Business: State of Higgins

The place is dank, dismal, depressing. Stacks of grey, fungus-covered piling loom like ghostly sentries, a huge, muddy filled-in ditch resembles the caved-in moat of a deserted castle. A few workmen slowly dismantle a partly built railroad; now & then a grey-clad Louisiana State patrolman plods his lonely beat.

So looks today the 1,200-acre Higgins Liberty Shipyard outside New Orleans. Amid a burst of fanfare, it was started six months ago as a gigantic project to build cargo ships on a water-borne assembly line. Two months ago the vast yard teemed with 7,000 workmen, scores of pile drivers, steam shovels, drag lines,...

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