Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1917-07-18
SHIPPING BOARD ROW |.
CONTINUES UNSETTLED
Differences Between General Goethais
and Chairman Denman Delay
Shipbuilding Program.
WISH DEFINITE CONTRACTS
Denman Says Board Should Have
Agreements in Hand Before Spend-
ing Would Place
Whole Responsibility on Goethals.
lBy Assoeiated Press.l

WASHINGTON. July 17.-Direrences
between Chairman Denman. of tho
shipping board. and Major-General
Cocktails. manager OF the boards feet
corporation, which have halted the gov
ernments shipbuilding program, APP
parently were far from a settlement
tonight.
General Cocktails. who yesterday
postponed his plans for constructing
two great government shipbuilding
plans and for reQuisitioning ships now
building, made no move to-day toward
going ahead with his program. Nor
would he add to his statement Of last
night that Mr.. Denman had asked for
delay to give the shipping board time
to go over his plans.
Chairman Denman put the whole re-
sponsibility for the delay on General
Cocktails. who. he charged, was slow
In furnishing information asked Of him
Yesterday CONCERNING his plans At
the same he made 1t clear that the
shipping board. as holder Of the stock
In tho feet corporation. Will study tho
generals program carefully before
giving It approval.
Part Of the information asked of
General Cocktails has been given to
Mr. Denman. but more. which shipping
board officials declare Is Just as i'm
portant. has not been forthcoming, It
was declared tonight.
AS soon as complete information Is
at hand. probably tomorrow. 1t Is
said at the Offices OF the board. a meet
ing OF the board members and General
Cocktails will be called to go over tho
situation. Reports that General Goe-
thals had been refused an Immediate
conference he requested with Mr.. Dem
man. to go over all the questions in
rolved. were not confirmed by tho
board.
DESMAN SEEKS INFORMATION
ABOUT NATURE OF CONTRACTS
Information sought by Mr.. Denman
had to do with the nature Of contracts
for the proposed government owned
shipbuildinE plants. and with estimates
OF their cost and the cost OF comman-
deerinG shipping on stocks.
In statement tonight Mr.. Denman
had this to say OF General Goethals's
proposal to go ahead with his program
before the board had acted on It:
I'VE have not received copies OF the
contracts for building the fabricating
plants. which means the expenditure
OF &36o.oOo.000 Of public money on tho
plants and on ship construction. nor
Goethals's plan to commander ship
stocks AS soon as We get the con-
tracts and the estimates asked for at
o'clock yesterday A. NJ, we will call
meeting. and we trust General Goe-
thals will attend 1t. There we will dis
cuss the program.
we desire to have In hand definite
contracts to which General Goethals
referred In his statement OF Friday
and an estimate of the cost of the
Communicating which he said he
wished to put Into effect last Monday
The total amount of public money In
volved in the two projects Is $780,
100000. and as yet we haven't seen the
contracts or the general outline OF the
fabricating scheme. including maps OF
the property on which the great gov
ernment plants are to be built. Nor
nave we had any estimate Of the cost
Of Communicating
We have every hope they will reach
US in the near future, as their failure
to reach US is seriously interfering
with the plan for rapid construction
OF ships"