New-York tribune., 1918-02-02
srgsiBEn or TUE ASSOCIATED PRESS
"And the Whole World Waits
on Ships

ON CnlpS
In statement made at a luncheon in
this city yesterday Chairman Hurley OF
the Shipping Board declared that it was
physically possible to produce six million
tons Of new shipping in this country this
year The ways are ready; the plants will
be ready; the plates will be ready; the
wood for the small amount of wooden ton
mage will be ready.
All that is lacking in the world seems
men. We have the organization. We
have the plant. We have the contracts.
We have thousands of men trained and in
training to boss the jobs. And we have
thousands more of seamen trained and in
training ready to man the ships the day
they can be put to sea. And all We lack
in the world is men.
What kind Of men, How many men?
A matter of 25O,0OO or 300,000-not all
skilled mechanics; perhaps only about
half. They are not needed tomorrow nor
next week, many of them not perhaps for
some months.
But reserve army Of 100000
mechanics, ready to be drawn upon as
needed would insure SIX MILLION TONS
of new shipping this year.
And the whole world with which at
present we have commercial relations
waits on ships--our ships.
They want our food, do our allies. They
need our steel. They need munitions. And
the whole war programme waits on ships.
And we need only quarter of million
men 10 carry the programme through.
And the Shipping Board is in deep con-
Germ as to where these men are coming
from.
Think of it, We have an army of a
million men or more in the training camps
perhaps a million and quarter And
these men are marching up and down, up
and down-waiting to go to France.
In this million and quarter there must
be at least two hundred thousand
mechanics and others who would serve ad-
mirably for the Shipping Boards pro
gramme And the War Department has
loaned five thousand.
Let US set it out in large type
THE WAR DEPARTMENT HAS LOANED
THE SHIPPING BOARD FIVE THOUSAND
MEN.
In the name of Heaven, is this the
fashion in which America-rich, indus
trial, mechanical America, with ten or
fifteen millions of men in its factories
America, that makes now moro steel, pro-
duces more coal, has greater wealth, more
factories, larger industrial output than
any two other nations ON earth-is this
the way this country is going to war? In
the face of these facts, how long are we
getting into the war?
In the four or five months since its re
organization the Shipping Board appears
to have done splendid work. 1t has had
brain; it now has eyes and ears and al
eagerness to do. And all it lacks is hands
and feet. A quarter of million men out
of an industrial army Of twenty-five o,
thirty millions Of workers.
Chairman Hurley says, and says truly
that it is no use for our factories to go or
piling up goods, nor to ship these goods tc
the seaboard, if we cannot have ships il
which to get the stuff to Europe. Trans
port by convoy and under existing condi
tions is necessarily slow. We can gc
ships across the Atlantic and back agair
now about as fast as if they were sailing
vessels in normal times. We need tonnage
and moro tonnage. If we can build si>
million tons of new shipping this year wt
can win the war.
Is the Administration at Washington
are tho owners of our great mills and fac
tories, is the great laboring class of Amer
ica going to allow this programme to bt
stalled and defeated for lack Of a quartc1
of million men?