Evening star., 1937-12-16
Thirty Years Ago Today.

Although Secretary Hull has let it
be known that the United States has
not had under consideration, and is not
now considering, any joint naval action
In Far Eastern waters, or any other kind
OF naval measures, the country learns
with what is bound to be widespread
grahfcation that thought has been given
10 the possible advisability OF advancing
the date OF the impending annual
maneuvers Of the United States Fleet. 1t
Is salutary suggestion.
Cotnciding with todays thirtieth an
ntversary of Theodore Roosevelt's dis
patch Of the American armada on its
fruitful and unforgettable trip around
the world in le07-S-9, the proposal, even
IN tentative and embryonic form, is
designed to stir the patriotic emotions
Of the Nation, particularly as the
projected change in plans of long stand
ing would be gesture of peace and
not threat of war. It would merit
that character despite its origin at a
moment which finds the American people
legttimately aroused over a fragrant vio-
lation of our rights in China and far
from Modified by the stereotyped official
regrets and crocodile tears which are
all that this Governments protest has
50 far evoked from Japan and her naval
and military masters.
1t is now matter of historical ac-
knowledgment that President Roose-
velts action, sanctioned by the sage
counsel of Secretary Elihu Root, in
sending Admiral Robley D. Evans and
the battleship fleet to the other side
OF the globe, was, in the words of Doctor
William Starr Myers, "a brilliantly con-
ceived and courageously executed plan
that proved of striking effect in the
cause Of peace, little as RooseveIt's
pacifist opponents suspected it." Many
authorities of the era were persuaded
that the cruise directly and definitely
curbed the ardor of Japan for forcible
adjustment of the California land school
and immigration controversy, which
hotspurs at Toxic were magnifying into
an issue OF imperial honor, solvable only
by war.
The Forthcoming maneuvers of the
fleet, vastly more formidable personif,-
cation~of American strength than the
squadrons Fighting Bob" Evans led
across the Pacific, call for operations
IN vast triangular area known as the
Alaska -Hawaii-S Samoa line and consti-
tuting the United States paramount
defensive sphere in the great ocean
which laps our Western shores, the
Panama Canal Zone and the mid-Pacific
possessions, including the Philippines,
The battle practice" contemplated by
these annual grand exercises has on
occasion aroused the ire and alarm of
Japan, though, in fact, it but duplicates
equally large scale operations of the
island empires own navy.
To the idea of starting the United
States Fleet on its routine home work"
. little earlier than planned no reason
able objection can be made either here
or abroad, though it is probably too
much to expect peace-at- -any-price
ousybodsss to approve such a program.
Even the Panay affair has not made
these subconscious abettors of inter-
national insolence and lawlessness realize
that they are bringing war nearer by
mculcating in certain minds that the
American eagle may shrek, but will
never claw and that its feathers may be
plucked with impunity by any nation
reckless enough to trifle with a people
slow to anger but whose patience is not
anexhaustible.