Navy League Urges A Better Sea Force.

New York Times 100 years ago today, December 22, 1912:
Gives Congress 67 Reasons Why We Should Take Steps to Improve the Service.
WANTS BOARD TO PLAN THEM
Nation Is Entitled to the Best Fleet Commanders, it Says, in Demanding a Change of Personnel.
    The Navy League of the United States, of which Admiral Dewey and Gen. Horace Porter are officers, has issued an appeal to the members of the Senate and the House of Representatives urging the reorganization or the personnel of the navy and giving sixty-seven reasons why the United States should possess a strong and efficient sea force. In urging a reorganization of the personnel the appeal says that the United States "is entitled to have the best possible fleet commanders, whether they be 45 or 62 years of age." The right officers to choose from will, when the emergency comes, "prove of as much if not more importance than the number of battleships," the league's statement sets forth.
    The league also suggests that a consistent programme of naval construction should be outlined by a council of National defense authorized by Congress. Here are some of the reasons why, in the opinion of the league, we should have a strong navy:

SEA POWER AND HISTORY.
    Sea power was indispensable to the success of the revolution.
    The navy fought and won, too War of 1812.
    The Union was preserved as much by the blockading navy as by the Army of the North.
    The navy decided the outcome of the war with Spain.
    England's navy was given that country uninterrupted peace on the water for nearly 100 years, and her shores have not been invaded for nearly a thousand years.
    Germany, with an adequate navy, has been practically free from war on land or sea for forty years.

THE NATIONAL DEFENSE.
    Undefended resources invite aggression.
    The United States Navy has 21,000 miles of coast line to defend.
    The United States Navy has more harbors with large cities and a larger number of strategic points to defend than any other nation's navy.
    The navy must defend Porto Rico, the Philippines the Hawaiian Islands, and the Panama Canal.
    It is "better to be despised for too anxious apprehension than be ruined by two confident security."

AMERICAN POLICIES.
    The Monroe Doctrine.
    The attitude of the United States as to possession or ownership of strategic alien harbors and coaling stations.
    The neutrality of the Panama Canal, including its safeguarding when other nations are at war.
    The restriction of Asiatic immigration.
    The integrity of China.
    The rights of Americans traveling abroad. regardless of blood or religion.

Under the caption "From the Standpoint of Economics" it is pointed out that battleships are cheaper than battles; that the money paid for the construct ion of battleships goes to American workingmen and shipbuilders; that the navy is a school that teaches efficiency in many trades, and that the Annual cost of the navy, which is some $130,000,000, is cheap insurance against the cost of war, and represents approximately the amount of money that Americans spend each year on new tires for their automobiles.

    "Outside the Sphere of War" is the caption of another list of reasons. In it these services of the navy are set forth:
    The suppression of the African slave trade.
    The suppression of piracy.
    The opening of Japan.
    The opening of Korea.
    Arctic exploration and relief.
    Protection of the fur seals.
    Pioneer work of coast and geodetic survey.
    The establishment of lighthouse service.
    Pioneer work of the Weather Bureau.
    The work of the Naval Observatory and Hydrographic Office.
    Explorations and preliminary surveys for various Isthmian Canal routes.
    Frequent protection of missionaries and citizens abroad.
    Frequent prevention of insurrection in the West Indies and the Southern republics.
    Friendly offices to Cuba. Panama, Santo Domingo, and Nicaragua.
    Repeated earthquake and famine relief at Messina, Martinique, and San Francisco; in Ireland and elsewhere.

Under "Diplomacy" the league points out the force a great navy gives to diplomacy. Naval power is a legitimate factor in international settlements. It maintains, because it "is the evidence of national efficiency." Under the caption "Peace Programmes," the attention of Congress is called to the fact that disarmament and obligatory arbitration are incompatible; that armament may be the instrument to force the arbitration of an adversary, and that the general arbitration treaties adopted at the second Hague Conference failed to prevent the forcible annexation by Austria of Bosnia and Herzegovina, the seizure of Tripoli by Italy, the invasion of Persia by Russia, and the conflict in the Balkans.

As "General Reasons" the league calls attention to the unexpectedness of war, the impossibility of improvising a modern navy, and the ever-present possibility of any one disturbing element causing a brawl in the family of nations.