ON THE MAXIMUM DIMENSIONS OF SHIPS. 21 
a naval force as one solely for defense, and it was with the greatest reluctance that 
Congress approached the idea of building a battleship. Mr. Nixon was limited 
in the scope of his design by the necessity of calling it and making it a coast defense 
ship. That original condition continued until the people of the United States 
realized that we had grown to a different situation amongst the nations of the world, 
so that when the head of one of the foreign navies asked me for the justification 
of the size of our battleships, saying that they were able to lay out the plan of 
campaign and say where battles would be fought, and so limiting the size of their 
ships, I replied to him that the United States was unable to locate the field of a 
possible battle and that it felt that its battleships must be so designed that they 
were capable of going anywhere and fighting when they got there. 
The author first discloses his well known position in favor of moderate dimen- 
sions by recording his opinion that the upper limit of size has been reached for 
the Trans-Atlantic service in the Mauretania 
Sir WILLIAM HENRY WHITE:—Excuse me, I did not say so. I said that 
the upper limit of size reached in the Mauretania gave you all that was wanted 
to insure regularity of passage. That is all. 
Past PRESIDENT BOWLES:—I quote again from Sir William’s paper: ‘‘I have 
previously recorded my opinion that this upper limit of size has been reached for 
the Trans-Atlantic service in the Mauretania.’”’ I am reading on page 10, near 
the bottom of the page. 
Sir WILLIAM WHITE:—So far as maintenance of speed is concerned. Look ~ 
a little further, please. 
Past PRESIDENT BOWLES:—Now, no doubt the designers and builders and 
owners of the Mauretania and Lusitania, in the production of these triumphant 
vessels representing the acme of luxury in ocean travel, having been presented 
with the funds, thought not only to take the next step in Trans-Atlantic naval 
architecture, but to skip a few of the following steps. Whether they have accom- 
plished that or not remains to be seen. They have been answered by the construc- 
tion of even greater vessels, of more moderate speed and of greater passenger 
accommodations. 
The author of the paper under consideration has seen fit to question the 
earning capacity of this cargo capacity of the newer vessels. Now, I would enter 
on the discussion of that matter with much greater diffidence than the author 
refers to himself. But I approach very seriously the statement in his paper where 
he discusses this feature of the Olympic, intimating that a vessel of smaller dimen- 
sions, without this cargo capacity, could have been produced with equal passenger 
accommodations. ‘That leads me to remind you that the most profitable part of 
the traffic on a Trans-Atlantic liner is the transportation of steerage passengers. 
