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Show THE MERCHANT MARINE One of the most determined opponents of the building up of a merchant marine in this country, and a man who'fought it constantly in congress was Gustave Kus-terman Kus-terman of Wisconsin. When it was hinted in congress some. years ago that his German Ger-man birth and affiliations had something to do with his attitude he challenged his critics to prove it, which, of course they could not do. ' Bob LaFollette of Wisconsin was a close second to Kusterman in his efforts and during the first administration of President Wilson he put through a bill, supported by the majority of the administration admin-istration leaders in congress, that resulted result-ed in driving all that remained of' our merchant marine on the Pacific out of business, the Japs even taking overt the job of carrying our mail to the Philippines Philip-pines and Hawaii. Rio Grande Republic. Repub-lic. , The LaFollettes seaman's act was put through under the guise of a union labor bill. It was in reality, a bill to encourage foreign ship owners and wipe the American Amer-ican flag off the seas and it was highly successful and left our country helpless from a ship tonnage standpoint at the beginning of this war. It should be repealed re-pealed as soon as possible to encourage American owned merchant marine?fter the war,- thus assuring the future of our shipping and ship building industry n During the first year of the war the Army paid $60,000,000 for horse drawn vehicles and harness; more than $50,000-000 $50,000-000 for horses, mules, and harness Expenditures Ex-penditures for the fiscal year" ending on June 30, 1919, for fuel and forage are estimated at more than $500,000,000. |