Maritime service

“ When the seaman becomes committed to the service of the ship the maritime law annexes a duty that no private agreement is competent to abrogate, and the ship is committed to the maintenance and cure of the seaman for illness or injury during the period of the voyage, and in some cases for a period thereafter. ”

“ It is from the knowledge of this fact that I think the service is injured by the present system, and the captain should be held wholly responsible for the navigation of his ship. It has been long known that the officers of every other maritime state are more scientific than our own, which is easily explained, from the responsibility not being invested in our captains. The origin of masters in our service is singular. ”

“ The men and women of the U.S. Merchant Marine and the many other workers who have supported the maritime industry have made significant contributions to our leadership in the global marketplace, and to our security. ”

“ Ship movements in the western waters are controlled by the naval authorities in a manner that allows of independent sailings, but the Trinity pilots' duties lie in the Channel and the North Sea, where a more exacting regime is in force. ”

“ These, indeed, often arise in the course of the commerce and navigation of the United States; and seem emphatically to belong, as incidents, to the power to regulate commerce. But they may also affect the commerce and navigation of foreign nations. Repairs may be done, and supplies furnished to foreign ships; money may be lent on foreign bottoms; pilotage and mariners' wages may become due in voyages in foreign employment; and in such cases the general maritime law enables the courts of admiralty to administer a wholesome and prompt justice. ”

“ Throughout the past five decades, the dedicated men and women of this agency have worked to improve the competitiveness of our maritime industry in world markets and to strengthen our ability to respond swiftly and effectively in times of crisis. On behalf of a grateful Nation, I salute these outstanding public servants for their commitment to the U.S. Merchant Marine and to the shipbuilding, repair services, ports, and intermodal water and land transportation systems they need to function efficiently. ”

“ An additional and not unimportant, although secondary, reason for fostering and enlarging the Navy may be found in the unquestionable service to the expansion of our commerce which would be rendered by the frequent circulation of naval ships in the seas and ports of all quarters of the globe. ”

“ Troop transports from the States, standard cargo ships, munition carriers come over in the night from the French ports, high-sided empty colliers returning to the north for further loads, deep-laden freighters for London, ammunition and store ships for the Fleet, coasters and barges, made up the mercantile shipping riding at anchor, while naval patrols and harbour craft under way gave movement to the spectacle. ”

“ But, if we are insistent in our search, we may borrow from the naval charters, and read that not all the glory of our sea-history lies with the thunder of broadsides and the impact of a close boarding. Engagement with the elements—a contest with powers more cruel and implacable than keen steel—efforts to further able navigation, the standard of our seamanship—drew notable recruits to the humbler sea-life. The small crews and less lavish gear on the freighters brought the essentials of the sea-trade to each individual of the ship's company. ”

“ Americans have long looked to the sea as a source of security and prosperity. Bounded by two oceans and the Gulf of Mexico, and criss-crossed by a myriad of inland waterways, America's destiny as a maritime nation was a story foretold. The Merchant Marine took up arms alongside the Continental Navy to help defeat the British Navy during the American Revolution. Since then, they have served bravely as the United States has faced threats ranging from war to piracy, and our seafaring fleet has proven instrumental in protecting our safety. ”

“ In times of conflict and crisis, the Armed Forces rely on the Merchant Marine's sealift capability to transport critical equipment and supplies. Time and again, mariners have demonstrated their willingness and ability to meet daunting challenges. ”

“ Through all our differences, prejudices, envies—perhaps jealousies—there ran at least one clear unsullied thread—our admiration for the Navy, our glory in its strength and power, our belief in its matchless efficiency. ”

“ The revenue cutter, though perhaps the least known, is one of the most useful branches of the Federal service. Its creation antedates by several years that of the navy, and it boasts a glorious history. It polices the coast as the navy polices the ocean, and its duties are as varied as they are weighty and important. It cruises constantly from the fever infected regions of the Gulf to the icebound shores of the Arctic Sea. It is the terror and constant menace of the smuggler and poacher. ”

“ TRANSPORTS LEAVING SOUTHAMPTON ON THE NIGHT PASSAGE TO FRANCE V MANNING
SEA-LABOUR cannot be likened to employment on shore. Once signed and boarded and to sea, there can be no dismissal and replacement of the men such as may be seen any morning at the street gates of a workshop or shipyard. Good or bad, we are bound as shipmates for a voyage. Ordinary laws and regulations cannot reach us in our sailing; we are given the Merchant Shipping Act for our guidance, the longest and wordiest Act on the Statute Book, a measure that presupposes a discipline that no longer exists. ”

“ More attention should be given to merchant ships as an auxiliary of the Navy. The possibility of including their masters and crews in the Naval Reserve, with some reasonable compensation, should be thoroughly explored as a method of encouraging private operation of shipping. ”

“ Citizens of the United States shall be allowed to engage pilots to take their vessels into port, and, when the lawful duties have all been paid, take them out of port. It shall be lawful for them to hire at pleasure servants, compradores, linguists, writers, laborers, seamen and persons for whatever necessary service, with passage or cargo boats, for a reasonable compensation, to be agreed upon by the parties or determined by the consul. ”

“ It is true that they have established certain standards in navigation and seamanship that we must attain in order to hold certificates, but the training to these standards has never been an interest of their Department. ”

“ It is true that the merchant service has the power of rendering certain services in war, especially the power of providing auxiliary vessels, and of furnishing men accustomed to the sea; but as time goes on the power contributable by the merchant service must steadily decrease, because of the relatively increasing power of the naval service, and the rapidly increasing difference between the characteristics of ships and men suitable for the merchant service and those suitable for the naval service. ”

“ A considerable organization of skilled educated minds is therefore indispensable. Upon this side of the ocean there will be the personnel devoted to selection, transport and shipment: clerks who must keep the accounts, storekeepers, and so forth. Then come the commanders, officers, engineers, besides crews, of the steamships. To conduct the service with efficiency not fewer than thirty vessels must compose the fleet. On the other side there will be employes who must receive and distribute through the territory the continual arrivals. ”

“ They recognize the necessity of frequent, regular, and rapid steamship service, both for the purpose of maintaining friendly intercourse and for the convenience of commerce, and realize that without such facilities it is useless to attempt to extend the trade between their ports and ours. ”

“ We also depend on America's maritime industry and Merchant Marine to fill a crucial role in protecting our national interests and the security of our allies. Throughout our history, in times of conflict or crisis, the owners, operators, and crews of U.S.-flag commercial vessels have provided vital sealift capability in support of our Armed Forces, advancing defense, peacekeeping, and humanitarian missions across the globe. ”

“ Before a seaman can be discharged at any place abroad, the master must obtain the sanction, endorsed on the agreement with the crew, of the like officials or, in their absence, of merchants there resident. A seaman discharged in a foreign country is entitled to be provided with adequate employment on some other British ship bound to the port in His Majesty's dominions at which he was originally shipped, or to a port in the United Kingdom agreed to by the seaman, or to be furnished with the means of returning to such port or of a passage home. ”

“ That the respectable fleet, composed of valuable vessels destined to this navigation, would rot in our ports, and the officers who command them, many of whom have not been thought unworthy to be called to the service of their country, would be obliged to abandon with their families this country, where all the other means of gaining a livelihood fail more 57 and more; and as they have solely applied themselves to navigation, they would go in search of their subsistence into places, where, by our interruption, navigation makes new advances every day. ”

“ Amid all our doubts and uncertainties, we look for the one assured sea-mark on the unfamiliar bars—the red-and-white emblem of a pilot vessel on her boarding station. Undeterred by the risk of mine or torpedo while marking time on their cruising ground, the pilots are constantly on the alert to board the incoming vessels as they approach from seaward. No state of the weather drives the cutter from her station to seek shelter in safer waters. If the seas are too high for boatwork, she steams ahead and offers a lead to a quieter section of the fairway where boarding may be attempted. ”

“ The Navy continues to give protection to our commerce and other national interests in the different quarters of the globe, and, with the exception of a single steamer on the Northern lakes, the vessels in commission are distributed in six different squadrons. ”

“ Not only are they obliged to give aid, advice, and assistance to the ships of their commercial marine, but they should in their correspondence with their government report all events touching the navigation, the various changes in the commerce of the countries where they live, and especially anything touching the special commerce with the country which sends them. ”

“ To the new under-water attack there were few adequate counter-measures in the records of our old seafaring. We revised the standard manual, drew text from old games, shield from the cuttlefish, models for our sweeps from discarded sea-tackle. Special devices, new plans, stern services were called for; we devised, we specialized—our readiness was never more instant. Out of our strength we built up a new Service. Instruction and equipment came from the Royal Navy, but the men were ours. ”

“ Then—as later, in the keen sailing days of our clipper ships—their hardest taskmasters were foremast hands, watchmates, the men they lived with and ate with and worked with—bitter critics, unpersuadable, who saw only menace and a threat to their own safety in the shipping of a man who could not do man's work. On the decks and about the spars of a merchant vessel, each man of the few seamen carried two lives—his own and a shipmate's—in his ability to 'hand, reef, and steer.' There was no place on board for a 'waister,' a 'swabber,' longshoreman, or sea labourer. ”

“ Who recalls all the still more varied services of our Navy—its exploits and researches in the interest of science, its stimulus to international commerce, its surveys in foreign harbors, its charting of the sea and marking of the pathway of the merchant marine, its study of the stars, its contributions—in short, to all the interests of an enlightened and progressive country? ”

“ Because the shipping industry is vitally important both to our national commerce and national defense, the Federal Government has maintained a special interest in trying to promote its growth and stability. ”

“ Another feature in our position as a maritime country at present, is the vast facilities which we possess, by means of our mercantile ocean steamers, of transporting any required number of troops to the locality where their services are required, with a rapidity and comfort never dreamt of during the last European war. ”

“ In the throes of our exertions the Merchants' Service repeated a tradition. The stout aged tree shot forth another worthy limb—a second Navy—not less ardent or resourceful than the first offshoot, now grown to be our guardian. ”

“ Every day, merchant ships carry the Nation's domestic and foreign commerce, acting as an integral part of our seamless transportation system. Those aboard go to sea to move American goods and materials, to help provide aid and comfort to others around the world, and, when necessary, to defend our interests and to seek international peace. ”

“ Ships of the proper construction and equipment to be of the greatest efficiency in case of maritime war might be made constant and active agents in time of peace in the advancement and protection of our foreign trade and in the nurture and discipline of young seamen, who would naturally in some numbers mix with and improve the crews of our merchant ships. ”

“ Through the Maritime Security Program and the Voluntary Intermodal Sealift Agreement, which implement the Maritime Security Act of 1996, we have forged new public-private partnerships to ensure that our country will maintain a modern commercial fleet owned and operated by U.S. citizens and crewed by well-trained, highly skilled American sailors. ”

“ Any ship-of-war or merchant vessel of either of the High Contracting Parties which may be compelled by stress of weather, or by reason of any other distress, to take shelter in a port of the other, shall be at liberty to refit therein, to procure all necessary supplies, and to put to sea again, without paying any dues other than such as would be payable by national vessels. ”