Perth Amboy evening news., 1919-08-30
SPlPBUzLDING

For the next is months the Emergency Fleet Corporation
will be building ships. What the corporation will DO after
that has not been determined. 1t may continue or it may cease
as an arm of the government. But for those 18 months its
production will be big and when Its program is completed it
~will have placed the United States well in the front, in number
of ocean carriers, Of all the nations Of the earth.
Up to late July the corporation had laid the keels OF 2,1O3
vessels of a total of Al, $40, 861 lightweight tons. OF these
i,447 were steel craft with 9 1914, 71 lightweight tons.
By the end of the Is months the total Of keels laid prob
ably will approximate 20, 600, 900 tons lightweight.
The announcement of the plan to build two monster grey
hounds of approximately 81 5000 tons to ply between Montauk
Point and Great Britain and make, the transatlantic trip in 4
days is only suggestive of a larger enterprise OF the shipping
board. 1t has beena cause of chagrin to many Americans here
tofore that in crossing the Atlantic they had to travel in British
or German or French liners. With the two monsters that are
to be built and the best of the German liners we have taken
over this will not be the case hereafter.
Some persons have had an idea it would be difficult to
build passenger craft 900 feet long and of SO, 900 or GO, 1000
tons registry in this country without constructing special ship
ways for them. Such is not the case. At Newport News and
at Philadelphia there are %shipways which, with sight altera-
ton and enlargement, would accommodate the hulls of 4 ,OO0-l
foot ships.
1t may be difficult for most persons to visualize a 4 ,OOO-
foot ship. Such a craft, standing on end, would make the 35,-
story Woolworth building look much smaller and would tower
nearly 375 feet above the gigantic statue of VIM. Penn atop
the monster City HALL in Philadelphia.
Passenger traffic across the Atlantic is expected to be in
creased greatly so soon as affairs become composed in Europe
and industry is restored to something like Its former state. The
Emergency Fleet people and the ocean transportation people
generally do not look for any development in the airship that
will affect the steamship in the slightest degree. The airship
will be limited in freight carrying to strictly high class mail
and small freight. 1t is not believed that the cargo of all the
lairships will amount in one year to the capacity Of one giant
steamship In one trip. AS to passengers they will be limited
to those who are adventurous or on urgent mission. That, at
least, is the present idea. In support of their theory the vessel
men point out that the wireless telegraph has served to in-
crease rather than decrease the hnsiness of the cable 4Ai~e--Pist
companies and that competition serves only to add to the vol
ume of traffic in any and every line.
One thing not dwelt upon in relation to the 80-knot pass
enger ships America is to build Is the cost. 1t will be immense.
1t probably will be goo per cent. greater than the same size
and type craft would cost before the war.
Important as the passenger program Of the shipping board
and its subsidiary, the Emergency Fleet Corporation, appears
It's of lesser consequence than that of freight. There has been
announced the establishment of regular American freight lines
10 many countries. Together with that service it is intended
10 develop a land end by which through bills Of lading may be
Issued from any point of concentration in America to any port
In the world. In other words the shipping board means to make
1t as easy for an American manufacturer to dispatch his goods
to the most distant port in the world as 1t is for him to ship
goods from his factory to Chicago or San Francisco or Cleve-
land or to New York. Not only that but it is intended to have
regularity in saiings from the principal ports of the Atlantic,
the Gulf and the Pacific in freight service as there usually is in
There never was a more ambitious or a more thorough
plan in sea service than the shipping board has outlined for
this country. 1t is beginning to take form but it will take sew
eral years to bring it to full power.
Trust America when it comes to doing a job in a big way.