Public Bath

On the west bank of the broad estuary of the Kennebec River is Bath, Me., "City of Ships." There in 1607 was launched the first ship built in North America. There Jonathan Philbrook gained immortality by building the first schooner. There for more than a century was the centre of the U. S. shipbuilding industry. But in Bath today there is only one active shipyard--the famed Bath Iron Works. Hitherto a tightly-held little company, Bath Iron Works last week became a publicly-owned corporation. A banking group headed by Manhattan's Hemphill, Noyes & Co. offered 50,000 shares of new Bath Iron Works stock together with 144,000 shares previously outstanding and owned by the principal stockholders.

Founded in 1889 by Maine's General Thomas Worcester Hyde, Bath Iron Works has had an erratic record. It nearly went under in 1895 when an experimental armored ram built for the Navy failed to develop the speed required. The firm was saved by a special Act of Congress which authorized the craft's acceptance on the ground that the builders were not responsible for its deficiencies. A few years later Bath Iron Works was sold to Charles Michael Schwab's U. S. Shipbuilding Co., which sold it back to General Hyde's son in 1905. At the top of the Wartime ship-building boom the Hydes again sold out, a move which proved very smart indeed, for by 1925 Bath Iron Works was closed down tight. It stayed closed, except for a brief period of use as a fibre goods plant, until 1927. Then it was taken over by William Stark Newell, a seasoned shipbuilder who had done a turn in the Bath Iron Works as a riveter during a summer vacation from Massachusetts Institute of Technology, worked up to works manager.

Bath Iron Works's 1927 rejuvenation coincided with the lushest yacht-building era in U. S. history. First big contract was a 240-ft. job for Ernest Blaney Dane of Brookline, Mass. Hiram Edward Manville's 266-ft. Hi-Esmaro was built by Bath Iron Works. So was Hugh Joseph Chisholm's 244-ft. Aras and Eldridge Reeves Johnson's 279-ft. Caroline. Biggest yacht contract Bath Iron Works ever got was for J. P. Morgan's fourth Corsair, which was launched in the dark days of 1930 amid a fusillade of anonymous letters threatening to dynamite the 343-ft. ship before she left the ways.

Only yacht on the Bath Iron Works future books at present is Harold Stirling Vanderbilt's new America's Cup defense candidate, the keel of which was poured last week. With the passing of the golden days of yacht building, Bath Iron Works struggled along with Coast Guard and Lighthouse Service contracts together with an occasional commercial job until President Newell learned how to get Navy work in 1932. Since then Bath Iron Works has delivered three destroyers including the Lamson, now the fastest ship in the U. S. Navy. Navy Department contracts account for more than $21,000,000 of the $22,000,000 worth of orders Bath Iron Works has on hand.

Navy work, though the profits are now limited to 10%, is considerably more satisfactory than commercial shipbuilding, which often shows a loss. In 1933 Bath Iron Works reported earnings of less than $19,000. Last year it showed a profit of $301,000.

Exceedingly grateful to President Newell are the citizens of Bath for taking a local industry apparently destined for the junk heap, converting it within nine years into one of the country's major shipyards with a payroll of 1,350. Burly, bald, genial Mr. Newell lives in an historic white colonial mansion, has a hand in almost every public and private enterprise in Bath. Last year the Senate Munitions Committee gave President Newell a few embarrassing moments, notably when a letter from a big Navy lobbyist to the Bath shipbuilder was spread upon the records containing the sentence: "I want you to be the golden-haired child of the Navy Department."

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