p. 10 | The New Dreadnought

Pacific Press Publishing Association · Mountain View, California · Jun 28, 1910

FromSigns of the Times, Vol. 37, No. 25.

The New Dreadnought.

The middle of last month the latest of the super-Dreadnoughts of the United States navy was launched from the Brooklyn Navy Yard. The New York Herald remarks that "if in the days of the Invincible Armada the Florida had been turned loose, she could have eaten her way through all the navies of the world from that day until the development of the steel-clad ship, even if all had been massed against her in one Titanic battle."

The fleet of Nelson, we are told, would have melted away under her secondary battery of 16 5-inch guns, while a single broadside from her main battery of 10 12-inch rifles would have "carried away any single battle fleet ever gathered together in the days of wooden fighting ships." The Herald further points out that in one broadside the Florida hurls a heavier mass of metal than all the ships of the United States fleet that battled under Dewey at Manila twelve years ago. Her length is 520 feet; displacement, 21,825 tons; equipment, 10 12-inch and 16 5-inch guns; speed, 21 knots; horse-power, 28,000; cost, $10,000,000.

The Florida is not quite as large as the British Colossus, which has a length of 545 feet and a displacement of 23,000 tons. Compared with the North Dakota, the Florida will exceed that ship by 1,825 tons. The belt armor will be 12 to 8 inches; the battery armor, 6½ inches; the smoke-stack protection, 9½ inches. The Navy Department maintains that no battle-ships hitherto built for any navy are as well protected from projectiles and torpedoes as the Florida and her sister the Utah.

One of the most important factors entering into the building of these ships is the awful cost. It is pointed out and admitted by naval officials that the building of such ships as the Florida renders obsolete the types of ten years ago, and relegates them to the junk heap. As a Socialist paper expresses it, "As soon as a vessel costing millions of dollars leaves the docks she enters into active competition with her sister vessels for a place on the junk pile." A daily paper declares that this is a potent and convincing argument for peace; but all this is illogical, for the power that builds a little bigger battle-ship than the Florida is very sure to feel that it has the superior ship, and if occasion offers will be willing to meet the Florida in battle.