The Intermountain Catholic. (Salt Lake City [Utah] ;) 1899-1920, 1899-12-02
THE HOLLAND BOAT.
An Irish-American's Invention

| An lr1Sh-Amer1canS S 1nVenClou.
John Patrick Holland, we'll known tc
Irish American Fenians, has had his
famous submarine torpedo boat at last
accepted by the Government which haC
not sense or foresight enough to use il
in the late Spanish h-American war. His
! first experiment was the "Feniar
RAM" of several years ago, a perfectly
practicable engine of war, but one
| laughed at by incredulous experts. A
New York dispatch says:
THE technical reports upon the Hol-
land submarine torpedo boat We're
made public today. The report of
John Lowe, captain United States ma
Wy, who was on the Holland boat at the
time of the official test. gives technical
details of the principal circumstances
which took place within the boat, and
then, in part, says:
Il report my belief that the Holland
a successful and veritable submarine
torpedo boat, capable of making a
veritable attack upon any enemy un-
seen and undetectable, and that, there
fore. she is an engine of warfare Of
terrible potency, which the government
must necessarily adopt into its service.
Concerning the worse than worth
lesSness of. the present above-water
torpedo system, and the absolute need
of real torpedo system, such as the
submarine system, I have already re-
ported.
In. addition 1 would like to give fur
ther reasons why a submarine service
should at once be organized as a matter
of public necessity and security. We
must concede that the time has not
yet arrived for nations to disarIn.
That nation which is not ready to fight.
that ceases to use the most frightful
warlike appliances when war is made,
is already in the position of China,
prey to the weakest and the most ra-
pacious.
IF. then, we propose to fight. we
must fight with every fighting appli-
ance, and, therefore. if there is any
thing valuable in submarine torpedo
warfare. we must not permit our
hand to be tied behind our backs by
any Hague conference of pusillanimOus
humanitarianism forbidding such ap-
pliance.
Again, conceding war to be possible,
consider where the United States is
weak and how to resist attack.
I'VE have distant dependencies, the
Philippines Hawaii and the like. VIII
an enemy seek to bring US to terms by
attacking these? We could afford to
offer these as a gambit, upon which the
enemy could waste its strength, while
we were developing counter moves.
ANY powerful enemy would not play
at war after that fashion. They would
strike US in the vitals. An eight-day
dash across the Atlantic would bring
their ships at Montauk Point, where
they would encounter the American
fleet which, being destroyed by force of
numbers, the remainder of the enemys
ships could pass on and anchor in Long
Island sound in perfect security, and
shortly Long Island would become a
foreign possession.
1T seems to me quite necessity that
this government should not allow the
skill and knowledge possessed by the
Holland people to pass out of it's own
hands from native to foreign hands,
but should at once purchase the Hol-
land ard put the Holland people under
some ban, whereby they will be pre-
vented from disclosing secrets to the
of the United States"