286 BANQUET. 



in this country in the way of shipbuilding and ship designing have so ennobled the vocation of 

 those vi^ho do plan and build ships, that it abates none of its pride by comparison with any 

 other field in which the human intellect holds sway. 



I hope that the young men of this Society will realize we are building shipyards and 

 that there is the place to learn to build ships. Of course we know that the building of a ship 

 makes requisition on practically every other calling, profession and trade. We know that 

 to properly carry out the great project which we have in mind, the enormous program which 

 this war made necessary and which has been so successfully met, means that we should 

 co-operate with every possible means to accomplish our ends ; but, gentlemen, I want to say 

 to those who will have to do in the future with the building of our ships and with the plan- 

 ning of these ships that the proper place to learn to build ships is in the shipyards and not 

 in the counting-house or the bridge shop. (Applause.) Yet I think the gratitude of the coun- 

 try should be given to those who have co-operated with the naval architects of this country 

 in building the fleet we have now started. (Applause.) 



I am asked to say something about the merchant marine and again, in a sense, have to 

 be personal. I remember in 1885 a very noted newspaper editor of the day said he was 

 asked to edit a new "American Encyclopedia," and he wanted an article on American navi- 

 gation. Well, he came to me. I knew nothing about the subject practically at that time, 

 but I strvtggled along and wrote an article. I read the article over carefully several times. 

 In it I had advocated free ships, but after reading the article several times, it did not ring 

 true, so I tore it up and started all over again. I then proceeded to read such history of the 

 merchant marine that I could get hold of, so as to get facts, and I made up my mind, if I were 

 to continue in shipbuilding, that I must know something about the subject. I started in from 

 that time and read every debate that led up to the adoption of the American Constitution, 

 and I read every debate in Congress, either upon commercial laws or upon treaties, up to 

 five years ago. It was quite a task, but I enjoyed it, and I learned a great deal about the 

 American merchant marine. 



When this country started the first federalized government, we had thirteen different 

 ways of regulating ships, and every one of them, in a way, interfered with the other, and 

 the compelling cause of the adoption of the American Constitution and the formation of the 

 American Union was to obtain a central power to regulate commerce in the interests of all 

 the people. Naturally, my first thought and first desire was to know what regulating com- 

 merce meant, and what was the intention of those great men who wrote that inspiring docu- 

 ment, the Constitution of the United States. They must have known what they meant ; they 

 were leaders in thought and power and influence in their time, and after the government was 

 established, they took their seats in the Houses of Congress and in the Legislatures of the 

 various states, and obviously the laws they passed must have been such as to carry out the 

 general idea of the constitutional power to regulate commerce. 



On July 4, 1789, they passed in the form of a law a Declaration of Commercial Inde- 

 pendence, just as they had in 1776 passed a Declaration of Political Independence. They 



