a battleship at battle practice knows that all the various
tremendous forces are under excellent direction and control. And
while it cannot be strictly said that they are absolutely under
the direction and control of the captain, while it must be admitted
that no one man can really direct so many rapidly moving things,
yet it is certainly well within the truth to say that the ship
and all it contains are very much more under the control of her
captain than the German standing army is under the control of the
Kaiser. The captain, acting through the helmsman, chief engineer,
gunnery officer, and executive officer, can get very excellent
information as to what is going on, and can have his orders carried
out with very little delay; but the mere space occupied by an army
of 870,000 men, and the unavoidable dispersion of its units prevent
any such exact control.

In other words, the captain of the _Pennsylvania_ wields a weapon
more mechanically powerful than all the muskets of the German standing
army: and his control of it is more absolute than is the Kaiser's
control of that army.

_Mechanism vs. Men_.--Now what is the essential reason for the
efficient direction exercised by the helmsman of the _Pennsylvania_,
and the relative impotency of generals? Is it not that the helmsman
acts through the medium of mechanism, while the generals act through
the medium of men? A ship is not only made of rigid metal, but all
her parts are fastened together with the utmost rigidity; while
the parts of an army are men, who are held together by no means
whatever except that which discipline gives, and the men themselves
are far from rigid. In the nature of things it is impossible that
an army should be directed as perfectly as a ship. The rudder of a
ship is a mechanical appliance that can be depended upon to control
the direction of the ship absolutely, while an army has no such
a thing as a rudder, or anything to take its place. Again, the
rudder is only a few hundred feet from the helmsman, and the
communication between them, including the steering-engine itself,
is a strong reliable mechanism that has no counterpart in the army.

The control of the main engines of a ship is almost as absolute
as the control of the rudder; and the main engines are not only
much more powerful than the legs of soldiers, but they act together
in much greater harmony.

_Inherent Power of a Battleship_.--Possibly the declaration may be
accepted now t