Retain our prestige

"If we are to retain our prestige; if we are to keep our place as one of the great custodians of civilization; if we are to preserve the heritage of our freedom and our institutions and transmit that heritage unsullied to our descendants; if we are to guard our families and our firesides; let us keep in our hands the power that God has given us, and renounce once and forever the sophistries of the Delilahs of pacifism, that would shear the Navy of its strength."

Captain Luke McNamee
Director of Naval Intelligence, 1923