February 1, 1911.] 



THE INDIA RUBBER WORLD 



161 



The Rubber Club of America Banquet. 



THE success of the twelfth annual banquet of The Rubber 

 Club of America, which was given in New York, at Del- 

 monico's, on the evening of January 11, more than justified 

 the expectations of the committee on arrangements and of the 

 membership in general. It was the first dinner of the Club to 

 be held outside of New England, which reason encouraged the 

 attendance of rubber men resident in New York and its sub- 

 urbs, and farther West. 



The Club, founded, according to the articles of incorporation, 

 for social intercourse and for the furtherance of educational 

 and scientific research in india-rubber production and manufac- 

 ture, was originated as the New England Rubber Club, and now 

 includes the chief members of the importing firms of New York 

 and Boston, rubber shoe manufacturers, and the tire manufactur- 

 ers of the West, and the industry in general. 



The members of the Club and their guests gathered at an 

 €arly hour in the anteroom to the ballroom, in which the ban- 

 quet was to be served, where they had an opportunity to greet 

 ■each other and renew acquaintances. The social feature of the 

 occasion was enhanced by the seating of the diners around small 

 tables. The speakers were seated on either side of the president, 

 at a long table at the west side of the room. 



The decorations of the banquet room were particularly effec- 

 tive, consisting of the flags of various countries, red and white 

 carnations, and tiny red electric bulbs, which shone brightly 

 through the foliage which banked the front of the speakers' 

 table, draped with red hangings. Red carnations and tiny red 

 bulbs completed the decorations of this table, back of which 

 were artistifally draped the American, British and Brazilian 

 flags. Intertwined along the sides of the room were American 

 and British flags and the colors of the various rubber countries, 

 a most effective complement of the whole being a gracefully 

 draped Aniericnii flag covering the entire front of the balcony 

 -which contained the musicians. 



Each individual table contained eight beautiful white pinks 

 and eight small silk flags, mounted on standards, representing 

 the rubber producing countries, and which added very much to 

 the attractiveness of the scene. A photographic view of the 

 room appears as a frontispiece in this issue. 



After an invocation by the Rev. Sidney Ussher, d.d., assistant 

 rector of St. Bartholomew's church, the president of the Club 

 (Mr. Henry C. Pearson) said: 



Gentlemen* of The Rubber Club of America, and Guests; Repub- 

 licans, nemocrats. Prohibitionists, .Suffragists — whatever your previous 

 condition of political servitude, whatever your present political faith — 

 I ask you to join me in drinking to the health of the President of the 

 United States. [.Applause.] 



I shall have to ask yoa to be just as quiet as possible, in order that 

 I may make myself heard. The particular reason lies with me, this 

 time, that I have had about two weeks of tonsilitis, and I would not 

 have talked to any other Club on the face of the earth than this, my 

 own Club, tonight. [Applause.] 



I am delighted to do it. I am proud of the way in which we have 

 broken in upon Xew York. As far as I can see, the dinner has been 

 a complete success, and you all have had a good time. 



There are two or three things, besides my shred of a voice, that 

 ought to be apologized for, perhaps. There was a mistake in the seat- 

 ing, but, after all. what is the use of apologizing. We are all having a 

 good time: we are all here, and it is where we want to be. 



I have a very courteous letter from Colonel Colt, who regrets tliat 

 he cannot be with us. He says that another year he surely will be here. 

 I am sorry., too. I won't read the letter, but it is in his particular 

 courteous vein, that we all know and admire. [Applause, and songs of 

 "He's a Jolly Good Fellow" and "So Say We All of Us."J 



Xow, .IS we have learned that the Kellys are not invisible, it won't 

 be necessary to sing "Has .\nybody Here Seen Kelly?" That, how- 

 ever, is one of our features [referring to a regular item of the Club 

 dinner progranune] that I hope we will always keep up; because it 

 is a touch of human nature that all love, [.\pplause. ] 



\ ou all know of the very important suits that are now being carried 

 on in Washington. We expected that the Hon. William M. Ivins would 

 be here this evening, and that he would give us, in a few words, the 

 result of a decision, pro or coit, upon the rubber trade. Mr. Ivins 

 was very an.xious to do that, but he is held in Washington until 

 Thursday, and sends his regrets. 



That does not mean, however, that we are left without a very 

 brilliant array of speakers. Before I introduce the first, I want to 

 say, I went from London through the Mediterranean, through the Suez 

 canal, the Indian ocean; down through the Straits of Malacca, up 

 through the China sea, and clear to Hongkong before I saw the Stars 

 and Stripes, and then it was not on a merchant vessel; it was on one 

 of the old '*Monitois" that had been towed across the Pacific and left 

 there; because they couldn't take it anywhere else, and didn't dare 

 do so 



Last winter when I went down through the Southern oceans and up 

 the Amazon and back, I saw the United States flag once, and then 

 not on a merchant vessel. What I am leading up to is that we have 

 as our guest this evening the Hon. Lewis Ni.xon,* who knows more 

 about shipping, the world's shipping, than probably anybody else, and 

 who, for twenty-seven years, has been studying it in its relation to 

 American commerce. [Hear! Hear!] He is to talk to us, and we 

 are very fortunate. [.Applause.] 



THE AMERICAN MERCHANT MARINE. 



The Hon. Lewis Nixon, the first speaker, delivered an elaborate 

 address upon a subject to which he has devoted lifelong study, 

 and which was listened to with great interest. Mr. Nixon holds 

 that no one question bearing upon the industrial life of the 

 United States today is more important to every American citizen 

 than that of bringing back the American flag upon the seas — 

 in other words, the rehabilitation of our merchant marine. 



The great overmastering power upon the oceans of the world 

 is England, the present proud condition of whose merchant fleet 

 rests upon about 160 years of national endeavor. The result 

 of wars waged directly for commercial aggrandizement was to 

 give England the mastery of the seas, with power to fix the 

 tolls for the carrying of freight throughout the world — the master 

 voice in every international dispute, the arbitration of exchanges 

 and values the world over. 



Back in the days of wooden ships England was dependent 

 for the most part upon imported wood to put into her ships, 

 but she frowned upon the purcliase of any foreign ships at all, 

 and the only ships that flew the flag of her navy were either 

 built in English shipyards or captured from the enemy in wars 

 From the beginning of the British empire it was realized that 

 the extent of that empire was to be measured by the capacity 

 to build and sail ships, for in order to assert your rights upon 

 the sea you must sail it with your own ships and under your 

 own flag. 



In time iron supplanted wood in shipbuilding, which changed 

 England from a non-producer of material for ships to a position 

 of masterly advantage in that particular art. Then came our 

 civil war. Before that time the American merchant fleet sailed 

 every sea, but during the four years of the war it disappeared 

 England having a good deal to do with bringing about this 

 result. 



After the war the peoiilv "f the I'nited States turned their 

 attention to internal development, while England turned her- 

 self to the development of ocean commerce. The revenues of 

 such an empire are largely in proportion to the area covered; 

 England's area was the vVorld, and she waxed strong. But 



* Mr. Nixon, after being graduated from the L^nited States Naval 

 .\cademy. was sent by the navy department to the Royal Naval College 

 at Greenwich, Kngland. He designed several battleships, including the 

 Oregon, after which he left the navy and became attached to the Cramp 

 shipyard, in PhiladeliJhia. Still later he has been engaged in shipbuilding 

 on iiis own account, including the construction of a number of vessels 

 for the government. He represented the United States as a delegate to 

 the Pan .\merican Conference at Buenos Aires and as special ambassador 

 at the recent centennary of Chile. 



