When the Government seized the 109 German-owned ships lying in American ports, the German engineers believed that their vessels had been damaged beyond repair for a year at least. Within six months the ships were in running order and have since carried numbers of American troops and huge quantities of supplies to the fighting lines in France. The damage was repaired by navy artificers and engineers under the jurisdiction of naval officers.
BUILDING NEW SHIPS
The vital question of shipping was assigned early in the year to the United States Shipping Board, now headed by E. N. Hurley, while the Emergency Fleet Corporation, since made subordinate to the board, was intrusted with the execution of the building program. Congress appropriated $1,135,000,000 for this purpose, and on March 1, 1918, $353,247,000 of this sum had been spent. Friction and consequent delay, however, at the outset caused vital changes in the composition of the Shipping Board. General Goethals, manager of the Emergency Fleet Corporation, resigned after a controversy with Mr. Denman, the first Chairman of the Shipping Board, over the comparative merits of wooden and steel ships. There have been other causes—labor troubles, lack of material, and of building facilities, of which America had few.
Meantime the seized German ships, with an aggregate of more than 700,000 tons dead weight to manage, have been put in service, vessels under construction in private shipyards have been commandeered and completed, and at least three new ships planned and constructed by the Shipping Board have been finished and are now at sea. The seizure of 150,000 tons of Dutch shipping in American ports has further added to the Government's immediate resources, while an agreement with Japan has made another 200,000 tons of shipping available.
America's shipping industry had run down, until in the year before war was declared the total output of shipyards in the United States was only 250,000 tons. The Shipping Board drew up a program to construct 8,164,508 tons of steel ships, 1,145 ships in all, and 490 wooden ships, with a total tonnage of 1,715,000. Only a small part of this enormous total could be constructed in the first year of the war with the shipyard facilities available, and it has been necessary to build new shipyards on an enormous scale. Volunteer shipworkers have been enlisted from all quarters, and in April, 1918, work was proceeding at 150 shipyards in various parts of the country.
The following figures show the actual number of ships put into the water since the Shipping Board took control of the situation:
| Steel ships requisitioned on ways, completed | |
| by Emergency Fleet Corporation | |
| and now in service | 85 |
| Steel ships requisitioned on ways, turned | |
| back to former owners and now | |
| completed and in service | 15 |
| Steel ships requisitioned on ways, hulls | |
| of which have been launched | 65 |
| Steel ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation which have | |
| been completed and put into service | 3 |
| Steel ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation, hulls of | |
| which have been launched | 9 |
| Wooden ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation, hulls of | |
| which have been launched | 11 |
| —— | |
| Total | 188 |
| Steel ships requisitioned which are now | |
| actually in service | 100 |
| Steel ships contracted for by Emergency | |
| Fleet Corporation now actually | |
| in service | 3 |
| —— | |
| Total | 103 |
By April, 1918, the Government has been able to put 2,762,605 tons of shipping into the transatlantic service to carry men and munitions to France.
FINANCING THE WAR
The United States has been a great financial factor since entering the war. The Government lent to the Allies on the security of their bonds $4,436,329,750. For America's own expenses Congress has already authorized $2,034,000,000, of which one item alone, merchant shipping, accounted for more than $1,000,000,000. The total expenses in the first year were more than $9,800,000,000, but about $800,000,000 of this went for normal activities not connected with the war, so that its total cost has been about $9,000,000,000, of which more than $4,000,000,000 has been in loans to the Allies. Expenditures for aircraft alone have amounted to more than $600,000,000. Naval appropriations, made and pending, are more than $3,000,000,000; the War Department has taken $7,464,771,756. The army's annual payroll now exceeds $500,000,000 and the navy's $125,000,000, and these items are trifling compared with the cost of ships, ordnance, munitions, airplanes, motor trucks, and supplies of every kind, to say nothing of food. Allotments and allowances to soldiers' and sailors' dependents paid by the Government in the month of February alone amounted to $19,976,543.