In the general public or patriotic sense the chief element of interest in these ships is the fact that they represent the inception of an effort to restore the prestige of the United States as a maritime commercial power. The condition of affairs existing at the time the new American Liners were projected was the culminating point of our feebleness on the ocean. The Act of 1891 was framed to expire by its own limitation in ten years from its date. Taken in connection with the Act of 1892, already referred to, it brought about the construction of two first-class American trans-Atlantic greyhounds (the “St. Louis” and “St. Paul”). Other companies or lines running to the West Indies, Mexico, and South America were also stimulated to build a few new ships, but, generally speaking, the effect of both these acts was limited, and produced no serious impression for the better on the American merchant marine in general. This fact became evident very soon after these acts went into effect, and it became clear that a broader and more comprehensive policy must be adopted in the same direction if any great or lasting improvement of the condition of our merchant marine was to be expected. This led to the framing of a new act, thoroughly comprehensive in its scope and universal in its application, on lines similar to those of the Dingley Bill of 1882, but broader. Prior to 1891, Mr. Cramp had confined the statements, deductions, and arguments based upon his experience and observation wholly to hearings before committees of Congress, with now and then a newspaper interview, which in the nature of things must be transitory and soon forgotten. But in the fall of 1891 he determined to place his knowledge before the public in a more permanent form. This he began with a paper in the _Forum_ for November of that year. The limits of this Memoir do not admit of the reproduction of this paper in its entirety. It filled sixteen pages of the _Forum_. The summary of the conclusion, however, may be reproduced. After an exhaustive analysis of the existing conditions and their causes, together with a survey of the probable effects of the act approved the previous March (March 3, 1891), Mr. Cramp summed up as follows: