That even a strike cannot break up the day-to-day movement of life was illustrated Tuesday when, in a manner grandly reminiscent of clipper ships days, the Queen Mary slipped into port helped only by a rowboat, several stevedores, and St. Christopher. Owing to the New York tugboat strike, the Cunard liner did not have its customary twelve pushers as it arrived off the Fiftieth Street pier in early morning sunlight. On its bridge stood Commodore Robert B. Irving who observed the state of the weather and declared it deal, then took out his gold medal of the patron saint of travelers. In his own words" "I looked at his kindly face and asked: 'Shall I do it?" and it seemed the saint smiled at me and replied: 'Carry on old man, and you'll do it,' and I did." Whereupon the Commodore proceeded to defy the longshoremen's strike.

With a minimum of fanfare he ordered two heaving lines, attached to huge hawsers, to be dropped to a rowboat almost infinitesimal beside the liner. This craft ferried the lines of the pier, where they were hauled in by stevedores to the rhythm of a modern chantey that fitted in with the scene of a mechanical smoke and steel. Finally, after the snapping and curling of the forward hawser, three frantic excursions by the rowboat, and the working of winches and propellors, the ship was made sung. Rolling like the master of an old sailing ship, in which school was trained, Commodore Irving came to rest in his cabin and lit one of nine pipes. Unaware of his heroism, the Commodore puffed vigorously and said: "I hope the tugboat strike will be over before the Queen Mary returns." And so he will go down in marine history as the first man to dock an Ocean liner without tags and in labor history as a most gallant scab.