Perth Amboy evening news., 1906-02-26

n more in need of BATTLESIIIPS. We. have only
V Va eighteen ships of fighting caiber that are STRICTLY
WV MODERN, and two of that bunch are now out of
order, so that instead of forty we count only sixteen
today, England has eleven ironclads alone. In her second class she
has ships of first class fighting material, but we do not place any first
class ships in our second class Our vessels III good enough TO
look AT, and they will give as good an account as possible when
needed.
There are a lot of them that have done service in the past that are
now doing merely police duty, and they seem to be regarded as good
enough to fly the flag. Many of our ships r old timers, and yet they
are carried on our list of FIGHTING ships. It would cost a fortune
to make the Olympia, Deweys flagship in Manila bay, a fighting
vessel.
The war in the east has taught us one lesson, and that is that the
battleship is the only vessel to carry o a war or TO DECIDE A
WAR at a critical issue. We must build more battleships if we are
to hold our own.
We have twentyseven battleships now in course of construction,
and by 1908 we will employ $4,000 men in our navy, where now we
employ only $4,000, and thus far we are going along strong lines. But
our navy will never be like Englands, for we r not building enough
NOR BUILDING FAST ENOUGH to catch up to her.
Following the fads of various persons, we find among our twenty
seven fighting ships some millions of dollars wasted on four monitors.
In the harbor of Manila I have seen one of them rolling twenty times
a minute trying to hit something with a twelve inch gun, much as I
have seen a woman trying to hit a hen with a stone.
Three submarine ships came to the navy yard last spring for e.
pairs. Heaven only knows when they will get away! As soon as you
repair one end of a craft THE OTHER END needs rebuilding.
The insides have been wholly rebuilt, and the only thing l can sec to
do with them is to build new hulls.
In 1908 we shall rank on paper Is the second naval power of the
world, but if we strike from the list such ships as the sainted Oregon,
now really a second rate battleship, from the first. line we will rank
among the sea powers of the world only sixth, possibly fifth, but that
will be the BEST RATE that we could reach.
We must continue to build ships, and in passing let me say that the
government built ship is as good as, if not better than, any. The Con
nechcut, which is now building in the Brooklyn navy yard, will dis
lance its mates which are being built in private yards. But the real
test will come later on when the COST OF REPAIRS is known.
After all, there is only one kind of ship to build, and that is the
SPEEDY BATTLESHIP of the line. All others above the water
are no earthly good. The armored cruiser is beautiful TO LOOK
AT, with its graceful lines and its buoyancy on the water.
The recent visitors from England showed this as they lay at the
head of the line in thn North ive In war tbav NAV ba GOOD for
something, such as scouting in the Caribbean. We have a few for
such purposes a. a Santo Domingo difficulty.
BUT FOR ACTUAL WORK AND FOR ACTUAL RESULTS IN WAR
WE MUST DEPEND UPON THE sATTLEsHIP OF THE LINE.