The sun. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1833-1916, 1897-10-14
Gen. Tracy's Record in ONCE.

The first Mayor of Greater New York
should be a man who combines n trained
legal mind with great executive abilities.
Gen TRAoY's skill and experience as a law.
yer are widely known, but it may be we'll to
recall his extraordinary administrative sue.
cess as Secretary of the Navy.
When Gen. TRACY took charge OF the
Navy Department our Government had de-
cided to use ~all.steel plates for ship armor.
Having studied the results of certain ex-
periments made with an alloy of nickel for
steel, Secretary TRACY ordered a heavy
steel plate of such material, and in 1890
held n competitive test at Annapolis,
which became famous the world over.
The trial demonstrated the superiority Of
nickel.steel armor not only to the English
compound, but also to the all-steel. The
former result, as the Secretary put it, "may
be said to have stripped off, in five shots,
half the protection of the armored feet of
Great Britain and of most of the fleets of
the world; :" while the latter, revising our
own policy, made nickel.steel our armor, as
1t has remained to this day.
1t was under Secretary TRACY, too, that a
second great change was introduced into
mp Aio Ahio "oo II iIdI icy SuIluCt-
hardening process, which has revolution
lied tho manufacture of armor plate.
Promptly approving the proposal of Com
mander FoLGER that this process, already
successfully used for steel tools. should be
applied to ship plates, he had trials CON
Quoted at Indian Head, the result of which
was to show the enormou value of the
Harvey process, since adopted by England
n other countries, and to give the Ameri-
can Navy the best armor in the world.
Still another important step of Secretary
TRACY was to arrange for the establish
ment at Homestead of a second armor-pro-
ducing plant, thus doublingth supply pro-
durable, and enabling our battleships to
get their plating with the %promptness i'm
peratively required. He also took the pre-
caution to secure 1000 ton Of nickel and
copper matte for the Government, with
the result that we were soon paying "a
cents n pound for nickel when less provi.
dent buyers had to pay 80 cents.
In shipbuilding Secretary Tracy took a
step beyond anything ever known in his
country, and, making a radical departure
from preccdents, produced three splendid
types. They were: the armored battleship
of more than 10000 tons, illustrated by
the Indiana, the Massachusetts, the Oregon
and the Iowa; the armored cruiser, Of
from 5000 to 10000 tons, whose examples
are the New York and the Brooklyn (;
finally, the h~igh-spced cruiser of 1000
to $500 tons, made amous by the
Columbia and the Minneapolis. Merely to
name these great ships is enough. The
tremendous II power and armor of the
Indiana class, the all-around efficiency of
the New York class. and the swiftncss of
the Columbia class gave the American Navy
n prestige invaluable in our relations with
foreign countries. During Mr.. TRACY's ad-
ministration nineteen new vessels were put
In commission, a%ggregating 1882 tons,
while under construction were eighteen
others, aggrcgating 90, 497 tons.
During that same administration we
added, for the first time, torpedoes that
could be fired from ships heavy rapid. fire
guns of 4.inch, 5.inch, and 6-inch calibres -;
armor-picrcing shells of American manu-.
f%acture, eight firms making them that had
never turned out a projectile before 1880;
smokeless powder and high explosives. In
gun'building the advances We're marked,
the total number of heavy guns manufac-
tured being PA, while the l3.inch calibre,
still the largest in the navy, was added.
In administration n redistribution of
business was effected, with n view to unity
OF bureau work. For the repairs of ships a
new system was introduced, which pro.
duced efficiency and economy, while the
method of paying navy yard employees was
greatly simpliied. or all the purely ad.
ministrative changes, that which related to