The only thing it lacks is quantity. In size it is the fourth navy in
the world, though I have heard it said by some gentlemen in this very
region that it was the second. In fighting force, though not in quality,
it is reckoned by experts to be the fourth in rank in the world; and yet
when I go on board those ships and see their equipment and talk with
their officers I suspect that they could give an account of themselves
which would raise them above the fourth class. It reminds me of that
very quaint saying of the old darky preacher, "The Lord says unto Moses,
come fourth, and he came fifth and lost the race." But I think this Navy
would not come fourth in the race, but higher.
What we are proposing now is not the sudden creation of a Navy, for we
have a splendid Navy, but the definite working out of a program by which
within five years we shall bring the Navy to a fighting strength which
otherwise might have taken eight or ten years; along exactly the same
lines of development that have been followed and followed diligently and
intelligently for at least a decade past. There is no sudden panic,
there is no sudden change of plan; all that has happened is that we now
see that we ought more rapidly and more thoroughly than ever before to
do the things which have always been characteristic of America.
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