ITS CAUSE AND REMEDY 9 



Gentlemen, how in the world can we make 

 free ships pay? We had the ships after the 

 war and by thousands they rotted at their 

 anchors. If we had them, what good would 

 free ships do us? They would do us no 

 good whatever. 



Representative Humphrey — We have sev- 

 eral on the Sound now tied up. 



Mr Withycombe — I have had experience. 

 If a man would give me a thousand-ton ship 

 today as a free gift and tell me to operate 

 her in the foreign merchant marine under 

 the American flag, I would decline to take 

 her. I would not have her except to sell her 

 or transfer her to the coasting business. If 

 I transferred her to the coasting trade I 

 would make money. I know that to be a 

 fact. 



Recess. 



President Roosevelt saw the need of help- 

 ing the American farmer and he took up 

 the work of correcting some of the means 

 whereby the farmer was being unfairly ex- 

 ploited ; one was fair treatment by the rail- 

 roads; also he forced the meat packers or 

 as it was then known the Beef Trust, to pay 

 the producers of cattle more nearly their 

 share of the worth of the cattle they raised, 

 and that was the first wave of real prosper- 

 ity that spread out over this great country. 

 Before Mr. Roosevelt did that, the banks 

 were becoming insolvent in the best farm- 



