. 
 
 
 

 
 UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA 
 AT LOS ANGELES 
 
 ROBERT ERNEST COWAN
 
 VIEWS 
 
 COMMODORE GEORGE W. MELVILLE, 
 
 (HUM K>T(.lXEETt OF THE XAVY, 
 
 AS TO 
 
 THK STRATEGIC AND COMMERCIAL VALUE OF Till- NtCARACI'AN 
 
 CANAL, THE 1'TiTRE CONTROL OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN, 
 
 THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF HAWAII, AND ITS 
 
 ANNEXATION TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 MKXT Pi 
 18'.
 
 VIEWS 
 
 OF 
 
 COMMODORE GEORGE W. MELVILLE, 
 
 CHIEF ENGINEEll OF THE NAVY, 
 
 AS TO 
 
 THE STRATEGIC AND COMMERCIAL VALUE OF THE NICARAGUAN 
 
 CANAL, THE FUTURE CONTROL OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN, 
 
 THE STRATEGIC VALUE OF HAWAII, AND ITS 
 
 ANNEXATION TO THE UNITED STATES. 
 
 WASHINGTON: 
 
 GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
 ' 1898.
 
 ~*J?Jj 
 
 U.A2.3 
 
 VIEWS OF COMMODORE GEORGE W. MELVILLE. 
 
 OUR FUTURE ON THE PACIFIC. 
 WHAT WE HAVE THERE TO HOLD AND WIN. 
 
 The closing years of the century seem to be, in all lands save our 
 own, years, not of war, but of a strenuous making ready for it. Alsace 
 and Loraine, the Eastern question in its many varied phases, and the 
 jealous rivalry as to colonies and dependencies, make continental 
 Europe but a camp, with more than 3,000,000 men constantly under 
 arms. England is yet quenching the flame of revolt which flashed 
 among the wild tribes of her Indian frontier; and, in the Soudan, too, 
 she is marching on. Spain drains her uttermost resources for Cuba's 
 fading tenure. In the far East, with China's sudden fall, the bal- 
 ance of power has been disturbed, and the throb of the war drum 
 seems not yet stilled but muffled only, until Korea's tale shall be fully 
 told. "There never was a time in the history of the world," General 
 Miles has said, "when so much energy, ingenuity, and wealth were 
 being expended to maintain large standing armies." 
 
 On the sea there sounds the same foreboding note. Great Britain, 
 despite her matchless naval array at the jubilee, will have under con- 
 struction during the present fiscal year over 100 vessels. France, with 
 many now building, will lay down others, aggregating 45,000 tons dis- 
 placement. Germany plans a modest increase in a battleship, some 
 gunboats, and torpedo craft ; but the Kaiser's eager insistance on a great 
 sea force is widely known. Russia silent, mysterious moves swiftly 
 in her upbuilding as a naval power, not only in armor clads, but in 
 cruisers of great steaming radius. Japan is executing a programme 
 which will give her navy a total addition of 200,000 tons. Even China, 
 whose ships went as sheep to the slaughter, dreams of a fleet, revived, 
 ami is said to be considering estimates for its creation. 
 
 Only the United States moves slowly, calm in the consciousness of 
 peace, although the Chilean and Venezuelan affairs, the undying strife 
 in Cuba at her doors, and the cloud, " the size of a man's hand," in 
 Hawaii, have given fearful warning that the "detached and distant 
 situation," of which Washington wrote, will shield her no longer from 
 international complication and, it may be, conflict. 
 
 THE MARINE ENGINE AND MODERN NAVAL STRATEGY. 
 
 It has been well said that "with the development of the marine 
 engine the sea unites rather than divides widely separated lands," and 
 to this it may be added that the swift progress of steam in marine pro- 
 pulsion has been a most potent factor in shaping the exterior policy of 
 maritime nations, and still more in modifying, not the principles, but 
 the scope and methods of naval strategy. 
 
 3 
 
 41H567
 
 On the land rails of steel traversing valley, plain, and mountain make 
 easy the path of the Hying express and the fast freight, which together 
 conquer time and distance in the binding into a homogeneous whole of 
 the many States which form a Republic almost continental in extent; 
 but the railroad is fixed, a permanent way, whose direction varies only 
 with new constructions. The sea, on the contrary, gives a track 
 fluid, mobile, universal which turns wherever swift prows may point, 
 and on which massive hulls, much too huge for any form of land transit, 
 may pass with ease from port to port. 
 
 Moreover, when in 1805 nine years after Washington wrote of 
 America's "distant situation" Xelson "chased half around the world 
 a French fleet nearly twice the force of his own, scared by the very 
 terror of his name," his fierce ardor fretted itself to fury with his ships, 
 which through a run of 7,000 miles of sea averaged but 93 miles a 
 day, or less than 4 knots an hour. 
 
 "Salt beef and the French fleet are better than roast beef and cham- 
 pagne without it," said the great Admiral in beginning his stern chase, 
 lie found that fleet, and with it death; but in the finding, through 
 those lagging months, while drifting or beating over those leagues of 
 sea, he must have felt to the full the limits which stinted the sea 
 power of his time. 
 
 Steam has changed all this. Over the same western ocean which 
 Kelson, bitterly impatient, crossed and recrossed so slowly in 1805, the 
 United States cruiser Columbia swept, ninety years later, at a speed of 
 18.41 knots per hour, or four and three-quarter times that of the ships 
 which, dull sailers though they may have been, were very sure and 
 deadly iu their work at Trafalgar. 
 
 This passage, in its sustained speed through such a distance, was not 
 only a triumph, yet unequaled, for American naval engineering it was 
 as well a flashing illumination of the strategic fact that America's isola- 
 tion, militarily, from European and Asian nations had diminished in 
 this age in most marked degree. While it is not yet possible for the 
 performance of the swift Columbia to be equaled in a trans- Atlantic run 
 by armored battle ships, it seems quite certain that Nelson's speed can 
 be increased nearly threefold, and that at this increased speed and 
 within two weeks a European fleet of any required strength could be 
 thrown upon our Atlantic coasts with one-third of its coal supply 
 remaining. 
 
 GEOGRAPHIC ISOLATION NOT A SAFEGUARD. 
 
 The geographic isolation, apparent or real, of any people has never 
 yet been respected by superior forces. It forms no sure guard when, in 
 peace or war, the nations of the earth come knocking at the door. 
 Ancient Peru peaceful, rich, un warlike was many leagues from Spain, 
 and between them the waves of two oceans rolled. Yet there came 
 Pizarro and his adventurers, soldiers less of Spain than of the lust of 
 gold. The Inca fell, and the land was stripped of its fatal wealth; its 
 people were enslaved, and in slaughter, torture, and rapine a noble 
 civilization perished. 
 
 In later times, China, arrogant and ignorant, learned, in a measure, 
 the same lesson. While her officials babbled of invading England over- 
 land through Russia, the war of 1840 was waged against her by the 
 people of that small island, parted from her by a hemisphere ; and that 
 war wrested Hongkong from her shore line, seized in indemnity 
 $21,000,000 from her treasury, and by force opened five of her ports to 
 the commerce of the world.
 
 These examples, it is true, come from the conflicts of higher civiliza- 
 tions with those differing from them more in kind than in degree; but the 
 world's annals arc not bare of similar illustrations from the wars of less 
 unequal toes. While in its ending our own story brought victory, not 
 defeat, it is yet well to remember that during the Revolution there were 
 landed in America nearly 50,000 foreign troops; that in lh<> war of 181U 
 British forces of nearly 25,000 men attacked the territory of the United 
 States; that her ports were blockaded, and that iu 1814 her Capitol was 
 burned. 
 
 If, then, it be admitted that the safeguard which the detached situa- 
 tion of the United States has given her grows weaker with every 
 advance in the methods of sea communications; if no more she watches 
 from afar, in security and peace, the growth and strife of over-sea peo- 
 ples as alien largely to her own interests and progress; if the "Titan of 
 the West "is no longer "behind a thousand leagues of foam secure, 1 ' 
 then it would appear to be the part, not only of national wisdom, but of 
 national salvation, to conserve and fortify that which remains to her of 
 advantage in location by adequate coast defenses, by a powerful fleet, 
 and by the occupation as opportunity shall come of outlying islands, 
 her shore line's frontier posts. 
 
 WEALTH OF THE PACIFIC STATES. 
 
 " Imperial in extent and of extraordinary growth," so said James G. 
 Elaine, in 1881, of our possessions on the Pacific coast, adding that the 
 territory dependent on that ocean for commercial outlet comprised "an 
 area of nearly 800,000 square miles, larger iu extent than the German 
 Empire and the four Latin countries of Europe combined.'' 
 
 These strong words find but emphasis and amplification in the strik- 
 ing discussion of our national statistics presented recently in the North 
 American Keview by Mr. Michael G. Mulhall, F. S. S., of England. 
 The total wealth, in the year 1890, of the eleven States included by him 
 in the Pacific group, he gives as 0,811 millions of dollars, or $2,31*8 per 
 inhabitant. With but (> per cent of the population of the Union, they 
 hold 10 per cent of its wealth. Their railway mileage is greater than 
 that "of any European state except France or Germany, and their wealth 
 exceeds that of Sweden, Norway, and Denmark, in the aggregate." 
 
 While, during the forty-four years ending with 1893, they produced 
 nearly 2,400 tons of gold and over 30,000 tons of silver, having a total 
 value of nearly 3,000 millions of dollars, analysis shows that these 
 States are not mining camps, and that their swift growth dates not 
 from the days of '49 but from the year 1870. At that time their pos- 
 sessions were valued at 727 millions of dollars. During the two 
 decades which followed their wealth increased ninefold, to the magnifi- 
 cent total already stated, of which mining properties form but 8 per 
 cent. 
 
 Of profound importance is the fact that the richest portion of this 
 territory is that which is most exposed to blockade, raids, bombard- 
 ment, and the lossep and suffering which attend warfare or invasion 
 from the sea. Three only of these eleven States lie upon the coast 
 California, Oregon, and Washington; and these three hold, of the total 
 wealth of the group, 57 per cent, or 3,885 millions of dollars; 2,534 of 
 the millions are the share of California, the "isle of many jewels an'd 
 much gold "of the old Spanish romance a title which seems hardly 
 apt, since, while her mines are valued at 83 millions of dollars, her 
 buildings and farms reach 1,740 millions, owing, doubtless, to a soil
 
 and climate which give her vineyards of 30,000 acres and fruit gardens 
 the most extensive and productive in the Union. 
 
 The slender share which the United States has won thus far in trans- 
 pacific trade is shown by the fact that, although San Francisco is the 
 seventh city of the Union in population, there passed through the 
 Golden Gate in the year ending June 30, 1890, but 4.39 per cent of our 
 total import and export trade, with shipping entries of 1,200,000 tons. 
 The Pacific coast as a whole is credited with a share of this total trade, 
 amounting, during the year as above, to 5.69 per cent. 
 
 ALASKA. 
 
 Linked far more with the future than with the present of the Union 
 is the Territory of Alaska, Al ak-shak, "the great laud" of the abo- 
 rigines. Purchased from Kussia in 1867 for 7J millions of dollars, this 
 Territory, for long years discredited, bids fair to repeat, in part, the 
 history of California, and, from the products of its mines alone, to 
 repay many times over its relatively trifling cost. Years, not distant 
 but at hand, will more than vindicate the. judgment and foreknowledge 
 of the great Secretary, whose name will live in the history of the wide 
 lands he acquired in the far north. 
 
 With an area including those of its coast islands and the Aleutian 
 Archipelago of 580,170 square miles, Alaska is nearly six and one-half 
 times the size of the States of New York and Pennsylvania combined. 
 On Bering Sea and the Arctic and Pacific oceans it has a coast line 
 of 4,750 statute miles. The perennial friction over its seal fisheries 
 clouds the worth of other resources far more valuable. In its wide- 
 spreading forests of cedar, pine, hemlock, and fir there is a world's 
 supply to draw on when other sections fail, while its catch of salmon, 
 cod, and other food-fishes is, in amount and quality, unexcelled, if 
 equaled, elsewhere. 
 
 Alaska is, in effect, an over-sea province, separated from the Union 
 not only by British Columbia, but in great part by a long stretch of 
 ocean. Excluding the narrow strip along the coast of the continent, 
 the air-line distance from San Francisco to the nearest point of its com- 
 pact area is -fully as great as that to the Hawaiian Islands, or over 
 2,000 miles. To Atton, the farthest island of the Aleutian group, this 
 distance is doubled. The development and protection of this imposing 
 and most valuable territory will give problems for the future far from 
 easy of solution. 
 
 THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE PACIFIC OCEAN. 
 
 As with the Pacific States, the development of the vast ocean which 
 they confront, the largest and noblest body of water on the globe, has 
 been not slow and lingering, but almost wholly deferred until a recent 
 period. To the comparative inaccessibility of its seas the long waiting 
 must be ascribed in great degree. It can not be doubted that if nature 
 had but cleft a waterway through the American isthmus, the growth 
 of the Pacific to the northeast and the south would have begun almost 
 with the coining of Columbus. 
 
 But this was not to be. Barred on the southeast by the stormy 
 terrors of Cape Horn, its northern portals were blocked, seemingly for 
 all time, by the polar floes. More than two hundred attempts were 
 made to double the Arctic coast of America before Franklin's men laid 
 down their lives in " forging the last link of the Northwest Passage." 
 
 The Northeast Passage has a story, not so continuous, but lacking
 
 not one whit in the fortitude and daring of the stern seamen who there 
 C--.;IY <! the Arctic Highway, whose lofty purpose held "either to bring 
 that to pass which was intended, or else to die the death." Sir 
 Hugh Willonghby, in 1553, led the van, sailing for those unknown seas 
 to tind, not the passage, but slow death in the White North. It was 
 left ior Nordenskiold, nearly four centuries later, to complete the task 
 begun by that heroic sailor. 
 
 And so, through the ages, the eastern and southern Pacific slept on 
 in primeval peace, its dark waves unvexed by any alien keel, while to 
 the westward empires, kingdoms, and republics rose and fell. \Vith 
 the dawn of the modern era there sailed the Genoese dreaming but 
 prophetic "to add a new hemisphere to our globe ;" and in 1513, from 
 the peak in Darien, Balboa, the conquistador, looked on the unknown 
 ocean. Eight years later Magellan passed through his fog -en shrouded 
 straits and a European keel first cleft its waters. Through the labors 
 of those who followed from Drake to Vancouver, but most notably 
 of Cook the work of discovery, and to some extent of colonization, 
 went on. 
 
 Progress, however, was so slow that, in the year 1830, it was esti- 
 mated that there were not more than 5(H) men of Anglo-Saxon race 
 west of the Sierra Nevada on the continental shore ; much of the island 
 territory of the South Seas was little known and yet unclaimed, and 
 as to Australia, not until 1845 was there dispelled the error that there 
 existed within its borders a great inland sea. 
 
 Within a decade or little more, however, the full awakening of the 
 Pacific seems to have come. The outward surge of the nations of the 
 Old W T orld, so marked in its effects upon the African continent, has 
 sent as well waves of unrest over the placid ocean, which have broken 
 on the shores of its uttermost island. Long ago, W 7 illiam H. Seward, 
 in addressing the United States Senate, said, as to the commerce, poli- 
 tics, thought, and activities of Europe, that they would "ultimately 
 sink in importance, while the Pacific Ocean, its shores, its islands, and 
 the vast regions beyond, will become the chief theater of events in the 
 world's great hereafter." 
 
 Realization, more or less full, of this seems to have created, as to the 
 southern Pacific, in these recent years, a feverish hunger for island 
 territory, whose ravenous desire fails only with that on which it feeds. 
 In 1885 Germany (whose greed for Samoa has been so open and so 
 strong) annexed the great Marshall group, midway between the Aus- 
 tralian steamship lines from British Columbia and the possible Asian 
 lines of the future from the Isthmus; France added to her large pos- 
 sessions in New Caledonia and the Society Islands by taking the Mar- 
 quesas Islands and the Low Archipelago; and Great Britain has 
 declared protectorates over island after island and group after group 
 the Gilbert, Ellice, Phoenix, and many others all on, or near and flank- 
 ing, her steam routes from British Columbia to Australia and New 
 Zealand. Her flag thus floats over most of the territory of the southern 
 Pacific, and is seen as far north as Johnston Island, 600 miles from 
 Hawaii. 
 
 Only the United States has stood aloof, holding Samoa with reluc- 
 tant hand and turning wholly from Hawaii, while other nations have 
 acquired territoryin those waters which covers and guards the commerce 
 of the coming years. " While we have been talking in our sleep about 
 Hawaii," a keen observer notes, "England has occupied and possessed 
 a score of islands in the greatest of the oceans." There may come a 
 time when the sons of a Greater United States will deplore, as slum-
 
 8 
 
 / 
 
 brous unwisdom, the policy of to-day, since, in a commercial and 
 strategic sense, Ultima Thule itself would seem to Lave been seized in 
 the South Seas. 
 
 In striking array, the Hon. John R. Procter has marshaled the politi- 
 cal changes that have come, in these recent years, to Pacific and 
 Indian shores and islands, with their potent effects on the patr which 
 the great ocean, its lands and peoples, shall play hereafter in the world- 
 wide drama of inter national life and strife. He has said: 
 
 The presence of Russia in the Far East and the possibility of a combination 
 between Russia and China, followed by the awakening of China from her sleep of 
 centuries; the extension of French dominion in Indo-China, Slant, and Madagascar; 
 the partitioning of Africa and the islands of the Pacific among European Powers; 
 the industrial growth of Japan and her entrance into the family of nations as a great 
 naval and military power; tho completion of the great military highways from Hali- 
 fax to Vancouver and from St. Petersburg to Vladivostock; the rapid peopling of 
 British Columbia and our North Pacific States and of the Amur and Manchuria dis- 
 tricts, all tend to change the front of the world and to transfer to the placid Pacific 
 the national activities which for three centuries past have rendered the Atlantic the 
 theater of stirring events. 
 
 On the shores of such an ocean, confronting such a future, there 
 stands the vanguard of our Pacific States, the stately advance of that 
 Western domain imperial, truly, in its extent, its present wealth, and 
 its potentiality of riches beyond the dreams of to-day which the 
 Eepublic, its statesmen, its fleets and armies, can not guard too well. 
 With unstinted possibilities of progress that future holds, for it and for 
 the nation, the dangers of contact and of conflict on this ocean with 
 powers, old or new in the world's history, whose political or commercial 
 interests the swift changes of the years make antagonistic to our own. 
 
 DEFENSES OF THE PACIFIC COAST. 
 
 During the early days of the civil war the isolated and unprotected 
 condition of the Pacific States aroused fear for their safety, in the then 
 possible event of intervention, in that conflict, by European powers. 
 For a generation a transcontinental railway had been under intermit- 
 tent d iscussion, and the possible danger of attack in the West gave the 
 matter definite shape in the passage, in 1862, of an act which, with its 
 later amendments, offered Government aid of a most generous char- 
 acter in the building of such a road. 
 
 A broad right of way was given through the national domain, with 
 ample grants of public lands, and with the issuance to the company of 
 Government bonds to a large amount reaching, in some cases, $48,000 
 per mile in exchange for second mortgage bonds of the road. Thus, 
 through the vital necessities of defense in the stormy years of war, there 
 was born the movement which ended in the building, with unstinted 
 national expenditure, of the Union Pacific Railroad, whose last spike 
 was driven in 1869. 
 
 The facilities now offered for the transportation of troops would seem 
 to render improbable the successful invasion by land of the Pacific 
 States. Doctrines formulated in the early days of the Republic still 
 hold in keeping the army of the United States low in numbers, although 
 not in efficiency. Back of it, there stand, however, a militia of 112,000, 
 with a force, unorganized but available, of over 10,000,000 men, capable 
 of bearing arms. The three coast States have a total militia of about 
 6,100, and California alone has, in addition, 205,000 men, available but 
 unorganized. From continental foes, the Pacific group would seem, 
 eventually, to be secure, although the absence of a large force of trained 
 soldiery might be felt in the first actions of a sudden wrr.
 
 Witli the shore line and the sea, however, different conditions are 
 presented. According to the authorities of the Coast Survey, the 
 Atlantic seaboard is '2,043 statute miles in length, the. (iiilf coast l.^.vj 
 miles, and the "J'acific coast line, i'rom the .Mexican boundary to the 
 Si rait of Fuca, including the straits of Race Rock Lights, is 1,810 miles." 
 Excluding Alaska, then, the rich territory on the Pacific is bounded 
 by one-third of our total shore line; and upon tins coast, exposed 
 directly to bombardment from the sea, there are four large cities. To 
 a very recent date, at least, the defenses have comprised bat obsolete 
 works at San Diego, San Francisco, and the mouth of the Columbia 
 River. 
 
 It is true that the Board of Ordnance and Fortification has pre- 
 sented estimates, aggregating nearly $3,000,000, for guns, emplace- 
 ments, and barracks at the points named, with Puget Sound in addition ; 
 but this material forms only a fraction of the 500 high-powered guns, 
 1,000 mortars, 300 rapid-fire guns, and 0,000 submarine mines now 
 under construction for the protection of nearly 25 harbors on the 
 three coasts. It is stated that not more than one-half of the total 
 number of guns will be in place by the summer of 1898; and, with the 
 pressing demands of the Atlantic and the Gulf, it is to be presumed 
 that the West will be given no precedence. 
 
 Again, to man the whole of these seacoast batteries, the present 
 artillery force must be strengthened by the enlistment and training 
 the latter a work of time of not less than 7,500 men as a skeleton 
 organization in peace, to be increased to probably 30,000 in war. It 
 would seem, then, that the defenses of even the four main points of the 
 Pacific coast are wholly inadequate and are likely to remain so for a 
 considerable period, while in the end the many vulnerable positions 
 remaining on that extended shore line beyond the tire of these fortifi- 
 cations will be indefensible save by a fleet. 
 
 Long ago, for England, Sir Walter Raleigh laid down her true policy 
 of defense, a policy which succeeding generations sometimes remem- 
 bered, sometimes forgot, as the years passed, but which she has reaf- 
 firmed most significantly as the century draws to a close. Not for 
 world-empire nor for commerce defense only has she -doubled her navy 
 in personnel and material and more than quadrupled it in warlike effi- 
 ciency during eleven years of the profoundest peace the world ever saw." 
 in his Historic of the World, Sir Walter says: 
 
 But. making the question general, the positive, "Whether England, without the 
 help of her fleet, be able to debar an enemy from landing,'' I hold that it is unable to 
 do so, and therefore 1 think it most dangerous to make the adventure. 
 
 Again, the Duke of Wellington, in writing Sir John Burgoyne as to 
 the English coast from North Foreland to Portsmouth, said that 
 
 Excepting immediately under the fire of Dover Castle, there is not a spot on the 
 coast on which infantry might not be thrown on shore at any time of tide, with any 
 wind, and in any weather; * * * that, in that space of coast, there are not loss 
 than seven small harbors, or mouths of rivers, each without defense, of which an 
 enemy, having landed his infantry on the coast, might take possession, and therein 
 land ins cavalry and artillery of all caliber and establish himself and his communi- 
 cations with France. 
 
 If this be possible in England, with her compact territory guarded 
 by stormy seas, and despite her 250,000 available combatants outside 
 of the garrisons, providing only that the command of the sea be lost for 
 the time, it may safely be said that, with a fleet, weak, absent, or 
 defeated, the long stretch of Pacific shore must afford not a few vulner- 
 able points, far from the great centers, susceptible of easy seizure by
 
 10 
 
 hostile ships, and capable of efficient defense by their forces while used 
 as a base for naval operations on the coast. Under these conditions 
 enormous damage might be intiicted by one or two powerful squadrons 
 unopposed upon the sea. 
 
 The fleet is, then, an element of the utmost importance to the defense 
 of what Mahan calls " our weakest frontier, the Pacific." At the begin- 
 ning of the present year the United States had on the western coast 
 9 vessels, aggregating 35,141 tons displacement, and across the 
 Pacific, in Asian seas, 5 more of 13,846 tons a total force of 14 modern 
 vessels of 40,987 tons. Reenforcements to this fleet from the Atlantic 
 coast could reach California only in about ninety days or more from 
 New York, allowing for necessary stops en route, and after steaming 
 through more than 14,000 miles in waters on which the United States 
 has not one station for supplying and refitting vessels. The time, the 
 distance, and the probable difficulty of coaling in foreign ports after 
 hostilities shall have begun practically prohibit relief in the swift com- 
 iug of modern war. 
 
 Japan has at this time a fleet, building and built the latter almost 
 wholly of 48 vessels, aggregating 173,057 tons, excluding torpedo 
 craft. Great Britain, at the close of last year, had stationed in her 
 Pacific, Australian, and China squadrons a total of 41 vessels of 97,200 
 tons. The Siberian fleet of Russia at that time comprised 13 cruisers 
 and 6 torpedo boats, to which should be added the ships from the 
 Cronstadt station doing duty in Pacific waters. 
 
 It will be seen that, with this great and defenseless coast to watch, 
 the United States has there on guard a modern war tonnage equal only 
 to about one hall that of Great Britain in this ocean and to about 28 
 per cent that of Japan. It is true that the comparison is but general; 
 that many of these foreign ships are small; that a long stretch of the 
 Pacific parts many from our shores, and that other conditions would 
 prevent the dispatch, by either nation, of more than a portion as attack- 
 ing Meets. 
 
 On the other hand, behind Great Britain's squadron lies a limitless 
 reserve, and from Esquimault, if she could hold that fortress, or from 
 Hawaii, if she could take the islands, she could throw a fully equipped 
 fleet on this coast. Of Japan, granting her Hawaii, this is true also; 
 and since the naval strength of that young giantess among nations 
 grows faster than the virile locks of the blind Samson, her power 
 although surely not her will for attack, increases with every passing 
 day. 
 
 With a fleet so weak that it can neither command the sea nor defend 
 fitly its coast, the strides which steam has made in the methods of sea 
 communication gives a gravity, without precedent hitherto, to the 
 danger of maritime invasion. Unobstructed on the ocean, Spain, 
 although poor in money and weak in military power, has yet been able 
 to transport, in less than eighteen months, across 3,000 miles of sea, 
 nearly 190,000 troops to Cuban shores a feat without parallel or 
 approach in the annals of modern war. 
 
 This object lesson, still in full view, gives for the future added 
 force to the question put by Murat Halstead: 
 
 What will happen if the Asiatic redundant population, instead of moving west- 
 ward and finding land in Europe, as they did thousands of years ago, should turn 
 eastward and contest with us the American shores of the Pacific ? 
 
 In reviewing the defenses, ashore and afloat, of the Pacific coast, it 
 would seem that in the past the action of the nation has been gov- 
 erned in this as fbt a generation in many military matters by a
 
 11 
 
 spirit of self-confidence, of easy optimism, which would he warranted 
 only it' "the battle llags were furled' lor all time. Ntival and military 
 authorities have done their utmost with the forces at their command. 
 "We, the people," alone are at fault. 
 
 "To provide for the common defence" was one of the purposes for 
 which our fathers ordained and established the Constitution. This 
 purpose seems here to have failed of full execution in coast defenses, 
 in the fleet, and in the past refusal of Hawa.i, the island outpost of 
 this shore. 
 
 ( 'aptain Scriven, U. S. A., writing in 1894, contrasts national con- 
 fidence with actual conditions, thus: 
 
 \Ve have fought the great war of modern times. We have had millions of 
 under arms in tlie field. Our military power on hind is without limit; therefore we 
 are unconquerable such is the reasoning. Hut we forget that the United States 
 is. liy nature and hy neglect, one of the most vulnerable nations of the world, and 
 that no great power has so vast an extent of frontier exposed to the attack of an 
 enemy. 
 
 It should be remembered, too, that this war cost half a million lives, 
 a direct outlay of 2,(>7.~> millions of dollars, and a great pension list 
 which now, more than thirty years after, reaches 140 millions a debt 
 which the nation pays in thankfulness, not only to the fading ranks 
 of war- worn men, n ;w maimed and old, who marched to the music of 
 the Republic's battle hymn and spent their blood like water for the 
 flag, but to the kin of many another who, on sea or land, gave for 
 that flag even life itself, and now sleeps in peace beneath the Southern 
 pines or in the silent depths of the dark sea. 
 
 But how much of this was necessary? What blood and treasure 
 were spent in vain through lack of preparation, of war material, of a 
 trained personnel in such land actions as the first Bull Run, or such 
 sea tights as that between wooden frigates and the ironclad. Merrimackf 
 
 OUR COMMERCE ON THE PACIFIC. 
 
 The United States has a further interest than defense alone in the 
 Pacific, its islands, and its distant shores. We have, as has been 
 shown, a territory dependent on that ocean for commercial outlet of 
 800,000 square miles, larger than the combined area of the German 
 Empire, France, Italy, Spain, and Portugal; while the wide expansion 
 of the transcontinental railroad system and the probable completion, 
 in early years, of the Nicaraguan Canal give other States as well 
 interests of grave importance in Pacific and Asian commerce. 
 
 With fertile soil, improved methods of agriculture, and appliances 
 as a whole, without equal for manufacturing, the United States, 
 despite its home market, whose demand stirs the envy of the world, 
 has much to spare for other lands. The exports of domestic merchan- 
 dise for August, 1897, were valued at 79 millions of dollars. During 
 the year ending June 30, 1800, the exports include of domestic mer- 
 chandise, 8G3 millions; of breadstuff's, 141 millions; of provisions, etc., 
 131; | millions; and of cotton, unmanufactured, 190 millions. 
 
 The wealth of the United States exceeds that of the Tnited Kingdom 
 by 20 billions of dollars, and it increases at a rate hitherto unknown to 
 history. The growth in manufacturing may be judged from the advance 
 in the amount of manufactured products sent abroad. In the year 
 ending June 30, 1894, these products formed 21.14 per cent of the total 
 exports; in that ending June 30, 1896, their proportion was 2(J.47 per 
 cent, and they aggregated in value about 228 millions of dollars.
 
 12 
 
 Agriculture gives not only an enormous total production, but that 
 production is obtained, through improved machinery, by a minimum of 
 human labor so low as almost to forbid comparison with the methods of 
 Europe. There is yet, also, a vast acreage untilled, the Pacific States 
 alone, 11 in number, having but 6 per cent of their area under cultiva- 
 tion. Mulhall states that the aggregate energy, in foot-tons, of France, 
 Germany, and Great Britain is almost exceeded by that of the United 
 States, and says further, as to agriculture, that the labor of each farm 
 hand throughout the Union is equivalent to a production of 14 tons of 
 grain, and in the Pacific States to 30 tons. The average per hand is 
 thus fully eight times that of Europe. 
 
 The extent of and the possibilities for America in the markets to the 
 westward of her shores are indicated by the Hon. John K. Procter 
 when he says: 
 
 More than one-half the population of the world is in countries fronting the 
 Pacific and Indian oceans. The foreign commerce of the countries bordering these 
 oceans, excluding North America, already amounts to over 2 billions of dollars a 
 year. * * * The time is approaching when the cotton growers of the South, the 
 wheat growers of the West, the meat producers of our plains, and manufacturers 
 and wage-earners all over our land will realize that exclusion from Asian markets 
 will be disastrous to their best interests. 
 
 As has been stated, but 5.69 per cent of the total import and export 
 trade of the United States passes through Pacific ports, which in 
 itself gives indication of our feeble interest in the markets of Aus- 
 tralasia and the Orient. While the commerce between these regions 
 and both (toasts of the United States is considerable, it forms but a 
 fraction of their vast foreign trade. 
 
 China alone imports yearly goods valued at nearly 130 millions of 
 dollars; the imports of Japan amount to 138 million yen; those of 
 British Australasia to 51 million pounds sterling and so this world 
 trade mounts. While to Asia, during the year ending June 30, 1896, 
 we sent but 25 million dollars' worth ; to Oceanica but 17 millions' 
 worth, and to Africa less than 14 millions' worth the total exports to 
 these countries reaching thus but 56 millions of dollars, diminutive, 
 indeed, for countries whose foreign trade is 2 billions. 
 
 There seems no doubt that with the growing production of the 
 United States and its swelling tide of exports a traffic, steadily aug- 
 menting, will How from her western shores to the littoral of the Orient, 
 to Australia, and to the Pacific islands. In this commerce the Atlantic 
 seaboard will doubtless share largely with the opening of the water- 
 way which will transform the Niearaguan isthmus into an ocean cross- 
 roads, where the East and the West shall meet. 
 
 OUB SHIPPING ON THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Closely allied with the future commercial interests of the United 
 States on the Pacific should be the revival of its shipping, an industry 
 whose decadence is, at once, a source of loss and of reproach. In the 
 steady, if not swift, growth of our interests in the markets of that 
 ocean, with the comparatively sudden leap in our over-sea trade which 
 the Isthmian canal may bring, it seems impossible that there shall con- 
 tinue the deplorable conditions now existing in transoceanic service. 
 
 The Commissioner of Navigation, in his report for 1897, gives the 
 registry for foreign trade as less than 800,000 gross tons the lowest 
 record since 1841. We have now a foreign commerce over seven times as 
 great as in 1846, while our shipping in the traffic oversea is but about 
 eight tenths the tonnage thus employed in that year. To Great 
 Britain, mainly, there accrue the profits froih the express and freight 
 service of the oceans.
 
 13 
 
 / 
 
 Without reference to that which might be gained by a powerful 
 American marine in service between foreign countries, the magnitude 
 of the drain upon national resources, for the carriage of our own sales 
 and purchases, should impel action for relief. Of this enormous loss 
 Senator Elkins has said: "The United States pays $500,000 per day, 
 or nearly $3 per capita per annum, to foreign shipowners for carrying 
 what its people sell and buy," and a competent authority estimates 
 further the amount lost annually in freight and passenger tolls and in 
 the industrial increment represented by the necessary shipbuilding as 
 over $300,000,000. 
 
 Before the days of iron hulls and before the Alabama and her con- 
 sorts had left ruin in their wake, the United States showed its power 
 to compete successfully on the ocean with the carriers of the world. 
 The noble vessels of the new naval fleet, the steamers superb, if but 
 few built for trans- Atlantic traffic, and the growth of shipbuilding on 
 the Great Lakes, all show that our artisans have not lost their former 
 skill. 
 
 On the lakes especially, the expansion of commerce has been swift 
 and large. The tonnage which goes through the St. Mary's Canal is 
 nearly twice that of Suez; although, with this, it should be remem- 
 bered that the average length of the passages made by steamers 
 through the latter is sixty days, while through the former it is but 
 six. During the year ending June 30, 1897, there were documented for 
 lake service 1.4 million tons of shipping, an increase of about 100 per 
 cent within a" decade. In that period, also, tho cost per ton (dead 
 weight ability) of large steamers has fallen more than 50 per cent in 
 the lake shipyards; and there are now afloat fully a score of vessels of 
 8,500 tons displacement. The lake tonnage built during the last fiscal 
 year exceeded that of all other sections combined. 
 
 The triumphs of the merchant marine of the old days, which bore 
 our flag on every sea, and the great and growing fleet, constructed and 
 employed at home, in lake and coastwise traffic, show, despite our 
 meager tonnage in the foreign trade, that shipbuilding and ship owning 
 are not exotic industries in the United States. It can not be, then, that 
 the nation will long delay in taking again that high place on the sea 
 from which, for a generation, it has turned to develop the lands, the 
 manufactures, and the markets of half a continent. The coming years 
 should see not only a vast commerce on the Pacific, to and from our 
 shores, but, as well, a merchant marine, flying our flag, traversing every 
 highway of that ocean a great fleet which the nation by wise laws 
 should foster and strengthen, and, by its armed forces afloat, should 
 lead and guard. 
 
 But little more than a century has gone by since, on the winter wind 
 at Valley Forge, there streamed a ragged flag, the star of hope to the 
 stern soldiery, whose bare and bleeding feet reddened the snow, as 
 they guarded it there. In the generations that have passed, that 
 flag with the clustering memories, not only of victory by land and 
 sea, but of many a year of happy peace has swept from ocean to 
 ocean. 
 
 Shall a noble destiny lead it still farther on, as 
 
 Bright on the banner of lily and rose, 
 I.o, the last sun of our century sets? 
 
 Shall its purpose hold, to follow the pathway of the stars, "to sail 
 beyond the sunset," and floating over Hawaii, in mid-Pacific to 
 guard the golden shore of the Kepublic, and to win a new glory on that 
 wide sea?
 
 14 
 
 THE STRATEGIC VALUE OP HAWAII. 
 
 "The possibility of the superior naval force controlling the open 
 S ea either for facilitating its own marches across it for descent upon 
 the laud, or for preventing such descents by the inferior naval force 
 has assuredly grown and developed into probability and certainty by 
 every improvement in the capacity of the ships to proceed over the sea 
 and to maintain any given position on it" thus Vice- Admiral Colomb, 
 R. X., a strategic authority, writes of the speed, range of action, and 
 seaworthiness of modern war fleets. 
 
 The vast shore line of the United States, the magnitude of the pres- 
 ent and potential wealth there exposed, the, as yet, limited coast 
 defenses, and the weakness, relatively to those of the great maritime 
 powers, of the American fleet, all combine to make of vital moment to 
 the Eepublic the march of improvement in warship design, which, while 
 these conditions prevail, forms an ever-growing menace from beyond 
 the seas. 
 
 In his further statement that " command of the sea is the only real 
 defense for territory which can be captured by expeditions over it," 
 Admiral Colomb but affirms the teaching of Raleigh and of many a 
 statesman and seaman since Sir Walter's day. While it can scarcely 
 be said that the territory of the United States is susceptible to the 
 extremity of permanent "capture" in naval war, the nation's widely 
 extended boundaries on both oceans render it, of all great powers, the 
 most vulnerable to lesser degrees of maritime attack. 
 
 On the Atlantic and Gulf frontiers, the lo'ng chain of foreign naval 
 bases, from Halifax to the Caribbean and within striking distance of 
 the coast, will make that sure defense, the control of the sea, something 
 to be bitterly fought for when war shall come. The Pacific, as yet, is 
 free from these adverse conditions. The geographical distribution of 
 island territory there, and the wholly possible acquirement of that which 
 is essential, would seem to place the safeguard of sea command within 
 the reach of the United States, to be grasped now, with the Hawaiian 
 Islands, or, with their rejection, to be had again only by war and conquest. 
 
 OUR PARAMOUNT RIGHT IN THE NORTH PACIFIC. 
 
 The Pacific Ocean is an expanse of magnificent distances. Over the 
 lands of no empire, the ''barren foam" of DO sea, can oue traverse so 
 many leagues without crossing the border, as upon its waters. Its area 
 is two-fifths that of the whole surface of the globe and more than two 
 and one-third times that of the Atlantic, with all its tributary seas. In 
 the distribution of the land within its limits, the Pacific presents 
 marked contrasts. Its southwestern area is a vast and tangled cluster 
 of islets, islands, and archipelagoes, culminating in continental Aus- 
 tralia; its eastern and northern portions are but an ocean desert, where 
 "gloom the dark, broad seas" alone, save for such far oases as Hawaii. 
 
 Conquest, treaty, and an imperial purchase have given the United 
 States a position, clearly paramount, on the northern Pacific. The 
 boundaries of the Republic reach so far across these waters that 
 between eastern Maine at one extremity to the farthest of the Aleutians 
 at the other the geographic center of its territory lies westward of the 
 Golden Gate. The Pacific States have a seaboard equal to that of the 
 Gulf, and but one-tenth less than that of the Atlantic; while Alaska 
 and the islands have a coast line more than eight-tenths that of all 
 these three combined.
 
 15 
 
 From the southern limit of California at 32 28' north, this ocean is, 
 on its eastern and northern sides, bounded by American territory, con- 
 tinental or islaudic, unbroken save by the short link of British Colum- 
 bian coast, and reaching through nearly three-fourths the longitude 
 from California to Japan. 
 
 It would seem, then, that the North Pacific is, in effect, an American 
 Ocean, and that the United States should hold, in nature's fee simple, 
 the title to a sphere of influence there, to a paramount control. This 
 right is not tangible in law, nor recogni/able by treaty, but it is yet 
 inherent through the possession of an imperial territory which bounds, 
 almost wholly, these northern waters, which looks to them for commer- 
 cial outlet, and which, from them, is susceptible to attack in war. 
 
 THE STRATEGIC POSITION OF HAWAII. 
 
 If this long stretch of coast and archipelago be taken as a vast. 
 although irregular,' curve, struck when the world was new, we see the 
 volcanic peaks which form the Hawaiian group, rising, out in the open 
 ocean, at the center of this primeval circle. They stand directly south 
 of Alaska's greater area and southwest of Caliloruia, confronting and 
 commanding both and all the intervening shore. Between them and 
 these lands there lie no further islands to bridge a passage or give 
 shelter or support to friend or foe. Alone, with neither peer nor rival, 
 they watch, as nature's fortress of these seas. 
 
 There are twelve principal islands in the group, eight of which are 
 inhabited. They lie between the parallels of 18 50' and 1*3 5' north, 
 and the meridians of 154 40' and 101 50' west from Greenwich. 
 Measuring roughly in longitude, they are distant from California about 
 two fifths the space between it and Japan and about one-third that 
 between it and Hongkong. They lie nearly midway between Hong- 
 kong and Panama. 
 
 Jomini, a very high authority on the art of war, defines a position 
 which is "a center of communication" as a geographical strategic 
 point, adding that if through its possession control is given " Of the 
 center of the chief lines of communication" of the area to be fought 
 for the position is "decisive." It would appear that with regard to 
 the North Pacific and its boundaries this group fulfills signally these 
 conditions. 
 
 There are now seven steamship lines crossing the Pacific from United 
 States and British Columbian ports to China, Japan, and Australia, 
 and to six of these Honolulu is a port of call. It is directly on the 
 shortest line between British Columbia and Sydney, Australia, and on 
 that between the Isthmus of Nicaragua and Shanghai, China, and is 
 very near to those connecting British Columbia and Auckland, New 
 Zealand, the Isthmus and Yokohama, and the Isthmus and Hongkong. 
 
 While Honolulu does not lie in the direct route from San Frain -isro 
 to Yokohama, it is but 9;10 miles from it, thus Hanking it at a distance 
 which a swift cruiser of the Columbia class will traverse i u less than forty - 
 eight hours. As a whole, it may be said of Hawaii that it controls 
 fully these vital lines of communication and answers in marked degree 
 the requisites prescribed by Jomini for a decisive stragetic point, one, 
 indeed, of far-reaching dominion as "the gateway and tollgate of the 
 water roads to China, Japan, the Indies, the Orient," from North 
 America and from the Isthmus, with, as well, the highway from Canada 
 to Australasia. 
 
 It may be urged, however, that the ocean is but a trackless waste;
 
 16 
 
 that, on its surface, lines of travel are unstinted in their course; 
 that, with war, these great water routes would change. This in but 
 a limited sense is true. Conditions of winds, of distances, of supplies, 
 of trade, make laws, elastic in but small degree, which fix certain 
 lines of passage on the sea, as on the land the centers of population 
 and the conformation of the surface determine the great arteries of 
 travel and traffic. 
 
 Peculiarly is this true of Hawaii's relation to the navigation of much 
 of the Pacific area. The Hon. Lorin A. Thurston shows very clearly 
 the commanding position of these islands when he says: 
 
 In the whole Pacific Ocean, from the equator on the south to Alaska on the north, 
 from the coast of China and Japan on the west to the American continent on the 
 east, there is but one spot where a ton of coal, a pound of bread, or a gallon of 
 water can be obtained by a passing vessel, and that spot is Hawaii , 
 
 The immensity of this area of the earth's surface is comprehended by but few. 
 The distance from Hongkong through Hawaii to Panama is 9,580 miles. This dis- 
 tance is as far as from San Francisco eastward across the continent, across the 
 Atlantic, across the Mediterranean, and across Turkey to the boundary of Persia. 
 The first supply station north of Hawaii is at Unalaska, in the Aleutian Islands, and 
 the first similar station on the south is Tahiti, a French colony. The distance 
 between Unalaska and Tahiti is 4,400 miles; as far as from the southern point of 
 Greenland to the mouth of the Amazon River. 
 
 Honolulu would appear then to be, for these ocean highways, not a 
 convenience merely, to be disregarded at will; Taut for the greater part 
 of them a necessary port in peace, and for all a lion in the path if held 
 in war by hostile hands. 
 
 Again, its distances to important harbors of the Pacific give proof 
 of Hawaii's commanding position as a commercial and military center 
 of prime importance. Its isolation on the north and east has been 
 referred to; although scattered groups approach it on the west and 
 south, it seems tnere also to be equally free from any which might rank 
 as worth y rivals. 
 
 From San Francisco it is parted by 2,080 miles of sea, but little more 
 than four days' steaming; and this distance forms, approximately, the 
 radius of a great circle, within which it has no peer. On the cicumfer- 
 euce thus described, and at distances from Honolulu ranging between 
 2,000 and 2,400 miles, there are situated San Diego, San Francisco, 
 Portland, Sitka, and (Jnalaska, harbors of the United States; Samoa, 
 over which she has partial control; Esquimault, the fortified port of 
 British Columbia; the Marshall Islands, annexed by Germany; the 
 Gilbert group, lately acquired by Great Britain ; and the French station 
 of Tahiti. Just beyond the area, 2,700 miles from Honolulu, there 
 appears Fiji, the nearest station of importance in British Australasia. 
 From circumference to center of this vast circular expanse the sea is 
 bare, except of lonely, infrequent islets of no value. Hawaii's sway 
 there, her power to reach the fringing continent or island groups, with 
 equal ease, for good or ill, is indisputable. 
 
 As to the large ports of Australasia and the Orient, at which in war 
 a hostile fleet could rendezvous, and to a greater or less extent refit, 
 it would appear from the following table that the distances between 
 them and Honolulu exceed greatly, in most cases, the breadth of the 
 Atlantic; and that from such possibly hostile pointsof military strength 
 Hawaii is, if we except those of the American Continent, safer than 
 New York : 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Yokohama, Japan 3, 400 
 
 Nagasaki, Japan 4, 000 
 
 Vladivostok, Siberia 3, 670 
 
 Auckland, New Zealand 3, 850 
 
 Miles. 
 
 Sydney, Australia 4, 500 
 
 Hongkong, China 4, 900 
 
 Shanghai, China 5, 000 
 
 Manila 5,000
 
 17 
 
 Just here there may be noted the peculiar and extraordinary value 
 of Hawaii to the defense of our Western coast. As has been shown, 
 Honolulu is within easy distance of French, German, English, and 
 Japanese stations on the Pacific; it lies, as well, but 2,100 miles from 
 the United States shore. If either of these foreign nations held the 
 islands its ships reaching Hawaii could take on supplies, and in five or 
 six days thereafter could appear oft' California with ample fuel remain- 
 ing for offensive operations or for retreat, if necessary, to their island 
 base. 
 
 If, however, Hawaii be omitted from the problem, the situation 
 changes wholly. Excluding those on the American continent, the 
 foreign station nearest to our Pacific seaboard is that of the French at 
 Tahiti, distance 3,000 miles; but this port is so far from home and sup- 
 ports as to prohibit its use, effectively, as a naval base for attack on 
 this coast. There is no other over-sea statioji so near as is Tahiti, those 
 of Japan, China, Great Britain, Russia, and Spain being from 4,500 to 
 5,500 miles away. 
 
 Now, for a descent upon our western territory a hostile fleet must 
 comprise battle ships and cruisers of the first rank. Taking British 
 vessels as typical of the best foreign ships for over-sea work, we find 
 that the Royal Sovereign battle ship, 14,150 tons, and the Diadem, first- 
 class cruiser, 11,000 tons, have each a coal endurance of but 5,000 miles 
 at a speed of 10 knots. 
 
 In other words, of the ships starting from these distant stations 
 without access, en route, to Hawaii steaming at most moderate speed, 
 and unopposed upon the sea, only those from the nearest ports could 
 reach California waters, and these only with fuel for about 500 miles 
 more at 10 knots, with limited capacity for attack, none whatever for 
 retreat, and with the surety of meeting a fully equipped fleet of the 
 United States. 
 
 The use of steam colliers to supply a fleet at sea would be a most 
 effective aid in war; but so far this seems not fully practicable. It is 
 true that, during the maneuvers of 1893, a British squadron was par- 
 tially coaled in rough waters at Torboy from supply vessels fitted with 
 the Tern perley transporter, and that, two years later, the French armor- 
 clad Richelieu also coaled partially at sea; but no trial on an extended 
 scale has yet been made of these appliances, and they have not won 
 full confidence. Even granting their efficiency in the transfer from 
 collier to ironclad, such supply vessels must run the gauntlet of hostile 
 cruisers; reaching the sea rendezvous at the time set will be uncertain; 
 and, furthermore, the bunker arrangements of warships will make 
 impossible the stowing, in a seaway, of a full supply, even if it were 
 placed upon their decks. 
 
 Under these conditions as to distance, fuel, and Hawaii hostile 
 operations from these stations on this coast, at this stage in marine 
 propulsion, would be midsummer madness. If, then, there were no 
 Hawaii if it could be blotted wholly from the map the Pacific coast 
 would be at this time entirely safe from transoceanic attack. Since 
 these islands are, however, a permanent feature of the sea scape, this 
 security can be had only by their transfer to the United States and 
 such guarding thereafter as will prevent their use, in war, by any foe. 
 
 With regard to the foreign station at Esquimault, British Columbia, 
 it need only be said that it is as remote from trans-Pacific attack or 
 reinforcement as is our western shore from foes beyond the sea. Hono- 
 lulu, as a port of call, is necessary to complete its naval communi- 
 cations. If, however, Hawaii shall become American territory, the 
 
 iLEL 2
 
 18 
 
 conditions previously recited, as to fuel and distance, will prevent the 
 naval support from Australia or Hongkong of this port in the seem- 
 ingly most improbable event of war between England and the United 
 States. Its resources, for attack or for defense, would then come only 
 from the continent and from such warships as might lie under its guns. 
 
 From another view point Hawaii is worthy of consideration. For 
 all purposes of war the British practically hold the Suez Canal, the 
 vital link in the pathway to their imperial dominions in the East. 
 Indeed, in crushing Arabi-Bey they seized this waterway and closed it 
 to commerce for a time, asserting thus a right inherent through the 
 possession of a vast domain to which the canal forms the immediate 
 approach in war. 
 
 Of perhaps greater importance, strategically, to the United States 
 will be that other isthmian passage, whose cutting seems now a work 
 of the near future. A President and a soldier, Eutherford B. Hayes, 
 has said: 
 
 Au interoceanic canal across the American isthmus will essentially change the 
 geographical relations between the Atlantic and Pacific coasts of the United States, 
 and between the United States and the rest of the world. ' Our merely 
 
 commercial interest in it is greater than that of all other countries; while its rela- 
 tion to our power and prosperity as a nation, to our means of defense, our unity, 
 peace, and safety, are matters of paramount concern to the people of the United 
 States. 
 
 In his monograph, " The Nicaraguan Canal in its Military Aspect," 
 Captain Scriveu, U. S. A., says: 
 
 We may obtain the preponderance on either seaboard if we have but a short cut 
 across the Isthmus. The strategic value of the canal in the defense of our coasts 
 thus becomes evident at once. The actual saving of distance between New York and 
 San Francisco will be about- 9,894 miles. From New York to .San Francisco via the 
 Nicaragua Canal the distance is 4,960 miles ; New Orleans to San Francisco by canal, 
 4,017 miles. Thus by means of it our fleets could be transferred from the Pacific 
 ports to those of the Atlantic with 10,000 miles less steaming than is now the case, 
 and the smaller navy concentrated at a point threatened Ity foreign attack probably 
 belore the blow could be delivered an impossibility with 10,000 miles of sea travel 
 along coasts where coal could perhaps not be obtained in war, added to the 5,000 
 miles of steaming between New York and San Francisco necessary even if a canal 
 were constructed. 
 
 In short, a canal under United States control will give all the advantage to the 
 defense that is to be derived from maneuvering on inside lines, and will, in addi- 
 tion, give the probability of naval stations and the certainty of coaling stations on 
 the road of ships from the Pacific to the Atlantic seaboard. * * * With a power 
 to throw a preponderating force on either seaboard, it is evident that the United 
 States may not only defend her own coasts effectively, but may be enabled to so 
 concentrate her naval strength as to threaten any point north or south on the coast 
 of either ocean or in the AVest Indies without weakening too greatly her own coast 
 protection, and thus divert a large force of hostile ships by the necessity of defend- 
 ing such stations as Halifax, Esquimault, Bermuda, Havana, or Jamaica, and of 
 guarding merchant shipping in western waters. 
 
 In the Mediterranean, midway between Port Said and Gibraltar, 
 there stands Malta, won in 1798 from the Knights of St. John through 
 the treachery of Bonaparte, captured two years later by the British, 
 and confirmed to them by the Congress of Vienna. In its massive for- 
 tifications and its central position on the line of communication from 
 Egypt to Gibraltar this mid-Mediterraneam outpost is vital to British 
 control of isthmian transit. 
 
 As with Malta and Suez, so with Honolulu and Nicaragua. Hawaii 
 is, with regard to the Orient, the mid- Pacific outpost of the American 
 canal, standing halfway between the Isthmus and the East, on or 
 near every line of travel between these points, and with no island of 
 military importance even approaching its communications with the
 
 19 
 
 future crossroads of the Western world. In view of these considera- 
 tions, there may well be questioned the wisdom of investing millions 
 of American money, national or private, in this waterway, if the Kepub- 
 lic shall not hold, as well, its central Pacific outpost. 
 
 It will not serve to say that we shall have a sea station on the Gala- 
 pagos Islands. Theirs is a flanking position only as to the Oriental 
 highway; they are neither central nor on lines of communication; they 
 are, relatively, near the coast and under its influence; and Hawaii and 
 the canal will bear to them largely the relation held by Malta and Suez 
 to Cyprus that somewhat overrated prize which Disraeli, in theatri- 
 cal pomp, brought as a token of "peace with honor" from Berlin. 
 
 Neither will it avail to urge that Hawaii's distance to the Isthmus, 
 4,-00 miles, will be prohibitory of military operations from it against 
 the canal. That is practically true now; but a wise people builds for 
 the future, for its sons of the coming years, and the swift advance that 
 lialf a century has seen in the speed of communication over sea makes 
 it temerity indeed to say what, in thti annihilation of ocean distance, 
 the years have in store. 
 
 In the utilization of the mobile defenses of the United States, there 
 is no element which approaches in importance the isthmian waterway. 
 Without it, the fleet of one coast is unavailable for the other; with it 
 every naval gun may be turned upon the foe, whether he shall come 
 from east or west. If, however, we shall desire to control fully the 
 coming canal, the possession of Hawaii would seem to be, militarily, an 
 essential. 
 
 In reviewing what has been said herein as to the strategic position 
 of Hawaii, there may be noted that it is the central and only important 
 occupant of a vast circle of sea, on whose circumference lie the Western 
 and A laskan ports of the United States and the nearest foreign stations, 
 and that it has, therefore, access, equally easy to all, for good or ill; 
 that it is so far distant from the larger trans-Pacific ports of military 
 strength as to make it safer, in this respect, than is New York; that, 
 through its nearness, relatively, to the United States, it is the only sea 
 base from which our Western coast can be attacked; that from the 
 equator to Alaska, and from China and Japan to the American shore, 
 it is the only port of supply; that it dominates the principal lines of 
 communication on the Pacific, being on, near, or strongly flanking those 
 from Canada and our Western coast to British Australasia and the East, 
 and from the Isthmus to the Orient; that it is now a port of call for six 
 of the seven trans- Pacific steamship lines; and, finally, that it is a mid- 
 oceanic outpost of the proposed Nicaraguau Canal, as important, in 
 degree, with regard to the far East as Malta is to Suez. It may safely 
 be said that on our globe there are no islands whose strategic position, 
 with regard to the area commanded, equals that of Hawaii. 
 
 HAWAII'S MILITARY STRENGTH. 
 
 Position alone will not, however, constitute an ocean fortress. 
 Reduced to its elements, mere position might be represented, in a shal- 
 low sea, by an anchored buoy. There must be as well the capacity for 
 defense, either existing naturally or supplied, since war is not fought 
 with strategic points or with even fortresses, but by their aid in the 
 support the supply and, if need be, shelter of the "far-flung battle 
 line." On the sea that battle line is naval, and the strength of the 
 ocean fortress is measured largely, although not wholly, by its power to 
 guard a fleet against a fleet. 
 
 As has been noted, the Hawaiian Islands form an archipelago which
 
 20 
 
 extends east and west 1,200 miles, the eight inhabited islands covering 
 300 miles at the eastern extremity. Of these islands, one, Oahu, far 
 exceeds in importance the rest, since on its coast there are situated 
 Honolulu, the only good commercial port, and Pearl Harbor, the only 
 place capable of sheltering a fleet in the entire group. To Oahu, then, 
 the inquiry as to the military strength of the islands must necessarily 
 be restricted. 
 
 Varying opinions have been expressed as to the practicability of 
 fortifying Honolulu fully against attack by sea. There seems to be the 
 possibility of a strong defense through heavy batteries mounted on the 
 hills in the rear, and perhaps on the reef a mile in front of vessel 
 moorings. Guns so placed would command a sweep of sea of at least 
 90, embracing the approaches to the port. The practicability of 
 wholly effective emplacements, especially with regard to the reef 
 batteries, has, however, been questioned. In 1872 Generals Schofield 
 and Alexander, U. S. A., reported to the Secretary of War with regard 
 to the conditions then that "an enemy could take up his position out- 
 side of the entrance to the harbor and command the entire anchorage, 
 as well as the town of Honolulu itself." 
 
 Pearl Harbor lies 7 miles to the westward of Honolulu. It is an 
 oblong bay or estuary, 6 miles long and 3 wide, with its longer axis 
 parallel to the coast; entered from the sea through a narrow strait, 
 which is nearly 3 miles long, of varying width and about three eighths 
 of a mile in breadth at the narrowest point. The sea line of the harbor 
 is the encircling coral reef of the island, through which, however, oppo- 
 site the passage, there is a break, blocked for the present by a bar of 
 coral sand. 
 
 Two peninsulas, extending seaward from the back of the harbor, and 
 an island within it, divide the bay into three parts. Both island and 
 peninsulas command the strait, partially or wholly, one of the penin- 
 sulas reaching across the bay and into its inner mouth. Inside the 
 bar the passage is from 7 to 10 fathoms deep ; within the harbor the 
 depth varies from 5 to 7 fathoms. There are 30 miles of water front, 
 remarkable in this, that its walls approach the perpendicular. "In 
 other words, the largest of vessels could almost be moored broad- 
 side against this beach (of Puuloa). Deep water, close to the shore, 
 is a characteristic of the greater portion of Pearl Harbor," says Lieut. 
 W. M. Wood, U. S. N., who made extensive surveys there. 
 
 Of further features of the bay and its environment, a Senator, a 
 recent visitor to the islands, says : 
 
 Two hundred sail could easily be moored to the shores, in positions of perfect 
 safety. Deep water is found all along the shores of the bay, all of which are .per- 
 pendicular walls of stone. They could scarcely be more regular and useful if they 
 had been built by skilled workmen. 
 
 On the side of the bay, next to Honolulu, hills from the seacoast are from 100 to 
 500 feet high. Guns on these elevations would easily command the entrance to both 
 harbors, while within Pearl Harbor and back of Honolulu the points available for 
 harbor defense could scarcely be more advantageous. * A vessel can be 
 
 moored at almost any place along miles of shore line and will be out of sight from 
 sea, except the toprigging. The largest ship can easily turn in the narrowest part; 
 while a dry dock can be constructed at a low cost at many places in Pearl Harbor, 
 with walls excavated in the rock. 
 
 With regard to a channel through the bar, Kear Admiral John G. 
 Walker, U. S. N., has reported : 
 
 The examination shows conclusively that there is a channel through the reef at 
 Pearl Harbor, filled with loose coral sand ; and that a suction dredge can rapidly and 
 cheaply open a way for the largest ships. * * The channel is practically 
 Hraight and the distance between the walls of live coral is at no point less than 300 
 feet.
 
 21 
 
 Lieut. W. M. Wood, who, in 1804, surveyed this proposed channel, 
 estimates the cost of a cut 250 feet wide, with a depth of 30 feet at 
 mean low water and of widening and deepening the channel inside, at 
 $105,000. 
 
 Generals Schofield and Alexander, in the report referred to pre- 
 viously, stated that 
 
 With one exception, there is no harbor on the islands that can be made to satisfy 
 all of the conditions necessary for a harbor of refuge in time of war. This is the 
 harbor of Ewa, or Pearl Kiver. * * * It could be completely defended by inex- 
 pensive batteries on either or both shores, firing across a narrow channel or entrance. 
 Its waters are deep enough for the largest vessels of war, and its lochs, particularly 
 around Kabbit Island, are spacious enough for a largo number of vessels to ride at 
 anchor in perfect security against all storms. Its shores are suitable for building 
 proper establishments for sheltering the necessary supplies for a naval establishment, 
 such as magazines of ammunition, provisions, coal, spars, rigging, etc., while the 
 Island of Oahu, upon which it is situated, could furnish fresh provisions, meats, 
 'fruits, and vegetables in large quantities. 
 
 Such, then, is Pearl Harbor, to which, on November 9, 1887, the 
 King of the Hawaiian Islands granted the United States the exclusive 
 right of entrance, of maintaining there "a coaling and repair station 
 for the use of vessels of the United States," and of improving the 
 entrance to its anchorage. In reviewing the characteristics of this 
 noble bay, which fit it for a naval station without superior on any sea, 
 there may be noted : 
 
 Its extent: G miles long and 3 broad, both in the extreme; with 30 
 miles of water front, and large enough to hold with ease the entire 
 navy of Great Britain. Its depth of tenter : 20 fathoms in some parts, 
 but generally 5 to 7, sufficient for the heaviest modern ships. Its per- 
 pendicnlar /rails: Enabling ships to be moored almost along the shore. 
 Its sheltered position : Shielded by hills 100 to 500 feet high, ships may 
 ride in security from any storm; they may be, but for their mastheads, 
 invisible from sea, and if moored to the inner shore will be 8 miles at 
 least from the reef and from any foe. Its capacity for defense: Against 
 hind attack, by batteries on the neighboring hills; against that from 
 sea, by an entrance protected with ease a contracted strait, 3 miles 
 long, three-eighths of a mile wide at the narrowest point, covered by 
 the cross fire of batteries at its outer mouth, exposed to a raking fire 
 from the peninsula, piercing its inner entrance, and sown, if need be, 
 with submarine mines. Its facilities: An ample water supply; sites 
 for dry docks in the solid rock of the shore; spaces for barracks, maga- 
 zines, and storehouses on land within the bay. Its exterior resources: 
 Distant but 7 miles from a city of 30,000 inhabitants and on an island 
 over four and one-half times the size of Malta, with a consequent supply 
 of meat, vegetables, and fruits in abundance. 
 
 It would seem that nature has given military strength with unspar- 
 ing hand to Pearl Harbor, which, in a strategic sense, is really Hawaii, 
 and, in its unparalleled position of command, is essentially the "key 
 of the Northern Pacific." 
 
 HAWAII'S MILITARY RESOURCES. 
 
 In measuring the power of a naval station there is linked with the 
 question of military strength although not an essential part of it, as 
 Gibraltar so conspicuously shows the further inquiry as to its 
 resources, its capacity for self-support, if cut oft* from relief. Especially 
 is this a problem for an island depot. It has been well said that "every 
 place depending on the sea for supplies must fall to the power in com- 
 mand of the sea."
 
 22 
 
 Coal and timber for ship needs do not exist in Hawaii, and with 
 them there must be supplied ammunition, the metals, and naval stores 
 in variety. It is to be observed also that the island products are 
 mainly agricultural; that manufacturing is, almost wholly, a missing 
 industry. 
 
 However, modern war, by sea at least, is far too swift for long invest- 
 ments. The "Great Siege" of Gibraltar though military as well as 
 naval will never again find its parallel in duration. The question of 
 resources restricts itself, then, to food supplies, and in the case of an 
 island such as Oahu. of which the naval station forms but a part to 
 population, since the latter, with complete blockade, must be fed, and 
 since, also, it may furnish a militia to aid in repelling a descent upon 
 the laud. 
 
 Oahu is not a large island, being but 46 miles long and 25 broad, 
 with an area of 530 square miles ; it is parted from its nearest neighbor "*. 
 by a channel 23 miles in width, one and one-half times that of Gibraltar 
 Straits. Crete, in the Mediterranean, is more than six times Oahu's 
 size; and in view of the recent blockading operations of the Powers 
 there, the possibility of Oahu's investment must be admitted. On the 
 other hand, as will be later shown herein, the probability of its effective 
 blockade is remote; and therefore the resources of a fleet and garrison 
 at Pearl Harbor may fairly be considered as drawn from all the 
 inhabited islands of the group. 
 
 The total area of these inhabited islands is about 6,000 square miles, 
 or over three-fourths that of the State of Massachusetts. Only a mod- 
 erate proportion, however, of the laud is capable of supporting a dense 
 population, the interior parts being mountainous. The soil, a decom- 
 posed lava, is fertile, but in many districts requires irrigation from 
 streams or wells. The principal products are sugar, rice, coffee, and 
 tropical fruits, although corn, wheat, potatoes, and leguminous crops 
 can be raised. The climate is mild and equable, 56 and 88 being the 
 winter and summer extremes of temperature at sea level. 
 
 The population, according to the census of 1896, is 109,020, of which 
 28 percent are Hawaiians and 22 per cent are Americans or Europeans, 
 by birth or descent, 15,000 being Portuguese. The remainder comprises 
 Asiatics and people of mixed blood. 
 
 As to the population of the future, it can not be doubted that, with 
 annexation by the United States and under its strong and stable Gov- 
 ernment, there will be attraction for the investment of capital which 
 has not existed in the past. Then, doubtless, the internal resources 
 of the group will be fully developed and its importance be increased 
 largely as a naval post, as a center of supplies for a growing merchant 
 marine, and in some degree as a market of exchange for the commodi- 
 ties of Ocean ica and the Asian and American littorals. This devel- 
 opment will turn to these islands a steadily rising immigration of 
 Americans and Europeans. 
 
 With regarp to the possibility of supporting from native resources 
 if need be these future inhabitants, there should be recalled the fact 
 that little more than a century ago, when the group was discovered by 
 Captain Cook, its population was estimated at 400,000; and, further, 
 Mr. W. D. Alexander, survey or- general, states that upon the products 
 of the soil probably five times the present number (109,000) could be 
 supported. By other observers this estimate is doubled. 
 
 Of the native population probably 50 per cent, or 15,000, are males, 
 and these should form a factor of importance in weighing Hawaii's 
 value as a naval station for a time only, it is sad to say, since this is a
 
 23 
 
 fast dying race. Our whalers of the old days found the Hawaiian the 
 best boatman and sailor in the world traits transmitted from fore- 
 fathers, who, if tradition be true, were bold and skillful navigators, 
 steering by the stars to distant groups. In such degree does the 
 Hawaiian love the sea that in 1850 the island government passed a law 
 restricting young men from leaving its territory, since the charms of 
 seafaring were robbing the country of its people. 
 
 In summing up Hawaii's military resources in inhabitants and food 
 products, we find in a territory about three- fourths the size of Massa- 
 chusetts, with a climate well suited to the Anglo-Saxon, a population of 
 but 109,000, of which 22,000 are Americans or Europeans, 31,(MK) are 
 II a \vaiia i is. and the remainder are of Asian or mixed blood. It appears, 
 further, that the islands are capable of supporting from half a million 
 to double that number, and that from the Hawaiians there may be 
 drawn, for the present at least, a considerable force of men especially 
 lifted for service on the sea. Hawaii's capacity for self support, if cut 
 oft' for a time from relief, is manifest, and there seems clear, also, its 
 power to aid in a considerable degree in repelling descent upon its 
 territory. 
 
 HAWAII AS THE GIBRALTAR OF THE PACIFIC. 
 
 Hawaii has been called the " Gibraltar of the Pacific," but the compar- 
 ison with the lost rock of Spain is to some extent misleading. That 
 Gibraltar holds a position of extraordinary strategic value is of course 
 beyond question. On a narrow strait and forming in part the very 
 gateway of the Mediterranean, it dominates all trade to and from the 
 Atlantic and this inland sea, including the vast traffic on the modern 
 highway to the East. 
 
 In war it will part the coasts, the ports, and the fleets of Spain, and 
 will exercise the same important function with regard to France, 
 although in less degree, since it is relatively far from her shores. 
 Again, its position enables it to watch, and to some extent obstruct, 
 the egress to the Atlantic of the ships of Italy, Austria, and Turkev. 
 with as well those of Russia's Black Sea squadron when the latter 
 shall decide to break the treaty bonds of the Bosporus. 
 
 In military strength it is purely as a fortress without superior, 
 resembling an island so nearly that attack by land is of tritli. g 
 avail, and indeed is wholly impossible if there be a defensive naval 
 force in the bay. When Sir George Rooke took it in 1704, his success 
 was due only to the sudden rush of a powerful squadron carrying 
 nearly 10,000 men, 1,800 of whom were troops, against a most inefficient 
 garrison, but 150 in number, and unsupported from the sea. 
 
 Later, during the "Great Siege," begun in 1779 and lasting for more 
 than three and a half years, it was held successfully by a foice which 
 did not exceed 7,000 men, although the assaults culminated in the 
 simultaneous attack of land batteries comprising 24(i guns and mor- 
 tars, supported by an army of 40,000 men, and of the combined fleets 
 of France and Spain, numbering 47 sail of the line, with many smaller 
 vessels. 
 
 When, however, there is considered the cardinal function of a sea 
 fortress its ability to guard fully a fleet Gibraltar is found wanting. 
 The rock is a bold headland, forming about one-half the eastern side of 
 a bay but 8 miles long and 5 broad, the remainder of whose shoies 
 east, north and west is Spanish territory. The anchorage is far from 
 good, since the bay has a \udely gaping mouth and its waters are 
 exposed to the strong current setting in from the straits, to the south-
 
 24 
 
 west wind for which the latter form a funnel, and to the terrible gusts 
 of the Levanter. Protection for a fleet does not exist naturally, and is 
 possible artificially in but limited degree, save from the batteries 
 above them. The "ships cluster at the base of the great rock like chicks 
 huddling about a wingless hen. 
 
 As to natural military resources, there are none. With an adequate 
 garrison and munitions of war Gibraltar has therefore but one danger 
 famine whose gaunt specter has hovered so often above the rock. In 
 the absence of relief it must, if food fail, fall to any hostile power 
 which may command the sea. The grave necessity for extreme restric- 
 tion of all population save that essential to the wants of the garrison 
 is shown by a series of regulations which refuse to recognize the right 
 of residence, with as well the right of admission to aliens, and which 
 order every possible prevention of increase in noneffective population. 
 
 The political and commercial conditions of this day may make 
 Hawaii's strategic position of less value than that of Gibraltar; but 
 the future may change this. As to other requisites of a naval station, 
 it need only be said that it is capable of guarding, not a fleet, but a 
 whole navy, in a position which may easily be made unassailable from 
 the sea, and which, properly fortified, will be also impregnable, prob- 
 ably, to land attack; and further, that its natural resources, for mili- 
 tary ends, seem abundant, giving it ample means of self-support if cut 
 off from friendly aid. 
 
 HAWAII'S FUNCTIONS IN WAR. 
 
 If Hawaii shall be annexed by the United States, the conclusion is 
 inevitable that, in the event of maritime war being waged against us, 
 the island group will be the scene of the earliest, perhaps the only, con- 
 flict on Pacific waters. It will be the first line of defense of Pacific 
 and Alaskan shores, the far-flung outpost, on guard, not in our own 
 nor neutral territory, but in that u No Man's Land," the sea. The 
 danger and the glory of this advanced position will lie in this, that 
 its garrison and fleet must meet the first rush of attack, that its peo- 
 ple, in their vicarious suffering, must shield those of the real objective, 
 the continental shore. 
 
 The fact that Hawaii's situation and environment make it the only 
 sea base from which that shore can be assailed has been made clear 
 herein. In this regard the Atlantic offers no parallel. To reproduce 
 on the Eastern coast the safeguarding which Hawaii's annexation 
 will give the West the United States would need to acquire many of 
 the Atlantic islands and much of that ocean's farther shore. 
 
 From the very beginnings of naval warfare, while laws for its conduct 
 were yet undreamed of, there seems to have been an instinctive desire 
 to hold near the land to be assailed a naval base, to have there sheltered 
 waters where vessels might refit to sally forth again. Thus, in our 
 civil war, Port Eoyal served as the home harbor of the ships which 
 bombarded or blockaded ports to north and south of it. Disregard of 
 this primary requirement as to a base but invites disaster. Indeed, 
 in history there seems no record of successful attack made against 
 worthy defense from a remote base of operations. So, if Hawaii shall 
 enter the Union and in an extreme of national unwisdom shall be 
 left unfortified and unguarded, the aim of any Pacific force will be, first, 
 to seize its superb war harbor and then, thus intrenched, to attack the 
 coast at will. 
 
 On the other hand, if the United States shall utilize the natural
 
 25 
 
 strength of the group, and if, in doubtful days, there shall be stationed 
 in its waters a Heet of fighting strength, adequately equipped with 
 battle ships the representatives in this age of Torrington's ships, "fit 
 to lie in a line' 1 a hostile force seeking the Pacific coast will be subject 
 to one of the primary laws of territorial attack, namely, that to secure 
 success the assailant's command of the sea must previously be assured. 
 "Command," in such case, means at least "a reasonable probability 
 that no naval force, capable of interfering by sea, can make its appear- 
 ance before the completion of all the objects named in the attack." 
 
 This command of the sea could not be attained by the enemy until 
 the Hawaiian fleet was vanquished or blockaded, since the coast of the 
 United States is within easy range of that fleet. Such conditions seem 
 improbable; the unwisdom of stationing any but a strong force in 
 Hawaii at critical times will be apparent, and that force will operate 
 from a nearby base against foes which have come far to find it. The 
 stupendous victory of Howard, Drake, and Hawkins over the Spanish 
 Armada, the annihilation of the French at the battle of the Nile, and 
 the crushing defeat of the Italian Admiral Persano at Lissa during the 
 Austro- Italian war of 1866 are conspicuous, often cited, examples of the 
 disaster which follows a violation of the law that territorial attack must 
 be preceded by control of the sea. The essence, however, of Hawaii's 
 defensive value to the United States is its position as the only sea base 
 from which the coast can be assailed. With that sea base securely 
 guarded, the control of the sea, under present conditions of fuel and 
 distance on the Pacific, is secondary, as far as Hawaii is concerned, 
 although in itself important. 
 
 It may be urged that a United States fleet on its own coast will con- 
 trol adjacent waters, or at least make uncertain hostile control of them, 
 and that therefore Hawaii's aid in restricting territorial attack is not 
 essential. This is quite true, so far as the range and fighting strength 
 of that fleet extend. It must be remembered, however, that a coast 
 fleet will have a coast base, and that without the islands the coast 
 not distant Hawaii will meet the loss and suffering of naval war. 
 Again, that coast is widely extended, it is not easly guarded through- 
 out save by a great fleet, and the enemy's force may take war's chances 
 as in the capture of Gibraltar and make a sudden raid before advanc- 
 ing to meet the defense, while with Hawaii there may be concentration 
 of force, the minimum of watching, and a sea whose command must be 
 battled for by any foe. 
 
 Again, without Hawaii there will be but one great line of defense 
 afloat; with it there will be two. Lastly, and most important by far, 
 the islands in the grip of a foreign nation, with adequate force there, 
 will make the command of the north Pacific doubtful for all time, a 
 thing for which in war the United States must fight. With Hawaii 
 that command is ours. We have that possession, which is so many 
 points of the law. 
 
 As the guard port for a naval force of proper strength and coini)osition, 
 Hawaii will become the watchtower of the northern Pacific. When 
 war clouds lower, swift cruisers, "the eyes of the fleet," radiating from 
 Pearl Harbor, will scour the seas in any quarter from which an enemy 
 threatens, and from these scouts word will come quickly to the fighting 
 fleets, at Hawaii or at San Francisco, of the force and course of any 
 approaching foe. 
 
 It is not assumed that even a most vigilant watch of this kind could 
 cover, with entire effectiveness, so great an expanse of sea, but it is 
 clear that from Hawaii the most practicable, and, considering the area,
 
 26 
 
 a most valuable, system of watch and ward may be maintained. If 
 there were established near Unalaska, directly north of Hawaii, a 
 fortified port at which an American squadron could rendezvous in 
 safety, the western and southern limits of the great quadrant of sea, 
 whose center is Hawaii and which confronts our Alaskan and Western 
 shores, could be traversed by these swift messengers proceeding south- 
 ward from Unalaska and westward from San Francisco, meeting and 
 passing in mid ocean, within forty-eight hours from the start, cruisers 
 on similar duty from Hawaii. A moderate increase above the bare 
 essentials noted in this scouting squadron would make a boundary 
 patrol of unquestionable value. 
 
 During the reign of Queen Elizabeth the French Court commissioned 
 the first privateers of naval history tQ prey on England's merchant 
 marine. The Queen retorted in kind; and, from those early years, 
 commerce destroying assumed a place in naval war. Later, the guerre 
 de course, as the French term it. was made, for them, famous for all 
 time by their mighty leaders in this form of attack Forbin, Jean Bart, 
 Duguay-Frouiu, and those who followed. To this day this element of 
 warfare has, perhaps, its strongest advocates in France. 
 
 For such work, cruisers must have extreme speed; armament and 
 armor are sacrificed to propelling machinery; militarily, therefore, they 
 are but less weak than the merchantmen they seek. Again, to save 
 weight for machinery, they are often unsheathed, thus requiring fre- 
 quent docking to cleanse their hulls. Finally, great speed implies large 
 coal consumption. Their weakness against fighting ships, their neces- 
 sities as to frequent dockings and renewal of coal supply, all point to 
 near-by guarded ports of refuge, as essential for their success on any 
 field. 
 
 In this, again, Pearl Harbor's strength and central situation will give 
 it extraordinary value for the power which holds it when war shall 
 come on the Pacific. As has been shown, it is directly on, or in a 
 strong position to flank, every trade route in the northern section of 
 that ocean. Cruisers from it can speed with ease over every ocean 
 highway there, and still be within ready reach of refuge, of docking, 
 and of fuel. 
 
 In the event of foreign war, perhaps the most formidable problem 
 which will confront the United States after providing for defense 
 will be its inability to make its power felt abroad, except in a moral 
 sense. Owing to the lack of coaling stations, our fleet, practically, has 
 a string tied to it; it is like that toy of childhood, the returning ran; 
 it may proceed to sea until half its coal is spent, and then with the 
 remainder it must return to port to refill for a second limited sally. 
 
 It should be borne in mind, therefore, that possession of Hawaii will 
 advance our outposts by 2,000 miles toward Asian shores ; that by this 
 distance there will be increased the range of the fleet in war against 
 any over-sea Pacific foe. With this it may be well, too, to recall that 
 in 1807 the United States acquired Midway Island, 1,200 miles to the 
 westward of Honolulu, with the intention of establishing a naval station 
 there. The cost of such a port might be large, but the future may 
 justify the wisdom of the expenditure, since if Hawaii be annexed 
 Midway could be readily supported from Pearl Harbor, and the trans- 
 pacific effectiveness of our fleet would be increased by 1,200 miles more, 
 thus bridging, largely, that wide ocean for warfare over sea. 
 
 The serious dangers which may in war beset Hawaii as American 
 territory are the interruption of its communications with the United 
 States and the blockade of the cost of Oahu, the island on which Pearl
 
 27 
 
 Harbor and Honolulu are situated. Communications are both the 
 arteries and the nerves of strategy, since through them not only is a 
 distant force supported but its action is controlled. Hawaii, it is true, 
 is 2,100 miles from the continent; but since 1842 England has held 
 Hongkong, an island distant from her by half a world, parted from an 
 alien and unfriendly shore by but a narrow pass, and separated by 
 1,500 miles of sea from Singapore, the nearest British station, a port 
 which at no time has had imposing strength, military or naval. 
 
 With annexation and war at any time thereafter, the maintenance of 
 communication with Hawaii will therefore present no problems either 
 novel or of surpassing difficulty. There will be an ocean cable to guard, 
 reinforcements to forward, supply ships to convoy; but the road is 
 straight, it is Hanked by no island foe, the distance is not excessive, 
 and the question becomes one only of adequate force and proper vigi- 
 lance in sea patrol. 
 
 With regard to the possible blockade of Oahu, it must be admitted 
 that on the neighboring island of Hawaii, within twelve or fifteen 
 hours of easy steaming, there is situated the port of Ililo, an open bay 
 7 miles long and .'i wide, exposed to the northeast trades, but having 
 sheltered anchorage in 5 to 7 fathoms of water. This harbor would 
 serve as that indispensable requisite of blockade, a neighboring base, 
 where a part of the force may lie ready to relieve the ships on guard, 
 and where the latter may retire for repairs, for supplies, and for that 
 rest which will be vital to the efficiency of officers and men subjected 
 while on watch to the most intense strain, bodily and mental, which a 
 naval force must meet. 
 
 On the other hand, precipitous hills rise back of Hilo, and it may be 
 fairly fortified for defense. A hostile fleet to reach it must traverse a 
 wide stretch of ocean and will arrive with hulls foul and sea worn. Its 
 supplies must follow the same path. And before Hilo is taken the 
 enemy must meet a fleet strong or weak, as the case may be, but 
 fully equipped operating from the impregnable base of Pearl Harbor. 
 Under these conditions the establishment of the blockade of Oahu 
 would seem most improbable, except with overwhelming force. 
 
 Even conceding the possibility of temporary blockade, through sur- 
 prise or otherwise, it could hardly be enduring if there be a torpedo 
 squadron in Pearl Harbor. In the opinion of a growing body of naval 
 men, the battle ship, which must form the backbone of a blockading 
 force, is no match for the torpedo vessel, which is preeminently the 
 weapon of the imprisoned fleet. The armorclad may sink one or two 
 of these small and deadly craft, but she can not repel the attack of a 
 swarm of them in the gloom of a moonless night or the gray, of an 
 early dawn. 
 
 If Hawaii shall become American territory, it would appear that 
 Pearl Harbor's functions, offensive and defensive, in war on the Pacific, 
 will be of grave importance. As our most distant outpost, in the fore- 
 most line of defense, it will meet the first assault and may shield the 
 continental coast from the suffering of war; as a central and impreg- 
 nable base, it will enable an adequate fleet to command the seas which 
 face our Western and Alaskan shores; as the watch tower of the 
 northern Pacific, it will give timely warning of the coming of any foe; 
 it will dominate all ocean highways from Alaska to the equator, and 
 give unsurpassed facilities for the attack and defense of commerce; and, 
 lastly, it will advance our outposts by 2,000 miles toward Asian shores, 
 increasing by that distance the range of our fleet in war beyond the 
 sea.
 
 28 
 
 OUR OPPORTUNITY ON THE PACIFIC. 
 
 "Peaceful, gain-loving," a critic lias said of the people of the United 
 States. JS 7 ay, rather, the words should be "slow to auger." and gain- 
 spending in any righteous cause ! It was in the year 1832 that Andrew 
 Jackson issued his nullification proclamation; but not until 1801, 
 nearly a generation later, was there begun the armed conflict which 
 was to end those differences between brave and honest men, both of 
 the North and South, of which his stirring words were the first official 
 sign. That conflict, too, was the great war of modern times lavish in 
 blood, in treasure, in mourning homes, in fair Southern fields laid 
 waste. One needs "but to recall the memories of Valley Forge and 
 New Orleans, of Buena Vista and Gettysburg, to know that beneath 
 the nation's seeming unconcern, its laughter, its eager, rushing life, 
 there lies a pride which, though tempered with much modern common 
 sense, is yet stern and haughty; which does not pale before that of any 
 people on whose broad banner the sun has ever shone. 
 
 The military value of Hawaii in defense has been set forth herein; 
 yet, to a nation which, not by the right of the stronger, but "with 
 malice toward none," has won its exalted place, and which may fitly 
 glory in its marvelous advancement, are there not other reasons than 
 defense, than mere territorial expansion, for the acquirement of these 
 distant islands? Far-sighted statesmen have given the little England 
 of the old time a greater Britain now. If our leaders shall but have 
 clear vision and wise daring, what may not a golden future have in 
 store for the greater United States of the centuries that are to come? 
 
 It is now nearly three hundred years since, from a dark dungeon in 
 the Tower, Sir Walter Raleigh, one of the most splendid figures of a 
 brilliant time, looked down the ages with unstinted gaze, and marked 
 out the path on which a maritime State shall find its power and its 
 glory. 
 
 "For whosoever commands the sea," he said, "commands the trade; 
 whosoever commands the trade of the world, commands the riches of 
 the world, and consequently the world itself." 
 
 Raleigh's thought stirs British statesmen at this hour. That is the 
 inspiration which gives the island empire its enormous merchant 
 marine; its stations guarding every ocean highway and carrying Eng- 
 land's morning drumbeat round the world; its mighty war fleets, grim 
 and threatening, orr every sea. 
 
 What of the United States ? It is the greatest producer of the nations 
 of the earth. After feeding 70 millions of its own and supplying its 
 own whirring spindles, it has a vast surplus to send nbroad, of grain 
 from the West, meat from the plains, and cotton from th"! South. Its 
 manufacturing facilities, too, are unequaled in the amount and char- 
 acter of machinery, and its export of manufactured products increases 
 year by year. The order of Scotch carpenters has just boycotted mill- 
 work from the United States, and the enmity of English machinists 
 against American tools and tool-making machines has produced a most 
 serious labor crisis. Again, the vast wealth of the United States makes 
 it a consumer as well as a producer; it has a market that the world 
 strives for and which takes much from other lands. 
 
 On the path of national development, such a surplus, such exports, 
 such imports point, with unerring hand, to a merchant marine for the 
 carriage of our sales and purchases, to sea stations for the supply and 
 refuge of that shipping, and to a guarding fleet, the watchman of com- 
 merce on the ocean. Yet of these the United States has but the fleet,
 
 29 
 
 and that of limited power for defense alone. The cost of the civil war 
 .-(ins enormous; but, in freight and passenger tolls and in the profits of 
 the shipbuilders employed for its transoceanic needs, the nation is now 
 paving into foreign purses 300 million dollars a year nearly half the 
 average cost per annum of that war during the four years of its 
 existence. 
 
 Long ago Baron von Humboldt predicted that the commerce of the 
 Pacific would in time rival that of the Atlantic. Later, Thomas H. 
 Ben ton declared that "the dominion and empire of the world lay along 
 the route to the Indies and with the country which controlled the com- 
 merce over it," and that road stretches broad and clear across the 
 Pacific's wide expanse. Later still, William H. Seward said that the 
 commercial and political importance of the Atlantic would ultimately 
 fade before that of the Pacific; and the great Secretary mated his 
 words with deeds in the purchase of the imperial territory of Alaska. 
 
 The Pacific's sleep is ended. On its eastern boundary the swift 
 growth of the Western States of the Union, the finding of gold in 
 Alaska, and the completion of the Canadian Pacific Railway, all mark 
 the awakening. To the westward Japan has dashed like a meteor into 
 the international sky, Russia has become a Pacific power, and China 
 and Korea blink, sleepy-eyed, at the rising sun. 
 
 The distant islands have been seized from the equator to Australia, 
 and above the uttermost of them, if it be of possible value commer- 
 cially or strategically, there floats the ensign of some European power. 
 "More than one-half the population of the world is in countries front- 
 ing the Pacific and Indian oceans," says the Hon. John R. Procter, and 
 he estimates the foreign commerce of these countries, excluding North 
 America, at over 2 billions of dollars per year. 
 
 Ileie, then, in Hawaii and on the Pacific, is the opportunity of a 
 proud, aspiring nation ; not in feeding the land hunger of mere territo- 
 rial aggrandizement, but in following a noble pathway of commercial 
 expansion. The islands must soon go to some strong power. They 
 have been held so long for America only by the unconquerable pluck 
 of Americans. The Hawaiian people, the gentle race of reef and palm, 
 is fading fast. Their lands must fall "to uuliueal hands, no sous of 
 theirs succeeding." 
 
 Will the United States, moved by what John W. Foster stigmatizes 
 as a spirit of "national self-abnegation," refuse a gift, which, in his 
 wise foreknowledge, James G. Elaine descried for tile nation as "the 
 key to the dominion of the American Pacific?" 
 
 In glowing words Murat Halstead has said : 
 
 Once the Alleghanien were our western horizon; but wo have crossed the space 
 that divided the discoveries of Columbus from the lands of his dreams, where the 
 East and the West are blended, like sea and sky, in the boundless bine of the waters 
 and the air. Shall we retreat when onr colors stream and shine iu the zeuith of the 
 arch under which is our planet's path f 
 
 THE ANNEXATION OP HAWAII. 
 
 Kecent events in the history of lands bordering the Pacific Ocean 
 give added strength to the strategic reasons favoring the annexation 
 of Hawaii, which have existed almost since the United States was a 
 nation and which have had full force since the conquest and purchase 
 of California. 
 
 To the westward, the acquisition by Germany of a commanding posi- 
 tion on the Shantung promontory; the rumored desire for Hainan by
 
 30 
 
 another government; with the occupation, since 1842, of Hongkong by 
 the British, all point to the seemingly inevitable Europeauiziug of the 
 long littoral of China. Northward of that empire, Kussia marches 
 steadily on; pushing her Siberian railway to completion; extending 
 her already vast resources and strength at Vladivostock ; wintering 
 her fleet at Port Arthur; and apparently entering into the affairs, 
 domestic and foreign, of the Korean peninsula. The fleet of Japan, 
 too, has had, and still has, phenomenal growth; she has made Formosa 
 her territory; and, if her new role as the England of the East be ade- 
 quately filled, other island territory may fall to her before the disturbed 
 balance of power in the Orient shall cease to oscillate and shall settle 
 into quiet for a time. 
 
 In place, then, of facing China, peaceful and in war inert, with no 
 force to dispatch far afield by sea or land, and Japan, eager, brilliant, 
 but yet young and weak, there will presently confront the United 
 States on its western as well as its eastern shore the powers of Europe, 
 with their relatively large fleets and home reserves, established not 
 not only in the Far East, but in many of the nearer Pacific islands, the 
 acquisition of which in these later years has been not a ''blind grab 
 for territory," but in pursuit of definite strategic aims. To these forces 
 on the west there must be added also that of the new Japan, whose 
 navy will soon surpass our own in fighting power. 
 
 It is true that we are wholly at peace with these nations, and that 
 since the United States desires no Asiatic territory, but is interested 
 only in the full maintenance of its treaty rights with Eastern peoples, 
 there would seem to be no probable cause for a clash. Yet modern 
 war is sometimes like a "thief in the night," coming swiftly and with- 
 out warning. Jomini, a master of strategy, has said : " No enemy is so 
 insignificant as to be despised or neglected by any power, however 
 formidable." A wise state should apply the same reasoning to possible 
 foes. Again, he says: " Iron weighs at least as much as gold in the 
 scale of military strength" an answer wholly apt to the argument of 
 those who, calm in the consciousness of present peace, would rely upon 
 the unsurpassed wealth of the United States and our limitless resources 
 to meet the stress of sudden war, remembering the " gold " only and 
 forgetting the vital "iron" of military strength. 
 
 And so, while at this time we are wholly at peace on the Pacific, and 
 the breadth of that wide ocean lies between us and the arsenals of 
 nations which ma^ sometime be hostile to us, yet it must be remem- 
 bered that in a moment peace may fade and that Hawaii bridges the 
 stretch of sea which, without the island group, would be at this stage 
 in the development of marine propulsion impassable to an enemy's 
 fleet. Pearl Harbor is the sole key to the full defense of our Western 
 shore, and that key should lie in our grasp only. 
 
 Again, the sudden and wholly unforeshadowed development of Alaska 
 which the gold discoveries of the Klondike probably presage adds a 
 new element of commanding importance to the problem of Pacific 
 defense supremacy, if you will. It seems not unlikely that this Terri- 
 tory will repeat the history of California first the wild rush for gold, 
 then abnormal growth in tributary industries, then a wholesome and 
 rapid expansion on natural lines. It is true that Alaska has neither 
 the sunny vineyards, the teeming fruit gardens, nor the broad and 
 fertile fields of California ; but, of its resources which are known, it 
 may be said that, in addition to its possibilities, nay, surety of much 
 sold, it holds, the world's greatest reserve of timber, its lands are full
 
 31 
 
 of coal, the finest grazing land for cattle, and its fisheries are unsur- 
 passed. 
 
 Disregarding, however, the uncertainties of future development, let 
 us consider solely the necessities, now plainly apparent, of the gold- 
 seeker. While a multitude of the latter seem to be preparing for the 
 new El Dorado many must fail to find it owing to the lack, for the time 
 at least, of transportation facilities. The problem of the carriage of 
 even a fraction of the waiting throng over the miles of sea and river to 
 the Klondike is one involving for the present the gravest dillirulties. 
 The distance from Seattle to St. Michaels is L',500 miles by sea, and 
 after the latter port is reached there are still 2,500 miles of the Yukou 
 to traverse by river steamers, which as yet do not exist. 
 
 With each Alaskan emigrant from Seattle there inust go a ton of 
 supplies for clothing and sustenance, a ton of fuel for his warmth during 
 one winter, and a considerable weight of lumber for his housing. To 
 these there must be added materials of construction for the great 
 number of small and light draft Yukon steamers yet to be transported 
 in sections to, and erected upon, the banks of that river, and the fuel for 
 the use of this river fleet, which will average not less than two tons for 
 each gold miner and his baggage, stores, lumber, etc. According to a 
 conservative estimate, embracing all of the items noted above, to trans- 
 port 50,000 men, with the necessary stores, fuel, and materials, will 
 require an ocean service giving at least one arrival per day at St. 
 Michaels of large steamers from Seattle during the five mouths of 
 available summer weather. 
 
 One arrival per day means, as well, an average of one departure per 
 day. At 15 knots speed, steamers will cover the distance of -,000 miles 
 between the two ports in seven days. Admitting the premises, as 
 above, there will then be always en route, during the time noted, four- 
 teen large steamers, or their equivalent in a greater number of smaller 
 and slower vessels, steam or sail' those outward bound carrying stores, 
 without which the Yukon settlers will perish and our interests there be 
 destroyed ; those returning freighted, it is hoped, like the galleons of 
 old Spain, with much treasure, wrested by herculean toil from a frozen 
 and unyielding soil. 
 
 In the event of conflict between the United States and a maritime 
 power, this throng of richly laden but helpless vessels will present to 
 the enemy a noble field for attack by the guerre de course, that " com- 
 merce destroying" which first formed a factor of naval war during the 
 reign of Elizabeth of England, which was followed with such deadly 
 effect by the Alabama and her consorts, and which has at this time 
 many strong advocates, notably in the United States and France. 
 
 Now, Hawaii commands fully this ocean route, at a distance from it 
 of less than L',500 miles not five days' steaming for the cruiser Colum- 
 bia and in that flanking position which will give a naval force, using 
 it as a base, such immense power to harass and destroy. The Klon- 
 dike is Canada's; soon she will, doubtless, lay down railways reaching 
 its limits. Great Britain will then have, not only for the gold-lands, 
 but for all Alaska, the surpassing stragetic ad vantage of "inner lines" 
 on which to operate in the event of war. Alaska is, for us, practically 
 an over sea province; our sole means of communication with it would 
 appear, now at least, to be an ocean route. Shall we hazard the safety 
 or Seward's imperial territory for this and for all time by refusing 
 Hawaii, the ocean fortress, which in our hands, with an adequate naval 
 force, would make our Alaskan lines of transit unassailable by any foe? 
 
 41S567
 
 32 
 
 Hawaii's unique advantages as a strategic point of prime importance 
 have been set forth so ably and so often as to forbid their citation here. 
 One or two objections raised by not a few nontechnical critics may, 
 however, be considered. Pearl Harbor is 2,100 miles from our Western 
 coast and Madeira is about the same distance from our eastern shore; 
 the latter has little, if any, military value; why, then, should Hawaii, 
 parted by the same stretch of sea, exceed it in importance? The critics 
 forget that the paramount worth of the Hawaiian group in war will lie, 
 firstly, in the fact that the Pacific is so broad that its passage will 
 exhaust the coal supply of a war vessel, necessitating a renewal at 
 Honolulu ; and, secondly, in the isolation of the group, with the absence 
 of other land between it and our coast. If the Pacific were as narrow as 
 the Atlantic, or if other islands intervened, as with Madeira, between 
 our western shore and Hawaii, the strategic value of the latter would 
 be largely reduced. 
 
 Again, it has been urged that if we shall take the group we shall 
 but acquire territory to defend; an element not of strength, but of 
 weakness in war, and one which will necessitate large additions to our 
 fleet. Pearl Harbor can be made an impregnable ocean fortress. It is 
 true that one does not wage war with fortresses ; it is also true, how- 
 ever, that they form vantage points from which a force may sally, and 
 under whose wing that force may supply and recruit for fresh attack. 
 If Hawaii, in naval conflict, shall have no useful function in this, then 
 it would seem that, through the wars of all time, the eager strife for the 
 possession of fortresses, of guarded ports, of frontier outposts, has 
 been false strategy, an error militarily. 
 
 As to the dread of the economist or of the Altrurian that annexa- 
 tion will require largely augmented naval strength, it may be said that, 
 if an adequate force of the United States be stationed at Hawaii and 
 its coast communications be properly guarded, an enemy from over- 
 sea would violate some of the cardinal principles of naval stretegy and 
 invite sure disaster in attacking our western shores without first block- 
 ading or defeating the Hawaiian squadron. The force at Pearl Harbor 
 should then form simply but the first line of defense; then the sea- 
 going ships " fit to lie in a line," with their torpedo auxiliaries, should 
 be gathered to meet the first assault, leaving the coast guard to the 
 reserve of torpedo craft and monitors stationed at fortified ports. The 
 strength of the squadron at this mid Pacific outpost should be doubt- 
 less sufficient to meet the enemy, but the force on the coast could be 
 reduced. 
 
 Some misconception as to Hawaii's value in war seems to arise 
 through a lack of appreciation of what steam has done in the reduction 
 of ocean distances, measuring the latter in the time spent in traversing 
 them. A clearer view may be obtained, perhaps, by referring this time 
 to land travel. Admiral Colomb speaks of " the sea considered as ter- 
 ritory over which military forces march." Let us extend this expres- 
 sion somewhat and assume the ocean to be, not a neutral plain, but a 
 " No Man's Land," on which armies may maneuver. Napoleon gave his 
 system of conducting a war as: "To march 25 miles a day, to fight, 
 and then to camp in quiet." At 15 knots' speed a fleet could steam 
 from Pearl Harbor to San Francisco in less than six days. The Emperor, 
 in that time, would have marched his army 150 miles. If, then, we 
 assume the sea to be a great land plain, we must locate Pearl Harbor 
 on that plain at about 150 miles from San Francisco, and, to complete 
 the parallel, must make it practically impregnable and capable of shel-
 
 33 
 
 tering 100,000 men. From this point of view, Hawaii's remoteness 
 would seem to be apparent rather than real. 
 
 In the wars which gave our Government birth, and which have 
 attended great crises in its history, thousands spent life itself that a 
 nation might be formed and preserved for those who were to follow 
 them. The men of this generation have added not a few stars to the 
 blue field of our flag. As captains of industry or as toilers in its ranks, 
 they have so developed the resources of our wide land that, after the 
 wants of the greatest home market in the world are filled, there 
 remains of our products a surplus, which, in ever-increasing variety 
 and quantity, forces its way into foreign marts. Shall not we, too, 
 serve the greater Republic that is to come, and in accepting the gift 
 of the Hawaiian group not only make secure our western shore, but 
 give the coming generations a firm grasp on the vast, but for us 
 almost untouched, trade of Pacific shores and islands? 
 
 GEO. W. MELVILLE, 
 
 Engineer in Chief, U. S. N. 
 
 MEL 3 
 
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