Atlantic Health, Wealth and Sanity : 457 



in our defense plants and in our ports, a breach has been made in the 

 ramparts of our national security. 



There was a time when the improvement of port services could be 

 provided for largely by the creation of deeper harbors, longer piers, 

 better unloading and handling facilities. This is still true in a limited 

 measure but what we need chiefly today is an elimination of the 

 crime, graft and corruption that infects our harbors. 



It is, of course, erroneous to believe that the problems of our ports 

 and longshore services are local problems. This might be the case if 

 our ports and dockside services operated continually, efficiently and 

 economically. The ports serve all parts of the nation — the interior 

 as well as the seaboard. They have become a national problem and a 

 threat to national security and it seems doubtful if improvements 

 can be made other than in a thoroughgoing fashion and on a national 

 scale. 



There are some who believe that an ocean — the Atlantic Ocean in 

 particular — ^is of limited interest or importance because they say we 

 have advanced into something called the "Air Age." This of course 

 is a very limited view and represents either a willful misinterpreta- 

 tion or an incomplete knowledge of the capabilities and limitations of 

 aircraft. It is exactly because we find an increasing use for aircraft 

 that we should examine our relationship to the ocean. 



The political, naval, military, commercial, cultural relationships 

 that have grown up about the Atlantic have been established as a 

 result of oceanic communication. As far as we can foresee they will 

 be served by oceanic communication in time of peace and varying 

 forms of defensive and offensive operation in time of war. Air trans- 

 port and armed air forces have appeared as a useful and sometimes 

 crucial adjunct to the oceanic services. There a few, but a very few, 

 points at which they compete. For the most part they complement 

 and supplement each other. Much, of course, depends upon the point 

 of view. 



Modern war is so complex that partisans of any service or particu- 

 lar forms of activity can point to their particular contribution and 

 claim that it was a main or crucial contribution to victory. The case 

 may sound impressive as long as they ignore the claims of other serv- 

 ices. The strategic bombers might point to the destruction of means 

 of production in industrial cities of Germany or to the destruction 

 of railroads, bridges or other means of communication before and 

 during the invasion of Normandy. But back of these efforts, as we 



