Sees Risk In Weak Navy.

New York Times 100 years ago today, February 27, 1913:
Special to The New York Times.
    CHICAGO, Ill., Feb. 26.— Increase in the naval forces of the United States as a measure of common safety and reduction of the area of the Monroe doctrine to the South American coast line and islands north and west of the Oronoco River, were advocated by Rear Admiral Charles H. Stockton in an address delivered today at the University of Chicago.
    "Every year," said Admiral Stockton, "should be a year of preparation and construction in the navy, so long as wars cannot be eliminated and armaments continue to increase. Woe to any country which leave its coast, its coast towns and its export trade the subject of injury and destruction on account of a weak navy.
    "We should adopt a more positive policy in regard to the Caribbean and the Spanish Main. While forbidding interference with this territory, on the part of European countries, we should, in our own turn, supervise them to an extent that would make them behave in a civilized manner."
    Admiral Stockton urged the appointment immediately, by President-elect Wilson of a board of defense to take charge of a naval programme which would make the Gulf of Mexico and the Caribbean Sea an American Mediterranean, under full and perpetual control of the United States.