Barnacle Bill

Nothing slows up a ship like barnacles on the bottom. Last week the U.S. Maritime Commission agreed that nothing slows up a ship line like barnacles on the top. Giving final approval to a deal whereby the Commission took over the devalued Dollar Steamship Lines, Inc., Ltd. (TIME, Aug. 29), Chairman Emory S. Land, with the bluntness of an old sea dog, put the blame for the Dollar Lines' unhappy state squarely at the door of its former owners. He snapped: "They adopted every conceivable device to drain the earnings and the working capital from the company as rapidly as possible.''

The Dollar Lines, continued Admiral Land, had not been suffering from a lack of business. From 1930 through 1937 it had gross revenues of more than $13.000,000 a year. But in the years from 1923 through June 1934, R. Stanley Dollar withdrew $2,526,501.22 as salary, J. Harold Dollar $1,081,693.62, H. L.Lorber $737,926.21 and Banker Herbert Fleishhacker $377,756.85. When R. Stanley Dollar bought five ships from the Government he took $281,225 as 5% commission.

Last week. Admiral Land was pleased to remove these barnacles from Dollar Lines' hulk and to announce that RFC would provide $2,500,000 for new working capital, that the Commission would provide $2.000,000 to repair twelve of the line's ships, $3,000,000 more by way of annual subsidy to meet foreign competition. New Dollar Lines president is Joseph R. Sheehan, who resigns as the Commission's executive director. Xew Dollar Lines chairman (at a maximum salary of $25,000) is Senator William Gibbs McAdoo--who introduced the first shipping bill in Congress in 1914. Ever since that old Democratic wheelhorse lost the Senatorial renomination in California in August, it has been supposed that the New Deal would find him a secure berth.

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