The Wilmington morning star., 1941-01-10
The New Shipouilding Plant

1t is in keeping with the new pace of events
that Wilmington should be chosen for a great
ship-building plant where "a cargo vessels will
be turned out in two years with the aggregate
cost mounting to 49, 900, 900.
Wilmington has long awaited an industrial
awakening, and now that it has come, with
the announcement that the Newport News
shipbuilding and Drydock company has this
large contract from the U. S. Maritime COM
mission, the opinion of leading minds in the
business community is that other major in
dustrial undertakings will soon follow the lead
thus made, and Wilmington will come into its
own.
It is estimated that up to 1000 workers will
be employed on the new project. This large
increase in population-perhaps it will be TO-
900, for most of the workers will establish
homes and bring their families-coupled with
the thousands who will settle here in connec-
ton with Camp Davis and other defense pro-
iects expected in the vicinity, inevitably Will
Great not only a greater business turnover
but give tremendous impetus to building con-
with all of its allied interests.
Factories, jobbing houses and manufacturers
agencies. which naturally follow the line OF
least resistance, will become as much a part
of the Wilmington community as the greater
retail stores that will be needed. This is to
say that the old Wilmington, the city we have
been a part of so long, is to be SUCCEEDED
by a new Wilmington to rank high among the
South's industrial c%enters.
This is as certain as that the night follows
the day. This city is on the Threshold OF a
new order. That brings with it obligations
which are quite as important as the advant-
ages. It is imperative, for prolonged pros
perity, that each person give the new oroer
the same fine type of wholehearted coopera-
tion as the industrialists have shown in bring
ING this shipyard here and in drafting plans
for further manufacturing expansion. 1t will be
only by keeping close guard against unre-
strained initiation, against the easy induce
ments to surrender to a BOOM that Will
mington can hope to make the best OF us
present opportunity.
Wilmington will survive as a great city for
U1llAlhASTOA w."
MANY years to come, or subside into lnnocu-
GUS desuitude when hostilities IN Europe cease
according to the manner in which 1t utlllzes
its chance now to develop on healthy, con-
%structive lines, or loses its head IN a mao
rush to get What it can while the getting Is
good. Surely the memory of Florida's plight
following collapse of its boom a decade ago
e.-.I z-a,,ob t. ovort . restraining III
fluence here, now. We want no such mush-
room prosperity as Florida had, only to find
ourselves flat on our backs later on with
neither strength or desire to rise again.
Wilmington had a not altogether pleasant
experience with shipyards, toward the close
and for a short time after the first World war,
and there is fear among some of us now that
the present venture will be as short-llved and
distressing as that. All who hold this thought
can find courage and comfor in the fact that
all phases of national defense are drafted on
a ten-year program. This nation Will be te
busiest place in the world for at least a de-
cade, and so far as ship-building is concerned,
for manv wears thereafter. For it will be the
privilege of the United States to replace the
destroyed shipping on the great sea lanes
and that will require a long drawn-out Ell
fort. No other country on the earth WILL pc
in a position to re-establish its own merchant
marine when firing ceases and bombers and
submarines are called home.
Wilmington will be in no danger of having
no work for laborers in its shipyards until
the oceans need no more merchant craft.