John Randolph Spears

“ It runs every kind of ship from the 23-knot passenger packet to the economical cargo carrier that uses perhaps little more than ten tons of coal a day. The traffic of the world is, in a way, within the touch of this one corporation. The worldwide tides of commerce are felt and noted daily in the home office, and while losses are suffered, here and there, through depressions in business, or through competition, the profit made by the vast fleet as a whole is sufficient to yield regularly the modest dividends that satisfy the owners. ”

“ The people of the United States, before taxing themselves to add to the congestion upon the high seas, should ask themselves whether success, when attained, will be worth the cost. Would a sensible American farmer, able to earn $3 a day grafting orchards, work overtime in order to compete with a foreign ditch digger receiving $1.50?
If we decide to make the fight for a share of the business of the sea it will then be of the utmost importance to consider the strength of the opposition to be overcome. In this inquiry no account will be taken of ships of the sail. ”

“ Take any trade that now attracts the American boy and now holds the American adult, apply to those who follow it a special code of laws obnoxious to all conceptions of Americanism, repugnant to the dictates of humanity and condemned by the instincts of decency, and it may be regarded as certain that that trade would speedily be shunned by American labor. ”

“ The experience of France, for instance, shows conclusively that a subsidy in itself is not enough to create a merchant marine. Although the French subsidy is so liberal that French cargo carriers are able to sail half-way around the world in ballast to get a cargo at rates that would be less than cost of maintenance for any other ship, the French merchant marine grows so slowly as to justify the assertion, made by the late Captain John Codman, that the French mariners are working against a fiat of nature. ”

“ The love of adventure was born into the people who lived where salt spray gave a tang to the odors of a pine forest. Armed ships from Boston hunted Dutch merchantmen as long as the Hudson region was called New Amsterdam. American sailors ate broiled rawhide with Morgan on the banks of the Chagres River. Kidd came from London to New York seeking sailors born in the Highlands of the Hudson, because they were, of all men in the world, best fitted by experience and natural inclination for the work he had in hand. ”

“ The owner of the Hannah, who instigated this attack upon the king's vessel, was Captain John Brown, the wealthiest merchant in Providence. The leader of the expedition was Captain Abraham Whipple, who, as a privateer, had taken a million dollars' worth of prizes during the wars with France and Spain. The whole mob, for a mob it was in the eyes of the law, were representative citizens not only of Rhode Island but of all the seafaring people of the colonies. The time had come when Americans would, in defence of Justice, do more than evade an unjust law ”

“ In England deep-water ports had favored deep hulls, but the American designer who wished to increase the capacity of a hull had to make it wider instead of deeper. Wide beam gave greater stability; a wide ship could carry wide sails and yet "stand up like a church" in a heavy wind. Of course stout masts were needed for wide sails, but the forests were full of enormous pines that could be had, at first, for the cutting. Wide hulls of shoal draft, with wide sails spread upon stout spars, made speedy ships, a fact that even now is not as well understood as it should be. ”

“ But, at best, these efforts to turn ambitious young Americans from the opportunities they find on land are inadequate. Congress might have turned the naval academy into a splendid nautical university for the education of all Americans who wish to learn the ways of the sea. We appropriate millions a year for the farmers, not as bounties on their products, but to teach them, through experiment stations, how to do their work. No one seems to have thought it worth while, however, to make a national appropriation for the education of merchant seamen. ”

“ And yet in ships so rude that the hulls were sometimes bound with hawsers to hold them together these men anchored where black fogs shut them in, where sleet-laden gales were a part of their common life, where bergs and fields of ice assaulted them, and where irresistible hurricanes from the unknown wilds beyond came to overwhelm them. To these real dangers they added others that, though born of the imagination, were still more terrifying. They saw evil spirits in the storm clouds, and demons came shrieking in the gales to carry their souls to eternal torment. ”

“ We did not gain or hold supremacy because we could build ships cheaper than they could be built elsewhere. Cheaper ships could be had in the north of Europe and in Canada. Moreover our most profitable ships were those that cost the most per ton. The American ships were supreme, too, rather because the wages paid were higher then in spite of that seeming handicap. In short, the whole environment of the American seafaring population had evolved a ship and crew which, taken together as a unit, were able to give more ton-miles for a dollar than any other similar unit in the world. ”

“ Emphasis is laid upon the need of candor, because in such discussions of the matter as have been had in periodicals, and before committees of Congress, the plainest facts of history have been frequently misstated, and, at times, deliberately misrepresented. If one-half the ingenuity and energy that have been used in arguing for the subsidy policy had been expended in evolving a revolution-making type of ship, we should have had, long since, a merchant marine worthy of the flag. ”

“ This is done by laying a tariff upon imports. But the American shipping is now and always has been protected that far—absolutely protected, in fact, by prohibition. The importation of ships has been forbidden, and the use of foreign ships in the "home market" has been reserved to home-built ships for nearly 100 years. If "protection" could enable any industry to expand from the "home market" to the foreign, then the coasting trade industry should have expanded long since over all the world. ”

“ For free trade—the necessity of swimming unaided in rough water or drowning—might compel the American builder to produce the revolution-making ship for which we are to hope.
We now come to the policy of paying direct bounties as a means of creating a merchant marine; and nowhere are candor and accuracy of statement more important.
Bounties were paid in the colonial days. Virginia gave a subsidy of tobacco to induce her people to build ships, and they built one ship. ”

“ If the merchant ships an ounce of stuff by a rival line he loses all the rebate, and he may be punished in addition, if the rival is a new line. The merchant, having rivals in trade, feels the loss of the rebate seriously; his rivals by loyalty to the established line continue to enjoy the rebate even when rates are cut below those of the new line, and below cost. In such trades as that between New York and Rio de Janeiro, where a number of lines are plying, the established lines unite their entire resources to kill off a new line trying to enter the trade. ”

“ The story of foreign aggressions upon American shipping and commerce will be told in the next chapter, but by way of illustrating conditions in the years following the Revolution, consider one fact regarding the British work of opposition. All American trade with the British West Indies was forbidden, and so strictly was this regulation enforced that thousands of slaves starved to death in those islands for want of the "refuse fish" and other food which the planters had been accustomed to obtain from America; and even some of the poorer white people died for the same reason. ”

“ These facts are of special interest to the story of the American merchant marine for several reasons. The oil and bone formed an important part of what a farmer might call the cash crops of the nation. Then the whalers were producers whose work added to the comfort and prosperity of the world. Travellers from Europe were astonished to learn that America was a land where "no one begged." Nantucket was a community not only where no one begged but where every man was a capitalist, or at worst had capital within reach. ”

“ Still another evil influence is found in the fact that the magnified stories of privateer work made the people believe that the greed of the merchants would serve to defend the new-born nation from foreign aggression better than a navy could do it. And not until after the War of 1812 was brought upon us was the miserable delusion dispelled.
In two respects only did the privateers serve the American [99] merchant marine well: they gave some thousands of individual seamen increased ability to handle ships under difficult conditions, and they improved the speed of the whole fleet. ”

“ In Boston, as Bellomont learned, there were various ways of smuggling. "When ships come in the masters swear to their manifests; that is, they swear to the number of parcels they bring, but the contents unknown; then the merchant comes and produces an invoice, and whether true or false is left to his ingenuity." ”

“ For slower ships the turbine in combination with reciprocating engines has been found more efficient than the old-style engines, while [311] a combination of the turbine with the dynamo for still slower ships is now in hand and sure to make headway. In all these matters Europe has taken the lead.
In the turbine, with its combinations, it is believed that the steam-engine reaches its highest possible efficiency, just as sails reached their highest efficiency as used on the American clipper. But a new machine, still more economical, has been invented—the gas motor. ”

“ One method by which the Merchant Marine Commission thought to increase American sea power is memorable. A heavy tonnage tax was to be laid upon all ships coming from foreign countries to American ports, and the money so raised was to be paid to American ships in the foreign trade in return for carrying a certain proportion of American citizens enrolled as members of a corps of naval volunteers. The measure looked toward an increase in the number of American seamen, but it did not become a law. ”

“ The owners of these fish had to pay three or four pounds a ton freight; and an agent in England, who charged a good commission for doing so, found a customer to buy them. The New Englanders saw that the vessel carrying the cargo made a profit for her owner. They saw, too, that an agent in a foreign country across the water would never have quite the interest in selling to advantage that they themselves would have if they were there to sell. In short, if the fish business were to be handled in the most profitable way possible, they must carry the cargo in their own ship direct to the consumer. ”

“ It was a common thing for captains to torture men, and men were sometimes killed by the brutality which they could not escape. And while the conditions in the American forecastle were growing worse, those in the British were growing better. In 1869 Captain Cyrus F. Sargeant, the well-known ship-owner, testified that "the wages of sailors are lower in an American ship than in an English ship." It is well known that the port makes the wages for the forecastle, but it was true, then, that seamen on British liners, at least, saved more money in a year than the men on American ships. ”

“ The lake ships can be built for the lowest price of any in the United States.
Contemplation of these facts, and upon the further fact that lake engineers seemed to be about the best the world had ever seen, led the lake capitalists to organize the American Navigation Company, which built two large cargo carriers, sent them down to salt water, and entered the general cargo trade. Those vessels were among the most economical ever built in the United States, all things considered, but they were unable to compete with the European ship. ”

“ For every man went whaling, or might do so, and a "greasy" voyage made every member of the ship's crew rich enough to buy shares in a whale ship. The "lay" of the whale ship was like the private venture of the freighter. Further than that the whaler carried a number of petty officers found on no other kind of a ship—the "boatsteerers." The ambitious youth before the mast found promotion nearer at hand. ”

“ While the British were thus hostile upon the sea (they were also holding American territory in the West, and inciting [105] the Indians to war) , the French and the Spanish were united in an effort to cut off all that part of the United States west of the Appalachians. For civilization was then in the primitive state where men, though they talked about international law, were guided only by unenlightened selfishness, and acknowledged no other court of appeal than that afforded by the sword. ”

“ The Hamburg-American Company runs steamships in sixty-eight different lines. There is a line of its ships from Europe to each port of importance from Montreal to Newport News. It maintains other lines to the important ports of the West Indies, to Ports Limon and Colon on the narrow mainland, and to every important port on the north, the east, and the west coasts of South America. It reaches nearly every port of importance on [315] the coasts of Europe, and down the west coast of Africa. Indeed, on the west coast of Africa the natives see two German steamers to one under the British flag. ”

“ While the marine steam-engine has been perfected in Europe, it is worth noting by the way that the producer-gas engine, though yet in the experimental stage for ship use, has been brought to a higher state of perfection for land use in America than in Europe. Magazine articles by marine engineers have been published, urging American ship-owners to adopt this new method of propulsion, because it is to make a revolution almost as far-reaching as the iron screw steamer made in 1855. ”