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Page 5
Whether they will or no, Americans must now begin to look outward. The
growing production of the country demands it. An increasing volume of
public sentiment demands it. The position of the United States, between
the two Old Worlds and the two great oceans, makes the same claim,
which will soon be strengthened by the creation of the new link joining
the Atlantic and Pacific. The tendency will be maintained and increased
by the growth of the European colonies in the Pacific, by the advancing
civilization of Japan, and by the rapid peopling of our Pacific States
with men who have all the aggressive spirit of the advanced line of
national progress. Nowhere does a vigorous foreign policy find more
favor than among the people west of the Rocky Mountains.
It has been said that, in our present state of unpreparedness, a
trans-isthmian canal will be a military disaster to the United States,
and especially to the Pacific coast. When the canal is finished, the
Atlantic seaboard will be neither more nor less exposed than it now is;
it will merely share with the country at large the increased danger of
foreign complications with inadequate means to meet them. The danger of
the Pacific coast will be greater by so much as the way between it and
Europe is shortened through a passage which the stronger maritime power
can control. The danger will lie not merely in the greater facility for
despatching a hostile squadron from Europe, but also in the fact that a
more powerful fleet than formerly can be maintained on that coast by a
European power, because it can be called home so much more promptly in
case of need. The greatest weakness of the Pacific ports, however, if
wisely met by our government, will go far to insure our naval
superiority there. The two chief centres, San Francisco and Puget
Sound, owing to the width and the great depth of the entrances, cannot
be effectively protected by torpedoes; and consequently, as fleets can
always pass batteries through an unobstructed channel, they cannot
obtain perfect security by means of fortifications only. Valuable as
such works will be to them, they must be further garrisoned by
coast-defence ships, whose part in repelling an enemy will be
co-ordinated with that of the batteries. The sphere of action of such
ships should not be permitted to extend far beyond the port to which
they are allotted, and of whose defence they form an essential part;
but within that sweep they will always be a powerful reinforcement to
the sea-going navy, when the strategic conditions of a war cause
hostilities to centre around their port. By sacrificing power to go
long distances, the coast-defence ship gains proportionate weight of
armor and guns; that is, of defensive and offensive strength. It
therefore adds an element of unique value to the fleet with which it
for a time acts. No foreign states, except Great Britain, have ports so
near our Pacific coast as to bring it within the radius of action of
their coast-defence ships; and it is very doubtful whether even Great
Britain will put such ships at Vancouver Island, the chief value of
which will be lost to her when the Canadian Pacific is severed,--a blow
always in the power of this country. It is upon our Atlantic seaboard
that the mistress of Halifax, of Bermuda, and of Jamaica will now
defend Vancouver and the Canadian Pacific. In the present state of our
seaboard defence she can do so absolutely. What is all Canada compared
with our exposed great cities? Even were the coast fortified, she still
could do so, if our navy be no stronger than is designed as yet. What
harm can we do Canada proportionate to the injury we should suffer by
the interruption of our coasting trade, and by a blockade of Boston,
New York, the Delaware, and the Chesapeake? Such a blockade Great
Britain certainly could make technically efficient, under the somewhat
loose definitions of international law. Neutrals would accept it as
such.
The military needs of the Pacific States, as well as their supreme
importance to the whole country, are yet a matter of the future, but of
a future so near that provision should begin immediately. To weigh
their importance, consider what influence in the Pacific would be
attributed to a nation comprising only the States of Washington,
Oregon, and California, when filled with such men as now people them
and still are pouring in, and which controlled such maritime centres as
San Francisco, Puget Sound, and the Columbia River. Can it be counted
less because they are bound by the ties of blood and close political
union to the great communities of the East? But such influence, to work
without jar and friction, requires underlying military readiness, like
the proverbial iron hand under the velvet glove. To provide this, three
things are needful: First, protection of the chief harbors, by
fortifications and coast-defence ships, which gives defensive strength,
provides security to the community within, and supplies the bases
necessary to all military operations. Secondly, naval force, the arm of
offensive power, which alone enables a country to extend its influence
outward. Thirdly, it should be an inviolable resolution of our national
policy, that no foreign state should henceforth acquire a coaling
position within three thousand miles of San Francisco,--a distance
which includes the Hawaiian and Galapagos islands and the coast of
Central America. For fuel is the life of modern naval war; it is the
food of the ship; without it the modern monsters of the deep die of
inanition. Around it, therefore, cluster some of the most important
considerations of naval strategy. In the Caribbean and in the Atlantic
we are confronted with many a foreign coal depot, bidding us stand to
our arms, even as Carthage bade Rome; but let us not acquiesce in an
addition to our dangers, a further diversion of our strength, by being
forestalled in the North Pacific.
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