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Show OREGON SHIP BUILD1XG CALLS FOR LABOR Thousands of Men at High Wages Can Find Employment.. The Secretary of the State Editorial Editori-al Association of Portland, Oregon, informs us that Oregon's effort to do her part in the building of steel and wooden ships for the war is seriously crippled through lack of labor. la-bor. Latest authentic information gathered gath-ered points to the necessity of employing em-ploying at once nearly 12,000 men in the shipbuilding business at Portland, Port-land, and between two and three thousand in the yard,s outside. With contracts already let and certain to be placed in the near future, fu-ture, it is stated by the shipbuilders that from 20,000 to 25,000 men should be employed by the close of this year, or early next year. The work is on hand to give this employment employ-ment and the demand for ships is growing greater every day. The development of an industry of this magnitude so suddenly has resulted re-sulted in drawing practically all of the available men with in immediate reach, and already the shipbuilders of the state are urging laborers from all parts of the West to take posi tions in their plants. Appeals are coming from national officials and all the leading business men of the East for all seaboard 3tates to concentrate their supreme energies iupon the program of building build-ing shipsi. This is declared to be the greatest duty confronting the nation na-tion today and on every hand it is ldmitted frankly, despite the optimistic opti-mistic statements made of the position posi-tion of the allied forces, that unless ships are built by America at a pace absolutely beyond the present program pro-gram the effectiveness of the United States in the European War will be largely reduced. Germany is counting count-ing implicitly upon destroying more ships than are built to prevent America Amer-ica from participating evtensively in the war. The submarine program is making more rapid progress than the shipbuilding program. For these reasons the federal government is putting the building of ships as the primary patriotic duty of the people of the country, and urging every person per-son who can aid in the work to take it up with as much reverence and as much sense of duty as if they were enlisting in the army. America's food, munitions, arms, and men cannot reach Europe without with-out an adequate supply of ships. Best authorities declare these should be built of steel and wood as Tapidly as the forces of the country can be marshalled for the work. In the emergency every man who has any mechanical or artisan skill whatever is being adapted to some part of ship construction, wherever he desires to work. It has been necessary nec-essary to teach labor to do classes of work it has never undertaken before. be-fore. All the facilities for such instruction in-struction are being provided by the ship yards, the government, and state, and men are having an opportunity oppor-tunity to take up lines of employment employ-ment never presented before at the best wages that have been known in the Pacific Northwest and perhaps the country. |