The Bemidji daily pioneer. [volume] (Bemidji, Minn.) 1904-1971, 1919-07-02
HIGH SPEED FROM START
One Hundred and Twenty-Five Mors
Cargo Ships Delivered Than From
All Other American Ways in
f,l3;.r,. the Same Time.

UUSC' 81 uuuy uet IOuS us certain OLIlCE
sections. But it built more ships than
any other district in the United
States.
On September 1, 1917, the Great
Lakes started to build for the govern
ment. The first ship turned over to
the United States shipping board
came from Great Lakes yard. She
was the Limoges, a 2,930-ton cargo
carrier, under construction for French
operators by the Toledo Shipbuilding
company. On August "a, 1917, the
Ninth district was created. It turned
the Limoges over to the shipping
board on August 80.
They had not permitted the grass
to grow under their feet for some de-
cades in that region of busy commerce:
Now they saw to it that the ice did
not grow under their ships. To beat
not only the Hun but also the winter
season was the first big task which
the Ninth district faced. BY almost
superhuman effort the yards finished
~ vessels and got them to sea before
Tue CaualS ITOZe III 1911.
Production Rose Steadily.
When navigation opened in 1918
another fleet of 20 ships slipped newly
built from the yards and went through
the canals to the sea. From that date
the Great Lakes production rose
steadily until month after month the
district turned out half the steel ships
built in the United States, and some
times more than half. Efficiency and
energy combined in q veritable cru
sade Of endeavor, and in November,
1918, the district touched the high
point Of Its capacity. In that one
month it built a fleet Of % ships
nearly ship a day.
This astounding output brought the
total for the year up to 1913 cargo yes
steel. In II months the Ninth dis
trict had produced just 125 more
ships than all the American yards de-
Hvered in the year before America
went to war.
ANY narrative of the Great Lakes
work is q progress from one shining
triumph of this sort to another. The
smallest yard of all, fitted with only
three berths, actually delivered 10
AMPS In 1913 and finished a fourteenth
only little too late to get it out be.
fore winter. Between the end of No
Vember and:5 the end Of March it
launched six; ships more. Four Of
these are now lcompleted and 9th
ID almost ready for service. They are
iii Of the 4.200-ton type.
$sAnother yard built q 3,50O-ton ship
FIJI "a days. Another launched 2.4O0
toh ship in 20 days. And fourth
yard broke the worlds record when 1t
launched a 3,5O0-ton ship in II days
after the laying Of the keel and de-
liVered 1t completed to the shipping
board in IA days after the launching.
+ "Team Work" the Secret.
The ingenuity and cooperation
which made such accomplishment pos
sible were also what made the yards
expand rapidly enough to meet war
time emergency and peace time neces-
sity. There are 112 berths in the dis
tzict now, II for cargo ships and SO
for tugs. The American Shipbuilding
company has a yard Of ten ways at
Detroit, Mich; Of five at Superior,
WIS.,; Of three at Buffalo, N. Y; Of
six at Chicago Ill.,; of three at Cleve~
hand, O.; Of eight at Lorain, o.; the
Great Lakes Engineering works has a
ya1d Of four ways at Ashtabula, O..
and another Of eight ways at Ecorse,
Mich; the McDougall-Duluth com
pany has a yard Of nine ways at Du-
luth, Mimi. the Manitowoc Shipbuild-
ing company has yard Of six ways
1t. Saginaw, Mich; the Toledo Ship
building company has yard Of nix
ways at Toledo. o.. and the Globe
Shipbuilding company has a yard Of
five ways at Superior, Wis.
AT all these yards the records for
'rtveting, fabricating. tonnage per man.
stand out like mountain peaks For
example, the average total number Of
riyet gangs in the district is about 10
per cent of the entire country, yet
District Manager Benton points out
joyously that the average output Of
these gangs enabled the lakes to de-
liver 50 per cent of the countr1's
total ship tonnage.
sS~ream work" is the secret. accord.
Ing to the district executive, the
builders, and the men. The district
has been untroubled by strikes OF
other labor disturbances, or BY dis
putes with builders.
Il,
I StArved 10 Death.
st. Louis.-'Died Of lack Of
nourishment," physicians wrote today
on the death certificate Of Il. jacobs.