New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1917-11-24
The Struggle for Ships

The retirement of Rear Admiral W. L.
Capps from the Emergency Fleet Cor
poration completes the second reorganiza-
ton of the governments shipbuilding en-
terprise 1t is expected that Rear Ad-
miral Bowles will also leave the service
Of the corporation. The enterprise will
now pass into the hands of civilian
builders.
There have been three phases in the
brief history of the Shipping Boards &C
tivities. 1t started out as an old-fash-
toned political commission, of the rocking
chair variety. It's head was an admiralty
lawyer with passion for controversy and
an abnormal bump of contentiousness.
He lacked expert knowledge; yet when the
war caused demand for the construction
of merchant ships on a scale undreamed OF
before in this country he insisted on
bossing the job. His wooden ship pro-
gramme was the inspiration of an ANA
teur. Before it got fully under way
Major General Goethals-a military en-
gineer-was drafted into the enterprise
to serve as a make-weight to Chairman
Denman's fertile fancy.
The result was what might have been
expected. Two aggressive personalities
clashed. General Goethals ridiculed Den
mans pet wooden ship idea and put for
ward the counter project of steel con-
struction. In order to save Denman's
face, he and General Goethals were forced
out of Office together.
Then came a reorganization, which
built, on the technical side, on the expert
ence of the construction corps of the
navy. Rear Admirals Capps and Bowles
were called in to revise the building pro-
gramme and to submit it to the exacting
tests which used to be applied in building
warships. The navy in the days of Capps
and Bowles designed slowly and built
slowly. After a few months under the
naval regime dissatisfaction began to be
expressed at the deliberation with which
the great merchant fleet was being Gre
ated. To this dissatisfaction, apparently,
the second reorganization has succumbed.
Now we are to have non-military man.
agement. Civilian heads of building and
concerns are to try their
hands. Contracts are outstanding for
,203,3O tons of shipping, and the board
is going to concentrate its energy on get
ting the new ships-375 wooden, 345
steel and So posite--into the water as
quickly as possible.
The ship construction problem is now
a matter of labor speeding rather than OF
choice between designs. Having the plans,
the next thing is to get the workmen.
For this reason the most efficient direc-
ton will be one by practical builders and
organizers of labor. We are much shorter
on mechanics than we are on materials.
And the problem of creating an army of
artisans is a farreaching one,
exemption from military ser
vice, the recall of trained men taken in
the first draft and the transfer of men
by the wholesale from other less essen
tial industries.
The new management holds out the
hope of real progress in shipbuildng.
But our original optimistic calculations
must be rudely discounted. Chairman
Hurley says that the board never prom
ised 100000 tons of new American ship
ping in 1918. He counts on about 4,00O,-
600 tons of fresh construction by January,
1919, in addition to the 100000 tons of
under way for foreign own
ers which the government will comman-
deer. This is less than our military needs
seemed to require when the U-boat cam
paign was at its peak of destructiveness.
But the submarine peril has now been les
sened, and poor management and friction
at Washington will probably cost us less
in the end than we had reason to think
it would cost.
Gradually a shipbuilding machine is
being beaten into shape. And we are at
last leaving the memories of the Denman
era far behind us.