Merchant marine

“ The skill and expertise of merchant mariners facilitates trade and helps to strengthen our economy.
In times of war, the Merchant Marine is the lifeline of our troops overseas. By carrying critical supplies, equipment, and personnel, merchant mariners provide essential support to our Armed Forces and help advance the cause of freedom. Today, merchant mariners are supporting operations in Afghanistan and Iraq, and their devotion to duty is a tribute to the generations of men and women who have served our Nation with courage and determination in every conflict in America's history. ”

“ SOME of the most stirring tales in the history of the American merchant marine are those of the battles of men who, like Captain Jonathan Haraden, of Salem, commanded armed merchantmen during the War of the Revolution. These stories are of special interest here because they portray one side of the character of the American sailors as developed by the peculiar conditions where forest life and sea life met at the surf-line. But before giving any of these tales, it seems necessary to describe briefly the peculiarities of the ships in use in the colonies during the eighteenth century. ”

“ During times of peace, the U.S. Merchant Marine helps ensure our economic security by keeping the oceans open to trade. Ships operated by merchant mariners transport goods across our Nation's waterways and on the high seas around the world to connect American businesses and consumers with valuable foreign markets and commodities. ”

“ At the same time we may hope to celebrate the establishment of our American merchant marine, the one thing needed to carry our American products and goods into the harbors of the world, floating the Stars and Stripes now so seldom witnessed upon the ocean vessels. ”

“ For more than two centuries, the United States has relied on the Merchant Marine for trade and defense. The Merchant Marine has contributed to our economic growth and military strength.
The men and women of our Merchant Marine have worked hard to export our .products to foreign markets, and import foreign goods for our use and pleasure. ”

“ The United States Merchant Marine plays an important role in ensuring our national security and strengthening our economy. As we celebrate National Maritime Day and the 70th anniversary of the Merchant Marine Act, we pay tribute to merchant mariners and their faithful service to our Nation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ When we are confronted with a declining merchant marine, when the carrying trade is passing into the hands of foreigners, when we remember that our whaling fleet, which twenty years ago numbered 600 ships with 18,000 sailors, the best sailors on the globe, disciplined and educated in voyages of three and four year's duration—is now reduced to 163 vessels with less than 5,000 men, we may well inquire, where are we to look for experienced seamen to man our navy in case of foreign war? ”

“ Throughout America's history-from the Revolutionary War to today's global challenges-our United States Merchant Marine has fulfilled its mission with patriotism and efficiency, transporting our Nation's cargoes in times of both peace and conflict. Our Merchant Marine has shown its mettle time and again during major United States military engagements, proving to be a crucial component in support of our Armed Forces' efforts to protect our national interests and defend our freedom. ”

“ The influence and the importance of the American Merchant Marine extend well beyond our thriving ports. It affects all Americans. Our Merchant Marine carries the products of our farms and factories to consumers in our domestic trades, among our fifty States and possessions, and links the U.S. industrial and agricultural heartland with our overseas trading partners. ”

“ But while this process of separation, or specialisation, has been both inevitable and fruitful, the Mercantile Marine has, in every war, beenxxii called upon by the Navy to provide transports, auxiliary cruisers, hospital and munition ships, and, in the recent Great War, minesweepers, submarine chasers, ‘Q’ ships, and many other equally vital subsidiaries. Similarly, in the personnel of the Mercantile Marine, the Navy has always had a powerful reserve, not only of experienced sailors, but of actual navally-trained officers and men. ”

“ One of the chief tasks of the Navy League for the future must be to work for a merchant marine, organized and conducted on American principles, without undue help from the Government, and without undue hindrance from unwise laws.
After the present war an American merchant marine is essential to the prosperity of the country. A large part of our products, including both manufactured articles and raw materials, must be exported. ”

“ And there is the likelihood that as our new merchant vessels are launched and put into commission, they will be manned by reserves from the navy training-schools with officers furnished by the Deck School at Pelham Bay and the Engineers' School at Hoboken. The government, of course, is in complete control of the merchant marine; but in our present condition many American ships have to be manned by aliens. ”

“ On the other hand, the Mercantile Marine remained, and still remains, individualistic, each merchant ship-owner, or company of ship-owners, building the sort of vessel best adapted to the particular enterprise in hand. Thus we have sailing from our ports, ships of all descriptions, ocean-going liners carrying passengers, cargoes and mails, as well as tramps, colliers, cold-storage vessels, and an infinity of other types. ”

“ If, however, the British Admiralty is satisfied that it can build thoroughly efficient ships more economically than it can subsidize the mercantile marine for Admiralty requirements, it seems likely that merchant ships may in future have little use in time of war except so far as they are employed to carry food-supplies. ”

“ To enable us to comprehend the reasons for the decadence of our merchant marine it is necessary to have well in mind the fact that we obtained our supremacy by actual merit. It was an economic development, not the result of any kind of political or other stimulation. ”

“ 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. ”

“ Indeed, we have not seriously attempted any great practical scheme for their education or for the amalgamation of the services of the Royal Navy and those of the mercantile marine, which, while invaluable to us as a nation, would tend so much to elevate the social position of that neglected portion of their class, who, not having the good fortune to be enrolled in the Navy or on the lists of the large Shipowners, must seek their daily bread at sea in any ship where employment can be found. ”

“ The Merchant Marine.
That ‘merchantmen dare hardly sail’ was scarcely a condition of things conducive to commercial enterprise. Piracy was becoming a more serious drawback than formerly because ships were bigger and more costly, the network of commerce more sensitive and complex, and losses could no longer be recouped by successful privateering on a small scale. Little can be said of the merchant shipping of these years, as the returns of available ships, so frequently occurring among the Elizabethan papers, are entirely absent for this period. ”

“ Privateers were equipped not with large objects but to secure profits for owners and crews. It sometimes happened that this purpose was at issue with the wider views of the admiral in command, and the voyage became ineffective where a similar number of men-of-war subject to discipline might have done important service. The enormous increase in the merchant marine which, it will be shown, characterised the reign, was in one way disadvantageous since it induced the government to rely more on a guerre de course than on the sustained and systematised action of the Royal Navy. ”

“ A dozen ships of the kind would not be too many. A fleet of smaller ships, fit for use as naval colliers, might well be maintained to gather and distribute cargo along the Asiatic coast and among the islands. We have undertaken the work of developing civilization in the Far East, and we need to do everything [337] possible to prevent an attack upon our position there. After squadrons of war-ships nothing will create a higher respect for our flag among the people of that region than a fleet of superior merchantmen avowedly maintained for diplomatic and military reasons. ”

“ Lost ships could be replaced in the course of one winter; the lost men were [199] not replaced until their sons became men. Then, too, the prosperity of the carrier fleet drained away the best men among the fishermen; for the owners of the carriers knew where to get able seamen.
After the War of 1812 the cod fleet averaged somewhat larger than it was before the war, but the increase was not at all commensurate with the growth of the nation. ”

“ Similarly the Indian Empire, the early American Colonies, and many other British Possessions all over the world, were founded by merchant shipping enterprise alone. From time immemorial, the British merchantman has carried the flag to the outermost parts of the world and thus helped to maintain its prestige.
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The Mercantile Marine and Navy have always been so closely knit that it is often difficult to separate their histories. The Mercantile Marine was in reality, as has been said, the parent of the latter. ”

“ Merchant mariners have served America with distinction throughout our history, but especially at critical moments. Before World War II, they made dangerous and difficult voyages carrying vital supplies to Europe. During that war, more than 700 United States merchant ships were lost to attack, and more than 6,000 merchant mariners lost their lives. ”

“ Can any one doubt that our name, our wealth, our power, are not wholly attributable to our Marine? Can any one be ignorant that the superiority of our marine is wholly dependant on our foreign trade, particularly the bulkier part of it, on foreign supply? ”

“ The swift commerce destroyer as an arm of the naval service has taken the place of the private armed ship which roamed the seas for its own profit as well for its country’s cause. To-day the United States has a navy prepared both to defend its own merchant vessels, what few there are, and to menace the trade of a hostile nation on the high seas. ”

“ 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. ”

“ On board our ships of every type, from the largest Dreadnought down to the smallest Patrol Boat are to be found Officers and men of the Merchant Navy who have combined with those of the Royal Navy in fighting the enemy and defeating his nefarious methods of warfare at sea. ”

“ Now, what is the meaning of our carrying trade departing from us? Our mercantile marine consists of 37,000 vessels, representing an aggregate of between 6,000,000 and 7,000,000 tons. These vessels would necessarily be laid up in dock, or sold to neutrals if the war lasted long enough; and the carrying trade having left us in war, it by no means follows that it would return to us in peace. It is very difficult to coax trade back from channels to which it has become accustomed. ”

“ Instead of enjoying a pleasant spell ashore they would be hurried aboard a King’s ship, to all the miseries of a gun-deck. It was the custom to say that a sailor was better situated on a man-of-war than on a merchant-vessel; that he had better food, better treatment, and better [Pg 123] money. As a matter of fact the merchant-seamen regarded the Royal Navy with dread and loathing. There can be little doubt that the thought of the press-gangs, and the fear of service in the navy, drove many of our best merchant-seamen into American ships, where they were rather less subject to impressment. ”