The San Francisco call. [volume] (San Francisco [Calif.]) 1895-1913, 1895-03-06
A PLEA FOR A
SHIP BOUNTY.
WHAT THE INVENTOR OF THE
WHALEBACK THINKS OF
THE MATTER.
ONLY HOPE FOR COMMERCE.
How THE CURIoUsLY SHAPED SHIPS
WERE SUGGESTED TO
His MIND.
ONLY HOPE FOR COMMERCE

Captain Alexander McDougall, the
"whaleback" inventor, who is at the
Palace, has strong sentiments upon the
question of Government bounty for
American ships, and believes that it will
prove to be one of the vital issues before
the people at the next Presidential cleo
ton.
He is ship-builder and ship-owner him
self. Many of his relatives are engaged in
the same business in England, and he may
truthfully be said to have been educated in
the art of navigation from boyhood up.
In long conversation upon this bounty
question last night the captain presented
many arguments to sustain his contention
that the matter was of more vital i'm
portance to the commercial prosperity of
the nation than almost any other which
now demands attention.
statistics show US" said he, that we
are to-day paying 100000, 900 to foreigners
for carrying our products, half of which
sum at least belongs to the people of the
United States and could be retained by
them if proper effort was made, while the
other half might be permitted to go, as a
matter of politeness, to those who buy our
goods.
"This absorption by other countries of
our freight earnings is only one of the great
disadvantages of being without ships in
foreign trade. There are estimated to be
$50, 900 commercial travellers in the United
States, and through their efforts chiefly
anything new in San Francisco to-day is
introduced throughout the United States
in the course of but very few weeks.
Now, this formidable, intelligent body of
men who lubricate the wheels of com
opportunity to get at foreign lands to do the
same.
1--WE are the people who first learned
how to make labor-saVing agricultural
machinery and taught the rest of the
world-to our great loss-to do the same.
We produced a great quantity of cereals
and raw products now furnished by other
countries, where cheaper ocean freights
and the use of the implements we first
learned to make are now interfering with
the prices OF our raw products.
''We have become nation, in the past
few years, of artisans, skilled laborers and
manufacturers to such an extent that we
need an outlet for many other new inven-
tons and useful products, but we have not
the ships nor the commercial relations to
permit them to go abroad.
''The ship-owner in Great Britain and
other countries becomes commercial
agent to find trade for his ship. The aver
age Sill y HAS ulOTe llldu Ten OWHerS, all OF
whom become agents in one respect or
another. Because of our customs, habits
and high-priced labor, as against foreign
seamen and want of banking and under
writing facilities, it costs per cent more
to operate an American ship than it does
one of English ownership; but if a bounty
amounting to 81, 600, 900 year, say for ten
years, was awarded to American ships in
foreign trade on tonnage basis of work
actually done, it would revolutionize
present conditions.
about four years ago the Farquahar
bill was introduced in Congress, ami some
thing of the same nature is what we re-
quire. This bill, 1 believe, provided for the
payment of about 20 cents ton for every
1000 miles a cargo was carried between
foreign ports and the United States. If this
bill would provide $4,000 a year for each
5000-ton ship 100000 would pay for $50
such ships, all steam, or probably $50
steam and sail.
ITO create such feet as this would re-
quire the expenditure of nearly 100000
600 by the builders, all OF which would be
distributed exclusively among the Ameri-
can people. This work would, for several
years to come, be beyond the capacity of
ten times as many shipyards as there are
in the United States to-day.
eve lost the construction of ships when
other countries learned the art of making
iron ship building material. In this line
we are catching up very fast and are now
very nearly equal to the requirements.
Such bill as that of which speak would
create merchant marine whose owners
and agents would reach all parts of the
| earth and bring about trade that no other
cause would ever stimulate so quickly.
with such trade as would naturally
| follow between the United States, South
America and the Orient, no part of this
country l believe, would be so favorably
affected as California and the Puget Sound
district"
| Captain McDougall referred incidentally
| to the evolution of the whaleback form of
vessel and said the idea was suggested to
him while he was in st. Petersburg in
| 1S74-75. AT that time a cylindrical shaped
vessel was being built by man named
| Winans, and a similar structure had con-
veyed Cleopatra Needle from Alexandria
to the bank of the Thames.
| While he was master of the steamship
Hiawatha on the Great Lakes he built
| perfect model out of an old ships spar.
| This was ten years before the first whale
back was launched, but the model was in
almost every detail perfect counterpart,
on small scale, of the finished structure.
The first vessel was built without any
| skilled labor upon the captains own
| grounds and with his own machinery.
| The shipping world scoffed at his vessel,
/ and eminent naval officials pronounced it
wrong side up" and said it would turn
| over, turtle-fashion as soon as it went to
sea. But the pigs" as they were then
called, had come to stay and have long
| since ceased to be looked upon as an ex-
P0AiAiiS''