The Merchant Marine Act of 1936 is a
United States federal law
The law of the United States comprises many levels of codified and uncodified forms of law, of which the most important is the nation's Constitution, which prescribes the foundation of the federal government of the United States, as well as ...
. Its purpose is "to further the development and maintenance of an adequate and well-balanced American
merchant marine, to promote the commerce of the United States, to aid in the national defense, to repeal certain former legislation, and for other purposes."
Specifically, it established the
United States Maritime Commission
The United States Maritime Commission (MARCOM) was an independent executive agency of the U.S. federal government that was created by the Merchant Marine Act of 1936, which was passed by Congress on June 29, 1936, and was abolished on May 24, 195 ...
, and required a
United States Merchant Marine
United States Merchant Marines are United States civilian mariners and U.S. civilian and federally owned merchant vessels. Both the civilian mariners and the merchant vessels are managed by a combination of the government and private sectors, an ...
that:
* can carry all domestic water-borne commerce,
* can carry a substantial portion of foreign commerce,
* can serve as a naval auxiliary in time of war or national emergency,
* is owned and operated under the U.S. flag by U.S. citizens "insofar as may be practicable,"
* is composed of the best-equipped, safest, and most suitable types of vessels,
* consists of vessels constructed in the United States, and
* consists of vessels manned with a trained and efficient citizen personnel.
The Act restricted the number of aliens allowed to work on passenger ships, requiring that, by 1938, 90 percent of the crew members were U.S. citizens. Although about 4,000
Filipinos
Filipinos ( tl, Mga Pilipino) are the people who are citizens of or native to the Philippines. The majority of Filipinos today come from various Austronesian ethnolinguistic groups, all typically speaking either Filipino, English and/or othe ...
worked as merchant mariners on U.S. ships, most of these seamen were discharged in 1937 as a result of the law.
[Carey McWilliams, ''Brothers Under the Skin'' (Boston: Little, Brown and Company, 1964), 237; Rick Baldoz, ''The Third Asiatic Invasion: Empire and Migration in Filipino America, 1898-1946'' (New York: New York University Press, 2011), 274-75.] The Act also established federal subsidies for the construction and operation of
merchant ship
A merchant ship, merchant vessel, trading vessel, or merchantman is a watercraft that transports cargo or carries passengers for hire. This is in contrast to pleasure craft, which are used for personal recreation, and naval ships, which are ...
s. Two years after the Act was passed, the U.S. Merchant Marine Cadet Corps, the forerunner to the
United States Merchant Marine Academy
The United States Merchant Marine Academy (USMMA or Kings Point) is a United States service academy in Kings Point, New York. It trains its midshipmen (as students at the academy are called) to serve as officers in the United States Merchant ...
, was established.
U.S. Representative Schyler O. Bland of Virginia was known as the "father of the Merchant Marine Act of 1936."
References
Full text of the original Merchant Marine Act of 1936
External links
1936 in American law
United States federal admiralty and maritime legislation
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