SPECIAL MAY MEETING. 5 
Mr. Lasker and the Shipping Board called in a number of experts to test out the sub- 
ject. I well remember the first meeting we had, early in December. They had been work- 
ing then for two or three months. Mr. Greene, Mr. Jones and myself were at the meeting. 
i presume we were some kind of a board of arbitrators; we were supposed to listen to what 
these committees reported, and after they were finished we found much that we did not agree 
to. After arguing the matter we sent them back to work again. We told them that they 
would have to work Christmas week, we made comments on what they had done, and ques- 
tioned some of the things that they had proposed. 
They came back in the first week of January with a very much better proposal, and 
from then on this bill has been worked out. I have no doubt most of you know about it. The 
bill has been drawn, as our Democratic friends who are opposing the bill say, very cannily ; 
they don’t like this return of part of the profits if a man earns above 10 per cent. That 
was an idea that I proposed myself three years ago when I wanted to start lines to South 
America. I am not quite sure whether anybody is pleased with it, but the fact must be 
recognized that the Government cannot pay a subsidy to a man who is making 30, 40 or 50 
per cent. 
The subsidy, it is said by the shipowners, is not large enough. No doubt we will take 
that question up when we get into executive session, but I am of the opinion that the subsidy 
is large enough, because if it is made too large you will not have the incentive to initiative 
that we want to give to the shipowners. 
As to the indirect aid, we want to abolish the transport service as far as we can and 
have them use the private ships. A good deal of question has been raised about that. They 
say we ought to have naval auxiliaries, or we ought to have a military service, trained. As 
a matter of fact, what better trained military service could you have than a lot of good mer- 
cantile ships commanded by captains who know their business? They figured out that they 
were saving money for the Government. Taking their entire fleet as a proposition, from their 
own figures we are losing from six to eight million dollars a year over what it would cost 
us in ordinary service if we paid the commercial rates. 
We want our Ambassadors and other government employees to use our ships. We want 
to have a relationship between the Interstate Commerce Commission and the Shipping Board 
that will take care of the shipping interests. Heretofore the Interstate Commerce Commis- 
sion has been leaning toward the railroad interests, and we do not think it is fair. We 
want to give the shipper a reduction in his taxes if he ships on American ships, and I say 
to you gentlemen that that is simply another way of looking at the question of a differential 
or preferential tariff. If a shipper can get a deduction in his income tax on his shipments, it 
pays him to ship in American ships, and therefore we will have cargo for our ships. The 
only unfortunate part about that is, of course, that it does not bring the return from the im- 
ports that it does from the exports. 
As to shipbuilding, we have arranged in the bill that the $125,000,000 that was pro- 
posed in the Jones Bill shall be available at once; and I agree with Mr. Lasker when he said 
_ yesterday at the Chamber of Commerce that our fleet is not well balanced as far as our 
ships are concerned. We need more of certain classes of ships. We have as many tankers, 
probably, as we can use today; we have very few refrigerator ships. We have not enough 
passenger ships. We ought to have, and I think we will have some day, the proper ships to 
balance out this fleet. We have got too many lake type ships; we want to get rid of them. 
We want to get rid of the wooden ships. We want to carry on and use the four, or five or 
six hundred good ships that we have got today in the cargo business, ships that can carry 
