THE NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC MAGAZINE 



183 



as a cargo-carrier to Boston, setting a 

 pace of four round trips a month between 

 the Maryland and Massachusetts ports. 

 It is a record which cannot but thrill the 

 most phlegmatic. 



The Crawl Keys, built on the Great 

 Lakes, even betters the Tuckahoe record 

 by three days, but it is a smaller vessel — 

 3,500 tons. It was launched in 16 calen- 

 dar days and placed in commission 18 

 days later. 



One of the most spectacular achieve- 

 ments of the Emergency Fleet Corpora- 

 tion, the ship-manufacturing branch of 

 the United States Shipping Board, was 

 the launching of the 12,000-ton Invinci- 

 ble, at the Bethlehem works, Alameda, 

 Cal., 23 days and 23 hours of working 

 time from the moment of keel-laying. In 

 the construction of this vessel, which is 

 more than 457 feet long, with a beam of 

 56 feet and a depth of 38 feet, 1,500 ship- 

 builders, working in three 8-hour shifts, 

 handled 137 tons of erection steel every 

 24 hours, and 100 riveting crews scored 

 a daily average of 40,000 rivets driven 

 home. 



THE PACE-SETTING SHIPYARD 



While these three ships mark the high- 

 est of the high lights in our building 

 efforts, the honors for sustained perform- 

 ance over a long period go to the ship- 

 yard of Skinner & Eddy, of Seattle, 

 Washington. With only five ways, on 

 which an average of 4,527 men have been 

 employed, this firm delivered to the Ship- 

 ping Board during the eleven and a half 

 months ending September 1, 21 steel 

 cargo-carriers of 194,000 tons. Eight of 

 the contract steel vessels, which have been 

 delivered to the Board in less than 100 

 days from the time of keel-laying, have 

 come from this plant, which has been pro- 

 ducing ships at the rate of a little more 

 than an eighth of a ton per man for every 

 day in the year. At that rate it would re- 

 quire only 225 of the 751 cargo shipways 

 now in existence in this country to pro- 

 duce 10,000,000 tons of ships in twelve 

 months, with 250,000 men employed. 



These speed records do not assume 

 their proper significance until it is re- 

 called that prior to 1914 the time ordi- 

 narily required for the completion of a 

 7,000 or 10,000 ton cargo-carrier was 



from 9 to 18 months; frequently two 

 years. 



MOBILIZING MAN POWER 



How the government is solving the 

 problem of mobilizing its man power for 

 all the essential industries of war, and 

 especially for the shipbuilding and muni- 

 tion plants, is a major story in itself. It 

 can only be suggested here. 



Through a remarkable campaign of 

 publicity in the lay press, in labor jour- 

 nals, by means of striking posters, and by 

 the employment of an industrious army 

 of labor scouts, a host of skilled work- 

 men has been recruited for the 203 ship- 

 yards. Many of these workers had never 

 seen a ship when they walked into the 

 employment offices. Some of these re- 

 cruits proved irremediable misfits, but the 

 great majority have made good the claim 

 that the American workman has more 

 mental alertness and greater adaptability 

 than the manual laborer of any other na- 

 tion on earth. 



The process of recruiting is still going 

 on and will continue to the end of the 

 war and after, for our output of ships, 

 shells, airplanes, and all the other ma- 

 chinery and material of modern warfare 

 is limited not by raw products but skilled 

 man power. 



The United States Employment Bu- 

 reau, recently organized as an adjunct of 

 the Department of Labor, is still pro- 

 gressing with the slowness of an infant 

 organization, but the encouraging fact 

 remains that it is progressing. In its 

 efforts to mobilize labor for the industries 

 most in need of skilled workmen — of 

 which the shipbuilding plants are among 

 the chief — it has sought and is receiving 

 the cordial support of union labor. Oc- 

 casionally there are differences which 

 threaten a temporary divergence of aim 

 and dissipation of energy, but on the 

 whole the plans are bearing fruit. 



THE COMMUNITY LABOR BOARD 



One of the agencies through which the 

 Bureau is now working is the Community 

 Labor Board, established in the principal 

 industrial centers throughout the coun- 

 try. It is composed in each instance of 

 three members — one representing the 

 community's employers, the second its 



