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Show Our Foolish Naval Record The present discussion of naval questions will be helpful if it leads to the development cf a common-sense common-sense American policy. Unfortunately, Unfortun-ately, the people of the nation have not declared themselves in regards I to our foreign policy, which must govern the size of our navy. Con- sequently, the history of the Uni- I ted States, in naval matters, over a period of twenty years fails to make sense. Here is the rroof: In 1916 President Wilson insisted upon preparedness, including' a very powerful fleet. The ship- building was authorized and accel- erated during the war. Under that program the United States was assured as-sured of the most powerful navy in the world, greater by forty per cent than that of any other nation. So what? In 1921 the Washington Washing-ton conference was called and Mr. Charles Evans Hughes, Secretary of State, in a dramatic gesture, an- I ncunced that the United States was j willing to scrap ten first-line battleships bat-tleships and four, battle-cruisers. This was $330,000,000 worth of capital cap-ital ships. The other nations .of 1 the world gobbled up! Mr. Hughes' j limitation program, tore up a few blueprints and there era of saving : money on warship construction be- I gan. Great Britain and Japan immed- j iately began programs looking to the construction and maintenance J ' of full-treaty navies. Lesser powers, like Italy and France, out of the battleship competition, concentrated concentra-ted cn smaller vessels. The United States all but sat down and waited cn the dawn of the era of eternal ' peace on the basis that eveiybody loved us. Some years later, another limita-tiLn limita-tiLn conference was called. Again limits were set on the size of navies. na-vies. Once more, the other nations laid their programs toward the pas-session pas-session cf all the navy that the treaties allowed. This powerful nation na-tion continued to lag behind, saving its money by not building a modern navy and completely abandoning the much-sought-after 'parity' with Great Britain. With the inauguration of President Presi-dent Roosevelt, however, there was passed by Congress an act to fix the limit of the United States Navy at the level set by the treaties and a program of construction was begun be-gun that would give us a balanced modern navy of that size. Then, about a year ago, the Japanese gave nctice that they would not agree to renew the limitation pact which thus expired and the nations began the present armament race. Thus, in 1938. sixteen years after Junking its naval superiority, the people of the United States are facing the necessi y of rebuilding ships to make up for the scrapped battleships. The pressure for this construction comes from, other nations, na-tions, net from any desire on their own part. It may be that history will repeat itself. The new naval program may give us the most powerful pow-erful navy in the world in the next ten years. We can out-build other nations if we want to. However, the strategists in Japan, Germany and Italy read history; they can take it easy and wait for another Hughes to come along and scrap -nether $300,000,000 worth of fight- ing ships! |
