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immediate advantage of the great opportunity which awaits us." And now that the agreement had been reached, he insisted that the bill should be enacted as soon as possible.

So many things had to be done in order to project this nation forward into this new and extraordinary era, and Congress seemed to be moving so slowly, too slowly, for the welfare of the nation, that the President carried the issues to the people. Military preparedness was only one of the great problems that he discussed for the enlightenment of the people. Commercial preparedness, industrial preparedness, educational preparedness, the need of a Pan-American Union, and a new interpretation of the Monroe Doctrine-all were discussed. In other words, he was blazing out new paths into the future and calling upon Congress to follow. He was imperative for this nation to spring forward with energy and prepare for changes which no one can certainly foresee or confidently predict."

It was predicted that the bill so modified would be enacted without delay. However, the renewal of the submarine warfare by Germany, England's attitude toward our commerce, the preservation of the Monroe Doctrine, and the revolution in Mexico brought military preparedness to the front, and in spite of the great demand for a merchant marine it now had to take second place.

However, President Wilson would not let it sleep in

the committee room. During the month of March he began to urge the committees to push the bill, and early in April he wrote to Mr. Claud Kitchin, the Democratic Leader of the House:

"It would seem as if the whole movement for our trade and industry waited a satisfactory solution of our problem of transportation. That is the reason why it seems to me that the shipping bill should be pressed to an early passage.'

Again it was pointed out that we were dependent upon Great Britain for the carriage of the greatest part of our commerce; that we were paying more than $300,000,000 to foreign steamship companies to carry American commerce to the markets of the world; that if we were to press into service all the available merchant vessels as naval auxiliaries, we would still lack about 500,000 tons "to meet the needs of our navy as it stands today, without allowing for growth;" that we were unable at present to seek foreign trade in new fields without relying upon foreign vessels to carry our goods; and that we had no shipping board with sufficient power to regulate shipping rates and practices and establish and adjust rules of navigation. Therefore, Congress was urged to pass the bill.

Early in June, after the Senate and House had disposed of the Army Reorganization Bill, the Shipping Bill

passed the House. It contained provision for a shipping board, the purchase or construction of vessels suitable to the commercial requirements of the marine trade of the United States, and "for use as naval auxiliaries or army transports, or for other naval or military purposes."

Moreover, it was provided that the Board, if it believes that actual operation of ships by the Government is needed, may form a corporation with a capital stock not exceeding $50,000,000, and the Government through the Board may own and control "not less than a majority" of the capital stock.

This feature defeated the bill before. But in order to make it less objectionable and win the support of certain Senators and Members it was so modified as to limit the government's ownership of the vessels to a term not longer than "five years from the conclusion of the present European war."

Congress had already waited too long. The tonnage, owing to losses by the war and the use of merchant vessels as naval auxiliaries, had been reduced almost fifty per cent. There were not enough ships available to carry the world's trade, and America suffered because the United States was the great supply nation. The allies were now willing for the United States to buy the interned vessels of Germany and Austria. But those nations were not disposed to sell. It is said that freight was so high in the spring of 1916 that "ships are paying

their cost in one voyage," and the demand was so great that vessels were selling at four times their former book value. It was claimed, furthermore, that every shipyard in the world was booked ahead for four years. Such were the conditions when the House a second time sent its Shipping Bill to the Senate.

CHAPTER XX

THE NEED OF INDUSTRIAL PREPAREDNESS

The one distinct purpose that President Wilson had at the beginning of his administration was "to set the business of the country free-hence the new tariff, the Federal Reserve Act, the Anti-Trust Laws and Government regulation of business by Commission. But when this great program was begun the world was at peace, and the needful thing to be done was to restore the rule of right and justice in the nation. However, eighteen months after the outbreak of the war America had become first as the supply nation of the world, a new era was at hand, and President Wilson declared that "our thought is now inevitably of new things about which formerly we gave ourselves little concern. We are now thinking chiefly of our relations with the rest of the world."

American business, however, had not yet formed the concept of the world as a trade unit. That was perhaps due, for the most part, to the fact that America is a young nation, and our resources are so vast, that from the time of the Declaration of Independence to the present our business men have been engaged in developing the re

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