The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-09-26
tHARD|NC' ATTACK
 NPROVAbLE--W WHITE
Democratic Chairman Makes Hot Reply to Assault on U.
 S. Shipping Board
By Associated Press


 New York, September 25.-George White, chairman of the democratic na- tional committee, in statement to- night. declared that If the spirit of fairness and truth governed Senator Harding in his campaign, he would not have been guilty at Marion yesterday of his unprovoked attack on the ship ping board and his attempted dispar- agement of one of the real facts of the administration-the upbuilding of the American merchant marine" The The statement continues:
 One of the great problems of tew administration" he said would be to turn the 12,000,000 tons of war-created shipping into an effective agency of wldened American commerce in peace. l do not know, he added, "of a single feature of the present administration comparable to that of the United States shipping board"
 "As usual, the facts are in conflict with the senator's statement. Prior to this administration only eight per cent or American ocean borne commerce was carried under the American flag Now more than fifty per cent is so carried. Our flag goes to every port of the world, waving over American ships. and our merchant marine is second only to Great Brltain's. From 316,0OO gross tons production in 1914, we have zone 10 f,o00,O00 tons in 1919 and 100000 now toll at shipbuilding, where but eo,ooo were employed six years ago.
 The merchant marine has flourished particularly under democratic admi inis- tratlons. During the first half of the nineteenth century our flag f1uttared at the masthead of every port; in the latter half it was suffered to disap- fc resumed power in 1913 when measures to promote shipbui1ding and to protect sailors began to be considered again And from the time it was organized in January, 1917. to June IS, 1920. the United States shipping board con- structed and delivered 2,04S vessels of nearly 12,0o0.ooO tonnage and in 1919 doubled the British record.
 RECORD OF ACHIEVEMENT
 Talk about Americanism! What more American achievement could there be than to emancipate this na- ton from foreign domination of it's commerce and to give it's farmers and snlppers the advantage of ocean rates :? what industrial feat more vxtraordi- nary than the transformation of Hog Island from a morass to the greatest hive of production on our soil? Sena- tor Harding is a member of the com mittee on commerce and he knows the Iacts state are true. He knows fur ther that prompt cancellation of out standing contracts when the war end- ed, step that inefficiency would not have taken, saved the government Sooo,o0o,000. If he does not know it. Charles Piez of Chicago, who succeeded C M Schwab as director general and claims that he built the emergency fleet, can turn from his work of col lect1ng republican funds long enough to tell him so.
 This attack, as all others by the sen- ator. is wholly political and not founded on the basis of fact"
 Mr. White declared the pilgrimage of delegation of republican travelling si4lesmen to Senator Harding's front porch at Marion made pertinent a state- ment disproving what MT. White assert cd was an attempt by the republican 1.ational committee to represent the dem- oc1atic presidential nominee as un- friendly % commercial travellers
 Mir. White therefore issued a state ment in which he said that six years ago Governor Cox had made known his belief that travelling salesmen had made possible the present development of Americas commercial markets
 ''The immediate occasion for this esti- mate for the part travelling salesmen have played in our supremacy in world trade was Governor Cox's disavowal of an editorial derogatory to travelling salesmen published in the Dayton News in August, 1914, without Governor Cox knowledge" said MT. White. 'The edi- torial was full of exaggeration and en- tirely out of line with the well-known and proved sympathies of Governor Cox, who promptly telegraphed the managing editor of the News demanding immedi- ate retraction of the editorial over the signature of the writer of it. This was done"
 Although the editorial writer severed his relations with the Dayton News inn mediately after his public apology the