; 
 
 LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. JOHN ROACH 
 
 TO THE 
 
 3? o s t m a ster - Gener a 1 , 
 
 SUGGESTING THE EXPERIMENT OF 
 
 ADVERTISING W PROPOSALS of the LOWEST RATES 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 TRANSPORTATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAILS 
 
 At which the Merchants and Capitalists 
 
 \. • %.\ , % ' . of ■ ■ 
 
 BOSTON, NEW YORK, PHILADELPHIA, BALTIMORE, 
 ANT) NEW ORLEANS 
 
 WILL ESTABLISH AND MAIITTAI NT 
 
 AMERICAN STEAMSHIP LINES 
 
 FROM THOSE CITIES TO 
 
 ETJEOPBAIT POETS. 
 
 GIBSON BROTHERS, PRINTERS. 
 1876. 
 
LETTER 
 
 OF 
 
 MR. JOHN ROACH 
 
 TO THE 
 
 Postmaster-General, 
 
 SUGGESTING THE EXPERIMENT OF 
 
 ADVERTISING for PROPOSALS op the LOWEST RATES 
 
 FOR THE 
 
 TRANSPORTATION OF THE UNITED STATES MAILS 
 
 At which the Merchants and Capitalists 
 
 OF 
 
 BOSTON, NE \Y YORK, PHILADELPHIA, BALTIMORE, 
 AND NEW ORLEANS 
 
 WILL ESTABLISH -A-USTID MAHTTAIN 
 
 AMERICAN STEAMSHIP LINES 
 
 FROM THOSE CITIES TO 
 
 ZETTZE^OPZE^nNT PORTS. 
 
 GIBSON BROTHERS, PRINTERS 
 187G. 
 
Digitized by the Internet Archive 
 in 2013 
 
 http://archive.org/details/letterofmrjohnroOOroac 
 
To the Honorable Marshall Jewell, 
 
 Postmaster- General of the United States: 
 
 Sir: Id common with all who desire the restoration of 
 our national prosperity, I have watched with deep interest 
 the various efforts which you have made and are making 
 to increase the efficiency of our postal service. 
 
 The entire community comprehend, more or less per- The relations 
 
 . . .of fast mail serv- 
 
 tectly, according to the decree 01 attention they have given ice to more rapid 
 
 J ' & to _ J 63 commercial in- 
 
 the subject, the benefits to be derived from greater speed tercommunica- 
 of postal transfers between different sections, and the con-, 
 sequent increased rapidity and certainty of our commercial 
 exchanges. It is through precisely this process that, from 
 year to year, the commerce, as well as the productive in- 
 dustries, of the present, have been relieved of the heaviest 
 burdens of cost, waste and uncertainty which were borne 
 by, and which for so many ages dwarfed, the commerce of 
 the past; 
 
 That you have mastered the problem of the intimate and 
 inseparable connection between rapid postal communica- 
 tion and extended freight transfers, I cannot doubt ; and 
 your interviews with railway managers and other practical 
 men, in elaborating your plans for the fast mail service, must 
 have also afforded you abundant data as to the difference 
 of cost between railway transfers at a low and at relatively 
 higher rates of speed. 
 
 The knowledge, foresight and enterprise which you have 
 exhibited, encourage me to address you at this time on 
 another, and, to my mind, the broader and more important 
 branch of the same great subject. 
 
 However vast and complete our system of internal The same rule 
 
 . . - ' ' . applies to ocean 
 
 communication and transportation may be made, its high- mails and to 
 est benefits cannot be reaped by our people unless it shall 
 be placed in the fullest and most perfect connection and 
 reciprocity with the world-wide and hourly-growing system 
 which unites the nations to-day in one commercial family. 
 
 For my own part, [ long to see the principle which under- 
 lies the success of our fast mail and freight service by 
 
 ocean commerce. 
 
4 
 
 land applied with equal or superior vigor to our ocean- 
 crossing postal and transportation service; and I do not 
 come'to America at all hesitate in making the broad assertion that this can 
 
 from American , n l i i 
 
 and not foreign be well and adequately done, by the enterprise and enersrv 
 
 steamships. > J r &J 
 
 ot our own, the American, people. 
 
 To no nation on the earth has any such boon ever come 
 from the hands of foreigners, and even when it has seemed 
 to be so conferred in some measure, the partial and decep- 
 tive gift has been the price of a tribute whose burden 
 would not be endured for a moment if its existence were 
 clearly known and understood. 
 
 While the relation of rapid communication to commer- 
 cially successful transportation between points which are 
 separated by oceanic transits is to the fullest extent as 
 close as in corresponding railway systems on land, the 
 ratio of cost to speed is much greater in the former case 
 than in the latter, for many reasons ; and this fact, con- 
 joined with the greater supposed risk to capital invested, 
 has had much to do with the tardiness displayed by our 
 merchants at the present time in grappling with the inevit- 
 able task before them. 
 „, . That the people as a whole are abundantly willing to pay 
 
 I he American L 1 •/ O XT «/ 
 
 people are will- tae increased cost of the fast mails by land ; that, in fact, 
 
 ing to pay lor es- J * ' ' 
 
 icai ,sh LtfamTh?p tne y could not and would not consent to dispense with 
 LTtk "bus he°d them, has been fully demonstrated, and I am satisfied that 
 oTthemsdfves. are they would render as prompt and intelligent an assent to 
 a similarly profitable investment in an ocean postal service, 
 provided they were well assured that it was the increased 
 speed and service, and these only, for which they were 
 taxed. 
 
 If, at the same time, the expenditures required for such 
 a service were to be so judiciously employed, as has been 
 done by the statesmen of England, France, and other 
 countries, that the employment furnished should stimulate 
 private enterprise to the creation anew of our ruined mer- 
 chant marine, I think it would be easy to show that the 
 outlay, though for a specific and sufficient object, would 
 sink into insignificance in comparison with this collateral 
 advantage. 
 
 If I venture to urge this feature of the question some- 
 what persistently, it is because I am sure that an examina- 
 
tion of the subject will convince any intelligent man that 
 there was never a better time than the present for the swift t i n J e f is e fa?oJabie 
 recovery of all, and more than all we have lost, of our for- American ships 8 
 mer position among ship-building and ship-owning nations. 
 
 We need but glance at our unfortunate situation at the The war de- 
 close of the war. Our old merchant fleets, of which w T e ships. v d ur°ng 
 
 i • i l i tne war > w0 °d 
 
 were so proud, were all gone. A revolution had taken gave place to 
 
 - . t iron, side-wheels 
 
 place in the very science and art of building ships. Wood 10 propellers; 
 
 L " , ship-yards and 
 
 had given place to iron : the side-wheel to the propeller : skilled labor dis- 
 
 O I 11 7 appeared ; for- 
 
 the ordinary engines to the compound; and from all the fi gn n * tions buil , t 
 
 J o r ' the snips and 
 
 experience, the uses, and the results of this revolution, the ryin^tfade. rcar 
 long years of our civil strife had shut us out. We had no 
 ship-yards, no skilled labor, accustomed to the creation of 
 the new order of sea-going vessels. 
 
 The cost of everything which entered into the construc- 
 tion of ships had also become so high with us, as compared 
 with other nations, that we were thereby shut out from suc- 
 cessful competition, either in building or in maintaining 
 and running them. The revolution in the carrying business 
 on the ocean had been as great as that upon the land when 
 the railroad took the place of the coach and the wagon ; and 
 in both cases independent individual enterprises had to be 
 superseded by great corporate or partnership undertakings, 
 with large concentrated capital ; in many cases also directed 
 and assisted by the Government. To these great changes 
 in ocean navigation w T e had not adapted ourselves. 
 
 As a consequence,. European enterprise, availing itself 
 of our calamity, seemed to have seized the whole field 
 offered by the disappearance of the American flag from the 
 sea, and occupied it so fully that there seemed no crevice 
 left for the wedge of American enterprise to enter. 
 
 Ten years have now gone by, since then, and in many re- But ten 
 
 ° ... years since the 
 
 spects there has come a most significant and promising ^j chan g ehas 
 change. 
 
 We now have the ship-yards, the foundries, the mechani- We now have 
 
 1 i • • t . . i . i i • • i the vards > cheap 
 
 cal appliances, in ample provision and with unlimited ca- material and ia- 
 
 . ... . k° r > and can 
 
 pacitv tor rapid multiplication and increase. We have the a § ain cover the 
 
 1 L ocean with our 
 
 skilled labor, temporarily and compulsorily idle, but seek- jj^sjj^** can 
 ing and anxious for employment ; we have the raw mate- 
 rial, of a quality superior to that controlled by any other 
 people, and which we can now produce and utilize as cheap- 
 ly, to >av the least, as can be done elsewhere on the earth. 
 
6 
 
 We have, therefore, in the progress of our maritime 
 history, reached a point where we are once more able, as 
 in times gone by, to place upon the water such ships as 
 the commerce of the present calls for, equal in all respects, 
 not only in quality and character, but, as well, in their cost 
 and the time required to build them, to those which any 
 other people are able to float beside them. 
 
 This mighty stride has been made by the energy and 
 enterprise of our people, under very adverse circum- 
 stances. Every step of the way lias been watched with 
 the most intense and bitter jealousy by foreign ship- 
 builders and their correspondents, agents, and sympa- 
 thizers in this country, while at the same time the one 
 enterprise which was open for the development of our 
 shipping interest has been largely under the pernicious 
 and paralyzing control of stock-gamblers and speculators. 
 
 The question will probably suggest itself here, " Why, 
 " then, if this be true, and the American ship-building 
 " interest has indeed reached such a pitch of development, 
 " does it not at once step forward and rescue from foreign 
 " flag's our ocean steam marine ?" 
 But ship-buiid- The question may seem pertinent, but it is not. The 
 
 crs are not ship- a. J 1 ? 
 
 cSSo^iaS^P"^ 11 ^^ 11 ^ power and the ship-owning and employing 
 wL-dsbwiy! for " power are by no means identical. They have, indeed, never 
 been as intimately connected in this country as in some 
 others; as they are to-day in Great Britain, for example. 
 
 What I have described as our present position has been 
 achieved by individual effort, sufficient for the work at- 
 tempted, but inadequate to an achievement which may well 
 appeal to the strength of the united mercantile community. 
 That which has been already done has not called for the 
 employment of such an aggregation of capital, of wisdom, 
 and of energy, as will be indispensable in any attempt at 
 wrestling with the accumulated financial and commercial 
 strength which has been absorbed by and sustains the 
 present foreign control of our ocean carrying trade. 
 
 It is precisely for the purpose of suggesting a method 
 for creating such an aggregation, of calling together for 
 united effort the now inert but abundant elements of such 
 a power, that I have taken the liberty of thus addressing yon. 
 
 Capita] is proverbially timid, and capitalists are slow to 
 
7 
 
 venture in new and untried ways. History teaches us that 
 the very nations who now monopolize this field, when 
 they arrived at the point of development al which we now 
 find ourselves, were compelled to deal with the same inert- 
 ness and apparent indifference of their own merchants. 
 
 The carrying of ocean mails was made in every case the 
 lever by winch the encouragement and help of the nation 
 as a whole was applied m aid of the particular interest to 
 whose management the well-being of the Commonwealth 
 
 It must be in- 
 iced to come 
 rward by the 
 
 in this regard must of necessity he committed. I send you S^cSv^nmen 3 ! 
 
 nment 
 a r r y i n g 
 
 herewith an English publication, recording the views and oce r an mail 
 action of the ablest statesmen of Great Britain, which 
 presents the most convincing proofs that the present com- 
 manding position of the British steam marine on the North 
 Atlantic and Pacific oceans has been the direct result of 
 wisely employing the postal service as a stimulant to pri- 
 vate and corporate enterprise in its beginning. The adop- 
 tion of a similar policy on the part of our own statesmen 
 and leaders is all that any American should ask, and it is 
 all that would be required for the accomplishment of the 
 end in view. 
 
 Indifference to the welfare of our commerce is by no 
 means in accordance with our traditional policy as a peo- 
 ple, nor do I believe that any such indifference really ex- 
 ists. As bearing upon this point I may cite the persistent Buying foreign 
 
 ships will not an- 
 swer ; it is not i 
 question of con 
 struction, but c 
 profitable run 
 
 •the mistaken impression that the failure of our merchants af n fe / cons S tmc- 
 to provide themselves with ships was due to the greater tlon- 
 cost of construction here than abroad. The inaction of our 
 merchants now, when ships can be cheaply built in Amer- 
 ica, exposes this fallacy, if it needed any exposure, and it 
 cannot be doubted that the operation of the laws against 
 foreign ships in our coasting trade or under our flag 
 has been eminently beneficial to the nation. Had this 
 protection and encouragement to home-built ships been re- 
 moved by repeal, four years ago, we should not be in the 
 advantageous position we occupy to-day. 
 
 Nor should we lose sight in this connection of the fact American cap - 
 
 . . . ill* n i • • r> • ' ta ^ wou ld not 
 
 that the premium on gold, during all this time, has ot it- buy foreign 
 
 . ships. 
 
 self been such a disadvantage that the several measure.-; 
 
 and intelligent refusal of Congress to repeal our navigation swer ; 11 is r nota 
 
 ° o i o question of con- 
 
 laws, as desired by some well-meaning citizens under struction > but of 
 
8 
 
 hinted at would not have added one single sliip, under the 
 American flag, to any American port. There was no time 
 between 1S61 and 1873 when the freest of "free-ship" 
 laws would have been of any practical use to us, since the 
 premium on gold during those years would have forced 
 our merchants to pay, in buying foreign-built ships, an 
 average price of 40 per cent, more for every keel than 
 would have been paid by the very Englishmen and other 
 European shipmasters with whom they would have been 
 compelled to compete in trade. Moreover, the entire spare 
 capital of the nation was invested in its own bonds, whose 
 holders, whether merchants or others, had entire faith in 
 the ultimate attainment of a par gold value for these ex- 
 pressions of the national good faith. It was no temptation 
 to any man, who held bonds or money to buy them with, 
 to turn money or bonds into foreign-built ships at a loss 
 of 40 per cent, as compared with his European rival, and 
 to run them at so great a forced disadvantage, when he 
 believed that time would surely put that very 40 per cent., 
 more or less, in his own pocket, without risk and without 
 further exertion on his part. In all the markets of the 
 world, therefore, our merchants would have been at the 
 mercy of their competitors, no matter what amount of 
 "drawback" or so-called "freedom," might have been ac- 
 corded them by statute law. 
 
 That indifference to commercial interests can only be 
 regarded as a fruit of narrowness and ignorance, would 
 Besides, the seem to require no argument; but in these days, when the 
 
 ship is all labor, .... . , . , 
 
 which should be" labor-question is coming into such special prominence, 
 
 employed at # ? & , • c 
 
 home - it may be well to bear in mind that a ship, or the figures 
 
 which express its value, is pre-eminently an aggregation of 
 go F to r m y ake de a nnman to ^- There are no less than forty distinct branches 
 ship - of mechanical art, involving both skill and capital, engaged 
 
 in the several processes whose products enter into the con- 
 struction of a steamship. The work of building her began 
 with the hewing the timber in the forest and digging the 
 ore in the mine, and when completed, the raw material 
 is ^aw materia?- represents but five per cent, of her cost, and the other nine- 
 ?jorf er c ' 1S a ty-five per cent, is the price of the labor employed in bring- 
 ing it together in floating form. Tie' variety and volume 
 of employment which would be supplied to classes of men 
 

 
 who to-day stand much in need of it, by creating an active 
 demand for ships, can hardly be over-estimated. 
 
 Nor should it be lost sight of that the yearly cost of . Her gross earn- 
 
 ~ •/ «/ ings are 40 per 
 
 maintaining, providing, repairing, and running a ship in 
 
 active service is so great, that her gross earnings must kept at home - 
 
 equal forty per cent, per annum on her cost, the larger 
 
 part of which outlay must inevitably go to the country 
 
 under whose nag she sails and by whose merchants she is 
 
 owned. 
 
 The number of foreign steamships now running to the *s° foreign 
 
 ~ * ~ steamships, 
 
 port of New York alone is about 150, worth at the least ^> rth no l 9 nm°to 
 calculation $90,000,000. All of these represent foreign York alone, 
 labor and capital, but the trade which supports them is 
 largely American, and their gross receipts are a tax and 
 charge upon American productive industry, by far the 
 greater proportion finding their way, in gold or its equiva- 
 lent, into other pockets than our own. 
 
 These steamers received, in gold, for freight and pas- Their freights 
 
 ° ° 1 and passengers 
 
 sengers carried in one year, 1872, more than seventy-five' 11 l8 ? 2 wer ,f 
 
 c5 " ' •' 575,000,000, all 
 
 millions of dollars — far more than the sum of which we paid "Z^"^"" 
 
 gts — more tnun 
 
 hear so much as being annually sent out of the country to S^S^SSSi" 
 pay the coin interest on that part of our national debt which 
 is held abroad. 
 
 How shall we presume to say we are disposed to make 
 an effort for the resumption of specie payments while we 
 do not raise a hand towards closing up this great drain of 
 our gold to Europe ? 
 
 There are other leaks, there are other reforms of un- 
 deniable importance, but none that calls more loudly for 
 practical consideration than this. 
 
 I am well aware w T hat great questions have pressed upon 
 the minds of our public men during the ten years since the 
 war, and how thoroughly the public mind has likewise been 
 absorbed and diverted. No political party can be blamed, some party, 
 
 , . some statesmen 
 
 nor does any pist censure attach to any of our statesmen, —the statesmen 
 
 , . of all parties — 
 
 m or out ot power, for the existing state of affairs ; but the will grapple with 
 
 ° this question. 
 
 ten years are gone, and with them the last shadow of an 
 excuse for a further continuance of what may be fairly re- 
 garded as a shameful national neglect, which I trust may 
 no longer continue. Some party, or at least some active 
 political agency, (I earnestly hope it may be the able and 
 
10 
 
 patriotic statesmen of all parties,) will shortly take up the 
 subject as being of immediate and pressing importance. 
 Whoever does so cannot fail to inquire and discover the 
 great'fact which I have endeavored to set forth, of the vital 
 connection of the postal service with the creation of a swift 
 and efficient ocean steam marine, and will discern at a 
 glance that the statesmen of Europe were wise in their 
 generation when they made use of the one to induce a con- 
 centration of too timid or too sluggish capital for the de- 
 velopment of the other. Such a statesman, in the present 
 condition of the interests involved, would be at once con- 
 what shall be fronted by a most plentiful lack of trustworthy informa- 
 
 done to furnish 9 . . 
 
 an American line tiou, aswell as by an unmanageable mass ot conflicting 
 
 of steamships to . 
 
 testimony as to the desires, purposes, and capacity of the 
 merchants of different sections ; but I think the sufficient 
 remedy could be provided beforehand, and at the same 
 time the proposed movement could be made to assume 
 broad proportions and reach toward results which would 
 otherwise be impossible of attainment. 
 
 The internal commercial system of the United States 
 finds its seaboard outlets mainly at the following ports: 
 
 Boston. Boston, with the Boston and Albany and minor roads as 
 
 its interior feeders. 
 
 New York. New York, with the Hudson, the Erie canal, the New 
 York Central, Hudson river, Harlem, Erie, and other rail- 
 ways. 
 
 Philadelphia. Philadelphia, with the Pennsylvania Central and its 
 huge net-work of connections, the Reading Railroad, Arc. 
 
 Baltimore. Baltimore, with the Baltimore and Ohio Railroad and its 
 connections, &c. 
 
 New Orleans. New Orleans, with the Mississippi river, and with an 
 auxiliary railway connection which is yearly increasing in 
 extent and efficiency. 
 
 To these five seaports the whole interior is united by the 
 most tremendous system of lake and river, canal, and rail- 
 way transportation on the globe ; and the next ten years, 
 if our facilities are rightly employed, may be made to bring, 
 not only to the inhabitants of these and other seaports, but 
 to the most distant dwellers of the Central and Pacific 
 States, such an era of prosperity as, in their present de- 
 pressed and suffering condition, they little dream of. They 
 
11 
 
 have the means and the capacity for superabundant produc- 
 tion ; what they also need is the means of conveying those 
 products to all the markets of the globe in such a manner 
 that the very money they pay for such conveyance shall in- 
 evitably return and be spent among them. This would 
 assure prosperity as positively as the reverse state of affairs 
 inflicts upon them a burden of tribute which they cannot 
 bear. Up to the present time, indeed, it has seemed as if 
 the energy and skill of our producers, as well as of our First cxplore 
 railway builders, has almost contented itself with stopping ca^tails^wYn 
 both freight and transportation half way to market at the offer to do ' 
 seashore termini of our great inland system ; here we seem 
 to give the matter up and resign to foreign hands the costly 
 privilege of managing our ocean transits. We have other 
 taxes which we must and will pay, but this one w T e cannot 
 too soon repudiate. 
 
 My suggestion is, therefore, that the Postmaster-General Let the p. m. 
 
 ■J »p ' G. advertise, and 
 
 be authorized by resolution of Congress to advertise at see at wh ^ low- 
 
 a est rate for the 
 
 once for proposals, in the usual form, of the lowest rates [^"u^'maiis 
 at which responsible parties will contract for the uiainte-y°J ar ^ r g S e p r ^ ib ^ 
 nance, for a term of years, of a weekly mail service from SnThiine^from 
 each or either of the five ports named to such a port or}ar|e American 
 ports in Europe, as, for instance, Liverpool, England, as to iP be gradually 
 should seem to offer the greatest commercial advantage eS lines are estab- 
 
 • i r- i a • i • , lished - 
 
 with reference to the American port ; such service to be 
 performed in ships of not less than 4000 tons, equal in 
 speed and every other quality to any now afloat. 
 
 The proposals thus obtained should provide that after 
 the expiration of one-half the specified term of years, a 
 graduated scale of decrease should reduce the annual out- 
 lay of the Government, eventually, to the postal revenue 
 actually accruing from the mails transported. 
 
 Such a proposition would summon the leading merchants capitalists and 
 of each of the five ports to counsel among themselves, and would then C oZ 
 
 , £ ' .,(, r • i i . . ii suit and see what 
 
 the iruit of their consultations and investigations could not they could do, 
 
 . ° t and make their 
 
 tail to include such a mass of practical and valuable infor- offers > while the 
 
 1 Government 
 
 mation as was never before gathered, while the now scat- w ? ul( * be COI P" 
 
 o 7 mitted to noth- 
 
 tered, unconsolidated and unapplied forces of our great ing - 
 mercantile communities would be aggregated and combined 
 in such a manner that it would be prepared for subsequent 
 action. At the same time, the Government would be in no 
 
12 
 
 way committed to the acceptance of any or either oi the 
 propositions thus elicited. 
 The proposals We may easily satisfy ourselves that if, in the court i of 
 
 and investigation d d •> - 
 
 rherlon di w oTA°d events ' tne P olic J thus outlined should result in the estab- 
 i i eadto h thees e trb dlisDmeilt °*' tlie nve lnies of steamships proposed, the fleet 
 stiaSip^inel! of, say. twenty -five first-class vessels thus created would do 
 
 the re-establish- ,1 i 1 i i /» , 
 
 mentofourmer- more than supply h needed nucleus tor our new merchant 
 
 cantile marine, . T " -, . , , . . 
 
 and the creation marine. it would c< hi s tan t J y employ at least three tnou- 
 
 of a new navy, to -i m . 
 
 the employment sand omcers and seamen, ot all grades, and give the nation, 
 
 of labor, and the . ° ° 7 
 
 revival of our in- what it now has not, sonic small resources of practical 
 
 dustries. _ r 
 
 seamanship in the handling of such vessels, from which 
 to man our national ships in case of war. At the same 
 time, the ships themselves in such an event would consti- 
 tute an invaluable auxiliary to our limited and restricted 
 navy. 
 
 To an absolute certainty we might also calculate that 
 the aggregation of capital and enterprise thus begun 
 would continue indefinitely, and the nucleus thus formed 
 would be but the germ, so to speak, of a commercial 
 marine worthy not only of the present, but of the future of 
 this Republic. 
 
 As I am very anxious to press this whole subject on 
 your most serious consideration, allow me in conclusion, 
 sir, to say that the present depressed condition of business, 
 the great suffering amongst the working classes, the amount 
 of capital seeking investment, the cheapness of all mate- 
 rial entering into the construction of a ship, now as low 
 as before the war, all point to this as the most favorable 
 time to make some effort to rebuild our commercial marine. 
 
 The plan I have ventured to suggest asks no help or 
 favor from the Government, only that American labor and 
 American capital be employed to do the work now done 
 by that of foreigners ; to this there should be no objection 
 from any American citizen, in whatever section of our com- 
 mon country he may reside, and whether he be republican 
 or democrat, protectionist or free-trader. 
 
 I have the honor to be, very respectfully yours, 
 
 JOHN KOACH. 
 
 Morgan Ikon Works, New York, 
 
 Mwch 1. is 7(i. 
 
lEx Htbrta 
 
 SEYMOUR DURST 
 
 When you leave, please leave this hook 
 
 Because it has heen said 
 " Ever'thinQ comes t' him who waits 
 
 Except a loaned hook."