xxviii INTRODUCTORY PROCEEDINGS. 



the year ; but they are full of encouragement when put beside the fact that during the previ- 

 ous nine years the United States built only 574,802 gross tons of these types." 



Again, in 1908, Admiral Bowles, as President of the Society, commented upon the ad- 

 verse effect upon shipbuilding of the "general depression that has weighed upon all other 

 business interests," and then went on to say: — 



"Because o^f orders placed before this depression began, the shipbuilding output of the 

 fiscal year ending June 30, 1908, was the greatest in our history, attaining a total of 1,457 

 vessels of 614,216 gross tons, according to the records kindly furnished in advance of his 

 annual report by Mr. Eugene T. Chamberlain, the Commissioner of Navigation. This was 

 a far greater output than the 1,157 vessels of 471,332 tons built and documented in the pre- 

 vious year. Of the 614,216 gross tons of shipping built in the fiscal year 1908, no less than 

 450,017 tons was composed of steel. To this great product, ho'wever, both in total construc- 

 tion and in steel construction, the Great Lakes of this country, doubly protected by geography 

 and law, were the chief contributors. The steel steamers of over 1,000 gross tons built on 

 the seaboard of the United States last year numbered 25, of 101,658 tons, while 58 steel 

 steamers of 322,806 tons were launched by lake shipbuilding companies." 



In 1910, just two years later. Commander Stevenson Taylor, in his address at the open- 

 ing session of the meeting of the Society of that year, deplored the backward condition of 

 our national maritime development, but with prophetic vision asserted that — 



"Some day the people of this great nation will realize the supreme importance of hav- 

 ing ships and yards in which to build them; will realize that we are deliberately passing to 

 foreigners annually enormous sums which should be earned by our citizens; and they will 

 come to themselves, will unite on the right course, will demand from their representatives 

 a change from the present condition, and they will get it." 



Little as Commander Taylor or any of those who heard or read his remarks dreamed 

 of the changes which were destined to take place in a few years, his prophecy has come true, 

 but in a manner and to a degree quite beyond the wildest expectation of any of those present 

 at the meeting in 1910. 



From the record performance of 80 steel vessels of about 168,000 gross tons referred 

 to with such satisfaction by Mr. Griscom in 1910, and the record noted by Admiral Bowles 

 in 1908 as the greatest in our history, when 1,457 vessels of 614,000 tons were produced in 

 all the shipyards of the country, there is a giant stride forward in the developments which 

 have talcen place during the past three years, reaching their culmination in the year 1919. 



This tremendous advance is perhaps shown most directly by the statement that whereas 

 in the year 1908 the gross output of all vessels built in the United States was only 614,000 

 tons, of which only 450,000 tons was of steel construction, the output in steel vessels of more 

 than 1,000 tons was in the year 1918 more than 850,000 gross tons, and for the fiscal year 

 1919, nearly 2,500,000 gross tons. 



These figures are especially significant when we consider that the output for the year 

 1908 was the maximum production in any one year in the United States up to our entry in 

 the Great War. Moreover, the greatest annual output in launchings of the world's ship- 

 yards prior to the year 1917 was 3,032,000 gross tons in the year 1913. 



