150 Military Preparedness 



navy, but it was equally necessary to train our offi 

 cers and men aboard it by actual practice. If in 1883 

 we had been able suddenly to purchase our present 

 battleships, cruisers, and torpedo-boats, they could 

 not have been handled with any degree of efficiency 

 by our officers and crews as they then were. Still 

 less would it be possible to handle them by impro 

 vised crews. In an emergency bodies of men like 

 our naval militia can do special bits of work excel 

 lently, and, thanks to their high average of char 

 acter and intellect, they are remarkably good make 

 shifts, but it would be folly to expect from them all 

 that is expected from a veteran crew of trained man- 

 of-war's-men. And if we are ever pitted ship for 

 ship on equal terms against the first-class navy of 

 a first-class power, we shall need our best captains 

 and our best crews if we are to win. 



As fast as the new navy was built we had to 

 break in the men to handle it. The young officers 

 who first took hold and developed the possibilities 

 of our torpedo-boats, for instance, really deserve 

 as much credit as their successors have rightly re 

 ceived for handling them with dash and skill during 

 the war. The admirals who first exercised the new 

 ships in squadrons were giving the training without 

 which Dewey and Sampson would have found their 

 tasks incomparably more difficult. As for the or 

 dinary officers and seamen, of course it was their 



