In November 1939, "Pan Royal" was one of 21 ships that had been idled because of a strike by 5,000 longshoremen in New York. In June the following year, "The Christian Science Monitor" reported that "Pan Royal" had been engaged to return "Big Joe" to the Soviet Union. "Big Joe" was a nickname given to the Soviet worker holding a red star in his up-stretched hand. The statue had graced the column in front of the Soviet Socialist Republics Building at the New York World's Fair during the 1939 fair season. The Soviet pavilion was dismantled prior to the 1940 fair season after popular American opinion turned against the Soviet Union because of its November 1939 invasion of Finland. As part of the dismantling, "Big Joe" had been warehoused in Hoboken, New Jersey, but prevented from export by a United States Maritime Commission ruling enforcing a "moral embargo" that prohibited the charter of American ships on behalf of the Soviet Union.