Page:Speeches, correspondence and political papers of Carl Schurz, Volume 5.djvu/234

210 purpose it may at the same time serve for the protection of outlying National domains without much extra expense. The premise is false. We need no large navy for the protection of our commerce. Since the extinction of the Barbary pirates and of the Western buccaneers, the sea is the safest public highway in the world, except, perhaps, in the Chinese waters. Our commerce is not threatened by anybody or anything, unless it be the competition of other nations and the errors of our own commercial policy; and against these influences warships avail nothing. Nor do we need any warships to obtain favorable commercial arrangements with other nations. Our position of power under existing circumstances is such that no foreign nation will, at the risk of a quarrel with us, deny our commerce any accommodation we can reasonably lay claim to. Nor would our situation as a neutral in case of a war between foreign nations be like that we occupied during the French-English wars at the beginning of this century. Then we were a feeble neutral whom every belligerent thought he could kick and cuff with impunity. Now the United States would be the most formidable neutral ever seen, whom every belligerent would be most careful not to offend. When our maritime commerce was most flourishing we had no navy worth speaking of to protect it, and nobody thought that one was needed. The pretense that we need one now for that purpose reminds one of the Texas colonel, who thinks he must arm himself with a revolver when walking on Broadway because he might be insulted by a salesman.

Nor are we under any necessity to prepare for war by building a large navy. For the reasons given, every nation will avoid war with us, and we should not seek it with any one. Moreover, no sensible Government, unless driven by the necessities of its situation, will undertake extensive naval construction while the modern war fleet is