On the hurricane deck of the S. S. Leviathan in Manhattan last week stood a 15-year-old girl in a dark sailor blouse, a white canvas hat and black shoes and stockings. To the mainmast peak she, Joanna Chapman, ran up a small triangular flag picked out with the letter Y. Her father, Paul Wadsworth Chapman, handed a $4,000,000 check to Chairman T. V. O'Connor of the U. S. Shipping Board. The biggest shipping deal in U. S. history thus completed, the Leviathan's personnel was cut 10% and away she sailed with 1,398 passengers on her first trip under private ownership.
To give the affair a final news fillip, Joseph Edward Sheedy, executive vice president of the Chapman company, announced that the Leviathan and later the ten other U. S. Lines vessels purchased from the U. S. (TIME, Feb. 18), would sell liquor outside the 12-mile limit. To support his action, Mr. Sheedy advanced the opinion of the U. S. Supreme Court in Cunard v. Mellon, 1923, in which it was decided that the 18th Amendment applied only to the territorial waters of the U. S. for domestic as well as foreign ships. It is under this decision that foreign ships bring beverage liquor into U. S. ports under seal. Said Mr. Sheedy: "All other trans-Atlantic passenger vessels serve liquor. . . . The law does not place American vessels under any handicap in this particular. ... If passengers desire wines and liquor, we must, to maintain our position, do the same thing as our competitors. The Sheedy plan will operate in this manner: Under the law the Leviathan may carry some 97 gallons of wines and spirits for medicinal purposes. Beyond the 12-mile-limit on eastbound trips, this supply will be opened and sold to passengers. At Southampton and Cherbourg the chief steward will purchase an assortment of drinks for the westbound trip, plus a supply to replenish the medicinal liquor stock. At the 12-mile-limit the inbound Leviathan will jettison all unconsumed liquor except the medicinal supply under seal which will be held in readiness to refresh passengers on the next eastbound trip. The westbound trip, with a full European stock, will be wetter than the eastbound trip with its limited medicinal supply for sale. Likewise the chief steward will have to exercise rare judgment in making his purchases abroad to estimate the exact thirst of westbound passengers and thus reduce to the minimum the surplus to be discharged at the 12-mile-limit.
Aboard the Leviathan will be no bars. Said Mr. Sheedy: "I have never approved of public bars. . . . Now that women smoke I am more opposed to them than ever." Cocktails, highballs and other drinks will be served only by the glass in staterooms, smoking rooms, dining rooms. Only wines will be served in bottles and then the bottles may not be placed on the tables. Wine lists will not be publicly displayed.