The Waterbury Democrat., 1934-10-29

heavy pieces Of artillery it was necessary to place them on a ship by themselves, especially construct ed and where all excess space was used for the storage of mamunition for these instruments of war and the other supplies required for the successful conclusion of naval en- gagement. So here was the first de- cisive separation of the Fighting Ship from the Merchant Ship.
 Today every nations navy con- sists of two general types of ships; the Fighting Ship and the Supply Ship. Of course there are various deviations from this practice ,, whereby a Fighting Ship has serv- ed as a transport for taking refu- gees out of danger zone, while all merchant ships in time of war are ramed with small caliber cannon to offset the possible attack of an enemy merchant raider or ward off an attack by submarine. But gen. orally speaking the two types of ships have their respective duties, the Fighting Ship as the first line of defense and the Merchant Ship to keep the Fighting Ship provid- ed with ammunition, fuel and other supplies, while the passenger lin- CTS are converted into troop trans ports and hospital ships.
 It is possibly due to this separa- tipn of the two classes of ships that has made some people today ques- ton the necessity of having a Mer- chant Marine. They seem to see only half of the picture. They see number of cargo and passenger liners flying the American flag on the seven seas, not paying much if any dividends to their owners and being supported to a degree by fed- eral funds. They jump to the con- cluston that if a nation in times of peace can svae 8 few million dol lars by letting some foreign nation transport it's foreign commerce that this should be done. They forget that this Merchant Marine is neces- sary as an auxiliary to the navy even if it had to be tied up to the dock over a good many years just to meet an emergency, and that by actually keeping it in operation during peace times what 1t is really doing is reducing the burden to the tax payer as we'll as giving employ ment to thousands of people both directly and indirectly, helping to sustain our foreign markets by means of reasonable ocean rates and dependable delivery of our merchandise and products ot for eign lands.
 If there is still any doubt in their minds on the wisdom of having our own and adequate Merchant Marine then let them turn back to April 1917 when we entered the World war, and when we laucnhed the greatest shipbuilding program, that any nation had ever undertaken in the history of the world. We then tried to make. up for our short- sightedness of the previous fifty years by spending three billions of dollars trying to provide our fight ing ships with the necessary trans ports, collters, supply and repair ships and to transport two million Of our soldiers to the western front an dthen keep those soldiers well provided with food, clothing and munitions at, the same time trying to render a similar service to our allies.
 In order that this fiasco may never happen again it is necessary for every citizen of these United states to support the policy of an adequate American Merchan Mar inc, whereby should they withhold their support they are seriously crippling the nations first line of defense-the United States Navy.