Los Angeles herald. [microfilm reel] (Los Angeles [Calif.]) 1900-1911, 1908-01-21
REsURREcT THE FLAG

4 MEXICAN maritime interests were
never so weak as now. and owing
~ to the cruise, of the battleship
fleet never so much in the public eye.
Admiral Evans must meet and over
come many and varied difficulties be-
fore he casts anchor in San Pedro har-
Dor but no one of them approaches
that of obtaining coal and general sup
plies. If stress of weather or other
causes disable or wreck one or more
Golfers he may be forced to await a
new charter and the time necessary to
make the distance. OF course he may
not. but the possibility and probability
are both there. Had we a competent
merchant feet under our own flag the
admiral could not get away from
hustling shipmasters and agents who
would waylay him from all points of
the compass and supply all possible
needs.
Did sudden declaration of war
reach the admiral he could use Ameri-
can steamships for any purpose re-
quired and without such help he would
be as bad off almost as without coal.
The ocean greyhounds of other flags,
armed and manned by a naval reserve
the members of which are trained for
active service, would chase our coast
wise commerce off the seas and serve
to connect any nation with a naval
fleet with it's home base and keep its
ships in supplies.
The following. one of the MANY Of
fetal proofs of our suicidal policy
toward American shipbuilding and deep
water traffic, is from Consul W. c.
Hamm of Hull. England:
"Among the $4,000 or more ships that
have entered the Humber river ports
during the past seven years there has
been only one ship of American regis
ter. This was the bark Homeward
Bound, from San Francisco, loaded
with barley, which reached Hull in
March. 1906.
"In the years from 1895 to 1900 both
inclusive. at least one American ship
a year arrived at the port of Hull; but
in the seven and a half years from
April, 1900 to October, 1907, only the
one ship of American register has en-
tered the Humber river. No more strik-
ing evidence than this probably can
be given of the decadence of the Amer
lean merchant marine. Regular lines
of steamships run from Hull to New
York and Boston. Another line, to Gal
weston, touches at Grimsby, the second
port on the Humber river. Chance
steamships also run frequently to
Philadelphia, Norfolk, Savannah, New
Orleans and Galveston. Not one OF
them. however, flies the American flag.
The trade must be profitable or it
would not be kept up. 1t is to be re-
GREETED that Americans have no share
in it,
And so the shameful story goes, ad
nauseam, and the California delegation
to congress fight with each other over
the postmastership of Milpitas or the
equally important collectorship of some
intermountain hamlet.
While railroad and railroad steam
ship interests were on deck to grab
subsidies the congress made willing
and valiant battle to get them. but
now. thanks to the policies that have
curbed these sharks and opened the
way for honorable individual competi-
ton. these same valiant fighters are
dumb.
With tariff revision just and compe-
tent government subsidy to the ship
builder and owner has come to
stay. and if the present congress is
derelict in duty on these pressing ques-
tons the people can and will send men
next fall who will pave the way for
the American flag again on ocean
highways.