Industry on parade.
A dictatorial review of events in business and industry.
Produced each week by the National Association of Manufacturers.
The New York Waterfront.
Industry on parade stops off at the New York Waterfront.
For a look at some of the new ideas being adopted by the
great American shipping industries.
Let's visit the Hudson River Pier of the Moore McCormick Lines.
And see a few of the innovations in cargo handling methods
adopted during the past few years.
When a cargo liner is about to sail, the bustle of activity is much like that to
be found when a passenger liner leaves.
Except of course, that it's goods instead of people that converge on the
pier from all parts of the nation.
The use of pallets and forklift trucks has relieved the hard working longshoremen
of much of the back breaking labor that formerly was his lot.
The cases and bags are stacked on the pallets, which then can be shifted about
the pier or hoisted right into the ship's hull.
But this cargo is going into a steel container called a cargo van first.
The cargo vans are proving especially useful in the safe shipment of small cargo
that's more susceptible to pilferage or damage in handling.
The vans are scientifically and snugly packed, so goods can't shift or break
loose, either when being loaded or during the ocean voyage.
Not only does it save storage space aboard
ship, but in a cargo van a shipment is kept under lock and key
until it reaches its destination.
In days gone by, and even today in the ports of some nations, cargo is manhandled
aboard ship, trundled up gangways, then down into the hulls on the backs of men.
Tortuous, expensive business compared to methods like these.
Only U.S. style speed, service, and efficiency have allowed American shipping
firms to meet foreign competition with its vastly lower wages.
The same sort of know-how that created the wide array of American industrial
products we see moving out to ready markets everywhere in the free world.
For the best in the world, you must have the best tires, and not even Joe Stalin
has any doubts about where they'd be.
After the
tires come barrels of salt cod, all ingeniously stowed away according to a plan
carefully thought out in advance.
One day spent in watching the loading of a cargo liner gives a good idea of the
tremendous scope and variety of production here in America.
It's a real
achievement on the part of Moore McCormick and other land, sea, and air transport
industries that they've been able to keep the goods moving as fast as our
farms and factories turn it out.
Meet a couple of young men named Lloyd and F. Briggs-Dalzel, who for the past
nine years have directed the operations of one of the biggest tugboat companies
in the busiest harbor in the world.
The scene is, of course, New York and the dispatcher's office
of the Dalzel towing company.
From this nerve center are controlled the movements of 38 tugs that ply hundreds
of miles each day, back and forth, over the North River, the East River, the
Lower Bay, and the rest of this busy port attending to a variety
of highly essential duties.
Calls from customers flood the office of the dispatcher, who must deploy the
fleet of tugs by radio telephone in such a way that each tug can move from one
assignment to the next with a minimum of lost time.
Since calls for tugs come in at all hours of the day and night, and there are
frequent time changes, keeping the organization running
efficiently takes some doing.
This captain has been dispatched to the side of an incoming freighter that needs
plenty of skilled assistance in reaching a North River pier in the face of a
brisk wind and powerful, tricky tidal currents.
Just one of the daily chores of these workhorses of the harbor, without which
many of the port's facilities could not be used, even by medium-sized ships, like
the one here being docked.
Whistle signals allow ship and tugs to work smoothly together. From here, our tug
may be dispatched across the Hudson to New Jersey to handle barge loads of the
coal that's brought into New York City almost exclusively by this method.
Coal for homes, for factories, for steam and electricity.
Then perhaps help another ship put out to sea, or lead a disabled vessel to the
shipyard, or help put out a fire or haul heavy cargo. Unimpressive, little craft,
but what would New York do without them?
History shows that we Americans have attained the highest standard of living in
the world. The competitive American system, based on freedom for the individual,
has encouraged us to develop new and better raw materials, and to improve our
buildings, equipment and tools.
As a result, we now produce three to four times more per hour than we did in
1850, while we enjoy nearly twice as much leisure.
We can have an even higher standard of living in the future by increasing our
productivity, which will mean more and better products for all.
Thank you.