so many rapidly moving things, yet it is certainly well within the truth to say that the ship and all it contains are very much more under the control of her captain than the German standing army is under the control of the Kaiser.  The captain, acting through the helmsman, chief engineer, gunnery officer, and executive officer, can get very excellent information as to what is going on, and can have his orders carried out with very little delay; but the mere space occupied by an army of 870,000 men, and the unavoidable dispersion of its units prevent any such exact control.

In other words, the captain of the Pennsylvania wields a weapon more mechanically powerful than all the muskets of the German standing army:  and his control of it is more absolute than is the Kaiser’s control of that army.

Mechanism vs.  Men.—­Now what is the essential reason for the efficient direction exercised by the helmsman of the Pennsylvania, and the relative impotency of generals?  Is it not that the helmsman acts through the medium of mechanism, while the generals act through the medium of men?  A ship is not only made of rigid metal, but all her parts are fastened together with the utmost rigidity; while the parts of an army are men, who are held together by no means whatever except that which discipline gives, and the men themselves are far from rigid.  In the nature of things it is impossible that an army should be directed as perfectly as a ship.  The rudder of a ship is a mechanical appliance that can be depended upon to control the direction of the ship absolutely, while an army has no such a thing as a rudder, or anything to take its place.  Again, the rudder is only a few hundred feet from the helmsman, and the communication between them, including the steering-engine itself, is a strong reliable mechanism that has no counterpart in the army.

The control of the main engines of a ship is almost as absolute as the control of the rudder; and the main engines are not only much more powerful than the legs of soldiers, but they act together in much greater harmony.

Inherent Power of a Battleship.—­Possibly the declaration may be accepted now that a battleship of 30,000 tons, such as the navies are building now, with, say, twelve 14-inch guns is a greater example of power, under the absolute direction and control than anything else existing; and that the main reason is the concentration of a tremendous amount of mechanical energy in a very small space, all made available by certain properties of water.  Nothing like a ship can be made to run on shore; but if an automobile could be constructed, carrying twelve 14-inch guns, twenty-two 5-inch guns, and four torpedo-tubes, of the size of the Pennsylvania, and with her armor, able to run over the land in any direction at 20 knots, propelled by engines of 31,000 horse-power, it could whip an army of a million men just as quickly as it could get hold of its component parts.  Such a machine could start at one end of an army and go through to the other like a mowing-machine through a field of wheat; and knock down all the buildings in New York afterward, smash all the cars, break down all the bridges, and sink all the shipping.