The Birmingham age-herald., 1917-07-03
GERMAN AND SCANDINAVIAN
are not sufficient. Submarines must b fought at sea.
 BIG NAVY INEFFECTIVE

NSO you will percelve eXacIIy what the task is that is set to the American ana British navies in this war. It is fighting task; one that calls for ina agination, in vention ingenuity, wide and costly ex- pertinent, and above all, daring and dec- sion. It is a paradox of the situation tha t the greatest naval powers have no navy capable of meeting the modern method Iof attack on the command of the sea to which those powers seem to be en- titled. And inasmuch as we have no navy capable of meeting that attack, we are driven to an immense constructive task. The enemy has stolen a march on us Through 1915 and 1916 they have applied themselves to their constructive task and now we have to counter 1t.
 The situation illustrates one of the fundamental truths of sea force Sea force consists in ships, in weapons, in methods of using ships and weapons, in men, in officers, and in the higher com mand. have given you the category in the reverse order of their importance. Ships are far less important than the weapons they carry, and weapons are quite useless unless they are employed on right methods. The method is of greater value than the weapon and all of these, ships, weapons and methods, will avail you nothing unless they are served and used by men that are disci- pl1ned, skillful and brave. Nor can you ever get such men unless the officers have that mastery and high moral stand ard which alone can impose skilled dis cipline in their crews and invoke their native bravery.
 And finally, however splendid your combination of ships, weapons. methods, men and officers; however consummate the technical skill with which your forces are marshalled and employed, they can never be directed to the best and most decisive use in war unless their whole action proceeds from an efficient, high command.
 1t is then on the higher command of the British and American navies that the issue of this war now depends. l cannot impress this point too strongly upon you. There is no command on land. no general staff concerned with the vast operations in France Russia and else where that compares in importance with the headship of the British navy and of the American navy.
 TASK FOR MASTERS
 If any of the great martial figures of the past were at our disposal, a strate- gist statesman like William Pitt. a su- preme fighting genius like Napoleon or Frederick the Great, a master organizer of victory like Carnot, it is not difficult to say that had We such figure today the task we would impose upon him would be the direction of the naval war.
 Tt is, of course, not possible uo have unified direction. Each navy must work on its own responsibility, combining to produce perfect plan, with share of each in this plan assigned to it. It is the production of this plan that is the vital question of the moment. To pro- duce this plan needs fine insight into the end of the war. and a mental and spiritual affinity with it's obscure and surprising principles. It needs resolution In obeying it's relentless axioms. Courage in taking large and grave risks, and. above all. capacity for swift decision because action can only be decisive when it is swift. It Is on this that victory depends and without these qualities in the higher command in the navy, vic- tory in which America is to take share proportionate to her high national spirit, the grandeur of the sacrifice she is mak- ing and the immense force that she has it in her power to create. ia impossible"