Evening public ledger. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1914-1942, 1918-09-24
OPPORTUNITY AT THE DOOR;
WILL THE CITY GRASP 1T?
Philadelphia Business Men Should Be
Awake Enough to Arise From Their
Couches Of Ease

Awake Enough 10 Arise From Their
Couches Of Ease
HOG ISLAND is more than a ship
- yard. 1t is a great terminal where
railroad lines meet and connect with
water lines. Peter o. Knight, vice presi-
dent of the American International Cor
poration, which has built the plant and
its piers, says that it has within it the
potentiality of becoming the greatest
shipping point in America.
He is astonished that Philadelphia
business men are not awake to the OPP
p%ortunities that lie at their door. He
did not quote the famous words written
by the late Senator John J.. ingalls,; but
he might have lone so. "Cities and fields
I walk" the Senator made Opportunity
say. 81 penetrate deserts and seas re-
mote. y = y If sleeping, wake if
feaGting, rise before I turn away. 1t is
the hour of fate, and they who follow
me reach every state mortals desire, and
conquer every foe save death; but those
who doubt or hesitate, condemned to fail
ure, perjury and woe, seek me in vain and
uselessly implore!"
Mr.. Knight cries out to Philadelphia
now: II sleeping, wahe"
We have been talking for years about
increasing the foreign trade of this port.
We have talked of new piers and new
railroad terminals. We have secured an
amendment of the State Constitution so
as to permit us to borrow money for
new piers. And we have made a begin
ming.
But while we have been dawdling along
in leisurely fashion there has arisen in a
short twelve months. right at our doors,
a great terminal, with seven piers 1000
feet long and 100 feet wide and a supple
mentary marginal wharf 1000 feet long,
making a total of more than three miles
of wharf room for ships, with water
thirty-five feet deep to float them.
Railroad tracks run directly on the piers.
so that cars can be loaded and unloaded
directly from and to the ships. AS the
new ships are completed at Hog Island
it is planned to tow them to the piers
and load them with cargoes without the
loss of an hour.
Before the war is over, and while the
terminal is still under the control of the
Government. the whole machinery of the
terminal will be got into operation with a
continual procession of ships moving in
and out, carrying supplies to Europe.
Now what Mr.. Knight wants to know
and what the live men of Philadelphia
also want to know is What we are going
to do to prouide business for this termi-
nal when the wdr demand on 1t ceases.
What is the Chamber of Commerce
doing about it?
What is the Bourse doing?
What are the great textile manufac-
turers and what are the steel mills
doing?
Hog Island was selected by the Ameri-
can International Corporation before the
war as the best site on the Atlantic sea-
board for a great railroad terminal to
connect with ocean-going ships. Men out
side of Philadelphia saw its advantages.
When the Government asked them to
build the shipyard and terminal they be-
gan at once at Hog Island.
But we here at home were still dream
ing about it. We do not yet realize what
it means. We make a squirt now and
then to develop the business of the port,
but the movement has always lost
momentum before it has got fairly
started because there has been no driving
force behind it sufficient to break down
the obstacles.
One of the great obstacles was re-
moved by the Government when it took
over the railroads and assumed the power
of diverting freight to the ports to and
from which it could be shipped most eco
nomically. No railroad company can any
longer pass this city by in favor of other
cities. The jealousy among the Pennsyl-
vania, the Reading and the Baltimore and
Ohio systems has ceased to be effective so
far as it relates to the freight that is to
be landed here as their water terminals.
The lines of all three railroads are con-
nected directly with the Hog Island ter
minal. The Federal Director of Railroads
can order that they be used to their full
extent. He will so order so long as the
terminal is to be used for Government
shipments.
But what is needed is the cultivation of
the habit among shipping men of billing
their goods to Europe and to South
America by way of Philadelphia.
This habit wiH not be contracted unless
the Philadelphia business men combine
to encourage it. The thing can be done
if ue only hare the wiN to do it.
Can it be true, as Mr.. Knight suggests,
that Philadelphia is like Charleston,