The Indianapolis journal., 1892-01-12
AN AMERICAN MIRACLE.

Since that brave and brainy native of
Ireland. John Roach, the man who
maintained for generation that iron
ships could be built in this country, and
spent many thousands of dollars to
prove it, died, broken-hearted victim
of the persecution of the Cleveland ad-
ministrati0n, no one can better speak of
the probabilities of ship building in this
country than the head of the Cramp
ship-building firm; nor need he speak
of proba bilities, since, during the past
ten years, it has been demonstrated that
the best ships in the world for war pur-
poses can be built by American skill,
from, American material after American
designs. Ten years ago it was proba-
bility only, while those statesmen and
editors, the immensity of whose faith in
their own infallibility is only surpassed
by their actual ignorance of the capa-
bilities of the American people and the
resources of the American country, ve-
hemently declared that iron ship-build-
ing in this country was an assured i'm
possibility.
1t may be said that iron ship building
can have no interest for the people of
Indiana. That is absurd. Indiana has
q direct interest in foreign commerce rs
great as any interior State; and if such
were not the case, her people, as part
of the Republic, will ever take pride in
American achievement in any direction.
Therefore, what Mr.. Charles H. Cramp,
of the famous ship-yard on the Della
ware. which has just built for the United
States several unsurpassed war ships,
has to say must be of interest. Mr..
Cramp is called upon to affirm his state
ment, made in an interview, that the
higher class of ships can be built as
economically in this country as in
Europe. This he does in the January
North American Review. He does not
say that the British or German ocean
steamship can be duplicated here at the
same cost as it could be duplicated by
the original builders. since no
English firm could build the ship
of another firm as cheaply as the
firm itself. for the reason that every
reputable firm has plans of its own and
machinery suited to the construction of
ships upon these plans. The Laird ship,
for instance, is so different from an
Elder ship that one yard could not turn
out the ship of the other as economically
as the one having the plans and the ma
chinery adapted to them. But Mr..
Cramp does say this: A ship can be
built in the United States which will do
the work of the best British or German.
built ships at the cost of such ships, but
such ship built in the Cramp yard
would be of their own model. and hot a
duplicate of the ships of other nations,
but fully their equal. Mr.. Cramp makes
another equally interesting statement,
which is that no American ship builder
can duplicate the tramp" steamships of
Great Britain, which do so much of our
foreign carrying trade, for the reason
that the mechanics who make up an
American ship-yard organization are
trained to higher grade of workman
ship, making profitable tramp-construc-
tion impossible in competition with
England.
What Mr.. Cramp has to say about the
building of now navy is the history of
an Observation-Disclosures miracle. Nov.
z, 1881, he says, 1.-The first naval advisory
board reported scheme of naval con-
struction-an act of the Garfield admin
istration. from which may be dated the
prevailing consistent policy of new
navy, though actual construction was
not begun until two years later" At
that date there was not a steel mill that
could make plates of shapes required
for war ship; no foundry that had ever
made such castings; no forge capable of
making the steel shafts, tubes, jackets
or hoops required for the motive power
of ships, OF for the built-up cannon.
Under these conditions, 'in less than
ten years this country will have the
third navy in the world, from starting
point which may be described as zero"
From nothing this war ship building has
developed all the materials for building
and arming the best war ships, "eaual
to any in the world" in eight years, lit
orally "from the ground up"
These are facts which must crafty
the full-grown American. even if they
fill the heart of the Anglomaniac with
impotent rage. 1t is an achievement of
the protective policy and triumph for
American vim, brains and independence.
THE Chicago Journal takes q couple