Wood County reporter. [volume] (Grand Rapids [i.e. Wisconsin Rapids], Wis.) 1857-1923, 1914-03-12
IAIY IS FAVORED
CONGRESS SEEMS LIKELY TO
AUTHORIZE BUILDING OF
TWO BATTLESHIPS.
FIGURES ARE INTERESTING
What This Country and Others Are
Spending for Fighting Vessels
People Always Approve of
the Expenditure.
BY GEORGE CLINTON.

0g SGSRSE SEtlS ONs
Washington.-Some time ago it was
predicted that congress at this session
would vote money for the building of
two additional dreadnaughts for the
American navy. The fact that the
house committee on military affairs re-
| Gently cut down some of the army es-
Inmates apparently has made many
people think the battleship building
program will be foregone If the coun-
try wishes to keep the navy at its
present strength the ships must be
built and it seems certain today, even
IN the face of recent events, that con-
gress will approve of the building
plan.
The navy is the sister service of the
| army. Naturally what is done for one
sister 1t is expected will be done for
the other. Unless two battleships a
year are added to the navy our sea de-
lenses will be weakened Navy Off
GERS want the present strength to be
maintained and would like it immense
Iy if the lawmakers could be led to
see the virtue of an increase. Two
ships this year seem to be assured.
Navies Are Kept Up.
It may be that the worlds thought
is progressing to a point which will
put full stop to the whole business of
war, but until some more definite
promise is forthcoming than that
which is held out today, war craft will
be launched and put to sea, and regi-
ments will be enlisted and sent to the
frontiers. Great Britain, Germany, the
United States, France, Japan, Russia,
Italy and Austria have more or less
formidable navies and are keeping at
the work of making them more
formidable
Battleship figures, because of their
fighting significance, seem to have in
terest for all people. The battleships
in commission or building are: Great
Britain, 70; Germany, SO; United
States, Sc; France, %; Japan, 10;
Italy, IT; Russia, Is, and Austro-Hun-
gary, 10. OF armored cruisers, Great
Britain has As, Germany 16, United
States II, France 20. These are the
latest figures and they show the COM
parative strengths of the great navies
of the world as they stand today.
What America Has Spent.
1t was not many years ago that the
United States began building what is
known as the new navy. Up to the
present time ships of the new or COM
paratiyely new type, have cost the
people of the United States for con-
struction alone $477,872,952. The
larger part of this money has been
spent since the year 1900, though the
beginnings of the new navy are to be
set back as far as 1890. The people of
the country have approved this ex-
penditure. Members of congress al
ways have found that their constitu-
ents are perfectly willing that money
shall be spent for Warships and the
further inland the district from which
the congressman comes the greater
seemingly the willingness that the
money should be put into torpedo
boats, cruisers or dreadnaughts. Naval
appropriations always have been popu-
lar and in order to find the reason
| somebody must get into the inner con-
seriousness of the American people.
Why is it necessary to build new
ships every year in order to keep the
navy at it's present standard Of eff
cheney? Time knocks the battleship
out without extending itself to any
| marked degree. There is now in the
list of really seryiceabIe American
| battleships only one vessel that was
built prior to the year 1900. The one
exception is the battleship Iowa, which
was completed in 1897. The Indiana,
Massachusetts and Oregon, built
about the same time as the Iowa, are
no longer regarded as fighters. They
are not included in the total Of Sc bat
tleships accredited to the United
| States, and yet it seems only yester-
| day that these vessels were carrying
| the flag at the front of the fighting off
| Santiago,
Railroads and Canal Tolls.
In certainly one-haIf Of the legisla-
| ton enacted or proposed for enact
ment by congress during the last II or
| Is years, the railroads have entered
| either as the angelic Little Eva or as
| the brutalized Legree. The carrier cor
| porations cast themselves as the angel
| child while some gentlemanly law
makers with mean dispositions cast
| them as the slave driver.
! If some inspired one could take
pencil and paper, do a little figuring
and adduce proof that American coast
wise sailing ships can pay tolls
| through the Panama canal and yet
| compete with the railroads for traffic
East and West, there would be less
heard in congress today of the intqutty
| of repeating the tolls exemption clause.
This railroad matter is entering into
| the present trouble in congress over
| the question of the repeal of the tolls
exemption clause of the canal act.
There are men ready to say that the
| coaster ships can carry their cargoes
! from the East coast to the West coast
| through the Panama canal and beat
| the railroads on cost and on charges.
| There are others who say that the
| real reason for the demand for the
repeal of the exemption clause is that
| it is demanded by the transcontinental
! railroads. Somebody may have to
prove something before this present
NEED PROFESSOR OF ADVICE