254 BANQUET. 
With our inexperience, with our higher costs of operation due to a number of causes, 
with our foreign agency and equipment arrangements none too good, with our insurance dis- 
ability, with other maritime nations fighting to hold their trades, with a period of depres- 
sion that will never right itself until Europe settles down, with the privilege of free inter- 
change of commodities impeded because we cannot hope to sell to impoverished countries 
unless we buy from them and put them in funds, we must have some form of assistance 
for a restricted period during which these handicaps can be overcome or disappear and a 
free field established for our merchants and shipowners. 
In the meantime I appeal for support of American flag ships on patriotic grounds only 
when they are able to furnish exporters, importers, and travelers with service as good as 
our competitors, and when they do not, write a red-hot letter to the owners or to the Ship- 
ping Board. 
I do not believe that we will ever participate in world trading beyond that which flows 
to and from our shores and our insular possessions, and then only in liner or semi-liner 
services. I mean by this that the tramping business of the world will remain in foreign 
hands. The very nature of our economic conditions precludes its growth to or from our 
shores, whereas the very nature of the economic conditions of a number of foreign coun- 
tries is exactly the reverse. We will never get our costs down to a point where we will 
be free competitors in other than direct trade to any great extent, therefore I think we should 
concentrate on the liner business, and if we can reach a point where we can handle, say, 
50 per cent of our imports and exports, I think I can safely say from my experience dur- 
ing those trying years of the war that we willbe practically an independent nation, with all 
the benefits accruing, including the famous “invisible” exports that come to us from freight 
earnings and which are never recorded in any statistics; freedom to direct our exports to 
countries where for one reason or another other nations are indisposed to help us; and, of 
greater importance, the training of a vast number of men who “go down to the sea in 
ships’—for a living. 
Before closing this address I would like to say a few words in memory of H. A. Frye, 
my close associate and vice-president. If ever man laid down his life for a principle, it was 
Mr. Frye. He was warned before he came there that overwork would mean death, but in 
spite of all warnings he did his duty, and I think his name should be written in our record. 
Tue ToAsTMASTER :—Gentlemen, it has been a custom of long standing with us to 
show our respect for the military forces of the Government by inviting the naval officer in 
command of the Third Naval District and the Brooklyn Navy Yard and also the general 
in command of the military division which includes New York. Almost without exception 
we have been honored by the presence of these gentlemen. We have with us tonight Rear 
Admiral Carl T. Vogelgesang, Commandant of the Third Naval District, and Brig. Gen. 
William F. Weigel, who comes as a representative of Majer General Bullard in command 
of the military division. 
Admiral Vogelgesang is a naval officer of distinguished record, having commanded a 
number of our great battleships and seen active service during the Great War. His 
duty for more than a year past has been as Commandant of the Third Naval District 
and the Brooklyn Navy Yard. A very distinguished honor has recently been conferred upon 
him in his selection as the Chief of a Special Naval Mission to our sister republic of Brazil, 
on which he departs early next month, It gives me great pleasure to introduce Rear Ad- 
miral Vogelgesang. (Applause. ) 
