, shortly followed by the begin- ning of plans for the building of the two largest and most luxurious Amer- ican passenger vessels up to that time, the Presipent Hoover and the PRESI- pFNT CooLipcr, both of which he was to live to see enter service in 1931. Beginning as a kitchen flunky in a lumber camp in Canada and ending his career aS chairman of the board of the largest steamship fleet carrying the American flag, the career of Cap- tain Dollar is a true modern epic. He T HE most illustrious of American was born in Falkirk, Scotland, March 20, 1844. He was 14 when his father brought his family from Glasgow to Quebec on the sailing ship ANGLESIA, a passage taking five weeks. He had begun working two years before this time, feeding a lathe in a machine shop for which he received sixty cents a week. He continued his daity activi- ties to within a few weeks of his death, so that his working life spanned a period of 77 years He himself has said: “Within my recollection the first Atlantic cable was laid; the telephone was introduced; wireless has been de- veloped; improvements in the use of steam have been very great; the pro- peller has been perfected and super- seded the paddle steamer. “These are great changes but young men now living will survive others on a vaster scale, involving the com- mercial and industrial development of countries where the surface as yet has been little more than scratched. “ Brom 1858 when I secured a job in a Canadian lumber camp at $10 a month until 1888, I was continuously engaged in the lumber business in various parts of Canada and Michigan. By the late eighties’ good, large tim- ber was getting scarce in Michigan, so I moved to California. In 1893 I start- ed a mill in Mendocino county on the Pacific slopes of California and ran it for six years. During this time I found it very difficult to get vessels to carry our lumber. I started investing in ves- MARINE REVIEw—June, 1932 sel property. “It was not until 1901 that I made my first venture in the China trade. I began by buying a 6500-ton steamer. At that time the lumber was being carried to Japan and China in slow sailing vessels. “We soon found if we intended to stay in the business we would have to furnish our own cargo. Consequent- ly I bought other saw mills and there- by provided our ship with a full cargo westward. I also found that if we were to maintain the line we would have to have an organization at both ends, so in July, 1902 Mrs. Dollar and I sailed for our first trip to the Orient. “We visited both Japan and China. I carefully looked over the field, and opened a small office in Shanghai. “T discovered that a ship sent to - the Orient became a drummer for trade, not only for the goods that she carried there but for a cargo for the return trip. The growth of our busi- ness is but a part of general advance- ment of the Pacific coast. Highty years ago (this statement was made in 1927). The Western coast of the United States was a wilderness with only a scattered population of a few white men; less than fifty years ago the first steamship crossed the Pacific ocean from America to China. Ton- nage has increased by leaps and bounds and I believe that within a few years the tonnage of the Pacific will exceed that of the Atlantic. “Leaving all the rest of China out of the picture, let me suggest briefly the wonderful richness and resources of the land bordering the Yangtse river and its tributaries, running through the rich heart of China. Roughly one-seventh of the human race dwells there. Like the Nile, the Yangtse is a great silt-bearing stream which overflows yearly and furnishes the lands with rich growing soil. One sails up the river for 1600 miles through cities containing millions of population I do not hesitate to say that I firmly believe the Yangtse river valley will yet be the greatest steel producing country in the world.” “Foreign trade,” he said, “is nota subject narrowly confined to one group of interested individuals. The people concerned are many. If carried on properly, foreign trade is only an exchange of commodities. It is ne- cessary to buy in each country as much or nearly as much as is sold there. “My ships carry the American flag. I feel in doing business under another flag, like the man who is doing busi- ness under his wife’s name. I have given my promise that I will continue to do all that I can to keep them un- der the American flag.” And so passes the grizzled veteran of American shipping, a man devoted to his home and to his country, an example and an inspiration to the youth of the land. Of such stuff are great nation’s made. 25