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I came to speak to you to-night, because you gentlemen and the men you represent have 

 from the beginning with vision, with rare vision of the needs of our country, seen that the 

 primal need, the essential need of what we had least of, was ships, and ships, and more 

 ships. It was the neck of the bottle. But for your zeal, your industry, your co-operation, 

 we could not have provided the ships that in the Navy have been so effective, or the mer- 

 chant ships that have carried food and mimitions to our boys across the seas, and I have 

 come here to-night, gentlemen, to extend to you my o\vn thanks and the appreciation of the 

 Government at Washington for the great things you have done, for the spirit you have 

 shown, for the large vision you have had, and for the translation of that vision into the 

 materials necessary to win this war. 



We went to war in 1812 for a great principle. We determined that our ships on the 

 sea should have free passage and no sailors' rights should be interfered with by any nation 

 under the sun, and that doctrine we will defend forever against all comers, because it is 

 a primary American doctrine. (Applause.) We fought then for a principle, and though we 

 won the principle for which we fought, and for a generation had free and safe use of the 

 seas, the hour and the day came, fateful to us as a great nation, but a reflection upon the 

 statesmanship and vision of America, when the American flag was rarely seen on the high 

 seas or in distant parts of the world. Senator Hoar, in a great speech, said : "I have seen 

 the glories of art and architecture, and of mountain and river. I have seen the sun set 

 on Jungfrau and the full moon rise over Mount Blanc, but the fairest vision on which these 

 eyes ever looked was the flag of my own country in a foreign land. Beautiful as a flower 

 to those who love it, terrible as a meteor to those who hate it, it is the symbol of the power 

 and glory and the honor of seventy millions of Americans." But he seldom saw it. Our 

 flag was seen almost nowhere and we depended on foreign bottoms for our trade, with the 

 necessary logical result that the ships that carried the trade, of course, gave preference to 

 their own nation. We permitted our mercantile marine to decrease almost to the vanishing 

 point, and as a consequence the American Navy was small in proportion, for Admiral 

 Mahan truly said : "The necessity of a Navy, in the restricted sense of the word, springs, 

 therefore, from the existence of a peaceful shipping, and disappears with it, except in the 

 case of a nation which has aggressive tendencies and keeps upi a Navy merely as a branch 

 of the military establishment. As the United States has at present no aggressive purposes, 

 and as its merchant service has disappeared, the dwindling of the armed fleet and general 

 lack of interest in it are strictly logical consequences." 



The day is not far distant, I believe, when the American mercantile marine will be a 

 power in the world and carry its freight to every island and land under the sun. (Applause.) 



Mr. Schwab, we have just begun to build ships 



Mr. Schwab: — Right, Mr. Secretary. 



Secretary Daniels : — We have just begun, and we shall continue building ships to 

 carry our commerce until we have a fair share O'f all the trade of the world. (Loud and 



