all day among them
for coppers. Sharks and whales--writers of sea stories certainly ought
to pension them. There may have been a shark who once made a meal off a
sailor, but let you or me drop over the side, and if there's one
anywhere near, he wouldn't stop racing till he was a mile away, and if
any harmless slob of a whale ever killed a sailor, be sure he did it
through fright. But that's no matter. What does matter, though"--Kieran
halted and faced the passenger--"are the men who did go over the side,
and not within swimming distance of any pleasant sandy beach either.
'Tisn't every protesting seaman who finds the boss of the line on deck
to back him up. And, what's harder, how about the men who never had the
choice of going over the side? And think of the poor creatures who got
so that in time they didn't even want to go over the side, who might
have grown into honest, free men, but who, instead of that, learned only
to live for the day when they too would have the power to make their
inferiors stand around and cringe and whine."

They paced the length of the deck twice before Kieran spoke again.

"They wonder at the decay of our merchant marine. I wonder did they ever
stop to think of what men--seamen--think of the service? In the days of
sailing ships a man going to sea met with real danger and hardship, and
they developed courage and skill and character of some kind. What
training does he get to take the place of that now? He's a hand
nowadays, a helper, a lumper--not a sailor--on a great big hulk to which
disaster is almost impossible."

"But disasters do happen."

"They do, but what is the truth about them? Nine out of ten of them have
a disgraceful cause. But the public doesn't hear of that, because the
public doesn't go to sea--except as a saloon passenger. The public gets
its story from the steamship company's office--always, and you know what
kind of a story they put out--put out through newspapers that carry
their advertising. You know what that chief clerk or that second clerk
of yours would tell any inquiring outsider in case of a loss of life on
one of these ships. He'd lie and lie and lie and lie and think he was
serving a good cause at that, and the papers publishing the lie would
think they were serving a good cause, too--especially the constructive
organization papers, as they call themselves. Our big steamship officers
these days--outside of the navy--don't get the kind of work that keeps
men u