THE AMERICAN NAVY.

BY HORACE PORTER.

[Horace Porter, former U. S. ambassador to France since 1897; born Huntington, Pa., April 15, 1837; educated Lawrence Scientific school, Harvard; graduated West Point, 1860; served in field through the Civil war, every commissioned grade up to brigadier general; received Congressional medal of honor for gallantry at Chicamauga; private secretary to president U. S. Grant, 1869-77; since then prominent in business life. Author, Campaigning with Grant, West Point Life, etc.]

My purpose is not to give you the history of the United States navy; that would compel me to carry you through all the incidents included in a record of heroism from Paul Jones to his legitimate successor, George Dewey. I can only speak generally of what the navy has accomplished, its matchless gallantry, and its necessity to the country. In the nation's infancy-that heroic age of the republic, the period of the Revolutionary war,-the country was comprised of colonies which were essentially commercial. There were few manufacturing interests, owing to the severity of the system imposed upon us by the mother country, which discouraged manufacturers in the colonies in order to compel the colonists to buy all their manufactured goods from England. Our coastwise and foreign trade was of first importance to our people, and yet for want of a navy our ports were easily blockaded and our commerce was at the mercy of an antagonist. Such was the spirit of the patriots of that day, however, that they made a bold struggle to win successes at sea. They bought merchant ships and did the best they could to convert them into men-ofwar; they hewed the green timber in the forests and constructed naval vessels; they took the bells from the churches and cast them into cannon, leaving voiceless for a time the temple of God in order to make the mistress of the seas feel that even on her favorite element there would be blows to give as well as blows to take. Never was a struggle more unequal. By dint of heroic efforts, however, the merchant marine of the mother country was made to suffer, three of her naval vessels were beaten and captured in her home waters and hostile naval descents made upon her coasts,

These daring operations compelled England to keep many war vessels at home for the protection of her commercial fleets. Vessels which would otherwise have been sent to blockade more effectually our ports effected substantial damage by raising maritime insurance rates and aided largely in making the war unpopular. The carrying into French ports of British men-ofwar as prizes did much to convince the French of the formidable character of the Revolutionary struggle, and stimulated that government to take active measures, as our ally, by sending armies and fleets to our aid.

After the Revolution our navy was totally neglected; some ships were sold and others put out of commission. So weak had we become on the water that our old antagonist treated the government with contempt, and was emboldened to demand and exercise the right of search of our vessels under the pretense of looking for British deserters. Insults and humiliation followed rapidly and for years we were told we could not be kicked into a war. At last our vessels were openly fired on and we then accepted the desperate chances of the war of 1812. England had at that time 1,042 vessels-254 of them ships of the line. Her naval armament consisted of 27,000 guns. America had but 17 vessels-none of them battleships-her armament numbered 442 guns. Nevertheless, the gallantry, alertness and superb seamanship of our sailors gained victories which crowned them with laurels and showed even then the importance of a superior personnel.

Our weakness, however, demonstrated the criminal folly of neglecting our sea power. The destruction to our commerce cost vastly more than the maintenance of a competent fleet, and the humiliation suffered on sea and land should be charged up as crimes committed by the government in placing the country at the mercy of even an insignificant power with a respectable navy. This was called the turtle policy. It was like the turtle, only in that it moved slowly, for it did not furnish a shell for protection.

Even after this experience the navy was largely neglected. Then was experienced the most humiliating episode in our history. The Algerian pirates defied us and made us pay

tribute in money and presents to purchase exemption from their attacks on our commerce.

When the ship George Washington carried our tribute to the bey of Algiers, he treated the vessel bearing that illustrious name as the ship of a vassal nation and ordered it to carry his tribute to the sultan of Turkey of whom he was himself a vassal, and made it fly the Algerian flag above the American on the voyage. Finally we were forced to fight the pirate rulers of the Barbary coasts, and our gallant sailors used, with their accustomed skill, the inadequate means placed at their disposal. Still our government did not profit materially from this experience and our navy remained lamentably weak.

In our Civil war, notwithstanding the appalling cost incurred in purchasing and building vessels and improvising a relatively strong navy, we would have been at the mercy of any great power in case of a foreign attack, and we had to submit at times to insulting correspondence and many unreasonable demands from abroad.

The unfortunate experience encountered finally bore fruit, and some twenty years ago our government woke up to the fact that the people demanded naval strength. This action created our new navy, of which all good citizens are justly proud and which acquitted itself so handsomely in the recent war with Spain.

We cannot afford, however, to rest on our laurels while rival nations are steadily increasing their naval armaments. In the constitutional convention, a delegate offered a resolution providing that the American navy should not exceed 3,000 men, when Washington, with a display of ready wit, defeated it by offering an amendment prohibiting any foreign nation from invading the country with an army of more than 3,000 men. It must be remembered that some foreign countries continue to build not only powerful naval vessels but at the same time swift commercial steamers constructed under government supervision and subject to service as auxiliary cruisers in time of war. We must not deceive ourselves as to our relative weakness in this respect. The subject of disarmament by the great powers is actively discussed. Even if it were practical to achieve this much desired end as far as armies are

concerned, it cannot be brought about as regards fleets, for no nation would consent to destroy its warships, and merely disarming them and putting them out of commission would still leave to nations the power to rearm and commission them at short notice.

The entire world is to-day naturally looking to peace. The only question is how to secure it.

It has been fully demonstrated that a strong navy is not a menace but a conservative force. It may be dangerous when wielded by an arbitrary sovereign but never when directed by a sovereign people. It serves the same purpose to the country as the lightning rod to the house. It reaches out, not to attract the lightning, but to meet it when it strikes, disperse its force and stay the ruin it would work.

We have shown that a government may be progressive without being aggressive; that a people may be military without being warlike. We have verified our belief that war should be undertaken only in the interest of peace and that a nation's prosperity depends upon public tranquillity. Those who have been most familiar with the horrors of war are the most earnest advocates of peace. It was the most combative commander on the field of carnage who uttered the famous aphorism "Let us have peace". And but recently it was a man trained in the navy department and having served as a soldier upon the battle field of Cuba, whose patient efforts in advocacy of a cessation of hostilities brought together on the shores of this distant neutral power the envoys of two formidable belligerents whose conferences ended in closing the most appalling struggle of modern times. In this the soldier became the pacificator, the roughrider smoothed the path of peace and taught the world its greatest lesson in diplomacy. And yet it was this same man of peace who said, "A navy is not a provocative of war but the surest guarantee of peace", and who wrote, in touching upon the appropriations in his recent message to congress, "To cut down the navy would be a crime against the nation". One of the reasons why I accepted, on my return home, the presidency of the navy league of America was because there is a useful field for that rapidly increasing organization designed to promote the cause of maintaining a competent navy, to encourage

and aid those who enter that honorable service, and to make the man behind the gun feel that he is honored and not neglected.

Most countries whose merchants have ample protection for their commerce by means of formidable navies owe it to the effective efforts of naval leagues in disseminating knowledge on the subject and explaining its importance. Germany has a navy league consisting of 750,000 members, all working for protection on the sea.

Our navy is now recruiting some of the best material in the world from our great middle west, and we do not have to depend any longer upon enlisting men only upon the seaboard.

The naval training station on Lake Michigan will do much to awaken a deeper interest in our navy, and will aid recruiting in that important region, and will give encouragement to our gallant officers and sailors in showing that our leading citizens are thoughtful of them and appreciate the honorable and arduous career in which they are serving our common country.