Transport: Eagles for $$

For more than a decade the 10,516-ton merchantman President Adams has sailed the seaways of the world under the bold, white dollar-sign insignia of the Dollar Steamship Lines. But next week when the President Adams steams out of San Francisco for the Far East and round the world, the familiar $$ will be missing from her single stack. In their place will perch jaunty silver eagles, emblem of the new, Government-controlled American President Line.

Since early this year all but one of the 15 Dollar liners, all named after U. S. Presidents, have gone out of service. As one by one they are put back in commission each will trade in its $$ for eagles. This change signifies: 1) the passing of the once mighty Dollar line from the high seas, and 2) the entrance of the U. S. Maritime Commission into bigtime shipping.*

Run on the financial rocks by the fair-weather crew of heirs and advisers who had steered it since the death in 1932 of scroogy old Captain Robert Dollar, the round-the-world Dollar Steamship Line was taken in tow last August by the Maritime Commission. Of the $7,000,000 in subsidy and repair and working-capital loans then allotted, $4,000,000 was last week available, $2,000,000 of it earmarked for bringing the fleet up to snuff.

*In its resubsidization of U. S. shipping under the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, the Maritime Commission has this year granted operating subsidies totaling $13,500,000 to 13 lines, is itself operating some 50 small cargo ships and a three-ship luxury line, the Good Neighbor Fleet, to South America.