The title of the bill (H.R. 10070) should be: "A Bill to Prevent the Increase of the Efficiency of the Navy, and Prevent Economy Being Considered."
If your committee is desirous of increasing the efficiency of submarine boats for the Navy, and at the same time reduce the cost to the government at least one-third, if not one-half, of the prices now being paid for submarine boats, a clause in the Naval Appropriation Bill on the following lines would effect the object:
"The sum of _________ Dollars is hereby appropriated for submarine boats, and the Secretary of the Navy is hereby authorized to contract for or purchase or build in a navy yard of the United States these submarine boats, whichever in his judgment will increase the efficiency of the Navy and will be in the interest of economy to the department."
I consider my old patents assigned to the Electric Boat Company as obsolete; they are ten years behind the age.
I can build in the Navy Yard at Brooklyn boats under my new patents, designs, and inventions, in six months, and guarantee a submerged speed of 22 knots per hour.
Admiral Bowles testified before the Senate Committee on Naval Affairs at its hearing on submarine boats. He was at that time chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair of the Navy Department, and his statement at that time is entitled to the serious consideration of your committee, because it was that of a government expert, and is true in every respect. This hearing before the Senate committee is printed and the hearing took place on May 29, 1902. Admiral Bowles's testimony can be found in Senate Document 395, 1st Session, 57th Congress, page 82. He said that the Holland boats ought not to cost more than $89,489, and in this sum he said he had allowed an ample profit, and in addition had included $11,000 for experiments and tests. Admiral Bowles is now president of the Fore River Shipbuilding Company, and is building the submarine boats that the Navy contracted for last year, and they are now being built under my old plans and patents, so alleged.
If your committee will call upon the present Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repairs, he will undoubtedly inform you that he can build in the Brooklyn Navy Yard my submarine boats as quickly and as expeditiously as they can be built by the Fore River Shipbuilding Company.
I am a poor man, while the Electric Boat Company has among its principal stockholders three or four millionaires, including August Belmont, Isaac L. Rice, and others. The capital stock of that company is ten million dollars. They have deprived me, by their flimsy lawsuit, from getting capital to build a boat under my new inventions and patents, and are now asking Congress to pass a law which will prevent the Navy Department from adopting my new plans and inventions, even should the entire department consider that they are far superior in every way to the plans now being used by that department.
I do not believe that your committee will commit itself to this monopoly which is against the interest of the government.
I am advised by my attorneys that as soon as the suits of the Electric Boat Company can be reached and tried the Court will undoubtedly dismiss them, but in the meanwhile they act as an injunction against me, as they prevent my enlisting capital which is timid and dreads a lawsuit.