SHIPPING: Kennedy Candor

In a mood of mingled relief and regret Chairman Joseph Patrick Kennedy of the U. S. Maritime Commission wrote President Roosevelt last week: “I should like to report in relinquishing my post that the ills of American Shipping had been cured. . . . Candor compels me to say, however, that the shipping problem is far from solved. . . .”

Accepting this resignation from the man who had been his first chairman of the Securities & Exchange Commission and who was shortly to become his new Ambassador to the Court of St. James, the President replied: “My dear Joe . . . You have maintained your justly earned reputation of being a two-fisted, hard-hitting executive.”

Joe Kennedy’s last week in office was exceedingly strenuous. Back in Washington from Florida, he dined privately with the President; worked on a deal by which the Maritime Commission proposes to buy three good ships from International Mercantile Marine, for South American service; announced consolidation of the Grace Steamship Co. and Columbian Steamship Co.; discussed plans for building for South American trade three new 25-knot luxury liners convertible into aircraft carriers. He also had his last say on his two biggest and unsolved problems—new construction and maritime labor.

In a last-minute report to the President he declared that bids submitted for a dozen new cargo vessels were, so high that acceptance was out of the question. The bids averaged about $2,700,000 per ship, three times the cost in Britain. Since private shipping lines “simply cannot afford to build at these prices even with Government assistance,” Mr. Kennedy explained, the only three practical alternatives were: 1) establishment of new shipyards; 2) allow building abroad when the domestic price was more than twice the foreign price; or 3) put the Government in the shipbuilding business, the “last resort.”

Though he has blamed the shipowners as much as the seamen for the current maritime unrest, Mr. Kennedy also blames Frances Perkins. His opinions of the Secretary of Labor are hardly printable. And with his Irish up he marched before the Copeland Committee last week to rebut Mrs. Perkins’ previous testimony that the time was not ripe for special maritime labor legislation (see p. 13). Without mentioning the Secretary by name, Mr. Kennedy observed sarcastically: “I submit that if the maritime industry is not ‘ripe’ for conciliation and mediation of its labor disputes, then it is overripe for ruin.” At one point Mr. Kennedy was so steamed up that Senator Copeland cautioned: “As chairman of this committee I welcome your fury, Joe, but as a doctor I must tell you it isn’t doing your stomach ulcer any good.”

Mr. Kennedy once declared that maritime labor conditions were so bad that he would never allow a member of his family to take a U. S. ship, but this coming week Mr. Kennedy will sail on the S. S. Manhattan (U. S. Lines) with his daughter, Kathleen, who will act as his hostess in the U. S. Embassy in London until his wife recovers from an appendectomy.