The Pensacola journal., 1919-11-16
BY John Bruce Mitchell.

Now that the war censorship i'm
posed by the government and the ship
yards upon their activities has been
lifted, the astounding story of Ameri-
cas- shipbuilding strides can be told
for the first time. Returning are the
days when American ships carried
American cargoes to the far ends of
the earth For with giant strides
Yankee shipping is coming back into
Its own. Since 1917 our seagoing tom
mage has increased 382 per cent; while
Great Britain's declined 13 per cent.
I'VE are building merchant ships and
naval vessels faster than any nation
lin the world. Only the other month
TO n shipbuflding company alone
Bethlehem-completed and delivered
Ito their owners nineteen seagoing
Icraft In thirty days. worlds record
England is astounded at the speed
with which we finish freighters, a few
months The admiralties of Europe
marvel at our speed in torpedo boat
destroyer construction, a hundred and
days. where it takes
them a year. And American industry
has not yet ceased rubbing its eyes at
1.-THE change which has been wrought in
lour shipbuiIding, an enterprise which
lbut a few years back was a sad lag
gard, a sentimental, old -fogyfied af-
fair disma1ly lacking In drive"
! miracle? Verify. Today in great
lshipyards magically risen from the
lcauldron of war, the length of the
IAtlantic and Pacific coasts. great
plates c1ang into place along skeleton
IhulIs and riveters clatter, while grimy,
igoggled workers. toll as feverishly as
they did yesterday when Charley
Schwab's boyss were racing against
1.-THE sinkings Of the submarines. As
lmatter of fact the $4,000 workers of
the Bethlehem Shipbuilding corpora
ton are producing more tons of ship
ping per man today than they did un-
der the impetus of war! Rather than
curtailing shipbuilding it would seem
that peace has increased It; but the
truth is that those men who were
green" year or SO ago are now skill
ed, and that for the first time in our
generation, America now possesses q
vast army of workers, skilled in turn
ing out ships swifter and better than
any nation in the world.
Retaining An Industry.
Forget the war; forget wooden
shins"-everything but that a great
new industry is in our midst. A baby
industry? No. Rather a deformed in
dustry, its growth stunted for years
and of sudden cured and shooting up
stalwart and strong. For America
used to build ships like England and
Scotland-which is to say that ship
builder was king. Now, shipbuild-
er" being man who took hold of
piece of raw material and laboriously
followed it through until it was placed
on the ship. finished segment, was of
a necessity highly and diversifiedly
skilled. Also, his number was any
thing but legion; and SO. of course,
was his output of ships.
| That was the method in America un-
til the crying need for ships to help
win the war necessitated a ransacking
of our shipbuilding. an elimination OF
hand production methods that went by
the boards In other American indus
tries twenty years ago: and the install
Elation of quantity production" For
as an official of Bethlehem shipbuild-
ling told me: "A ship is $4,000 pieces
put together" All of which means, as
you know. that ships are now being
built by methods similar to the making
of automobiles-all the parts manufac-
tured and then delivered to an assem-
bling plant Which is a modern ship
yard. a place where parts of ships are
assembled; which is the secret why
Yankee shipping is forging into the
Leadership of the world.
| Would you understand this indus
trial miracle? For miracle it is, when
America, at whose shipbuilding the
world scoffed. all at once is launch
ling vessels at q rate of which no
other nation ever dreamed. The facts?
This is what one shipbuilding company
alone, Bethlehem, has accomplished:
In 1918 they delivered forty eight
merchant and forty two naval vessels:
In seven months of the present year
they have finished twenty-nine mer-