The Press., 1891-04-02

quickest methods of defense, and we have great many torpedo shells already made, made with very considerable Yankee in- genuity. have seen them and know all about how they are made. They are stored up there, but your torpedoes have to be charged; your torpedoes have to have anchors in the stream, and lead lines, and telegraph wires, and galleries or cov- cred ways along on the shore-protected wire and protected holes for the operators, who will see just when the hostile ships cross the line, and turn the switch and ex- plode it. It requires considerable prepa- ration; just now it would require prepa- ration of perhaps three or four months to get those magnificent weapons of defense in operation.
 But this wise appropriation committee come in and knock down the very things that we need more than any other thing in the whole bill for prompt work; they knock it down from $200, ,000 to $100, ,000, I think, in one case, and from $10O, ,000 to $5O, ,0O0 in another.
 Some of these sums sound large, but, as planned by that famous and able board on Notifications and other defenses here about three years ago, not all of it togeth- CT begins to approach the sum that our people about fifty or sixty years ago de- termined to expend for the protection of our coast, and they completed practically Fortress Monroe-not entirely; it never has been altogether finished as it ought to be-and begun magnificent works at Sandy Hook and elsewhere in accord ance with general system, the wisest of that time, the time when we had the best guns that could be found in the world on land or on shore; and after we had for half 8 century led the world in building new guns of the old cast-iron kind, the best that were to be got then, we had-let whoever will claim 1t, democrat or whig, in those days, do not care-we had the best land defenses in the world, and many of the best guns; and what we then pro- posed far exceeded in proportion to the taxable power of the country the burden bearing power, what anybody proposes to levy now upon us.
 Now, our distinguished friend from New Hampshire has just been telling us that in case of serious disturbance and contro- versy with foreign nations we shall be in- vaded by land forces, and the naval at tacks upon our coasts and our great sea- ports would be of very little consequence. Nobody who studies the art of warfare thinks so or talks so, and might leave it just there.
 But he says that the destruction of the city of New York would be mere flea bite as compared with the power of the whole country and the wealth of the whole country. There again he makes a very great mistake. New York is the ] throat or the carotid artery of the country as to it's commerce and its finances, and a blockade of New York by foreign fleet would be felt in twenty-four hours in every village in the country, as every mercantile man ought to know, and as everybody, think, would concede in a moment. But when great men making great wars start out they begin by attack ing the great, rich commercial centers, the reservoirs, the great collections of wealth, and all under the powers of de- fense. They would think it an admirable I .%o +o destroy Paris, for example. They would think it an excellent thing to take the cities along the Rhine. It would be an extraordinary feat to take London, and it would be thought very ridiculous if man said it was of no consequence whether you took London or not, or destroyed all it's visible property; that the rest of the country would only get angry, and sub- stantially, in the language of the senator from New Hampshire, would devote itself for years to projects of revenge.
 That is precisely the difficulty. Wars nowadays are brief, short, sharp, decisive, if possible, within 8 comparatively brief period of time, and the aim of them is to make the attacked party, the conquered party, pay the bills, and they are terribly destructive and terribly expensive also, respond to the suggestion of the senator from Massachusetts (Mr. Dawes), and therefore they are not likely to be long wars.
 Everybody who studies this question sees that the way to distress us would be for great fleets to blockade few of ou1 large cities and levy upon them immense tribute or proceed to destroy them. War is not merciful. Now, there are within reach of long guns along our coast 1T eight harbors, which include New York and Boston, etc., grand total of $4, 800, 900, ,OOO worth of destructible property that is very large fraction of the tota
 wealth of the country-without any ade
 quate security against the vicissitudes o1
 war.
 I am coming to the utter nonsense, tht monstrous nonsense, of trying to argue tc
 convince us that war with us is coming by
 the landing of land forces. There is nc
 nation in the world that has got 100000 men to spare for that purpose, and they
 would be fools to undertake it with 1ess
 than half million. If they should try te
 do it and muster all the enormous fleets and transport ships that would be needed for 1t, with it's infinite quantity of supplies of all descriptions, to bring them 5, 3,OO( miles across the Atlantic, our best polio, would be to summon our raw militia ant stand back 100 miles and invite them re speclfully to land and make themselves q home and camp, and then by sheer brute . undisciplined force roll over them ane drive them back into the water. Now : that is all. Nobody is going to try it, fol there is not an idiot of 8 second lieutenan
 in any army of the world who would thinl . oR ipx,odfn0 hu land Thof fc ro