The copper country evening news. [volume] (Calumet, Mich.) 18??-1907, 1898-03-05
OUR FIGHTING SAILORS
Great Growth of the United
States Navy.
OLD JACK TAR Is OUT OF DATE.

| tress. and the Modern Man-o'-war's Man
Must BE a Mechanical Talk With As
| sistant Secretary Roosevelt.
| WASHINGTON. March 4.-[Special. l.
| One effect of the war talk Is an increase In
| the number of men in the United States
navy. If our foreign relations continue to
threaten us with trouble, as they have so
| often of late. the day will soon come when
| we shall have great navy, with more men
aboard our ships than we have In our reg
| uIar army upon the land. Though we may
never have such navy as that OF Great
| Britain, with more than 100000 men on
| the admiralty rolls, we have already made
| pretty good start, with $4,000 men alto
| gether, including the increase just author
| lied by congress. But the sailor OF the
| present and the future is quite different
| man from the sailor of the romantic past.
| What we need now are skilled mechanics
rather than jolly tackles" of the olden
| type OF course there will always be spe-
| cial need for men with the sea habit and
training, accustomed TO rigging and boats
| and all the ways of an ocean life Such
| men are needed, and they are always use
| full in an emergency.
The New Man-o- wars Man.
| But the man-o' wars man of the present
| and the future is a mechanical mechanic
| under military discipline, "a mechanic who
| knows how to fight. In the old days every
| ship carried carpenters and sailmakers and
| blacksmiths. But that was ALL No other
| mechanics were needed. The sailorman
| was wanted to hoist canvas man the guns,
| put out the boats, swab the decks. Now
| the modern navy demands host of me-
chanics of all sorts upon every ship. In
| stead of sails they must handle engines;
| instead of swabbing loading and ramming
| the old smoothbores they manipulate great
| machine guns. In other words our latter
| day fighting ships are floating fortresses
SO complicated as to resemble big factories
and every vessel must perforce carry its
own machine shop and staff OF skilled
/ artisans.
The change wrought In few years is
| something marvellous when we come to an
alyze it, At the beginning of the civil war
sailing ships were still used as part of
our fighting fleets At it's close they had
| passed away almost as completely as the
galleys with which 1900 years before the
| Greek, the Carthaginian and the Roman
had waged war for the mastery of the
Mediterranean. Today not vestige OF the
old sailing ship with its glorious tradi-
tions remains in any modern navy. Steam
was first used as an auxiliary to sails, and
the engines aboard our best ships were few
and simple. For example, the New Iron
sides, the most powerful vessel in our navy
at the close of the war between the states,
had in her engine equipment but three
cylinders. The Iowa, the latest of our
modern battleships launched and commits
stoned, has 1853.
The New Ship and the Old Ono.
The new ship compares with the old one
as modern machine gun stands with the
ancient muzzle loading smoothbore. Tho
new craft is not only immensely moro
powerful, but she is more complicated
Assistant Secretary of the Navy Roose-
welt, whose energy and skill are daily felt
in the department, has appealed to con-
gress to combine the line and engineer Of
ficers of the army, raising the dignity OF
the latter and promoting the efficiency OF
! the service Every officer on modern
war vessel in reality has to be an engineer
whether no wants to or not" says Mr..
Roosevelt. Everything goes by machin-
I cry, and every officer whether working
guns or turrets or hoists, has to do engi-
neer's work. There Is no longer reason
for having a separate body of engineers,
responsible for only u part of the machin-
cry We need homogeneous body, all
trained alike and knowing every phase
|, and detail of their complicated task.
The Seventeenth Century Navy.
, "There is curious analogy between
present conditions and those found in the
great European navies 219 centuries ago,
> said Mr. Roosevelt. at was in the seven.
teenth century that the modern fighting
, navy appeared that the modern war YES
| sci, commanded and manned by men train
> ed specially to fight for the state, was diff
, ferentiated from the vessel owned by pri
, | yate individuals and built primarily tC
: trade. In the days of the Spanish armada
this distinction was still sbadowy; the ad
venturous trader used ships that were
heavily armed, and in time of war wal
normally q privateer, while in any great
Q crisis the private ships were joined with
the state ships to constitute the feet or
which the nation relied. Half a century
, later, under Cromwell, the English begaI
: that career of triumphant naval warfar'
= which they waged at the expense OF ever!
= other European sea power in turn ant
: which ultimately gave to them the master,
of the seas and to their children, as herit
age, the continents that lay beyond tn
seas. In doing this work 1t was speedil.
!. found necessary to establish permanent
fighting force, for the privateers were mere
~ ocean militia. In the formation of thi
!. fighting force there was at first a sharl
q line drawn between the men who handles
= the ships and the men who fought them
d The men who managed the motive powe
v were often entirely distinct from the mel
q who directed the fighting.
a "The first of the great English admiral
was Blake. He was selected to comman,
on the sea because he had commanded wit
distinction on land. His chief subordl
l. mates and SUCCESSORS In command wer
{, chosen as he was. IL was their duty I
10 fight the foe, and they usually left the sail
y to be handled by another set Of men. Blak
n was born commander, born leader 9
- men in battle, and he had In the men ur
der him splendid stuff out Of which
: make sailors and sea soldiers; SO that
and bis SUCCESSORS won striking triumph
against enemies whose sea forces were at
ministercd under system quito as faulty
Nevertheless the faults Of the system wer
NJ SO evident that 1t could not continue, an