Evening star., 1914-10-25
Gardner Declares Neither
Army Nor Navy Is Ade-
quateIy Organized.
GIVES OUT STATEMENT
ON THE PRESENT STATUS
Insists That Government Needs
100000 Available Men in Army
and Forty-Seven Battleships.

The question of national armament
national defense and fully enlisted army
and navy will be kept alive by Repre-
sentative Gardner of Massachusetts
who recently introduced resolution to
investigate tho actual condition OF the
nations forces. In statement issued
by him last night Mr.. Gardner said he
would push his request for two-day
hearing on the resolution. and. pending
the assembling of Congress in Decem-
ber, fortify himself with more facts.
IT guarantee no facts and no figures
in this statement as to our army and
navy" he said. Nothing but an inVes-
tigation by an Independent commission
will bring out the truth. For the most
part, my navy facts and figures are
taken from the official documents ana
from conversations with naval officers.
The estimates as to the number of ships
necessary for our safety, except as to
submarines, are taken from the reports
of the general board of the navy. The
board has made no final estimates on
submarines.
THE army facts and figures are gath
cred from the official publications OF the
War Department. from congressional
hearings. from the reports of the CHIEF
of stan of the army and from private
conversations with officer.
Need Forty-seven Battleships.
I'VE ought to have forty-seven fight
ing battleships, built and building. In
stead, we have twenty-eight real bat
tleships, built and building; four scrap
iron relics and eight venerable sur
vivors only grade better.
I'VE ought to have 1888 destroyers.
built and building. Instead. we have
sixty-eight; but sixteen are too old
70 n11nf
anything.
1--WE ought to have thirty-nine fast
scout cruisers, built and building. In
stead. we have as many as three.
I'VE ought to have as many sub
marines as any nation on earth to pro-
tect our limitless coast lines. yet In
submarine strength our navy stands
fourth among the worlds navies.
I'VE ought to have on an average
about five torpedoes to each torpedo
tube in our entire fleet. We shall
nominally have pretty near that num-
ber when those being constructed at
pedoes are of problematical value in
time of war, however, as three-quar-
ters of them are of the old, short-range
kind. The scrap heap is the place for a
lot of them.
Need Airship Fleet.
I'VE ought to have a large feet of
alrSnlpS OF Zeppelin ana Otner types.
Instead. we have not a single one.
I'VE ought to have a large fleet of
aeroplanes. Our aeroplanes are scarce
ly numerous enough to reckon.
I'VE have about $1,000 men in the
navy. To man only that part of our
modest fleet which would be useful in
time of war would take $4,000 men.
So Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Roosevelt tells us, and he adds that he
has not taken into account the men
necessary to man the ships now build
ing. Yet you cannot improvise a man
of-war's man out of a totally unframed
civilian in a few months, and there
are only 5000 naval militiamen in the
whole country.
I'VE ought to have coast defense
guns as powerful as the guns on the
modern dreadnoughts of other ma
tions, although this necessity is dis
puted. Instead, we have guns whose
range is less by mile than the naval
guns which may oppose them.