316 BANQUET. 



You referred, Mr. President, to my trip abroad. I wonder if I shall be neglecting too 

 much the subject that has been assigned to me if I pause for a moment to tell you a nautical 

 anecdote of that ship. We were crossing in the old cruiser St. Louis, at about 8 knots 

 an hour to conserve fuel, and we had a rendezvous in longitude 17 West and latitude 48.30 

 North with some destroyers, sent from Queenstown by that splendid figure in the war, Ad- 

 miral Sims. (Applause.) 



I was very much entertained on the way over by the professional talk of the wardroom. 

 I was led to believe that the submarine danger was really pretty well under foot, that it had 

 been well mastered by the science of the American Navy. I was assured there were three 

 elements of safety : The first was the zigzag course. Then, of course, there was the darlv- 

 ened ship, which was an element of safety, but after all was said and done, it was really the 

 speed factor that spelled safety. They said : — "We will conserve our fuel until we get to that 

 rendezvous," and this longitude 17 West and latitude 48 North began to take on a concrete 

 quality in my mind. I felt I should never forget that point in the ocean, if I once got there 

 — that I should have the topography of that portion of the ocean's surface indelibly graven 

 on my recollection. 



We got to our tryst and there were the destroyers, on time to the dot. We started to 

 crowd the fuel on, and the old St. Louis hit it up to almost 17 knots. I was rather disap- 

 pointed, because I had been reading through some literature which I found in the captain's 

 cabin, which said that she was rated at 23^ knots per hour. A man in the wardroom said: 

 "That does not mean anything except that some time in the long distant past she made 

 that speed without anything in her for four hours on a trial trip, but nobody ever expects 

 her to do anything like that again." (Laughter.) I said: — "How about 17 knots in this 

 submarine peril?" He answered: — "Well, it would be better if it was 19, but I think we 

 will get by on 17." 



I felt the ship vibrating and could see from the way the smoke was carried away from 

 the funnels that we were doing better than S knots. I felt the rush of air across my face, 

 and everything was going splendidly until we got a few leagues south of the Scilly Islands. 

 You all realize that was the point where a greater tonnage was sunk than anywhere else — 

 it was a veritable ship charnel house. 



Something suddenly happened on the old ship St. Louis, and she came to a dead stop. 

 She just eased herself gently that way (the speaker indicating a slightly rocking motion with 

 his hands) between the swells of the sea. I said, "This is awful." I thought of those 8 

 knots an hour as not to be despised after all, and that it was really preferable to a stationary 

 situation south of the Scilly Islands. 



The good ship Huntington, on which Admiral Benson was traveling on the same mission 

 that sent me abroad, signalled our ship. I was on the bridge at the time and said to the ex- 

 ecutive officer, "What does the Huntington say?" He replied, "She asks 'What the hell is 

 the matter?' " In the meantime our little fleet of destroyer escorts performed antics like a lot 

 of inebriated porpoises. It was a wonderful sight. I asked, "Why don't we send an answer- 



