After the most careful and thorough, investigation and weighing of our Navy's actual needs, the General Board of the Navy figures closely, as near to the danger point as they dare, in order that their recommendations may stand a better chance of approval by Congress. But Congress assumes that, being naval men, they have an ax to grind and are naturally strongly biased in the direction of extravagance, and the Board's wise recommendations are accordingly discounted. We have only 33 battleships less than twenty years old, eleven of which belong to the second line, with four building and authorized, which will make 37 in all. The General Board thinks that we should have 48 battleships less than twenty years old. We have but 68 destroyers, while the General Board thinks that we should have 192 destroyers. The General Board thinks that we could squeeze along with a minimum of 71,000 men to man our present fleet, without taking into account additional trained men needed for signal and tactical work on board auxiliary vessels, and without any provision for warships now building. As a bare fact, we have only 52,300 men. Thus we are short 18,000 of the men needed to man the fleet we have. In addition to this, there is a shortage in sight of 4,000 men required to man the fighting ships that will go into commission in 1915 and 1916. Our naval experts tell Congress that we shall need 50,000 more men for the Navy as soon as they can be enlisted and drilled; but the ears of Congress are deaf to the appeal. Yet a whisper for a new post-office can be heard by a Congressman from his home district a thousand miles away. [Illustration: Battle Ship Strength of the Nations] We have only 7,700 men in our naval militia. We have no naval reserve. Congressman Gardner informs us, as a result of his investigations, that it would take five years to get a reserve of 25,000 sailors. Our best-informed naval officers recommend for coast defense the immediate construction of a hundred submarines of the latest and most successful type. As a matter of fact, this number is far too few. We now have but 58 submarines, including those built, building, and authorized to be built. Many of those we have are obsolete and absolutely worthless. The following is an extract from a report by the General Board of the Navy in 1913, which is very enlightening: * * * * * "_The absence of any definite naval policy on our part, except in the General Board, and the failure of the people, Congress, and the executive government to recognize the necessity for such a policy, has already placed us in a position of inferiority which may lead to war; and this inferiority is progressive and will continue to increase until the necessity for a definite policy is recognized and that policy put into operation._" * * * * *