If the Government itself does not manufacture everything that an army needs, somebody has got to make money out of it, and I for my part have been urging the Congress of the United States to make the necessary preparations by which the Government can manufacture armor plate and munitions, so that, being in the business itself and having the ability to manufacture all it needs, if it is put upon a business basis, it can at any rate keep the price that it pays within moderate and reasonable limits.  The Government of the United States is not going to be imposed upon by anybody, and you may rest assured, therefore, that while I believe you prefer that private capital and private initiative should bestir themselves in these matters, it is also possible, and I assure you that it is most likely, that the Government of the United States will have adequate means of controlling this matter very thoroughly indeed.  There need be no fear on that side.  Let nobody suppose that this is a money-making agitation.  I would for one be ashamed to be such a dupe as to be engaged in it if it had any suspicion of that about it, but I am not as innocent as I look; and I believe that I can say for my colleagues in Washington that they are just as watchful in such matters as you would desire them to be.

And there is another misapprehension that I do not wish you to entertain.  Do not suppose that there is any new or sudden or recent inadequacy on the part of this Government in respect of preparation for national defense.  I have heard some gentlemen say that we had no coast defenses worth talking about.  Coast defenses are not nowadays advertised, you understand, and they are not visible to the naked eye, so that if you passed them and nothing exploded, you would not know they were there.  The coast defenses of the United States, while not numerous enough, are equipped in the most modern and efficient fashion.  You are told that there has been some sort of neglect about the Navy.  There has not been any sort of neglect about the Navy.  We have been slowly building up a Navy which in quality is second to no navy in the world.  The only thing it lacks is quantity.  In size it is the fourth navy in the world, though I have heard it said by some gentlemen in this very region that it was the second.  In fighting force, though not in quality, it is reckoned by experts to be the fourth in rank in the world; and yet when I go on board those ships and see their equipment and talk with their officers I suspect that they could give an account of themselves which would raise them above the fourth class.  It reminds me of that very quaint saying of the old darky preacher, “The Lord says unto Moses, come fourth, and he came fifth and lost the race.”  But I think this Navy would not come fourth in the race, but higher.