Mr. Speaker. it emphasizes the fact that while the development of the American Navy is absolutely essential to the maintenance of the Monroe doctrine. and to the development of our commerce with foreign nations. and to the protection of our own coast against foreign attack. a navy without practicable and defensible coaling stations is as useless as an army without food. No man can foresee the potentiality of the forces which are gathering on the Asiatic coast. With Great Britain in India. in Polynesia. in the Malachian Straits. and in Hongkong. with France in Cambodia. with Russia in Manchuria. with Germany in her newly acquired Chinese ports. and with Japan pushing forward with prodigious strides. it is apparent on the face of the situation that the United States must either surrender the commerce which she has already acquired or she must fortify herself by all the means known to the establishment of commercial power. and which have been advantageous agencies in the experience of competing nations. It is for these reasons. looking at the subject from a standpoint of national defense and national progress. that I have for many years advocated the peaceful acquisition of the Hawaiian Islands.