To build or not to build was not the question. When to build quite overshadowed all. President Coolidge had been willing to admit that perhaps the Navy does need 15 new cruisers and an aircraft carrier (TIME, Feb. 11 et ante). But they need not all be begun within three years, was his point. It would be so expensive ($274,000,000). It would seem so warlike. It might inconvenience the Budget.
But the Senate remained deaf to the President. Last week, finally, it passed (68 to 12) the cruiser-building bill with the three-year time-limit. The House shouted its approval. The bill went to the White House, whence it was brusquely despatched to the Navy Department to be thoroughly, but perfunctorily, combed for possible further objections.
The close of the Senate’s debate brought strange sights. It brought an arch-Democrat, Mississippi’s tart Harrison, to President Coolidge’s side as leader of the fight against the time-limit. It brought the Republican Old Guard into open opposition to their outgoing party leader of the past five years. It brought Nebraska’s acid, aloof Norris out in renewed denunciation, of the Old Guardsmen. Half in earnest, half in joke, he berated them for their “hard and ungrateful” attitude toward President Coolidge.
Observers noticed that, as is usually the case with Navy bills, the opposition was mostly composed of hinterlanders like Senator Norris.
Of the many provisions suggested, accepted or rejected, one was ponderous, one inane, one practical.
Senator Reed’s amendment (adopted) endorsed the idea of some new freedom-of-the-seas treaties, to be negotiated before the next naval disarmament conference (1931).
Senator James Thomas (“Tom Tom”) Heflin of Alabama, who mortally hates and fears the Roman” Pope, “obtained his annual quota of publicity and ridicule by pretending again that the flag flown on Navy ships during religious services is a Popish flag, and offering an amendment to prohibit any flag flying above the U. S. flag at any time. The vote against this Heffling was 68 to 10.
The most practical provision (adopted) instructed the Secretary of the Navy to submit plans for two salvage vessels, for use in such disasters as the 8-4. The Navy at present has but one salvage ship.
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