Foul Anchors

One day Senators McKinley and Curtis called at the White House and recommended that the TJ. S. Shipping Board should be abolished and its functions transferred to the Department of Commerce. On the same day Commissioner Benson of the Board issued a report advocating that the Government build two 30,000-ton passenger liners for service with the Leviathan and lay out an annual program for 20,000 cargo tons. Next day Secretary Hoover let it be known that he did not care to have the Shipping

Board's affairs transferred to his department, and the Board by majority vote transmitted a letter to the President intimating that Admiral Leigh C. Palmer, Chairman of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, should be ousted and the Board left in complete control of the Government's merchant marine.

In this tangle of conflicting plans and interests, the President did much as he has done in the case of agriculture, oil, and aeronautics: he decreed a fact-finding investigation from the outside. So on the third morning he summoned to him H. G. Dalton of Cleveland-choosing a man unconnected _ with ocean shipping interests. He introduced Mr. Dalton to Admiral Palmer and the Shipping Board, and instructed him to make a survey and a report.

H. G. Dalton was once a "poor underpaid boy on Cleveland's ore docks." Now he is manager of Pickands, Mather & Co., a large ore and shipping concern, and President of the Interstate Steamship Co., operators of the second largest fleet on the Great Lakes. He is an engineer familiar with shipping problems and also a competent business man. Cleveland calls him "the silent iron-king."

The fourth day saw still another event. The Shipping Board adopted a resolution withdrawing from Admiral Palmer nearly all the important powers which he had exercised as head of the Emergency Fleet Corporation--virtually inviting him to resign.

On the fifth day Frederick I. Thompson, who has been a member of the Board for five years, presented his resignation effective Nov. 1. Said he:

"It now appears certain that effort will be made to change the present shipping law, abolish the regional representation provided therein and make it an executive branch instead of, as now, an independent administrative office of Government, similar to the Interstate Commerce Commission. I wish to retire to be free to join with others in opposing such change without having it construed that such opposition was prompted by self-interest in wishing to retain the office."

Mr. Dalton has any number of fouled anchors to put in order.