Rocky Ford enterprise., 1914-03-13
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
tho Expenditure.
BY GEORGE CLINTON.

preOlCted tnat congress at tnlS 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. II the coun-
try wishes to keep the navy at Its
present strength the ships must be
built and II 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.
1t may be that the worlds thought
is progressing to 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. 80; United
States, SO: France. 30: Japan, 10;
Italy, II; Russia, 10. and Austro-Hun-
gary. 10. OF armored cruisers, Great
Britain has 40. Germany 16. United
States IL, 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 SAT- .S72.95 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
81 hnu
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 tho 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 effi-
cheney? Time knocks the battleship
out without extending itself to any
marked degree. There is now In the
list of really serviceable American
battIeships 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
tieships accredited to the United
States. and yet 1t 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 congress during the last IL or
10 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.
II some inspired one could take a
pencil and paper. do little figuring
and adduce proof That American coast
wise sailing ships can pay tolls
through the Panama canal and yet
compete with the railroads Tor traffic
East and West, there would be less
heard in congress today of the iniquity
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