New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-05-02
Wanted: Trained Seamen
Hon viii We Officer Our Food Ships After Ihey Are ou"9

actual seafaring under men whose life mas
made them masters Of their calling. This
sort of training takes time, the one sort OF
wealth against which no bonds can be issued.
IL seems that we are about to build fiat
feet. TO be differed By the ghosts Of Sumner,
Howe and Samuels.
We have no seafaring reserve to draw
upon Our lake navigators are needed upon
the Great Lakes for the movement OF grain
and ore, and even if drafted for the wooden
feet many Of them do not understand the
art of offshore navigation. The coastwlse
officers are already fully occupied, and must
20 with their ships, and our people, because
of long years of national neglect Of the sea,
have become surprisingly ignorant or the
fundamental truths underlying the great
calling of the sea. As a nation we seem 20
think that because we are great and rich
enough to build five thousand ton steamers
in focks, like so many taxicabs, we can also
pick up sea chauffeurs for them on every
street corner
Merchant Adventures
This idea should be corrected at once. The
technical training OF the sea should be dwelt
upon, and the advantages Of such career
for American youth should be pointed out.
Bows are still the same as in the days when
letters of maraue were issued TO merchant
men and romance rode abroad under the
white cotton wings of the American clipper.
Now great freghters steam the sea, mounting
guns fore and aft. Merchant captains carry
the breath Of the battle line and the stay OF
sweating, struggling nations in their well
slowed vessels. As the great dun-coored
ships steam up the English Channel, lights
out. lookouts posted and guns served and
- Of hot and n
uous battle on the bloody soil Of France
comes to them over the low Channel swell
as the sky hangs lowering at the mastheads
and the radios pick up the calls and counter
calls Of a titanic world at war. And at every
knot Of the course the sea beneath them is
perilous with submarines and sudden death.
The merchantmen is now the world advent
urer. Have American boys ever had such
opportunities for valiant service calling to
them before?
But after our youth wakes up to this OPP
portunity proper training and intensive
guidance must be provided to take the place
Of the wasted years of the past. Sea officers
are the need, and they must be made quickly.
The plan of Commodore Jacob w. Miller,
chairman of the board of governors Of the
New York State Nautical School, is taking
shape. He proposes station ship, anchored
somewhere near New York. to be used in
conjunction with the schoolship Newport, the
latter vessel to take cadets to sea for inten-
sive work in shifts, while the main body are
employed at examining navigation and theory
on the larger vessel at her moOrings. Mr..
!. c. Hatze, of the board of governors; Cap
tain Reginald Fay, marine superintendent Of
the New York Central Railroad, and Captain
F. S. McMurray, superintendent of the
school, commanding the Newport, are work
ing day and night to perfect this plan, but
the press and the public must be advised Of
the great and growing need of merchant sea
officers. FELIX ROSENBERG,
st. Marys, '97.
New York, April 80, 1917.