Dakota farmers' leader. (Canton, S.D.) 1890-19??, 1914-03-20
NAVY 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.

BY GEORGE CLINTON.
Neutrality-suspicious. 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 u
try wishes to keep the navy at its
present strength the ships must be
built and 1t seems certain today, even
In he 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 it 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
ly 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.
1t may be that the worlds thought
IS progressing to a point which will
put a 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 SEN 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, So; France, 20; 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
paratively 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 1t necessary to build new
ships every year in order to keep the
navy at its present standard Of ef1-
cheney? Time knocks the battleship
out without extending itself to any
marked degree. There Is 10Y in the
list Of really serviceable 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 SO 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-half of the legisla-
ton enacted or proposed for enact
ment by mgr during the last II or
Is years, the railroads have entered
either as the angelic Little Eva or as
the hrutalized Legree. The carrier cor
porations cast themselves as the angel
child while some gentlemanly law
maker with mean dispositions cast
them as the slave driver.
If some inspired enc could take a
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 1niquity