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Government of the United States is not going to be imposed upon by
anybody, and you may rest assured, therefore, that while I believe you
prefer that private capital and private initiative should bestir
themselves in these matters, it is also possible, and I assure you that
it is most likely, that the Government of the United States will have
adequate means of controlling this matter very thoroughly indeed. There
need be no fear on that side. Let nobody suppose that this is a
money-making agitation. I would for one be ashamed to be such a dupe as
to be engaged in it if it had any suspicion of that about it, but I am
not as innocent as I look; and I believe that I can say for my
colleagues in Washington that they are just as watchful in such matters
as you would desire them to be.

And there is another misapprehension that I do not wish you to
entertain. Do not suppose that there is any new or sudden or recent
inadequacy on the part of this Government in respect of preparation for
national defense. I have heard some gentlemen say that we had no coast
defenses worth talking about. Coast defenses are not nowadays
advertised, you understand, and they are not visible to the naked eye,
so that if you passed them and nothing exploded, you would not know they
were there. The coast defenses of the United States, while not numerous
enough, are equipped in the most modern and efficient fashion. You are
told that there has been some sort of neglect about the Navy. There has
not been any sort of neglect about the Navy. We have been slowly
building up a Navy which in quality is second to no navy in the world.
The only thing it lacks is quantity. In size it is the fourth navy in
the world, though I have heard it said by some gentlemen in this very
region that it was the second. In fighting force, though not in quality,
it is reckoned by experts to be the fourth in rank in the world; and yet
when I go on board those ships and see their equipment and talk with
their officers I suspect that they could give an account of themselves
which would raise them above the fourth class. It reminds me of that
very quaint saying of the old darky preacher, "The Lord says unto Moses,
come fourth, and he came fifth and lost the race." But I think this Navy
would not come fourth in the race, but higher.

What we are proposing now is not the sudden creation of a Navy, for we
have a splendid Navy, but the definite working out of a program by which
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