SPECIAL MEETING OF MAY 19, 1922 
PresipeNnT Water M. McFarianp:—As you realize, gentlemen, from the program 
as it has been stated to you, we have quite a lot to do in one evening. We are to have the 
pleasure of an address from a distinguished member of Congress and, perhaps unexpectedly 
to you—it was to me—we are also to be favored with a few remarks from one of our 
veteran ship operators. After that we are to have the meeting, with the reading of the paper 
by Captain O’Donnell. Consequently we want to start in now with this post-prandial oratory. 
At the present time everybody connected with maritime interests is, I think, looking with 
intense interest at the proceedings in Washington with regard to what is known commonly 
as the Merchant Marine Bill of 1922. It seems to most of us that the passage of this bill 
means the salvation of the American merchant marine and of the shipbuilding industry in 
this country. 
Sometimes when people have been to see Congress at work and have met some of the 
legislators, they come away feeling rather discouraged because they think that the congress- 
men do not know very much about the subjects on which they are legislating. It is, how- 
ever, fortunate that there are men in Congress who do know what they are talking about and 
what they have to consider in the way of the advancement of the interests of the country. 
We are very fortunate in having with us here this evening, as our guest of honor, one of 
those congressmen who does know what he is trying to do. Unlike the great majority of 
congressmen, he is not a lawyer; he is a business man, and as a business man he has been 
able to study this problem of the needs of the American merchant marine and to understand 
it. I have had the privilege this evening, while we have been sitting here, of chatting with 
him a little, and it has been a delight to me to find his thorough grasp of the situation. 
He has kindly consented to make us an address tonight, and I know you will all be 
delighted to hear from the Hon. George W. Edmonds, of the House Committee on Mer- 
chant Marine and Fisheries. (Applause. ) 
Hon. Grorce W. Epmonps:—Mr. President and gentlemen, you know if you keep your 
eyes about you you will always learn something. As we came over here tonight on the 
Pennsylvania train we passed through Elizabeth. I saw a great big sign, “Haynes, Funeral 
Director.” I was wondering whether that was our Prohibition Commissioner down in 
Washington. (Laughter.) I presume it is. (Laughter. ) 
When your president and your secretary asked me whether I would come over here and 
talk to you tonight, I remembered the very delightful reception you gave me at your ban- 
quet a couple of years ago at the Waldorf, when I talked there and Judge McCrate made an 
eloquent speech. I have been trying to get him over to Philadelphia ever since to make a 
speech for me, and he won’t come; he says he is too busy over here. 
But I presume that you are all more interested in knowing a little something about the 
shipping business. To go back a little into history, I think the first ship was built in this 
country about 1728; it was built in Maine. We progressed from that time until 1850. After 
the Constitutional Convention, when we framed up a constitutional government in 1783, the 
first four or five bills that were passed by that Congress, or the first four or five out of the 
