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Show tmjU3T C02IPAMS0H. The New York Nation notes that after only thirteen thir-teen years' service the gunboat Bancroft has been transferred to the revenue marine, that the little "craft cost originally $300,000, has always been un-. un-. successful; that the Philadelphia, iuilt in 1889, and the battleship Texas, which dates from 1892, have likewise been retired, and frem these examples draws 'the conclusion that , modern steel fighting ships do not compare in length of life. with the old wooden ships, arid also "howi wasteful Governments are." Td prove the latter proposition it cites the Canard steamers Umbria and Etruria, which were put in service in 1885, and .though about to be retired re-tired from the trans-Atlantic service because old-, old-, fashioned and slow, are still, good ships. . The argument of the Nation proves nothing. When the Umbria and Etruria were built the Cu- nard company, had been building ships for forty years, and had tried all the experiments of changing from wood to steel, and from" the old side-lever engines en-gines to the compound double and triple cylindered . marine engines.' After 1865 for twenty years the Democrats in Congress and Democratic journals like the Nation fought every proposition to improve the navy or the merchant marine. ' Secretary Chandler finally got a little appropriation to build three little cruisers and one dispatch boat. When Secretary Whitney succeeded suc-ceeded Chandler the dispatch boat, the Dolphin, was just completed, and the three cruisers .were under construction. The new Secretary refused for months - to accept and p'ay for the Dolphin, requiring extraordinary extraor-dinary and before unheard-of tests, and drove John Eoach into bankruptcy and death. The Dolphin is still a fine ship. Secretary Whitney began his career as Secretary with the assumption that there were no ship architects archi-tects or shipbuilders in America, at least no Democrats Demo-crats who were either architects or builders, and wanting to build a battleship, he sent to England for ' the plans and specifications, also for the keel, because , there was no machinery in America to bend a keel ' into form. When the plans were examined one competent com-petent man jn the department explained to Whitney that should the ship be built on the prescribed lines it would certainly sink as soon as launched. So the plans were modified, Jtrat the ship was a botch, and lop-sided from the day it went into commission. It was the scorn of naval officers from the first. Its only redemption' was in the fight off Santiago. On that day, like an enraged Texan, the Texas righted itself up and did valiant work. But it was faulty from the start and unworthy the American navy. To compare the work of a Secretary who knew nothing noth-ing of ships, in a country where there were no ship yards, or at least none of the modern essentials of a ship yard, to that of a company that had been building build-ing and running steamships for forty years, is dis-. dis-. graceful. To compare the policy of the Democratic party toward -shipping with that of a company that had ( been keeping its ships, through heavy subsidies, on the sea for forty years, is a just impeachment of the party, but is not fair to the shipbuilding and sailing capacity of the American people. |