tion of both officers and men. Many who had followed the sea in their youth and had left it now returned, and new recruits appeared in great numbers. From June 30 1917 to June 30 1920 this service produced 9,642 licensed officers and 32,335 men, all American citizens. Many others who did not pass through the training service also joined the new ships, and wherever there was need officers and men were ordered from the navy personnel, which had reached a total strength of 500,000. Few ships were anywhere seriously delayed for lack of crews.
For the control of the new Shipping Board tonnage a division of operation was developed. Relatively few of the new vessels were directly operated by the Board itself. Most of them were placed in the hands of the established private companies or new concerns which the war had brought into existence. The vessels were placed on routes indicated by the Shipping Board. Their freight rates were controlled by the Board during and for some months after the war. Division of expenses and profits was difficult to arrange, and was long the cause of much friction between private operators and the Government. Not until 1920 was a fairly satisfactory plan finally devised by which the Shipping Board assumed the risk of the voyage, and a fixed percentage of the gross receipts was allowed to the manager for his services. Government ownership and operation of shipping, especially in the stress of war, proved a difficult undertaking in the United States, as elsewhere. Particularly important was the work of the Ship Control Committee, which directed the movements of shipping to the best advantage. This committee was composed of President P. A. S. Franklin of the International Mercantile Marine Co., President H. H. Raymond of the American Steamship Owners' Association, and Sir Connop Guthrie, representing the British Government.
At the signing of the Armistice, Nov. 11 1918, the Shipping Board controlled a total fleet of 1,196 vessels of 6,540,205 deadweight tons, composed of American, requisitioned, chartered, neutral and seized German tonnage. On Aug. 3 1917 the President, under authority bestowed by an Act of June 15, requisitioned for the national service all steel hulls and materials in American shipyards of vessels of over 2,500 deadweight tons, building either for American or foreign owners, a total of 431 vessels, of 3,056,000 deadweight tons. On Oct. 12 1917, as a further step in Federal control of the shipping situation, another executive order requisitioned all American steel-built power-driven cargo vessels of 2,500 deadweight tons and over, and all American passenger vessels of 2,500 gross tons and over fit for overseas service. This established control over an American fleet of 444 vessels of 2,938,758 deadweight tons. Many of these ships were transferred to their owners for operation. Others were chartered to the war and navy departments. About 600,000 tons of German vessels, seized in American ports when the United States entered the war, were divided among the Shipping Board and the army and navy. In addition the Shipping Board secured the use of a considerable fleet of enemy vessels seized in waters of other countries. To obtain an adequate amount of tonnage the Board also chartered many Allied and neutral ships, a resource which on Sept. 1 1918 amounted to 331 ships of a deadweight tonnage of 1,084,986. By order of March 20 1918, an act which though necessary was deeply regretted at the time, the President caused the navy to seize for the use of the United States 87 Dutch vessels of 533,746 deadweight tons, at that time in or bound to American waters.
A little more than one-half of the two and one-quarter million American soldiers sent to Europe were conveyed in the passenger steamers of Great Britain, France and Italy, chiefly in large vessels of the British lines. Most of the soldiers sent over under the American flag were borne in the former German liners that had had their damaged machinery repaired. After the Armistice, however, most of the American troops were repatriated under the colours of their own country.
The La Follette Law.—In the years from 1915 to 1920 inclusive there were several important Federal enactments relative to the merchant marine. One of these was the La Follette Seamen's Law, approved March 4 1915, after a long and bitter controversy in the House and Senate. This law to a large extent governs working conditions on American ships at sea and in harbour. It requires a certain fixed proportion of able seamen and certificated lifeboatmen, a complement of boats and rafts sufficient for all passengers and crew, and improved living spaces and sanitary conditions. Most of the Act in fact deals with life-saving methods and appliances, in accordance with the recommendations of the London Conference on safety of life at sea, following the “Titanic” disaster. Several sections require a more humane discipline than had been frequent in the old days. One section, which has been the cause of much displeasure among the foreign shipping companies, brought about the amendment of treaties requiring the U.S. Government to seize and return to their ships seamen deserting from foreign vessels in American waters. This, and a complementary section permitting seamen of American or foreign vessels to demand at every port the payment of one-half of the wages due to them, once every five days, is charged with promoting the desertion of foreign crews in American waters and of burdening foreign companies with the cost of hiring substitutes at the American wage rate and with the expense of returning these substitutes to their country. It is insisted by the seamen's unions, however, that these provisions of the law tend to bring foreign ship wages up to American standards.
Other Legislation.—By Act of Congress of Aug. 18 1914 the free ship clause of the Panama Canal Act of Aug. 24 1912, which had proved wholly ineffective, was amended by admitting ships more than five years old, and exempting all foreign-built vessels admitted to American registry from compliance with American survey, inspection and measurement laws and regulations. Under this amended law 140 foreign-built vessels of 583,000 gross tons, owned by American citizens or corporations, were admitted to American registry for foreign trade in the fiscal year 1915, when the security afforded by the American flag was valuable. The number of vessels thus admitted fell off, however, to only 26, of 69,697 tons, in the fiscal year 1916, as the higher wages and operating costs of the American flag came to be realized by the owners of foreign-built tonnage. Many of these owners, indeed, sought to change their naturalized ships back to foreign registry, and 160 American vessels, of 102,479 tons, were transferred to foreign flags in 1916. On Feb. 5 1917 the President by executive order forbade the sale, lease or charter of American vessels to foreign flags without the approval of the Shipping Board.
In the spring of 1920 a most important measure known as the Merchant Marine Act of 1920, or the Jones law (from Senator Wesley L. Jones, Chairman of the Committee on Commerce), was finally passed by large majorities in Congress and signed June 5 by President Wilson. This Act solemnly declared it to be the purpose of the American people to possess a merchant marine capable of carrying “the greater portion” of their commerce and to serve as a naval or military auxiliary in time of war, this merchant marine “ultimately to be owned and operated privately by citizens of the United States.” A new Shipping Board of seven members, fairly representative of political parties and of all sections of the country, was authorized in the Act and given large authority over the merchant marine. This Board was directed to sell the Government-owned tonnage to private owners “as soon as practicable.” Postal subsidies and encouragement to new and necessary shipping routes were provided for. Deferred rebates and discrimination against shippers were forbidden. The coastwise law barring foreign ships was extended after Feb. 1 1922 to the trade between the Philippines and the United States. Benefit of preferentially low railway rates on imports and exports was reserved to American vessels wherever their capacity is sufficient. Encouragement was given to American marine insurance, and to the American Bureau of Shipping, the “American Lloyd's.” A new and favourable system of ship mortgages was provided. American vessels in foreign trade were exempted from excess profits taxes on condition that the amount of the exemption and twice as much more of the capital of the owners were applied to the building of other ships in the United States. The President was directed to secure the amendment of provisions in commercial treaties that prevented the United States from imposing discriminating customs taxes and tonnage dues on goods imported in ships of foreign registry. President Wilson refused to carry out this last-named requirement on the ground that the action indicated would provoke the resentment of foreign ship-owners and their Governments. The Treasury Department failed to prepare regulations for the application of the clause exempting American foreign-trade ships from excess, profits taxes. Preferential treatment for American ships in the dispatch of imports and exports hauled at low rates on American railways was not made effective by the Shipping Board and the Interstate Commerce Commission, whose coöperation was necessary for the actual enforcement of the law.
Statistics.—The amount of shipbuilding, the total registered overseas and coastwise tonnage, the total merchant marine, and the proportion of American imports and exports conveyed in American ships for the six fiscal years ending June 30 1920 are as follows:—
| Year | Shipbuilding | Registered for Foreign Trade |
Enrolled or Licensed for Coastwise Trade |
Total Merchant Marine |
Proportion of Value of Imports and Exports Carried in American Ships |
| Gross tons |
Gross tons |
Gross tons |
Gross tons |
Per cent | |
| 1915 | 225,122 | 1,862,714 | 6,486,384 | 8,389,429 | 14.3 |
| 1916 | 325,413 | 2,185,008 | 6,244,550 | 8,469,649 | 16.3 |
| 1917 | 664,479 | 2,440,776 | 6,392,583 | 8,871,037 | 18.6 |
| 1918 | 1,300,868 | 3,599,213 | 6,282,474 | 9,924,518 | 21.9 |
| 1919 | 3,326,621 | 6,665,376 | 6,201,426 | 12,907,300 | 27.8 |
| 1920 | 3,880,639 | 9,924,694 | 6,357,706 | 16,324,024 | 42.7 |
