Daily Los Angeles herald., 1878-05-29
The Navy Sink Holes.

| DodOblui IL CNOI lttGu lOl bcd
owing to condition of hull" is the
official "remarkn concerning every
one of the Illustrates in the United
States navy except one. The Nj
agara, our largest ship, having q
displacement of $40 tons, is dis
tinguished by remark in the Off
cial list which varies, but does not
sweeten, the monotone of decay
and waste: Machinery and boil
ers worthless. Recon- amended to
be sold; hull rotten" In these few
works the account of the American
taxpayers with their five first
rates, the Colorado, Niagara, Min
nesota, Franklin, and Wabash, is
posted and closed. The great mem
of-war are gone. Rot, not age, has
consumed them. They were dis
honestly built, unskilfully hand
led, faithlessly cared for. The In
dependence, built in 1914, is yet
useful in the service. The Annap-
oils Academy practice ship, Con-
stellation, was built in 1897. The
famous Constitution, recently sent
to carry goods TO the French Expo
sition, was likewise built in 1897.
The Republic, in her youth. had
shipbuilders as well as sailors; now
she has only heads of bureaus and
graduates of a naval academy. If
it be retorted tn us that the Con-
stellaUion was rebuilt in 1854 and
the Constitution in 1876, think of
the honest work and material put
into these genuine Yankee frigates
when they were on the stocks,
eighty-one years ago.
Be comforted, II you can, oh tax
payers, as you look in lent wrath
ut these mighty ruins, with the
airy and sentimental assurance of
the House Naval Committee, that,
'1ike old horses that have been
family favorites, these first-rates
are venerated for what they have
BEEN" If you are not in pressing
need of something to venerate, but
unreasonably persist in looking for
your monarchs of the oceans, you
will get nothing better than this
requiem with which the Commit.
tee, in a business-like way, gets
your dead off its hands: Gas first.
rates, If by that term is meant first.
rate ships of war, they have ceased
to have any value. The whole list,
with their guns and tonnage, we
place among non-com batauts.u
Even the money spent on the 1888
great guns OF these immense men,
of-war has been thrown away!
Their costly armament is but pot
metal and scrap iron.
Before going out of this grave.
yard to look at the tatistics of the
unseaworthiness, rot and ruin of
the second, third and fourth rates
of our astonishing navy, we will
read aloud to the people of the
United States confession of Rear
Admiral Howell, the Chief of the
Bureau of Yards and Docks. 1t is
the highest attainable testimony
In regard to the manner in which
American men-Gf-war are built.
1t is proof incontestable that, as
our Navy Department is now con.
stituted, it is simply impossible for
us to get a good war ship, except
w uCCiAeuts LII JtllS bureau
Chiefs letter, published in the
House Naval Committees Report
No. 662, he says:
"Msny OF our present cruisers, owing
to their defects of Construction, roll so
frightfully that their usefulness a nght-
Ing ships is not only much impaired, but
almost entirely destroyed; and in this
connection beg to say that in my judg.
ment every flagship OF sufficient size
should carry, as part of its implement,
an assistant naval constructor, in order
that the gentlemen may learn from ex-
perience the manner in which some OF
our naval vessels, constructed by men
who have never made cruise and who
know nothing of the behavior of differ
ont types of vessel in a seaway, roll, ,
pitch and wallow, even in moderate
sea-
Will not every taxpayer in the
country demand that this style of
building war ships, and this man
ner of wasting public money, be
Immediately stopped? Will not
every sensible man say that the
United States navy, as an instru-
ment of government, is utterly
worthless and should be abolished?