as we are. There is not a single civilized power which has anything
whatever to fear from aggressiveness on our part. All we want is peace;
and toward this end we wish to be able to secure the same respect for
our rights from others which we are eager and anxious to extend to their
rights in return, to insure fair treatment to us commercially, and to
guarantee the safety of the American people.

Our people intend to abide by the Monroe Doctrine and to insist upon it
as the one sure means of securing the peace of the Western Hemisphere.
The Navy offers us the only means of making our insistence upon the
Monroe Doctrine anything but a subject of derision to whatever nation
chooses to disregard it. We desire the peace which comes as of right to
the just man armed; not the peace granted on terms of ignominy to the
craven and the weakling.

It is not possible to improvise a navy after war breaks out. The ships
must be built and the men trained long in advance. Some auxiliary
vessels can be turned into makeshifts which will do in default of any
better for the minor work, and a proportion of raw men can be mixed with
the highly trained, their shortcomings being made good by the skill of
their fellows; but the efficient fighting force of the Navy when pitted
against an equal opponent will be found almost exclusively in the war
ships that have been regularly built and in the officers and men who
through years of faithful performance of sea duty have been trained
to handle their formidable but complex and delicate weapons with the
highest efficiency. In the late war with Spain the ships that dealt the
decisive blows at Manila and Santiago had been launched from two to
fourteen years, and they were able to do as they did because the men in
the conning towers, the gun turrets, and the engine-rooms had through
long years of practice at sea learned how to do their duty.