The daily morning journal and courier., 1901-12-04

may be uplifted together and we rejoice over the good fortune of any of them,
 we gladly hail their material prosperi- ty and political stability, and are con- cerned and alarmed if any of them fail
 into industrial or political chaos. We
 do not wish to see any old world mili-
 tary power grow up on this continent, or to be compelled to become a military power ourselves. The peoples of the Americas can prosper best if left to work out their own salvation in their own way.
 Bigger Navy Needed.
 The work of upbuilding the navy must be steadily continued. No one point of our policy, foreign or domestic, Is more important than this to the hon. or and material welfare, and above all to the peace, of our nation in the fu- ture. Whether we desire it or not, we must renceforth recognize that we have international duties no less than inter- national rights. Even if our flag were hauled down in the Philippines and Porto Rico, even if we decided not to build the Isthmian canal, we should need thoroughly trained navy of ade- quate size, or else be prepared definite ly and for all time to abandon the idea that our nation is among those whose sons go down to the sea in ships. Un- less our commerce is always to be car ried in foreign bottoms, we must have war craft to protect 1t.
 Inasmuch, however, as the American people have no thought of abandoning +Io. |, ,;aI, @loxy Iot n,tnr and especially in view of the fact that the building of the Isthmian canal is fast becoming one of the matters which the whole people are united in de- manding, it is imperative that our navy should be put and kept in the highest state of efficiency, and should be made to answer to our growing needs. So far from being in any way provocation to war, an adequate and highly trained navy is the best guaran- ty against war, the cheapest and most effective peace insurance. The cost Of building and maintaining such navy represents the very lightest premium for insuring peace which this nation can possibly pay.
 Probably no other great nation in the world is so anxious for peace as we are There Is not a single civilized power which has anything whatever to fear from aggressiveness on our part. All we want is peace; and toward this end we wish to be able to secure the same respect for our rights from others which we are eager and anxious to ex- tend to their rights in return. to insure fair treatment to us commercially, and 4 fa%x, af t1,n A oa,,i- can people.
 Our people intend to abide by the Monroe doctrine and to insist upon it as the one sure means of securing the peace of the western hemisphere The navy offers us the only means of mak- ing our inslstence upon the Monroe doc Urine anything but a subject of derision to whatever nation chooses to disregard it. We desire the peace which comes as of right to the just man armed; not the peace granted on terms of ignominy to the craven and the weakling.
 It is not possible to improvise navy after war breaks out. The ships must be built and the men trained long in advance. Some auxiliary vessels can be turned into makeshifts which will do in nefallt of any better for the minor work. and proportion of raw men can be mixed with the highly trained, their shortcomings being made good by the skill of their fellows; but the efficient fighting force of the navy when pitted against an equal opponent will be found almost exclusively in the war ships that have been regularly built and In the officers and men who through C.. orfA y,o of duty have been trained to handle their formidable but complex and delicate weapons with the highest efficacy. In the late war with Spain the ships that dealt the decisive blows at Manila and Santiago had been launched from two to fourteen years, and they were able to do as they did because the men in the coming towers, the gun turrets, and the engine-rooms had through long years of practice at sea learned how to do their duty.
 Our present navy was begun in 1882. At that period our navy consisted of a collection of antiquated wooden ships, | already almost as out of place against modern war vessels as the galleys of | Alcibiades and Hamilcar-certainly as the ships of Tromp and Blake. Nor at | that time did we have men fit to han | ille a modern nan-of-war. Under the wise legislation of the congress and | the successful administration of a suc- | cession of patriotic Secretaries of the | Navy, belonging to both political par ties, the work of upbuilding the navy | went on, and ships equal to any in the ! world of their kind were continually | added; and what was even more impor- tant, these ships were exercised at sea l singly and in squadrons until the men 1 aboard them were able to get the best | possible service out of them. The re- suit was seen in the short war with Spain, which was decided with such | rapidity because of the infinitely great CT preparedness of our navy than of the Spanish navy.
 While awarding the fullest honor to the men who actually commanded and manned the ships which destroyed the Spanish sea forces in the Philippines and in Cuba, we must not forget that an equal need of praise belongs to those without whom neither blow could