Revival

Once, Mark Hanna failed. Midlander though he was, he did not get his ship subsidy bill past the bombproof dugouts of Midland Congressmen.

He was not the first to try, nor the last. In 1922, a subsidy bill was presented to an extra session of Congress by President Harding in person. Talk killed it in the Senate.

This spring, Captain Robbie Dollar's son crossed the continent to Washington, bought from the U. S. the only Shipping Board passenger ships trading with the Orient which the Dollars did not already run (TIME, Apr. 13, 27). Unintentionally, he set tongues to work again on the hoary question: "Subsidize?"

First Tongue. Gen. John J. Pershing reminded a radio audience that a subsidy would increase the U. S. merchant marine, a consummation patriotically to be desired. He offered no specific.

Second Tongue. Last week, the President said "Ah," or words to that effect, anonymously.

Third Tongue. There were three things which moved "T. V. O'C." (Mr. O'Connor, Chairman of the Shipping Board) to utterance. First, the half-unpropped prestige of the Shipping Board had been jolted by the dispute over the sale of five vessels to the Dollars. Second, a group of professional tonnage-lords was meeting in private in Manhattan (see below). Third, the country, having few other matters of immediate importance to consider, might lend an ear to his troubles--a monster armada of idle ships. So T. V. O'C. spoke. His plan: The U. S. Treasury should pay a bonus of $20 per month to every American who works on a ship which is bought by a U. S. firm from the Government and which is used in foreign trade. His arguments :

1) This would induce U. S. firms to purchase most of the 600 idle Government ships.

2) This would build up a merchant marine reserve, useful in war.

3) It would cost the U. S. at most $6,000,000, whereas the present annual deficit of the Government shipping business is about $28,000,000.

Dis-chorus. A tower of Babel type was quickly erected on the editorial pages of the Nation's newspapers. Editoriailzers who had learned to say "Yes," said "Yes" again, flew the eagle proudly over the waters of the earth, pointed the finger of scorn at all who opposed the aggrandizement of U. S. shipping, dubbed them "Little Americans."

Those who had learned to say "No" repeated it, laughed at rhetoric, argued back:

1) Mr. O'Connor's "bonus" is merely a new name for an old plan known as "subsidy."

2) Mr. O'Connor's plan is nebulous. What would happen to U. S. crews on U. S. ships not bought from the Shipping Board? In the case of a mixed crew, how conciliate the non-bonused? What an enormous bookkeeping expense! etc., etc.

3) Business and the Navy should not be mixed; as a business proposition, there is no more reason for subsidizing shipping than farming all the old arguments. If U. S. firms cannot compete with foreign, they had better quit.

Fifth Tongue. The President let it be known that he doubted whether Mr. O'Connor's proposed bonus or subsidy bill would be acceptable to the next Congress unless strongly advocated by naval experts as preparedness.

Sixth Tongue. Emerged one of the professionals from the ship owners' meeting, declared that Mr. O'Connor's $20 would not enable U. S. firms to compete with other nations except Great Britain; would perpetuate the existing difference between wages paid on Government-built boats and those paid on other U. S. boats.