The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1897-02-16
PLAYING AT WAR,

The attempted blockade at Charles
ton by our naval squadron is a very
pretty bit Of by-play for officers and
men out Of a job and besieged by the
ennuf Of the army and navy in time
of peace. but its practical worth and
practical effects would appear to be
absolutely nothing. All our big war
ships are down there lying about the
mouth Of the harbor and maintaining a
sham blockade. Meantime, the little
Dolphin and the Vesuvius skip in and
out at their pleasure, running the
blockade with the ease of practiced
smugglers and leaving the discounted
admiral to wonder how they broke
through his line. Now, as we say, all
this is very pretty, like private the
atrical show for a house party at some
gendeman's country residence, but it
is hardly worth the bill which Uncle
Sam will be called upon to foot for
such costly fooling. In the first place
the day Of carrying on war by block
aiding an enemy's ports is probably as
entirely passed as the day of the cata-
putt. The time was when cities were
starved into submission by investing
them by land and sea, and when a
country's commerce was brought to
ruin by shutting out it's ports of entry
from communication with the rc.
the world. There will be no war of that
KIND in the future. Navies nowadays
are built for direct assault, and not for
the sole purpose Of reduction by starv-
alton. The tremendous battleships that
constitute modern ffrst-class fleet are
not going to occupy themselves with
blockading a port. Nothing would
please an enemy better than to know
that the ships of which he was in
search were trying to establish a block
ade somewhere, so that he might steam
off to that point and crush them at a
blow.
In the next place, of all the possibil-
tiles Of war, the most remote is that
our navy will ever have occasion to
blockade anybody anywhere. Only in
the event of another civil war-thank
heaven, immeasurably remote and i'm
posslble-When a part of this country
should be arrayed against another part,
would the necessity arise Suppose
that we were to get into a. war tonor-
row with Great Britain or France or
Italy, or even Spain, does ANYBODY
that vTyn
carry on operations by sending a fleet
across the Atlantic to blockade some
port Of one or the other of these ma
lions? On the contrary, that is inst
what we should avoid. Our battIeshins
and cruisers would scour the seas as
commerce destroyers and might bonn
bard town and lay it in ashes. hut
they would engage in nothing so futile
as the attempted blockading of Plv-
mouth or Southampton Or Havre Or
Barcelona or Marseilles. This is q
clear case, because any injury that
could be so inflicted would be incom-
mensurate with the means emnloved
1t would be like consuming our whole
stock Of gunpoWder to blow up a sim
gle fertilization of the enemy. The
blockading business with the United
States as a party is out Of the range
of the conceivable. 1t belongs in mod
ern warfare only where nation with
a navy, like Spain, is fighting a people
like the Cubans, without any Sea
strength.
In the last place. this blockading ex-
pertinent is worthless because all mod
ern wars have shown just what these
experiments in Charleston harbor DEM
Onstrate over again, that any block
ade short Of a continuous Gordon of
ships from cape to cape is incomplete
and ineffective. Blockades were run
during the war, ard it now appears
that blockades can &c run even under
the powerful searchlights Of the mod
ern warship. The ingenuity of the be-
leaguered is always a match for the
cumbrous engines CT assault. Locked
at, therefore, from any point of view
the expenditure of time and money
upon experiments in blockading and
blockade running is as foolish as tc
measure the resisting power Of mason