The Bennington banner. [volume] (Bennington, Vt.) 1858-1894, 1893-02-17
UNDER THE STARS AND STRIPES.

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which has not been seen in those waters
since 1925. The British flag will be
lowered from the stats of the monster
Imam ships City of New York and City
of Paris, and the Stars and Stripes will
be hOisted, and the steamers will become
the New York and Paris of the New
American Line. That is, the foremost
transatlantic steamship company will
cease to be British and become an
American corporation.
Two distinct measures of legislation
have enabled this slap to be taken. One
was the postal aid law of the late Repub-
lican Congress, offering a subsidy of
four dollars per mile for carrying the
mails in 20-knot ships between the
United States and Europe. This placed
American shipowners on something like
an equal footing with British concerns,
which had long been heavily subsidized
by their own government. Then in the
| Fifty-secOnd Congress- year ago, a spec
ial bill was passed granting American
registry to foreign built ships of at least
5000 tons burden and twenty knets
speed, belonging to corporations not less
chan 80 per cont of whose stock was
owned by American citizens. This bill
was intended to cover solely and exclu-
sively the two Inman liners City of New
York and City of Paris, though the In
man line was not specifically named.
But before these two vessels could be adj
mitted to registry here their owners were
required by the bill to contract to build
in American shipyards steamships of an
equal aggregate tonnage. This bill had
passed the House of Representatives be-
fore the violent free ship element fully
realized its character. Then there was
savage attack upon it in the Senate, led
by Mr.. Mills of Texas, and a desperate
attempt was made to send it back to the
House and kill it, but the Republican
Senators stood by the measure and it be-
came law.
The Inman Company has fulfilled its
agreement and has even gone beyond it.
Two ships like the New York and Paris
were all that the law required, but Mr..
James A. Wright, Jr., Vice President of
the company, announces that instead of
building two vessels in American ship.
yards it is proposed to construct six.
Work upon three of them is to be begun
Immediately at the great Cramp yard in
Philadelphia. Contracts We're signed
this week and designs and specifications
are In readiness. Mr.. CTamp says that
they differ in some resi- ects from the
British vessels, ana will show their ma
tionality at glance. They will proba-
bly, have more sheer than the Clyde-built
crafts, ana will appear less angular and
more graceful. Each of the four ships
first constructed will be 5ll feet long, 50
feet wide and AZ feet deep. with 90 feet
dr1ught of water. Their gross register
Will be 1866 tons, or somewhat more
than the New York and Paris, and their
displacement 1883 tons. They will
carry 472 first class, 2l6 second class and
900 third class passengers, and their
freight capacity will be 1875 tons greater
than that of the older ships. The fifth
vessel will be monster, and in point of
speed it is expected to distance all ships
now built or building. Fully 81, 900 tons
Of steel will be required for the construc-
ton of the new feet, and the huge size
of the order has enabled the builders, so
1T is said, to procure their material at
more favorable figures than it could be
imported, duty free.
Every step of this great enterprise has
been followed with genuine patriotic in
terest 1t has long been considered
reproach that we should have permitted
ourselves to be almost wholly driven
from traffic where our flag was once
pre-emlnent For many years no dis
tinctively American transatlantic steam
line has been in existence. There were,
it is true, four or FIVE good American
steamships in the service-in their day
no better fioated-but they were con-
trolled by the managers of foreign COM
panies and devoted chiefly to immigrant
and cargo trade. American travellers
who sought modern vessel we're forced
to sail under a foreign flag. Now all
this is going to be changed. The most
enterprising and liberal transatlantic line
has been acquired by American capital,
and hereafter its passenger vessels are
going to be built in this country and
navigated by American citizens. This is
the most promising and the most i'm
portrait step which has been taken for a
quarter of century to regain for our
nation its old place on the high SEAS
Boston Journal.