The Cordova daily times., 1915-07-21
THE ALASKA WEDNESDAY, JULY 2 1915
WarWill
 Change Naval Plan

| WASHINGTON, D. C., July 2l.- The naval program to be presented to Congress, in the light of the lessons | of the European War, has not been definitely framed notwithstanding the fact that Secretary of the Navy Dan iels and his advisors have had the subject under consideration continu ously for months.
 The building plans for the coming year will not be completed until the last moment, when probably, Presi. dent Wilson will say the final word as to the number and type of ships the navy depatmernt will request. Mean. | while Secretary Daniels hopes for more information from the war zone upon which the United States can build with profit and safety.
 So far, little information has been received to aid the naval constructors. All the belligerents are maintaining the strictest secrecy as to their plans or the lessons they have drawn for themselves from the few sea battles American naval attaches at London, Paris and Berlin, have had little op- portunity to furnish enlightening re- ports and there have been no foreign observers aboard any of the war fleets at sea.
 It Is said that the American attache at Berlin has had opportunity to see considerable of the work going on in German yards, but If so he has been under the strictest injunctions not to reveal what he has observed, even in official reports during the continuance of the war.
 The greatest question that has come out of the war is considered by many American naval officers, to be the future of the dreadnaught. So far as Is known not a single capital ship has been engaged and the value of those enormously expensive fighting ma chine is still as probIematical as it was when England launched the first all-big-gun ship, the dreadnaught. England's newest super-dreadnaught the Queen Elizabeth, has bombarded the forts at the Dardanelles; but so far as navy department advices go, she is the only ship of her class to have fired a shot so far.
 The reason for that, navy officers say, is the full realization Of predic- tions made for submarines, when the first undersea boat was constructed. Against those small and comparatively inexpensive weapons, no adequate means of defense has been found and the first line ships of the fighting navies are behind mine field or screens of torpedo boats and destroyers leav, ing the active work of the war to the older-pre-dreadnaug battleships, the battle cruisers and lighter and less expensive craft.
 | When the first maneuvers of the American navy in which submarines participated took place, some officers declared the day of the battleship had passed. In theory every big ship which approached shore during those operations was destroyed. Events oi the European war 50 far as they are l known, apparently bear out that as sumption of the superiority of sub marines and that is proving a vexine l problem In deciding what shall be the future American policy of naval con struction.
 | Navy engineers now are deeply en gagged with experiments looking tC the discovery of some practical de fense against submarine attack Should they find a solution of the problem, the big ship program will be vindicated. While nothing has been revealed of their experiments, it is assumed that questions of greater sub | division of hulls and stronger bulk