1st Session.

No. 422.

LOCATION OF WATER-LINE ARMOR BELT UPON UNITED STATES BATTLE SHIPS.

Mr. HALE presented the following

EXTRACT FROM REAR-ADMIRAL EVANS'S REPORT TO THE NAVY DEPARTMENT ON THE LOCATION OF WATER-LINE ARMOR BELT UPON UNITED STATES BATTLE SHIPS.

APRIL 7, 1908.-Referred to the Committee on Naval Affairs and ordered to be printed.

LOCATION OF WATER-LINE ARMOR BELT UPON UNITED STATES BATTLE SHIPS.

[Extract from Rear-Admiral Evans's report to the Navy Department, dated at sea, en route to Magdalena Bay, March 6, 1908.]

Judging from the figures contained in the several replies from commanding officers which relate to this subject, it would appear that better protection might have been afforded had these belts been origi nally placed between 6 inches and 1 foot higher; this on the theory that the commanding officer would admit sufficient water before an action to sink the belt to within about 18 inches above the water line, but even this is open to question, for it has been noted that even when heavy laden and in the smooth to moderate seas which have thus far characterized this cruise the ships frequently expose their entire belt and the bottom plating beneath it. It must be remembered that even a 5 or a 6 inch shell (of which there would be a great number) could inflict a severe and dangerous injury if it struck below the belt, while otherwise the water line, even with the belt entirely submerged, is, on account of the casement, armor, and coal, immune to all except the heaviest projectiles. The fact is that under the sea conditions in which battles may be fought a belt of 8 feet in width, if considered alone, is too narrow to afford the desired protection, wherever it may be placed; and the question becomes an academic discussion, with certain arguments on each side. It is understood that on the latest ships this question is of little import, as the citadel armor is but 1 inch less in thickness than that on the water line, and for those ships already built it is believed that if bridges are removed and all weights which will be landed when war breaks out are taken into consideration the ship will rise the 6 or 12 inches, which is believed to be the maximum that it should be desired to raise them.

SPEECH BY HENRY CALOT LODGE ON IMMIGRATION.

Mr. FLINT presented the following

SPEECH ON THE SUBJECT OF IMMIGRATION DELIVERED BY HON. HENRY CABOT LODGE, BEFORE THE BOSTON CITY CLUB, BOSTON, MASS., ON MARCH 20, 1908.

APRIL 7, 1908.-Ordered to be printed.

There is nothing so dry as statistics, nothing which falls so dully on the listening ear as the recitation of many figures; not figures of speech, but of enumeration. It is also very difficult to grasp the important statistics by merely hearing them read, and yet it is impossible to deal with the question of immigration without them. To comprehend the subject at all, the very first step is to realize what the number of immigrants to this country has been, and, further, to trace by the figures the changes which have occurred in the character and origin of the immigration. I have here a table which shows the number of immigrants to this country during the past forty years-that is, since the close of the civil war-and I also have tables showing the countries from which the immigrants come and which reveal the changes of nationality, or rather the change in the proportion of the nationalities of which our immigration has been composed. I will not read to you these long lists of figures, because it would simply be confusing and they can really only be properly studied in detail when printed, as I hope they may be. I shall confine myself to an analysis of them by which you will be enabled to understand what they signify. In the first place, the number of foreign immigrants to this country during the past forty years reaches the enormous total of 19,001,195.

Since the formation of the Government 24,000.000 people, speaking in round numbers, have come into the United States as immigrants, and of that number, still speaking in round numbers, 22,000,000 have come from Europe. Of the 22,000,000 from Europe, 7,500,000 were from the United Kingdom, over 4,000,000 of these being from Ireland and nearly 3,000,000 from England; over 5,000,000 were from Germany, and nearly 1,500,000 were from Norway and Sweden, 2,500,000 each from Austria-Hungary and Italy, and 2,000,000 from Russia, including Poland. During the decade 1880-1890 there was for the first time large immigration from Italy, Austria Hungary, a d Russia. In the decade 1890–1900 there was a marked reduction in arrivals from Germany, Ireland, England, Scotland, and Norway and Sweden, and great increase from Italy, Austria-Hungary, and Russia. Immigration from France, never large (average about 5,000 a year), decreased in the decade 1890-1900, but has since increased.

The first point to be observed here is the size of this huge total of 19,000,000. It is safe to say that there has never been in the history of the world such a movement of peoples as these figures represent. Neither ancient nor modern history discloses any such migration as this. The great influx of barbarians into Europe after the fall of the Roman Empire, so far as we can determine from all extant accounts, was small compared to the immigration to this country within the lifetime of a single generation. Moreover, the largest movements, numerically speaking, at the time of the dissolution of the Roman Empire, were flung back by the forcible resistance of the people of Europe, where Romans and Teutons united to arrest the advance of Huns, Tartars, and Scythians. These were all, like our own, voluntary migrations, although unlike ours they were armed invaders instead of peaceful citizens. On the other hand, there is certainly no record of any forced migration which can compare for a moment in numbers with the voluntary immigration to this country. Probably the largest forced immigration which the world has ever seen was that which brought negroes from Africa to the two Americas, and yet in all the two centuries or more of the African slave trade, the total numbers of negroes actually brought to the Americas would fall far short of the millions who have come to the United States in the last forty years. Such a displacement of population, and such a movement of peoples as this is, in itself, a historic event of great magnitude, deserving the most careful consideration; but what we are concerned with is its effect upon and its meaning to the people of the United States and the future of our country. The problem which confronts us is whether we are going to be able to assimilate this vast body of people, to indoctrinate them with our ideals of government, and with our political habits, and also whether we can maintain the wages and the standards of living among our workingmen in the presence of such a vast and rapid increase of population.

In what I am about to say I have no reflections to cast upon the people of any race or any nationality, and I say this because it is the practice of the demagogue who neither knows nor cares anything about the seriousness of this question to endeavor to make political capital among voters of foreign birth by proclaiming that any effort to deal intelligently with the question is directed against them individually. The question is just as important to the citizen of foreign birth who took out his naturalization papers yesterday, and thus cast in his lot and the future hopes of his children with the fortunes of the United States, as it is to the man whose ancestors settled here two or three hundred years ago. To all true Americans, no matter what their race or birthplace, this question is of vast moment, in the presence of such a vast and rapid increase of population. I am not here to-night to make arguments or appeals, still less to reflect upon any people or any race either here or elsewhere. I shall deal simply with the conditions of the problem and the facts of the case, and leave it to you to draw your own inferences and determine what, in your opinion, ought to be done.

The thirteen colonies which asserted their independence and compelled England after a long war to recognize it were chiefly populated by men of the English race, immigrants from England and from the lowlands of Scotland. These people were in an overwhelming majority in all the colonies, and especially in New England. In New York there

were the Dutch who had founded the colony. They were not very numerous compared with the entire population of all the colonies and were practically confined to their original settlement. Of kindred race with the predominant English, they were a strong, vigorous people, and furnished an element of great importance and value in the colonial population.

In the eighteenth century there was an immigration of Huguenot Frenchmen which was scattered all through the various colonies, and which, although comparatively small in numbers, was of a most admirable quality. There was also a considerable immigration of Germans from the palatinate, and of people from the north of Ireland, known generally as Scotch-Irish. These Germans and Scotch-Irish settled chiefly in western Pennsylvania, Virginia, and North Carolina. They were good, robust stocks, and added to the strength as well as the number of the population. Immigration to the colonies from other sources than those which I have mentioned was trifling, and, speaking broadly, the thirteen colonies at the time of the Revolution had an overwhelming majority of inhabitants who were English speaking and who came from Great Britain and Ireland. It was this population which fought the Revolution and adopted the Constitution of the United States. Our political institutions and our governments, both State and National, were founded by and for these people and in accord with their ideals and their traditions. They were a homogeneous people, and the institutions which they thus established were essentially their own, were thoroughly understood by them, and suited them in every respect. The soundness of our political system has been demonstrated by more than a hundred years of existence and by the manner in which it has surmounted great strains and perils. But the population of the country in the meantime has changed, largely by the processes of immigration, and one of the great problems, both in the present and in the future, is to determine whether these political institutions, founded more than a century ago, can be adapted to and adopted by the population of the United States as it is to-day constituted.

Let me now review very briefly the changes in our immigration. The first great immigration was that from Ireland, which began in the forties after the Great Famine, and which has continued, although in diminishing numbers, to the present time. This Irish immigration came from all parts of the island, and was no longer confined principally to the north, as it had been in the colonial days. The Irish spoke the same language as the people of the United States; they had the same traditions of government, and they had for centuries associated and intermarried with the people of Great Britain. Without dwelling on their proved value as an element of the population, it is enough to say that they presented no difficulties of assimilation, and they adopted and sustained our system of government as easily as the people of the earlier settlement. At a slightly later period began the great German immigration to the United States, followed in time by the Scandinavian. There could not be a better addition to any population than was furnished by both these people. They spoke, it is true, a different language, but they were of the same race as the people who had made themselves masters of Great Britain; so they assimilated at once with the people of the United States, for the process was merely a reblending of kindred stocks. But the German and the