The construction of the four pioneer ships went on as it had begun, without promise of aid from the government, which steadily maintained its attitude of neglect as to the national merchant marine, while hundreds upon hundreds of millions in the shape of guarantee bonds and public land grants were poured out by the Congress in favor of western railroads, but not one dollar for the merchant marine. Still, notwithstanding these discouraging conditions, Mr. Cramp did not abate in the slightest degree his endeavors to keep the needs of the country in the direction of a national merchant marine before Congress and the public. A compilation of the articles he published and of his statements before the committees of both Houses of Congress would, on the whole, fill several volumes like this one. It is therefore impracticable to reproduce here the actual text of his arguments and his expositions. Newspaper organs of the foreign steamship interests published in this country denounced him as a “subsidy beggar” and other like epithets, which was all that they had to offer in answer to his deductions and arguments; but even that did not disturb the even tenor of his way. Finally, in the Forty-seventh Congress, a joint select committee of three Senators and six Representatives was organized, of which Nelson Dingley, of Maine, was chairman; and this organization led to the formation of a new standing committee of the House known as the Committee on the Merchant Marine and Fisheries. Mr. Dingley’s committee spent an entire summer in going from point to point on the sea-board and taking testimony and statements of all classes of business men interested in any way or informed to any responsible degree as to the condition of the merchant marine and as to the possible or probable means to bring about its resurrection.