Salt Lake evening Democrat. [volume] (Salt Lake City, Utah) 1885-1887, 1885-05-16
THE COAST DEFENSE.

Institute on Thursday last, on the de-
fenses of our coasts, is attracting good
deal of attention throughout the country.
The United States have more sea-coast to
defend than any other nation; is only
surpassed in wealth by England and is
surpassed by all in the matter OF defend
ing her coast line, and with the coast line
defenseless, the interior OF the country
might be invaded. An enemy would find
a difficult task in penetrating far into the
interior of our country, but such things
are not beyond possibility. In the war
of 1912, the English took and burned
Washington; and such thing might be
done again. As Lieutenant Griffin plainly
showed. the ports of Boston, Portland,
New York, Newport, Philadelphia, New
Orleans, Baltimore and San Francisco
are comparatively without defense, and
the visible wealth of these cities would be
tempting prize for which a powerful
enemy would be willing to take any risk,
and which could now be taken without
very great risk. Surely the protection of
these places, as well as the whole coun-
try, is worthy the attention of the Gov
ernment, and if some of the many mil
lions which Congress has voted away to
railroad schemes andsother private un-
dertakings, as well as some of the
millions which have gone into
the pension swindle, had been
devoted to placing our sea-coast defenses
in proper condition, the humiliating
picture which was drawn at Governors
Island last Thursday would not have
been seen. New York alone will require
some seventeen and a half millions of
dollars to put it in proper state of de-
fense, and some other important cities
near the same amount; and if the money
were even now at the command of those
who are in charge of the forts it would
take some years TO do the work necessary
to make them an effective defense.
There was one thing in particular of
which Lieutenant Griffin made mention
and upon which the whole country has
been relying, thinking it the ne plus ultra
of defensive warfare, namely, the torpedo
system. This he says is not entirely
adequate, and this has long been known,
but never has public attention been
called to it before by a compe-
tent military engineer. 1t has
been demonstrated that vessel can car
ry such submarine defenses as will ex-
plode a torpedo without doing any dam
age to the boat using them. For tor
pedo to be effective in its work of destruc-
ton it must come in immediate contact
with the object which it is sought to de-
stroy, and it was to prevent this immedi-
ate contact that submarine armor was in
vented. There has been no regular sys-
tenn arranged, and so far the armor has |
merely been extended arms or chains
to catch a torpedo and explode |
it before the bottom shall strike it. If |
the new gelatine gun lately invented |
proves a success, this will in great meas
ure solve the problem of our coast de-
lenses, as these guns are of so destructive |
a character that such vessels as the |
English turret ship, the Infexible,"
with armor from sixteen to twenty
four inches, carrying four S0-ton guns
with displacement of II, 800 tons, or the |
Italian ships the ''Duilio" and "Dandolo."
both of which have twenty-five inches of |
armor at the water line and carry four
l0O-ton guns each, would be shattered |
and sunk by well directed shot from q
6-inch rifed gelatine gun. At present
most OF the forts are armed with the |
Rodman smooth bore guns, and what
their worth would be against such ships
as those above mentioned is not known.
but certainly it would not compare with
the new guns in destructive power.
If Lieutenant Griffin is successful in
arousing in Congress sense of the total
of our coast defenses, he will
have rendered his country a signal SER
vice.
Lieutenant Griffin graduated from West
Point in 1875, third of his class. and is a
of Major-General Hancock.