Grant County herald. [volume] (Lancaster, Wis.) 1850-1968, 1908-01-01
THE ARMADA AND ITS MEANING.

of the Atlantic in the past few years.
They are making many sorts of CUES
es as to the meaning of the move
ment If, as Bacon said, the voice
of a foreign country IS apt to fore
shadow the verdict of posterity, the |
AmerIcanpeople will be confused as
to the sort of Judgment which will |
be passed half a century or century |
hence upon the sailing of the Amer
lean armada. One London news |
paper calls it a ''bluff and an indis- |
erection, and declares that 1T is di-
rected against Japan. Some of the
Berlin papers lean to the same belief
and compare it with the sailing of
Rojestvensky's fleet from the Baltic
to the Sea of Japan during the lat
ter part Of the Russo-Japanese war
of 1904-05. Most of the Paris press
seems to think that the move offers
no menace to anybody and that no
power has right to get offended at it.
In st Petersburg the cruise is inter-
preted to mean restoration of the
balance of power in the Pacific which
was disturbed by the recent war"
From antipodal angles the journals
of Europe's capitals connect fleets
movement with the Japanese issue
in some shape.
Over here, however, we accept the
Washington view rather than that
which is handed out to us from
across the Atlantic. President
Roosevelt has told us that the fleets
cruise is for the purpose of drilling
the officers and men in long distance
movements, to familiarize them
with the waters on both sides of
the hemisphere, and incidentally to
let the East know that we have a
western ocean boundary which
belongs to us by as good title as
that by which we hold the Atlantic
seaboard, and that this western
coast will. In an extremity, be de-
Tended by us with all the power
which we can muster. Moreover,
the president, through the secre
tary Of the navy, has told us that
the cruise was decided on a year
ago, before the San Francisco in
cident came up in troublesome
shape, and thus before the japanese
issue was thought of. Europe may or
may not accept Washington's words
at their face value, but no reason
able person in the United States has
any cause to doubt them. A few
Democrats pretend to see some
politics in the cruise. They have
attributed it to desire on the part
of the president to create a tension
with Japan which will force his re
nomination, or which will excite
feeling that will give the Republi-
can party, under any candidate,
tremendous majority in the cleo
ton of 1908. AS the president has
voluntarily and emphatically re-
nounced al idea of accepting
nomination if it should be rendered
to him, and as every Republican,
out of office as well as in it, be-
lieves that the party will win under
any nominee, the partisanship pre-
tense will not get much attention.
However, the st. Petersburg view
of the reason for the cruise Of the
fleet has something to say for itself.
The balance of power in the Pacific
was seriously disturbed as a result
of the overwhelming defeat of
Russia as a sea power, the shorten
ing of her boundary on that ocean
and the rise of Japan into the front
rank in naval strength. We had
nothing to fear from Russia. One
of the reasons why Alaska was
transferred to us forty years ago
was that Russia wanted to take her
flag out of North America so that
all possibility of a clash with the
United States at any time in the
future would de removed. We have
suddenly discovered, what we
ought to have known long AGO, that
our naval force in the Pacific is far
below the mark which national
safety demands. We are weaker at
this moment, in actual tonnage and
men in the big western sea than we
were just before the Japanese war
of 1904 O5. The arrangement under
which nine. tenths of the country's
entire naval force was in the At
lantic was faulty. While nobody
looks for any serious trouble with
Japan in the near future, the course
of wisdom is to prepare for any