SHIPPING: Mutiny on the Algic

Seamen may strike when a ship is docked in a home port. Once the ship has sailed, to strike—or otherwise disobey captain’s “lawful orders”—is mutiny. Well within their rights then were the 18 members of the tumultuous crew of the U. S. Government-owned Algic* when they “sat down” in Baltimore on the eve of sailing, lumber-laden, to South America last July. Their supplies on the dock rotted as they lounged on deck awaiting reply to an ultimatum which read:

“To the Master, S. S. Algic:

“We, the crew of the S. S. Algic, belonging to the National Maritime Union 100%, realizing that as seamen we are all interested in forming a national maritime federation and knowing that the only way we can advance the interest of the maritime workers as a whole is by working with the licensed personnel [officers] that have shown a willingness to cooperate towards the ultimate consummation of the National Maritime Federation, it is hereby resolved that we will only sail with members of the M. E. B. A. [Maritime Engineers Beneficial Association] and the M. M. P. A. [Master, Mates and Pilots Association] and if the licensed personnel [officers] do not join the organization of their calling we the unlicensed personnel [crew] will sit down at once and continue until they [the officers] are relieved.

John C. Melvin (Eng. Div.)

John Burgess (Deck)

Melvin Neilson (Steward)”

This unusual document had just been presented to slight, nervous New England Captain Joseph Gainard, Master of the Algic. To their demands astonished Captain Gainard made no reply. Then as suddenly as they had quit, the crew resumed work and the 5,500-ton, 17-year-old freighter cleared Baltimore, began its 103-day journey to South America. With the Algic sailed desertion, mutiny, death.

Before Jacksonville, Fla., the first port-of-call, was reached quarrels among the crew had alarmed the captain and his four New England mates. Ashore in the Florida port the brawls, revolving around John Burgess, a fiery Californian, continued. In a waterfront saloon Burgess drew a knife, stabbed a fellow seaman, was promptly shot and killed by a landlubber. Shipped in his place was J. Hartley, an agitator more troublesome than Burgess.

On the 5,700-mile voyage to Montevideo, Uruguay, worn Captain Gainard came down with influenza. He was ill in his bunk in that port when informed that another sit-down strike had taken place. In sympathy with a local longshoremen’s strike, the Algic’s crew refused to turn the winches. Too weak to handle the situation himself, Captain Gainard put through a 5,000-mile telephone call to Joseph Patrick Kennedy, Chairman of the U. S. Maritime Commission in Washington. Boss Kennedy instantly sent off a message authorizing the captain to put the ringleaders in irons.

At Santos three of the crew deserted and the Algic went on to Victoria, Brazil, without them. Denied shore-leave, four more men went over the side in the darkness, attempted to row to shore in a clumsy native dugout, capsized it within 150 feet, drowned Able Seaman Howell Gill of Savannah, Ga. On the return trip the Algic again put in at Jacksonville and there Stormy Petrel J. Hartley deserted and escaped. Last week the Algic docked in Baltimore, its 13,000 harassed miles the subject of a brief inquiry by the Bureau of Marine Inspection & Navigation. A three-man board swiftly passed the case on to the Department of Justice, which held 14 members of the crew for “revolt and mutiny.”

Prompt to support its members, the National Maritime Union gave the crew’s story, charged that Captain Gainard had spun a yarn to the .Washington Post’s staff correspondent, Edward T. Folliard, who had a frontpage, five-column scoop on the Algic’s, horrific trip. Alleging that Correspondent Folliard was inspired by the Maritime Commission, the N. M. U. statement said: “The crew, organized 100% in the N. M. U. conducted itself in the disciplined and orderly fashion that has made the N. M. U. the choice of the overwhelming proportion of the men who godown to the sea in ships.” The N. M. U. also petitioned President Roosevelt to remove Chairman Kennedy, who last week established minimum wages and paid vacations for seamen, from the Maritime Commission.

Meantime, the Algic case made a focal point of the “order and discipline” of the U. S. Merchant Marine. Chairman Kennedy last week revealed that his department had been deluged with complaints from travelers on U. S. ships. Samples: that stewards wake lone, pretty females with “Hi, Babe, get up . . . time for breakfast”; introduce male passengers to comely women aboard; address guests at breakfast, “Well, Buddy, what’ll it be this morning”; even lay hands on young women in the corridors of ships. Of mutiny on the Algic, Chairman Kennedy remarked succintly, “I think it is scandalous.”

*Algic—a fanciful combination of the words Allegheny and Atlantic.