WITHDRAWAL OF CUTTER MORRELL
SHAME, HE SAYS
PRES. LIVINGSTONE, OF LAKE
CARRIERS, WIRE HIS OFFICIAL PROTEST
Boat Goes on Fruitless Trip
to Loraine, Ohio, When She is Needed Badly Here
The withdrawal of the revenue cutter Morrell (sic)
from this vicinity just at a time when she is most needed, is
meeting with criticism at every lake port north of Port Huron.
There is a great service that could be rendered at the present
moment by this government boat but just at the moment she is
needed to safeguard the wreck of the overturned steamer, north of
this port, and prevent it from becoming a menace to navigation,
orders come from Washington sending the steamer to Loraine, Ohio
on a fruitless errand.
Just at this time there are missing boats within a
radius of 60 miles of Port Huron and the revenue cutter could
have done valuable work in looking for wreckage or bodies, which
would lead to the identity of the boats or the dead men. Even now
there are scores of bodies afloat on the lake and these could
have been picked up by the revenue cutter instead of waiting for
days for them to drift to shore. The entire shore line on both
the American and Canadian sides should be patrolled at once and
the revenue cutter was the boat that should do this work.
President William Livingstone, of the Lake Carriers
association has the following to say in a telegram sent to
Washington last night:
"With Lake Huron thickly dotted with wrecks, I
cannot understand the philosophy of the treasury department
action in instructing the Morrell to go from there to the
assistance of the steamer G. J. Grammer, which was aground off
Lorain (sic), but never was in any danger, and which I am advised
today is now in port loading a cargo of coal.
"Even if the Grammer were in need of assistance
there are any number of tugs at Lake Erie ports, while tugs
cannot be had at Port Huron for love or money. What a collosal
(sic) joke it is for the Morrell to be sent from a place where
she could be of service to assist a boat which she will find in
the harbor taking aboard a cargo.
"The Morrell really has done only two things all
summer. Part of the time she was securing samples of water for
the international joint commission, which is investigating
pollution of the lakes and the rest of the time she was tied up
with the Perry centennial celebration. Now when she might be of
some assistance to the vessel interests, she is dispatched to a
distant point on a useless errand.
"Control of the revenue cutters ought to be
placed with the collectors of the ports under such conditions as
at present. The collectors are in a position to know better than
department officials in Washington where the vessels may be of
service."
"To call away the Morrell at a time like this is
an unheard of thing," declared President Livingstone
Thursday morning. "The Grammer, my advices say, is ashore
but in no danger. The derelict off Port Huron is a menace. With
wrecks all over the lages (sic) every tug has been called away
and it has been almost impossible to get a boat to go out to the
wreck at night and warn other vessels away. Thousands of people
are in suspense until the name of the vessel is learned. It may
be that on which their kin are sailing. Yet the government sends
the means by which they expect to learn the truth away. Bodies of
many sailors are drifting in the lake, but the government has
removed the means of recovering them. Instead the corpses will
drift with the wind until thrown up on the beach, as a score have
already been. They may lie on the sands in some deserted place
and rot for all the aid the government gives.
"The lake shipping has suffered an appalling
blow. Now that the winds have gone down the full terrible details
of the storm should become known."
Reprinted from the Port
Huron Times-Herald,
November 14, 1913, Page 1
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Huron Times Herald for November 14th, 1913
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