Evening Republican, Volume 15, Number 202, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 26 August 1911 — BIG BOATS TO STAY [ARTICLE]

BIG BOATS TO STAY

London Dispatch Regarding Warships Is Not Believed. United States Naval Officers Doubt Report From England That Dreadnoughts Will Be Supplanted by Smaller Vessels. New York.—Naval officers stationed at the Brooklyn navy yard are Inclined to doubt the London dispatch, in which was predicted the passing of the dreadnought type of battleship in favor of smaller vessels of equally heavy armamentin their opinion Great Britain and the other nations of the world will even enlarge the size of the presentday battleships. / Rear Admiral E. N. C. Leutze, U. S. N., retired, commandant of the Brooklyn navy yardi said: “It is hard to believe England’s future navy policy is to be toward the reduction in the size of its war vessel. We have found the dreadnoughts the most effective fighting machines yet produced and consequently we will continue to make our vessels in greater size. "I can see no object unless it is for the purpose of economy in the report that England is to build vessels of smaller size. England may be listening to the demands of the persons who object to naval expenditures. Of course I can make no prediction of what our own future program will be, but from my personal viewpoint we will add to our fleet of dreadnoughts." The man who has been sent to the Brooklyn navy yard to lay the hull of the battleship New York, Naval Constructor Robert E. Stocker, U. S. N., could not reconcile his experience in shipbuilding with the report from London. “We need all the dreadnoughts we can get," he asserted. “In the dreadnought has been found a type which is an improvement over everything built before. “The qualities of speed, gun strength

and endurance cannot be contained in a bulk smaller than at present incloses them. Dur engines give a maximum of power with a minimum ■ of spacer our guns are included in the narrowest expanse with possible safety. “If we want greater speed and secure it in the size of the vessel, the armament must be sacrificed to a corresponding extent Inversely, if we are to Increase the armament of our dreadnoughts on a smaller vessel we would have to dispense with some of our speed.” Capt Gv E. Burd, U. S. N., in charge of the machinery department of the navy yard, said it is not possible with the present engines to economize space without losing elsewhere. “The one thing that would help us spare some of the space now occupied by the boilers and engines of our battleships,” he said, “would be a new engine that would Improve on the turbine and the reciprocating engine we now carry.”