The Democratic advocate. [volume] (Westminster, Md.) 1865-1972, 1888-09-22
The New Navy.
From Me Mer York Sun.

The Navy Appropriation bill has recelv-
ed the signature of President Cleveland
and has become law. 1t adds four cruis-
ers and three gunboats to the new feet,
making an aggregate of thirty war ships
for whose construction provision has been
made since the advent Of a Democratic
House of Representatives twelve years
ago.
The Democratic party, as Mr.. Herbert,
Chairman of the House Naval Committee,
shows, has always fostered the navy. Mad
ison's Administration gave 81, 100000 a
year for eight years to build ships, and
with that sum eight seventy -fours and
as many forty-fours were constructed.
Monroes Administration, by appropriating
100000 year for six years, added six
more forty-fours. Under Van Buren our
steam navy was founded with an appropri-
alton of s2,0G0,000, which aided by anoth-
er such sum under Tyler, built fifteen
steamships. Four more vessels were con-
structed under Polk, who in one of his
messages declared that, while large stand
ing army in peace is dangerous to liberty,
-Four coasts, harbors, inland seas, and COM
merce must be protected by our navy"
Under Pierce were built eleven fine vessels,
which were the admiration of observers
wherever they cruised. This is the Dem
ocratic record, and as Mr. Herbert says,
''if any individual Democrat has urged
that we ought not to maintain navy, it
was simply because he was driven tempor-
arily, by shockingly extravagant expendi-
lures, into state Of such evaporation that
he forgot for the moment the teachings of
the fathers"
The ten years following the civil war
formed such period of outrageous naval
expenditures. Their aggregate from July
l, 1866, to July l, 1876, was 1924, 191,-
119 The minimum for any one year was
s1S,963, $40; the maximum, S31 ,034,O11;
the average, S23,419,112. Then came in
a Democratic House, to insist upon econo-
my and efficiency The ten years from
July l, 1876, to July l, 1886, shows an
aggregate naval expenditure of S153, ,310,-
S32. The highest annual expenditure was
S17, 1865, ,361; the lowest, S13, ,907, 1888; the
average, SIS, 1881, ,0S3.
In these ten years, therefore, saving
of 80,SS0,289 was effected, or enough to
build an entire navy. 1t is true that the
personnel cost more in the former of the
two decades 1t cost SIT ,643, ,901, against
the 500, ,001, $3.50 of the second decade; but
subtracting this difference of SS,642,021
from the SS0,990, ,289, we still have S72,-
239, ,266 to be accounted for. To what is
this difference due?
In the first place, there is in the navy
yards stock of timber that cost 81 ,807,-
502, useless now, and nearly all bought
between 1870 and 1876, or at time when
modern ship construction was being aban-
doned in all navies. In the next place
millions were wasted on system of repairs
like that, for example, which put more
than S2,000,000 on the Tennessee, after
her original cost, and got about ten years
of service from her outside of repair shops
and navy yards. Other scores Of millions
went in corruption and incompetency of
management.
When the House of Representatives
passed under the control of the Democracy,
and full exposures of past maladministra-
ton and fraud had been ordered and made,
the work of rebuilding the navy began.
Admiral Porter who lately wrote that at
the end of the civil war in 1866, "the
United States had attained position as a
naval power never before reached by the
republic" testified in 1876 before COM
mittee of Congress that "our navy taken
as whole, is worth nothing" This was one
fruit of an expenditure of 1924, 100000
between 1866 and 1876. But the Demo-
cratic House went to work. 1t prepared
to construct new steel navy, and the four
Roach cruisers were begun by Mr.. Chan
dler. Finding a total lack of harbor de-
fence vessels, it was willing even to COM
plete the five double-turret monitors, which
dated back to period of fraud and lawless-
ness. Then came the administration of
Secretary Whitney, and at once, by its
liberal appropriations for war ships, which
have continued without pause from session
to session to the present time, Congress
showed its confidence in that officer.
As a result we have now, to start with,
the four Roach cruisers, Chicago, Atlanta,
Boston, and Dolphin, classed as fifteen-knot
and sixteen-knot vessels We have also
under completion the FIVE monitors, which
will be slow, but will carry ten-inch guns,
have in course of construction three gun
boats of sixteen knots, the Yorktown, Ben
nington, and Concord, and one Of thirteen,
the Petrel, besides the three of 1000 tons
authorized in the current act, from which
eighteen knots are expected. Ofthe cruis-
ers, the Charleston, already launched, and
the Newark are to make eighteen knots,
while the Baltimore, the Philadelphia, and
the San Francisco, and the two 3,000-ton
vessels of the present act, are to make
nineteen knots. The 5,600-ton cruiser in
this act is to be guaranteed to make twenty
knots; which is the speed of the Vesuvius,
the dynamite vessel The Herreshoff tor
pedo boat will go at least % knots. More
important than any of these are the three
armored cruisers, of which the Maine and
Texas are building, while third, larger
than either, is now authorized The plans
for an armored coast defence vessel are
being perfected. Here are thirty vessels,
to form the basis of an efficient navy; and
the purchase of the swift little Stiletto has
made the number thirty-one.
Add the provisions for manufacturing
heavy guns and armor plates from Ameri-
can material by American workmen in
American shops, and the result is record
which Secretary Whitney and the Demo-
Gratis in Congress may well feel proud to
review.
A Lady's Wonderful Memory.