Tampa, Florida Mobile, Alabama New Orleans, Louisiana Portland, Oregon Bellingham, Washington Duluth, Minnesota Chicago, Illinois Cleveland, Ohio In addition to these schools, we have carried out a widespread scheme of publicity to let the experienced seamen know of the demands and to encourage such as already have the necessary education to take the examinations of the Steamboat-Inspection Service without going through our schools. A few weeks after starting the navigation schools, authority was given me to start training marine engineers. This has been carried out with the aid of some of our leading polytechnic schools. We have had classes at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, Massachusetts. Stevens Institute of Technology, Hoboken, New Jersey. Special classes at the Philadelphia Bourse and on the steamer John Weaver at Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Johns Hopkins University, Baltimore, Maryland. The Tulane University of Louisiana, New Orleans, Louisiana. Case School of Applied Science, Cleveland, Ohio. Armour Institute of Technology, Chicago, Illinois. University of Washington, Seattle, Washington. Another class is now being started with the assistance of the Seamen's Church Institute. Taking these schools together, we have an average attendance of six to eight hundred with a course lasting five or six weeks. In all of this work we have had the heartiest co-operation from Supervising Inspector General George Uhler, of the Steamboat-Inspection Service, and through him with every supervising and local inspector in the United States. Since the first of June, when we started our work, there have been over 6,000 deck and engineer officers licensed, out of the 8,000 which we made our goal at that time. Before any applicants are admitted to our schools, they first must all receive the approval of the local steamboat inspector for actual sea experience, thus saving us the great trouble and waste of energy of training men who might afterwards be refused a license for lack of experience. After the men graduate from our schools, they have to pass the regular examination for license, and, if successful, are then, as far as possible, given a thirty to sixty days supplementary course as junior officers at a salary of $75 per month on board some ocean going steamer. The duties of a junior officer are to serve on watches with regular officers and to learn the detail of the routine and of their new duties. To increase the efficiency of the engineers on the new vessels building, we are now sending chief engineers to the shops of the manufacturers who are making the turbines, so they can learn the construction of these machines from the ground up, and therefore be fully qualified to make repairs in case of an emergency. The chief engineer will follow his turbine through the shop. After it is finished, he will go with it to the vessel and assist in its installation and will then become chief engineer of the ship when she sails. In the same manner, we are sending second assistant engineers to the shops of the builders of water tube boilers to become familiar with their construction and, in a similar manner, to assist in their erection on board the ship and then. stay with the vessel as second assistant when she sails. This covers the training of the officers. As you will see, all of the preliminary training is done on shore, because the men we take have already had at least two years' experience at sea. The cost of this training is a mere fraction of the cost of the schoolship method, about $55.00 per man for deck officers and $65.00 for engineer officers, including all of our overhead expenses, as against about $1,000 per man for those trained by the schoolship method. I do not wish, however, to be considered or to have this statement in any way construed as making any criticism of the schoolship method which has given splendid results and, when there is plenty of time, it may produce on the average a more thoroughly trained officer. I also think it is important that these schoolships should be maintained after the war and increased in number. THE TRAINING OF THE LOWER GRADES The training of sailors, firemen, coal passers, oilers, water tenders, cooks and stewards was quite another problem. For this purpose we have to take raw material and are limiting our recruits to those between the ages of 21 and 30. This training is done on board training ships and for this we have chosen vessels that were unsuitable in character for freight traffic or trans-Atlantic traffic. Three ships of the Eastern Steamship Lines, Inc., the Calvin Austin, Governor Dingley and Governor Cobb, have been chartered. Two are in full commission. The old transport, Meade, is being put in commission and will be towed North about the first of April. With this fleet, we shall have a capacity of about 2,500 men in training at one time. The two ships which are now in commission have a capacity of 600 each. RECRUITING THE MEN Instead of establishing our own recruiting stations in various parts of the country, along the lines pursued by the Army and Navy, I have made use of an existing organization, the Liggett and Rexall Drug Stores. My reason for this is that we want to get at the men in the country towns and there is one of these agencies or stores in every town and city in the United States, having a population of a thousand or more people. As you all know, in a small town, the drug store is a sort of social center that is frequented by the local politicians and it is a place where a young man takes his girl for soda water or candy. It is almost the one agency or store that is open all the time. It is open on holidays, Sundays and every evening. Moreover, there are 6,854 stores in 6,393 cities and towns in the country, and this organization can, therefore, bring us into closer touch with the general public than any other similar agency of which I know. The headquarters of the whole organization are within fifteen minutes of my office in the Custom House, Boston, and the whole organization, as far as this work is concerned, has been placed patriotically at our disposal without any charge. Our method of operating is to swear in the owner or manager of each store as a Special Enrolling Agent of the Recruiting Service of the United States Shipping Board at a salary at the rate of $1.00 per year. We then supply him with posters, and the literature describing the opportunities, and also with application blanks and contracts for the recruits to sign. We call the men as they are needed, and they pay their way to their embarkation point and this money is reimbursed to them after they qualify and are put aboard the training ship. Their training on these ships lasts a minimum of 30 days for which they receive pay at the rate of $30.00 per month. As far as possible we allow them to choose their own line of work and they may enter into either one of the three divisions, namely, deck, engine room or steward's department. In the deck department, they are trained to be sailors, and in the engine department, to be firemen, oilers or water tenders. Candidates for positions as oilers and water tenders, however, must have had previous experience as firemen on stationary or marine boilers. Applicants for sailors, firemen, cooks and stewards need no previous experience, but are trained directly for these positions. The training is very intensive and in order to accomplish it as fast as possible, we have This unique photograph presents a patriotic rally of ship builders in the hull of a wooden ship at the yards of Patterson-McDonald in Seattle, Wash. The speaker addressing the ship workers is Thomas Barker of Los Angeles, a representative of the U. S. Department of Labor who has been making a tour of the Pacific Coast shipping yards, addressing the men working in these yards relative to the vital importance of their work and the Government's need of their most patriotic service. an experienced teacher or instructor for every ten men. The instructors for sailors are men who are experienced, able seamen, and this same principle is followed in the other departments. The recruits we take are all in the draft age and as soon as they sign up are placed on the Emergency Fleet classification list and remain there as long as they follow the sea. They are all obliged to keep in touch with us and if they fail to do so or do not continue in the actual sea service, we immediately notify their local board and they are put in Class A1 for immediate draft. In order to keep in close touch with the wants of the Merchant Marine, we have established what we call our Sea Service Bureau with Mr. Edward C. Hovey, Jr., at the head. The work of this Bureau is, on the one hand, to find positions for the officers and crews whom we have trained, and, on the other hand, to find officers and crews for merchant vessels that are in need of them. This Service is establishing branches in all the principal ports of the United States. We expect shortly to have a receiving ship in New York on which we shall plan always to keep a good supply of trained men ready for instant service. The training ships themselves are kept at sea nearly all the time, in fact, about five days out of seven every week. This is for the purpose of giving the men their sea legs as well as to give them practical experience in the operation of a ship at sea. LABOR SITUATION In the beginning, many people anticipated that we would be confronted with serious labor troubles when trying to introduce our men into the already thoroughly unionized crews. The working out of this problem is obviously one of vital importance. I made up my mind to get personally acquainted with the presidents. of all the unions involved, and to let them clearly understand our problem, feeling that in this way I could get their co-operation instead of their opposition. To this end, I formed what we called the Advisory Committee to the Recruiting Service of the United States Shipping Board. The presidents of all the unions and officers' associations were invited to become members and have done so. We hold a meeting once a month and all the problems that come up are freely and openly discussed. The result has been far beyond anything I had hoped. I have not hesitated to give these men confidential facts and information obtained from the Shipping Board if it in any way affected their respective unions. Such disclosures have invariably been held strictly confidential and I have received much valuable advice and assistance. Instead of opposing our work, the unions are co-operating to the utmost. Members of the unions are receiving our newly trained men in the best spirit and assisting to break them into their actual duties at sea. Whatever troubles there may have been on land, there have been no strikes whatever among the men who are operating our Merchant Marine. An agreement to last one year was signed last August by the Seamen's Union, the American Steamship. Association and the United States Shipping Board. It has been strictly lived up to by all of the men concerned, and I feel it my duty to call the attention of the public to the fact that without exception the unions concerned with the operation of our overseas ships have fully realized the responsibility which rests upon them and have not failed in their duty as loyal Americans to do everything in their power to help the war. The success which has attended so far this work has been due very largely to the very able staff of men that I have been fortunate in gathering about me. Many of them are working on a purely voluntary basis, giving substantially all of their time for $5.00 per month, and many others would have done so if their financial situation had permitted. I wish, particularly, to mention my assistant, Mr. Edward F. Flynn, Captain Eugene E. O'Donnell, Prof. Alfred E. Burton, Prof. Edward F. Miller, Messrs. Edward C. Hovey, Jr., Henry G. Vaughan, Parker H. Kemble and Charles Collens, of Boston, and Messrs. John F. Lewis, of Philadelphia; Hardy Croom, of Jacksonville; Ernest Lee Jahncke, of New Orleans; Farnham P. Griffiths, of San Francisco; William J. Grambs, of Seattle, and Capt. Irving L. Evans, of Cleveland. In Flanders Fields By LIEUT. COL. JOHN MCCRAE In Flanders Fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row and row, That mark our place; and in the sky The larks, still bravely singing, fly Scarce heard amid the guns below. We are the Dead. Short days ago Take up our quarrel with the foe; In Flanders Fields. I By FRANCIS JUDSON TIETSORT N the early and adventuresome days in the West Indies the days of solid shot and flashing blades, pieces of eight and spiced rum-neither the natives nor the conquerors of the New World regions about the dancing blue waters of the Spanish Main were greatly concerned over economic conditions. The wary commercial shipping of the time that plied those waters was in negligible tonnage. The European population requiring foodstuffs was at first small. The people brought over prime requisites in their small ships and for the remainder subsisted on fish, fruit and vegetables. With the natives, if food were lacking in time of hurricane or dry weather or during periods of guerilla warfare with the first interlopers from Spain, they meekly starved; if food was plentiful, so much the better. Buccaneering became a rather highly regarded profession in those latitudes as adventurers from other lands of Europe began to fare forth in their cockleshell craft to seek a foothold in the Caribbean in rivalry with Spain. Piracy discouraged the earliest sea traders, despite occasional profits from safe voyages. Treading the decks of armed ships, strange, black-bearded, fierce-looking seafarers plowed the seas in careers of plunder and conquest. Piracy and pillage were their lay; boldly they sought an elusive ease of life at the expense of a pioneering merchant marine. If shipping naturally languished in some years under such conditions and prizes were scarce, your sashed and sabre-swishing gentleman changed his tactics. Ranging his vessel opposite some fortified eminence on shore, he spoke his will from his private corvette with roars of gunpowder. If victor, he landed his men, seized the place and forthwith levied on the inhabitants for those means by which he and his hardy followers might live. Two centuries or more passed before West Indian colonial life began to take on a safer and more stable aspect. Through that long stretch of the earliest years of shifting power, might made right in the West Indies and the sum of existence was solved usually with the whip of the oppressor or slaver and the stained sword of the invader, rather than through the plowshare and mercantile pursuits of peace. Nevertheless these latter agencies gradually became established as the political excitement in Europe (caused by the events following the exploits of Columbus) died down with the passage of the years. It is because there was an exaggerated idea of the natural wealth of the Antilles that these northern tropic islands, from the century before the Pilgrims landed in bleak New England to the dawn of the nineteenth century, have provided most of the highly-colored maritime romance of our Western Hemisphere. The earliest explorers were hazy in their economic valuations. Gross over-statements of the resources of the West Indies were circulated in Europe. In the imaginations of the tale-bearers all or more than the wealth of Oriental India was to be had for the taking in the isles of their glowing promise. Their irresponsibility wove legends of this part of the world, which, when carefully conned, yield strange and wild delights for the reader. In those years, of course, little or nothing was known of the howling wilderness of continental America, which in later centuries was to give birth to the world's richest nation. Brighter and more wholesome chapters concerning the West Indies, however, have been written in the last century and in our own day, when lust of power and pirate gold has given way to peaceful and prosperous homes. There has come the introduction of new ideas and customs and of educational advantages that even doubloons could not have bought from two to four centuries ago. Since the Spanish-American war, the United States has been taking an ever-increasing interest in these pleasant insular countries. It |