BANQUET. 247 
make that clear to the American people, in order that they might awake some time to the 
need for a merchant marine. 
I speak to you of the merchant marine in its purely defensive character, as part of the 
defensive armament of the United States, a vital and necessary part. In the Navy we know 
perfectly well the exact meaning of war without ships to draw upon for auxiliary service, 
and surely the late war demonstrated the need for the American flag to be well represented 
upon the high seas. We have allowed our merchant marine to decline, and we are now try- 
ing to build it up again. 
A sight that saddened me was seeing, while on a recent trip abroad in Yokohama Har- 
bor, the Robert Dollar flying the British flag—not that I do not have a great admiration and 
great respect for the flag of Great Britain, but I did not care to see it flying over a ship 
that had once flown the Stars and Stripes and which was named after the great shipowner 
of our own country. 
I do not know whether you feel as I do about the psychology of our flag and the need 
for showing it all the world over—and now I am not speaking for the national defense, and I 
am back again to plain, common sense dollars. It seems to me that the merchant who con- 
tinually is compelled to ship his goods abroad in foreign bottoms, under foreign flags, must 
be looked upon by the people who buy them as representing a strange country. We know 
here that we have the men, we have the money, we have the inventive genius, and every- 
thing that goes into the making of a ship, and we have foreign trade, but, believe me, the 
future of the United States demands we shall increase that foreign trade very greatly. The 
day will come when we will meet a competition heretofore undreamed of in all the markets 
of the world, and when that day comes it will be well, indeed, if we have ready to meet 
it not only the goods but the ships to carry the goods. I believe that the old illustration 
holds good: What merchant delivers his goods in the delivery wagon of his rival bearing 
the rival’s advertisements on the wagon? What merchant would be so far behind the march 
of progress as to do a thing like that? And yet that is what the United States has been 
doing for many years. 
I look back with delight upon the old days of white sail and clipper ships, when we 
built the best ships in the world. We met the world in competition then and we carried our 
share of the world’s goods, and I cannot see any reason why, simply because the fabric has 
been changed and the method of propulsion has been changed, that America cannot equal any 
other nation on earth in the building and sailing of the vessels that ply the seas, and con- 
quering of the markets too. (Applause. ) 
_It is a curious thing. We are not accustomed to hide our light under a bushel; we 
are accustomed to go after things and get them, and yet for a generation we have fought for 
this thing, a proper subsidy, or something which will enable us to restore upon the seas the 
flag of our country. The mere stating of the fact that we are not represented in foreign 
trade as we should be, that we are not transporting goods in our own ships, seems to me all 
that is necessary. 
I do not know, again, whether you will agree with me, but I have lived a number of 
years in foreign countries, in the days of long ago, when I was a youngster. 1 remember 
once, when walking around the bluff at Chefoo, suddenly coming around it and, looking 
into the harbor, I saw an American man-o’war flying the flag of the United States. It 
thrilled me, as I doubt not it would have thrilled every American who might have seen it, 
and whose hungry eyes had been denied the sight for many months, and I had no shame, 
