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Marine Review October, 1927 U. S. S. Tennessee—A Guarantee of the Freedom of the Seas A Merchant Marine Is Necessary to Guarantee National Safety By Capt. Ralston S. Holmes, U.S. N. O THE United States two theaters of war are possible. In one, such as the World war, the strife will be far from home, and the physical effects will only be ap- parent in increased activity throughout the coun- try and in a vast concentration of effort toward one end—winning the war. In the other, the war will be brought to our shores and we shall be not only immersed in the same activity and concen- tration of effort, but we shall be confronted by the enemy at our gate, throwing a pall of uncer- tainty and feverishness over everything that we do. If we must have a war, which kind is pref- erable? It is true that the natural resources of the United States are such that we might lock ourselves in and endure a long war, fought en- tirely at home. Such a war would, mean that we had surrendered the sea, that our foreign com- merce was dead, that our outlying possessions were surrendered, that we were completely iso- lated. Surely it is apparent that even. were we ulti- mately to win such a war, the time and money necessary for restoration to our former position would make it prohibitive. The money necessary would be vastly more than the amount necessary to prevent such a condition from arising. Then too, with commerce cut off, money would be much less available and much scarcer than it is today, with foreign commerce active and the country prosperous. : To fight the other kind of war, away from home, we need a navy and a merchant marine, and the one is no more important than the other. Each furnishes to the other something that it cannot furnish itself. We have no right to expect that our next war will be like the last, in which we attached our- selves to an operating organization already in ex- istence. We must have our own organization prepared to act single handed from the. begin- ning. — 4 Are we content to decide that the war we shall accept is the war at home, driving us into our shells, breaking down our carefully built up foreign commerce, crippling our finances, reach- ing into our very land? If this is the kind of war we prefer, or if we think human nature has changed so there will be no more wars, then we can reduce our navy to a police force and can con- tinue to ship most, of our goods in foreign mer- (Continued on Page 50) — MARINE REVIEW—October, 1927 11