Perth Amboy evening news., 1912-08-08
OUR MARINE INTERESTS.

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The following editorial from the
Philadelphia Record on American
Neglect OF the Sea" should set every
Perth Amboyan thinking, for 1t has
a meaning for this port as well as for
the ports of Philadelphia and New
York:
There is a fine field for an inter-
esting psychological and economic
study in the change which has come
into the American spirit during the
last half century and which makes
the average citizen SO Indifferent to
the opportunities and profits that
come from the sea. We are accus-
| toned to blame our tariff laws large
ly for this, but they explain only in
part. The curious fact remains that,
unlike the young American of sixty,
seventy or eighty years ago, the
! young man of today looks upon the
| ocean as the very last place for earn
ing a living or building up a prosper
Gus business, and 1t is difficult to in
terest him in questions of harbor i'm
! Ii NNi4Itlibs Nv ~ 49,
shipping and kindred matters.
We have often had occasion to la
ment this Indifference in Philadel-
phia, which has made 1t so difficult to
. arouse the public to the necessity of
! deepening the Delaware and building
more and larger piers here, but II IS
by no means confined to this city.
Similar exhortations fall upon nearly
deaf ears in Boston, Baltimore,
Charleston and other seaports, where
a comparatively few public-spirited
men are constantly seeking to i'm
prove the existing facilities. More
surprising than this, however, is the
indifference on this question which
prevails in New York, whose very
existence may almost be said to de-
pend upon it's foreign and domestic
water-borne commerce.. For years
the Commissioner of Docks there has
been struggling to have some new
piers built, but his efforts meet with
no success in the Board of Estimate,
which holds the purse strings. The
situation is almost precisely hat
which existed in Philadelphia before
the advent of the present admlnistra-
ton. The trade bodies have protest
ed and pointed out the loss of trade,
but all in vain. The somnolent In
difference of the ordinary citizen and
the municipal authorities is interest
ingly portrayed by The New York
Evening Sun, which, under the head
ing, wake Up, New York." has
this to say:
"Have you forgotten that you are
q seaport, New York? Or is 1t just
q subcommittee of the Board of Els
innate that has forgotten 1t? The re-
suit is just the same. i
"Our grain trade has gone away
from us. Go down to the big Prod
uce Exchange any day and ask a
grain nan there. He will tell you
things to open your eyes to the stu
pidity and sloth of somebody-or is
it the stupidity of all of us?
THE fact is the port Of New York
has lost its great grain trade. 1t is
fast losing it's heavy cargo trade of
all descriptions, import and export.
Does that surprise you, Mr.. New
Yorker? If it does, you have been
asleep. Oh, not in your own bust
ness. Doubtless you have been look
ing after that, eve following the
trend and shipping your cargoes in
and out through other Atlantic ports.
But you have, as a citizen Of New
York, been asleep to the fact that
city is a seaport, the great
American seaport, and needs care,
attention, an intelligent, alive public
interest to keep it up to date. Yes,
to keep 1t even working. y
Meanwhile, Montreal gets the
grain trade. Baltimore, Philadel-
phia, Newport News, Norfolk, Boston
get more and more the cargo bulk
natural to New York.
"And this Is the traffic that gives
most employment to our laborers,
to our warehouses, freight to
our railroads, occupation for our
boats,
wake up, New York, wake up!
You are a seaport"
New York's present maritime
greatness is largely due to foreign
ers, English, Germans, Norwegians
and others, who reap rich harvests
from the sea. When will Americans
turn again to hat splendid domain,
the ocean, where, as lately as half a
century ago, their supremacy was I'M
disputed2