Evening Republican, Volume 21, Number 12, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 23 January 1918 — NAMING OF WARSHIPS. [ARTICLE]

NAMING OF WARSHIPS.

Thg law requires that all first-class battleships “shall be named for states and shall not be’named for any city, place, or person until the names of the states have been exhausted,” and a recent article by Walter Scott Meriwether in the Rudder points out that Secretary Daniels’ recent order assigning the names of New Mexico, California, Tennessee, Mississippi, and Idaho to the five superdreadnaughts now under construction completely exhausts the list of unused names. In selecting names for the five battle cruisers authorized by the last congress, recourse was had to names which never, should have disappeared from the navy register —Constitution, Constellation, Saratoga, Ranger, and LeSlngton. The famous old frigates Constitution and Constellation, now preserved as relics of the wooden fleets of a century agp, will be known as “Old Constitution” and “Old Constellation.” The present Saratoga was formerly the New’ York, the armored cruiser which, served as Admiral Sampson’s flag ship.