The Lexington intelligencer. [volume] (Lexington, Mo.) 1901-1949, 1917-12-21
]. s. NAVY OPENS
WAY TO CAREER IN
MERCHANT MARINE
TREMENDOUS REVIVAL IN SHIP,
PING AFTER WAR MEANS
FORTUNE FOR CAPABLE,
TRAINED YOUNG MEN.
Indications Point to an Era Of oppor.
tunity Like That Of Golden
%clipper-Ship Days-Chance
for Ambitious Youths.

Nobody any longer believes the pres '
ent var will be a short one, and it
therefore behooves young men who {
may be called upon to give their time {
TO their country for the mex few years
to consider the peculiar advantages
the navy offers them as a career, eth
er in the private or public carrying
trade that is coming.
Regardless of when or where the
war ends, the navy must continue to
be manned. 1t will be a bigger and
better navy at the end of hostilities
than it was at the beginning, but if
the safety of every principle for which
we are fighting must be guaranteed il
will have to grow still bigger in the
ensuing years. America has at last
taken her proper place as a great
world power and her ability to hold
that place will depend almost entirely
upon the navy.
8ut even if one does not expect to
be a naval man all his life he will find
his wartime experience a direct step-I
ping-stone TO a commercial career in
which energetic and capable men will
he in tremendous demand. For a vast
field of opportunity is opening in the
new mercantile marine.
The youth of the present generation
has forgotten the time when the
American flag was actually known ii
every port of the world. That was in
the days Of the old clipper-built sailing
ships which were so superior in speed
and carrying power to the vessels OF
any other country that our commercial
fleet was fairly entitled to be called
Mistress Of the Seas.
When Commerce Declined.
The Civil War and the fact that we
weren't ready to compete with Europe
in the building of iron and steel yes
J sells caused us to lose that supremacy,
Our own internal development was so
rapid and the demands of the great
railroad building era for men were so
great that we didn't care much If We
{ did lose it. So it came about that up
I to three years ago we ranked below
even small countries in the blue-water
carrying trade.
Now a revolutionary situation con-
fronts us. Our internal development
b has been so great that it is bound to
slow up. We shall never again know
{ such a building boom as that OF the
b last half century. Europe will know
. one, for half of Europe will have to be
y rebuilt, But. at the same time, Europe
will have lost it's domination OF the
carrying trade because Of the tremen-
p dous wartime destruction of shipping
E and the extraordinary demand for la.
Dor of all kinds that will be necessary
to a reorganization of all European in.
u dustries.
5 1t is therefore the logical time for
America to seize its unprecedented op
%portunity. Already every hulk thai
can be got to sea is being snapped up
Every private yard that can build Z
freight-carrying ship is working to full
r. capacity, new yards are springing VI
- | every MUtIts MHOlG AOlGbNS anu III
- are being drained for material, Th'
!, next few years will see thousand.
upon thousands Of new American ship
put into commission as rapidly as the.
can be manned.
m Chance for Navy Men.
BY whom Will they be manned
Sailors and n%ayigators and captain
and mates cannot be made in a day
No and for more than 80 years Americ
has not been training them in an,
thing like adequate force.
"a But it must be remembered that tn
10 United States navy has the reputatio
no Of producing seamen who are withor
superiors in all the world, To wha
other source than the navy will pr'
nj vate shipowners look for the men the
will so urgently need?
The road to success will be read.
made in this new business for brigh
capable young men from the navy. A
I'D most any one OF them who is industl
GUS. capable and ambitious can expeI
to become an officer in the mercanti
marine. Furthermore, it was to Il
fact that our ship officers were e
he. pected to be business men and we
,ne permitted to become part owners
Az their W vessels that the old clippt
ship trade was able 20 grab Il
worlds business. Those conditions "
come again in the near future.
The future is therefore secure
any man who will cast in his lot wi
, the navy now in its time of create
need, II he wishes 10 remain IN I
service he viii have an honorable a
: remunerative career open to him, wi
: the certainty that he will be tax
care Of in his old age, whatever m
fortunes may occur II he wishes
II get into the commercial service ]
. chances to rise in the world will
- unsurpassed.
Think it over. young man.