Audubon Republican. [volume] (Audubon, Iowa) 1894-1925, 1909-07-29
BY ALsgRT o. Ross
OUR MERCHANT MARINE


Hon. Charles b. Lands, for many
years a member of congress, discussed
the question of the American Merchant
Marine. He commenced by saying we
do not have any; that we have less ton
mage now than we did one hundred years
ago, Though we are spending four humid
red million dollars upon the Panama
Canal we have no great ships of com
merce to pass through it. In other words
we are a cipher on the high seas in a
commercial sense. An official at Copen
hagen, Denmark, in making a report
said he had seen no American vessel in
that port for seventeen years and this
statement is a fair representation of
what may or may not be seen in other
foreign harbors.
Mr.. Lands discussed our trade or rath-
er our lack of trade with South Ameri-
During the last year the trade of
that section of America was fifteen hund-
red millions and we got about one sew
enth of it. The Amazon drains a terri
tory three times as large as does the
Mississippi and sea going vessels sail on
its waters for twenty-three hundred
miles. Brazil is as large as the United
States and German Empire together and
Rio Janeiro a city of a million people,
but we sold them only fifteen million
dollars worth last year. The Argentine
Republic is as large as the United States
east of the Mississippi and n row of
states up and down the west side of the
river; and Bonus Ayres has the largest
and greatest newspaper in the world.
They are tunneling the Andes Noun
tains and will soon be able to ride in a
Pullman car fIom that city on the east
to Valparaiso on the Pacific coast. We
look upon Chill as a small strip of coun-
try of little account; but it is four humid
red miles wide and as long as from San
Diego, California, to the middle of Alas
ka. South America is the country of
promise and opportunity. About all we
have down there is the Monroe Doctrine.
To show how beggarly this country is
in this respect hequoted figures to show
the number of vessels representing the
Merchant Marines of other nations in
which Great Britain leads with 1875. In
a gwen time some nations had from N
hundred to two hundred n~inety-two yes
sells pass through the Suez Canal, but
the United States had one which put it
on level with Egypt in that respect.
When our battleships made the trip
around the world the twenty-seven Col
Tiers that hauled the coal flew other than
the American flag. When II people
go to South America they must sail to
Liverpool in England or Genoa in Italy
and go from there in foreign vessels to
their destination. An agent from Sonth
America came to Charles City where
they manufacture the Hart-Parr gaso-
line engines at the rate of n hundred
"a month. He wanted to contract for all
they could make in three years. But
they would have to be shipped to South
America by way of Europe and in for
eign vessels. England has spent three
hundred millions in sixty years or an
average of five millions a year to carry
her mails ON her own vessels. But when
Lands presented a bill in congress for
three millions for the same purpose,
namely to carry the mail in American
vessels. it was called a subsidy and the
bill was carried down to defeat. When
the war with Spain began we had no
auxiliary vessels to accompany navy
and congress authorized President Nc
Kinley to spend fifty million dollars for
that purpose. Had half that amount
been expended in the years before in
building up a Merchant Marine OF
American vessels there would have been
plenty of them to call into service. Our
opinion is that the United States should
have American vessels to carry the mail
and merchandise not onlx to South
America but to every other coantry in
the world.