BANQUET. 279 



President, Admiral Benson of our Navy (applause), one of the great naval statesmen of the 

 world, visited our allied countries, and in consultation with that brilliant officer, Admiral 

 Sims (applause), took up vviUi officers of the allied navies the things that must be done to 

 stop the submarine menace. It was our opinion that you never could end it except by shutting 

 the submarines up in the North Sea and making it impossible for them to escape to the 

 ocean. We proposed the building of a barrage 250 miles across the North Sea, the great- 

 est undertaking and achievement ever dreamed of by any man in any war in the history of 

 the world. After long discussion and interchange of opinion it was undertaken by the 

 American and British navies, and when the full story of it is written, we will find that 

 it is one of the chief contributing causes of the German appreciation that the day had passed 

 when submarine warfare could be efifective against the commerce of the world. (Applause.) 



There was another great undertaking, not a naval one, as we understand naval work, 

 but you will perhaps recall that what troubled the allied navies most, after loss of life, was 

 the sinking of tankers. This war has been run on oil and gasoline, and the submarines 

 seemed to have a special talent or evil genius for sinking the tankers conveying the oil es- 

 sential for the battleships and destroyers. Our naval leaders undertook, in co-operation with 

 the British Navy, to construct a pipe-line, to furnish skilled men to go to Scotland and to 

 construct a pipe-line across the Scottish territory, so that oil needed for the British Navy 

 and our Navy goes through this pipe-line and avoids the danger zone around Scotland. 

 (Applause.) 



We all woke up one morning with some feeling of terror when we heard of the Ger- 

 man long-range gun shooting into Paris and kilHnig men, women and children. What was 

 the allied need? The need was of a gun, not of that type which, from a military stand- 

 point, was of little value, but of a gun big enough to be an effective weapon in war and 

 shoot far enough to batter even the ramparts of Metz, and the American Navy took its 14- 

 inch guns and put them on trains, carried them into the heart of the country with their 

 ammunition, and were aiding in winning victory along with the soldiers by this firing for 

 a distance of 20 miles of 14-inch guns when the armistice was signed. This is an achieve- 

 ment on land. (Applause.) 



These are some of the outstanding things during the war we could not speak of. They 

 were military secrets and of the high lights which show that in this war, wherever there 

 was need for initiative, wherever there was need for resource, something new, something 

 daring, men of the Navy were equal to the emergency, ready to propose and to carry out 

 heroic adventures and practical new accomplishments. 



Your chairman has spoken of the gallantry of the marines. There was a time when 

 we had a saying in America, if we heard a story that would hardly gO' down, "Oh, tell it to 

 the marines!" You have heard that, haven't you? But you will never hear it any more for 

 now they say, "Tell it of the marines!" (Applause.) 



The world can never forget that when the German army was almost in sight of Paris, 

 when officials in Paris were packing up the archives, fearful that the city would fall, it was 



