that we have done is concerned, are just as strong against the world and against the United States as they are to-day. To change that prospect, it is becoming evident that we shall have to undertake a deep reorganization of our conceptions of policy and of our methods of organization for manufacture. (New Republic, X, 314-316; April 14, 1917.) C. [$274] NECESSITY OF A LARGE NAVAL FLEET. 1. Specific References on the Section. See $133 above. Ballou, Sidney. League, 1916). Comparisons of Naval Strength. (Wash., Navy Hart, A. B. Naval Defense of the Monroe Doctrine. Navy League, 1916.) (Wash., Knight, A. M. (Rear Admiral, U. S. N.). "Naval Lessons of the Balfour, Arthur J. "What Britain's Navy Has Done," in N. Y. Anon. "British Blockade Methods," in ibid, III, 1110 (Mar., 1916). Laut, A. C. "What Sea Power Means to England in This War," Kaempfert, W. "Inventors' Board and the Navy," in ibid, LII, 297-300 (Sept., 1915). Simmels, Frank H. "Sea Power in the War," in ibid, LIII, 167- Churchill, W. "Britain's Sea War," in ibid, III, 691 (Jan., 1916). "Naval Preparedness," in ibid, vol. 202, pp. 847-857 (Dec., 1915). Bridge, Sir Cyprian. "Battle of Jutland Analysed," in ibid, IV, 939-940 (August, 1915). Anon. "Greatest Naval Battle," in ibid, IV, 601-606 (Aug., 1916). Laut, A. C. "Our New Navy," in Review of Reviews, LIV, 517-526 (Nov., 1916). Pollen, Arthur H. "Needs of Our Navy," in North Am. Rev, vol. 203, pp. 345-362 (Mar., 1916). Meyer, George v. L. "Are Naval Expenditures Wasted?" in ibid, vol. 201, pp. 248-253 (Feb., 1915). Goodrich, C. F. "Future of the Battleship," in ibid, vol. 202, pp. 373-384 (Sept., 1915). Sommerfeld, V. "Rail Power and Sea-Power," in Living Age, vol. 285, pp. 202-209 (Apr. 24, 1915). Jellicoe, Admiral Sir John. "The British Navy's Titanic Task," in ibid, V, 1040-1042 Mar., 1917). Frothingham, G. "Comparative Strength of Navies To-day," in ibid, V, 1043 (Mar., 1917). Gill, Lieut. Charles C. "Naval Power in the Present War," in ibid, vol. V, 648, 847, 1051, VI. 87, 273 (Jan.-May, 1917). Curtis, C. G. "Our Naval Inferiority," in The Navy, X, 22-28 (Feb., 1916). 2 Furnishing First Line of Naval Defense. 3. Variety of Ships. (a) Battleships, fast cruisers. (b) Destroyers, submarines. (c) Mother ships, hospital ships, transports, supply ships, etc. §§274-275] NAVAL POWERS 277 4. No Invasion Possible While That Fleet Holds. (a) But German, British and Italian fleets are unable to keep the sea in squadrons in the North Sea and Channel, 5. Need of Naval Enlistments. (a) Keeping up the numbers. (b) Providing a reserve. 6. Documents and Extracts on the Section. (a) [§275] Naval Power Is Paramount Power. BY REAR ADMIRAL FRENCH E. CHADWICK. The navy in all countries has ever been, and, as far as we can now judge, ever will be, a pre-eminent instrument of Government. It was through her navy that Greece destroyed the power of Persia; Rome that of Carthage; the allies at Lepanto that of the Turks; England that of Holland and later that of France in America; the navy of France, in turn, caused the relinquishment of Great Britain's sovereignty over the thirteen Colonies which formed the United States, and a generation later it was the British Navy which made the efforts of the great Napoleon the "baseless fabric of a vision." VALUE OF A NAVY. Coming to days within the ken of many still living, the navy was the power which made possible the preservation of the Union in our great civil war by the cutting off of the Southern Confederacy from its means of support by sea and reducing its forces thereby to practical inanition. For had the Confederacy had free access to the sea and control of the Mississippi River, no armies of the North could have conquered well-supplied armies of the South. So, too, the control of the sea decided the outcome of the Spanish war. When Sampson's fleet destroyed Spain's only battle squadron off Santiago de Cuba, Spain could no longer reinforce her army in Cuba, and surrender was a necessity. Even as this is written, Germany's every sea outlet is closed by the British fleet, so superior in number to the German, German commerce on the sea is for the time entirely swept away, leaving Great Britain for the moment navally and commercially supreme upon the ocean. As one attempts to look into the future the vastness of the possible changes startles the imagination, but in it all is ever present the power that goes with the ubiquitous warship, from whose threat no port of the world is free. Military power fades to insignificance, through its narrow limits of mobility, when compared with the meaning of a great fleet. NAVAL WORLD POWER. We speak much of our development into a world power through the war of 1898. We were such a power potentially as soon as we had a navy of a strength to enable us to say to another power, "I forbid." And we can only remain a world power through a navy which can command safety and peace. Linked to such power there must be political good sense and just dealing. Long habit in obedience and in command, a lifelong study of international relations, a knowledge of the races of men such as no other great profession can offer, an ideal which puts duty as its first law; these enable the navy to furnish its just quota of both the high qualifications mentioned. To it the country can securely trust its honor and safety. It will ever do its duty. DEFENSE OF THE PANAMA CANAL. The situation left us by the Spanish war is one which can be maintained only by a powerful fleet, though our acquisitions in themselves scarcely add to the necessity of such a fleet, for meanwhile we have built the Panama Canal. And while the canal has lightened our strategic difficulties in that our battle fleet can now reach San Francisco from the Caribbean in a fourth of the time it took the Oregon to make her celebrated passage from San Francisco to Key West, there is upon us the heavy burden of the defense of the Isthmus, its position being in effect insular. It can only remain in our hands by our controlling the sea. Fortifications assist in its defense for the time being, but should we go to war it must finally go into the hands of the power with a superior navy. And being thus isolated and having this insular character, the canal and its fortifications should be in naval control in order that there should be complete unanimity of effort in its defense. It is safe to say that, however anti-imperialist one may be, there is no American who would see the canal go into foreign control with equanimity. The most pronounced would halt at such a danger. Thus, whatever one's attitude may be toward the Monroe Doctrine, there are few who would not uphold the contention that we shall not permit any further extension of foreign influence in the Caribbean or in any part of the neighboring Pacific littoral, or in neighboring islands such as the Galapagos. This is not a question of extension of influence, but of safety. WHAT A NAVY WOULD HAVE SAVED. Whether with or without a war, a navy would have saved us the six years of humiliation which were to intervene between 1806 and 1812; it would have saved the embargo which was to tie to the wharves in rotting idleness more than a million tons of shipping which had been engaged in foreign trade; to bring grass-grown streets to our greatest ports, and strain the sentiment of the several sections of the Union to the point of separation. It would have saved the War of 1812, the capture and burning of Washington, and the shameful ineptitude, with one brilliant exception, of our army commanders in that contest. . . There would have been a cessation of British impressment and there would have been no such Orders in Council as those directed to the destruction of American commerce; or had these come before America was ready with her navy there would have been quick renunciation. §8275-276] USE OF THE NAVY 279 Said Gouverneur Morris in the Senate (and it was the expression of one of the ablest minds of the country): "When we have twenty ships-of-the-line at sea, and there is no good reason why we should not have them, we shall be respected by all Europe. The expense compared with the benefit is moderate, nay, trifling. Whatever sums are necessary to secure the national independence must be paid. If we will not pay to be defended, we must pay for being conquered." DIPLOMACY BY THE NAVY. A word must be said as to the navy's diplomatic work. International law is mostly both made and administered by navies. The navy is thus a great and constant school of diplomacy, the right hand of the Department of State. We have had a notable instance, almost as I write, in the events in Mexico, and from none have naval officers received higher praise for their work than from the late lamented Secretary of State John Hay. It is duty such as this which gives the naval profession its breadth and importance in peace, as great in its way as in war. And the diplomacy of naval officers is always in the direction of peace, though it may sometimes be peace with a strong hand, as in Admiral Benham's most admirable handling of the situation in the harbor of Rio de Janeiro during the revolt of 1895. He brought instantaneous peace between the revolutionary forces and the Government; he upheld international law, stood by the rights of our merchant captains and rendered a service beyond price to Brazil. Such international uses of the navy accentuate the value of the Marine Corps, now a naval army of 10,267 men and officers. . . . It differs from the army proper in its mobility and ever-readiness for foreign service. Its mobility is that of the navy itself; its transport is ever ready; its supply train is the fleet. It is an international understanding that seamen or marines may be landed in any part of the world for the protection of life and property, and that such action may even extend to the use of force without being regarded as an act of war. There is no need to expand the value of such a convention which gives the navy such an extension of its field of forceful, and at the same time peaceable, action. (F. E. Chadwick, The American Navy.) (b) [§276] Naval Militia, 1914. BY CHARLES C. GILL. In February Congress enacted a Naval Militia Act which was approved by the President. Under the terms of the Act the naval militia is given until Feb. 16, 1917, to prepare to comply with the organization to be prescribed by the Secretary of the Navy. After that date the Secretary shall prescribed the arms, armament and equipment of the naval militia, and he is authorized to issue to the Governors of the State, as a loan, vessels, stores, supplies and equipment for the naval militia. The law in many respects is stronger than the Dick law, under which the organized land militia is operating. The President is authorized in event of war, actual or threatened, invasion or rebellion, to call upon the naval militia to repel such invasion, suppress such rebellion, or to execute his orders, the orders to be issued through the Governor of the State. The naval militia, when called into service, is to be governed by the Navy Regulations. In time of service, officers and men are to receive the same pay as the same grades in the regular service. The naval militia of each State is to have at least five days of military or naval exercise each year. An examining board is to hold examinations from time to time under rules prescribed by the Secretary of the Navy. Commissions and certificates will be given to officers and men who qualify. The Naval Militia General Board and a board appointed by Secretary Daniels to formulate a standard of professional examinations for officers and enlisted men of the naval militia and to recommend a definite plan for carrying out the other provisions of the Naval Militia Act, began sessions at Washington on Oct. 20. The naval militia held in the fall its first competitive target practice, conducted, as far as possible, under the same conditions as obtain in the navy. A pennant is awarded to the organization which makes the best record, and it is believed that a very spirited rivalry will develop among the naval militia of the different States. (American Year Book, 1914, p. 310.) (c) [§277] What Shall the Navy Do? BY PARK BENJAMIN. Some people who have recently been comparing more or less bewildering figures relative to tonnage, armament, speed, movements and distribution of all sorts of naval vessels from dreadnoughts to motor boats, seem to think that a useful purpose may be served at the present moment, by sending our navy or a part of it to the North Sea. Certainly there is something to make the pulses leap in the thought of the Stars and Stripes flying from the mastheads of our own dreadnoughts as they sweep into action beside the great warships which as proudly wear the meteor flag of England or the tricolor of France or the banner of Savoy or the new scarlet of Russia; but, nevertheless, one must deal with the matter dispassionately and beware of misconceptions. Therefore I begin by remarking that homemade strategy and naval statistics are to the lay mind a delusion and a snare. RANKING OF NAVIES. The trouble lies perhaps not in the figures, which mathematically cannot "lie," but in the deductions which the layman draws from them almost invariably under the assumption of "all other things being equal," or at least capable of exact expression. As a matter of fact, all other things are not equal, and so far from being capable of exact expression, they largely rest upon uncertainties and probabilities. It is common, for example, to arrange the navies of the world in an order of strength, and then to conclude that each in turn will of necessity |