256 BANQUET. 
We need it to maintain the prosperity of our farms and our factories. That need is 
constantly growing; for we are now producers in farm and factory beyond our power of 
domestic absorption, and in order to maintain a decent economic standard in this country we 
must carry to foreign markets our surplus products. We should do this in vessels of our own 
register, flying our own flag and manned by our own officers and men. A positive national 
danger lurks in the complacent and sometimes expressed willingness to turn our carrying 
trade over to foreign companies. Why should America pay tribute to foreign carriers and 
revolt at the suggestion of a proper support to our own merchant marine? Why contribute 
to the strength of the sea forces of foreign powers at the expense of weakening our own? 
With a seafaring population unexcelled in the world, is it good American business not to 
employ it and train it so that it can join hands with the farm and the factory laborer to 
work as a well-organized team to maintain and guarantee our continued prosperity? 
Without the merchant sailor and the merchant ship, the farm hand and the farm, the 
factory hand and the factory are without their proper and necessary support. 
To deny a subvention that will give our merchant marine an equal chance with that of 
other nations will stultify the development of one of the greatest factors that will govern 
our future prosperity economically and our future national security. 
To guarantee both our continued prosperity and our national security we must keep our 
Navy up to the highest standard of efficiency, and we must buttress it with a merchant 
marine that will be a pride to us in the pursuit of its mission in time of peace and be an 
added security to us in time of war. 
