New-York tribune., 1918-08-07
Stone Ships Becaln,ed
By Theodore M. Knappen

ships will be completed before next sum-
mer.
Mr. Wigs argument was that $9O00,-
600 would cover the cost of building the
twenty yards and expenditures on ships
up to a point where there would be
enough completed ships to demonstrate
conclusively whether concrete was fail
ure or a success. Then, if they were a
success, 140 ways would be ready to
turn them out rapidly and no time would
be lost on big programme.
Mr. Hurley intends to wait until his
six little yards have built their forty -one
ships. Then, if those ships are satisfac-
tory, he will proceed to build more, but
he will still have only twenty-one ways.
That means that he will need more time
to provide more yards and more ways.
Mr.. Hurley's general explanation is
that he is making sure he is right before
going ahead.
But why prevent private builders who
know they are right from going ahead
and taking the risks? Why hinder the
army transport service in building even
little concrete river steamers, ferryboats
and water boats for it's own uses?
Mr.. Hurley is deliberate He does not
like to plunge. Congress wanted him to
venture. 1t was understood that the
SoO,OOO,OO0 was win-the-wa quickly
gamble. The concrete ships were to be
an emergency measure, a makeshift, if
you will, and it was expected that action
would be prompt and broad.
The fact is that there is no longer anv
hazard in the concrete ship. The Faith
alone, successfully riding out a hurr-
cane, has amply demonstrated that. and
Lloyds has attested to it and eminent
engineers have approved it. General
Goethals and the army transport know
the concrete ship is a success and thew
have found a way to build them entirely
with unskilled labor, They do not use
ship steel for reinforcing, and the kind
they do use is piled up rusting in store
houses all over the country. Even the
labor that is accustomed to handle con-
crete is jobless on account of the sus
pension of general building, or not effec
lively employed. Sand is everywhere,
and also gravel and crushed rock. There
is an abundance of cement. Scores of
competent firms and private capital are
ready to undertake the building of ships.
ernment Mr.. Hurley bars them either
way.
There are places where concrete ships
can be built without using any railway
transportation worth mentioning and
that in sections of the country where th.
railways are not congested and indus
trial centres not gorged with war work.
lhey VIII cost not more than two thirds,
ana possibly in the end not more than
haif, as much as steel ships. They can
be built much more rapidly and with less
labor.
thus, concrete ships are not only a
wonderful potential addition to the
worlds marine transport but wonderful
economlzers Of labor, material and rail
way transport, and the supply of all
three is painfully deficient.
Yet the Shipping Board is practically
dong nothing and uses its large powers
to keep others from doing anything. 1t
has actually seemed to obstruct the con-
crete ship plans of the Army Transport
Service
The inevitable conclusion from a sur
vey of the facts is that Mr.. Hurley is
emotionally opposed to the concrete ship
If he put s5o,OOO,ooo into concrete
ships and they all failed, nobody would
criticise him. 1t would have been taken
from the first as a gamble. But if at
last the merit of the concrete ships is
demonstrated, even to him, how shall
the loss of time be valued?