Atlanta semi-weekly journal. (Atlanta, Ga.) 1898-1920, 1909-02-16

| The first of next week the famous AT
lsntic fleet will steam into Hampton Roads
after the most wonderful cruise that the
world has ever known. The president will
he there to review ii as he did when II
| sailed out on December 10, lSOf' ana II
will pass before him in the same 1ormaT
| ton. with the same officers ana men on
board. with the notable exception OF Rear
| Admiral Evans, who retired from COM
mand with full honors at San Francisco
last spring. The ships will be trifle
sea-worn. the paint may not be quite SO
| fresh, but the CLEAN of brass in the sun
light will be as bright, and the sailors
will appear as trinity clad as when they
sailed away fourteen months ago. A Worlo
record will have been made when the
fleet comes home, a precedent set TOT ma
tions to follow If they, too, would show
their invincibleness to the world, ana
lesson in the fitness of the American
ibattleship and its men will have been de-
monstrated.
Never has the navy been able to boast
of so efficient a body of men aboard the
ships. The news of the great cruise
bruited about from coast to coast from
Canada to Texas, drew an army OF re-
cruits that lifted the seaman far ABOVE
the average hitherto known, Sailors, farm
ers. students, adventurers, journalists, SOL
diers of fortune, all came to enlist. Tween
~ per cent came from sailing vessels. Six
ty-five per cent came from the Farms OF
the middle west, where Rear Admiral
Evans Claims the best sea-fighters grow
from the farms of Virginia and New Eng
LAND These with the thousands OF able
seamen already on board, were massed
into a city population l6,OOO strong anu
were given training on these sixteen bat
tleships such as no civilian has ever had,
for there was perfect home comfort, good
food good discipline and superb sanitary
conditions such as the average civilian
has never known in his own home town.
The outgoing battleships passed in re-
view before the president over year ago.
The line was so long that the Connecticut
was only blur of smoke on the horizon
four miles away when the last ship was
firing it's last gun. They formed into a
giant checkerboard and kept always
certain formation that was not broken
even in passing through the Strait of Ma
gellan. Once a fog swung down like
great, grey curtain, and for twenty-four
hours shut out from each ship the other
ships, the sea and the sky, but when it
finally lifted the great checkerboard was
swinging along with undiminished speed
and in perfect formation.
|
These ships have retraced the steps of
the Oregon on the world famous run Of
1885, They have taken peaceful posses
sion of the Pacific, throwing a
force of eighteen battleships and eight
armored cruisers on the western coast, in
proof of the nations ability to hold its
own as second sea-power If need be. They
have put a girdle 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 a
people not yet a century and a half old.
who are in the van of naval supremacy,
with older nations left far behind.
Ports of call on the route were chosen
with view to their convenience as coal
ing stations or in answer to diplomatic
invitations. Weeks before the ships sail
ed their itinerary had been named, and
they touched at each port as planned
with so little detection from the hour ana
day named that it was not worth con-
s.dering. Only the recent earthquake
troubles in Italian waters caused any
changes in the year-old plan, and these
were made in accordance with the altru-
ism Of a nation that would send its
ships to succor those in need, and divert
the provisions intended for the fleet to
the more immediate needs of the home-
less, starving thousands Of Sicily
Leaving Norfolk in winter time the
ships rushed through eight seasons of
summer and winter before they reached
San Francisco. and returning again on a
winters day they will have the memory
of the Mediterranean summer only three
weeks behind them. Puck's putting a
girdle on the earth in forty minutes is
tame feat compared to that of the At
lantic fleet and its fourteen months
achievement. The ships kept an ordinary
cruising speed of ten. knots an hour with
out interruption for from eight to fiji
teen days, and then they remained in
some port of call for from five to ten
days.
Christmas they spent off Trinidad,
where New England Christmas trees and
tropical palms adorned ship and mess
table New Years day was spent off
the coast of Dutch Guinea. The middle Of
January they arrived at Rio Janeiro to be
guests of the city. Two hundred and fifty
miles off the coast Of Argentina the six
teen invincibles were met by a fleet Of
four Argentina cruisers, and as the At
lantic feet fell into line, with Argentine
flags displayed, and guns firing salutes,
the most unique mid-ocean ceremony ever
known to the civilized world was wit
messed.
In the tracks of Magellan they passed
through the strait, skirting bleak, I'M
peopled shores, daring the hurricanes Of
the far southern seas, and passing the
last stage of the journey in dense fog.
And this one hundred million dollars
worth of steel fighting machinery with its
resident population of 5000 souls wealth
cred the treacherous strait and arrived
on the western side unrUffied and I'M
scsthed. At Punta Arenas, the south
ernmost town in the world, they stopped
again to coal, and in the shadow of giant
glaciers the men watched the sun set
at ten at night and rise again four hours
later.
A Chilean cruiser met the feet far
down the straits, and led it to Valparaiso
where in and out Of the big harbor the