232 BANQUET. 
country. You might say that we ought to be able to handle ships as cheaply as another 
country, and yet with a tariff to build up the manufactures of the country, the same 
kind of protection would necessarily have to be given to the shipping in order to build 
up shipping. Congress removed that protection, and the result was there was no 
financial attraction for Americans to go into the shipping business. 
The war brought one particular thing to our attention—that if we expected to 
remain an international power we could not do so unless we had a merchant marine of 
our own. We could not depend on other powers to do our carrying if we expected to 
send our merchandise to different parts of the world during a war. We realized that . 
it was necessary to have ships of our own. 
In 1906 there was a very thorough investigation made by Congress, and the com- 
mittee in charge of that investigation came back with the recommendation of a subsidy. 
They did not see their way clear to put on preferential tariffs, and the result was that, 
as the interior congressmen would not stand for the subsidy, the bill was lost. 
We have made our mistakes. Your chairman has spoken about the errors we 
have made in the past—I was talking over some of them with him tonight. I do not 
feel like entering into that. I have no doubt that anyone who would have endeavored 
to build up a large merchant marine would have made mistakes. Some of our mis- 
takes, however, are not errors—they are international wrongs that ought to be cor- 
rected. 
I know it is one of our popular games just now to find fault with everybody’s business 
on the score of grafting and profiteering except your own—of course, your own never 
has any grafting or profiteering in it—so I will not enter very much into that discussion. 
I want to go a little more into the Jones Bill and the reasons back of that bill, and 
the effects of the bill if put into working shape and practical operation. 
I was very much disappointed when the President refused to abrogate our com- 
mercial treaties. When the LaFollette Bill was before Congress I believe the Depart- 
ment of State took the stand that Congress had no right to abrogate treaties without 
an agreement with the department. The President then decided that they had a right 
to abrogate treaties. The Jones Bill was passed with a full understanding of what was 
in the bill. The President had an opportunity to veto it, but he did not do so. He 
made it the law of the land and then refused to carry it out. 
That particular section of the Jones Bill is going to stand in a very peculiar way 
and in a very successful way in keeping these ships operating. I have had opportunity 
recently to look into what would really happen if we abrogated these treaties and what 
would come to our ships in the way of a subsidy if the preferential duty clause in the 
Underwood Tariff Bill was put into effect, and remember the Underwood Tariff Bill 
is the lowest tariff bill we have had for years. 
Take macaroni—we imported 75,000 tons of macaroni into this country in the 
year 1914. I do not know what we are doing now, because I have not later statistics 
of the quantity brought in. The duty on that quantity of macaroni was $1,500,000. 
If the ro per cent preferential clause went into effect, the American ships carrying it 
would have a differential in their favor of $550,000, besides the special discount 
of $75,000 which is given by the sixth clause of the same section of the tariff bill for 
goods brought in in American ships; in other words, there would be a total preference 
on 75,000 tons of macaroni of $625,000 in favor of American ships. 
Take diamonds. In 1918—I have later data on diamonds—we imported 
