Old merchant marine – a chronicle of

The story of American ships and sailors is an epic of blue water which seems singularly remote, almost unreal, to the later generations. A people with a native genius for seafaring won and held a brilliant supremacy through two centuries and then forsook this heritage of theirs. The period of achievement was no more extraordinary than was its swift declension. A maritime race whose topsails flecked every ocean, whose captains courageous from father to son had fought with pike and cannonade to defend the freedom of the seas, turned inland to seek a different destiny and took no more thought for the tall ships and rich cargoes which had earned so much renown for its flag. Ralph D. Paine was an American journalist and author popular in the early 20th century. During World War I, he worked for the Committee on Public Information and the United States Department of the Navy, observing and writing about Allied naval forces.