TO THE NEEDS OF THE UNITED STATES NAVY. 131 
able. As long as submarines remain below the surface they are invisible, and when we get 
noiseless machinery, which is the next step, you can neither hear them nor see them, and 
they have the ability to discharge a torpedo or to plant a mine which will destroy any 
fabric which can be made to float upon the surface of the water. I think our own experi- 
ments in our own Navy Department, if they were made public, would prove that asser- 
tion. You might armor a ship, or might make her with many different decks and of cellular 
construction, as many engineers have tried to do, and yet the explosion of a thousand pounds 
or more of trinitro-toluol, or some similar explosive, would, I believe, blow the fabric 
either to bits or up into the air. It is absolutely impossible, in my judgment, to build any 
fabric that will float on the surface that cannot be destroyed by means available to the 
submarine. 
What does this mean? It means that all maritime peoples must get together and make 
an equitable agreement for the carrying on of commerce. They have to agree and keep on 
agreeing. 
Assume that some one nation refuses to enter such agreement. Will she send a sub- 
marine out and destroy the commerce of the others? No; because it will be possible for all 
the other nations to ostracize her; it will not pay for her to do it. In addition to that, she 
would not be able to send out any of her own surface ships, as the submarines of the 
other countries would lie off her port and prevent her carrying on any commerce. That 
is what is likely to happen within the next year or so in the case of our own ports, in my 
judgment, unless the present warring nations make peace. I have not any inside informa- 
tion, or anything of that kind, but that is the logical thing to do; therefore I believe it 
will come to pass. I believe the fact of the U-53 coming to Newport was simply an ob- 
ject lesson, and in articles which I have written I have pleaded for the United States not 
to become so angry over injuries by war-maddened people as to put us in a position 
where we could not send out any commerce of our own, because half a dozen vessels of 
the U-type could stop our sending foodstuffs and the necessities of life to those innocent 
people on the other side who are suffering for the aggrandizement of a dynasty, or in 
the interest of commercial supremacy. I think it is our duty to the world to hold our- 
selves neutral, absolutely neutral, so that when they get to the point, as I believe they 
are in many places now, of starving over there, we will still be able to send foodstuffs and 
to hold the respect of all of the nations of the world, including those now involved in war, until 
some agreement may be made whereby they can themselves prevent the starvation of their 
women and children. (Applause.) 
Now, in regard to the offensive submarine, I hope the time for its use will never 
come to this country. We can build them, however, if necessary, when we get a proper 
engine. Admiral von Tirpitz, when I first saw him and showed my plans of both defen- 
sive and offensive submarines to his officers in 1905, said, “We are not interested in the 
defensive submarine; it is the offensive submarine we are mostly interested in.” They 
have been developing that type of submarine ever since. I do not believe it is necessary 
for us to build submarines with the idea of offense, and for that reason I am in favor of 
the recommendations which I have heard read of Rear Admiral Grant that we should re- 
strict our policy to building submarines for purely defensive purposes, although defensive 
requirements may lead to larger types than now exist which are capable of meeting the 
enemy in their own waters. 
