The Washington herald. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1906-1939, 1915-11-26
Reasonable Preparedness.

Reasonable Preparedness" into concrete pro-
gram for procuring it. They know that the worst
enemies of reasonable preparedness are the men
who are clamoring for army and a navy out OF
proportion to our needs. They also know that to
play into the hands of the men of Bryans stamp
the pumpkin politicians who would under any cir
cumstances put pork before patriotism will simply
result the entire question Of the national neees
sites in the matter of ornaments being thrust to
one side Their Immediate need, therefore, is to
know the facts all the facts and nothing but the
facts, so that they can frame program that will
call neither for too much too little But those
facts, as the New York Evening Post points out,
are Just what nobody is agreed upon. On the one
hand we have Mr.. Kitchin stating that the navy
of the United States is stronger than that OF Ger
many. And he Correctly or otherwise) quotes
Admirals Fletcher and Winterhalter and Rear Ad-
miral Badger as his authorities for the statement
On the other hand, we have men like Mr.. Reuter-
dahl denying with equal vigor that our navy is
anything of the kind. Who is right?
While not pretending to exact knowledge on
the subject our recollection is that the admras IN
question, when testifying before the House COM
mittee this last winter, carefully avoided making
direct comparison of our navy with that OF any
other country and contented themselves by saying
that ship for ship gun for gun, etc, our navy was
superior to the German and equal to the British
navy. And as a matter of fact it is almost ineon-
ceivable that they could have made the statement
attributed to them.
| In comparison with the nature and extent OF
the coast line to be protected submarine and
destroyer strength is far less than that of Ger
many Germany has eighteen light cruisers that
can show their heels to any ships in our navy ex-
cept destroyers, which cannot go On long cruises
except under consort She has also number OF
battle cruisers that can catch and destroy any and
all the ships in our navy except the more recent
Dreadnoughts. The total hitting power of the
twenty-six German Dreadnoughts built or building
exceeds that of our fourteen ships 1.-TWO of which
are too slow to be classed as Dreadnoughts) by
about one-third, as cable dispatch recently
showed And seven of them mount I4-inch
guns or better as compared with six of ours. But
what is more significant, twelve of the German
ships are faster by several knots than any of
Some of these battle cruisers of the Moltke
type and less heavily armored but at least six or
eight of them as heavily aruored as our ships
OF course this does not tell all the story.
There are many who allege that it is by no means
necessary that we should have battle fleet equal
to that of Germany. But, if it is necessary that
we should, we do not want to be deceived either
by politicians naval experts into thinking that
we have something when we haven't got it. We
want to know what is the least number of ships of
all classes that we must have for reasonable pro-
lection and we want to have that question thrashed
out to a point where if there is not unanimity of
opinion, there is at least a sufficient volume of
identical opinion to justify in believing that the
matter is being decided on basis of ships and
guns and not of politics and pork. We do not
want to know what Representative Kitchin thinks
Admiral Fletcher said, because know that he
will think he said what would like him to have
said Let Admiral Fletcher speak to the people of
the United States. The Herald, for one, will be
delighted to publish his views.
To the lay mind it seems rather premature for
the government to embark upon a ship-buildng
program destined to spread over number of
wears until we see what the war is going to bring
forth. For the war, upon the least optimistic
estimate, will be over long before any ships
provided for at the coming session of Congress
can be completed. If the allies win the complete
victory they hope for Germany will undoubtedly
be deprived of all part of her fleet if, as
is more than likely, a great naval battle does not
take place before the end of the In that case
batteships will probably be two for a penny.
Clearly, if Germany has none left, only few,
it will be waste of money for to go build
ing more If, on the other hand, Germany wins,
she will be in position to attack US long before
our navy be strengthened, and will no doubt
do so on pretext or other. incidentally, it
must be remembered that from on the Aus
trian navy which includes four Dreadnoughts,
must be considered an integral part of the Ger
man navy.
| This is not argument against preparedness,
and particularly against military preparedness to
which ths same arguments do not apply. Nor is it
an argument against the voting by Congress at the
present tme-snce the nation is for the time be-
ing awake to the dangers of inadequate defense
of all the money that possibly be needed under
any circumstances for naval construction. 1t is
merely an argument in favor of postponing for
few months the final decision to the number and
type of warships the country is going to need.
And even to that, it is still the fact that the
country wishes to be guided by its naval experts
rather than by politicians responding to what they
believe to be public demand for more Dread
thoughts. 1t may be argued that the program pre-
scented to Congress does represent the considered
opinion of those experts. That does not satisfy
the people who want to hear the arguments at
first hand. 1t is impossible that the naval men