OCTOBER 27 SET ASIDE FOR NATIONAL NAVY DAY

With the approval of President Coolidge and the United States Navy Department, the United States Navy League has designated October 27 as Navy Day, and asks the cooperation of the country at large in making the celebration successful and fruitful of results.

The League is an organization of civilians formed to disseminate information concerning the state and needs of the Navy and to promote interest in maintaining the first line of our national defense. It was organized in 1902, at a time when it became apparent that the navy built up during the Spanish War was in danger of deterioration because of lack of interest and understanding on the part of the people and their Congress.

At the time the Navy League was formed, President Roosevelt wrote from the White House: "It seems to me that all Americans, interested in the growth of this country and sensitive to its honor, should give hearty support to the policies which the Navy League is founded to further. I congratulate the country because it has been formed."

Roosevelit Gave Noble Money to League

After fifteen years of active friendship for the League, it is an interesting fact that President Roosevelt gave the League five hundred dollars of the money he received from the Nobel Peace Prize, a fund which he distributed to the organizations and causes he considered most worthy of support.

The League is heartily in accord with the Washington Conference and the principle of limitation of naval armaments by agreement laid down by it. It stands for the full acceptance of the implication of the 5-5-3 ration; that is that the United States should not only Keep within the limits of the treaty but that it should maintain its naval strength in every essential respect as permitted under the treaty.

What is not generally realized is that the United States Navy is not as strong as it is permitted to be under the treaty. It is not as strong as it should be. Thirteen of eighteen battleships need modernizing. Twenty scout cruisers are necessary to maintain the treaty ration in this weapon as compared to Japan, and even more as compared to Great Britain. The United States id deficient in cruise submarines. The number of enlisted personnel is low. In many ways it is under the treaty strength.

League Wants Strong Navy

The League t4ies to inform those who do not know the value and necessity for a strong navy. It tries to impress upon friends of the navy. It is not even enough that their representatives in Congress vote for sufficient appropriations for the Navy. It is necessary to have the vote of majority of representatives in congress. The League joins the friends of the navy in spreading correct information concerning the why and how of the Navy.

Mr. Robert W. Kelly of New York is President of the League. Among its vice-presidents and directors are numbered the Hon. John Wingate weeks, Secretary of War, who is a graduate of the U. S. Naval Academy; Dr. David Jayne Hill, former Ambassador to Germany; Col. Robert M. Thompson, also a graduate of the Naval Academy a life-one friend of the Navy League; Judge William McAdoo, Chief City Magistrate of New York and former Assistant Secretary of the Navy; Mr. William Howard Gardiner, naval critic; col. Henry Breekinridges former Assistant Secretary of War. Any citizen of the United States is eligible to membership.