WATERWAY DEFENSES 53 * 



ing day by day huge monsters of the deep, each succeeding one an 

 improvement in strength and fury upon its predecessor, and all vastly 

 the superiors of those famous ships — the Iowa, the Oregon, the Brook- 

 lyn and the rest, that so quickly sent the steel-clad hulls of Spain upon 

 the shoals of the Caribbean Sea. 



In the state of high efficiency of modern ordnance, while floating 

 guns are able to throw enormously destructive projectiles to such great 

 distances, it is not beyond the range of reason to declare positively 

 that not a single city upon the Atlantic coast is entirely safe from 

 bombardment by a foreign fleet. The extraordinary contingencies of 

 the Spanish war will not, it may be believed, ever return. The next 

 time (which, with our expanding relations, more and more world-wide 

 continually, may come at any moment) that we are called upon to 

 match strengths with an enemy, we may be quite sure it will be with 

 a foe of different caliber than poor, enervated Spain. Her valor, her 

 deep sense of honor, her devotion, fanatical as that of any follower of 

 Mahomet, all were vain and valueless because of — in one phrase — lack 

 of adequate preparation. The next time the American people are 

 called upon to face an enemy upon the high seas, it will not be, we 

 may be sure, to find his nominal fighting power or the speed of his 

 war ships diminished by so large a percentage; nor, to be frank, that 

 our own ordnance, horse-power of engines, general efficiency, shall 

 again surprise ourselves with performances so much better than was 

 expected or claimed. 



Do not let us delude ourselves with the undue confidence that all 

 has been done, or is in process of being done, in the way of adequate 

 preparation. For many years to come, though we construct men-of- 

 war in increasing numbers and with increased power, it will still remain 

 that other nations are also increasing their armaments. That ' next 

 time ' it may not be one nation, but a coalition of nations. Besides, in 

 these days of swift changes and sudden inventions, the best efforts of 

 designers of floating fortresses may become obsolete almost overnight. 



There are some things, however, that by their very nature can not 

 become obsolete; a single nation may for a time, by reason of greater 

 energy, wealth or genius, so dominate in the game of warfare as to 

 checkmate adversaries right and left. America, with her Ericsson 

 and the Monitor, was for a few years as a queen among pawns. But 

 we could not rely, as no nation can rely, upon such marvels. Little 

 more than forty years have passed and the accepted type of battle-ship 

 is the same all over the world; that has replaced the Miantonoma, as 

 that replaced the Monitor, as that displaced the Congress and the 

 Powhatan. Between the banks of oars of the Carthagenian triremes 

 and the sails of Philip II. and Effingham ; between the Seventy-four of 

 1812 and the ' cheese-box on a raft/ great gulfs of mechanical in- 



