The Seattle post-intelligencer. [volume] (Seattle, Wash. Terr. [Wash.]) 1888-1914, 1892-03-22
COAST DEFENsEs.

Out Of forty-four states, only fifteen in
the entire Union are without cities open TO
attack from ahostile heet. OF twenty-five
leading cities on the sea coast and seven
teen on the lakes there is not one which at
present could be considered safe against
the English navy. Twenty-Five states out
of forty-four are directly interested,
through the exposure of their cities to
tribute or destruction in event of a war
with Great Britain, in the prompt con-
struction of adequate coast and lake de-
lenses.
1t is possible, but not probable, that New
York harbor might be successfully de-
Tended against an attack by the English
navy; but certainly no other city on the
Atlantic or Pacific sea coast could offer
successful resistance to naval attack. On
the Pacific coast Portland, the cities on
Puget sound, on San Francisco bay and
the bay of San Diego are open to the ships
of the English North Pacific squadron,
which has its rendezvous near Victoria,
where naval station Of immense strength
and all needed resources as base OF sup
plies is situated.
Within a week after the declaration OF
hostilities a vast amount of valuable prop
erty in the states of Washington, Oregon
and California would be brought under the
guns of an English feet. There is not
city on our sea coast from Portland,
Maine, to Seattle, into which English IRON
clads could not be dropping shells within
q week after declaration of war. From
the great English naval stations at Hall
fax, Bermuda, st. Lucia and Jamaica our
Atlantic coast is but forty-eight hours dis
tant by steam navigation. Within week
our whole coast would be under fire of
English guns from fleet only two days
sail from its base of coal, ammunition and
food supplies.
While our seacoast cities are capable of
feeble defense, our lake cities, like
Buffalo, Erie, Cleveland, Sandusky. De-
troit, Chicago, Milwaukee and Duluth,
are absolutely helpless, as are the lake
towns of Vermont and New York that
can be reached in a few hours from the
St. Lawrence. Chicago, with its enorm-
Gus wealth, is more helpless today
against English attack than Seattle or
Portland, Or, and the destruction OF
Chicago would affect business in every
interior state of this Union.
Chicago is helpless because the English
canals in Canada allow the rapid transfer
of modern English ironclads of light
draught. carrying powerful guns, from the
st. Lawrence to the lakes, whose commerce,
which passes through the Sault Ste. Marie
canal, considerably exceed. the annual tom
mage of the Suez route to India and China.
By means of these Canadian canals,
within forty-eight hours after a declara-
ton of war, England could insure the de-
struction Of every American city from Og-
densburg to Duluth.
The national capital itself is exposed to
vessels of heavy draft, which can come as
near as Alexandria. 1t is clear that our
government, 50 far as adequate coast and
lake defenses is concerned, is absolutely
defenseless against the English navy, if
war was declared tomorrow.
Our new navy. the complement of
proper system Of coast defense, is suffi-
cient to resist such powers as Chill, China
and Japan, but it could offer no resistance
worthy of the name to one of the great
naval powers of Europe. We have the
Baltimore, Chicago, Philadelphia, New
ark, San Francisco. Charleston, Atlanta,
Boston, Miantonomah, Yorktown, Con-
ri n-tn hi
single-turret monitors, Ajax, Canonicus,
Mahopac, Manhattan, Wyandotte, Co
manche, Catskill, Jason, Lehigh, Mon
tauk, Nahant, Nantucket and Passaic.
Under construction we have the three
10, 2oo-ton battle ships Indiana, Massachu-
sets and Oregon; the fine s,150-ton ar
mored cruiser New York, the fast 1850
ton protected cruisers Nos II and 10, pop
ularly called the Pirate and the Corsair;
the Maine and Texas, the Puritan, Am
phitrite, Monadnock and Terror, the
5.500-ton protected cruiser building at San
Francisco, the coast defender Monterey,
which will make San Francisco safe; the
two 3.co0-ton flyers Cincinnati and Ra-
leigh.
If all the ships under construction were
ready for service tomorrow they could not
defend our sea coast successfully, so utterly
barren is that sea coast of adequate land
batteries and defenses. If Lord Salisbury
should refuse to renew the modus ;iyendi.
and we should in face of his warning seize
Canadian sealers, We should be obliged to
take our medicine for We are powerless
to assert and defend our real or assumed
rights against the navy of Great Britain.