Arizona republican., 1904-02-03
PHoEN1x. ARIz.. FEBRUARY 3. 1soi
The Founder of the Navy.


 One of the great men of the country passed away yesterday in the death of William c. Whitney. If he had never been a secretary of the navy he would still have been a great man, but his chief claim upon history rests upon his performances in that high office. He may be said to be the first head of the navy who left an impress Able men had preceded him and performed their work well but they were meeting only present exigencies. They did not have in mind the future of the navy of the United States.
 Mir Whitney has very properly been called the founder of the modern Unit ed States navy. What he. did might have been done by one Of his early sue cessors and then again it might not have been done. We will suppose that it had not been done; that the Ameri- can navy had remained in the condi- tion in which Whitney found it Sn 1885. We would have made pitiful showing in the war with Spain. Bad as the Spanish navy was, it was incompart- bly better tran ours would have been. There would have been no Manila Bay. There would have been no Santiago Bay. We would have no Philippines and no Porto Rico. We may reasonably believe that much of whatever the Un- ited States has gained in territory and in the respect of nations is due to MT. Whitney.
 There Is a great contrast between the condition of tine navy at the time ne became secretary and it's condition when he surrendered the office in 1889.
 The following is taken from pres idential message to congress shortly before MT. Whitney became secretary:
 Tt appears by the secretary's report that the available naval force of the United States consists of thirty cruisers, fourteen single turreted moni- tors, built during the rebellion. a large number of smooth bore guns and Par rot rifles and eighty-seven rifled call- non.'
 But the cruisers of those days were not the cruisers of today nor the crUis- CTS contemplated by MT. Whitney in his reconstruction of the navy. The: were small wooden vessels of ancient type and many of them so dilapidated that few years later when it was sought to rebuild them and convert them into modern vessels they were sound to be too far advanced in de- cay. There was at that time not an armored vessel of any character.
 The message further recommended that
 "The cruising vessels should gradu- ally be replaced by iron or steel ships, the monitors by modern armored yes Eels and the armament by high power riaed guns
 In 1889 when MT. Whitney retired from office there had been launched during the year such vessels as the Philadelphia, San Francisco, Cushing. Newark, Concord. The Baltimore, Charleston, Yorktown and Petrel had just been commissioned. MT. Whitney had also recommended the immediate building cf eight battleships, two arm ored coast defense vessels, three gun boats and five first-class torpedo boats
 His policy board had reported the kind of a navy that it believed this country should have, though it was not contemplated that it should be un- dertaken at once as a whole. The cs- innate of the board included eighteen frst-class battleships of from 5000 to 10, 900 tons each, twelve second-class and eight third-class. Then there were cruisers and vessels of smaller type all tc the number of 227 ships of 61O.- oos tons. The estimated cost was $349,- 515,O0O. Mir. Whitney had already spent s67,s65, OOO in the regeneration of the navy.
 It was not long after that before the country had business for some of the new ships. There was a clash with Chili two years later and the course of the United States in that emergency inspired not only Chill but other na- tions of the world with a respect for this country which at that time they could certainly never have entertain ed if William C. Whitney had not lived. That respect has kept growing and will grow with the growth cf the navy.