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Show LAUNCHING SHIPS AT TACOMA YARDS Standard Steel Merchant Ship Every Two Weeks Is Shipyard Slogan. TACOMA, Wash., Oct. 25. Four ships have been launched, six more are in various stages of construction on its ways, and the Todd Dry dock and Shipbuilding company bid fair to fulfill Its watchword of "standard steel merchant shlj of 750 tons every two weeks." its ambitious program in the campaign for democracy as against autocracy. Fifteen months ago Ihe site of the Todd yards was nearly all under water at high tide. Then came the decision to build ships there. Dredges were set to work and the sand they brought from the bottom of Commencement bay was used to build up the 100 acres of land the yards occupy. Every foot of these 100 acres Is teeming today In activity. Buildings have risen, ways been built and 5000 men find employment in the yards. Within three more months 10,500 men will bo employed. Building ships is not tho only task of' the management. One of its greatest great-est problems is the welfare of the men. Most of tho workers wore obtained obtain-ed from distant points. Probably half of them have families. So the Todd company built a hotel within the shipyards, ship-yards, one with 615 rooms, all with hot and cold water and every room occupied. occup-ied. Tho dining room of the hotel seats 1400 at a time, and at noon two sittings sit-tings arc required. Tho hotel was satisfactory for the single men, but it didn't help tho married mar-ried worker. So the company, with the aid of the government, bought building lots and contracts are to be let Immediately Imme-diately for the construction of 175 dwellings. These will be increased to 600 if present plans work out. Unlike many yards the Todd establishment estab-lishment turns its ships over to the government ready for immediate service. serv-ice. Even the camouflage painting is done here and the anti-submarine guns mounted on decks especially built for them. "The Rev. Jim Osborne, .boss riveter." rivet-er." Thus do they introduce a former minister of the gospel at the Todd yards to visitors. '' Until the United States declared war :j Osborne was an itinerant Methodist r minister in western Montana. In the 'j Missoula valley, the Bitter Root, and, in the Blackfoot, Osborne wa3 known I as "The Lumberjack Preacher." Beloved, Be-loved, he was, and famed for his work In the interest of theY. M. C. A. j And new he's bossing a riveting I: gang and exemplifying muscular and. j; militant Christianity. There is another horny-handed son of toll in these yards an attorney j; who gave up a lucrative practice in , an eastern Washington county to help 1 the game along. Another is a doctor li from a small Utah town. i Speed with which wooden ships arc jj being constructed for the government , in the northwest is shown by a contrast con-trast possible at the Seaborn ship- ,1 yards company's plant here. Adjacent to the Seaborn yards "Tho Glory of the I Seas," a wooden schooner launched. I almost sixty years ago is docked. This I ship took eighteen months to build and ; it is smaller than the wooden vessels B being constructed at the Seaborn j yards which go into the water in less Hi than three months from the time the JJ keel is laid. :H It is the same story speed. Machin- jU ery and modern methods have done and are doing what just, every day j'u hand labor used to do but in a far less ,R time. a The Seaborn yard was tho first to I launch a wooden ship of the Ferris type for the government after the war was declared. Since that time nine jjfj others have been launched .and four -M arc being constructed. lip The Seaborn company was organiz- ljJ ed before the war to construct ships .1 for its own use, but immediately with the request of ships for the govern- g mont it turned over its entire yards to ! this work. |