The Montgomery advertiser., 1909-02-14

w.s,s from tomorrow the famous xf,s,f,c Feet win steam Into Hampton Roads after the most wondertul eraass nat the world has ever known. The President will be there to review II aa he did when 1t sailed out on Dec- amber 1s. 1907. and 1t will pass pehore him in the same formation. wiIh .ne game oficers and men board with the cossb,e [ exception of Rear s,Admiral Evan,s who retired from command with full honors at San Francisco last zprlne. The ships will be trihe sea worn. the paint may not be quite go fresh but the gleam of brass Tn the runIirht will be as bright. and the seilors win appear as triIniy clad as when they sailed away fourteen months ago. A world record will have been made when the fleet comes home {. precedent set for nations 70 toIioW Ni thay. too, would show their invinciDle- resa to the world. and lesson In the fitness of the American battleship and ttr men will have been demonstrated
 Never has the navy been5 able to hoaet of so efficient body or men aboard the ships. The news of the great cruise. bruited about from coast to coast. from Canada to Texas. drew an army of recruits that hfted the seaman far above the average hitnerto known sailors. farmers students, ao- venfurers. Journalists. soldiers of for tune. ali came to enlist Twenty per- cent came from sailing vessels Sixty five percent came from the farms of the Middle West--where Rear Admiral Evans claims the best sea lighters rrow--from the farms of Virginia and New England These, with the thou sands of able seamen already on board. were massed into city population 1e,0o0 strong and were given training on these sixteen batt1eships such as no civilian has ever had. for there was perfect home comfort. good food. good discipline and superb sanitary conds- lions such as the average civilian has never known in his own home town
 The outgoing battleships passed in review before the President over a year ago. The line was so long thatthe Connecticut was only blur of smoke on the horizon four miles away when the last ship was firing its last gun, They formed into giant checker board, and kept always certain formation that was not broken even h passing through the Straits of Magellan Once fog swung down like a great, grey curtain, and for twenty-four hours shut cut from each ship the other ships, the sea and the sky, but when it finally lifted, the great checkboard was swining along with undlminIshed speed and In per feet formation.
 Those ships have retraced the steps of the Oregon on the world famous run of 1898. They have taken peace- fuI possession of the Pacific. throwing a force of eighteen battleships and eight armored cruisers on the western coast. in proof of the nations ability Co hold its own as second sea-power, if need be. They have put a girdie about the world and the trailing smoke from the tunnels and the white foam in their wake has spelled out across the seas the efficiency of people not yet century and half old, who are ID the van of naval supremacy. with older nations left far behind
 Ports of call on the route were chosen with view to their- convent ence .as coaIfng stations or in answer to diplomatic invttations Weeks be- fore the ships sailed theIr itinerary had been named. and they touched at each port as planned with so little defiec- xion from the hour and day named hat 1t was not worth considering.