Naturally, such organizations, so led, fall easy dupes to the wiles of the alien ship-owners, who have never left any stone unturned or any expedient untried to defeat or smother in our own Congress legislation calculated to promote and extend our merchant marine. Whatever the distant future may bring forth, there seems to be at this time and for the near future as little prospect of the development of a new and purely American merchant marine in the foreign trade as there has been at any time since the old one was destroyed. Whatever may be the fate of the American merchant marine, it cannot be said that during the campaign for its resurrection, lasting almost continuously for over thirty years, Mr. Cramp has ever withheld from its advocacy any part of his knowledge, study, observation, and experience; and if, partly through the feebleness of our own patriotism in legislation and administration, and partly through the superior and more aggressive patriotism of foreign ship-owners and ship-builders, the American merchant marine should become extinct, it will not be his fault. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ CHAPTER IV Condition of Navy after Civil War—Admiral Case’s Fleet—“Virginius’s” Scare—“Huron,” “Alert,” and “Ranger”—Secretary Hunt—First Advisory Board—Secretary Chandler—“Puritan” Class—Finished—Steel—Hon. J. B. McCreary and Appropriation Bill for New Navy—Members of Second Naval Advisory Board—Standard for Steel for New Ships, “Chicago,” “Boston,” “Atlanta,” and “Dolphin”—Secretary Whitney—Beginning of New Navy, by Charles H. Cramp—“Baltimore,” “Charleston,” and “Yorktown”—Purchase of Drawings by Navy Department—Commodore Walker—Premium System—Mr. Whitney’s Views—Premiums Paid—Attack on System—Secretary Tracy—War College Paper—Classifying Bids. AFTER the Civil War the navy was neglected, being, so far as its cruising vessels were concerned, a wooden navy of not only obsolete types, but decayed or decaying vessels, which gradually became a reproach to the country and a laughing-stock for other maritime powers.