Jasper County Democrat, Volume 1, Number 19, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 August 1898 — THE AMERICAN NAVY. [ARTICLE]

THE AMERICAN NAVY.

Address Delivered at Crown Point, August 6, By Hon. John Boss, Democratic Candidate for Congress. The American Navy.—These words inspire the breast of every American citizen with just pride and patriotism. The Naval History of America is full of surprise and admiration, and for a nation who has devoted so much to commercial development, and to the establishment of a form of Government whose greatest strength is in the intelligence of a patriotic and freedom loving people. When the war with Spain was first agitated, a comparison of the relative strength of the two navies was freely discussed, and grave fears were expressed that Spain, being always ready for war, would certainly have a great advantage. This proposition was scouted by our naval officers, who claimed that all they needed, to substantiate their position, was a chance to give them battle, which was quickly done when the brave Dewey sailed into the Harbor at Manila, attacking the Spanish fleet, under the protection of their batteries, that were both large and formidable, and in the space of a few hours, silenced their batteries and presented to the proud Spaniards the largest submarine fleet in the world, without the loss of a man or a ship. It might be profitable as well as instructive, to make a retrospective view of the cause of the wonderful achievements of our navy. Ist. The Anglo Saxon race for the last two centuries, even from Oliver Cromwell’s time, has been a sea fighting people. Added to their natural ability, the American navy is made and commanded by the most carefully educated class of men in the civilized world. And strange as it may seem the advanced naval construction of the world is but following in the wake of American invention. Take for instance the old American gun frigate Constitution, the mounting of 24 pounders in the broadside of a frigate in 1797 was as much of an inovation as the construction of the Monitor in 1862. Think for a few minutes of a young nation, not half a century old, throwing defiance at England’s great navy and sailing the broad ocean attacking the enemy wherever found, no matter whether there were one or more vessels and always victorious, and was well named Old Iron Sides. For she had no equal on the high seas in her day. Other nations convinced of her superiority, rushed to the front with their naval boards of construction with a specific end in view, and that was to make something better than our grand old ship, and for over 40 years large appropriations were voted and numberless warships, constructed by the leading nations. In 1861 conditions demanded something better than wooden warships and on the 25th of October, 1861, the keel of the Monitor was laid in the Continental Iron Works, Green Point, Long Island, and to show what this nation is capable of accomplishing within 100 days this vessel was launched, and in IS days more this famous experiment went on her trial trip and was handed over to the Government and in a few days more made the famous trip to Hampton Roads in time to save the remnant of our wooden fleet that was being destroyed by the rebel ram Merrimac. The great battle between these Iron Monitors changed the naval architecture of the world. From the close of the war until 1880 the building of a first class navy met with so much opposition that it lay dormant for many years, but the continued insults to our flag and many of our citizens, by little fifth rate nations, aroused American patriotism and the nation demanded a good respectable navy. The foundation which was materially advanced under Secretary Whitney, and every administration since that time has shown thal same patriotic progressive spirit, until today every American citizen is proud of its achievements. We have shown to the world that American admirals, captains and seamen are second to nope in the world. Within the last 90 daye we have given practical illustra-

tion that no second class nation has any business to antagonize or lock horns with either our army or navy. The latter especially has done more to command respect from all the civilized nations of the world than anything that happened in the last century. With our navy today as it stands unparallelled in navy warfare, commands wonder and admiration of the civilized nations in destroying, sinking and burning the proud Spanish navy; bombarding, silencing and destroying their fortified city with the loss of only one man killed on the American ships. Today our navy has made it possible for the United States to enter on a new policy. The old Monrod doctrine has served its time. American interests demand trade with the outside world. We are producing too much to be consumed at home. We must maintain our flag wherever it is planted, either by conquest or annexation, and our markets will be the islands of the sea for all our surplus. Ships loaded with American products and manufacturers manned by American seamen and flying the American flag. The isthmus and construction of the canal connecting the east and west must be controlled by American interests. The isthmus with all that depends upon it, its canal and approaches on either hand will link the eastern side of the American continent to the western, as no network of land communication ever can. In it the United States had asserted a special interest. In the present she can maintain her claim, and in the future can perform her duty only by the creation of that sea power, upon which predominance in the Carribean must ever depend. In short, as the eternal* jealousies of Europe and the purely democratic institution of the levee en masse, the general enforcement of military training have prepared the way for great national armies, whose mission seems yet obscure. So the gradual broadening and tightening hold upon the sentiment of t American Democracy of that conviction loosely characterized as the Monroe Doctrine find its logical and uninevitable outcome in a great sea power. The correlative in connection with that of great Britain let us worship peace. Indeed as the goal at which humanity must hope to arrive, but let us not fancy that peace is to be had as a boy wrenches an unripe fruit from a tree, nor will peace be reached by ignoring the condition that confronts us, or by exaggerating the charms of quiet, of prosperity, of ease and by contracting these exclusively with the alarm and horror of war. Merely utilitarian arguments have never convinced mankind —and they never will—for mankind knows that there is something better. Its homage will never be commanded by peace pretented as the tutelary Deity of the stock market. Nothing is more ominous for the future of our race than the tendency vociferous at present which refuses to recognize in the profession of arms in war that something which inspired Wadsworths’ Happy Warrior, which soothed the dying hours of Henry Lawrence, who framed the ideals of his career on the facts conception and so nobly illustrated in his self sacrifice that something which has made the soldier to all ages the type of heroism and selfdenial.

Let the nation survey our fleet of today, and make the comparison of the fleet commanded by the great admirals of the last two centuries, embracing the gallant names of Blake, Nelson and Drake. That virtually gave the power of Great Britain’s undisputed control of the ocean. Then add/our American admirals Paul Jones, Decatur, Perry, Farragut, and then add the admirals of the present day whose achievements so far surpass all former ones, that Dewey, Sampson, Schley and Watson are the ideals of the American Nation. Commanding a line of battleships and cruisers unsurpassed in the world, and manned by a class of seamen, who, like Hobson and brave crew, arc ever ready to prove themselves heroes, and backed bv a patriotic nation, whose aim will ever be to keep our nation in advance of all others, both in power and intellect and by acting in conjunction with the advanced nations on all questions of personal freedom and religious liberty. The blots on Christian civilization such as Spanish barbarism, and Armenian outrages will be a thing of the past. When the religion of Christ, hicn who was lead as a lamb to the slaughter, seeks to raise before its followers the image of self control and of resistance to evil, it is the soldier it presents, whomitpresentshe himself if by office —King of Peace, is first of all, in the essence of his being King of Rightousness, without which true peace can not be.