Charles W. Morse - Later Life and Death

Later Life and Death

On his return from Europe, Morse returned to the shipping business. He still controlled the Hudson Navigation Company, which had not been involved in the crash of the Consolidated Steamship Company in 1907. Morse announced on January 11, 1916, plans for a new transoceanic steamship line, which he organized as the United States Shipping Company. This holding company exchanged its stock for that of 16 subsidiary companies, each organized around a steamship.

During World War I he was president of United States Steamship Company, which was the parent company of Groton Iron Works and Virginia Shipbuilding Corporation. The Virginia Shipbuilding Company won contracts to build 36 vessels for the war effort. The freighters were ordered by the United States Shipping Board, and Morse borrowed from the Emergency Fleet Corporation funds to carry out the contracts. Ultimately, 22 of the ships were completed; the other 14 were cancelled.

Morse controlled the Hudson Navigation Company until its bankruptcy in 1921. The receivers quickly changed the name of the C.W. Morse to Fort Orange.

In 1922 Morse was accused of misrepresentation of his facilities for ship construction; misapplication of funds intended for the building of ships to the building of shipyards; misappropriation of equipment for his own purposes; and failure to turn over to the government the profits of ships it had leased to him. Indicted for war profiteering and fraud, soon after he was confronted with charges of mail fraud involving sales solicitations for stock of the United States Shipping Company. The trial on the war profiteering charges resulted in an acquittal, but a civil suit in 1925 against the Virginia Shipbuilding Company resulted in a judgment for the government of over $11.5 million. The mail fraud case against Morse ended when he was adjudged too ill to stand trial, and after a jury had disagreed the charges against his sons were quashed.

His second wife, Clemence, died in July 1926. Suffering from paralysis, Morse was placed under the guardianship of the probate court of Bath on September 7, 1926, adjudged incompetent to handle his affairs. Having suffered several strokes, he died of pneumonia at Bath, Maine, on January 12, 1933.