New-York tribune., 1918-02-09
Washington, February 8.

4 NlFIEEN minutes is not the most
you can get with any war maker
in Washington, but it is pretty
good average. However, fifteen min
utcs with the general manager Of the
Emergency Fleet Corporation the MORN
ing after German U-boat had put a
large exclamation point after the ship
ping programme by torpedoing the
Tuscania seemed to be worth couple
Of hours at any other time.
OF course, there is the diplomatic
etiquette Of official life to be observed
in Washington. There was Mr.. Hurley
to be considered, said Mr.. Piez (you
pronounce it "pease" after you are
initiatcd), and inasmuch as Mr. Hurley
was the head, front and shoulders Of
Mr.. Hurley first? All that was con-
ceded, but conditioned by the fact that
Mr.. Piez seemed to be in the position
of the good right arm. Construction
is the job of Mr.. Piez, and construction
seems to be the big question point at
the present moment.
So after little preliminary spar
ring Mr.. Picz found himself talking
talking to this question:
"In the light Of your own knowledge
of the shipping situation, do you look
on the role the shipping programme
must play with real optimism ?"
1t Wasn't
Blind Optimism
Mr.. Piez did, and does, look upon
the shipping programme with opti
mism. But he made the point that it
wasn't a blind optimism. For instance,
lot of people who come from Chicago
and points thereabouts to help win the
war may have to return to Chicago
and points thercabouts if the people
of the country persist in asking the
Shipping Board to do the impossible.
And the impossible means building
ships Immediately without considera
ton for the other things that have
to be built before you can start on
ships. Shipyards where there had
been no shipyards. an organized force
Of shipbuilders where it had never ex
listed, and homes to take care Of them
all this was the Shipping Boards
first job.
"You see" said Mr.. Picz, "they start.
ed TO build ships in the same places
they were building everything else.
The industrial section of the East is
jammed full of munition preparation
already, and now shipbuilding is being
concentrated in the same place. The
market and put a hundred hindrances
in a path already beset by a hundred
other obstacles. Labor and money are
being used up in other kinds Of war
manufacturing and there hasn't been
time to build homes for workers. That
discloses simply just why we've had to
go to work to build homes for the
men as we'll as shipyards to work them
in. Building ships on the Pacific
forces, would relieve the congestion"
Further Sacrifice
To Get the Ships
What the shipping programme will
absolutely call for will be further sac
rifice on the part of the American peo-
pie themselves. That was one of the
significant things said by the general
manager Of the Emergency Fleet Cor
poration. He pointed out how much
clearer it is becoming daily that to re-
lease "bottoms" which now is Wash
ington's word for ships. borrowed from
the shipping tradc-the American peo-
pie will have to cease wanting things
from overseas that take up bottoms in
transit. 1t was rather an interesting
disclosure, because it is just little
more complicated than the simple prob
lem of cutting down on food and there
by sending more of it abroad 1t
seemed significant, too, because it
limited at the growing complexity of a
wal. involving most of the world. 1t
conjured up an entire host of posi-