Page 156 - The interest of America in sea power, present and future
P. 156
THE FUTURE IN RELATION TO
AMERICAN NAVAL POWER.
June, 1895.
•HAT the United States Navy within the
X last dozen years should have been recast
almost wholly, upon more modern lines, is
not, in itself alone, a fact that should cause
comment, or give rise to questions about its
future career or sphere of action. If this
country needs, or ever shall need, a navy at
all, indisputably in 1883 the hour had come
when the time-worn hulks of that day, mostly
the honored but superannuated survivors of
the civil war, should drop out of the ranks,
submit to well-earned retirement or inevitable
dissolution, and allow their places to be taken
by other vessels, capable of performing the
duties to which they themselves were no
longer adequate.
It is therefore unlikely that there underlay
this re-creation of the navy— for such in
