Last week the world's only ship to fly the flag of Palestine was in Greek waters on her maiden trip from Haifa to Trieste when the Greek revolution enveloped her like a dark cloud. What chiefly worried the Jewish crew and captain of the 10,000-ton Tel Aviv ("Hill of Spring") was not the revolution, however, but the behavior of a tall, lean-faced man who paced nervously up & down the promenade deck, wandered disconsolately between the kosher kitchen and the ship's synagog. Tel Aviv's owner, President Arnold Bernstein of Palestine Navigation Co., was impatient to get ashore, hurry to Paris for the annual spring meeting of the North Atlantic Passenger Conference (of which he was not a member) to discuss steamship rates.
Eager as he was to be in Paris, Arnold Bernstein was not half so anxious as the Conference was to have him there. Meeting behind closed doors in their swank offices, the grave-faced members had good cause for anxiety. In three short years this handsome, affable German Jew had grown from a minor competitor to a major menace. As the principal owner of Arnold Bernstein Line, biggest of the transatlantic independents, he had more than held his own against an international shipping combine by the simple method of selling transportation cheaper than anyone else. Hugely successful at 45, he had bought Red Star Line lock, stock & barrel from International Mercantile Marine for $1,000,000 last month after practically running that 61-year-old concern off the sea with his cut rates (TIME, Feb. 18). Now that he had added the Pennland and Westernland to his fleet, he might do the same to other old-established lines.
Conference members fumed at his absence, threatened to bolt all agreements, start a rate war to the finish unless Bernstein was brought into line. But how could he be brought into line when he was not even present? Frantic messages were sent to Bernstein's Hamburg headquarters, demanding his whereabouts. Hamburg reported Tycoon Bernstein "missing." Hopping mad, the Conference voted to postpone further meetings until Herr Bernstein arrived in Paris.
The strangest thing about Arnold Bernstein is that he operates equally well on either side of the Nazi v. Jew fence. While his Tel Aviv flies the red shield of Palestine on its Union Jack, his Red Star and Bernstein Line ships fly the black swastika of Germany. Only important Jewish shipping man left in Hitler's Reich, he enjoys government protection chiefly because of his distinguished War record, which included an important artillery command on the Western Front and the Iron Cross, first class. Soon after the War this Saxon-born son of a well-to-do shipping broker decided to go into business for himself. Backed by friends' money, he bought a dozen British freighters grown rusty in the Australia trade, reconditioned them as automobile transports. He installed high-speed elevators in his ships, similarly equipped his docks at Antwerp and Weehawken, N. J., carried nothing but uncrated automobiles, saved exporters up to $300 per car. As automobile exports from the U. S. mounted, Arnold Bernstein Line prospered mightily until he had a 65% monopoly in that branch of foreign trade.