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Show PRESIDENT'S NAVY PLAN TURNED DOWN ADMINISTRATION FORCES LOSE FIRST SKIRMISH IN NAVAL PREPAREDNESS CAMPAIGN. Provision is Made for Five Battle Cruisers to be Built In 1917, While a Number of Smaller Vessels Are to be Built. Washington. Administration forces in congress lost the first skirmish in the naval preparedness campaign on Thursday when the house committee broke a five-day deadlock and completed com-pleted the naval appropriation bill without approving the five-year building build-ing program . advocated by President Wilson and Secretary Daniels. As finally agreed to, the bill authorizes author-izes the construction in 1917 of five battle cruisers, .as against two dreadnoughts dread-noughts and two battle cruisers rec-' ommended by Secretary Daniels; four scout cruisers, an increase of one scout over the department's program; ten destroyers, as against fifteen recommended;, rec-ommended;, twenty submarines, three to be 800-ton boats, compared witwflve fleet and twenty-five coast defense submarines recommended; one hospital hospi-tal ship, one oil fuel ship and one ammunition am-munition ship. The gunboat recommended recom-mended was stricken out, and the fuel and ammunition ships were added from Secretary Daniel's program for the second year. The total amount carried by the bill is $240,000,000, the largest naval appropriation ap-propriation ever presented to congress. |
