Salt Lake Herald-Republican | 1898-06-11 | Page 2 | Ladrone Story Exploded

LADRONE STORY EXPLODED I War Vessels Will Merely Stop Thereto There-to CoW I Co-W shin I ton June lOhe statement 3 5 4 ij r c nt coming from San Francisco to the effect that the real object of the Charlestons voyage was the seizure of the Spanish Ladrone islands has small basis of truth in It When it was decided to send the Monterey and Monadnock clear across the Pacific from Mare island is-land to Manila i was well known that this could not be done without sending along coalers because of the insufficient insuf-ficient coal supply of the monitors I was not deemed practicable to tow the big ironclads the 4000 miles of the voyage that would have to be traversed tra-versed by them without coal so it became be-came necessary to find places in the Pacific where they could replenish their bunkers A study of the charts showed that there were several groups of Islands Is-lands lying between Hawaii and the Philippines which might afford a harbor har-bor in which the coliers could lay alongside the nionltors and fill up their coal bunkers coa The officials do not deem i prudent to name the particular Island chosen for the purpose but It is obvious that being barred by neutrality laws from the possessions of neutral countries the first course of the navy department would be to some Spanish islands such as the Ladrbnes or the Carolines Therefore it is assumed that 1 the Charleston really goes to one of the former island it will be with the purpose pur-pose of securing in advance a suitable I harbor for the use of the monitors