Seeks Peace With 48 Great Ships.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 25, 1913:
Capt. Hood's Naval Policy Calls for Fleet Worth $500,000,000.
48,000 MEN IN CREWS
Member of General Board Points to Our Unreadiness — Policies Which May Be Challenged.
    Capt. John Hood, U.S.N., until recently one of the Dreadnought Commanders of the Atlantic Fleet, now a member of the General Board of the Navy, has prepared for the United States Navy League a plan of naval policy which he calls a "Practical Guarantee of Peace." He offers his plan to the American people through the Navy League. Here is the policy, which if adopted, in the opinion of Capt. Hood, would guarantee peace in so far as foreign conflict is concerned.
    First— The completion of a fleet of forty-eight first line battleships by 1925.
    Second— The building of the proportionate number of destroyers, submarines, aeroplanes, and auxiliaries that go with this main fleet.
    Third— The providing and training of enough officers and men on the active list, and in the reserve, fully to man this fleet or war.
    Fourth— The provision of the necessary bases and arsenals for the maintenance of this fleet in peace and in war.
    Fifth— The education of the people by bringing into the full light of publicity the truth, and all the truth, about our needs and about what we now have; calling on their intelligence, patriotism, and even self-interest.
    "What is a policy?" asks Capt. Hood in the course of his article, written for the Navy League. "In general terms a policy is a reasoned course of action laid down to be pursued in order to attain a definite end. In the naval sense of policy, the end to be attained is to maintain and support the Nation's foreign policy, and to preserve a continued peace with all the world, that the country may continue to grow and prosper along the lines that destiny has laid out for it, maintaining the ideals and doctrines that we have inherited from our forefathers, and in the full enjoyment of all our privileges as American citizens in every spot of the globe.
    "These two — naval policy and foreign policy — are bound up the one with the other, and are, in fact only different aspects of the same question; and the power of the one is the measure of the force of the other. To quote Rear Admiral Mahan, the necessary strength of our navy depends not so much on what we desire to accomplish, as on what we are willing or unwilling to concede of those National doctrines and beliefs that we hold up before the world.
    "Are we at the present time, or have we ever been at any time since the foundation of the Government, in the state of strength and readiness that would save us the cost and burdens of war, or, should war ever come, minimize its loss and sufferings? The hundreds of thousands of lives that were lost, the untold misery of the many more hundreds of thousands, the waste of billions of money in an unnecessarily prolonged civil war, the waste of hundreds of millions in the Spanish war, the payment of $180,000,000 war pensions per annum to-day all cry out loudly 'No!'
    "We have inherited from our forefathers the doctrine of 'no entangling alliances.' This, while not in itself leading to war, places us in a state of splendid isolation against any combination of powers, should war come, which demands a strength on our part sufficient to meet probable combinations.
    "We have with us the Monroe Doctrine, which has almost become a part of our religion, and which has never been recognized by any country other than, tacitly, by England, with whose Government in truth originated the famous doctrine that bears President Monroe's name. As the nations of Europe and Asia become overcrowded with their ever-increasing populations this doctrine promises to be a fruitful source of contention and challenge, and as so aptly put by the late Secretary of the Navy, this doctrine is just as strong as and no stronger than the American fleet.
    "I challenge directly the statement of the member of Congress who favored a lesser navy, who, in the recent debates in the House on the Naval Appropriation bill, argued that we had maintained the Monroe Doctrine against the Holy Alliance in 1823 without any navy, and hence needed none now. We had then — and we have not now — back of the doctrine what was at that time practically the entire sea power of the world — the British fleet. Without the support of the sea power then as without the support of adequate sea power now the Monroe Doctrine, our best-beloved and most deeply cherished National principle, never was nor will be worth more than the paper it is written on.

adopted two other principles, and possibly a third, which have taken or are taking their place in the consciences and beliefs of the people side by side with the Monroe Doctrine and which bring us into direct contact with other nations and provide more than fair grounds for challenge and contention.
    "These are, first, the principle of Asiatic exclusion; second, what has come to be popularly known as the 'open door,' and possibly third, our determination to assume exclusive military control of the Panama Canal territory and its contiguous waters.
    "I do not believe that the Nation stands ready to abandon or modify any of those principles, and only a lack of understanding and knowledge of the questions involved by the people at large is responsible for keeping the country in the state of unpreparedness that exists now, and has always existed to maintain them with reasonable surety of continued peace and honor.
     "Now, and primarily, the responsibility for any war that may arise from our relative naval weakness or for any disaster in war that may arise from the same cause rests with us of the Executive branch of the Government, who know the Nation's needs and have failed to inform the people of them in a way they can understand. When the people are fully-informed by giving the widest publicity to the proposed policy with its meaning and reasons, then the responsibility is with them if they fail to instruct their representatives to carry out the policy and provide the adequate navy called for in the platform of both the great political parties. Should the people instruct their representatives, and these should fail to act, then the responsibility is with Congress."
    Capt. Hood then outlines the policy which, in his opinion — and his opinion is shared by his fellow-members of the General Navy Board — calls for a great fleet of forty-eight battleships of the most powerful type, a ship for every State in the Union. This fleet to be ready by 1925.
    Such a fleet would have a total tonnage of about 1,250,000 tons. It could fire a broadside of half a million pounds from its main batteries of 12 and 14 inch guns. At least 48,000 officers and men would be needed to man such a fleet. Its value in money would be more than $500,000,000.