POISE." OF A CLAJSS , j , c 7 jTwX riRST BDAXS I'O.R, ApTER IfoW&AUDS - I I Secretary Daniels, in an Interview, Says the First Requisite Is 100 Per Cent Efficiency for Personnel and Material. Every One in a Re sponsible Position Must Keep the Good of the Whole Navy Constant ly Within His Vision. The Addition of Men, Munitions and Ships. Measures for Increasing the Efficiency of the Enlisted Men —Devel- opment of the Naval Militia Advisory Board to Aid Scientific and Inventive Activi ties. Special Correspond*-nor WASHINGTON. D. C.. » pj'HK first need of the American 00 I I navy," says Secretary of the Navy T>aniels, "Is 100 per " cent efficiency for our per sonnel and our material, and this can be attained only by every officer and enlisted man keeping himself and everything in trusted to him In perfect condition. I mean by thle, that every one in a re sponsible position must keep the good of the whole navy constantly within the range of his vision; he must not allow Ills horizon to be bounded by the limits of his Immediate command. The captain must look beyond his own ship and have a mind to the success of the squadron to which he is attached: the admiral, look ing beyond his own fleet, must be prepared at any time for a possible junction with another fleet. The bureau chief must not allow his vision to be narrowed to the bounds of his bureau, but be thinking how to co-ordinate It with the other bureaus for the good of the navy. I have confi dence that we are steadily advancing in this respect all the while. "The second requirement of the navy is the addition of such men, munitions and ships us may be necessary. These additions in men and material can be ob tained only by the action of Congress. The Secretary has no authority to make such additions, hut I will make suitable recommendation in my annual report. * * "The European conflict has confirmed the need of changes advocated by our ex perts. Our Congress, which is responsible to the nation, not only for carefully con serving the public funds, but for main taining a navy for the common defense, will doubtless act with the same patriotic motives which prompted the last Con gress to provide for more submarines than the department had originally recom mended. because subsequent to my report the performances of submarines in Euro pean waters showed the worth of such craft, especially in harbor and coast de fense, and I asked Congress in my hear ings to appropriate for as many ad ditional submarines as the revenues would permit. "It Is the duty of my department to lay before Congress the needs of the navy, especially with respect to those matters which the European conflict has proven to be of real value. Thus Con- Kress will be able to deliberate and act Intelligently, and if to my recommenda tions we can add that the navy has main tained Itself up to the highest state of excellence I do not doubt for an instant that Congress will add whatever the navy may need. "But, since Congress will make ap propriations only for what the people A Mix-Up in Names. |j\j EAR Juneo, Alaska, there is a prosperous mining town called Sheep Creek, while at the head of Cook Inlet there has been for a num ber of years an insignflcant and prac tically unknown place, a mining vil lage lenown as Ship Creek. In antici pation of the boom caused by the pro posed new government railroad last year Ship Creek began to receive a great deal of freight from various ves sels plying" from Seattle to Cook Inlot, and the similarity between the names of the two settlements caused consid erable confusion. Sheep Creek re ceived several shipments of freight In tended for Ship Creek. Because of this state of affairs the Alaska railroad commission, as well as the heads of steamship companies, re quested that Ship Creek be changed to Woodrow Creek. The matter was formally placed before the national geographic board, which has sole Juris diction in passing on geographic names. Early in last November the name was changed, and the coast and geodetic survey was notified. The new name applied not only to the creek It self but to the settlement which had sprung up. Since that time the Post Office De partment has given the name of Anchorage to the post office at Wood row Creek. The national geographic board is the only organization which has the right to change the name of a town, river or mountain, but the I'ost Office Depart ment reserves the right to chane-» tho •tuiiC of a post office. believe to be tight, I am always glad to have published all proper Information— of failures as well as of successes —in order that thoughtful people may know our own resources and what they may possibly be called upon to meet. The people can then make their own deduc tions as to what additions they should Insist upon having made for the navy. "Of course, the more spectacular things are hydroaeroplanes, fast ships and sub marines ; but one must not forget meas ures for increasing the efficiency of the enlisted men by the creation of a naval reserve, the development of the naval militia and the creation of the advisory board to aid scientific and inventive ac tivities." * The hydroaeroplane, which differs from the ordinary flying machine in that, by means of pontoons, instead of wheels, it is able to rest upon and to take flight from the water, has demonstrated its use fulness. The difficulty of procuring a machine which will accomplish this, and be able to make long flights over the sea with no chance to come to earth for rest and repair, is very great. In August. 1914, the English navy pos sessed some of various designs. It is be lieved that their number has been con siderably increased, for, it is said, 300 air pilots are now attached to this serv ice. They have done good scouting serv ice, and have made some raids upon German stations in Belgium. The French and Russians are believed to have had but few hydroaeroplanes when war was de clared. The Germans possessed few, if any, of these machines for their navy, but their aeroplanes have done fine service for their fleets In scouting from Kiel to Hel goland and out upon the North and the Baltic seas. It is probable that if Ad miral Graf von Spee's fleet had pos sessed one or more of these fliers he would not have been led into attack upon the English at the Falklandß with the loss of his entire fleet. One of the most important things for the allies is to maintain a safe way to transport troops and munitions from Eng land to France, and many have wondered I why the German submarines did not pre vent the Bending of these supplies instead Origin of Much-Used Sayings. ICKING the bucket" is an Ir reverent way of expressing a person's death. The expression orig inated at the time when a man named Balsoever tried to commit suicide by hanging himself from a beam. He stood on a high bucket which he kicked away from him when he had adjusted the rope. A neighbor res cued him and in his disappointment he said: "What's the matter? I thought I kicked the bucket." The origin of "O. K." is ascribed to President Andrew Jackson, who was noted for his bad spelling., He in dorsed his papers "O. K.," thinking these were the proper Initials for all correct. In "that's the ticket," ticket is cor rupted from the French word etiquette, meaning that which Is in good form or right. "He's a brick" is a complimentary ex pression, but few know why. When Lycurguß was King of Sparta, over two thousand years ago, an eastern ambas sador visited him and was astonished to find no >falls around the city. When he questioned Lycurgus about this, the latter took him out to a plain where the Spartan army stood In order of battle. "There," said I<ycurgus, "are the walls of Sparta and every man a brick." The ceiling in the old Drury Lane Theater of London was painted to rep resent Olympus with gods sitting among the clouds. The upper gallery came so close to the roof that the peo ple who sat there were spoken of as sitting among the gods. Later the oc cupants themselves were called the "gallery gods." of concentrating their efforts upon the de struction of merchant and passenger ships. The reports indicate that the great number of French and English destroy ers and swift cruisers which patrol these ways, assisted by aeroplanes, drive the submarines away. The latter is not very potential at night, and in the daylight, if the water is clear, its shadow betrays its presence to the keen observer in the aeroplane. His signal by wireless or otherwise calls the destroyers, who hover about the undersea boat, which must then completely submerge for safety. The swift boats follow her course, if possible, and either drive her away or keep her harmless. Apparently bombs from the aeroplane have not been very dangerous to the submarine, which can usually, with her deck guns, put the aeroplane to flight. The Zeppelins have done some good scouting, but very little damage by bomb dropping, except to non-combatants. As a menace they have been a success. * * * Congress last year appropriated 11,000,- COO for the development of the hydro aeroplane for our navy. The office of aeronautics has been very busy, although the number of our airships so far is very insignificant, but an enormous amount of experimental work has been successfully accomplished, and In consequence the navy t.ow has on hand sixteen machines of various types, and has contracted for the early delivery of eight new machines representing three new types. About thirteen officers now are In training for pilots, and the service has thirteen es pecially trained for naval work. Eventually one or more of these ma chines for scouting should be on every large ship in the navy. One machine does not cost much. But they must be of light construction, and hence are very fragile, so that it is expensive to maintain a large fleet of them. The economic value in actual war is incal culable. The army has very few aeroplanes, and only sixty men in training to become pilots The English and the French armies had. it is said, several hundred aeroplanes when the war broke out. No one knows how many they now have, but some inference may be drawn both as to their value and as to the number re quired from the fact that England alone is ordering them at the rate of 3,000 a year. Much good is hoped for from the action of the joint aeronautic board of the army and navy. Speed in ships of all classes is of the utmost value. For example. If the Blucher had possessed the speed of her consorts, ahe would have escaped from the Lion and the Tiger in the North sea fight, and If those shit* had not pos seseaed speed greater than that of the consorts the Blucher would not have been overtaken. Speed on the part of the destroyers and light cruisers has made them the one source of dread to the Bub marine, and" the speed of the large sub marines has made them the great com merce destroyers of the times. Speed has been the slogan of the naval war and the decisive factor in almost evefy engage ment. But a German fleet—the greatest with one exception the world has ever known; one which could cover any landing that a Teutonic army might make on the English coast —lies be hind mined and fortified harbors in Kiel and Helgoland, because some where outside, but within call, lies the one mightier fleet of British dread naughts and superdreadnaughts, ships without unusual speed but encased in strong armor and filled with powerful guns, able to receive as well as to give blows. * * * The policy of the United States navy has been to maintain the ship which can defeat its enemy when it comes to grips. The supreme object of the navy is to maintain an absolute line of de fense against invasion, and It may be that this can be done best by means of the swift ships able to escape or to choose attack. The swift, heavily armed battle cruiser, wherein armor Is sacrificed to Bpce4, Is very expensive to build and to maintain. Whether it should supersede the slower but more powerful dreadnaughts, wheth er they are a necessary supplement to them, or whether for the purpose of de fense, armor should make way for speed, are questions to be determined only by most careful study by the ablest men or the facts, when they are known, of the European naval war. The United States navy has 110 battle cruisers and no provision for their con struction. It has ten old armored cruis ers of about 14,000 tons displacement, one-time speed of twenty-two knots, anil main batteries of four eight-inch and fourteen six-inch suns It has five first-class cruisers, of about 9,500 tons and a speed of twenty-one knots; four second-class cruisers, fifteen third-class cruisers of between 3,000 and 4.000 tons —all old boats of a type no longer constructed—and some moni tors; thirty gunboats of varied size, slow speed and venerable age. In July, 1014, England had ten battle cruisers of more than 22,000 tons; Ger many, eight of nearly the same class; Japan, two of 32,000 tons. Torpedo boats, as originally con ceived, were small, of very high speed, designed to dash singly or in flotillas upon hostile ships which they sought to destroy by means of a torpedo launched with considerable accuracy from the torpedo tube with which they were provided. They have been super seded by the destroyer, whish was de signed to drive off the torpedo boat, and by the more lately developed sub marine. The torpedo boat has become of little consequence, but the destroyer is one of the most important classes of boat, and the one about which still lingers some of the picturesqueness of the fighting ship, even though their graceful hulls are filled with powerful, complicated, whirling machinery. * * * Shortly before the outbreak of the war England had 167 of these destroy ers, of which some of the latest were credited with a speed of tnirty-six knots; Germany had 130, France 84, be sides 135 torpedo boats; Italy 68, and Austria-Hungary 39. The United States has 62 of them. The best are about 300 feet long, 30 feet beam, draw 9 feet, have a displace ment of 1,000 tons, burn oil fuel, have a speed of 30 knots, have a ship's com pany of a hundred men and officers and carry two or more 18-Inch tubes for Whitehead torpedoes. The oldest of these boats were completed in 1900. Six new ones to be a little larger and rather more speedy than any of the others will soon be under construction. "Bushnell's torpedo," the first Ameri can submarine, in 1777 failed to destroy the flagship of the British squadron i« New York harbor only because his tor pedo could not be properly discharged Hut submerged, he sailed under th* fleet and demonstrated the possibility of this type of boat. His invention was. through the aid of Thomas Jefferson, American minister to France, made known to the French. About 1896 Hol land, In this country, constructed his submarine, somewhat similar to th* Bushnell, with engines added. Laubeuf, in France, completed his design about the same time. Later the Italian Laurenti designed a type of subma rine. These are the three leading de signs in use. In 1888, 111 years after Bushnell's at tack, the French built the first modern submarine for their navy. Other na tions soon followed, Germany being about the last of the great nations to adopt them. One can do no more than guess at the present numbers of these boats. Just before the war. according to Dom ville-Fife, an English engineer, the leading nations were supplied about as follows: Kngland had 82 built and 22 building—nearly all of the Holland type. They ranged, their A class with a length of 150 feet, a speed of 11 knots on the surface and 7 knots submerged, to their E class, with a length of 176 feet, a displacement of 800 tons and a speed of 16.10 knots, and a Cruising range of 6,000 miles. Two of these boats sniled from England to Sydney, Australia, without convoy, 13,000 miles. Of the twenty-two new boats then building some were of the Laurenti, some of the Laubeuf and some of a new, the Vieker's, type. Some of these are of 1,500 tons displacement and have a designed speed of 20.12 knots. When war was declared France had ninety-two submarines in active serv ice with nine large ones under con struction. Russia had thirty-seven submarines In service and nineteen un der construction. At this time Germany was said to have thirty submarines, all of which had been put in perfect condition, their older boats modernized and six new ones nearly completed. A large per sonnel had been trained and their sub marine fleet was ready. Their speed is supposed to run from twelve to eight knots in their early boats to the U 29 class of 900 tons and a speed of eight een to ten knots. The German heavy oil engines have stood the hardest tests and probably "star>d up" better than any others. The Austrian navy had six subma rines and the Italian nineteen when war was declared. The latter also hav ing eight of nearly 1,000 tons under construction. More than 20,000 espe cially trained enlisted men and officers are manning the submarines now op posed to each other in war. Officers and men of peculiar fitness and thor ough training are required, otherwise a rnishap puts the boat out of commis sion. Other authorities make all these num bers rather lower, but the difference arises because they have disregarded the smaller and nearly obsolete boats, which Domvllle-Flfe has Included. In the American navy there are thirty seven submarines in service. They range from the Plunger and Fulton of the A class to the latest boats, but their speed and designs are not made public. Xhara in«nij; in VMXXOUM »l»m. &.t construction. Among them is the Schley, designed to make a surface speed of twenty knots. Congress has made appropriations for eighteen more, two of which are to be of seagoing type and are expected to make twenty five knots. Aside from the many other purposes the submarine, in this country, has al ways been regarded as possessing great value for coast defense. * * * Annoyance and damage would attend an attack of warships upon our coast, but no invasion could follow until transports were sent to convey the necessary troops. Whether this could be done successfully is a question Which cannot be determined except by experiment. There are demonstrations pointing either way. The British fleet cannot lie very close to the German coast, because the submarines of the latter are too dangerous. The German submarines cannot prevent the trans portation of men and arms from Eng land to France, because the aeroplanes, destroyers and scout cruisers guard the way too effectively. In July, 1914, England had thirty-six, Germany twenty, France twelve dread naughts, built or building. The same nations respectively had forty, twenty and eighteen predreadnaughts. At the present time the United States has six teen dreadnauglits, and twenty-three predreadnaughts. The efficiency of a fighting ship, when It goes into commission, depends upon the constructor, and thereafter upon the way it is handled and maintained. This involves the departmental super vision and the ship's company. The last Congress passed a naval re serve bill to attract the men to re enlist and to establish an organized body of highly trained men ready to respond when called upon in time of need to man the reserve ships of the navy. It is too early to determine how effectively this will operate, but for the months of March, April and May, the re-enlistments were respectively 61, 79 and 82 per cent, as against 58 per cent before the bill went into ef fect. The last reports of the naval militia are not available, but the navy is lend ing all the aid in its power to develop this branch, because it brings into con tact with the service men of a first rate type, who need only seasoning to be of great value as an addition to the reserve. No mention is here made of colliers, hospital ships, repair ships, scout crui sers or mother repair ships for sub marines. No thought has been directed to the use of the navy for any purpose other than as the first line of defense agai.ist Invasion. There is no doubt if the great con flict were confined to Germany and Kngland, and the fleet of the latter could be bottled up, that the German army would successfully invade Kng land, but the English navy could not Ua *o tha liiiajud would be safe. Except that It takes days, Instead of hours, to cross the sea, the same principle applies to a foreign invasion of this country. Ships cannot be built, in a few weeks or months. Years are required for a submnrine or a destroyer, and several for a battleship, at least in time of peace. Men canot be trained In a short time. Six months are required to prepare a recruit, and the crew of a battleship cannot be Improvised. It is not claimed that the figures given above are exact, since no navy in the world will allow its latest figures to be made public, but they are as nearly accurate as they can be made and are sufficiently accurate for purposes of comparison. No attempt has been made to draw deductions or inferences; any one who thinks will do it for himself. Efficiency. JULIUS S. MORGAN, grandson of J. I*. Morgan, who spent some time In Paris as a military chauffeur, re lated in New York, among other very interesting experiences, the following story: "The Germans," said young Mr. Mor gan, "are not so wonderfully efficient as they are generally thought to be. Their long and careful preparation for the war gave them a handicap over the allies. We are apt to forget this handicap and put their success down to their efficiency." Mr. Morgan smiled. "When I hear all this efllclenor talk,' he said, "X remember the prisoner. "A prisoner interned in a prisoners' camp in France was being interrogated by an official delegated by a neutral country to report on the treatment of French prisoners of war. To the of ficial's questions the prisoner respond ed in bad English thus: " "Yes, sirrah, I be full comfortable. Eating me ooincs regularly and In sat isfaction. I have not much to work, I am piven to read and In health I am good. There is to sleep in a bed com fortable and letters from home me a '"The official before passing to the next prisoner said: " 'Thank you. And what is your pro fession, please?' " 'I am professor in English at home, sirrah," the prisoner answered, not without a touch of pride." A Poor Dresser. E BERRY WALL, who for a num o ber of years has been America's undisputed arbiter elegantlarum—or, to put it more colloqually, king of the dudes—condemned in New York the apparel of a young millionaire. "He has lots of clothes," said Mr. Wall, "but he wears them wrong. He wears a plaid lounge suit where he ought to wear a black morning coat. He wears on sth avenue costumes in tended for country walks or for yacht ing cruises. "In fact," Mr. Wall concluded, "he's the sort of chap who would put on an aviator's rig to take a ride In the subway." No Money for Meat. SIR CECIL SPRING-RICE praised at a dinner in Washington the pen sions and allowances made by th« English government in the present war. "The English government after this war," he said, "won't have to be charged with neglect, parsimony or Ingratitude. "After this war the schoolboy's defl« nltion of a veteran won't hav/s tlia ring of truth that it may have some times had In the past. "A schoolboy, you know, onoe wrots In his examination paper: " 'An old soldier is called a vege-« tartan.' " Good Criticism. don't have to be a military ®x " pert to know very well just how the war Is going," said Henry Clews at a dinner in New York. An old fellow was talking to me about the war the other day. Hla Ignorance of tactics and strategy, his ignorance even of geography, was immense. He passed, however, as acute a war Judg ment aB MaJ. Moraht of the Berliner Tapeblatt or Col. Remington of the London Times could do. His criticism was this: " 'I must say, sir, them there Darda nelles is showin' themselves to be bet ter fighters than anybody thought they would.'" Painful Experience. EDWARD F. CROKER, ex-chief of the New York Fire Department, discussing the terrible steamboat dis aster on Lake Michigan last month, said: "A strict enforcement of the steam boat laws would have averted this dis aster. But we don't ehforce our laws till we learn by experience their neces sity. "Experience, the suffering of expe rience—we are nothing without that." With a pensive smile he ended: "The bump of knowledge is always the result of a very hard whack from the hammer of experience."
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