Port of Dreams

The 20 acres with the big warehouse on them looked just like any other part of New Orleans' busy river front. But last week they became something very special and mighty important to New Orleans' world-trading citizens. The 20 acres officially became a free port, the only one in the U.S. outside of New York's foreign-trade zone. New Orleans, now busting its buttons in its zeal to build up its port, second biggest in the U.S. in dollar volume, hoped that its foreign-trade zone would lure ships to the mouth of the Mississippi as New York's had brought ships into its harbor. For the South, now filled with a new spirit of industrialization, it was another step forward.

Free ports, comparatively new to the U.S., have been common in Europe since Hanseatic League days. Merchants can bring goods into a free port without paying duties and without posting bonds; they can store their merchandise, sort it and repack it for export. Only if & when the goods enter the country proper are they dutiable. The day New Orleans' free port opened, it got its first customer--a Chicago liquor importer who planned to keep his liquor there in kegs, import it in bottles as needed.

Next week New Orleans will start work on another business getter: a $1,200,000 International Trade Mart which will be a five-story showcase for U.S. and foreign goods.

Needed: A Jewell. All this bustle was comparatively new to New Orleans which, despite its natural advantages, had languished after the Civil War. Up-&-coming ports like Houston snatched the title of No. i cotton shipper and took the business away. New Orleans shippers talked about snatching it back, but nothing much came of the talk until Governor Sam Jones in 1940 appointed a chunky cotton merchant named Edward Oswald ("Archie") Jewell to boss the Board of Port Commissioners (the "dock board''), which operates the 7 1/2 miles of publicly owned quays and warehouses.

"Archie" Jewell's first project was the city's International House, now in its second year. There foreign businessmen are supplied free with bilingual secretaries, home-town papers, temporary offices and all the comforts of a good club. Attached to the House is an aggressive, canny staff of trade promoters who last year helped 2,688 U.S. and foreign traders find new business. Sample deal: International House showed Southern Coach Manufacturing Co. of Evergreen, Ala., which had never exported, how to sell $750,000 worth of buses to Colombia and Argentina. As a result of the program, the tonnage handled at New Orleans this year has already edged up 5% over last year.

Needed: A Canal. But Jewell and his fellow citizens won't be satisfied till New Orleans rivals New York, to which it is now a poor second in dollar volume, fourth in tonnage. They argue that its loading facilities are the most efficient in the land; ships can dock without tugs and a ton of freight can be loaded for $1.03, compared to $1.66 in New York.

But if New Orleans is to be the port of their dreams, something must be done about the treacherous, 110-mile channel from the port to the Gulf. New Orleans would like Congress to appropriate $82 million to build a 62 1/2-mile tidewater ship canal from New Orleans straight east to the Gulf. Such a canal would be free from silt and cheap to maintain. If "U.S. engineers approve, it will be up to Congress.

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