Background
When the first Cleveland Administration came to power in 1885, United States Secretary of the Navy William Collins Whitney continued the naval modernization program started during the preceding Arthur Administration. US naval policy at the time was focused on commerce raiding, which implied a defensive posture on the part of the United States.
In 1887, Whitney authorized the construction of two coastal defense battleships, that were to become Texas and Maine. The emphasis was still on large and fast commerce-raiding cruisers, capable of destroying an attacking fleet's supply line. President Grover Cleveland was defeated in the election of 1888, but before he left office, Whitney managed to have Congress authorize two additional cruisers, one of which was the large, 5,300 long tons (5,400 t) protected cruiser that was to become Olympia.
Starting in 1887, the new Secretary of the Navy, Benjamin Tracy, began to rethink naval policy. Although Tracy allowed the design and construction of Olympia to continue, he was a follower of Alfred Thayer Mahan. As such, Tracy advocated a battle fleet capable of engaging enemy fleets in their home waters. This meant a shift away from large, fast, commerce-raiding cruisers. As a result, Olympia, which would probably have been the first in a class of ships, was the only one of her type built.
Read more about this topic: USS Olympia (C-6)
Famous quotes containing the word background:
“Silence is the universal refuge, the sequel to all dull discourses and all foolish acts, a balm to our every chagrin, as welcome after satiety as after disappointment; that background which the painter may not daub, be he master or bungler, and which, however awkward a figure we may have made in the foreground, remains ever our inviolable asylum, where no indignity can assail, no personality can disturb us.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“They were more than hostile. In the first place, I was a south Georgian and I was looked upon as a fiscal conservative, and the Atlanta newspapers quite erroneously, because they didn’t know anything about me or my background here in Plains, decided that I was also a racial conservative.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)