Rensselaer Semi-Weekly Republican, Volume 40, Number 4, Rensselaer, Jasper County, 20 September 1907 — BIG GUNS ON DEFENSE. [ARTICLE]

BIG GUNS ON DEFENSE.

tTacle Sam Hm Enormouw Rifles W ♦ Guard Shore Line. Despite the fact that the United States has one of the longest coast .lines of any great, power it will shortly afford that coast line ample protection from one end to the other op both the Atlantic and Pacific sides.—Work will soon be begun to put on the finishing touches of defenses and fortifications in the insular possessions. the outlay necessary to fortify and protect the United States proper and its outlying possessions is over $200,000,000, of which amount considerably more than half has been expended. The scheme of national defense upon which work was in progress between 1888 and 1906 was based primarily upon a report submitted to the President by the so-called Endicott board in 1886. This board investigated the entire continental coast line of the United States and recommended the construction of fortifications which were estimated to cost about $126,000,000. Along the lines mapped out by this board Congress has appropriated approximately $75,000,000. In 1905 the President again appointed a board to revise the work done under the Endicott board and this time Secretary Taft was its president. After an exhaustive investigation the new national coast defense board recommended an additional expenditure of $51,000,000 to provide fortifications for new places and to modernize the defenses already built on the recommendation of the Endicott board. ' ' As a result of the work of both boards the following twenty-six ports may be said to be provided with ample sea-coast defenses : Kennebec river, Me.; Portland, Me.; Portsmouth, N. H.; Boston, Mass.; New Bedford, Mass?; Narragansett Bay, R. I.; eastern entrance to Long Island sound; New York, N. Y.; Delaware river; Baltimore, Md.: Washington, D. 0.; Hampton Roads, Va.; Cape Fear river, N. C.; Charleston, S. C.; Port Royal, S. C.; Savannah, Ga.; Key West, Fla.; Tampa bay, Fla.; Pensacola, Fla.; Mobile bay, Aja.; New Orleans, La.; Galveston, Texas; San Diego, Cal.; San Francisco, Cal.; Columbia river, Oregon and Washington; Puget sound, Wash. A glance at the list shows twentytwo of the twenty-six sea-coast defenses on the Atlantic coast, mounting approximately nine-tenths of the sea-coast guns of the United States. Outside of continental United States, under the recommendations of the Taft board, sea-coast defenses and naval stations are being constructed at Guantanamo, Cuba;‘ Honolulu and Pearl Harbor in the Hawaiiary Islands; San Juan, Porto Rico; Subig bay, Philippine Islands; Kiska in the Aleutian Islands and Guam. The manning of the sea-coast defenses is at present in charge.of the artillery branch of the United States army. In the estimate provided by the national defense board it was shown that when all the sea-coast defenses were completed it would require 57,387 men to properly manipulate them in time of war. Yet, according to the last report from the War Department, there were only 18,941 men in the whole artillery branch of the army, of whom 4,912 were in the field artillery. The last Congress, however, authorized the formation of thirteen full regiments of coast artillery, which, when fully recruited, will add approximately 13,000 men to that branch of the service.