Custer County Republican. (Broken Bow, Neb.) 1882-1921, 1903-04-23

and causelessly to insult another worse,
yn' worse than all is it tol be guilty Of
hCasting, even without insult, and when
called to the proof to be unable u make
such Boosting good There is n honely
old adage which runs; "Speak softly and
carry n big stick; you will go far" IL
the American nation will speak softly
and yet build and keep at a pitch of the
highest training thoroughly efficient
navy. the Monroe doctrine will 20 far.
ask you to think over this. If you do
you will come to the conclusion that it
is mere plain common sense, so obviously
sound that only the blind can fail to see
its truth and only the weakest and most
irrcrolute can fail to desire to put it into
force.
Well, in the last two years, | am hap
py to say, we have taken long strides in
advance as regards our navy. The last
Congress, in addition to smaller vessels,
provided nine of those formidable fight
ing ships upon which the real efficiency
of any navy in war ultimately depends
IL provided, moreover, for the necessary
addition of officers and enlisted men to
make the ships worth having. Meanwhile
the Navy Department has seen to it that
OIL: ships have been constantly exercised
at sea. with the great guns and in ma
neuN ers, so that their efficiency as hght-
ing units, both Individually and when
acting together, has been steadily i'm
proved. Remember that all of fhis is
necessary. a warship is a huge bit of
mechanism, wel-nigh MS delicate and
complicated as it is formidable. 1t takes
years to build it. 1t takes years to teach
the officers and men how to handle it to
good advantage. 1t is an absolute inn
possibility to improvise a navy at the
outset of war.
No recent war between any two ma
tions has lasted as long as it takes to
build battleship and it is just as inn
possible to improvise the officers or the
crews as to improvise the navy.
To lay up a battleship and only send
it atloat at the outset of a war with a
raw crew and untried officers would be
not merely folly, but crime, for it
would invite both disaster and disgrace
The navy which so quickly decided in our
favor the war in 1893 had been built
and made efficient during the preceding
fifteen years. The ships that triumphed
off Manila and Santiago had been built
under previous administrations with
money appropriated by previous Con-
crosses. The officers and the men did
their duty so well because they had al
ways been trained to it by long sea SER
vice.
All honor to the gallant officers and
gallant men who actually did the fight
ing, but remember, too, to honor the pub
lie men, the shipwrights and steelwork-
ers, the owners of the ship yards and
armor plants, to whose united foresight
and exertion we owe it that in 1898 we
had craft so good, guns so excellent and
American seamen of so high a type in the
coming towers, in the gun turrets and
in the engine rooms.
Navy Guarantees Peace.
1t is too late to prepare for war when
war has come, and if we only prepare
sufficiently no war will ever come. We
wish a powerful and efficient navy not
for purposes of war, but as the surest
guaranty of peace. If we have such
navy-if we keep on building it up-we
may rest assured that there is but the
smallest chance that trouble will ever.
come to this nation, and we may like
wise rest assured that no foreign power
will ever quarrel with us about the
Monroe doctrine.