Transport: Hoover Affair

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When news of the President Hoover affair reached Washington, Senator Copeland at once ordered a report from the U. S. Consul at Manila to be transmitted to the State Department and Maritime Commission, thence to his committee for "fullest investigation." "This is just one conspicuous example of innumerable incidents of the same sort," snorted he: "Unless we can bring about some better labor conditions so that the traveling public can be assured that passengers and cargoes are safe ... we might as well . . . give up the idea of an American Merchant Marine." Though no complaint had been made against the crew remaining on the vessel, they promptly cabled their union in San Francisco: "We, the remaining crew of the President Hoover in all departments deny drunkenness or abuse of passengers as charged in Washington. We remained aboard throughout trouble and performed duties at all times, which is confirmed by ship's officers. We demand a retraction of Copeland's accusations."

To the "more than 200 similar cases" in Senator Copeland's possession, another was added last week as Daniel B. Irwin, Manhattan engineer, wrote Senator Copeland a hair-raising account of his 13-day voyage on the American Diamond Line's Black Falcon. Enroute from the U. S. to Rotterdam. Passenger Irwin charged that the U. S. crew of the freighter got drunk, cowed the captain, zig-zagged the vessel across the Atlantic, abused and insulted the passengers throughout the trip because the crew thought the staterooms assigned to the passengers should have gone to them.

Meantime, in Baltimore Federal Judge W. Calvin Chestnut found 14 members of the crew of the 5,496-ton Algic guilty of "conspiring to make a revolt" at Montevideo last September. Because they were called upon to load the vessel with Uruguayan strikebreakers, the crew refused to obey orders of the first mate, turned the steam off the winches—both acts mutinous. Sentencing nine of the seamen to two months in jail and fining the other five $50 each, Judge Chestnut remarked: "The conduct of these men was more serious in its implications than anything else."