Mr. Hermit Roosevelt, eldest son of the late President Roosevelt, was one of the most prominent passengers who sailed to-day on the R. M.S. Empress of Russia for China. He was one of many American passengers, some of whom cancelled bookings with the vessels of the U. S. Shipping Board to sail by a Canadian liner. This was due to the Daugherty Act which prohibits liquor on shipping board ships. "The Act is a splendid thing for Canadian and British shipping andj a very bad blow for American shipping," stated Mr. Roosevelt in an interview shortly before sailing. Hermit Roosevelt is a shipping man too. He is one of the owners of the Kerr Navigation Corporation and secretary of the American Shipping and Commerce Corporation. He is in a position to speak on the dry' subject quite impartially, as the ships of Ris company are all freighters, unaffected by the Daugherty Act as passenger boats are, while, besides, he is the only member of the Roosevelt family who takes no part in politics. "My trip to the Orient is a purely business tour on behalf of my private business," he said. "We send steamers to the Oriend and my partner and I take turns in visiting our agencies and looking after our affairs abroad." He laughed at the suggestion that prohibition might have had something to do with his own choice of passage, but remarked that his opinion was that the British Columbia liquor system, of moder'ation and Government control, was the best.
People in Shanghai who will meet Hermit Roosevelt will find him with the appearance of an Englishman. Ho is quietly dressed, is well set up, has a close-cropped moustache, is 33 years of age, and has earnest eyes and a full forehead, the only feature in which he resembles his father. He served as a Captain in the British Army in Mesopotamia and was awarded the Military Cross. His recollectiong of that campaign are the subject of his book ''Campaigning in the Garden of Eden." He has been a frequent traveller from the time he accompanied his father in 1909 on the famous hunting tri to Africa. He got much of his training in banking and_ shipping in South America where he explore ed the "River of Doubt."
Text read from the printed page and cleaned; old type leaves the occasional error.