BANQUET. 329 



merce in the United States, I have been thrown into contact with thousands of business 

 men and have tried in a feeble way to carry the message of a marine and shipbuilding to 

 people back in the middle west and the far west. I also want to tell you that you will find, 

 when you talk to business men, that they want to understand, and they want to know, and 

 in most cases they do understand and know. There is only one sure way of appealing to 

 those who represent you and me in Congress, and that is to appeal to the sound American- 

 ism and sound business sense of the people who send our representatives to Congress, and by 

 no other means will you ever enlist the whole-hearted sympathy and support of the people of 

 the United States in their own marine. (Applause.) 



We have the shipyards, we have the skilled men, we have the designers, we have the 

 credit, we have the money — all we lack is the purpose. It was said during the war that never 

 again would these things be allowed to lapse. The trouble with the shipbuilding question 

 and shipowning merchant marine question is that it is too large to be considered from the 

 particular standpoint of any particular group of men who may represent us in Washington. 



But the difficulties of securing legislation are certainly no greater than they were in the 

 passage of the Regional Reserve Act, which was probably one of the finest pieces of legis- 

 lation we ever had, and which stands now between us and trouble, and which, after many 

 years of effort, was enacted. 



Last year our total exports from the United States were over seven billion dollars, and 

 there was a balance of trade in our favor of four billion dollars, a tremendous increase. 

 There is now manufactured in the United States from 30 to 35 per cent more stuff than 

 we can use, and it is vital that markets be found for that material or this tremendous pro- 

 duction will recoil upon us, which will produce unrest, based on hunger, which is not the case 

 at present, and which would be a whirlwind compared with the gentle breeze of today. It 

 is therefore necessary, not only that we keep up this production, but that we find markets 

 for our manufactured products. 



There is a lot of diiference between selling raw materials which our friends must come 

 for, and selling something that is manufactured. Copper, cotton, and such things men must 

 come for, because they must have them, but when you come to manufactured goods, they 

 must be marketed, and who but knows that the finest salesman today in the world is a ship 

 bearing the flag of the country from which the ship comes, and in this case it is to be a ship 

 built, equipped and manned by Americans. (Applause.) 



The destruction wrought by the German submarine emphasized shipbuilding to a point 

 which is hardly realized. When nine million tons of ships are sunk in a single war, belong- 

 ing to a single country, how much more important does the ability, both in men and material, 

 to produce ships amount to than it ever has before in the history of the world ? 



A nation now to maintain itself is absolutely bound to keep at hand those things which 

 make for shipbuilding. A fleet of merchant ships can be wiped out almost over night, and 

 the ability to reproduce those ships is vital to a country. We hear a great deal about "no 

 more wars." There may not be any more^ — soon. We hear a great deal about this great 



