In the final analysis, civilization is based on communication. The advance of man has been coincident with man's contact with man. Thought is stimulated by the interchange of ideas and commodities. The importance of communication to a country is proved by the nations in our own time and by countless illustrations in history. The backward communities are those that have but little connection with the world at large. The most savage and barbarous tribes are those that are most isolated and that have been isolated through the ages, and it is on remote islands and in inaccessible jungles that the most primitive peoples are now found. In general, and proving the same rule, the reverse of this holds true. For the great and civilized nations of today and of the past are those whose system of communication is most perfect.
Perhaps the greatest single civilized governmental unit of early days was the Roman Empire. By the same token, it was the Roman Empire which had the best developed system for the transmission of men, ideas and commodities. The Roman roads, for example, are proverbial for their frequency and excellence. On them and over them through the generations swept the tide of traffic of the Roman Empire. Indeed, to the present day these same roads are in many instances still serving their purpose. During the last war, when I was in France, I marched over them and saw guarding them the remains of the army camps of those days, by which they were protected. The Roman system of communication was perhaps, never equaled, let alone excelled, until within the last hundred fifty years. Their galleys were the fastest, their roads were the shortest and best, their post system, their helio system, remained until comparatively recently, models of a lost efficiency. Through the length and breadth of their vast empire protection was afforded to commerce on land and on sea. To these excellent and well-protected lines of communication, Rome owed in the main part her greatness and her cohesion.
Furthermore, the human race does not stand still. It either advances or slips back. "Where there is no vision, the people perish," and it is through new contacts with others that we reach out for new ideas and new viewpoints. In all of the most brilliant ages of man, thought has been stimulated and fertilized by intercommunication. To it we owe our nation, for it was man's restless progress over uncharted seas and through untamed wildernesses that created our country and developed the civilization of the western hemisphere.
In the past, the two great mediums of communication by which our civilization was built were the land and the sea. Our Navy, indeed all navies, are indissolubly linked with the latter, because for communication by water, protection is necessary. Rights on the sea are as important as the right to travel unmolested on the railroad or down the turnpike. No great country can afford to have them jeopardized, for every great country depends on them not only for advancement, but even for her ability to retain her present level. It is the navies of the big civilized powers that have kept open the lanes of traffic in the world. They have been kept open as against pirates. They have been kept open as against other overbearing nations. History furnishes many instances of this. The Roman records contain many examples. Rome was constantly harassed by pirates until, under the able administration of Augustus, she swept them from the Mediterranean. The underlying cause of the greatest and most significant wars that Rome met with in her rise to power—those with Carthage—was the domination of the Mediterranean Sea.
English history parallels theirs, and our own annals furnish many similar instances. During the brief one hundred fifty years of our existence we have executed many operations against pirates. In the early part of the last century, at numerous times our fleet was employed in sweeping the pirates from the Gulf of Mexico and the surrounding waters. Our ships sailed under Decatur to combat piracy in the Mediterranean. Indeed, at this very time, we have vessels in Asiatic waters putting down piracy and protecting our nationals and commodities. Furthermore, two of our wars at least, have been in a measure brought on by the question of our rights on the sea. The War of 1812 and the War with Germany were intertwined in their origin with the rights of our sea-borne traffic and the rights of our sea-faring people.
The merchant marine needs the protection of the Navy; the Navy in time of war needs the supplementary aid of the merchant marine, and the country in peace or war needs both. The Navy is a necessary protector of that all-important adjunct of our great civilization—our communication with the other countries of the world.
In addition, our Navy is our first line of defense. It is the shield which prevents the enemy from striking at our vitals. We are not a militaristic nation. We do not maintain a large arm. We depend upon our civilians for our military forces. Our ideal is to "show how civilians can smite with the sword." When war breaks, as it has in the past and as it will again in the future despite all we can do, we have much real work to do before our military organization is in proper shape. It is the Navy that holds the enemy at bay while this preparation is being made. Furthermore when victory is attained, it must be through attack, and to attack it is necessary for us to hold the sea lanes. It is the Navy, therefore, that makes this attack possible. Navies primarily are the safe-guard and defense of those countries who do not desire wars of aggression, but who desire, as all right-thinking countries should, to maintain themselves in a position where they can adequately guard the rights of their citizenship.
The Navy also is the right arm of the State Department. It is through the Navy, in large measure, that the State Department visualizes and translates into action its policies. At this time our naval vessels are stationed from the Mediterranean to Asiatic waters. At this time we have ships cruising near Central and South America. Our vessels are spread over the seven seas. They are the tangible evidences of the power of the United States. Behind all the pronouncements of our State Department rests the power of our Navy. It is the Navy that turns these pronouncements from simply unsupported statements into matters that must be given the gravest consideration by all nations. Our policies, in truth, are based on the Navy. Indeed, the Navy is the cornerstone on which rest the Monroe Doctrine and the policy of the "open door."
Every day, also, in unconsidered and unrecorded ways, the Navy is working for the good of the country. It is helping us to maintain peace for the people by the respect it inspires. It is spreading our influence over the four quarters of the globe, for trade follows the flag. When one of our vessels steams into a foreign port, the stars and stripes floating over her, she is the outward and visible sign of the spirit and soul of the United States.
Though land and water have been the great mediums of communication in the past and are still at this time, another is now opening up—the air. The past twenty years have turned many of the romances of the past into sober facts. Icarus' tragic death has been and is paralleled by our daring young men who, as pioneers, are developing this new empire. Though air communication is still in its infancy, enough has been done to clearly prove its importance. In this respect too, the Navy's work is important, for naval aeronautics are an integral part of our Navy and we are pushing the development as energetically as we can.
Our Navy at present can be divided roughly into two heads—the shore establishment, and the fleet afloat. The shore establishment has as its mission the service of the fleet afloat. It is composed mainly of yards where the ships are repaired by skilled civilian workmen, many of whom have been in the government service all of their lives. These yards are situated at strategic points on our coasts and in certain of our outlying possessions. Without them, the Navy would be helpless; and radio stations whereby our ships the world over are kept in close contact with the government at Washington. In addition we have manufacturing plants such as our Aircraft Factory at Philadelphia; training depots for the new recruits; supply bases, and other similar developments—all necessary to the maintenance of the complicated and diverse machine of a modern navy. In these shore activities, approximately speaking, fifty thousand civilians are employed.
The fleet afloat is, of course, the main objective and the one to which all efforts are primarily bent. The fleet afloat is now a single fleet under a single admiral. It can be divided roughly into five groups. The first of these is the battleships. They correspond to the infantry in the army. From time immemorial they have formed the backbone of our naval defense. It is the great guns of the capital ships that hammer out victory when the fate of the nation hangs in the balance. Important and vital as the other elements are, they are, in the final analysis, but supplemental arms.
The next group is the auxiliary surface craft. In this group are the light cruisers, the cavalry of the Navy. In peace or in war, they are the far cruising rapid units. It also contains the destroyers. Their main weapon is the torpedo and they screen the great ships in action.
The third group is composed of the submarines, which embody many and diverse functions. They are a constant threat to all fighting units. They can be used for breaking an attack formation. Furthermore, they can scout unsupported by other units and are of great value for laying mines where surface craft dare not penetrate.
The fourth division, aviation, is new and only partially developed, but it will assume an increasingly important role as the years go by, and experience and invention eliminate the problems that limit it at present. There are three missions with which naval aviation is charged. It co-operates with the army in coast defense; it operates to a limited extent from the decks of the battleships; and it functions as an auxiliary arm from the aircraft carriers. As battle ranges have now increased to over thirty thousand yards, the use of airplanes in action to observe and report the fall of projectiles has become essential to accuracy of fire against an enemy beyond the horizon. We have at this time two vessels partly constructed which will be aircraft carriers. Their length is greater than that of any other ship in the Navy. Each one of them will carry from seventy to eighty planes, depending upon the type and size of planes. They will accompany the fleet in action. From their decks will rise scouting planes to be used as the eyes of the Admiral, torpedo and bombing planes for attack and fighting planes to repel an enemy aerial attack.
The last important group is the non-combatant auxiliary craft. It is difficult for the average individual to realize just how vessels of this sort are necessary, but a modern battle fleet is helpless without them. Some are specialized and must be a part of the regular Navy. These number such units as hospital ships, supply ships, repair ships and transports. Others are more general in character, and whereas it is necessary to have some of them at all times in commission and on hand, may be supplemented by the merchant marine in time of need. These number such units as oilers, colliers and cargo vessels.
Perhaps the greatest single achievement during the past year, from a naval standpoint, was the limitation of armament treaty. The heart of this treaty is the naval ratio established between the great naval powers, namely, for the United States and Great Britain, 5, Japan, 3, and France and Italy, 1 ¾ each. Concretely, this allows the United States a Navy equal to that of Great Britain and forty per cent greater than that of the next naval power, Japan.
This treaty gives us, for the first time in our history, a definite naval policy. All agree that we should live up to these terms. Therefore, our mission is simple—for though it does not limit all classes of craft, as it was impossible to reach an agreement on certain of the auxiliary types, nevertheless the great powers have taken the spirit embodied therein as a guide, and are handling themselves accordingly. Not only does this treaty stop competition, but in addition, it gives us a definite proposition on which to appear before the American public. Furthermore naval plans inaugurated in conformity with the spirit and letter of the treaty will not, in the future, arouse the suspicions among the countries of the world of ulterior motives which fomented so many of the international troubles of the past.
Our mission in the coming year is to create a balanced and adequate treaty Navy. This country will at all times hold strictly to, not only the letter, but the spirit of the agreement. At no time will we undertake building plans in the unrestricted classes which could reasonably be said to reopen naval competition. Our endeavor will simply be to put ourselves on a parity with the ratio allowed us.
At this time we have not a treaty Navy. We lack certain essential elements. One of these elements is mine-laying submarines. We have no mine-laying submarines in the United States Navy, and yet this type was proved by the war to be most effective and necessary. War statistics indicate that a very large percentage of the destruction done by submarines can be credited to this type of vessel. Mine-laying is an important part of modern naval warfare. The submarine can lay mines where other craft cannot, because the submarine can operate unobserved where surface craft would infallibly be detected and destroyed. We also have but three scout submarines, the V-1, 2 and 5, which are under construction now at the Portsmouth Navy Yard. Even when completed, these submarines will not be of the latest design, and though useful in their way, cannot be compared to units laid down in more recent years. The scout submarine, like the mine-laying submarine, has an important mission which it, and it alone, can accomplish.
For all-around utility, in both peace and war, there is no craft more valuable than the scout cruiser. In this branch of naval architecture the United States is very deficient. We have no modern light cruisers with the exception of the ten which are now building. These cruisers have a displacement of 7,500 tons. The treaty allows a displacement of 10,000 tons for light cruisers. The other chief naval powers are greatly superior to us in their light cruisers, both in total tonnage and in types constructed or under construction.
Before the limitation of armament treaty, the United States, in capital ships, was following a policy of constructing new and additional units, rather than remodeling older units. Other countries had been remodeling the units they had on hand. The treaty, by definitely limiting the number of capital ships, has eliminated the policy formerly pursued by this country. The modernization work in progress in other countries previous to and since the formulation of the treaty has placed the United States in an inferior position insofar as capital ships are concerned. In order to bring ourselves to the parity allowed us, we must undertake a modernization program. This will involve such things as increased elevation for the guns on certain of the vessels, and antiaircraft and submarine protection of various types.
To summarize, before we can permit ourselves to state that we are maintaining the treaty Navy, we must build certain mine-laying submarines, certain scout submarines, certain scout cruisers, and modernize along various lines, a portion of our capital ships. As I said before, all nations concerned are abiding by the treaty. The United States, also, in following out the suggestions made, will in no way violate either the spirit or the letter of the treaty. We will not attempt, in the program I have outlined above, to exceed our allotted strength. We believe the limitation of armament treaty to be a great work, not only for our country, but for the world. This treaty was made possible by the fact that we had a powerful Navy. There may be other treaties in the future. If we wish to be considered when such a time arises, we must maintain properly what is allowed us at this time. We believe that the United States stands in the world for both honor and peace. If this stand is to be effective among the nations of the world, we must maintain our treaty Navy adequately. The feeble well wisher amounts to but little in a practical world. In Pilgrim's Progress, we admire "Great Heart" not simply because of his fine ideals, but because he had the force to stand against the powers of evil in defense of these ideals. We want no wars. We are not an aggressive nation, but it would be idle and mendacious for me to tell you that there would be no wars. Our freedom, the safety of our families, the institutions we prize, all demand that we maintain our proper defense. I wish to see our country in the future honored and respected. There is one way and one way only that this can be attained, and that is by being strong. I wish to see peace for our country—the peace of the righteous. There is one way and one way only that this can be attained and that is by being strong. For the sake of our children and their children's children, we must build up and then properly maintain our treaty Navy.