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Show duty for our ships all over the world, and that we shall need great fleets on I both the Atlantic and Pacific to pro- tect our coasts in case of emergency. We are fighting for the future peace of the world, it is true, but we must be provided with the means of enforcing enforc-ing such peace when we secure it, and the warships will be depended upon to see to it that the treaties which are entered into are something more than mero scraps of paper. In the meantime, mean-time, we shall need all our vessels to aid in keeping the German fleet bottled up and in guarding our transports carrying car-rying men and munitions across the seas. OUR NAVY. Assistant Franklin D. .Roosevelt is authority for the statement that before the end of the year the Unite? States navy will be increased to nearly half a million men, as against 7.5,000 when the war broke out. He also said that at the present time we have 170 ships, manned by 40,000 men, in foreign waters, wa-ters, and every day or so a new ship is added to the fleet. Working in conjunction con-junction with the British and French warships, our vessels have been able to accomplish considerable good work, and there is no good reason why the people of this country should not take pride in the achievements of officers and men, not failing to commend the navy department for bringing the fleet up to a high state of efficiency. We do not suppose there is a man in the United States who would fear to match our war vessels against those of Germany, Ger-many, and allow the British and French commanders to stand off and watch the fight. But our sailor men will never get a chance at the Germans, for the simple reason that they dare not come out into the open and risk a battle. Without doubt we have a great navy, second only in strength to that of Great Britain. Some critics would place us below Germany and Japan as a sea power, but we are confident that if accurate comparisons were possible at the present time, our navy would be given precedence over all the other navies, with the exception of Great Britain. Sooner or later we shall inevitably in-evitably occupy first place, following out the prediction made by President Wilson In a speech in the west a couple of years ago. We do not know what the conditions will be after the war, but we know that there will be police |