Washington standard. [volume] (Olympia, Wash. Territory) 1860-1921, 1896-11-20
OUR NAVAL NOMENCLATURE.
Principles on Which Recent and For
mer Names Have Been Chosen.

new battleships and the composite gum
boats President Cleveland and Sccre-
tary Herbert have already cleared the
list and left nothing in sight to their
successors, unless, indeed, it should be
decided to give the new torpedo boats
names instead OF numbers. The prac-
tice in this matter has varied, SAYS the
New York SIMS Washington cores
pondcnt, names in some cases being
chosen soon after the ships were laid
down, while i'll Others they have been
kept back Ivy the selection of the Sec
retary who might be in Office at the
launching. The former plan has, no
doubt, certain advantages, as the en-
ploymcnt OF numbers to designate
vessels through the long process of
building is more likely, apparently,
to lead to mistakes and misapprehen-
sions. The plan in foreign navies,
especially for large ships, is to give
names soon after the vessels are con-
tracted for, and even in some cases as
soon as authorized. They then ac-
quire at once local habitation and Il
name.
In securing his own State as spon-
sor for one of the new battle ships,
Secretary Herbert has done what was
generally expected. There is, of
course, no intention of doing honor to
Semmes' Confederate vessel, which
had the same name. The Confeder-
ates named some of their ships after
States, and if that were valid obiec-
tion to repeating them in our navy,
we should bar out many of the South
ern States. They not only had an
Alabama as commerce destroyer,
but Clyde-built Georgia, which was
originally called the Japan, while the
very first of the Englsh-built Con-
federate cruisers was the Florida,
which cleared from Liverpool under
the name of the Oreto. Then the
Confederates had among their vessels
the armor-clad Virginia, formerly the
Merrimac; the rams Arkansas and
Tennessee, the Louisiana and so on.
Very likely we shall want to use some
OF these names for future battleships,
but it will be the States of the Union
that are thus honored, and not anv
former bearers of them. The names
selected by Secretary Whitney for the
first two steel-armOred ships were
Maine and Texas, and now comes n
second Southern State for the list.
The one exception made to the rule
which gives the names of States only
to battleships is that of the Kearsarge,
the gallant vessel which sent the old
Alabama to the bottom of the sea, and
this exception was made by act of
Congress.
Illinois and Wisconsin came in
properly enough for the other two
names of battleships. 1t will be re-
called that the former had been given
to the model ship Mt the Chicago fair.
California was urged rs name for
the ship to be built by the Union Iron
works, and Pennsylvania for the one
to be built by the Cramps, while Della
ware, though little State. has Il name
sonOrous enough for a big battleship.
But there will be other battleships
hereafter. Taking old ships and new,
the navy list now shows the Alabama,
Illinois, Indiana, Maine, Massachus-
etts, Michigan, Minnesota, New
Hampshire, Oregon, Texas, Vermont
and Wisconsin, making twelve States
whose names ships of the navy now
carry. Others have been found on
the roll in times past and no doubt
will be again. The cruiser New York
derives her name from the city, not
from the State.
The choice for names for the six
composite gunboats furnishes COM
ment on the system which Secretary
Whitney started. He named the first
heavy gunboat Yorktown, after
Revolutionary battle, and the light
gunboat Petrol. The Bennington and
the Concord perpetuated the former
class, and even when the Machias and
Castine followed, it was urged that the
former at least was selected because
the British schooner Margaretta was
captured in Machias harbor in 1775.
The Revolutionary celebrity of Cas-
tine, however, did not so distinctly ap-
pear, and when Secretary Herbert
named the three Newport News gun
boats Nashville, Helena and Whining
ton, it became evident that the
Revolutionary feature was dropped.
In the new gunboats it becomes
still further evident that towns of to-
day more than those of Revolutionary
fame are thus honored. Princeton,
indeed, was the scene of Revolu-
tionary battle, and that he possibilities
OF continuing Secretary Whitney's
system were not exhausted, Mon
mouth, Guilford and Eutaw may
testify.
Taking the names as they are,
Wheeling, which has long been q
candidate, at last is satisfied, and some
Others of the six selected have been
candidates before. Among the sug-
gestions that still wait are Chattanooga,