Mr. President, the Navy and the Navy Department have necessarily anticipated a submarine attack from the very beginning of the war. They have had it constantly on their minds. They have tried to make every preparation to meet it. I think they have. It would be most injurious for me to stand here and follow down the map of the coast and tell the Senate and the public exactly what those preparations are--tell them where the submarine chasers are, where the destroyers are, where the signal stations are, what arrangements they have made for meeting the danger when it came, as they were sure it would come. No human mind can possibly tell when out of the great waste of waters of the Atlantic Ocean a submarine, which travels by night and submerges by day, will appear. As soon as the Navy had any authentic news to indicate the presence of submarines on this coast they acted. They will do everything that can be done. They have the means to do it. That is all that I feel at liberty to say in a general way. Mr. President, for four years the greatest Navy in the world has been devoting its strength to the destruction of German submarines. They were operating in what are known as the narrow seas, where the commerce of the world, we may say, comes together in a closely restricted area; and even there, with the knowledge for years of the presence of the German submarines, it is not going too far to say that many of those submarines escaped them. They are diminishing now, with our assistance. A larger control is being established over the narrow seas, and the work against the submarines at the point of the greatest danger--what we may call the naval front of this war--is succeeding more than many of us dared to hope. It is done by the multiplication of vessels and the multiplication of methods, and there is the great center of the fight. One or two submarines have appeared suddenly on our coast, as was to be anticipated. In my judgment, we are doing all that can be done. I have taken the pains to go to the Department, where everything has been laid before the members of the Naval Affairs Committee who cared to investigate the subject, and I am entirely satisfied that they are doing everything that is possible. But the chase of the submarine is something like searching for the needle in the haystack. You can not tell in which particular wisp of hay it will come to the surface; but that the defense will be effective I have no sort of question. * * *