214 HOW CAN AMERICAN SHIPS COMPETE 



The watchword, therefore, in the future, shall be 100 per cent American crews, the high- 

 est economy, reasonable living quarters and, above all, obedience. 



Mr. Howard C. Higgins, Member: — I desire to say a word in defense of the Ameri- 

 can crew, not in the way of discussing the paper which is now before us, but in answer to the 

 remarks of the gentleman who has just spoken. I have dealt with American crews, espe- 

 cially the engine department personnel, on American ships for the past twenty-five years, and 

 the statements this gentlemen has made, as far as my observations go, are wholly unfounded. 

 I believe there are no more faithful, loyal, hard-working crews on any ships afloat than the 

 crews on American vessels, and in view of the remarks previously made it is my feeling that 

 a word should be stated in their defense. 



Captain D. J. Sullivan, Member: — I happen to be a master of a ship under the 

 American flag, a graduate engineer who first started to sea as an engineer. I have been 

 nineteen years in the service, and what has caused me to speak on this subject this morning 

 is the question of foreign crews. 



I have had in my day mongrel crews. I have had complete crews of Chinese, of Japa- 

 nese, of Swedes, and of negroes. I have had crews made up of all American-born seamen. 

 I have found by actual experience that the American-bom crew, provided you pick them, 

 provided you weed out those who do not wish to work, though they are paid, Mr. President, 

 100 per cent more than the next best paid crew, is the most efficient and in the end the most 

 economical. (Applause.) 



I stand before you today the master of a privately owned American ship, for which the 

 owner paid $225 a ton, at the peak prices, and purchased it from the United States Ship- 

 ping Board. At the time — which is now a year and a half ago — when he selected me to take 

 command of the ship, conditions were bad and were rapidly growing worse. The cost of 

 loading, the cost of detention, the cost of demurrage, the cost of repairs — and I hope there 

 are a few shipyard men here who are listening to what I have to say about repairs — the cost 

 of repairs were and are simply exorbitant. 



From the time that I assumed the command of that ship, a year and a half ago, until 

 the present day, there has been less than $4,000 expended in repairs for maintenance. The 

 chief engineer, the master and the chief officer are specially paid men. The crew is Amer- 

 ican, selected. Of the eight licensed officers on board that ship, six are college graduates. 

 Seven of the eight served abroad. We have reduced the fuel consimiption on that ship from 

 42 tons a day to 28. We took the ship with an average speed for the transatlantic voyage 

 of 9.4 and brought it up to 10.8. We have reduced the cost of the crew to about half Mr. 

 Marvin's figures which he gave for the Shipping Board vessel — the cost of my crew today 

 is $3,007.50 a month, or $2,300 less than the cost of the crew on a Shipping Board vessel on 

 May 1. The cost of subsistence for the crew is 50 cents a day per man, from master to 

 mess boy. 



Our ship, unfortunately, is equipped, as the gentleman said, with nickel-plated fixtures 

 for the bathtubs and nickel-plated faucets in various parts of the ship. We have seen fit to 

 remove on that vessel all of the fancy patented equipment which the architects placed on 

 board, and instead of having a steam pump with which to pump the water we put in hand 

 pumps. The crew used 162 tons of water on the first voyage, and today we use 14 tons for 

 ship's use, and we employ the immersion for cargo capacity. 



As to the comparison in the operation of vessels — that has been a debated subject with 



