Show SPLENDID UNITED STATES FLEET PUTS TO SEA READY TO MINUTE a A gouverneur Sou verneur morris visits a fleet of american warships somewhere in american waters and gives a vivid picture of life aboard a fighting ship men and ships fit to meet any foe by GOUVERN gouverneur EliR MORRIS international Titter national news start correspondent some somewhere here near Ame america tica on FYI dinv adny may 11 1 I received to visit a fleet or of united states warships wars alps was told where to find it how to reach it and that until thursday the of may ala v I 1 must not convey to the newspapers which I 1 represent any of tile the impressions that lint it 11 should make upon me nor all of 0 tile the impressions until the end of the thedor thew wor nr it may be of interest to tile the public to know that the fleet which I 1 visited Is somewhere in american waters and that backed by the proper authority it may be reached in several ways more afore tb than anthis this I 1 ara am not permitted to say nor may I 1 give the composition of the fleet nor the lie names of the ships lips composing it nor of tiny any of the officers governing those ship chips I 1 I 1 must deal in Jui positives if I 1 saw vaults faults or virtues I 1 must not particular ize ze in short I 1 must tell about tile the fleet without telling about afoul it viall mid give a general with most of the impressions left out battleship a man I 1 shall deal then rather with the humanities of the fleet than with its mechanics wi with th its aspects rather than its potentialities and with one particular ship rather than w etli many it has been said that a modern battleship is a machine it is not it is ft man c yes eyes may no longer have 1111 the vision of youth but lie sees through a hundred pairs whose vision vison on is twenty t twenty magnified many diameters by lenses exquisitely fad adjusted his hands may not be large or strong but they have within w athin them almost a gods power to destroy it is as it if his bis brain had bad multiplied his eyes and made telescopes of them had increased his body to an ominous and beautiful abomination displacing tons and had lengthened ills arms and strengthened ills his hands until they could reach out clear away ov erthe rim of the world and there and crush and tear and kill it was twenty years since I 1 had set loot on a battleship there thera was something familiar about him and something stran strange ge it was was like meeting it a promising friend of your boyhood after he had grown into a man 1 I will lot cot he be she warships nor belier beher be lier her them thein they are men lie he had gronn gron older wiser grayer stronger broader taller and swifter and though neither I 1 of us hall biad forgotten the best nor the arst of those things which we had once had in common lie eyed me askance kance Bs and I 1 felt embarrassed and thy shy warship now more kind the officer of the deek deck spoke to a geaman and by the tone of the voice I 1 knew that friend battleship had not only grown stronger and greater but so 0 o sure of himself that he could offord afford to be more courteous and more kind things happened A meal came caine nd went one threw lice dice for the clears one lost one listened ind and one talked and one began to associate in ill the back of ones head tills this face with the rightful name of its owner and that in insignia sIgAla with the onice office of its no two faces of the uniformed men around thelong the long narrow table of the ward room mess were alike but they were nil lill fine clean cut faces face faceson of rigorously educated men in tile phyl seal condition like all travelers they were broadminded broad minded and like all men who alio have been brought up among true values they wele without affectation of aw any kind kidd I 1 have said that a battleship Is a man it Is riot not it Is a city that it is a walled city defended by terrible cannon every man knows so I 1 shall not here and now speak of the magic eyes with which it sees the approach of the enemy the thick armor with which it repels his blows cor of the terrible cannon iab with which it returns them the government Is th the flagship the admirals are the governors of states and the captains and commanders are the mayors of cities and towns it Is a complete a floating country to which the devotion of its seamen and firemen Is as necessary as that of its admirals captains and commanders but to return to our city it differs from land cities in that it recognizes neither night nor day there tire are more people awake in the daytime time ethan than at night but the city cites eyes are re never closed and during each minute of his waking hours each citizen knows what he must do or what he may so do our ships at sea one day I 1 learned that on uio the following morning we were going out close to my room was one of the steel tubes through which the anchor chains slide and very ivery early I 1 was wakened by a sound that was Os as if on a dozen adjoining alleys giants were bowling and making ten strikes A little later I 1 felt the first revolutions of the engines I 1 did not inot need to took look at my watch tile the captain had said that we were going goina g out at and I 1 lint had learned by now that nhep the navy says it means to tec tap derond I 1 breakfasted at eight and went on deck there was nothing to be seen but water and hue blue sky it a close up battleship which resembled ours as one pen pea resembles another find and several far olt off battleships that alint looked look e d as if they had been cut out of cardboard all the time that we were out I 1 kept away from charts arid and CO compasses M p n ss e s only the lie sun by day arld and the stars by night gave me any notion of our whereabouts it was a restful feeling we were moving at the rate of 13 15 knots an hour there was nothing vague about this that was vas our speed to the inch and second it was also the leisurely rate maintained by the close up battleship and its his distance from us at the end of a I 1 given hour was within inches of what it had been at the beginning A marvel of battleships is the precision with which they move and keep their distances and mind their manners it is only less marvelous than the mobility of their turrets and their groat great guns A turret revolves without till a sound it may be turned so fast that it if you got in the way the business end of the gun would knock your lend head olt off or it may be turned so slowly that to the eye it Is not turning at all i that day I 1 attached luy elf to a 11 group of boys who were learning to lie he a gun crew and who that afternoon would hear tear a gun fired for the first time in their lives would fire one and would try to lilt hit a target although I 1 did none of the hard work nork I 1 think that I 1 shared as au an equal in all their mental processes and I 1 know that I 1 suffered just as much as they did when after rehearsals and dress rehearsals the gun finally and veri very suddenly and horribly went off learning to shoot first they were taught how to load for this business a short dummy gun wit a genuine brush screw box and plug Is provided I 1 am not now speaking of great turret guns but of lesser guns whose bark however low Is much higher pitched and less tofe tolerable rable to the ears eyes nose spleen liver toes spine and scalp I 1 nm am speaking of a gun the lilg highest liest iii muzzle uzzle velocity of any gun in the alie world and much tile the most disagreeable voice tills this 11 is how you yon load it the plug man man with ill ills his right hand swings a lever the plug swings out of tile the breech or screw box bos and to one side with his big left hand the slips into its chamber in the plug a primer possibly a I 1 4 1 caliber blank bl ink cartridge to replace the exploded one which has been automatically extracted then OFFERS HOME FOR HOSPITAL 10 a kat f r 4 I 1 0 VW mrs margarete Mur garete sauer of to aled ville staten island has offered offe her house to the government for a red bed cross hospital tal and herself as a 11 nurse mrs sauer came to manhattan the other day and at tile the fery ferry entrance at the buttery battery asked a pol policeman lemau to direct herto someone whom she could offer her services and her property she told him that her husband lius band had volunteered in the navy and slie she did not feel like allowing herself to be out lone done by him mrs sauer was referred tocol to ico jefferson R knue kane of the amerlean american national red cross society and she immediately wrote a a long letter to him the house in III which mr and mrs sauer live and which she has offered to convert into a hospital has bus a 30 foot front and is nearly double that in depth and lias grounds running back to the street its rooms are large light and airy and there Is a large jarge cupola on toy top resembling tile upper part of a lighthouse with large windows all ail arund around and ciniman commanding ing a view vie of new york harbor mr air aud and mrs sauer saner are both germans and have I 1 it a twelve year old daughter dresden sax saxony ny slows shows mrs margarethe Margar otlie sauer tho the ills leu leur r again and closes the breech of the gun that Is what the does docs while lie he is doing it live five other 1 nen lien are doing other things of 0 equal 1 importance int ortance the moment the gun la Is open the tray inan slaps into the form box bos a metal contrivance which protects its one fine rears gears and edges frow from being injured by the sharp point ot of the heavy wheel and which guides the shell itself into the bore of the gun tile brush being open and the tray in place the first shellman sh with all his might hurls into the opening the shell that lie he has been holding the first pow dennan hurls after it a bag of powder and then even ais as the tray comes out and tile breech b clows closes the first sh shellman lias has turned without using ills feet and received from th the second shellman a fresh shell ind and the first has turned and r received ece lve d from the second PoWder mall a fresh bug bag of powder that Is how the gun Is loaded it Is a matter of seconds in ili practice the shell and the powder bag omission by censor to keys the J junction U nation of two lines that cross each other at a right angle on the exact center of 0 the bullseye bulls eye A third pointer does the same thing with another pair of ei crossed 0 o ased lines but the wheel elevates tile the muzzle of the gun end or depresses it and of fill all the men in the compartment of that particular gun lie he Is the luckiest for lie he Is the only one who krievs tile the exact moment when tile the bang Is coming he causes it by pressing a button at any moment while a certain buzzer Is 19 buzzing find the crowed cro zed lines are on the bullseye bulls eye lie he is nt at liberty to fire the gun blast oi of the guns we steamed slowly lowly down the range a number of times and till nil the compartment part ment guns on our side of 0 the ship swung sung slowly from left to right ns as hie file pointers kept the elOS crossed lines on the bullseye bulls eye and we all got a line because we knew that each practice run brought ns its nearer to that real run when tile awful blasts that we anticipated would have to be endured somehow we turned and stean ed slowly toward the he range we were it in the compartment the gun crew aud and tile the officer in charge myself and twenty or thirty fledgling seamen who nho were there to pick up what they could by eye and ear car I 1 have never in one time or place seen so many forced smiles one of them thein was mine we lad been served with ab absorbent cotton and ha had d plugged our cars the cotton made mens voices sound numb and far off it had no effect whatever upon ubon the voice of the he t cannon the steel doors of the compartment 1 ad been closed and locked there was no escape the I 1 tinge range came over the speaking tube the first pointer repeated it and made an adjust adjustment ment there come a voice even ahr through ough cotton a bellowing voice coming on oil the range I 1 coming on the range there was a dead silence then low clear and insistent like the deadly rattle of our most infamous native snake tile buzzer I 1 hall had forgotten about the hie gun in the next compartment 1 I shall niver never forget it again it went oft of f lifted by the concussion I 1 wits was sitting at the moment and my feet were swinging clear of the deck I 1 had nothing to jump into nut but I 1 rose in the air and came down then our gun eon went the flash was brighter than sunlight it was of tin an intolerable brightness and all but intolerable wits was the bank bang that wont went with it the assault was less upon the body than upon the soul my ears ea rs did not suffer at till nil I 1 went ax ent out to see how many ila ily shots were fired I 1 did not get used to it I 1 know that for not once did I 1 see the guu gun recoil and go back it into ito place try ns as I 1 would that white hot deafening flash shut my eyes tight for me I 1 watched a second run from the bridge it was pleasanter plea santer the bang sticks were even further farther oft off and you could see the tall white of the shells I 1 got so that I 1 could keep keell my eyes open I 1 have said a battleship Is ft a man inan I 1 have said that it is a n city it Is neither it Is a romance I 1 recall searchlights that searched the heavens and the lie face of the waters water q that crossed and crisscrossed the starry calls of the bugles and the sea suit salt names of things nave have you lived in arcadia ArcadI ft well I 1 have hied in the junior officers country I 1 remember a night of firing of shells that gave oil off fire so that you could watch tile the long lovely curves curves of their flights and of searchlights which spoke to each other us as easily and as freely us as a ulan speaks to a man hut what Is 16 best in hiir our navy Is no not t the machines nor the drives nor t the be controls nor nuy any of the deuth death dealing or life ilfe saveng appliances it Is the spirit of these men who bo through discipline and self sacrifice belve ten r ned to find the true values of life and the true meaning of that flag dag for which at any moment they are ready to lay down their lives I 1 speak not only of admirals and captains of wardroom officers and junior officers but of the boatswains mate and the enlisted aen men |