And State Papers 43 



ties, for the previous fifteen years there had been a 

 resolute effort to build adequate ships. The ships 

 that went in under Dewey had been constructed un- 

 der different successive Secretaries of the Navy and 

 had been provided for by different successive Con- 

 gresses of the United States. Not one of them had 

 been built less than two years, some of them four- 

 teen years. We could not have begun to fight that 

 battle if we had not been for so many years making 

 ready the navy. 



The last Congress has taken greater strides than 

 any previous Congress in making ready the navy, 

 but it will be two or three years before the effects 

 are seen. In no branch of the government are fore- 

 sight and the carrying out of a steady and continu- 

 ous policy so necessary as in the navy; and you, 

 citizens of San Francisco, of California, and all our 

 citizens should make it a matter of prime duty to see 

 that there is no halt in that work, that the next Con- 

 gress, and the Congress after that, and the Congress 

 after that, go right on providing formidable war- 

 craft, providing officers, providing men, and pro- 

 viding the means of training them in peace to be 

 effective in war. The best ships and the best guns 

 do not count unless they are handled aright and 

 aimed aright, and the best men can not thus handle 

 the one nor aim. the other if they do not have ample 

 practice. Our people must be trained in handling 

 our ships in squadrons on the high seas. Our peo- 

 ple on the ships must be trained by actual practice 

 to do their duty in conning tower, in the engine 



