toward this dire Power. What is in me I shall do when my country calls. I shall not regard it a sacrifice, only a duty and a righteous debt I want to pay.

It was at the last great mass-meeting that I had an extraordinary illustration of the new religious unity the war has brought. When, in the early dark, the train deposited me at the station, the local committee met me, led by its chairman, Father Dhé, the parish priest, a Frenchman, who less than twenty years ago lived in the Vimy and Lens region, where his relatives have suffered in this war. I stayed under his hospitable roof

FATHER DHE

through the night. He poured out a torrent of interesting talk. He was an inspiration. He understood the effect of the war on the deeper life of the world. I discovered that when coal grew scarce in his community, and all the churches in Fowler had to close, he opened to them all "Casey" Hall in his parish

house. The visit was like turning back to France. There were the same French buoyancy, the same French hospitality, the same delicious French cooking which perhaps Americans will learn from our dear friends across the sea.

My soldier boy. The car was crowded. In the seat ahead of me, chubby of face, light of hair, merry of spirit, sat a young soldier, one of the first to represent us on the field of honor, and with both legs badly damaged last August. The bone of the right ankle, splintered as it is, has baffled all the skill of doctors on each side of the ocean, and he was on his way to a great hospital for a last try to save his life.

Every jolt of the car hurt. He was never free from pain. He knew that he might lose his leg within two days, but he smiled as he said to me, "They can take it off if they like." The little children came across the aisle to play with him. He sang along the way. The high notes of "Swanee River" gave him trouble. With "Tipperary" he dashed gallantly along. He could "Keep the Home Fires Burning." He certainly knew how to pack up his troubles in his old kit bag and smile, smile, smile.

We talked and talked. He said nothing about pacifism, though he had fought for peace. He had no word of hate for those who had inflicted all that hurt upon him. The holy magnitude of our country's task was clear to him, and he was too good a soldier to waste energy in idle comment or in bitterness. As I left the car I hoped that he would have a comfortable night, and his voice rang out cheerily: "I'm all right. My leg always hurts. But what's the use of worrying about it?"

One last look, and a "Good-by, soldier boy," to him. But even after I had set foot on the step his voice came ringing merrily, "Good-by, sir, and good luck to you."

I do not know whether he is living as I write these words, but I do know that whether he still lives or not he has done his "bit." He has made it impossible for any right-minded man, woman, or child not to do his utmost, if only to keep pace with our soldier boys like him, who from our colleges the whole land over may soon be counted among those of whom even the Cherubim must soon be singing:

"Let there be laughter and a merry noise
Now that the fields of heaven shine
With all these golden boys."

A

SI write, some three hundred thousand men and women composing the various Liberty Loan Committees are waiting for the 6th of April to inaugurate the campaign for the sale of the third bond issue made necessary by the war. The amount offered is $3,000,000,000, but the Secretary of the Treas ury has announced that any over-subscription will be accepted, and, unless good judges are mistaken, the over-subscription will be large. The bonds will bear interest at the rate of 44 per cent, and the provision that they may not be converted into a later issue is generally construed to indicate that the Government does not expect that it will be necessary to pay a higher rate of interest on any subsequent loans it may make. The term for which the bonds will run is not yet announced, but it is generally expected that they will mature in twenty-five or thirty years and be redeemable ten years before maturity. They are to be issued in denominations of $50, $100, $500, and $1,000.

The subscriptions are to be payable in installments at dates not yet announced, but running probably well into the summer. Almost any bank or trust company will agree to buy small quantities of the bonds and carry them for subscribers who will undertake to pay for them at the rate of two per cent a month.

Thus a person can buy a $50 bond and pay $1 a week against it for fifty weeks, at the end of which time his bond will be delivered to him. In such cases the rate of interest charged on the unpaid balance should not exceed 5 or 6 per cent, and the

interest paid on the bond should be credited to the borrower's

account.

This is specially mentioned, as there are some lenders who are attempting to practice usury under the guise of patriotism and appropriate the entire interest on the bond for a year as their compensation for a loan that runs an average of only twenty-five weeks. In doing this they get something over 82 per cent per annum for lending money on the best security in the world.

For the benefit of the small subscribers on the partial payment plan who are unfamiliar with interest calculations, perhaps this should be made a little clearer: The man or woman who buys a $50 bond through a bank or trust company, and agrees to pay $1 a week on it, is in effect borrowing $50 for an average of twenty-five weeks. Interest on this loan at 6 per cent per annum, even if it were compounded quarterly, would not exceed $1.50. Against the interest charged, the coupons on the bonds (which at 44 per cent would be worth $2.12) should be credited so that at the end of the fiftieth week the borrower should receive this bond and not less than 62 cents in cash. If the rate of interest charged were 5 per cent, the cash payment accompanying the delivery of the bond should not be less than

87 cents.

There is hardly any one who does not realize that a United States bond is the safest investment that can be made and the

at 15 Wall Street, New York, inclosing a stamped and addressed envelope for reply, I will try to put them in touch with some institution that will provide the necessary facilities.

"The

HE question now is, whether the army can win the war before the navy loses it." With some such words as these Sir William Robertson, former Chief of the Imperial British Staff, recently summed up the war situation. This, withsituation. This, with out being derogatory to the British navy's fighting prowess, was a suggestive way of stating the problem of the submarine-the problem of merchant shipping. If Sir William's remark is apt to-day, how much more does it apply to the month of April, 1917! Then, and in the days that followed, with the entrance of the United States into the war, there seemed to flash all at once upon the Powers that were fighting Germany the realization of the jeopardy of their position. Undersea warfare was destroying the very arteries of their intercommunication-the arteries that supplied the vigor of their armies. Thus at a time when unrestricted submarine warfare was depleting Allied shipping at a rate which, if continued, spelled certain defeat, the United States was facing an absolutely unparalleled demand for tonnage to transport and supply a vast army in Europe and to convey huge supplies to our allies. We had not been in the war more than a fortnight when there was formed an organization whose very name indicated what the situation was-the Emergency Fleet Corporation.

The United States Shipping Board Emergency Fleet Corporation, as soon as organized, undertook the letting of contracts for the construction of the fleet of vessels which was to help nullify this undersea ultimatum. But from Fore River to Newport News and beyond, from the yards along the Delaware clear out to the Union Iron Works at San Francisco, the established shipyards were well filled with existing contracts. These yards were allotted such additional vessels as they could undertake, and those expert in ship-building were encouraged in the construction of new yards by giving them contracts for a sufficient number of ships to warrant the investment of the capital required to build the yards. These contracts usually ran from ten to twenty vessels each. These were large orders, but, compared to the needs of the country, seemed only too small.

Here also arose a new danger. Relying on the unceasing demand for ships and on the hope of a Government contract where none had been given, irresponsible, or at best inexperienced, promoters all over the country were also launching new ship-building enterprises. These were springing up almost overnight in an unhealthy, parasitical growth. The current issues of the shipping papers printed appalling lists of freshly incorporated ship-building enterprises. "Of the making of shipyards there was no end," but to the making of ships this promised to be a menace. For there was added to the already huge demand on American industry for ship-building material the irresponsible clamor of those who would overtax that industry without the ability to convert it into what was needed-ships. Not only was some additional and vastly larger enterprise required, but something radically new, more responsible, more co-ordinate-more like America.

Figures tell the story. By July 13 last the Shipping Board announced that it had contracted for 77 steel ships of 642,800 tons and 348 wooden hulls of 1,218,000 tons. This did not include the steel ships already under construction as the regular programme of the established yards throughout the country. This tonnage amounted to about 2,800,000, and was shortly to be requisitioned. So much was contracted for. As to performance, the estimate could be made about as follows: The

established shipyards, having brought themselves to the limit of capacity, had attained a volume of output which meant an annual delivery of steel ships amounting to about two million tons (dead weight); that is, with capacity to carry two million tons of cargo, stores, and fuel. In addition to this, old and new wooden ship yards, working on the recently allotted Shipping Board contracts, were turning out wooden hulls at the rate of about one million tons annually. Here was a total of three million tons (dead weight), which was a tremendous figure. To make it possible, all existing facilities had been pre-empted. It looked as if it were the maximum we could hope to reach. Compared to previous performances in this country and in the world, it was startling. Previous American ship-building had been at the rate of four hundred thousand tons per annum. We were preparing in the current year to multiply this figure by eight! Previous ship-building in Great Britain, mistress of the seas, had been less than two million five hundred thousand tons per year. We were going to better this by twenty-five per cent! Previous world ship-building had been upwards of four million tons. We were attempting to build ourselves in one year three-fourths the amount of tonnage that in less stirring days all the shipyards of the world could produce! But, unprecedented as this programme was, it was seen long before July that the maximum along these lines would not meet the crisis. As early as May 14 the Shipping Board announced that, in addition to all the construction it was providing for, it was imperative to construct another 3,000,000 tons! Think what this meant! With every available shipyard, old and new, pushed to the limit, there had somehow got to be built simultaneously an additional fleet of 3,000,000 tons (dead weight)! No yards existed where such a fleet could be built; in fact, there were not sufficient skilled ship-builders to work in such yards had they existed. In short, there was nothing out of which to create this tremendous tonnage of ships except the consciousness that it had to be done. Time-honored methods, or the speeding up of time-honored methods, must be put altogether out of mind; a revolution in ship-building had to be effected.

An undertaking to build ships on the staggering scale desired by the United States Government involved such great responsibility, was so revolutionary in character, needed such enormous facilities, that only the largest and most powerful corporations could possibly attack the problem with any chance of successfully handling it. It required the backing of men accustomed to carrying through great undertakings. It involved the coordination of large enterprises, the ability to handle great bodies of labor, and the vision to attack new problems. In short, the call was for big corporations and big men.

To produce the largest possible number of first-class steel ships in the shortest possible time this was the problem. These must be cargo ships of ample carrying capacity and satisfactory speed. In the answer to this problem three entirely new ideas stood out:

1. The designing of a vessel so radically simplified that all the vessels to be built could be made as eruct reproductions. Thus to standardize construction meant that every possible variation in size and shape of material must be eliminated.

2. The mobilization throughout the entire country of all that portion of our industrial resources that was germane to ship-building; the adaptation of these resources to the new purpose. This included, first and foremost, the bridge and structural steel industry; then the builders of engines and

boilers; finally, the torges, machine shops, and factories capable of producing any piece of equipment that goes into a ship from a propeller shaft down to an anchor chain. This meant the preempting of the output of plants of all kinds in many parts of the United States. Most important of all, it meant that the labor engaged in that output would be utilized right where it was instead of by precarious and disorganizing concentration at a single point-the shipyard.

3. The reproduction of vessels in large numbers, every one of exactly the same construction, thus permitting the use of the factory methods in which America is pre-eminent. It was as if the new shipyard were to become the assembling floor of a colossal ship factory, whose machinery was made up of all the interrelated wheels of American industry, whose employees were the entire body of American labor, and whose conveyer belts were the American railways.

This solution, both in method and in magnitude, was a new departure in ship-building. Standardization had been attained to a slight extent in England, but on nothing like the scale that the present programme demanded. In reaching this solution several large organizations co-operated. The Emergency Fleet Corporation took up the problem with the Submarine Boat Corporation, the American International Corporation, and the Merchant Ship-Building Corporation. In the matter of standardization the Submarine Boat Corporation had had some experience. They had been engaged in the quick assembly and construction of a standardized type of eighty-foot wooden submarine chaser, equipped with gasoline engines. They had built 550 of these for the British Government. Then, in standardizing a type of merchant steamer, accurate knowledge of modern steel ship construction was essential. The American International Corporation owned an interest in one of the larger ship-building plants on the Atlantic coast-the New York Ship-Building Corporation and this corporation was called upon to assist in the design of the vessel. Most important of all, the necessity for speed was paramount, both in the construction of the yard and of the vessels. No time could be spared for the gradual building up of a competent constructing organization; it was necessary to find one already existing. Closely allied to the American International Corporation was the engineering firm of Stone & Webster, who were just building the San Antonio cantonment for the United States Government in record time. They were accustomed to handling many million dollars' worth of contract engineering work. Their organized force consisted of approximately five hundred superintendents, engineers, foremen, etc. They were ready to begin a new job on an hour's notice. The whole of the co-ordinated programme thus fitted together. Its achievement was made possible by the fullest measure of understanding between all the principals and the Emergency Fleet Corporation.

As a result of this co-operative effort, and chiefly under the direction of Theodore E. Ferris, then Naval Architect of the Shipping Board, three types of standardized vessel were evolved a 5,000tonner, a 9,000-tonner, and a 7,500-tonner. The 5,000-ton boat was to be undertaken by the Submarine Boat Corporation, that of 9,000 tons by the Merchant Ship-Building Corporation, while the 7,500-tonner was to be built by the American International. A design of boat was worked out with a view to suppressing all non-essentials. Curvature of plates, particularly that requiring multiple bending, was, as far as possible, eliminated. No camber,' no shear; straight sides also, and a flat bottom. It was a design of boat which carefully combined the best ship builders' and bridge-builders' practice, embodying the latter wherever possible, for the reason which shall shortly appear. Furthermore, maximum cargo space was adjusted to maximum safety, utilizing the principle of a multiplicity of bulkheads, which had saved more than one torpedoed oil-tanker from going to the bottom.

In this revolutionary programme of standardization, the essence of the novelty, as has been suggested, was large quantity output; on this depended all the rest. The Submarine Boat Corporation and the American International Corporation

1" Camber" is the technical name of the curve or convex swelling of a ship's building, as in the gracefully shaped bow of a clipper ship. Here the author refers to the shear of the deck, which is the curvature or upward sweep beginning amidships and extending fore and aft.-THE EDITORS.

plank or plate or deck. Shear " is the sweep or curve constantly used in ship

66

a manu

were each to construct an enormous Government ship-building plant, in which each would eventually build 200 vessels, to be completed within eighteen to twenty-four months. This larg number alone made possible the "fabricated "ship. The "fabricated idea simply means that have you factured" ship instead of a factured" ship instead of a "made-to-order" ship, just as you have a manufactured automobile and not a made-to-order automobile. We should smile to-day at the idea of a made-to-order automobile. We take it as an accepted fact that all automobile constructed by one concern should be made after one or tw standard models, with consequent quantity output and duplica tion, even interchangeability, of parts. It would seem ridiculous to us that a firm making motor cars, on receiving an order for a number of cars, should make up fresh sets of specification for these cars and of all the machinery and parts going inte them, and then construct all of this equipment according to these new designs, possibly different from every car they ha made before. Then, if they should later receive another order from a different source, and in filling this order should work up still other designs of automobiles, we should not only say that this was a big economic waste, but we should expect it to take a long time to deliver these cars. Yet such was the position of the ship-building industry up to to-day. But the very magnitude of the work of building a single ship and the length of time it requires to complete one diverted attention from the old-fashioned, made-to-order methods which prevailed. Furthermore there never was a demand for enough boats at one time from a single yard to focus thought upon the development of factory methods. Orders would come for one, two, or three vessels at a time, and the clients of ship-building were accustomed to de manding special features in the boats they ordered. Demand was hand-to-mouth; supply, naturally, was the same.

If we examine conventional shipyard practice, the situation becomes clear. After the vessel has been designed and the specifications made up in accordance with the client's desires the steel and iron required in the form of plates, shapes, angles, etc., and all other materials, are delivered from the mills to the shipyard. There at the yard the plates are shaped and punched. the frames bent and punched and beveled, and all the riveting done; stern-posts, connecting rods, etc., are forged, the boiler and engines built-in fact, every component part of the vessel especially worked up. Every boat stands by itself as an indi vidual piece of workmanship. They are all fine vessels, but they are an economic luxury. Most important of all, they depend upon a trained force of skilled ship-builders.

Obviously these time-honored methods, though speeded up to the limit, would not produce the 3,000,000 tons additional de sired by the Government within twenty-four months. Even had there been yards available in which to build ships in this way, there were not sufficient experienced ship-builders to man them. The evolution of a new method was inevitable. This was the "fabricated" ship, or, in other words, the application of quantity methods to ship-building.

of

Ship-building being such a large-scale industry of itself. the application of quantity methods made the scope of a single plant Nation-wide. The shipyard became merely the assembling point. The key to the situation was the great shops throughout the country of the structural and bridge industry, "first cousin" to ship-building. They were specialists in the line of fabricating steel, with all the special tools and labor-saving de vices at their disposal. They had already strong organizations of skilled workers. They were accustomed to turning out large quantities of structural steel, little different from the frame work and plating of a ship. A little adjustment and the workers could be turning out all the component parts of a ship's hull, to be shipped ready-made to the seaboard, there to be set up and riveted into a unit on the ways. An arrange ment was made with the important structural, bridge, and tank shops, obtaining priority of their output. The rest was in the adjustment. This was chiefly through the introduction of an elaborate system of templets, developed beyond anything known in bridge or ship building. This insured accurate reproduction of all details. The templet makers were recruited from both the bridge shops and the shipyards. Thus the punching, shaping, and to some extent the riveting, were done in the shops. The mult ple duplication of parts enabled the manufacturers to prodné

rapidly the plates and shapes to exact size as required. The shipyard's job was erection, riveting, and assembling.

But the distribution of labor was not confined to the hull. Orders for the engines for the first fifty vessels were placed with outside engine-builders, expert in their line; for boilers, with outside boiler-makers. All the necessary forgings, such as stern-posts, connecting-rods, etc., were tentatively contracted for, and, in fact, every item of equipment going into the finished ship was started in the process of manufacture somewhere in the country.

To take an example, the largest contract was with the American International Corporation. It was signed on September 13 last, and it called for the construction at Hog Island, near Philadelphia, of a shipyard with fifty building ways. It called for the completion within thirteen and a half months of fifty fabricated steel ships, each of 7,500 tons capacity and capable of a speed of 111⁄2 knots' an hour. It foreshadowed the ultimate construction of 200 steel ships, all to be delivered within twenty-five months. The cost of this huge fleet, amounting to 1,500,000 tons dead weight, would be approximately $200,000,000.

Subsequently, on October 23, under the terms of an option contained in the contract of September 13, this programme was amplified to provide for the construction of another type of vessel, suitable for use as a transport. This boat was to have a speed of fifteen knots, and was to be a combined cargo and troop ship, with a dead-weight capacity of 8,000 tons instead of 7,500 tons. The design of this vessel was a modification of the original 7,500-tonner, and, while slightly larger and embodying certain new features, was made equally adaptable to reproduction in large numbers. The Government order now called for seventy of these faster steamers, while the original contract for fifty 7,500-ton vessels stood. Deliveries of the two types were to be made in alternate groups of twenty-five. This entire fleet of 120 steamers is deliverable within twenty-two months from the date of signing the original contract, September 13, 1917. The total of tonnage is about 1,000,000. The cost will be not less than $170,000,000.

The shipyard in which this enormous programme will be pushed through will be unique. Work on its construction is rapidly going forward. An idea of its magnitude is given by some of the figures. The tract of land on and near Hog Island which forms the site of the plant is 900 acres in extent. To provide the foundations for the shipways 100,000 piles will have been driven. On these foundations are being erected side by side, in groups of ten, no less than fifty building ways. In just one of these groups of ten ways are represented the counterpart of some of the world's largest shipyards-Fore River, the Cramps', or, say, Harland & Wolff's at Belfast. Fifty ways in the new yard means that at least fifty steamers will be building simultaneously. They will be ranged in line along the water-front for one mile. Still others, already launched, will be fitting out in the finishing basins adjoining, which will extend for another mile. Thus there will stand at one time, side by side, two miles of merchant steamers.

To convey materials to the shipways an immense railway switching system is being provided which will aggregate some seventy-five miles of track. This system involves a comprehensive arrangement of classification and storage yards, to facilitate smooth and accurate distribution. The importance of this in rapid assembly is readily seen from the fact that there are 20,000 parts going into every ship, and the total amount of steel required for the fifty 7,500-ton boats is 130,000 tons, and for the seventy 8,000-ton boats 250,000 tons.

The first type of vessel to be built is the 7,500-tonner. She is a cargo steamer of 111⁄2 knots speed, single-screw, with engines amidships. Her general arrangement is of what is known as the "well deck" or "three-island" type. The transport will be a combined freight and passenger steamer, and will have a speed of fifteen knots. She will have a cargo capacity of 8,000 tons. As in the case of the 7,500-tonner, she will be a single-screw vessel

A knot" is a nautical mile, equal to about a statute mile and an eighth A ship sailing at 11% knots is moving as fast as a railway train running thirteen miles an hour. In olden days the speed of a ship was determined by letting a rope, or log-line, with knots tied in it, trail astern. The number of knots that passed over the stern rail as the rope uncoiled indicated the number of miles per hour that the ship was sailing.-THE EDITORS.

with engines amidships. Unlike the 7,500-tonner, she will be of the shelter-deck type. As has been stated, both vessels have been designed without shear or deck camber, and without much of that rounded sweep of line which is traditional in the ocean-going craft. Traditional is the word for this, for it is a curious fact that this elaborate curvature has been handed down in the ship-building art almost from the time of the ancient Phoenicians; yet it bears no more relation to utility in the modern steel steamer than the graceful figureheads which the Phoenicians themselves wrought on their slender galleys.

Looking beyond the welter of the present struggle, what is the augury for the future? What does the "fabricated" ship mean to ship-building, not only of America but of the world, and what does it promise for the merchant marine of the United States? When U-boat warfare shall have gone the way of the Monitor and the Merrimac, will the vital impulse that arose to overcome it pass away as well? It does not seem likely. As the Monitor and the Merrimac revolutionized the navies of the world, making them iron instead of wood, so the "fabricated" ship seems destined to revolutionize ship-building. It does not seem likely, when once a way has been demonstrated of building ships both more economical and more expeditious than the old way, that the old way can survive. The new ships are in all respects as good as the old. In fact, it would seem in many ways that they should prove better. Every component part is produced by a specialist in his field. The assembling is supervised, not only by experts in ship-building, but by experts in the manufacture of the parts. The finished ship is the product of the maximum combination of efficiency.

It seems likely, then, that the country that leads the world in factory efficiency, that has become pre-eminent in the manufacture of structural steel, having adapted these two national assets to the building of ships, will become pre-eminent in that field also. It is difficult to see how shipyards in any part of the world can hereafter afford to build an appreciable number of vessels in the old-fashioned way. The ships that carry the bulk of the world's cargoes, that are seen in every harbor and roadstead from New York to the Cape of Good Hope, will be the "fabricated" steel freighters. For a time the fast passenger liners and other special types will continue to be built from special designs. But probably even these will later yield to the new era. In the meantime, and long after the war is over, America will be called upon to make up the tonnage deficit of the world. With the disappearance of the made-to-order method, the advantage in cost to the European builders through their cheaper labor is liable to disappear. Higher American wages may be offset by this greater efficiency. The initial advantage of the new method will certainly be ours, by all that is American it should be permanent.

But the question of questions is, Are we building these ships to fly our own flag or another? By that I do not mean to-morrow, or even next year, but the period that will come after the present emergency. Will this large merchant marine which we are fashioning continue in our service after the war, or will it gradually be forced under the flag of other countries, because, though we may be able to build more cheaply, it is an economic impossibility to operate American ships in competition with the foreign? On the answer to this question possibly our whole future depends. What the answer will be depends on our own Government, depends, that is, on the action of Congressdepends, in the last analysis, on the public opinion of the American people.

It has become commonplace to point out the disadvantages under which the American merchant marine labors-the necessity of competing with subsidized vessels of foreign nations when American vessels receive no subsidy; this added to the fact that American ship operators pay the American wages, far in advance of the international wage scale at sea. But, unless it also becomes commonplace for public opinion to demand a remedy, we shall never become a great sea power.

That we shall grow into a great sea power is gradually becoming the fondest hope of every American. The fabricated ship has given the necessary impetus; the people must do the rest. Thus the Nation of the sky-scraper may become also the Nation of the ocean leviathan, and in that manner not only “scrape the sky" but "sweep the seas as well.