Fleet Proves Our Power.

New York Times 100 years ago today, May 15, 1913:
London Paper's Comment on Coming Visit of Our Warships.
By Marconi Transatlantic Wireless Telegraph to The New York Times.
    LONDON, Thursday, May 15.— The Standard, commenting editorially on the proposed visit to the Mediterranean of the American fleet, which it describes as a "mighty flotilla," says:
    "Europe will have brought home to it a fact which it is too often disposed to ignore. In their comparisons of the relative strength of maritime forces the statesmen and publicists of the Old World sometimes forget to direct their gaze beyond the Atlantic.
    "They will be reminded that the United States is still the second naval power of the globe. It chooses to hold aloof from the various alliances, understandings, and rivalries of the European system, but if it pleased it could throw its weight into the scale with decisive effect.
    "There is no reason to suppose that it has any immediate intention of departing from its traditional policy, but it is not without significance that this remarkable illustration of American potentialities is to be given in that quarter of the world which is at present undergoing reconstruction and political transition.
    "It is at least a very forcible hint that when American diplomacy cares to assert itself it can do so with the only kind of backing that our modern diplomatists appear to recognize."