San Francisco. and San Diego. So that our entire territory upon the Pacific coast would be within reach of a fleet having the Hawaiian Islands as the base of its operations. The safety of our territory on the Pacific coast rests upon the fact that the Asiatic coast is very far distant. and it would be almost impossible to aim an attack upon us from that coast. The ships would be derelicts in the ocean almost before they reached our coast for want of coal. At all events. the difficulty of coal supply would be very great unless they had in their possession some such islands as the Hawaiian Islands.