JUNE 1950

Stories contained herein were published by and for Mooremack Employees Ashore and Afloat.

(Courtesy of John-Paul DeRosa)

Uruguayan Literature

Dr. Alberto Dominguez Campora, the Ambassador of Uruguay to the United States, is a believer in direct action.  During a recent voyage aboard a Moore-McCormack passenger liner, the Ambassador found too few works of Uruguayan authors in the library.  He decided that the best way to assure travelers aboard this ship and her sisters an opportunity to read Uruguayan authors would be to present some of his fellow countrymen's works.  So he did just that, 30 volumes to each of the 3 passenger vessels, the S.S. Uruguay, S.S. Brazil and S.S. Argentina.

Ambassador Campora arrived in New York on Monday, May 29, 1950, from Montevideo, to resume his duties in Washington.  Albert V. Moore, president of Moore-McCormack Lines, extended his personal thanks for the library gifts, on the Ambassador's arrival.

.

Men of Mooremack – Bill Fay of the New York Piers

Visitors to Moore-McCormack's New York piers frequently ask about the broad-shouldered six-footer with the thinning hair and the alert gait of an ambitious young cop on his first detail.  He is certain to be around if controversies loom, as well he might, for he has been settling them since 1909.  He is William F. Fay, first class detective retired, New York City Police Department, and since April 1940, chief of the Mooremack pier police.

Bill Fay, a Brooklyn native, won ten commendations for meritorious work before quitting the police to join Mooremack.  He handled the first arrest affected by the controversial Baumes Law (which provides a fourth offender is given prison for life) and the first in which an ultraviolet ray machine was used to prove forgery.  This latter involved the notorious "Nigger Nate" Raymond, on whom the police had never been able to make a case stick until Detective Fay got him.

In his cluttered office on the lower level of Pier 32, Bill can spin yarns of old police days until the cows come home.  Names like Dave Lamarr, Georgie Small (one of the toughest who ever lived, says Bill), and Billie Grubb, all well-known in police circles in their day, roll off his tongue.  He tells of a $60,000 stick-up, of crimes that carried him all over the country.

But Bill Fay is proudest of his work on the Mooremack piers, where he heads a staff normally of about sixty men, which may go up to 150, as was the case during the war.  He works with the F.B.I., the New York City police and fire departments, the Secret Service, customs and immigration squads, the Border Patrol (which is interested in detecting the smuggling of persons) and many other security groups.

When the Security Bureau, Inc., started its famous survey of New York pier methods a couple of years ago, it chose Mooremack's as a model and commended Lt. Fay and his squad highly.  It was Lt. Fay who carried the case of a longshoreman caught smuggling from Pier 32 to a point where a criminal prosecution was obtained, thus forcing the culprit off the waterfront and clearing the way for similar action with others known to be criminals or trouble makers.  Previously, a fine was set and the man was back at his job again.

Bill Fay describes his job (which he loves) as one of Security.  If it concerns life or property on or appertaining to a Mooremack pier, it's his assignment.  It may involve pilferage or smuggling, damage to cargo or improper practices by taxi drivers serving the piers, insuring the absence of dangerous persons from the pier when a ship is sailing, or any one of a dozen other matters.

The vigilance that became part of him when he left a job as railroad bill clerk in 1909 to join the police is still with him.  He worked up from patrolman, was assigned to Police Headquarters seven years, went through the various grades of detective, then handled major larceny cases in New York's financial district.

He came through his career unharmed though he admits he was in some "rough spots."  He has never married.  "Too busy," he grinned.