Democratic Sentinel, Volume 22, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 March 1898 — UNCLE SAM IS READY. [ARTICLE]

UNCLE SAM IS READY.

This Government Prepared for the Worst that May Come. ■ CAN MEET ANY EMERGENCY The War and Navy Departments Have Not Been Idle. Both Spain and the United States Have Made Preparations Indicating a Probable Conflict—Ships Disposed So as to Be More Advantageous-Con-gress Importuned to. Increase the Regular Army Purchase of War Vessels, Guns and Ammunition Abroad Continues. Washington correspondence: The United States is prepared for war. Its magnificent fleet of fighting ships is lying within striking distance of Havana. Its coast cities and towns are strongly fortified and guarded by coast defense vessels fully equipped for business. It has immense supplies of ammunition and stores distributed where they will be easily available. In regard to land forces, it has the army departments reorganized, reoflleered, and its 25,000 regulars so distributed as to be within call of any point threatened by the enemy. Furthermore, it has the National Guardsmen of 115,000 ready for any emergency. Spain, too, is prepared for hostilities. She has on Cuba, fully 80,000 men, the army there having recently been re-en-forced. She has called out her reserves, and made every preparation to enlist volunteers. She has quite a formidable fleet at Havana, and, to support the same, quite a number of warships, distributed at other points in the West Indies. She has raised a small loan, and is fast supplying her navy and army with everything that is necessary to their efficiency. Spain intends to fight if she’s given half a chance. Her Government dare not do otherwise, else civil strife break out and the monarchy be overthrown. In order to be fully prepared for whatever may come, a further disposition of the warships on the Atlantic coast has been made. Two powerful fleets have

been created—one at Key West to guard the gulf and be in readiness to make a demonstration against Havana, and another at Hampton Roads to guard the North Atlantic- coast, and serve in case of emergency as a support to the Gulf fleet. Besides coast defense vessels have been disposed at the principal harbors. Each fleet consists of battleships, doubleturreted monitors, armored cruisers, gunboats, torpedo boats and torpedo boat destroyers. Spain has also divided her available ships into squadrons. One will defend Havana, another will guard home cities, and a third will hold itself in readiness to proceed wherever directed. To effect this arrangement she halted her torpedo boat flotilla at the Canary islands and retained the second fleet about so sail from Cadiz. Spain evidently intends to have a “flying squadron” to utilize wherever opportunity occurs. Vessels Made Ready for War. At League Island, Key West and other points all warships have been coaled to their full capacity and have been supplied with a full quota of all kinds of ammunition. The Montgomery has been overhauled since her return from Havana, and the gunboats Helena and Bancroft also. Preparations have been made with the secrecy and assignments to the one fleet or the other have been carried on so guardedly that it is impossible to find out just where any vessel is going to be found when the first shot is fired. The newly acquired Brazilian cruiser, Amazonas, under convoy of the San Francisco, will arrive in a few days all ready for service. Her sister ship will be brought across the Atlantic within two weeks and completed in an American yard. Several other vessels will have in the meantime been purchased and added to our available warships. So delicate is the situation that our Government cannot wait for guns to be manufactured by our own shops, but is purchasing them in England and Germany. These guns being of a caliber different from ours, ammunition has to be purchased with them. Batteries are moving from the West to the Atlantic and Gulf coast cities, and large quantities of ammunition and supplies are being forwarded in advance of their arrival. A bill was introduced in Congress providing for the increase of the regular army to 104,000 men; another for the building of three battleships with an amendment increasing them to twelve, and for the construction of six torpedo boats and six torpedo boat destroyers. Steps have been taken by the Navy Department to re-enforce the ships in service. The board on auxiliary cruisers has examined the American liner St. Louis and measured her for armament. The owners of the fleet which comprises this vessel and the St. Paul, New York and Paris, will, it is said, not insist on the purchase of these vessels by the Government as it has a right to do in the event of their impressment, but will permit the Government to charter them. The board will inspect the Ward line boats, and is also looking at steel yachts and at iron and steel coal tugs. Information received by the Government shows that there were 929 vessels of all types available for impressment at its service. Plans are near completion for utilizing as many as possible of these in connection with the naval .militia. In the desire to'have in the North Atlantic squadron coast a fleet superior to any Spain might send to Cuba the naval authorities ordered the first-class battleship Oregon to proceed with all dispatch from San Francisco to Key West, by way of Cape Horn. Protection to the Pacific coast afforded by the Charleston, Philadelphia and Monterey is considered efli-

cient by the officials, who point out that a Spanish war vessel would have no coaling facilities there. Work is being hastened on the Newark, Charleston and Philadelphia, and Chief Constructor Hichborn announced the other day that these vessels would be ready for service on May 15.