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Show v i i H " " PssbH With the expiration of the Kltly-slxtU Kltly-slxtU congrns the work of rebuilding the American navy completed IU eighteenth year. Tho act of March 3, 1SI3, found us without a single modern ship or gun, On that day we made the modest bo-glnntnga bo-glnntnga of a new navy by providing for the construction of one dispatch boat, the Dolphin, and three small cruisers, tho Chicago, Boston and Atlanta. At-lanta. The Dolphin waa not only our first modern wsr vessel; she was the first steel ship of any kind built In the United States of domestic materials. Nor did the slgnlficshte of her advent end there. She was not only the pioneer of our vast steel naval and commercial fleets of today, but she naturalized tho now gigantic steel pinto Industry In America,. Am-erica,. Just two years later the Forty-eighth congress took another step In advance by authorising the completion of the double-turretcd monitors Puritan, MlantOnomoh, Amphltrlte, Terror and Monadnock, which had been rusting on the builders' hands for ten years. That gave us tho beginnings of an armored first. On August 3, 18S6, we ventured to authorize the construction of the two second class battle ahlps Maine and Texas, but the undertaking was so tremendous that tho keel of the Texas was not laid until nearly tbreo yoara later, The same act that provided far th e Maine and Texas gave us tho audacious experiment of the Vesuvius Vesuvi-us a dsrlng novelty that has bad no suoceasor and It alio began our flotilla flotil-la of steel torpedo boats with the Cush-Ing, Cush-Ing, which remained fur four years our solltsry specimen of a tJT of which ether naral powers hsd hun dreds And In the same month Secretary Secre-tary Whitney succeeded In letting contracts con-tracts that created In the United Slatea the Industry of producing steel forg-Inga forg-Inga for armor and guns Our next advance was the armored cruiser New York, authorized on September Sep-tember 7, 1888, en followed by an Improved Im-proved mate, the Brooklyn, the next year. Finally, by June 30, 1800, seven years after the reconstruction of tho navy, had begun, we felt self-confidence enough to prepiro to build first clssa battle ships On that dato congress authorized au-thorized the Indiana, Massachusetts and Oregon, together with the triple-screw triple-screw commerce destroying cruiser Columbia, and our stcoud steel torpedo boat, tho Erlrason, At that point we may be snlil to have passed the experimental experi-mental stsge and seriously taken our place among naval pors. But even then our strength was principally on piper As lately as the time of the Columbian Naval ltcvlew, In April, 1893, we could put nothing more Imposing than a second class cruiser Into line to welcome the united warships of the world. Our first vessel that by any stretch of courtesy could be railed n battleship, tho Maine, did not have her trial trip until October 17, 1891, a little over three years before be-fore she was blown up In the hsrbor of Havana 'V did not have a battle- ship of the first class In commission KSfi until November 20 1893, when tho flag was raised on the Indiana, and If the gfl battle of Santiago had been fought two H years earlier than It was the Oregon, M tlm Iowa nnd the Brooklyn would not H hava been there to take part In It. 1 If President Cleveland's Venezuelan H challenge had been taken up we should jl have had Just one first claas and two IH second clans battle ships and one er- jH morcd cruiser ready to take tho sea PH against the armored fleets of Eiiglands fH Surely Providence must have had It H lightning roils up dissipating war H clouds In the times when It would H have been uncomtortablo for us to sn- fH tertsln them M Now we have built, building or, au- H thorlzed, seventeen first class battle FH ships, ono second elass battle ship, M eight armored cruisers, one ram, rlnv- M en modern' coast defense vessels, fifty M three torpdo boats and destroyers, B eight submarine torpedo boats, six M auxiliary cruisers and a swarm of mis- M cellaneoua craft, the whole making us H indisputably the fourth and probably H tho third nsval power In tho world, H Tho personnel of the navy lias In- H creased from 7,100 men to 23,000. The H only thing that has remained station- jH ary Is the supply of officers, Tho 1 Naval Academy Is to be splendidly H housed In a building of classic msgnlfi- H cence, but the only actual growth In H the number of cadets as yet has coma H from the addition of about thirty repro- H sentatlvrs In the house under the cen- H sus of 1E90. The new apportionment H will make future classes somewhat H lsrger, but still far below the needs ot H the service. H This and the failure ot congress to H provide for any new, ships at Its last H session are the only clouds on the H bright prospect ot the navy. iH |