Middletown transcript., 1907-07-13
WASHINGTON LETTER

warshlES sent to the Paelhc Coast. the
. Navy Department has now made the of
! fetal announcement that practically the
whole Of the battleship squadron is going
and that just as soon as they can get off
There will be sixteen battleships in the
squadron, and they will take about two
months to go around by the Magellan OF
Cape Horn route. They will be accom-,
panied by number OF gunboats as dis.
Il patch boats and tenders, and there will be
at least three armored cruisers beside col
| Tiers and possibly repair ship. On the
Pacific Coast they will be met by the
Oregon and the Washington now under.
going repairs at Portland. They will
make the greatest fighting feet that has
ever been assembled under the American
flag, and III fighting ability as well as
numbers, it will be one of the greatest
fleets ever collected by any power. The
whole will be under the command of Ad-
miral Robley- D. Evans, who has seen
more sea service than any other man on
the active list of the navy. 1t probably
will be his last sea command, and the
handling of this great feet will be fitting
close for long and very active and effee-
tive career. The exact route and stop
ping places of the feet are not yet fully
determined. They will go direct to South
America and probably will make only
one stop for coal on the east coast of the
continent. They will pass through the
Straits of Magellan and around to Valpar-
also. They will make very brief stop
there and will proceed north to Peru.
This will bring them to the last leg, as it
were, of their course toward San Fran
cisco. They will make little longer stop
in Peruvian waters and will then loaf up
the coast, comparatively speaking, taking
in San Diego and Monterey on the way to
San Francisco. Their cruising speed
probably will average about IL knots, and
this including the stops now contemplated,
will make their voyage last about go days.
This will beat the record of the Oregon,
which took 63 days to come from San
Francisco to Key West during the Span
ish War. But she was accompanied by
the little gunboat, Marietta, which re-
tarded her speed, and she was very
cautious about keeping well off all ports
and skirting the outside Of the West In
dies as the Spanish feet was then sup
posed to be in the neighborhood OF South
America. While the cruise of the battle
ship squadron will probably beat the
famous run of the Oregon in point of
time, the Oregon, performance is not
likely to ever be eclipsed as a record
breaking run under all service conditions
1t was the first time in history that
battleship of her class had ever attempted
such run in the face of the enemy.
She did the 10000 miles without hitch,
touched at Jupiter Inlet on the Florida
coast to report herself to the Navy De-
partment, ran over to Key West and took
on coal and joined the rest of the Ameri-
can squadron off Salt Key Bank OF Sun
day morning, finishing up the run at Is
knot clip and ready to go into action on
the minute. Capt. Clark, her comman-
der, said she had not loosened a crank
pin on the whole run. Il will be inter-
esting to see if the great battleship feet
just starting can do as we'll. 1t is under
stood that the Japanese government has
known for sometime of the intention of
this government to send the battleships
to the Pacific. 1t is looked upon as a wise
demonstration of the intention and ability
OF the United States to maintain the un-
questioned mastery of the Pacific II
will certainly set at rest any question in
the minds of the iingo party in Japan as
to the intention of the United States in
case OF serious difference with the Mi
kidos government. Of course, the SER
ious difference is not going to arise for
many years to come. But this is case
where an ounce of prevention is worth a
volume of postmortem regrets.
*x*
The first chapter is concluded of the |
trial of Edwin S. Holmes, the enterprising
associate statistician of the Department of |
Agriculture who sold advance information |
to the New York cotton brokers as to |
the figures of the government crop re-
ports. Holmes has been on trial for |
weeks, and after it had been shown in |
court that he had not only used the ad. |
vance information for speculative pur-
poses but had doctored the reports to suit |
the convenience of his clients, the best |
that the jury could do was to disagree,
and it now will have to be threshed all |
over for the benefit of new jury, It has
been decided by the district attorney,
however, that there shall be new trial
as soon as it can be reached on the docket. |
It is believed that good deal of the testi-
mony that Holmes himself gave on the
stand can be used against him, and that
there will not be much trouble in getting
a conviction for conspiracy,to defraud the
government
~
There was a good deal of comment re-
Gently after the western trip of Mr.. Bryce,
the British Ambassador over some re-
marks he had made concerning the con-
stitution of Oklahoma, document that
has created considerable heartburning
and jealousy in this country and on
which Ambassador Bryce's opinion would
be valuable even if not altogether proper
for man in his station. There was talk
in some Of the yellow papers about the
government asking for his recall on the
ground that he had transgressed diplo-
maticalIy. Now the exact language OF
the interview on the Oklahoma constitu-
tion has been produced, and it sounds
very conservative and harmless. Mr..
Bryce said that from all he had heard OF
it, the constitution was a very interesting
that be had not had time to
read it SO could not give personal opin-
ion and If he could it would not be q 1