The Dalles daily chronicle. [volume] (The Dalles, Or.) 1890-1948, 1892-01-05
NEW LONDON IN wAR.

The Strategic Value of a Connecticut City
in the Defense of New York.
Navy officers who have studied the
region have often and urgently pressed
upon their department the Importance of
developing the station at New London
and making it efficient. One must ad-
mire their energy and faithfulness in
continuing to lay before their superiors
the vital Importance of strengthening
this strategic base in the outer defense
Of New York in the face of long con-
tinued pigeonholing of reports That
their anxiety is not unfounded becomes
plain when we consider that Great
Britain has powerful station at Hall
fax, from which, if so disposed, she
could hurl her thunderbolts of maritime
war upon this unprotected spot at very
short notice, precisely as she could
strike our South Atlantic coast from the
Bahamas. She may never even wish to
do either thing, but isn't it rather fool
ish to remain uuprepared for the blow
when we have ample resources for es-
tablishing a guard against it?
The amount of trade that passes
through Long Island sound coastwise is
hardly conceived of by the majority Of
citizens 1t amounts to great many
million dollars worth a year, and all
this trade could be paralyzed by a quick
stroke from a foreign navy. In 1880 the
entire munitions of war manufactured
in the United States amounted to $11,-
100000. Of this total, SO, ,000, 900 worth
was manufactured in Connecticut alone
A foreign feet in the sonnd, therefore,
would be able to deprive us of our main
source of munitions without even at
tempting to attack New York.
Cut off a city's supply of air and what
would it matter whether that city, sur
rendered or not? Shut off from New
York in war time nine eleyenths of the
material it needed for war and it would
be as helpless as a city without air to
breathe. But this is not all. An enemy
in the sound could cut at New London
and again at New Haven, the chief lines
of land communication and railroad
transportation between New England
and New York
If of the loss which would thus be
caused small percentage were now to
be promptly applied to building up New
York's outer line of defense, with
strong navy yard at New London as its
base, the whole cost would be betrayed
y
any one. In time of action, while our
battle ships and cruisers patrolled the
Race or engaged the enemy, with sup
port from the forts, our monitors, emerg-
ing from New London, would lurk safe
ly behind Fishers island, prepared to
assist; for there again, on the north face,
nature favors us with the sheltered wa
ters of Hay harbor and West harbor. In
0f i
into New London, and repair at the navy
yard. Thus, while the surroundings and
topography are not the same as those of
the entrance to the Mediterranean, we
should still hayeSwhat might well be
called can American Gibraltar" quite
as invulnerable as the stronghold at the
pillars of Hercules, and much greater in
range.
Boston can be equipped effectually to
defend herself; and Newport also, if
fortified, is in position to ward off an
enemy. But neither of these, by so do
ing, can help to defend New York. New
London, on the other hand, if her nat
ural advantages are utilized, can repel
any attack on New York from the east,
and thereby relieve the metropolis from
dread in that quarter. 1t is well, it is
indispensable, to protect New York from
assault by way of the Narrows. But
what will it avail to bar that small front
door if the broad rear entrance through
the sound be left undefended?-
Women Doctors in England.
SIN Great Britain" said DR.. Elizabeth
Blackwell, ''our seventy-three registered
women doctors are few compared with
the three thousand in the United States
Yet with the nine students in our Lon
don school and the addition of the Edin-
burgh classes and the fact that the Glas-
gov Medical college has lately opened
its doors to women, clearly indicate that
the movement has taken sturdy growth
in our country, and when our English
work has been carried on for forty years
there is every probability that our Brit
ish woman doctors viii equal numerically
our kinsfolk across the water"