The daily morning journal and courier., 1907-09-28
THE WEEKLY JOURNAL. Issued Thursday. One Dollar a Year.
THE BArr1EsH1P CRUISE.

The country at large has been un- able to understand the real purpose of the federal administration in in- sisting upon its program for sending sixteen battleships from the Atlantic to the Pacific station and yet it has periodically been unwilling to believe that President Roosevelt and the navy department were without req sons of an impressive character. The explanation given that it was neces- sary to undertake the expedition for the purpose of trying out the navy has not been acceptable and yet it has been manifestly impossible for those in charge to give more satis- factory reason.
 The Washington correspondent of the New York Times is the first so far as we have seen to make a state- ment with reference to this expedi- tion which bears the marks of truth. It is a carefully edited newspaper, on the one hand, and it is inconceivable, on the other hand, that any news paper with the facilities for obtaining an unofficial explanation of the pro- posed exhibition should be moved by other than responsible motives. For one thing the statement removes the more or less common suspicion that President Roosevelt has been moved by one of his sudden impulses in this connection and sets up in its place the belief that he is acting under the ad- vice of Secretaries Root and Taft. It has been a disagreeable experience to even think that the administration was so short-sighted as to abandon the Atlantic seaboard for no better treason than the parade of the formi- dable fleet to the residents of the Pa cif1c coast especially as it means the likeness of thousands of men now at work in the navy yards in this section of the country. The Journal and Courier has resisted temptation to protest, as so many of the newspapers of the country have done, not but that 1t felt uncomfortable at the thought of an expedition which in it. self cannot be scheduled among the necessities of the navy's development, but on the idea that there must be a reason of more than passing im- portance for it's undertaking. We have preferred to await some such plausible explanation as is now given by the Washington correspondent of the New York Times.
 As we have already said, the under taking is not the outgrowth of Presi- dent Roosevelt's determination to do a sensational thing in the way of naval display on the eve of a. presi- dential election. ''The opponents of the cruise" says this correspondent, ''do not seem to taks into considera- tion the reasons which actuated the administration in determining to send the battleships to the Pacific" It may be said at once that the oppon- ents of the cruise have been signally unfortunate in their attempts to ob- tain reasons which explained No one has said to them what the Times cor respondent says now: "1t was the att titude of Japan which first suggested the cruise. The ships are going to the Pacific in direct answer to that atti- tude and an eminent naval officer here feeling about it this morning when he said: There has not been a cross word from Tokio since the announce rnent was made that our fleet was to go to the Pacific" Obviously the administration could not make this plausible explanation of It's plans, for that would be equal to the expression of an unfriendly attitude towards Japan, but adds the correspondent, ''the strategy of the move did not fail of correct Interpretation in Tokio, where they realize clearly what has not seemed significant to most people in this country, that the mo- ment the American battleship fleet is stationed on the Pacific coast Japan is absolutely stopped from sending her fleet away from home" Then follows a long explanation of the immediate strategic effect of the move which will prove more interesting to experts than to laymen, who can be expected to digest no more than the plain state ment of fact. "The constant diplomatic hectoring of this country by Japan be- fore 1t was announced that the bat tleships were going to the Pacific was more than enough, despite all friendly protestations so effusively made, to justify the conclusion that