The Cordova daily times. [volume] (Cordova, Alaska) 1914-1947, 1918-03-09

of Yankee ingenuity-in the appliances
used for fighting the submarine, and
in the war apparatus which is being
concentrated on our sector of the
western front. When the history of
this war is written, and American
methods can be disclosed, it will be
found that our national inventive gem
ius was on the job from start to finish,
and it is this American inventive gen
Jus Uncle Sam now wants to mobilize
in his new shipbuilding industry.
When the great new shipbuilding
program had reached the point where
hundreds of thousands of skilled work
ers were needed therefor, Uncle Sam
turned inland to the corn belt and
sagebrush seeking genuine Americans.
Our army and our navy, our NUM-
tiOns factories, and our trains of auto
mobile transport, our great seabOard
preparations in this country and
France, our food production and our
lObu % LIS ttiA uCpSiiu hpOIi OH y \
We must build them not only quickly,
breaking all records by utilizing every
resource of American standardization
and large-scale production but they
must be built by men as definitely
American in spirit and skill as the
men who have gone into our fighting
forces
The soldiers in this shibbuilding
army will be called upon to make sac
rifices, put up with inconvenience,
with hours and wages subordinated to
duty, and stick on the job no matter
what happens. They must be Amer
lean first of all, with an American re-
sourcefulness adequate for the great
est crisis in our national history.
When Uncle Sam turned inland for
American ingenuity he knew exactly
what he was about, for this is not
the first time that he has gone re-
cruiting for brains in that quarter
Read the names of American sailors
in our navy as they are printed in
the news from day to day and you
will see that they are men from in
land states as often as from the sea
boards. Years ago when our anguish
ing mercantile marine made it diff
ficult to recruit sailors for the navy
in the seaboard states which had
manned our ships in past generations,
Uncle Sam went to the corn belt and
the sage brush for Americans, trained
them at fresh-Water naval stations and
made them blue-water sailors before
they had even ever seen salt water.
The spirit and achievements of the
American navy were restored by this
influx of American character and
ince the declaration of war, II months
ago, the great increase of our navy
from $4,000 to nearly 100000 has been
drawn largely from the inland states.
And mere numbers do not tell the
story. If sailors have increased 400
per cent, American ability and spirit
have increased by at least 1000 per
cent.
Shipbuilding is a key task in the
war which we are now waging under
so many difficulties of distance and
lack of preparation. 1t is a supreme
task, a test of Americanism upon
which every other war activity hangs.
Germany, in her boastful pride, has
said that Americans can not build
ships. Germany knew that there were
not enough men in America who had
worked on ships to make One-tenth the
vessels needed to get our men on the
western front where they can deliver
an American blow. Germany's policy
of torepdoing merchant ships and
numbering women and children was
based on the cold calculation that we
would not make more ships fast
enough-as we'll as upon the assump.
ton that mercantile shipbuilding was
no longer an American industry. The
only answer to that sort of challenge.
of course, was to call into our new
shipyards, the very best American
ability and spirit
So this is why Uncle Sam has gone
recruiting shipwOrkers in the corn belt
and sagebrush. The shipyards are be-
ing manned not only by Americans,
but by fellows who have been sent for.
Uncle Sam has frankly told them that
they are wanted, and they have vol
unteered The folks at home have
seen them mustered in and bid them
good-by, knowing that they were going
into picked fighting service every bit
as vital as the army or navy
-@