Safety Does Not Lie in Huge Navy.

(We invite all men in the University to submit communications on subjects of timely interest but assume no responsibility for sentiments expressed under this head.)

To the Editors of the CRIMSON:--

Allow me to comment on the interesting and typical viewpoint presented by the communication published in Wednesday's CRIMSON. Mr. Crusius is perfectly right in assuming that we are in no danger from foreign invasion if we have adequate coast-defences. But what are adequate conast-defences? Does Mr. Crusius assume that we already have, or can possibly have within the next ten years, a navy of sufficient strength alone to stand guard over our enormous coast-line? For I neglect any mention of fortifications which we have or might build, as being perfectly useless in repelling an invasion. We must realize that we owe our present and somewhat false sense of security to England's navy, but England is at war with the most up-to-date, wide-awake, and militarily progressive nation on the globe, and it would not be giving the nation which has already astonished us with such marvelous inventions in artillery, due credit to presume that the big ships tied up in Kiel will remain outclassed in firing range or that their engineers are overlooking their opportunities.

But I do not advocate a tremendous navy,--one large enough alone to repel any foe,--for we should be going to a most foolish expenditure, and of what value is a whole fleet when some new invention is suddenly thrust upon us?

Then is it not a much cheaper and better form of preparedness to teach every interested man the rudiments of military science, so that he in time of need can quickly in turn train green recruits? For --and I speak from experience--if a few of our violent jingoists as well as a few of our rabid pacifists could be induced to spend a summer at Plattsburg, they would on the one hand have impressed upon them the awful horror of real war, and on the other, the only true means by which this calamity can be avoided. E. S. ESTY '16