St. Tammany farmer. [volume] (Covington, La.) 1874-current, 1917-12-29

crease in personnel. l hope you will
learn in detail Of the splendid work
of cur recruiting bureaus, which in
deed in the early stages OF the war
were almost oversuccessfuAip that
we received men so rapidly as to
make even temporary arrangements
for their accommodation an exceed
ingly puzzling matter. We have ex-
banded tremendously our naval sta
tions and increased the number The
facts are fully recounted in detail in
my annual report.
The enlisted personnel of the Navy
on April 6, was e4,6so men and
1876 officers. Today it is 166,959
men and 6,912 officers. In addition
to these regulars in the Navy there
are 1859 Marines with 1918 Of
ficers, an increase Of 2o,323 men and
1872 officers. To these must be add
ed 1000 Reserve, men and officers.
$500 men and $50 officers of Ma
tional Naval Volunteers-a total of
100000 in round numbers.
In addition to the needs of our
ships. we were called upon to pro
vide skilled gunners as we'll as the
guns for merchant ships. This was
also new problem in naval warfare.
| am glad to- leave it to your judg-
ment from the testimony which viii
follow my own as to whether this
has been done we'll or not.
Equipping the Fleet.
| have mentioned briefly what we
have done toward aircraft, subma-
rine, destroyers, patrol boats, and
personnel. / would like to say a
word about the general principles on
which it has been done
To put the fleet into being requires
ships, nguns, ammunition, men. and
provisions for the men. Our own
mercantile marine, unfortunately
unlike that Of Great Britain. was not
large enough to have created for its
own purposes these enormous ship
building facilities which have made
this particular problem comparative
ly easy for our allies. In fact. the
ship-building resources of our coun-
try We're SO small as to make the
carrying out OF our new naval pro
gram impossible without additions to
the private yards as we'll as to our
navy yards them selves. From this
you Will understand the difficulties
OF enormously adding to this con-
struction and at the same time at
fording every possible facility fol
the building Of eargo-carrying YES
sole in ron 3aI Of
When new requirements of nava,
warfare made evident the necessity
of building very large number Of
additional destroyers, there was lit
orally not vacant ways to hold them
the country. Speed was every
thing. as indeed speed is today the
greatest necessity of the war Net
only were there no ways for the
ships, and in many cases no ground
in the shipyards to build such ways,
but there We're not, to take one sin
gle instance, enough forge plants in
the United States to forge theiI
shaffs, and propelling machinery
without suspending the arming of
our troops. You will learn more il,
detail as to how this problem has
been met, of how KEGS are being laid
today on ground that was swami
land few months ago, Of how the
finishing touches are being put On
extensions of forge plants, which in
some cases are as large Or larger
than the original plants themselves.
Of how every manufacturer who
could make anything needed for a
destroyer, always keeping in mind
the imperative immediate needs of
our sister military branch, has been
set to work on this task
Not All Smooth Going.
OF course, not everything has run
with perfect smoothness; there have
been delays. You can not make
tremendous demand of this. kind on
a comparatively small Industry with
out upsetting many things, without
completely disorganizing the usual
peaceful routine of business. 1t has
not Always been easy to get the me-
.cessity for speed, speed, speed into
the heads OF the contractors, but, on