er provided
a fixed subsidy upon tonnage to other American steamers and
sailing-ships, registered, and to be built in the United States. The
bill passed the Senate, but failed with the House.

* * * * *

In 1903 the matter was taken up with greater vigor, by President
Roosevelt. In his annual message to Congress December 7, the President,
"deeply concerned at the decline of our ocean fleet and the loss of
skilled officers and seamen," recommended the appointment by Congress of
a joint commission to investigate and report at the next session, "what
legislation is desirable or necessary for the development of the
American merchant marine and American commerce, and, incidentally, of a
national ocean mail service of adequate auxiliary naval cruisers and
naval reserves."

In response Congress by act of April 28, 1904, created the Merchant
Marine Commission with power to make the broadest kind of an inquiry.
This body was composed of five Senators and five Representatives, two of
the Senators and two of the Representatives members of the minority
party. Senator Jacob H. Gallinger of New Hampshire was chairman. Eight
months between the adjournment and reassembling of Congress was devoted
to its appointed task. All the larger ports of the country were visited,
its itinerary embracing the principal cities on the North Atlantic
seaboard, on the Great Lakes, on the Pacific coast, and on the southern
coast and Gulf of Mexico. Hearings were given in all these places to
hundreds of citizens: commercial bodies, shipbuilders, shipowners,
shipping merchants, merchants in general trade, manufacturers, bankers,
lawyers, editors, doctrinaires. So wide indeed was the investigation,
and so liberal the "open door" rule, admitting for consideration any
"intelligent suggestion offered in good faith," that "alien agents" of
foreign steamships were heard with the rest.[HR] While differences of
opinion as to methods and policies naturally were encountered, the
commission declared that it found public sentiment, as this was sounded
throughout the United States, "practically unanimous not in merely
desiring, but in demanding an American ocean fleet, built, owned,
officered, and so far as may be, manned by our own people." This
sentiment was "just as earnest on the Great Lakes ... as on either
ocean."[HR]

The results of the investigation were embodied in an elaborate report,
comprising majority and minority report