The Pacific commercial advertiser. [volume] (Honolulu, Hawaiian Islands) 1885-1921, 1907-02-11
WANTS BIG
BATTLESH|PS
Roosevelt's Reasons in
Detail for Having
Them.

| w WASHINGTON, d. c., Jan. IL
letter written by. the president in ad
voeaey of the plan for two batt1eship.
of the Dreadnaught class became pub
lie today. 1t is dated January IL, ant
| is addressed to Chairman Foss of the
house committee on naval affairs The
letter says:
g feel so strongly that there should
be two frst-class battleships of the
maximum size and speed and with theil
primary battery all of 12-inch guns
added to the navy this session, that
i desire to lay the matter before your
committee through this letter. These
two big ships should include the one
provided for last year and the one pro-
vided for this year. 1t must be re-
membered that / am not asking for
any increase in the navy, because un-
less we can provide at the rate of
battleship per year our navy will
go backward. Moreover, / am advis-
ing that our money be spent economical
ly. 1t has been waste of time and
money to provide such ships as single
turret monitors, and while the cruisers,
especially the great armored cruisers,
serve some useful purposes, it would
nevertheless have been infinitely better
to have spent the money which was
actually spent on them in the con
struction of frst-class battleships.
FIRST-CLASS BATTLESHIPS
NEED.
Our great armored cruisers are prac-
tically as expensive to build and main
tain as are battleships.
81 thoroughly believe in developing
and building an adequate number of
submarines, and / believe in building
torpedo-boat destroyers. There must be
a few fast scouts and, of course, vari-
Gus auxiliary vessels of different kinds
But the strength of the navy rests
primarily ON its battleships, and in
building these battleshipsy it is inn
peratively necessary, from the stand
point alike of efficiency and economy,
that they should be the very best of
their kind
In my judgment we are not excused
if we build any battleship inferior to
those now being built by other nations.
oh la II
be agreed upon as to the size of the bat
tleships hereafter to be built. l have
found, however, that it will undoubted-
ly be impraeticable to reach any such
agreement in the near future. In the
first-class navies generally these big
have already been built or
are now building.
"We can not afford to fall behind,
and we shall fall behind if we fail to
build frst-class battleships ourselves. |
Unless we intend to go on building UP
the fleet we should abandon every eff |
fort to keep the position which we
now hold. Our idea for upholding the
Monroe doctrine and for digging the /
Panama canal must rest primarily on /
our willingness to build and maintain
= frst-class fighting feet. Be it re.
moreover, that such a fleet |
S by far the most potent guaranty of
peace which this nation has or can
nave.
LONG-RANGE GUNFIRE.
81 therefore desire to lay before
-ou the following reasons for my be-
ief in the advantages of battleships
f large displacement as compared with
II other fighting craft, on the SUPPOSE
ion that both are handled equally
7ell:
'.Mueh of the information showing
he superior value of battleships of
arge displacement, speed and great gun
over is of very technical nature
nd can not be briefly stated. This is
specially true of certain confidential :
formation concerning the require
ents necessary for efficient longrange
unfire, it being understood that in this l
,nse efficiency of gun6re refers ex- I
usively to hitting; that is, to the
rye number of large projectiles that
IN be landed against an enemy's hull {
given time, and not to the number J
all calibers that can be fred in a I
ven time. h
But, disregarding these arguments, II
may still clearly be shown that a
rtain sum of money appropriated for t
Continued on Page Three)