Chairman Hale of the Committee of Naval Affairs proposed in a bill to the Senate the building of a 24,000 tons battleship which would be the largest warship afloat and actually non-sinkable. She was to be named Constitution, with a speed of 20 knots and a draught smaller than the ones of similar sized ships allowing her to enter all harbors with a practicable depth of water and which could destroy anything within the range of her guns. Estimated building costs 10,000,000,00 US dollars.
Note
1. Senator Eugene Hale (9 June 1836 Turner, Maine, USA-27 October 1918 Washington, D.C., USA)was in his days an important opponeny of the rapid battleship expansion in begin 20th Century pointing out to what happened during the Russo-Japanese war of 1904-1905 especially the vulnerability of the battleships. He had his concernes about the effectiveness of increasing the battlefleet and the involved costs and made this clear in a speach for the Senate. In het letter to president Roosevelt he asked for a meeting to discuss the building of a battleship each year. See also his Alleged Structural defects in battle ships of United States Navy. 60th Congress 1st Session, document 506, presented on 22 May 1908. In fact Hale applied for a 14,500 trials displacement armored cruiser to be named Constitution regarded a letter from the Secretary of the Navy to accompany Senate Bill 2438 dated 4 January 1906. The draft of the bill was dated 28 December 1905.
Source
Popular Mechanics dated April 1906 Vol. III No. 4
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