(c) If the student is not a resident of the State in which your academy is located, what are the differences insofar as cost to (1) the student? None. (2) the State? $600 to $700 less per student. (3) the Federal Government? $600 to $700 more per student, total not to exceed $22,500 per year. Are these differences justified and should they be continued? Yes. (d) If preference of any kind other than cost (such as enrollment preference) is given residents of the State in which the academy is located, please enumerate and discuss the wisdom on continuing. Does not apply. 23. Please give a breakdown of present occupations of recent graduates (say five-hundred-odd) as follows: (a) At sea in merchant marine. (b) On active duty in the Navy. (c) In shore positions in maritime industry. (d) Other employment. (e) Deceased. (f) Unknown. (a) 168 (40 percent). (b) 182 (43.3 percent). (117 have prior service as officers in merchant marine). (c) 9 (2.1 percent). (d) 61 (14.5 percent). Number in (c) and (d) having officer experience at sea prior to other employment, 61. (e) None. (f) None. Total having officer experience at sea, 411. Percentage having officer experience at sea, 98 percent. This survey covers seven classes which entered after World War II (graduating 1949 to 1955, inclusive), and are the classes which were awarded a degree of bachelor of marine science. The number of graduates in each class is: Graduates Class of 1949 47 Class of 1954. Graduate 61 Class of 1950_. Class of 1951 Class of 1952. Class of 1953. 24. Do you believe upgrading schools such as Sheepshead Bay, N. Y., and Alameda, Calif., should be reactivated? Please give in detail the reasons for your answer. If you believe they should be reactivated, please discuss the scre they should be and justify the expense which the Federal Government would thus incur. (a) Yes. It stands to reason that with our modern ships unlicensed men need some training in theory as well as practice. As an ultimate goal every man oc every ship in our merchant marine should have this training. To start with the schools should have about 1,000 at Sheepshead and 400 at Alameda, givug 3- to 6-month courses. Boys attending should pay at least half the cost but be guaranteed a job on a subsidized ship upon graduation for at least a year. Coe to the Government should not exceed a million or a million and a half, or the schools could be operated by Government and steamship companies jointly. This program would tend to shape a young man into a proper way of thinking regarding himself, his ship, and the future. (b) Government upgrading schools for officers should not be necessary. The raduates of maritime academies have sufficient knowledge coupled with expeience to follow their chosen profession successfully. If an officer feels the need of brushing up on some points, present private institutions of learning re available. Schools such as Sheepshead Bay and Alemeda for the training of unlicensed personnel are desirable. They take inexperienced persons and shape them for the leck, engine, or steward's departments. However, one should not overlook the economy of using presently established naval training stations like Newport and San Diego for this training instead of opening separate schools. Unlicensed training is a very definite need in this day and age of new ships and modern equipment. The Government spends large sums of money to build ships and then questions the expenditure of funds to aid in the supply of expeienced personnel to operate and protect the ships. Today a young man starting a seafaring life gets a job as best he can and gains experience the same way, on the ship. This does not tend to give the proper type of training and many times a distorted or selfish view wholly detrimental to the apprentice and the ship. (c) A past executive officer of Sheepshead Bay now an assistant head of department here goes into further detail: "These schools were not upgrade schools in the sense that private schools are. The private schools give only cram courses to licensed applicants. The trainng stations were primarily advanced, refresher, and specialist schools. Upgrading was secondary. "In the merchant marine, as in other industries, new techniques and equipnent are useless in the hands of untrained men. "Men should not be permitted to advance from ordinary seaman to boatswain and from wiper to oiler on hit-or-miss information, right or wrong, picked up long the way with their only education being a 4-week cram course before ach license exam. "The only training now available to merchant marine personnel is officer pgrade courses where the answers to the Coast Guard examinations are taught with little explanation or understanding. Most men in the industry will agree that the cram schools are a poor way to prepare a man for a license. "No training exists to prepare entry ratings for their work or to assist unicensed personnel to advance. It is dangerous to ship and passengers to employ ersonnel who advance with no proper training. Where else are they to learn heir boat-handling, fire-fighting techniques, safe working practices, responsiilities of the next higher position? "Several marine disasters brought about the training provisions of the Merhant Marine Act of 1936. Must there be new disasters to bring about compliance with the provisions and intention of the act? "Armed Forces reserves are maintained at great expense. A training program (personnel and facilities) to provide manpower for the ships of the merhant marine must also be maintained, otherwise military commanders say their orces would be impotent overseas. "On-the-job training is entirely inadequate and impractical. "Sheepshead Bay and Alameda should be reactivated and should be provided raining for: "1. All entry ratings, all increases in responsibility, and all lifeboat certifications. "2. All shipboard personnel should receive fire-fighting training. "3. All specialties such as refrigeration, electricity, machine shop, butchering, baking; and for technical subjects such as stability, thermodynamics, and electronics, and for new equipment such as gas turbines and atomic power. "The previous cost of providing this training should be greatly reduced. It s not necessary to provide free berthing and meals to trainees in a peacetime program. Expenses should be borne by the student, perhaps subsidized by his emloyer, which would be the steamship operator. "Trained personnel will bring about more efficient and economical operation resulting in reduced operating differential subsidies. Greater safety is created hrough trained personnel; expenditures to save lives and property are in accordance with established Government policy. Very stringent regulations exist regarding shipboard equipment but personnel requirements are much more lax. "Maintenance of a training staff and facilities to be expanded in the event of emergency is comparable to maintenance of our Armed Forces and reserve fleets in peacetime. "Training of personnel at all levels in the Armed Forces entails hugh expenditures and is taken as a matter of course. Training of the operating personnel of merchant ships, vital to our peacetime economy and wartime security, is comparable." The cost of this program might run to 2 or 3 million less money taken in from trainees for food and lodging. 25. Do you believe the Maritime Service Institute (which provided correspondence courses to officers and crews at sea) should be reactivated as a Federal activity? Please give in detail the reasons for your answer. If you believe it should be reactivated, please discuss the size it should be and justify the expense which the Federal Government would thus incur. Yes; but the student should pay the cost, not the Government. Arrangements might be made with ICS or similar schools to do most of this work at a smaller cost to the student, as they would be sold in wholesale lots. It is essential that men of the merchant marine keep up with the latest trends and advancements in the field. The courses previously provided were excellent They gave men aboard ship a good chance to improve themselves at a reasonable cost. The Navy Department feels it is essential that naval officers and enlisted men take correspondence courses. It would seem equally important that met in the merchant marine follow same procedure in the best interest of our nations. defense. The size of the program should be sufficient to meet the demands of the seagoing profession for courses which apply to the maritime field. Academic subjects should be made easily available at retail cost. 26. To what extent could the needs of the shipping industry be met by upgrad ing? Please explain. We do not believe these schools should be run by the Federal Government but we do think that the Government should have some rules and regulations regarding how they should be run and make them take out a State or Federa. license. Some of the schools now running are almost rackets, taking good moter from officers and give little or no aid to those seeking help in upgrading. The Coast Guard should have much to say on this point, as they have to give the examinations for upgrading and know much about the schools now in existence, their good and bad points. An experienced chief engineer states: "To my mind, upgrading, say from boatswain to third mate or oiler to assistant engineer can never be used to replace academy training. "(a) It isn't possible to adequately cover the multitude of technical s jects required today in the short upgrading courses. "(b) Some of the men taking upgrading courses would not be capable of keeping up and so would retard the whole group. "(c) It wouldn't be possible to be selective enough in determining those to take the courses. An academy can be selective in admittance requirements whereas an upgrading course has to be pretty much a matter of taking anyone desiring it. “(d) Upgrading can only take care of those men already in the business It can't bring in good men from outside. For example, the only new third assistants would be ex-oilers. Many oilers would not be capable of such trala ing. There would be many excellent men kept out of the industry simply be cause they couldn't get the original wiper's jobs or because they didn't want to start there and work their way up to engineer. "All other industries make it possible for trained men to leave college and start in somewhere besides the very bottom. If our business restricts it? to upgrading we will be excluding men from entering anywhere except very bottom, and so keeping a lot of good men out." A master mariner states the matter thus: "Since many unions discourage their members from acquiring licenses må many unlicensed men can see no advantage to the greatly increased responsit with small increase in remuneration, the number of men acquiring their li through upgrading is relatively small and would not supply many for the industry. "If upgrading is to mean cram courses to circumvent the intent of the Coast Guard examination, there should be none of it." In summary: Upgrading could not qualify enough men to fill the need of the merchant marine in officer ranks. However, a properly operated upgrading school could maintain qualified men in unlicensed ratings. See also answers to question 24. 27. What recommendations if any for changes in your school, the other State schools, and Kings Point would you make in order to best protect and promote the interests of the Federal Government? (a) First we need a lot more assurance as to what the Federal Government is going to do for us or to us. We have to recruit young men to come to the school, and have to issue a catalog explaining everything about the school, including the expenses to the students and parents for the 3 years he is going to be in the school. This has to be done during the 1 or 2 years before the student arrives. For the last several years we have never been able to tell the prospective student with any assurance what the Federal participation will be. All we have been able to say was that last year and this year so far the Government subsidies have been so much. What they will be next year or the 2 years following, we can hardly hazard a guess. We battle each year for appropriations, but we can promise nothing until Congress passes its appropriation bill some time in June next year, and then our promise can be only for that year, with no assurance of the next 2 years. This makes recruiting difficult, to say the least, and this year cut into our enrollment greatly when the President's budget cut the State schools out entirely. First, we need a fixed Government policy for at least 4 years ahead so we can, with assurance, tell a young man what it will cost him if he enrolls at our school. Second, I believe that all schools should have assurance that their graduates can (if they have the personality and owners want them) have jobs when they graduate. The present union contracts, insisting that all union officers go on rotary hiring, were set up to kill the academies. If the Government wants a fair return on its investment in these schools, they must insist that the graduates be allowed to obtain employment upon graduation. As I understand it, less than 50 percent of the graduates this year were able to obtain employment on merchant ships. This did not apply to Maine, but I understand it was the national average. This means that the cost to the Government per new officer in the merchant marine was automatically doubled at both the State schools and Kings Point. A tragic situation. Third, I think all students at Kings Point should take supervised cruises instead of the present system of sending cadets to sea for their second year (that is, if it is decided to continue that school). Fourth, a reserve should be appropriated to build up funds for replacement of schoolships every 10 or 12 years so that the cadets would not have to be trained on obsolete ships as they have been many times in the past. Provision in the law should make it possible to use money received from scrapping a training ship to be automatically used to reactivate a new training ship eliminating (perhaps) the need of a large, special appropriation for same. (b) Graduates of merchant marine acadamies who have completed the 3 or 4 years' course and receive their commission as ensign in the United States Naval Reserve, should not be subject to call under the selective-service law for at least 5 years following graduation. Maritime academy graduates are equipped to enter the service within days after being called and to take positions of responsibility. During this 5-year period they could serve 2 years of active duty in the Navy if needed. This would give graduates an opportunity to seek employment in the maritime industry or to further study during the other 3 years. The argument is that collegemen under ROTC must go on active duty immediately or within a year after graduation, but those men are not trained to go on active duty at once because they need more training. A maritime academy graduate is trained and equipped to go on active duty without further training. Also, graduates of maritime academies who have completed the 3- or 4-year course and do not receive their commission should be allowed to serve 3 full years in the merchant marine, and after submitting proof that they have served 36 months as a licensed officer, should then not be obligated under the selectiveservice law. The purpose of the selective-service law is to train young men to defend their country in time of emergency. Certainly a man who has spent 3 or 4 years in a maritime academy and has been qualified to receive a commission as an officer in the Navy, or who has served 3 years as an officer aboard a merchant ship is as fully qualified to defend his country in time of emergency as a man who has received 2 years of basic military training as a private in the Army. Further, the Federal Government should investigate the present hiring methods in the union for licensed officers and prevent the restrictive, stifling, and notAmerican procedures of the hiring-hall system now in vogue. 28. What do other nations do in the way of comparable maritime officer training at Government expense? We wish we had the time and opportunity to study the systems of other countries. Most of our information is hearsay. A study was made of various systems by the Maritime Commission in 1937 or 1938. The conclusions in that report were, in our opinion, biased because the one who made it had been kicked out of a State maritime academy and wanted to find another system On our cruises we have visited many maritime academies in the Caribbean countries. These countries, of course, are far behind the United States maritime industry as shipowners, but they all realize the importance of maritime training, and are willing to appropriate money for it. Argentina, Brazil, Mexico, Venezuela, and Colombia all have active and excellent maritime academies. Cuba combines hers with her naval academy, but is, of course, a very small country. Of the European countries, Norway, Sweden, Denmark, Germany, and Russa have government-financed academies, with training ships. England has a number of government-aided schools, very similar to our State academies, partially financed by the Central Government, and partially by cities, such as Bristol, Liverpool, etc. This system seems to work well in the greatest maritime nation in the world. Japan had an apprentice system combined with school work much like our Kings Point, but Japan has no setup as local State governments charged with the education of its citizens. The Netherland schools are run by different towns or counties, not by its Central Government. Norway has a combination of government, city, and private steampship company control. Much of this may have changed since the war. Before this question could be accurately answered, one would have to carry on an extensive correspondence or travel widely. One thing to remember is that there is no other nation like ours. We have many unique features with resulting different problems. We can study other nations but no system that fits another nation will exactly fit us. For one reason, no other country is in such a rush to get things done. We would have no officers if we demanded they take as mu time to become officers as they do in England, Sweden, or Greece, to name on three nations. 29. Would it be feasible and desirable if the United States shipping industry gate a certain number of scholarships to Kings Point and the State academes in order to reduce the present burden borne by the State and Federa Governments? Please explain. Yes, the United States shipping industry should offer a certain number of scholarships. The shipping industry will benefit from the training the men receive at the academies, therefore they should offer scholarships. It is a comm practice now that industry contribute substantial sums to help finance collete in the country, and this would be on the same basis. A company offering a schlorship should be allowed to employ the particular man it assists, without any union-hiring restrictions. The Federal Maritime Board should set up regulations which allow end. sidized companies to give scholarships to deserving boys to attend mari'i.e academies. The regulations should allow the subsidized companies to e these young men apprentice employees so that when they graduate the corjent would be able to put them on their ships without going through a hiring h The company should be allowed, under the regulation, to charge the expense ✅ these scholarships as an operation expense, as they now charge the east of carrying Kings Point cadets for 1 year. This arrangement would make it a tax-deductible item insofar as the subsidized lines are concerned, and con de added as one of the expenses prior to the subsidized lines' requirement that thet pay back to the Government all money earned over 6 percent. These scholars? > could take the place of the $430 now paid by direct appropriation to cover the expenses of uniforms, books, and subsistence. Each subsidized line should be |