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Show mwm IH VESSELS OF WAR ANNAPOLIS, Sept. 11 The remarkable remark-able development of the navy in the ln?t year was described by Secretary Daniels in an address at the naval academy today to-day to the graduating ensigns of the naval' reserve. lie credited 1 'resident Wilson with giving the initial impetus to the movement that has resulted in a great expaniofi of the service. The praduatop, 174 in number, are members ot the corps of rr.servc naval officers, who have just completed a three months' intensive course of instruction to fit them Tt duty aboard ship or on shore. "The impulse that has made possible our rapidly expanding navy," declared Mi-. Daniels, "ca me from a spleen made by President Wilson in St. Louis on the third day of February. 1916. when be declared de-clared 'There is no other navy in the world that has to cover so great an area of defense as the American navy, and it ought, in my judgment, to be incomparably incompara-bly the most adequate navy in the world.' "P'ollowing close upon the declaration of the president," continued Mr. Daniels, "congress took a radical and lor ward step on its naval programme. It abandoned aban-doned the plan of a yearly authorization of new ships and adopted a three-year building programme. Shortly thereafter it increased the naval appropriation from an average of former -rears of $14,"., 000,-OnO 000,-OnO to $312,883,060, and since the first of August, 1916, has appropriated for the support and increase of the navy $1,344,-1S4.896, $1,344,-1S4.896, while estimates pending before congress carry an addition of nearly $6f-C, 00 0,000. The aggregate appropriation appropri-ation in little more than a year, to make effective and impregnable the nation's first arm of defense is, including pending pend-ing estimates, nearly ?2,000,0OO,0iK). "I am not publishing a military secret when I say that while the Increase in personnel per-sonnel in the past few months has far surpassed the increase in material, there are three times as many ships in commission commis-sion today as there were six months ago, I and that ships and more ships, from enlarged en-larged and ever enlarging shipyards, are coming to afford a place on naval craft to the thousands of patriotic young men who have crowded into the navy since the call." |