Message to Congress on New Steel Cargo Vessels.

To the Congress of the United States:

I am convinced that the national interest demands that immediate steps be taken upon an emergency basis to provide against the effect upon the United States of a possible world shortage of cargo vessels.

Therefore, I feel that there should be undertaken with the least possible delay the construction of not less than two hundred steel cargo vessels, suitable for use in the present emergency and of such type and design as will permit of their most rapid construction.

Such a program of emergency shipbuilding should be entirely distinct from the long-range construction program with which the U.S. Maritime Commission is proceeding under the 1936 Merchant Marine Act, and interference with that program, as well as interference with the naval construction program, must be avoided. Additional shipways and other necessary shipyard facilities for the building of these emergency cargo ships should therefore be provided, so far as necessary, specifically for that purpose, in the simplest possible manner and in the shortest possible time. Title to such special facilities should in most instances vest in the Government, but the managerial abilities of private contractors must be utilized to the utmost in the construction of facilities and ships. By making use of the experience and administrative facilities of the Maritime Commission and by clothing that agency with appropriate authority, the contemplated emergency program can be handled most effectively and expeditiously, and without the creation of any new or special governmental agency.

Because of the urgency of the situation, and after consultation with the Office of Production Management with respect both to the necessity for immediate action and to the coordination of this ship construction with other phases of the national defense program, I have already allocated to the Maritime Commission the sum of $500,000 from the Emergency Fund for the President contained in the Military Appropriation Act, 1941, and authorized the Commission to enter into contracts for these purposes to the extent of $36,000,000 under the contractual authority contained in said appropriation. An immediate appropriation is necessary for the payment of such contracts, and the proposed resolution provides that the appropriation contained therein shall be available for their liquidation and other expenditures pursuant to this program.

The Commission estimates that the total cost of this program will be $350,000,000. The $313,500,000 provided in the attached joint resolution, together with the $500,000 allocated from the Emergency Fund for the President, and the $36,000,000 which will be available on July 1, 1941, for the payment of obligations incurred under authority already provided, will make up this amount.

In view of the emergency, I ask your immediate and favorable consideration of the attached draft of joint resolution.