on_, an American; the naval telescope-sight was
American. American ships now are not only well constructed, but all
their equipments are of the best; and to-day the American battleship
is the finest and most powerful vessel of her class in the world.

Our personnel, too, has always been good. The American seaman has
always excelled, and so has the American gunner. No ships have
ever been better handled than the American ships; no naval battles
in history have been conducted with more skill and daring than
those of American ships; no exploits in history surpass those of
Cushing, Hobson, and Decatur.

In operations, however, in the handling of the navy as a whole,
we have never excelled; though no better individual fleet leaders
shine in the pages of all history than Farragut and Dewey. The
strategical operating of our material and personnel has not been
in accordance with carefully laid plans, but has been left largely
to the inspiration of the commander on the spot, both in peace
and in war. Material has suffered from lack of a naval policy,
but only quantitatively, because material is a subject that the
people understand. Personnel has suffered more, because the people
fail to realize the amount of training needed to make a personnel
competent to perform their tasks successfully, in competition with
the highly trained men of other navies. But operations have suffered
incomparably more than material and personnel; because naturally
the people do not comprehend the supreme importance of being ready,
when war breaks out, to operate the material and personnel skilfully
against an active enemy, in accordance with well-prepared strategic
plans; nor do they realize how difficult and long would be the task
of preparing and testing out those plans. Therefore, they fail to
provide the necessary administrative machinery.[*]

[Footnote *: Since this was written, the Congress has so enlarged
the scope of the Office of Chief of Naval Operations as to make
it a General Staff.]

In fact, the kind and amount of machinery needed to conduct operations
skilfully and quickly cannot be decided wisely until the country
adopts some naval policy; and in naval policy the United States
must be admitted to have lagged behind almost every other civilized
country. Spurred as we were to exertion by the coming of the
Revolutionary War, we constructed hastily, though with skill, the
splendid ships that did service in that war. But after the war,