Waterbury evening Democrat., 1889-09-09
OUR LACK OF A NAVY.

When President Cleveland went into | office, after twenty-four years of repub- l lican administration, and Secretary Whitney took charge of the naval branch of the government, they found little or nothing of a navy to represent the four hundred millions of dollars which the American people had been taxed for naval purposes during the six republican administrations beginning with that of Abraham Lincoln in 1861. MT Whitney went to work in business like way to change the existing state of things, and with a measure of success that has made his one of the brightest Cleveland administration.
 During the republican regime, when millions of dollars were paid to John Roach for building and repairing iron
 clads, the country was treated to one of the most scandalous and interruptions wastes of public money known to mod ern history. The idea of "repairs'' was
 the keynote of the whole republican ad- ministration of the navy from first to last. They built ships that, from the first day they were launched, were con- stantly in need of "repairs,'' and so fur
 nished wide fe Id in which the friends of the political bosses made money with
 out stint. The Dolphin, the Pensacola, the | Atlanta are conspicuous instances of | vessels on which thousands were squan-
 dered and which have never been of
 any practical value to the government.
 It is quite probable from recent indi-
 cations that under Secretary Tracy we
 are to see a revival of the system that
 drew thousands on thousands of dollars
 from the national treasury to be poured
 into the pockets of favorite politicians
 for old hulks that are never seaworthy
 and that are not strong enough to stand
 the recoil of the heavy guns with which
 they must be armed to be of value. Our
 commercial marine has been practically
 driven from all the ocean highways of the
 world, and cribbed down to our own
 coasting trade-an industry in which
 Italy or Denmark or any of the second AoCO AAoVAOAAo oA GuAoPO StAAA S<ASSA SAo3
 while our naval department absolutely
 degenerated into sort of hospital ser-
 vice, in which our ships of war figured
 only as subjects for perpetual ''repairs'
 that kept the navy yards busy and fur
 nlshed an endless bill of expense to the
 nation, from which the political fa- } vorites (whose contracts" never seemed to expire) derived all the benefit, and the country none. Under the able manage r ment of Secretary Whitney much o1 t this useless waste and culpable expendi 3 ture was corrected, though it would have been too much to expect that foul t years of democratic economy and sounc } administration could at once counterac 8 the efforts of quarter of century o1 ) republican venality and corruption.
 But the people do not want a reviva t of the republican "repair' system! They 8 do not want return of the method 8 that obtained under Robeson and Chan s dler! They do not want our navy yard d turned into political nurseries, nor ou d ships of war made marketable commo > dities to enrich the pockets of venal an' tt favored contractors! The Americal :. people want an honest, economical, eff e cient administration of the navy depart e ment, such as Secretary Whitney gav I the country, and that will build up tn y system to a position that will shov r something for the millions that hay s been expended on it.
 Secretary Tracy must not go back t @ the system of Grant, Chandler am f Robeson! The country has had enougl If of that.