OP ee 
NAVAL STATIONS AND NAVAL BASES. 141 
the United States, become the true strategical center the instant we deepen the Cape 
Cod and the Delaware and Raritan canals into ship canals, clear the East River of 
all obstructions from the Battery to Long Island Sound, and adequately fortify 
Block Island, Vineyard Sound, Buzzards Bay and Cape Cod Bay regions. With 
exits at Delaware Bay, Sandy Hook, Block Island, and Massachusetts Bay the en- 
tire British Navy, as it exists today, could not contain our own navy as it is, al- 
though it is continually able to contain a much larger and more powerful one, the 
German Navy, even with the two exits it has by virtue of the superb Kiel Canal. 
Our “Heligoland,” Block Island, is now only a summer resort, but, defended as 
it should be, it would be the armed sentinel at the gate. The region around New 
York, of which we speak, represents billions of dollars, and the expense of pro- 
viding mobility to our naval forces and security to the area would be but a fraction 
of one per cent. As a mere commercial proposition the enlarged waterway would 
pay without the guns and mines to secure it, in case of war, and the present serious 
trend of public opinion makes the whole question one of easy possibilities. The de- 
fenses of Cape Cod Bay, Narragansett Bay, New York Bay and Delaware Bay are 
one and the same question, and the area from Boston to the Delaware Breakwater is 
our main strategical area. 
Our second considerable strategical area is that of Chesapeake Bay, embracing 
Washington and Norfolk—that is, the national capital and an immensely important 
naval base. It is far along in our plans to speak of the very desirable proposition of 
the Delaware and Chesapeake Canal as a ship canal, but it is easy enough to see 
what it would add to the mobility of our naval forces and to the security of our 
coasting trade in case of war. Just now the adequate defense of Chesapeake Bay 
entrance is the main consideration, for we have left that “stable door” wide open, 
as we have also the Delaware Bay entrance. It is therefore idle to talk too much 
theory when our practice is so elementarily careless. 
The first commanding strategical point, in connection with the Panama Canal 
and its approaches, is Key West. Mahan, in his “Naval Strategy” (p. 317), says, 
“There is nothing that can be said about the interests of the United States in the 
Panama Canal, as connecting the Atlantic and Pacific coasts, that does not apply 
with equal force to the Straits of Florida as uniting the Atlantic to the Gulf of 
Mexico and the Mississippi Valley.” Its main importance is in its relation to Cuba, 
whose political integrity we are pledged to defend. Cuba is, in effect, as far as 
Guantanamo is concerned, the absolutely undefended mainland of the United States, 
since it is up to us to defend it from invasion—and we have taken no steps thus far 
to do so. 
In considering the defense of the approaches to the Isthmian Canal route in 
the Atlantic and Caribbean, the most striking fact is the commanding position of 
Great Britain, with Bermuda less than 700 miles from Cape Cod, Sandy Hook, and 
Cape Henry, and with the Bahamas, Jamaica, St. Lucia, Barbadoes, and Trinidad 
commanding the approaches to the canal from all directions. While we all habitu- 
ally assume the benevolence of British policy toward us, it is not a justifiable stra- 
