The United States Navy is the surest guarantor of peace which this country possesses.  It is earnestly to be wisht that we would profit by the teachings of history in this matter.  A strong and wise people will study its own failures no less than its triumphs, for there is wisdom to be learned from the study of both, of the mistake as well as of the success.  For this purpose nothing could be more instructive than a rational study of the war of 1812, as it is told, for instance, by Captain Mahan.  There was only one way in which that war could have been avoided.  If during the preceding twelve years a navy relatively as strong as that which this country now has had been built up, and an army provided relatively as good as that which the country now has, there never would have been the slightest necessity of fighting the war; and if the necessity had arisen the war would under such circumstances have ended with our speedy and overwhelming triumph.  But our people during those twelve years refused to make any preparations whatever, regarding either the Army or the Navy.  They saved a million or two of dollars by so doing; and in mere money paid a hundredfold for each million they thus saved during the three years of war which followed—­a war which brought untold suffering upon our people, which at one time threatened the gravest national disaster, and which, in spite of the necessity of waging it, resulted merely in what was in effect a drawn battle, while the balance of defeat and triumph was almost even.

I do not ask that we continue to increase our Navy.  I ask merely that it be maintained at its present strength; and this can be done only if we replace the obsolete and outworn ships by new and good ones, the equals of any afloat in any navy.  To stop building ships for one year means that for that year the Navy goes back instead of forward.  The old battle ship Texas, for instance, would now be of little service in a stand-up fight with a powerful adversary.  The old double-turret monitors have outworn their usefulness, while it was a waste of money to build the modern single-turret monitors.  All these ships should be replaced by others; and this can be done by a well-settled program of providing for the building each year of at least one first-class battle ship equal in size and speed to any that any nation is at the same time building; the armament presumably to consist of as large a number as possible of very heavy guns of one caliber, together with smaller guns to repel torpedo attack; while there should be heavy armor, turbine engines, and in short, every modern device.  Of course, from time to time, cruisers, colliers, torpedo-boat destroyers or torpedo boats, Will have to be built also.  All this, be it remembered, would not increase our Navy, but would merely keep it at its present strength.  Equally of course, the ships will be absolutely useless if the men aboard them are not so trained that they can get the best possible service out of the formidable but delicate