Crepe Hung in Louisiana

At 11:30 one morning last week one of the telephones on Andrew Jackson Higgins' desk jangled. It was a Maritime Commission regional director, and what he said took the wind out of gusty A. J.'s lungs: his contract for 200 Liberty ships was canceled, on orders from Washington. Reason: the steel it would take to complete his yard and to build his ships next year is needed for this year's ships and cannon. A. J.'s New Orleans yard, a long-term job still in the pile-driving stage, was too big for the world's biggest steel capacity.

A. J. was sick. Cried he, in his first white heat of disappointment, "this has hung crepe on the biggest thing in Louisiana." It was small wonder: 10,000 workmen were pounding ahead on his vast yard; $10,000,000 had already been spent. By September, the first ship was due to come off his "floating assembly line" (TIME, May 4), and early next year he was due to deliver one Liberty ship a day.

A. J. and his Congressmen were sure there was more than met the eye in his stop order. He blamed the big steel companies, said they feared to develop Southern ore deposits that might upset their national balance after the war. He blamed the "Godawful War Production Board of self-seeking men with large incomes." He said he could have got the steel on the black market if they had let him alone--thus illuminating one big reason why no one yet knows where the U.S.'s steel is going. And neither he nor his Congressmen--nor the U.S. at large--could see why WPB could not have foreseen such a steel shortage in March when he got his contract.

Even the ugly issue of race prejudice was raised: A. J. had intended to rely heavily upon Negro labor, and Negro leaders in New Orleans screamed that some dirty discrimination was behind their loss of jobs.

The Maritime Commission was sick too, but the Commission kept a stiff upper lip. Existing ways, it insisted, are doing so much better than anyone had dared hope that the President's huge merchant-ship program will still be more than met. Right now, U.S. shipyards are producing six to eight ships per way per year v. a planned output of only four to four and a half ships. That would be fine except that still more ships are needed--more than ever.

In shutting down Higgins, the Commissioners said they were eliminating the yard with "the highest cost per ship to be constructed under any of the Maritime Commission's contracts." (A. J. himself, on the contrary, had said darkly: "Maybe we were going to build too many ships too cheaply.") And anyhow, the steel shortage being what it is, they were afraid they might soon have to cancel another 115 Liberty ships scheduled for yards not yet producing.

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