BANQUET. 235 
freight in the port of New York, and I think that is true, to a greater or less extent, 
of all of our ports. I believe today that the two model ports in this country are New 
Orleans and Seattle. I am not speaking for my city, Philadelphia, for I think we need 
a lot of changes, but at the same time the improvement of these ports so as to conduct 
the loading of these ships rapidly and efficiently is going to assist materially in making 
the ships profitable. 
Another thing—and I have been working all day on this—is the use of American 
facilities. We found in the insurance investigation that when an Englishman came 
over here and brought any large bulk of goods that he insisted that they should be 
insured in English insurance companies, that they should be financed by English banks 
and carried as far as possible by English ships. 
I call your attention to the arrangement made in New Orleans a short time ago 
for the forwarding of cotton. In every way they endeavored to assist the different 
branches of the trade in their country. Unless you can get that spirit among you, 
gentlemen, you are never going to make the merchant marine a practical success. It 
may be, possibly on account of the fact that your different facilities are in their infancy, 
that you may have to pay a little bit more for insurance; it may be possible you may 
not get such an advantageous policy, because the English people, who handle most 
of the marine insurance of the world, have other places, other countries to draw on. 
They do an international business. They do a business all over the world. They 
can make your rates low and some other country’s high in order to make up the loss 
on the rates here. 
You cannot get these things without fighting, and we have got to fight to retain 
our commerce, exactly the same as they have had to fight to build up theirs. You are 
now where they started some hundred and fifty years ago, and unless you are prepared 
to make some sacrifice to build this merchant marine you are not going to build it up. 
You must use your banks wherever possible, you must use your ships wherever possible, 
and you must use your own insurance companies wherever possible if you expect to 
make success of the American merchant marine. These three things are the vital 
parts of the business. The economies that can be effected in repairs, the economies 
that can be effected in supplies, are all matters of pure business. 
I was reminded in a talk this evening with the toastmaster in regard to the old 
way of paying captains. Some time ago I was in business in Philadelphia, and I sold 
coal along the Delaware River to the captains of steamers. One day a man came to my 
office—he was a sort of an agent—and bought 163 tons of coal in a boat, and right 
in front of me he changed the bill of lading to 400 tons and took the boatload of coal 
up to a steamer. 
I said:—‘‘What are you doing?” 
He replied, “‘The captain has got to be taken care of and the engineer and some 
other fellows.” 
“You don’t give them all of it, do you?” I asked. 
“No; I keep most of it myself,’ was the reply. 
That is true, wherever there is any graft of that kind. The other fellow gets his 
share, and in an investigation I made in the last six months I found that the other fellow, 
where this practice exists, does get his share. I found one ship that loaded about 
$4,000 worth of groceries and supplies which could be purchased at a wholesale grocery 
