New-York tribune., 1918-02-08
Work Harder to Defeat Kaiser,
Plea to Staten Island Ship Men
Lone Apostle of Patriotic Toll Prepares Way for Enthus
asic Meetings; Workers Pray for Tuscania Victims
and Go Back To Their Important Labor

Ten days ago an agressivcly amiable
mond plant of the Staten Island Ship
building Company and proceeded sys-
tematically to get acquainted with the
1900 workers employed there. He in
troduced himself as the Rev. J. II.
Sheppard, but the hands soon got to
calling him "Dont-Give- -Up-the- Ship"
He would get man off in a corner
for few minutes and talk earnestly
to him; gather group of men and
talk earnestly to them. About half
the time he was over in the other
paint of the company, at Mariners
Harbor, which likewise has n payroll
1920 names long. There his activities
were the same. Everlastingly he was
talking, pumping his hearers brimful
OF patriotism and ginger. He told them
they could do as much to win the war
as soldiers in the trenches; that every
bit of extra work they did was as good
as an extra shell fired.
Up to that time the company hadn't
been getting anything like maximum
results out of its men. 1t felt the
same troubles which have been af-
Ajcting every shipyard in the country.
There was too much prosperity, maybe.
Wages were far higher than ever be-
fore. Men didn't have to stretch them
selves to make a more than comfort
able living. A good share of the
workers put in twelve solid hours on
three days of the week and idled the
other four. With double time piled
up for their overtime they had earned,
anyhow, as much in the three long DAYS
as they would have in six cight-hour
days: or course, by working more they
could earn more. That they chose to
work less and earn less seemed to them
to be distinctly their own business.
"Work More" Sermons
Mostly, Don't Give Up the Ship"
Sheppard busted himself in trying to
make them see it another way
Your skill and your time belongs to
Uncle Sam now" he argued. EVERY
body's depending on you. Put in every
hour you can on the job and collect
the cccmpany's money and the peoples
thanks: It'll be Appreciated"
DR.. Sheppard's exhortations after a
few days began to have their effect.
renforcements came up. "Don't-Give-
uptheShip" had heraldcd their arrival
and the brass band he had organized
was waiting at the entrance to the
Port Richmond plant when they mo-
tored in. The bandsmen were in over
alls. as they had been when they
dropped steel tools for brass, but that
didn't interfere with their playing.
For a half hour thereafter not a.
rivet was driven in the plant. But
perhaps there wasn't any less accom-
plished in the day by reason of the
lost time.
Every rivet you drive is nail in
the Kaiser's coffin," one speaker had
told them, and the men looked as if
they believed it when they went back
to work, and intended to make first
class job of it,
The speaker who likened the rivet
to the coffin nail was Dr. Charles A.
Eaton, for years pastor of the Madi
son Avenue Baptist Church and now
head of the Emergency Fleet Corpora
TONS new national service section. The
idea of the section-and it was DR.,
Eaton's idea in the first place, expressed
by him in an address to the United
States Naval Architects League and
Immediately picked up by Admiral