Evening star., 1925-08-03
4SCRAP OLD SHIPS"
IS ADVICE TO j. S.
Marine Architects View of
Holding On to Useless Mari
time Property.
BY j. c. ROYLE.
Special Dispatch to The Star.

SpctIdl DlspdtCn 10 Iuc Stdi-
NEW YORK, August 3.-One of the
leading marine architects of the
United States today advised this coun-
try to drop a useless hand into the
discard. William Francis Gibbs, ac.
tive head of the firm which recondi-
toned the Leviathan and which had
designed the largest vessel the con
struction Of which has been under
taken by American shipyards, de-
clared that a part of the Shipping
Board fleet now laid up in the har-
bors and estuaries of the country is
as obsolete as the clipper ships of the
last century. This statement was
which followed the Ford bids for Ship.
ping Board vessels for scrapping.
Ships Idle and Useless.
THE majority of these idle ships.
Mr.. Gibbs said, ARE as useless for the
maintenance and upbuildin~ of our
merchant marine as the percussion
cap muskets of the Civil War era
would be for eQuipping our Army to-
day. They represent one of the in
dustrial tragedies of the great war
They were built when their building
was marvel of achievement 1t was
almost mircale that they could be
built at all. 1t was like building a
nre engine to put out a fire after the
blaze had broken out. but we did 1t.
"Of course, they look like effective
ships and il cost lot of emergency
money to build them in the great
emergency. But the economic effect
iveness of any machine cannot be
judged merely by it's appearance or
cost of preservation in idleness. The
TIL 1,
mechanisms in service"
Mr.. Gibbs made plain that he did not
include all the Shipping Board YES
sells in the category of those fit only
to be cut up by the acetylene torch,
the pieces picked up by electric mag
nets and toted off to the furnace
But he made clear the tremendous de.
Velopments which have taken place
in postwar years in shipbuilding. in
cluding the rotor and the motor ship,
the perfection and development OF
the Diesel engine and other factors.
Public Grows Suspicious.
Il believe too little Informative EN-.
phasis has been placed on this mat.
ter by the shipping industry. These
ships in the scrapping bids are eff
fectively only for what can be recog
nized as scrap. There is no doubt
that the American public is rather
suspicious of the wholesale junking
of ships that can float and whose
superstructure looks pretty much
like those of other ships which sail
the seas. If the public is not in
formed of the necessity that this feet
be scrapped, any constructive under
standing of American merchant ma
rine will be hampered by the question
of why shipping men did not buy
ships when they were going a-begging
instead of allowing them to be
scrapped.
Let these ships be scrapped and
then let us face the problem of the
future of American shipping. These
ships are essentially junk from an
economic standpoint, but until the
truth of this is convincingly manifest
to the public, enterprise will be halted
and constructive planning will be
handicapped and the shipping of the
future will be prejudiced to a point
perilously close to a disaster"
Another Instance Given.
1t is a somewhat far cry from ships
to monographs, but some of the same
trends toward 'scrapping and build
ing" is evident in the musical in
strument trade.
The Victor Talking Machine Co.
has cut prices sharply on its prod
ucts. This is understood to be a move
to prepare the market for a new
combined talking machine and radio
instrument. on which the company Is
now working. and which is intended
to fill the Fall trade demand
Most of the talking machine manu-
facturers anticipate that they will
cut the number of their models by at
least 10 per cent in the next year.