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ARE STILL
ASSAILING
Ship Purchase Bill In The
Senate

Cummins and Lodge Deliver
Speeches In Senate.

PRIVATE CONTROL HINTED AT

Iowa Statesman Fears Group of New York Bankers Will Seize Proposed Shipping Corporation - Massachusetts Solon Holds Purchase of German Ships Interned Here Would Be a Violation of Neutrality.

Washington, Jan. 23.-Senator Cummins, Progressive Republican, in a speech on the ship purchase bill, hinted at possible private control of the proposed shipping corporation by a group of New York bankers. In this connection, without making any direct charges, he cited Kuhn, Loeb & Co. as an example of such a group which might conceivably gain control through ownership of 49 per cent of the stock. He further said he regarded the ship purchase bill "as one of the most reactionary and dangerous proposals ever made public."

Senator Lodge followed Senator Cummins. He said the ship purchase bill involves international questions of the gravest character and fraught with the most serious possibilities. Mr. Lodge quoted from house committee hearings to show that Secretary McAdoo had "practically admitted that the purpose of the bill was to buy the German ships" laid up in Boston and New York. If such were not the purpose, Senator Lodge suggested that the impression now general could be corrected by an amendment, which, he said, he believed had already been voted down in committee, to debar the government from such purchases.

"To buy the German ships interned in these ports, and relieve their owners from the heavy daily expense in caring for them, and to hand over to them thirty or forty millions of money belonging to the American people," said Senator Lodge, "would be a great and direct assistance to one of the belligerents in the war now raging. It would be an unneutral act, and very readily might be construed as a hostile act and an actual breach of neutrality."

Senator Lodge stated he had been informed that the administration had determined to send the Dacia, a German owned ship purchased by Americans and transferred to American registry, abroad to furnish a test case. "It seems to me a rather dangerous business to make test cases of this character in time of war, when belligerent governments are protesting against the action, and for the state department to approve sending forth a vessel which, as late as Jan. 13, our war risk bureau declined to insure."

In view of the present empty cargo space going to South America, Senator Lodge said the United States could not desire the ships for that traffic, but only for the European trade. In carrying on European trade he urged the enemies of Germany would still regard the ships as Germans and liable to be sunk.