Evening Republican, Volume 18, Number 109, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 8 May 1914 — GREAT BIG NAVY NOW THOUGHT OF [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GREAT BIG NAVY NOW THOUGHT OF

a HOSE in authority and those who are experts on the question seem to have come to a conclusion as to the fighting force at sea that should be maintained by the United States. Were this model fleet now in existence and under review on some such great occasion as the opening of the Panama canal, the spectacle seen would be about as follows: . Forty-eight heavy-armored, big-gun, capital ships, each weighing from 20,000 to 30,000 tons, shooting ten miles and requiring 1,000 men for Its operation. There would be one such ship for each state and each bear the name of a state. For each of these ships there would be four destroyers, or 192 in all, acting as scouts, escorts, guardians. For each capital ship there should be two submarines, or 96 tn all, these chiefly for the protection of home waters. For the submarine as it exists today is a terribly dangerous little craft and one against which there is no protection. It serves little purpose in carrying the war into an enemy's territory, but it makes an invasion of home ports a thing hardly to be considered. For the submarine flotilla may go below the surface of the water at one point and may remain invisible until it has traveled a hundred miles and stolen in among the great ships of the enemy at anchor. Then, from its tubes may be released a score of torpedoes with their gyroscopes set dead on the unsuspecting men-of-war. Then, as the submarines steal away unseen the mighty crash comes and the huge ships of the enemy are torn and crumpled and go to the bottom. To these fighting craft should be added six ammunition ships, 12 submarine tenders, six supply ships, six transports and six hospital ships. Aboard these ships in ”

time of war there would be 100,000 fighting men, good and true and trained. This is the sort of navy favored by Secretary Josephus Daniels of the navy, a non-mili-tary civilian who would convert these ships into trade schools while they keep the peace. It is the sort of navy rec- 4 ommended by the general board of the navy,

the nation’s great experts upon the subject, gathered together to determine just such policies. It is the sort of navy that has been steadily advor. cated by the Navy League of the United States. Just recently Secretary Daniels stated the president’s position to the house committee on naval affairs, evidently with the president’s consent. He said the president favored “at least two battleships a year” with the idea always in mind of keeping pace with the building programs of the other great nations. The general board of the . navy, having merely the needs of the service in mind and not considering the matter of appropriations that congress might be expected to make, stated that provision should be made this year .for four class ships. This need was due to the lack of adequate appropriations for the two years past. Back of all of this is the declaration in the platform of each of the three parties prominent in the last presidential election declaring for an adequate navy for maintaining American prestige. The general board of the navy is, however, the authority responsible for the drift of this country toward the Idea of a definitely laid down policy operative through a series of years with a navy of a given strength as the ultimate goal. This general board is also one of the most interesting organizations in the federal service, but one that is little understood. Admiral George Dewey, the hero of Manila bay, the only admiral in the navy, is president of the board. The presiding officer of the executive committee Is Rear Admiral C. F. Vreeland, who has been naval attache at JSt. Petersburg and Paris, has commanded a division of the At* lantic fleet, has served, in important posts in the department. These honors have come to Jtear Admiral Vreeland despite the fact that his first service was as an enlisted man, he having received his 'appointment to Annapolis from the post of an apprentice seaman. The next officer in rank with the general board also came up from the ranks. He is Rear Admiral W. H. H. Southerland, who was an enlisted man bfefore going to Annapolis. He commanded the Pacific fleet and landed marines in Nicaragua two years ago for the expedition that penetrated to Managua and straightened out the affairs of that much-troubled Central American republic. Rear Admiral A. M. Knight, of the -general boards is the navy department’s ordnance expert. He is the author of “Knight’s Seamanship,” the generally accepted authority on the subject, and president of tho navy war college. Read Admiral B. A. Fiske is the Inventor of tho service. Capt. A. G- Winterhalter has seen much service in far Eastern waters. Capt. H. S. Knapp is a member of the joint board of the army and navy and cne of the men who is building the fortifications for the Panama canal zone. Capt John Hood was for a long time in command of the battleship Delaware, making her the efficiency ship of the navy. Capt. W. R. ffljoemaker routed those romantic Moro pirates ©Ut of the southern Philippine waters. It was at the close of the Spanish-American war that th* navy department came to appreciate the tact that It was on administrative organizaUon with no Individual assigned to do anv thlnk-

Ing. The law gave the secretary only authority to execute the commands of his superior, the president of the United Statfes. The chiefs of bureaus are men in charge of the execution of certain work. There was no one to shape policies. The general board was created in 1900 for that purpose. For three years the general board concentrated upon a single idea—that of determining a definite building program for the United States. It wanted to look 20 years into the future, appreciate what conditions would be at that time and steadily develop the navy to meet those future conditions. It believed it would require 20 years to develop the right sort of navy, that here was a sort of work that, could not be improvised. So, after three years of study, the general board outlined a policy for a building program for the navy. It called for the development of a fleet of 48 battleships in 1920. It wanted 192 destroyers to go with them and 96 submarines and various other auxiliaries. It wanted the fleet that.Jthp, nation is just now coming to appreciate as the proper fleet for its uses. The gekyal board recommended this building program. Ms recommendations went to the secretary and were pigeonholed. They were not even sent to the naval committees of congress. Each year the general board reconsidered the question and each time the same recommendation was made. They got no further than the department files.

To have developed this fleet of 48 ships by 1920 it would have been necessary, beginning in 1903, to make appropriations for two first-class year and for three ships once in three years, always with the proper auxiliaries. So would the end have been accomplished by 1920. Later, the provision for ships having been inadequate, the general, board asked congress for as many as four ships fn a year, as it has this year. This was not because it believed four ships necessary each year, but because it wanted the model fleet by 1920 and former appropriations had fallen behind. Secretary Daniels was the first head of the department who ever transmitted to congress the recommendations of the general board together with its arguments for the navy that it thought should be developed. In its recent recommendations to the secretary of the navy, the general board stated that it realized that there was little hope of reaching the ideal navy that it had planned for 1920, but that it should be reached as soon as possible thereafter. Continuing, it said: “The board does believe, however, that this result may be eventually attained by the adoption by the government qf a definite naval policy and the putting of it .before congress and the people clearly and succinctly. By this method responsibility for any rupture of our peaceful relations with other nations dud to our naval weakness, or any national disaster in war due to the same cause will be definitely fixed. “The general board believes that the people, with full understanding of the' meaning and the reasons for naval power, will instruct the legislative branch of the government, and that that branch, with the same understanding, will provide the means. By the adoption and advocacy of a clearly defined, definite policy, the department with whom the responsibility first rests wfil have done its part and placed' the responsibility with the people and the legislative branch of the government. If the people, having been given the meaning and the reasons for naval power, fail to instruct congress, the responsibility and the resulting material loss and national humiliation rests with them, and if the congress, having been Instructed by the people, fails to provide the means, then the responsibility is theirs. “The recommendations of the board have in pursuance of a fixed and definite policy adopted by the board for its guidance, after mature and deliberate consideration of all the elements involved and after a careful estimate and forecast of the future as to what would be the naval development of those foreign countries with which a conflict might be possible, and what should be our development to insure peace if possible, or superiority of force if war should be forced upon us. Expressed in concrete words the policy of the board has been to provide the nation with a fleet equal or superior to that of any probable enemy, as a guarantor of peace; and its forecast was that a fleet of 48 battleships, with the attendant lesser units and auxiliaries, ready for action bj’ 1920, would adcomplish this result.”