Daily capital journal. (Salem, Oregon) 1903-1919, 1916-03-17
THE RENAISSANCE OF AMERICAN SHIPPING

The indications are that the in Europe has settled
the question Of Americas place among the nations VINO
"go down to the sea in ships.
At one time her great clippers were the envy of the
world and her flag was in evidence in every great ship
ping port Then from causes it is not necessary now to
go into her shipping steadily declined and her flag al
most disappeared from the places where 1t was once 50
familiar.
We seemed to drop out of the contest for the worlds
carrying trade and content to let others carry our
products the oceans and carry back such things
as wanted.
One of the main reasons of this decline in shipping
trade that country was new and its exploitation
offered chances for the investment of our money where
it brought quicker and much larger returns.
Certain politicians are prone to lay our abandonment
of the sea carrying business what they pleased to
call our foo laws but the real reason was that we had
better things to invest our money IN.
We had little world of our own that was all we could
take care Of We had half million miles Of railroads to
build We had millions of acres of virgin land to bring
under cultivation We had great iron mines to open and
coal deposits to develop and use in manufacturing we
had great forests vertabe mines OF wealth to send to
the markets Of the world We had countless other
things all Offering more atterng investments than the
shipping business and turned to them leaving the
carrying business to England and the nations of the old
world that already had accomplished in their own lands
all that was still before us.
Now this is changed While we still have many new
things to occupy our attention the bulk Of the work OF
subduihg the Wilderness the bringing under cultivation
our great praries and the other great tasks that con-
fronted us are largely taken care Of and naturally we
again turn back to regain our place the high seas that
we so long neglected The has hurried this move
ment along for it increased freight charges so that the
CARRYING business offered greater returns than things we
were engaged IN
Not only that but the scarcity of ships to carry our
products to market compelled to this course. For a
year or more we have been at the mercy Of ship owners
who have neglected make us pay for our neglect to
provide our own deep-sea carriers
We have been paying two, three, even four or more
times for getting products to the worlds markets
than we paid under normal conditions Self protection
demanded that own ships and we are IN talt
way to do this soon From all the coast sections OF
the country comes the same story Of activity in ship
building.
The Delaware river always the leader in the ship
building industry yesterday announced the completing of
another ship yard Its president announced that before
the yard was finished the company had contracts signed
for the building of six freight steamships OF 5000 tons
each for the transatlantic trade at cost OF S6OOOOO
each Besides it had other contracts that will take the
company six years to complete and top of this the COM
panv is flooded with inquiries from those who want ships
built
On Puget Sound and on the Columbia new ship yards
are springing into existence like mushrooms On this
coast there will be many of the good old wooden ships
built and it may be this type will be much more common
than of late years the high price of steel due to the
war has doubled the cost of the steel vessels.
1t will take some time to relieve the stringency, and
have an abundance of ships but it will not be longer tha
it takes to build them under rush orders 1t means much
to the United States for it means we will no longer be
dependent on others we have the ships and we will
not only carry our own products to market but we will