Word: merchanted
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Dates: during 1930-1939
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Then what kind of merchant marine does the U. S. need? It needs, says Mr. Kennedy, 23 services to 600 ports in 120 foreign lands. It does not need tramps. It does not need superliners-("The American Merchant Marine is a service proposition"). Overseas air lines, over which the Commission asked jurisdiction, may cut sharply into the superliner traffic. "The American contribution to North Atlantic travel should be fireproof, vibrationless, attractive and economical vessels of reasonable size and speed, distinguished by the utmost in safety and comfort . . . available for National defense. . . ." For the rest, the U. S. should build fairly...
...merchant marine is a definite branch of the National defense. It was a U. S. admiral, the late Alfred T. Mahan, who devised the standard war college formula: Sea power equals naval vessels plus merchant vessels. The Commission estimated that in the event of a war with a major foreign power, the U. S. would need a minimum of 1,000 merchant ships of all types. These are now available but they are old, and in certain categories there is serious shortage. There are only ten combination freight & passenger vessels which could be converted into aircraft carriers. The Navy thinks...
...corporate state of shipping is just as sorry as the physical, and there is little likelihood of attracting more private capital. Mr. Kennedy could find only nine companies reasonably sure to survive on the new subsidies. And Mr. Kennedy reported: "The brutal truth is that the American Merchant Marine has been living off its fat for the past 15 years; that is, we have been subsisting upon the war-built fleet. . . . Many of our operators built their business on vessels which they secured from the Government at prices as low as $5 a deadweight ton. Who is going to replace...
...program, which promises to bog down for lack of private capital, 2) Government ownership and private operation, or 3) straight Government ownership and operation. In other great maritime nations the course for Government domination of shipping is clearly charted. Mr. Kennedy seems to feel without saying so that a merchant marine, being today essentially an instrument of National policy, not an economic enterprise, is logically Government business...
What will it cost? In the past 20 years the U. S. Government spent $3,800,000,000 on the merchant marine. "We have come today to the end of our once-magnificent armada. Of the 2,500 vessels launched in the mightiest shipbuilding program in history but a few hundred aging specimens remain." Operating subsidies alone may mount under the present law to $15,000,000 or $20,000,000 per year. With luck and $50,000,000 of taxpayers' money solvent lines may launch 65 ships in the next five years. At the moment, the Commission...