ve always considered that the "right about" of policy came
with the administration of President Arthur, when Mr. Chandler was
Secretary of the Navy. It began with a work of destruction, an
exposure of the uselessness of the existing naval material, due purely
to stand-still; to being left hopelessly in the rear by the march of
improvement elsewhere. Upon this followed under the same
administration an attempt at restoration, gingerly enough in its
conceptions. The vessels laid down were cruisers, the primary quality
of which should be speed; but fourteen knots was the highest demanded,
and that of one only, the _Chicago_. Unhappily, wherever the fault
lay, the navy then had the habit of living from day to day on
expedients, on makeshifts. Although deficiencies were manifest and
generally felt, the prevailing sentiment had been that we should wait
until the experiments of other peoples, in the cost of which we would
not share, should have reached workable finalities. This is another
instance of what is commonly called "practical;" as though mental
processes must not necessarily antecede efficient action, and as
though there was not then at hand abundant data for brains to work on,
without any expenditure of money. Finality, indeed, had not been
reached, and never will be in anything save death; but at that time it
had been shown beyond peradventure that radically new conditions had
entered naval warfare, and clearly the first most practical step was a
mature official digestion of these conditions--a decision as to what
types of vessels were needed, and what their respective qualities
should be. In short, the first and perfectly possible thing was to
evolve a systematic policy; a careful look, and then a big leap.

However, things rarely come about in that way. It involves getting rid
of old ideas, which is quite as bad as pulling teeth, and much harder;
and the subsequent adoption of new ones, that are as uneasy as tight
shoes. We had then certain accepted maxims, dating mainly from 1812,
which were as thoroughly current in the country--and I fear in the
navy, too--as the "dollar of the daddies" was not long after. One was
that commerce destroying was the great efficient weapon of naval
warfare. Everybody--the navy as well--believed we had beaten Great
Britain in 1812, brought her to her knees, by the destruction of her
commerce through the system observed by us of single cruisers; naval
or privateers. From that erroneous