Imperial Mahan

Published this week is a book telling the U. S. people more than most of them ever knew about why they have a Big Navy.

The Life and Work of Captain Alfred Thayer Mahan U.S.N.* is the first full-dress biography of a godly, pike-backed salty sailor who in his lifetime (1840-1914) did more than any other to shape the modern navies of the world. In his 40 years of active service, Alfred Mahan never rose above Captain, became a Rear Admiral only when he retired. A contemptuous superior called him a "pen-and-ink sailor," and put caged canaries near his cabin to drown out the scratching of the Mahan pen. Today his biographer, Captain William Dilworth Puleston, U.S.N., retired, and most Navy men agree that his pen was mightier than a flotilla.

Captain Mahan gave Big Navy men the world over a sales talk wherewith to woo legislators and tax payers. He delved into the histories of nations from Rome to the U. S., came up with his theory that no nation ever became a world power or held its position without a Big Navy. This was a godsend to his contemporaries, who had to deal with the awful fact that so long as the U. S. was content to grow within its mainland boundaries, it did not need and would not have a Big Navy.

When Mahan's Influence of Sea Power Upon History 1660-1783 appeared in 1890, British imperialists rated it an indispensable aid in wangling money from Parliament. Kaiser Wilhelm II of Germany, who was just beginning to swell, telegraphed to Journalist Poultney Bigelow: "I am just now not reading but devouring Captain Mahan's book. ... It is on board all my ships. . . ."

Not until Roosevelt I entered the White House did Author Mahan come into the honors due a major prophet at home. In the Mahan works, Theodore Roosevelt found the perfect articulation of his Big Stick. Five years before the Spanish-American War, Alfred Mahan had preached that the U. S. should annex Hawaii and then defend it with a Big Navy. He declared that the Navy should not only follow but carry the U. S. dollar into world markets, that the U. S. like imperial Britain should take and govern backward peoples for their own good. A Big Navy he called "the handmaid of expansion."

Now that Roosevelt II has partially divided the U. S. Fleet, sending its bulk back to the Pacific, a cardinal Navy doctrine which Alfred Mahan formulated is news. Just before Roosevelt I retired from the Presidency, Alfred Mahan asked him to urge William Howard Taft "on no account to divide the battleship force between the two coasts. . . ." Whereupon T. R. wrote "Dear Will: . . . I should obey no direction of Congress and pay heed to no popular sentiment, if it went wrong in so vital a matter. . . . Keep the battle fleet either in one ocean or the other. . . ." Roosevelt I qualified by saying "prior to the completion of the Panama Canal," but today's admirals as good students of Alfred Mahan believe in one fleet always together, even with the Canal in use.

Alfred Mahan died December 1, 1914, 18 months before the British and German fleets met at Jutland. Among his obituaries was a tribute that would have delighted Mahan: "The super-dreadnoughts are his children, the roar of the 16-inch guns are but the echoes of his voice."

* Yale University Press ($4)

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