The Birmingham age-herald., 1920-07-22
MEN, WOMEN
 AND THINGS

Lounging around the office the other
 afternoon l carelessly picked up an am-
 bstious looking volume on one of the desks without any thought of it's con
 tents and found that 1t was just chock full of interesting data about Americas
 shipping.
 The title of the handsome volume is | Americas Maritime Progress" a re- view of the redevelopment of the Amer
 iean merchant marine. together with
 brief biographies of men and companies representative of the shipping world
 The book is gotten out by the New York Marine News Company and is a most fcreditable piece of work in every way.
 
 know that a good amount of fun has
 been poked at Birmingham, because,
 while it is an inland city, it boasts that at last through the Port of Birmingham it is~ connected with the sea It is not therefore out of place for those of us who live here to really inform our selves about the great strides this land of ours is making as a maritime nation.
 
 An achievement so brilliant as the re- development of the American merchant marine is at once both comforting to the nation as world power and to this district. for it is doing it's part in ship of the United States Steel Company, as well as by the product of the Birming- ham Steel Corporation, the fabricating plant fathered by an old Birmingham boy. Leon Britain.
 The Marine News well says: Many new lights in marine affairs now throw tteir glow on American shipping activi- ties. while those old flames that lin- gered bravely during the lean years now shed greater brilliancy than ever be- fore" It has been it's task to gather into compact and attractive form the data showing the ascendancy of Ameri- ca's shipping to heights greater than ever fondiy anticipated by the greatest enthusiasts.
 It was only the other night a neigh Dor dropped in to see me and during the visit asked me if I was aware that if the United States kept up it's ship building programme at the present rate within four years it would distance that of England and hold first rank in the carrying capacity of it's merchant fleet He had just read an article in the Scien- tific American which gave him some new light on the rapid strides this coun- | trade.
 A cursory study -ef the matter discloses the fact that America stepped forward 8 hundred years in the last four years in it's determination to take it's rghtful place on the Seven Seas. The war was the motive power which caused US to construct as it were almost overnight the worlds greatest shpbuilding instrument talities with capacity to turn out ships so rapidly as to astonish our allies and make the German Kaiser and Herr Ballin rub their eyes in amazement.
 No ship subsidy advocate, no merchant | marine proponent no student of Amerl- can maritime history, even as late as 1916, would have been so foolhardy as to urge a policy of having the American government undertake the construction of ten million tons of ships. The most rosy picture ever painted in the minds of American ship enthusiasts seldom called for more than a half million tons of new ships to fly the American flag and remove the blight that existed against the American fleet. The achieve ment of the past four years sets new record in ship construction which will not fail to make it's proper impression
 both on our friends and our foes. whether it is, our destiny to supplant Great Britain, as the owners of the lar- gest ocean tonnage" says the Marine News. "s only a matter of prediction We have he groundwork, the trade and the incentive There are some tre- mendous problems involved in our sea ambitious. and they are being handled by experts in naval construction, economists and statesmen. The United States ship ping board, in face of unprecedented diff faculties, in spite of criticism, rendered a great service in creating shipping by the millions of tons.
 We had the money, we had the men, and they furnished the ships and by so doing made it possible for the war to be ended sooner than wassexpected. Now that the conflict is over and foreign commerce is slowly adjusting itself to the new conditions, there is still much uncertainty as to the way in which the American-owned and American operated merchant marine shall be permanently established I have not the wisdom to pass upon the question of government or private ownership
 I am inclined to think that the the ory of some of our economists who claimed that nation need not own it's own merchant marine, if another nation can do the carrying eheapers was put out of court by what happened during the Nar Here in the south our people lost millions of dollars on cotton because of the disturbance of the worlds mari time affairs in 1914 and 1915. l merely use the cotton farmers as typical of all others The manufacturers were ill the same boat, or rather vainly signaling from the shore trying to get aboard.
 But I am getting swamped and will