The Wichita daily eagle. [volume] (Wichita, Kan.) 1890-1906, 1898-07-12
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NJ. Nj. MURDOCK. Editor.
FORTY-FIVE TIMES.

The average reader probably doe.
not stop to think, or fails to remember
that the United States of America i:
the inventor and builder of the modern
navy, after which all navies are being
fashioned. The screw propeller, the
placing the engines. boilers and other
vital accessories below water-line, and
the Harveyized steel armor-plate, are
all American inventions, and all grew
out Of Ericssons monitor. The record
made by the American armorplate in
the Cervera fight the other day aston
ished the whole world. The supreme
test was upon Commodore Schley's flag
ship, the Brooklyn. This splendid YES
sells armor is thinner than that Of the
Spanish cruisers and its guns are
smaller. During the four hours run
ming fight, first with the whole Spanish
squadron and then with the Cristobal
Colon the Brooklyn was hit fOrty-Iive
times yet il suffered no serious injury.
The armor was marked, TO show where
the Spanish projectiles struck it, but
there is not a serious break in the plat
ing from stem to stern, and the Brook
Iyn could go into another similar action
at moments notice.
An element in the Santiago naval
engagement as important as ship op-
posed to ship in numerical strength,
conspired to defer the settlement of the
diversified opinions of naval experts,
and the disputed question Of the relat-
i've value Of battleships and armored
cruisers must again be left to future
engagements and is as far from settle
ment as ever. Il was expected that
meeting between Cervera's fleet of
12-inch armored cruisers and some of
our battleships that it would go far
towards settling the question.
The element Of which no small rec
ognition is due was the power behind
the guns, the intelligent drilled human
machines who, amid the excitement
and terrific uproar of battle, kept their
wits about them and fired as calmly as
if engaged in mock battle with a can
vas target. / was discipline and SUI
perior knowledge Of the art Of gunnery
that told.
The hours, days and weeks given over
to the training Of our boys enabled the
American vessels to win two of the
most remarkable naval battles on rec
ord, granting equal strength Of armor-
plating, equal strength Of offensiveness
in gun power, the question of superior |
ity will always remain with the men
who do the most effective shooting |
This was fully demonstrated in the |
utter demolishing of the fine vessels in |
Cervera's fleet, which were beaten |
down into unrecognizable masses of |
metal To develop the relative values
of the battleship and armored cruiser |
the men behind the guns must first be |
equalized in skill and discipline, before |
the question can be settled beyond dis |
pute.
That American Harveyized armor-
plate is superior to the armor of the |
Spanish navy is no doubt true, but |
after all, it is the superiority of the man |
behind the gun which must continue |
to count. The great strength of the
American navy lies in him. The Plu-
ton and Furor went to pieces, went into
the air, and finally to the bottom, be-
fore the little wooden Gloucester and
her cool and capable gunners. A club
yacht armed with only six-pounders,
an unprotected pleasure craft, annihi-
lated these two ocean terrors that
English naval officers had pronounced
the finest of their type. All the other
vessels which passed out under MORO
on that fated morn for the Don were
Of the most advanced type known 70
modern construction. They were out
numbered, but their armor was formid-
able and their greater swiftness undfs-
puted. Yet before the American man
behind the gun in the shortest time
they were all reduced to almost unrec-
ognizable masses. The Don lost all his
great ships with 1900 Spaniards killed
and l.500 taken prisoners, the Ameri-
cans losing but one man. 1t was not
Sampson nor Schley nor Wainwright,
but the American gunner who was the
hero Of Santiago's great naval battle.