The World. [volume] (Martinsburg, W. Va.) 1912-1921, 1918-09-25
(By The Associated Press.)

| I 1fl@AItEIl%I H1WA, Stpl. "a 'oliip
building, under the spur OF the Ger
man submarine menace, has made
Philadelphia, for the second time in
| American history, a ''cradle of lib
erty." F'ostered by the natural adj
vantages of the Delaware River, to-
hgether with proximity to the nations
steel production centers, the coun-
try's largest group of shipyards, in
Guiding the world record making Hog
Island pant, has grown up in the
home district of the Pennsylvania
metropolis.
In this district are employed more
than 100000 shipworkers, one-fourth
the enrolment in the industry thro
ughout the United States, whose out
turn to date is fifty vessels, twenty
seven of them ready for service.
Vessels OF all types, from 3,500-ton
wooden steamers to huge steel fret
ghters of 1900 tons, are produced.
The influx of workers has overrun a
score of communities, enforcing the
building Of seven new towns, yet the
cry is for more men and more men.
Given a sufffciency of materials and
the workers to handle them, the
Philadelphia phenomenon" in ship
construction promises to become an
other worlds wonder.
In this region the Emergency Fleet
Corporation, through the companies
carrying on its work, has undertaken
an extensive housing project. AT
Bristol, Chester, Cbrnwelis and Hog
Island in Pennsylvania, at Camden
and Gloucester on the New Jersey
side and at Wilmington in Delaware,
homes, bachelor apartments, bar
racks, boarding houses and even a
hotel have been erected, with the
hope of solving the problem of mad
lequate labor growing out of poor ac-
commodations.
How the yards on the Delaware
have expanded in the past eleven
months and what this influx of labor
means to the communities along the
river is indicated by comparison with
the census of last October, when the
aggregate of men engaged was less
than $4,000. Excluding Cramps and
1.-THE New York Shipbuilding Corpora.
tion, which were then working as
completed yards, the nine other
T ants CT the Delaware then reported
1900 workers.
More than half the present force
of shipbuilders has been recruited
from outside the district, so that the
population growth from this source
alone has been double that of any
normal. year. AT Bristol, % miles
above Philadelphia and beyond the
confines of the previously accepted
shipbuifJling zone, workers at the
Merchant plant now exceed the en-
t1re population of the borough in
1910. Chester, where John IB. Roach
built American warships fifty years
ago, has trebled in a year its popu-
lation gain between 1900 and 1910.
Except the great Hog Island plant
to be treated in a later article, that
of the, New York Shipbuilding CDR.
poration at Camden, employing II 500
men, is the largest in the Philadel
phia district. When work under
way is completed there will be 29
snlpWays, most of them able to ac
commodate at one time two ships OF
ordinary size. The yard set a new
worlds record when it launched the
collier Tuckahoe in p days from the
time the keel was laid Ten days la
ter the vessel was completed, feat
which has not been euualled for a
ship of this type. Transportation has
been a problem, with the majority oi
workers forced to travel long dis