OCR Text |
Show TACKLING THE SHIP JOB RIGHT The government's plans for supplying the skilled labor la-bor needed for the huge ship building program show that there no longer is any misconception in Washington about the size of the job or the importance of its quick completion. comple-tion. The government found out that there were not ship builders enough in the country, and so it is going to make ship builders just as it is making soldiers. This is industrial mobilization of a comprehensive and effective sort. Ship building is as much a part of war making as the raising of armies, and there is no reason rea-son why tho work should not be done on something very much like the same plan. The government will need, ft is estimated, from 150,000 to 200,000 skilled mechanics, and it proposes to draw that number from men all over the country and train them in the trades required. Ship building trades had become almost as unknown in this country as soldiering, and like the army organization, tho yards where the cargo and fighting craft are to be turned out must be recruited from the ground up. In a country that had abandoned a merchant marine and allowed al-lowed its navy to sink to fourth place an army of ship builders could not spring to their tools any more than an army of soldiers could spring to their guiis. The country will be glad to recognize in this worth while mobilization of labor a purpose to tackle the shin building job in a way commensurate with its size. It is to be made, in effect, not a job for the seacoast cities alone, or for the limited industrial populations of ship bui'ding plant centers, but one for the whole country in- , land as well as coastal. That is proper. The war is a country wide job, and every part of the countrv should ' send up its quota of men for the work of every detail of it. Once they are taught, the men of the west can build ships as well as the men of tho coast, just as the men from the wheat fields have been found to make as good sailors as the dorymen of Gloucester. Kansas City Times. |