Salt Lake Tribune | 1919-05-14 | Page 6 | Congress Should Act

CONGRESS SHOULD ACT. Every shipyard in tho country will be compelled to suspend work before tho end of Juno unless congress appropriates $(300,000,000 in tho meantime. Shutting Shut-ting down of the shipyards would be a calamity and p.hould be avoided. Congress Con-gress will meet in extraordinary session ses-sion in the course of a few days and the necessary legislation should be en-actod en-actod without delay. As a matter of fact, tho appropriation should have been made at tho last session, but was put off until the last minute along with other much-needed appropriations and then perished on account of tho filibuster fili-buster in the senate. Officials of the department of commerce, tho big bankers, bank-ers, tho trade journals and many of tho daily newspapers have had much to say in recent months about the exten: sion of the foreign trade of the United States, and a highly optimistic feeling has dcvclopod. But unloss wo have a first-class merchant marine our chances of foreign trade will go glimmering. glim-mering. The only way for this country coun-try to get a sufficient number of ships is to build them, and they cannot be built unless the money is furnished by congress. That is the truth in a nutshell. nut-shell. This being the situation, members mem-bers of the senate and house should be given no rest until they take the proper action. Great Britain has thousands of merchant vessels and work is progressing pro-gressing day and night in the shipyards of England and Scotland. The Japanese Japa-nese are building vessels in feverish haste. It would be an everlasting shame if shipbuilding in this country should stop on account of lack of funds and a hoavy handicap placod upon our exporters ex-porters and manufacturers at the very beginning of the race for foreign trade.