The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-04-06
From the Boston Post.

From the Boston Post.
 The two battleships, the North Dakota and the Delaware, have not yet been launched. In fact, each is still mere skeleton of cross pieces, stanchions and half-riveted steel plates. It will be more than two years before either is ready for the trial tests.
 But today the world is as greatly in terested in the great race, in which each ships is a contestant, as If the day of the trials were here.
 For the competition in building these two vessels is to determine not only the superiority of Uncle Sam in turning out a perfect type of battleship in record time but it is now declared by naval officials everywhere will decide once and for all the rival claims of two of the greatest shipyards in the world-the Quincy, Fore River and the Newport News yards-to the crowning triumph of unquestioned su- perlority in modern naval construction.
 Never before in the history of battle ship building has such a race been got under way under the conditions which now obtain between these two great yards in the north and south.
 The contracts for the two vessels were both given at the same time, December Is of last year.
 Each vessel is to be exactly the same construction, with the exception of the engine equipment the North Dakota be- ing of the turbine pattern, the Delaware of the reciprocating engine make, but this difference, it is declared by naval archi- tects, ought to make no difference in the time required to fulfill the contracts.
 The special significance of the race is due to the fact, that while the contract of the Newport News yard calls for the completion of the Delaware within a time limit of 36 months the Fore River yard Is under bonds to finish the North Dakota in one and one-half months less.
 It is this difference in contract time that has brought about one of the most sensational contests in the history of 'shipbuilding.
 If the battleship at the Fore River yard is completed in a more limited contracted time than that allowed the Newport News builders. and the tests prove that the speed and construction of each battleship are of the same stan dard it is conceded that the worlds s palm for building superiority will be- long to the Fore River company. If. however, the North Dakota should fall sport in the speed trials for instance, the question of the rival merits of the two yards would then have to be decided by a different and more complicated equa- tion. .r
 Meantime. the honors in the great race are now conceded to belong to the Fore River company.
 Never before at this immense plant has the construction fla naval vessel created such, enthusiasm; among the en- ployes. When the contract was first se- cured Admiral Bowles, In charge of tho yard, called the men together and spoke to them upon the importance of complet- ing the battleship in record time
 Since that moment, night and day, hun dreds of men have been bending every energy toward victory in the race against their rivals.
 With ceaseless monotony the great skel- eton mass of the hull is being added to foot by foot. Huge running cranes creep to and fro above the network of the hull. behind and beneath which hundreds of men are rushing the work.
 One gang of men replaces Hanother With rhythmic monotony.
 In the great yard the undercurrent Of enthusiasm among the men grows as vic- tory for the North Dakota is felt each day to become more assufed.
 Today the great battleship is one-nfth completed. On the first of February the men at Fore River had to their credit IT .5 per cent of the work upon the North Dakota finished, while figures from New port News for the corresponding length of time showed only g30 per cent of the Delaware completed; difference of all most one-half in the advance of the work at the Fore River yard over that or Newport News.
 In the cases of both the vessels the keels were laid at about the same time.
 On March the schedule of work upon inc North Dakota called for 3,150,00O bounds of material worked into the yes