Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 39, Number 89, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 12 July 1907 — GREAT PACIFIC FLEET. [ARTICLE+ILLUSTRATION]

GREAT PACIFIC FLEET.

Evans to End Active Career by Tak< Ins Warship* Around Horn. Deeper significance of an international charlcter than has yet been attached to the sending of the fleet of American battleships to - the Pacific coast shortly is new admitted by those in close touch with the situation. While it has been constantly declared by the Navy Department that no menace to Japan is intended by the dispatch of the fleet and Ambassador Aoki of.that country has asserted that Japan will not construe the presence of the fleet In., the Pacific as such, it is understood In Washington that the arrival of the battleship squadrons In the Pacific

marks the initial step toward the maintenance of a permanent fighting fleet in the Pacific hereafter. Whether the entire fleet of eighteen vessels which is now destined for the Pacific remain there or not, it Is asserted on the authority of well Informed officials that the American navy in the Pacific will never again be inadequate to cope with any ernergney on that side of the continent unless there is a vast change in the aspect of international politics. In addition to the necessity of urging upon Congress the needs of the navy on the Pacific side, which will now be accentuated by tbe presence of the fleet there, the administration is-de-clared by close students in Washington tb bave takeb time by the forelock In sending the fleet to the Pacific just

previous to the negotiation of a new treaty with Japan. The present comercial and amity treaty expires in 1911 and the progressive party of Japan is already Insisting as a political Issue that the new Japanese exclusion law, barring coolies from the United States, shall be modified In the new treaty. Extraordinary steps are already under way to send the fleet around the Horn as soon as possible. Rear Admiral Evans, who will likely end his active naval career by taking these warships around the Horn, is now in New York arranging the preliminary details of the trip. Already arrangements for the Immediate shipment of 50,000 tons of coal from Baltimore have been made. In addition the general board has formulated a plan for the transfer of the entire force of the Brooklyn navy yard to the Pacific coast In the event of labor troubles there and the establishment In tbe Pacific of a duplicate yard. The fleet in Its Journey to the Pacific will practically repeat the famous voyage of the battleship Oregon, made Just previous to the Spanish-American war.

BEAR ADMIRAL EVANS.