Message to the Senate Explaining Assistance Given Shipbuilders by State Department in Contest for Contract to Construct Argentine Battleships

NOTE: This Message was accompanied by a report from the Secretary of State explaining that his Department's strenuous efforts to procure equal opportunity for American shipbuilders in the competition for the contract to construct two Argentine battleships was a direct consequence of the appropriation of $100,000 by Congress for the purpose of enabling the Department to render greater assistance to manufacturers in their efforts to obtain international business.

“This was the first time,” reads the report, “that American shipbuilders and ordnance manufacturers had ventured into competition with the naval constructors of the world, who were favored ... by the prestige of long-established international relations and experience. . . . American industry labored under the added disadvantage of isolation,” the negotiations taking place at London and Buenos Aires, “while their competitors enjoyed all the powerful aid incident to . . . large colonies and great masses of invested capital” in Argentina. The Secretary regarded the final awarding of the contracts to American shipbuilders as a good augury for the commercial expansion of the future, and no inconsiderable achievement of diplomacy.