of ships and guns; but an approximate
estimate may be reached by considering the case of a man playing
poker who holds a royal straight flush. Such a man would be a fool
if he did not back his hand to the limit and get all the benefit
possible from it. So will the United States, if she fails to back
her hand to the limit, recognizing the fact that in the grand game
now going on for the stakes of the commercial supremacy of the world,
she holds the best hand. She has the largest and most numerous
seaports, the most enterprising and inventive people, and the most
wealth with which to force to success all the various necessary
undertakings.

This does not mean that the United States ought, as a matter either
of ethics or of policy, to build a great navy in order to take
unjust advantage of weaker nations; but it does mean that she ought
to build a navy great enough to save her from being shorn of her
wealth and glory by simple force, as France was shorn in 1871.

It is often said that the reason for Great Britain's having so
powerful a navy is that she is so situated geographically that,
without a powerful navy to protect her trade, the people would
starve.

While this statement may be true, the inference usually drawn is
fallacious: the inference that if Great Britain were not so situated,
she would not have so great a navy.

Why would she not? It is certain that that "tight little island"
has attained a world-wide power, and a wealth per capita greater
than those of any other country; that her power and wealth, as
compared with her home area, are so much greater than those of
any other country as to stagger the understanding; that she could
not have done what she has done without her navy; that she has
never hesitated to use her navy to assist her trade, and yet that
she has never used her navy to keep her people from starving.

In fact, the insistence on the anti-starvation theory is absurd.
Has any country ever fought until the people as a mass were starving?
Has starving anything to do with the matter? Does not a nation
give up fighting just as soon as it sees that further fighting
would do more harm than good? A general or an admiral, in charge
of a detached force, must fight sometimes even at tremendous loss
and after all hope of local success has fled, in order to hold a
position, the long holding of which is essential to the success
of the whole strategic plan; but what country keeps up a war until
its pe