Judsonia weekly advance., 1913-09-24

16. The battleship Ohio still in the Atlantic feet but slated to leave in the near future never to return.
 IT. The commerce destroyer Columbia, so long missing in the news of the navy that genera tion has grown up that knows her not, and she was of the flying squadron of 1898.
 IS. The commerce destroyer Minneapolis, speed record breaking cruiser of the late nineties, a sister of the Columbia and like her, of the flying squadron of 189S
 19 The monitor Amphitrite.
 20. The monitor Miantonomah
 21 The monitor Monadnoek.
 22 The monitor Cheyenne formerly the Wyo ming.
 23. The monitor Ozark formerly the Arkan- 
 24 The monitor Tonopah, formerly the Ne vada
 25. The monitor Tallahassee formerly the Florida.
 26 The misotor Puritan.
 27, The monitor Terror.
 .2S. The mo5tor Monterey.
 29. The protected cruiser St. Louis
 30. The protected cruiser Charleston.
 31. The protected cruiser Milwaukee.
 32. The protected cruiser Newark.
 33 The protected cruiser Chicago.
 34 The protected cruiser Cincinnati.
 35 The protected cruiser Raleigh, Coghlan's ship at Manila.
 36 Twentyeight torpedo boats.
 Twenty years ago this fleet of sixty-three ships would have been match for any naval organiZa- tion then afoat with the exception of the fleet of Great Britain. Today all the vessels in 1t could not last half hour in a battle with the five dreadnaughts that constitute the great first dvi sion of the United States Atlantic fleet.
 And this mighty fleet of naval hasbeens" cost the United States government than s129,- 000,000 and the oldest among them not including the old monitors, is not yet twenty-five years old. The battleships in it to build and equip cost the government s64435.225 and the cruisers. mon- and aicn Dta1 n 10 $129, 900 0C0.
 What will become of these ships? Some are now in reserve and there they will stay until | their end is decided upon. Will that end be the l target range the auction block and the junk | pile, or will they be permitted to rust away in navy yards nominally units in reserve fleets but in reality useless reminders of navy 1 that in it's day great but which, owing to marvellous progress in naval construction, has reached quickly but surely that state of obsolete from which there can be comeback"
 The Oregon and the Olympia will probably be retained for generations to come glorious re- | minders to Americans of future years of the | navy that immortality in the brief conflict | that wiped Spain of the map of the western world and which added to American territory island empire in the far east and won for this | country for the first time full, free recognition by all the nations of the world of the right to be numbered among those powers whose mission and influence is world wide"
 In the lineup of the 'has been" fleet 1t will be | noted that there Is included the entire fourth | division of the great fleet that circumnavtgated l the globe in 1907 and 1908 This division was | made up of the Alabama, the flagship of Sperry | when he began the voyage division com mander the Kentucky, the Kearsarge and the Illinois In that fleet three of the vessels of the third division are now also listed among the | obsolete fighters, the ships in question being the | Ohio. the Missouri and the Maine all sister ships | and in their day held up to the world as em bodying all that was best in the construction and equipment of modern men-of-war of the battle ship class
 The Atlantic fleet when it sailed out of Hamp ton Roads in December 1907, was made up of | sixteen frst-class battleshps, and look at the | makeup of the organization shows that in a pc | riod of less than six years seven, or lacking one of exactly half of those famous ships, have been relegated into the reserve, the first stepping stone that leads to junk pile and oblivion.