Ashland tidings. [volume] (Ashland, Or.) 1876-1919, 1918-01-10
Shipping Board
Provides Recruits

I(By Henry Howard, Director of Re-
cruiting, U. S. Shipping Boari
Custom House, Boston, Mass.)
There seems to be apprehension in
the public mind that the shipping
board is taking no measures to pro-
vide crews for our new merchant ma
rine AS recently as December IL a
New York newspaper printed a full
page advertisement asking if any
steps were being taken in this direc-
tion.
This apprehension seems to rest Oh
a want of information of what the
shipping board has actually done, and
is doing, to man the nations new
merchant ships. The board, through
its recruiting service, has issued sew
eral statements recently through the
press as to its work in creating an
adequate personnel for the new mer-
chant marine, but in the pressure OF
world news these statements do not
seem to have attracted the attention
that it appears to me they merit.
Furthermore, the effect of official
statements in behalf of the merchant
marine seems to have been offset in
the public mind by recent persistent
attacks upon the character of our
merchant seamen. 1t is rare day
in which one may not read of the in
competence, drunkenness, insubordi-
nation or disloyalty of our merchant
crews. No specifications are ad-
vanced, so that discredit falls as
natural result on the entire person
mel of our merchant service.
In these times of insidious enemy
propaganda, cunningly devised TO
shake our faith even in our national
power to make war, nothing originat-
ing with German plotters has been
more harmful than this. That
large portion of the press has opened
its columns to these anonymous state
ments is one of the unfathomable
phases of wartime psychology.
The fact that for two years and
half of nominal peace, but of actual
war, before this country drew its
sword in the defense of democracy,
our merchant sailors carried the flag
back and forth across the Atlantic in
spite of the brutal piracy of the Ger
man submarines, seems today to
weigh for little in the public mind
These merchant seamen who thus
faced death in the pursuit of their
calling and for the credit of their
country are today doing the same
thing, though now, happily, with the
support and cooperation of their
brothers of the navy; yet today they
seem to have few friends among their
own countrymen to say word for
what they have done and are doing. |
Surely such situation might |
cause smile at Potsdam
The great work for which the ship
ping boards recruiting service was
created, the building up of an all
American personnel of officers and
men for the new ships, has been 60
ing on since last June. 1t began with
the training of officers at free schools
in navigation and marine engineering
at various ports on the Atlantic an1
Pacific coasts and Great Lakes. At
these schools about 500 men term
are being trained the engineering
term being one month and the navi-
CATION term about six weeks. On
graduating these students are sent to
sea as reserve fficers of the mer-
chant marine, for further training.
preliminary to their being licensed as
mates or engineers.
By this method enough American
officers have been trained in the past
six months to keep pace with the de-
mand arising from our increased {
merchant tonnage, not less than 5000 s
licenses having been issued in that 1