Evening star., 1933-02-23
SWANSON FOR NAVY
SECOND TO NONE
Favors Building Up U. S. Fleet
to Limit of Treaty
Strength.

By the Associated Press.
Although born and brought up in one
of the interior counties of his State,
far from the sea, Senator Claude A.
Swanson, who is expected to become
Secretary of the Navy in the Roose-
welt administration, has been known
as a big Navy" man for more than
20 years. His dream, the subject of
many speeches on the Senate floor,
has been of an American Navy second
to none, although he yielded to de-
mands for Naval armament reductions.
The only condition upon which he
would yield, however, was that any
limitation would still permit the
United States to rank with the first
naval powers.
Since the Washington and London
naval reduction conferences Swanson
has taken the Senate floor more than
once to demand that the United States
build up to the very limit of its au-
thorized treaty strength.
! At the Geneva Disarmament Confer
ence last year he pressed for President
Hoover's proposal for reducing arms by
one-third But he burst into head
lines at another stage Of the conference
with a vigorous defense of the right OF
the United States and Great Britain to
maintain mighty war fleets.
Speeches Quoted.
His speeches gave a glimpse of the
thought that stirred him:
America owes it to herself, to her
safety and to the exercise of her proper
influence in world affairs, to see that
her Navy is kept at all times equal to
that of any other Navy" he once said
on the Senate floor.
In the same address, delivered prior
to the London conference of 1880, he
said also:
"All the large wards disclose the
inevitable truth that those who control
the surface of the sea ultimately win"
Native of an interior tobacco-growing
Virginia county, Swansons compelling
interest in the Navy started when he
entered the Senate. His desire to take
care of the interests of the Norfolk
Navy Yard and the rest of the Navy's
big development around Hampton Roads
led him to seek the Naval Committee
assignment
Before that time, he had developed
a mild interest in naval affairs during
his association with Admiral Fighting
Bob Evans, who took the Atlantic feet
into York River for the jamestown cele-
bration of 1907. Swanson, then Governor
of Virginia, entertained him, got good
view of Americas best in a naval way
at that time.
Believed in Preparedness.
In pre-war days he was leader in
the fight for naval preparedness and is
considered one of the fathers" Of the
feet that went out in 1917 and 1918
to fence submarines away from Ameri-
can transports.
During the heat of the war, he sue
ceeded to the craftsmanship of the Naval
Committee and guided the legislation
that had the United States well on its
way toward the greatest Navy the world
had ever known.
The Washington conference checked
that program, Swanson submitting, but
he still carried on his fight for a Navy
as large as any other. In 1929 he
criticized President Hoover for post
poning construction of a fleet of heavy
cruisers which the Washington treaty
did not limit.
After the London conference the
following year, Swanson, who was not
a member of the conference delegation,
was chosen to present the treaty to the
Senate.
Delegate to Geneva
Senators Robinson, Democrat OF
Arkansas, and Reed, Republican of
Pennsylvania, who had gone to London,
and Chairman Hale, Republican, OF
Maine, of the Naval Committee, stood
by while the Virginian made a H.
900 word address in advocacy of the
pact. The Senate ratified it.
Swanson was the first delegate Pres
ident Hoover selected to go to Geneva
last year and was the American men,
ber of the Naval Commission, after the
delegates were divided of into naval,
land and air groups.
AS naval member he again worked
shoulder to shoulder with adnnirals and
other high ranking officers of the Navy
as he had done in wartime and as he
will do again-as Secretary of the Navy.