Richmond times-dispatch. [volume] (Richmond, Va.) 1914-current, 1919-07-13
"DrOpping tho Pilot"


. RESIDENT WILSON has been called upon
l to accept the resignation OF Edward \.
Hurley. chairman Of the United States Ship
ping Board and president of the Emergency
Fleet Corporation. This monumental con-
tributor to the success of the war feels that
his work is finished that he has given the
best he give to the country and is en-
titled TO retirement and to rest. In going,
Mr.. Hurley will carry with him the acknowl-
edgment of nation that owes him a debt
Of profound gratitude. 1t is another case
Of well done. thou good and faithful SER
want
The retiring chairman OF the Shipping
Board entered upon his work during the
stress of war. He went TO the post after
three strong men had failed Denman had
given up the fight, Goethals had made
Roadway with the vast shipping enterprise,
and Harris had thrown up his hands after
almost destroying his health in the attempt
to build the ships. Moreover the Shipping
Board was racked with internal strife. 1t
was torn by factionalism and prejudice. A
big man was needed to bring order out of
chaos and to produce the results on which
the country's program a fighting force
depended
Edward y. Hurley had never built ship
in his life. He was an "inander." He had
padded canoes on the Chicago River and
sailed on excursion steamers on Lake Michi-
gan, but that was about the extent OF his
maritime experience His selection as head
OF the greatest shpbuilding and ship operat
ing enterprise the world ever was mat
ter OF misgiving in some quarters. Men to
whom salt air familiar smiled as they
predicted another collapse Others, who
realized the vastness of the responsibility
which rested on the Shipping Board did not
smile: they all but wept in their despair.
But Hurley is man Of big parts. He had
engaged in big business for twenty years
He had handled thousands Of men in his own
plants. He had made safe and profitable
hundreds of millions of dollars in invest
ments. The President knew the size of his
MIND and the extent of his vision. He knew
that Hurley would do the job il anybody
could do it, whether the chairman had
ever seen an oceangoing liner or understood
the difference between bowsprt and a main
mast. 1t was not necessary, as the President
saw 1t, for the executive OF the ship organi-
cation to know ships. But it was necessary
Tor him. TO know men, know materials, know
efficiency and know facts. Hurley knew this ;
the rest he could hire
SO II came to pass that landlubber took
the helm. He built the ships. He built them
faster than they were ever built before since
the beginning OF time He did not do this
with his own hand, of course, but he did it
with his own organization, an organization
built up on the failures that had preceded
him. The tonnage created went into the
great equation of war, and once the merchant
men began to slide into the water the tide
was turned. The submarine menace was de-
feated. The stranglehold which Germany
had on the jugular vein of the allies was
loosencd Men and materials flowed to
Europe in an unending stream. The war
was won.
The President did not overpraise The work
OF Edward y. Hurley, in accepting the atter's
resignation 1t would be difficult for any
man to do that.