INTRODUCTORY PROCEEDINGS. xli 
and for a large part we are busily engaged in repairing defects. The use of oxyacetylene 
in making repairs and the use of electric welding, both on the ships and in the plants, 
are tremendous, and it is impossible to estimate the amount of time and money which 
is saved in making repairs, both of ship work and plant work, by these processes. 
While the outstanding lesson to our profession of the great war was the tremendous 
economic losses incurred by waiting for the war to build our marine, architects and en- 
gineers learned other lessons also. The great value of standardized design, not only 
of simple cargo vessels but of destroyers as well, was clearly demonstrated as never 
before. 
In the destroyer program many builders thought they had found not only a greater 
advantage in standardization and in simpler types of vessels, but also that in 
the high-grade vessels we can more nearly compete with foreign shipyards than in the 
cheaper types. It has been generally assumed that a cheaper type of vessel may be 
manufactured, as it were, and that therefore American methods, so called, would give 
us an advantage. 
The fallacy of that argument lies in the fact that ships are built and not manufac- 
tured, and every engineer who is not thoroughly imbued with that idea needs to become 
imbued with it, because otherwise there is no way of answering the statement of those, 
sometimes in the profession and frequently out of it, that we do things as cheaply as 
they may be done in any other country, so why not build ships as cheaply? A brief 
examination and study of the difference between manufacturing and building will show. 
Manufacturing or repetitive processes in shipyards probably do not involve more than 5 
per cent of the labor. 
During the war many men were trained, and with remarkable ease, to perform the 
simpler operations both in shipbuilding and in ship operation; and the character of 
work done by them was remarkably good under the conditions. A great deal of fun has 
been poked at the so-called fabricated vessels, but so far as the work done in the fabricated 
plants is concerned, it has been, in my judgment, far better than could reasonably have 
been expected; and although there have been many complaints about the operation of 
vessels and the lack of care, it would seem to me as if they had done much better than 
anyone would have thought possible. 
The lack of men both to build and operate ships was due to the same causes that 
led to the tremendous financial loss in building our marine—we were not prepared before 
the war was on us. 
At the present time probably half of the men who were engaged in shipbuilding 
during the war have been laid off. I do not know the exact figures, but there are large 
increases from week to week. There will be a further inevitable decrease in shipbuilding 
by private concerns, due not only to the lack of new orders, which is common to all 
manufacturing and building business at the present time, but also to the fact that during 
the war practically all of the navy yards in the United States were equipped for building 
large and small naval vessels. 
Except on the Lakes, and for a comparatively small number of coastwise vessels, 
naval shipbuilding has been the backbone of the shipbuilding business in this country 
up to a short time before the great war. At the present time five navy yards are equipped 
for building capital ships and a large number for building the smaller craft. This, together 
with the lack of orders for marine vessels, will inevitably result in the laying off of many 
more men. When prices have fallen sufficiently to attract orders from owners, there will 
