A DEPARTURE IN BATTLESHIPS
Dru invited the Strawns to accompany him to Newport News to witness the
launching of a new type of battleship. It was said to be, and probably
was, impenetrable. Experts who had tested a model built on a large scale
had declared that this invention would render obsolete every battleship
in existence. The principle was this: Running back from the bow for a
distance of 60 feet only about 4 feet of the hull showed above the water
line, and this part of the deck was concaved and of the smoothest,
hardest steel. Then came several turreted sections upon which guns were
mounted. Around these turrets ran rims of polished steel, two feet in
width and six inches thick. These rims began four feet from the water
line and ran four feet above the level of the turret decks. The rims
were so nicely adjusted with ball bearings that the smallest blow would
send them spinning around, therefore a shell could not penetrate because
it would glance off.
Although the trip to the Newport News Dock yards was made in a Navy
hydroaeroplane it took several hours, and Gloria used the occasion to
urge upon Dru the rectification of some abuses of which she had special
knowledge.
"Philip," she said, "when I was proselytizing among the rich, it came to
me to include the employer of women labor. I found but few who dissented
from my statement of facts, but the answer was that trade conditions,
the demand of customers for cheaper garments and articles, made relief
impracticable. Perhaps their profits are on a narrow basis, Philip; but
the volume of their business is the touchstone of their success, for how
otherwise could so many become millionaires? Just what the remedy is I
do not know, but I want to give you the facts so that in recasting the
laws you may plan something to alleviate a grievous wrong."
"It is strange, Gloria, how often your mind and mine are caught by the
same current, and how they drift in the same direction. It was only a
few days ago that I picked up one of O. Henry's books. In his
'Unfinished Story' he tells of a man who dreamed that he died and was
standing with a crowd of prosperous looking angels before Saint Peter,
when a policeman came up and taking him by the wing asked: 'Are you with
that bunch?'
"'Who are they?' asked the man.
"'Why,' said the policeman, 'they are the men who hired working girls
and paid 'em five or six dollars a week to live on. Are you one of the
bunch?'
"'Not on your immortality,' answered the man. 'I'm only the fellow who
set fire to an orphan asylum, and murdered a blind man for his pennies.'
"Some years ago when I first read that story, I thought it was humor,
now I know it to be pathos. Nothing, Gloria, will give me greater
pleasure than to try to think out a solution to this problem, and
undertake its application."
Gloria then gave more fully the conditions governing female labor. The
unsanitary surroundings, the long hours and the inadequate wage, the
statistics of refuge societies showed, drove an appalling number of
women and girls to the streets.--No matter how hard they worked they
could not earn sufficient to clothe and feed themselves properly. After
a deadly day's work, many of them found stimulants of various kinds the
cheapest means of bringing comfort to their weary bodies and hope-lost
souls, and then the next step was the beginning of the end.
By now they had come to Newport News and the launching of the battleship
was made as Gloria christened her _Columbia._ After the ceremonies
were over it became necessary at once to return to Washington, for at
noon of the next day there was to be dedicated the Colossal Arch of
Peace. Ten years before, the Government had undertaken this work and had
slowly executed it, carrying out the joint conception of the foremost
architect in America and the greatest sculptor in the world. Strangely
enough, the architect was a son of New England, and the Sculptor was
from and of the South.
Upon one face of the arch were three heroic figures. Lee on the one
side, Grant on the other, with Fame in the center, holding out a laurel
wreath with either hand to both Grant and Lee. Among the figures
clustered around and below that of Grant, were those of Sherman,
Sheridan, Thomas and Hancock, and among those around and below that of
Lee, were Stonewall Jackson, the two Johnstons, Forrest, Pickett and
Beauregard. Upon the other face of the arch there was in the center a
heroic figure of Lincoln and gathered around him on either side were
those Statesmen of the North and South who took part in that titanic
civil conflict that came so near to dividing our Republic.
Below Lincoln's figure was written: "With malice towards none, with
charity for all." Below Grant, was his dying injunction to his fellow
countrymen: "Let us have peace." But the silent and courtly Lee left no
message that would fit his gigantic mold.