In the 1930s, only 23 ships were built in U.S. shipyards, and hardly anyone had a decent job. Those were the days of the Great Depression, an economic nightmare that had been anticipated by exactly no one. But in 1937 the Senate confirmed the U.S. Maritime Commission to direct America’s Emergency Shipbuilding Program. The Commission’s mandate read as follows:

• “Develop and maintain a merchant marine sufficient to carry a substantial portion of the waterborne export and import foreign commerce of the United States on the best equipped, safest and most suitable type of vessels owned, operated and constructed by citizens of the United States, manned with a trained personnel and capable of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency.”

In just the five years between 1940 and 1945, U.S. shipyards built more than 4,600 ships, and although the task of building the larger warship types fell to the larger East Coast shipyards, the smaller shipyards on the West Coast averaged more than a ship a day over the 1,365 day wartime period.

How was it possible to build so many ships in so little time? The answer is simple. It was American resolve in a desperate era. Unemployment was widespread in that period and there seemed to be no way to cure the country’s, and the world’s, economic malaise. To their credit, however, government officials in those days were not misleading Americans into thinking otherwise.

Congress passed the Merchant Marine Act of 1936 because the threat of war existed, and the quick actions of the U.S. Maritime Commission in preparing for the upcoming hostilities brought a welcomed bonus to American citizens – a sudden end to unemployment and the Great Depression.

Another desperate era has come upon us. Unemployment is widespread once again and, once again, there seems top be no way to cure our economic malaise. To make matters worse, today’s elected and appointed officials, instead of leveling with Americans, are laying smokescreens about a “recovery” and about a “bottoming out”. For shame.

If they’d just take off their blinders, they’d see the logic in the U.S. Maritime Commission’s 1937 mandate stated above:

• “Develop and maintain a merchant marine sufficient to carry a substantial portion of the waterborne export and import foreign commerce of the United States on the best equipped, safest and most suitable type of vessels owned, operated and constructed by citizens of the United States, manned with a trained personnel and capable of serving as a naval and military auxiliary in time of war or national emergency.”

“Desperate times”? Check. “American resolve”? Check. A “national emergency”? Check. The “best equipped, safest and most suitable type of vessel, etc., etc.” – and patented , to boot? Check.