The Savannah morning news. (Savannah, Ga.) 1900-current, 1903-04-17

tons of steel plates and shapes, and
315 tons of riVets, a greater total of
steel strength than is found in the
hull of the greatest battleShips or of
any other merchant vessel in the world.
1t is interesting to note by comparison
that the Park Row building in New
York contains 5000 tons of structural
iron and Steel or one-fourth less than
the Minnesota, that the Frick Build
ing in Pittsburg contains $500 tons,
or nearly 40 per cent. less, and that
the Old Colony Building in Chicago
contains $500 tons of structural iron
and steel, or less than one-fourth that
in the Minnesota" steamship.
The Minnesota and Dakota" are
primarily cargo vessels, at the same
time they have a comparatively large
passenger equipment. The Minnie
sofa will carry 172 first cabin pas
sengers, 40 second cabin, 6S third cab
in and 2,424 steerage passengers or
troops, in addition to a crew of $50.
Its speed is IA knots, and it is ex-
pected to average II knots with the
heaviest cargoes and in the worst
weather. While not as fast as the
passenger steamships of the leading
transatlantic lines they will be by
far the swiftest cargo carriers in the
Oriental trade.
In completeness of electric service, of
cold storage and refrigerator plant, of
laundry service, ventilation plant and
lfe-saving appliances, the Minneso-
ia" and Dakota are the most mod
ern and up-to-date vessels that have
been designed. The dining saloons, the
cabin, library and ladies' boudoirs, the
staterooms and toilet rooms, are mod
els of the latest discoveries in their re-
spective lines. In regard to the cargo
capacity of the vessel it will carry
cargo that would fill a railroad train
seven miles long, or 125 trains of TWEEN
ty cars each. President Lewis Nixon,
of the United States Shipbuilding
Company, of which the Eastern Ship
building Company is. a branch, in an
swer to question as to whose genius
originated and designed the steamship
Minnesota says:
To arrive at a just and complete
answer to this question we must go
back before the existence of the Uni
ted States Shipbuilding Company and
before the Eastern Shipbuilding Com
pany had plant or even a site We
must look further, moreover, than to
the work of the responsible manager
and builder Charles r. Hanscom,
president of the latter company, or to
the plans of his architect and designer,
William A. Fairburn. We must go
back to the great mind that discovered
mission for these vessels in the ORR
entail commerce of the United States.
and who saw and conceived even. in
detail the nature and character of the
vessels to fulfill that mission. We
must go back to that grand old trans
portation giant, James j. Hill, whose
ideas not only in the main but often in
minute detail, were transferred to pa
per by the architect and draughtsman
and thereafter transformed into the
great steel palace, the biggest cargo
carrier in the world, by the builder and
his efficient force of skilled workmen."
Hill Says He Is Guilty.
In an address at the luncheon James
j. HILL expressing his sentiments re-
garding the merger agitation, said:
In order to develop our commerce
with the Orient and meet the COMPETE
ton of nations, there must exist a
power of control that can collect and
forward it. But now we are told that
such power is a crime and that he who
exercises it is criminal. / now here
plead guilty to that crime, whatever
! the penalty that may be imposed"