The Portland daily press., 1872-08-12
Mr.. pike and the Shipping Interest.


PORTLAND, Aug. 9, 1872.
To the Editor ofthe Press;
notice that Mr.. Pike, in the course of his
campaign speeches in the fifth district, is re-
ported as claiming that he is himself the
great originator of all that has been pro-
jected or done in behalf of the shipping in
terest. One moments consideration is suffi-
cient to dispose of this monstrous claim;
and this consideration is due to other men,
bers of Congress, and especially to the gen.
tleman from this district-"honest John
Lynch" as he is we'll called by one OF the
New York papers. The latter gentleman
has always subordinated the idea OF getting
credit" for anything, which is uppermost in
the minds of some Congressman, to doing it,
Accordingly we find him laboring indeiatiga-
bly in the matter of the shipping interest
from the very first of his Congressional ca
reer, never abating one jot of effort till his
labors were crowned with success. At the
very beginning of his Congressional career
he drew up bill for allowing drawback ON
shipbuding material, which was adopted by
ScndUOT rGSSeilucu dilu pdooCu tlC pCHdtCs
long before it occurred to Pike to see if he
couldn't get ''credit' for his activity in be-
half of commerce. Mr.. Lynch's subsequent
services in this field are too recent and too
well known and appreciated to need recapit-
ulation. We wish rather to examine the
grounds of Mr.. Pixies self-bestowed congrat-
ulations. A few words will dispose of him.
First, in his fifth district speeches he is
only able to produce as evidence of the value
of his services copies of bills he introduced
for the relief of commerce, but which never
passed, and polite letter from the chairman
of committee, the occasion of which we
shall explain hereafter. These pitiful tro-
plies are all that Mr.. Pike has to display as
the fruit of Congressional career of eight
years, the Republican party having the abso-
lutte ascendency in both branches during the
greater part of the time u ll~1
Second, after Mr.. Pixies retirement from
public life he began course of actioe and
persistent hostility to the shipping interest of
his natiue county. His first act in this
direction was series of letters from Europe
in which he declared that the wooden ships
built in the fifth district are obsolete, and that
the iron-built ships of Great Britain must
supplant them. s,.a .f.-. y... t.t.ia,
Third, on his return from Europe he inter-
fered deliberately and with malice afore-
thought to prevent the granting of any relief
to shipbuilders by Congress. Being in Wash
ington while the special committee on the
decline Of commerce was in session, he studi-
ously avoided that body, attending none of
their sessions and giving them no advice or
assistance whatever On the other hand, he
took the extraordinary and, in fact, unprece-
dented course of writing home to a Maine
paper criticising and denouncing the action
of the committee and the measures it had
framed in the most severe manner. Those
measures had been approved by the unani
nous oote Of the Maine Shipbuilders and
ShipOwners association! They were ex-
tremely liberal to all branches of the ship
building industry. 1t was simply a miracle
that committee composed in great measure
of Western men could have been brought
through the care and skill of the chairman to
duiiiiG Tue COdStlIS Irdut 10 participation III
the benefits OF projected laws giving bounty,
drawback on material and exemption from
local port charges amounting in the aggre-
gate to millions of dollars! No honest man
in Maine above the grade of idiocy failed to
appreciate the extraordinary generosity with
which the coasting interest was treated But
Mr.. Pike meant to make mischief According
ly he began an agitation in favor Of a repeal
of the tonnage tar-an oppressive duty thathe
had alloaoed a Congress overwhelmingly Re
publican to impose ,chile he srGs member Of
that body! He worked through the Ways
and Means Committee, antagonizing that
body with the friends of the shipping interest
who composed the special committee on the
revival of commerce, and it was in the course
of these maneuvres to prevent the granting
of any relief, that he received from Gen.
Schenck THE LETTER WHICH HE PRODUCES
vorEHs=oF= LEADIyu SHIP
BUILDING DISTRICT IN THE COUNTRY AS A
REASON WHY THEY SHOULD SEND HIM TO
CONGRESS IN PLACE OF A MAN WHO HAS
ACTUALLY DONE SOMETHING.
MNEMOs,