Page 38 - Rukert - 100th Anniversary

Joseph L. Stanton, who was the Maryland Port Administrator at the time, recounted in vivid detail what happened next, calling it “The Day the Cap Painted Redwood Street Red.”
Eventually, Cap forgave the MPA and agreed that the authority was the best agency at that time to restore Baltimore to its rightful place among the great seaports of the world.
During the late 1950s, Rukert Terminals was called upon to handle a new commodity: bulk phosphates used in making soap. The Monsanto Chemical Company approached Rukert Terminals with a plan to build a facility to unload its bulk
THE DAY THE CAP PAINTED
REDWOOD STREET RED
“MY FRIENDSHIP WITH CAPTAIN RUKERT DATES BACK TO MY WATERFRONT REPORTER DAYS WITH THE BALTIMORE EVENING SUN, JUST PRIOR TO WORLD WAR II. Having some news work in his own background, the Captain had a tender spot in his heart for reporters. But that didn’t save me on this occasion. In 1958, the MPA’s desperate search for cargo for our new and publicly-funded Dundalk Marine Terminal was our undoing.
“That morning, our terminal director proudly informed me that he had obtained a nice bit of cargo for the terminal. It turned out to be Chilean nitrate for ground storage. The rate quoted was very low, but it was cargo. A short time later, I received
a call from Cap’s son Norman Rukert Sr. He informed me in
his quiet manner, but in no uncertain terms, that the Chilean nitrate was cargo that Rukert Terminals had developed over the years and that the MPA had obtained it only by drastically cutting Rukert’s fair rate, and in view of the MPA’s public status, it certainly was unfair competition. I agreed to investigate
the matter as soon as I finished preparing the agenda for the weekly executive session of the MPA commissioners, held in the Merchants’ Club on Redwood Street.
“MPA’s luncheon meeting was proceeding along in quiet fashion when the door opened with a bang and there stood Cap, his white plume of hair bristling, his face beet red and his eyes flashing fire. I wanted to crawl under the table. Without preamble, Cap told us just what he thought of a gang of bureaucrats who would use public money (some of it his tax money, he reminded us) to undercut his fair rates and steal business away from him that he had nurtured for years. I won’t try to quote Cap. His vocabulary was too rich for me. He took only a couple of minutes to deliver his dressing down, but it seemed longer. His conclusion was equally fervent. Pointing at me, he yelled: ‘You’re nothing but a bunch of damn communists!’ The Cap had no harsher words in his colorful vocabulary.
“That was his curtain speech. Bang went the door, and he was gone, leaving a smell of fire and brimstone in the silent room. The Cap had had his say. I nearly lost my job. The commissioners were a very deflated board. Need I add that Dundalk never handled a pound of Chilean nitrate, and that Rukert Terminals did—and for many a year.”
— Joseph L. Stanton, Maryland’s first Port Administrator (pictured above with Norman Rukert Sr.)
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