292 BANQUET. 



couch and dreamed of the delightful banquet we were to have here to-night. I thought of a 

 meeting, we had twenty-five years ago, which I attended. In my dream I saw the few people 

 that we had then, some twenty or thirty, possibly forty, and then I thought of this great 

 aggregation of the shipbuilding talent of the United States here to-night. To me it seemed 

 to be typical of what had happened in these United States to this great industry — that this 

 representative gathering of to-day, as compared with the gathering of twenty-five years 

 agO', is but typical of the wonderful progress which this great business has made, of its won- 

 derful influence upon this nation, and of the wonderful effect it is going tO' have upon this 

 nation in the future. (Applause.) 



I dreamed still further, with a wondering mind, and I saw in my dreams a great proces- 

 sion pass along Broad Street, in this city, by the offices of the Emergency Fleet Corporation. 

 This procession attracted me intensely. In my dream I looked out of the window, and there, at 

 the head of this great aerial procession which was floating past, was the distinguished Secretary 

 of the Navy. He had in his hands and about his person every blooming shipyard in the United 

 States that was worthy of the name. Here was Fore River and here was Union, and so on 

 in the case of every yard that could build a ship; the Secretary of tlie Navy had them all, 

 and he maliciously dangled them before the faces of the officers of the Emergency Fleet Cor- 

 poration. Of course this was a dream, and I may not have seen distinctly. He seemed to 

 have tinder his arms something that looked to me like two beer kegs. I cried out in my 

 dream, "Surely, Mr. Secretary, this cannot be true." "Well," he said, "I am passing the 

 offices of the Emergency Fleet Corporation ; Mr. Hurley and Mr. Colby said the proper way 

 to grease the ways was with beer, and I am taking along beer kegs as typical of the fact that 

 if, in floating ships down these ways, beer will grease them better than soap, then beer this 

 country shall have, because we want the ships." (Applause.) 



The next man I saw in this great procession as they marched along was Hurley, the 

 chairman of our great United States Shipping Board, and almost all that poor Hurley had 

 was a pick and a pile-driver — ^the only things that the Secretary of the Navy had left him. 

 Every shipyard was gone, and there was poor Hurley trudging along, supported by Admiral 

 Capps on one side and Admiral Bowles on the other, helping him to carry these things as 

 he had to create in that way the great shipyards of this country, so as to give us our mer- 

 chant ships. 



Well, you know this is a dream, and yet it is not really a dream. It is a fact. In view of 

 the great shipyards that this man and his organization have created, and of all the men in the 

 United States whose names have been mentioned in all honesty and as deserving of real credit 

 for pioneer work in the development of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, what men are there 

 who have gone through the weary trials, and who deserve the real credit, as have Admiral 

 Capps and Admiral Bowles? When history writes the record of the Emergency Fleet Corpo- 

 ration, the names of Admiral Capps and Admiral Bowles will be the brightest among than 

 all. (Applause.) 



I dreamed on, and I saw, as I have often seeni in my waking hours — ^but yet this was 

 a dream — I saw a handsome lady, who looked like a prima donna, coming along, and I 



