The Alaska daily empire., 1914-08-15
WHY NOT GOVERNMENT
 OWNED MERCHANT sHiPsi

Why Shoulu nOl>hne AhiotAOo" oV' ernment buy, own and operate a mer. chant marine to carry the European commerce of the United States?
 such step on the part of Congress?
 Do not existing conditions counsel left of the American merchant marine
 What the Confederate cruisers had after the civil war was immediately protected or the face of the waters by tarifr laws and navlgations laws.
 Monopollstic tariffs have made 1t cost 50 per cent more to build a ship in American yards than in foreign foreign yards, notwithstanding the fact that we command the steel trade of the world.
 Oppressive navigation laws make 1t cost 50 per cent. more to operate an American ship than Q foreign ship, Hence the American money that is in vested in deep-sea shipping sails un. der British and Belgian flags. Under the pretext of protecting our sailors We have driven them off the sea.
 Every attempt to rehabilltate the American merchant .marine is met with demand for subsidiea, not with . demand for . modification of anti. qusted statutes. In consequence even the threat of a great European war in- stantly paralyzes American foreign commerce. We do not have to wait until hostilitles begin. At the first in- timation of hostilites the foreign ships are at once withdrawn from service and the European trade of the United States is left to shift for itself.
 No sooner is a proposition made that the navigation laws be amended to en- courage the immediate purchase of for. eign.built ships than the Coastwise Monopoly that so impudently demand ed a broken treaty and a concealed subsidy at Panama issues It's formal protest. we are against 1t" an- nounces the Secretary of the Ameri- can Steamship Association, which is the Coastwise Monopoly for which Mir. O'Gorman and other Senators were willing not only to wreck the Wilson Administration, but to stain the hon. or of the Republic.
 It is inconceivable that the Ameri- can people will forever rest content to leave their deep-sea shipping in foreign bottoms and their commerce at the mercy of every European threat of war. If private greed will not permit modification of oppressive navigation laws. If monopoly will not tolerate the thought of even casual competition, nothing remains but for the United States government itself to own and, operate a merchant marine. There is far greater necessity for that than for the construction and op- eration of government railroad in Alaska.
 Government ownership and opera tion of merchant marine would of fer a scanty competition to American private capital. It would not be like a parcels post which has cut so deep ly into the business of the long-estab- lished express companies. The com petition would be largely between gov. ernmentowned hips under foreign flags.
 We should regard such an enter. prise as last resort shrort of pay. ing outrageous subsidies, but it is in. finitely preferable to present.day con ditions. It would be far better than subsidies; for if the American people are going to spend public money on a merchant marine they should control 1t and have something to show for the investment. Certainly if there is no other way ou of an intolerab.s situ. ation, the United States government has the power and the money and the administrative machinery to own and operate a merchant marine under the American fiag.-New York World.