The Leavenworth echo. [volume] (Leavenworth, Wash.) 1904-current, 1914-08-14
SHIPS TO CARRY
AMERICAN PRODUCTS
Lack of Which viii Cause Loss of Half
Billion Dollars to United States

ne OnlleQ OlateS mus llSeH WIFI
out a merchant marine at a time, as
with the Texan without his revolver,
when it needs one powerfully bad. "
We have been too long shiftless and
easy going in a matter Of big and vital
importance. Prophetic voices, lifted
warningly in every session Of congress
for half century, inveighing against
the peril OF trusting our overseas COM
merce to foreign ships have had scant
hearing. Our navigation laws, though
framed ostensibly to foster and build up
a merchant navy, have had the con-
verse effect and have destroyed all but
the last vestage OF the merchant marine
we once possessed.
A lamentable combination Of adverse
influences has done the evil. In a
laudable but ill-advised effort TO build
up American shipyards we have refused
to admit to American registry and the
American flag vessels built in foreign
shipyards. With what result? That
the foreign yards went on building
more ships than ever, to fly foreign
flags and carry the commerce for which
we had no ships ourselves.
In laudable effort to force Ameri-
can ship owners to employ American
sailors and pay them relatively high
wages we have totally failed to accom-
plish the purpose. We have discov-
cred that here was horse that could
neither be led to water nor be made TO
drink. We have found that worldwide
conditions cannot be governed by the
fiat of one country. We could pass
laws imposing impossible conditions,
but we could not compel capital and
enterprise TO engage in those impos-
sible conditions. American capital and
enterprise preferred to keep of the
seas and leave that business to ships
OF countries that did not impose i'm
possible conditions.
We have enacted navigation laws so
peculiarly constructed that they i'm
posed handicapping port and towage
charges on American ships in the over
seas trade.
We have steadfastly stood opposed
to ship subsidies when other couun-
tries paid them, policy which of it.
self may be sound and best, but which
coupled with numerous other obstacles
has contributed to the sum total OF in
fluences which have kept US ont Of
the ocean-carrying trade.
And we have capped all that by
charging full tolls on American ships
passing through the Panama canal
when it was apparent that the coun-
tries that have the ships intend to re-
bate. in part or in whole, the tolls
paid by their merchant ships that will
make use of the canal.
The Spokesman-Review dwells now
upon these matters, not in spirit OF
fault finding, but in a desire to con-
tribute, so far as may lie within its
power, to a clearer understanding of
national deficiency and pressing
national need.
Europe's appalling war will make a
deeper impression on the American
mind in 20 days than has been made
by all the speeches and all the articles
written in plea of a merchant marine
in half a century. The United States
has gone on trusting to foreign ships
when it knew all the while that if
Europe broke out in a great war those
ships would be taken out of the mer-
chant carrying trade and employed as
auxiliaries to European navies.
Fortunately for US Europe's neces-
sites TO buy will be greater than our
necessities TO SELL II the war shall
continue for 90 days the belligerent
nations will have to devise means to
import foodstufs from the United
States, Canada and South America.
Their armies must be fed, and that, in
the face Of diminished European pro-
duction that must result from their
calling their reserves to the colors and
away from the harvest in the ripened
fields.
Meanwhile there is encouragement
:. IL T. La = -,