Such being the fact it would be most unwise for us to stop the upbuilding of our Navy.

In my judgment, we should this year provide for four battleships.

But it is idle to build battleships unless in addition to providing the men, and the means for thorough training, we provide the auxiliaries for them, unless we provide docks, the coaling stations, the colliers and supply ships that they…

We are extremely deficient in coaling stations and docks on the Pacific, and this deficiency should not longer be permitted to exist.

Both on the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, fortifications of the best type should be provided for all our greatest harbors.

The only efficient use for the Navy is for offense.

The only way in which it can efficiently protect our own coast against the possible action of a foreign navy is by destroying that foreign navy.

All of these together are efficient for defensive purposes, but they in no way supply the place of a thoroughly efficient navy capable of acting on the offensive; for parrying never yet won a fight.

It can only be won by hard hitting, and an aggressive sea-going navy alone can do this hard hitting of the offensive type.

If fortifications are sufficiently strong, no modern navy will venture to attack them, so long as the foe has in existence a hostile navy of anything like the same size or efficiency.

But unless there exists such a navy then the fortifications are powerless by themselves to secure the victory.

Until our battle fleet is much larger than at present it should never be split into detachments so far apart that they could not in event of emergency be speedily united.

The interests of California, Oregon, and Washington are as emphatically the interests of the whole Union as those of Maine and New York, of Louisiana and Texas.

The only way by which to teach officers and men how to handle the fleet so as to meet every possible strain and emergency in time of war is to have them practice under similar conditions in time of peace.

Moreover, the only way to find out our actual needs is to perform in time of peace whatever maneuvers might be necessary in time of war.

After war is declared it is too late to find out the needs; that means to invite disaster.

The proper place for an officer to learn his duty is at sea, and the only way in which a navy can ever be made efficient is by practice at sea, under all the conditions which would have to be met if war existed.

It is true of them, as likewise of the officers and enlisted men of the Army, that they form a body whose interests should be close to the heart of every good American.

The reward should be ample when they do their best; and nothing less than their best should be tolerated.

It is idle to hope for the best results when the men in the senior grades come to those grades late in life and serve too short a time in them.

Up to the rank of lieutenant-commander promotion in the Navy should be as now, by seniority, subject, however, to such rigid tests as would eliminate the unfit.

After the grade of lieutenant-commander, that is, when we come to the grade of command rank, the unfit should be eliminated in such manner that only the conspicuously fit would remain, and sea service should be a principal test of fitness.

Of a given number of men it may well be that almost all would make good lieutenants and most of them good lieutenant-commanders, while only a minority be fit to be captains, and but three or four to be admirals.

If all that ought to be done can not now be done, at least let a beginning be made.

The country fails to get from the officers of the service the best that is in them by not providing opportunity for their normal development and training.