The Alaska daily empire., 1918-02-25
IS
 GIVEN OF NEED
 FOR SHlPYARDS
What the Government Pur- poses to Do by Making Available Men for
 the Work.
FOR WINNING THE WAR
Yard Material and Money Are Ready and All That
 Is Needed Is
 Man-p0Wer.

Is Needed Is
 Man-poWer.
 WASHINGTON, Feb. 1S.-Charles Piez, general manager of the Elmer gency Fleet Corporation, issued the following statement:
 The work of the State councils of defense and of the agents of the Public Service Reserve in enrolling 250, ,000 skilled workmen for the United States Shipyard Volunteers is of paramount importance in the early winning of this war, for on earnest labor depends the early con struction of our merchant fleets
 Men for Three 8-hour Shifts.
 Within 60 days three huge Gov ernment yards will be completed, and soon thereafter more than co., GOO workmen will be required to furnish for them the three S-hour shifts necessary if these yards are to turn out their ships according to schedule.
 The Shipping Board now has 716 shipways; 302 are for wooden ships and ALA are for steel construction. The yards in which they are estab- lished are only working one S-hour shift per day, six days week. This is monstrous. If we are to keep ahead of the submarine we must run three shifts per day 52 weeks in the year
 Yards, Material, and Money Ready. Our program calls for the con- struction in 1918 of eight times the tonnage delivered in 1916 at a cost of more than billion dollars. The Shipping Board has the necessary yards, the materials, and the mon ey-all that is lacking is spirit in the Nation that will send a quar-
 ter of a million American mechan- ics into the yards to give their best and most efficient work.
 1 am sorry to say at the present time the native born American born workman is not the mainstay of the shipyard for he is there only to the extent of 35 per cent. of the men employed, and to the extent of 65 per cent. we are forced to de- pend on foreign born labor.
 Appeal to Women.
 We all honor the men in uniform and the same honor must be given
 to the men who go to work in the 1 nt,fl, I,1ct hn ie, hn first line of the British Empire, and just as Germany depends upon
 her submarines, so must America depend for victory upon the ship
 builders in the American yards. To the women of America l say, Send
 your men to the shipyards for they will be doing their no less service
 than in the Army or the Navy and they will be retufned to you safe
 and well paid after having perform ed duty that is a primal neces- sity of this war"
 As a result of the FourMinute
 Mems intensive campaign applica- tions for labor in the shipyards are
 being received in gratifying num-
 bers. Many more applications, how
 ever, are required. The Shipping
 Board announces that it will need s 386,000 mechanics representing prac-
 tically every line of trade.
 Registration Wanted Now.
 ,1 The Department of Labor at pres l ent wants merely the registration of . | xri1 hn 9 in about 60 days but the mere fact that an application has been filled l does not obligate the Government
 to employ man, neither does it ob-
 ligate the man to accept position. The Four Minute Mems drive be- gan on Monday a week ago, and its
 success offers but another illustra- f tion of the effectiveness of concen- t tration in speaking campaifns. Re I peatedly during the last half year
 the departments which have had the services of the Four Minute Men 7 have been gratified at the immed- t fate and directly traceable results. The Four Minute Men, division of the Committee on Public Infor- | nation, now includes more than
 10000 speakers. The organization
 is represented by local chairmen in
 3,400 towns from coast to coast, also Alaska, Hawaii and Panama.
 The local chairmen, who is appoint
 ed by State or Territorial chair man, selects and assigns the speak
 CTS to motion-picture theatres where . speeches are limited to four minutes.
 All talks, which couched in the s languages of the speakers, are based
 on bulletins sent out from Wash f ington. These bulletins present the . material and indicate the general charactI Of the appeal. Topics are changed every or 3 weeks and f some times a topic is assigned for only one week.
 , Concentration of Effort.
 Thus, when the public is to be !, aroused on certain subject, as for T | srrG n n l I. Er.IA 4