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504 even under the present program. It will stop, though. perhaps not until that great natural law of the survival of the fittest makes itself felt. The richest nation, the one with the greatest power to 'tax with- out inciting internal revolution, will survive the longest, and then what of it all? Poverty and suffering for those who are to follow. And another: Your articles are mild. They do not state the situation half as bad as it really is. The expenditures for army and navy are at present and prospective too much of a load for even this great and wealthy coun- try to carry and escape bankruptcy. Euro- pean countries see it, and the single tax budget that the English parliament is now quarreling over is the direct result. become a case of more money in continually increasing sums until they have reached a point where the poor have been taxed to the limit and taxes on incomes and the unearned increment is the last resort. We are not far behind them in the United States. To un- derstand the '"'war system'? in Washington one must have been in contact with it and gotten acquainted, and it does not require more than the average intellect to see into it 'under those conditions. They have in their favor that great power--the flag--which they know so well how to use in arousing the sentimental patriotism of the people to a point where they forget cost and all be- sides. If I were in a position to be a free lance, nothing would give me greater pleas- ure than to add my contribution. As it is for the present I must use ordinary business prudence, as others are interested' besides myself. Has anything I have written on the subject approached this for scathing arraignment? And they don't know what they are talking about, say the navy officials. Well, I am reasonably certain that if the names attached to these letters were made public there would be something of a sensation. A letter from a petty officer on one of our battleships says, amongst other things : I am in a position to augment your argu- ment relative to the waste in the United. States navy, not as a person disgruntled or discontented, but as one who sees and real- _izes the vast amount of good money ruth- lessly wasted daily, yes hourly. The officer in question turns out, on investigation, to have had, besides his naval experience, a thorough practical and technical training in mechanical en- gineering, and his observations are, therefore, those of a competent witness. An officer in charge of one of the navy yards says: "The general condi- tions governing navy yards are rotten." This officer has perhaps done more effi- cient work under the handicaps imposed by the system than any other. Some Newspaper Criticisms. Now to notice some of the very few criticisms of these letters. The Wash- ington correspondent of the New York Herald, quoting naval officials on the appearance of the first of these letters and referring to the charges that the colliers of the fleet were not employed on the great world-girdling cruise, said that it was "a well-known fact that naval colliers accompanied the fleet during the entire cruise." The facts are exactly as stated and not otherwise, naval officials and the te Nas 'is so mutch froth. TAE MarRINE REVIEW New York Herald to the contrary, not- withstanding. The only ship of the collier class that accompanied the fleet was the Ajax, as a storeship. The de- partment itself is authority for the state- ment. The Army and Navy Journal is all fussed up about the charges against the navy. That the Journal should take up the cudgels for the defendant department is only to be expected, but to answer it is really a weariness of the flesh. It merely sets up the pins which have been already knocked down. Regarding the comparison of methods in the navy and the merchant marine or commer- cial establishments, it says: Any writer on naval matters who compares tramp ships with battleships, and. cannot see the necessity of keeping the lattter in a higher condition of efficiency, would see no reason why the soldiers of the country should have any more drilling and disciplining than the tramp of the country roads. It surprises us that the Review should admit to its col- umns articles based entirely upon a miscon- ception of the responsibilities of men and things that may -be called upon at any mo- ment for the defense of the country. It needs no argument with intelligent fair-mind- ed men to prove that emergency agencies must always be kept at a higher tension and in a greater state of preparedness than _ those which have only to perform a routine from which it is not intended they shall ever de- part. A fire company represents the idea per- fectly. Its service is of the emergency kind. At the first signal it must jump and run. Delay of a few seconds may mean its utter failure and make worthless all its months of previous existence. In the very nature of things, its horses and equipment must be kept at the highest state of efficiency. So it is with the fleets of a country. They are to be used in the greatest emergency that can confront the nation. They must be ready for an instant's call, and to compare them to tramp steamers is to display an ignorance of comparative duties that is pitiful. I have already conceded that such is the expectation and that it is not real- ized. I will say again that there is - 6s not? "a rusty old tramp' (since . the Journal likes that expression) in any port on the coast that cannot get ready and get to sea for any voyage in almost as few hours as the naval ship requires days, and the chances are that she will get there first besides. Dissertation Merely Froth. All this dissertation on preparedness It is a delusion and a snare. The statements I have made are not based on misconception nor ig- norance, but on actual sea and_ ship- building experience and observation and knowledge of the subject, and upon the department's own reports, which are ac- cessible to anyone, and not upon hearsay nor statements of those on the defense. The Journal endeavors to screen the department behind the old excuse of politics. Well, after the moth- eaten, shot-riddled old argument has been ° made to cover all the possible applica- tions there will be enough left uncovereu to warrant condemnation and to spare. I suppose politics keeps naval officials glued to comfortable office chairs while December, 1909. they and their subordinates ought to be up and doing the work for which they are paid and for which _ the money has been appropriated for years. Politics wants a dry dock at Guanta- namo to influence the Cuban _ vote. Politics wants a navy yard at Pearl har- bor so badly that the chief of the bureau of navigation says all other ex- penditures should be held up. for it. How many congressmen come from Hawaii? Politics demands a fortified naval base in the Philippines so that the little brown brother can vote right. Politics kolds up a navy yard at Charleston after spending eight years building be- cause a caisson building in another navy yard is not ready, and then tries to hold a contractor responsible whose contract for an entirely different part of the equipment is only a few months old. Prodigal Waste. Politics demands $55,000 locomotive cranes with $75,000 tracks and to be used - once in a week in busy times; $20,00U for a little dinky auxiliary noist worth a few hundreds for an existing crane; $10,000 fora $500 shed for a yard loco- motive. Politics builds joke colliers cost- ing a million and a half that the de- partment doesn't know what to do with; demands new boilers for ships less than ten years old that haven't done one year's actual steaming; makes depart- ment officials beg information of pri- vate concerns, who have spent good money to get it, for the use of classes in naval schools who will later use the hook probably on the very individual who furnished it. Politics builds a ship in a navy yard, where she cannot be docked after she is built and if, as» fre- quently happens, she met with any in- jury in launching, she must be towed 'hundreds of miles for repair. Politics spends millions for power plants, the interest on which will buy all the power required from outside sources. Politics forbids that. a man shall bend his back and lift anything or that temporary expedients be employed for any purpose, and insists on appro- priations. for apparatus that is used so seldom that navy yard people forget what it was bought for, Politics probably had nothing to do, however, with the deal whereby navai vessels are not allowed to use anything but eastern coals; a deal that needs investigation, no matter where it leads to. There is a scandal underlying this thing somewhere. Who gets the spoil? There have been many flimsy excuses advanced on behalf of the navy, but poli-