372 BANQUET. 



It was in New York that the great steamers of the then unmatched Collins Line were 

 built; and the business men of New York and the engineering skill of New York made those 

 marine marvels possible. The wealth of the Morgans, the Ogdens and their associates pro- 

 duced the unmatched Dreadnought, that theme of song and story whose memory will be cher- 

 ished so long as men go down to the sea in sh ips ; and it was from New York that there 

 went out the tiny vessel greeted by British shipwrights with such careless scorn, but which, 

 when the trial came and America's marine skill was pitted against the best that England 

 could produce, carried the Stars and Stripes to triumph on that day when to Her Majesty's 

 inquiry "What yacht is second ?" for she knew then that America was first, the answer came^ — 

 "There is no second." 



Some political somnambulists have argued, and a few still argue, as if it were an open 

 question, the proposition of whether or not our government should aid its merchant ship- 

 ping. (Applause.) This chatter should have been ended long ago. Every maritime nation 

 that has achieved success upon the ocean has achieved it by giving direct and powerful assist- 

 ance to its shipping. (Applause.) The record is completely unbroken and unchallengeable 

 on this point. 



Perhaps it is because those people have come to realize the hopelessness of any attempt to 

 destroy our shipping by direct assault that some of them now seek to accomplish the same 

 end by distracting attention from the real issue through citing changes in laws and rules 

 which unquestionably have a material effect upon our merchant marine, and by proclaiming 

 the wonders which American genius sometimes performs. But this is no time to lose sight 

 of the main and absolutely essential fact that by government aid alone can American shipping 

 remain in the foreign trade. So to those people I say : "First, make the position of our ship- 

 ping secure upon the sea. Experience will show what minor matters must receive attention. 

 First make sure that you have a baby; the little stranger itself will then aid you in deter- 

 mining whether you should name it George Washington or Dolly Madison. It is poor judg-^ 

 ment to stand considering whether you should employ cedar or spruce shingles for patching 

 the roof of your house when the house itself is on fire." 



Another method employed to shake the confidence of our citizens in the possible success 

 of an American merchant marine is seen in the phrase so brazenly coined and given such 

 wide circulation by many innocent parties, that the people of the United States are not ship- 

 minded. Not ship-minded ! When we still have with us the old frigate Constitution whicli 

 in her day was the unmatched flyer of the seas. Not ship-minded! When in the glorious 

 days of the sailing craft our vessels took and held and hold every record upon all of the 

 great race courses of the oceans. Not ship-minded! When in the fifties, before foreign in- 

 fluences had secured their strangling hold upon this great industry, this country produced 

 the largest, fastest, finest and most efficient ocean-going steamships in the world. Not ship- 

 minded! When the first transatlantic greyhounds built in this country took, held and still 

 hold the record for number of round trips across the ocean made in any one year. (Great 

 applause. ) And they still hold the record, so significant to every shipping man, of never hav- 

 ing been sea-swept. 



Not ship-minded! When, during that closing year of the World War, in response to the 

 despairing cry of Europe for help, the chosen ships of all the world were racing across the 

 ocean to put our boys upon the battlefields of France, before the fateful hour should strike, it 

 was the Great Northern, designed by Americans, built by Americans, and manned by Ameri- 

 cans that, challenging the best that England, France and Germany could produce, set and held 



