Naval Act of 1916

Naval Act of 1916
Other short titles	Big Navy Act; Naval Construction Act of 1916; Naval Expansion Act of 1916;
Long title	An Act making appropriations for the naval service for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and seventeen, and for other purposes.
Nicknames	Naval Service Appropriations Act of 1916
Enacted by	the 64th United States Congress
Effective	August 29, 1916
Citations
Public law	64-241
Statutes at Large	39 Stat. 556
Legislative history
	Introduced in the House as H.R. 15947 on May 29, 1916; Passed the House on June 2, 1916 (363-4); Passed the Senate on July 21, 1916 (71-8) with amendment; House agreed to Senate amendment on August 15, 1916 (282-51); Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on August 29, 1916;

The Naval Act of 1916 was also called the "Big Navy Act" was United States federal legislation that called for vastly enlarging the US Navy. President Woodrow Wilson determined amidst the repeated incidents with Germany during the First World War to build "incomparably, the greatest Navy in the world" over a ten-year period with the intent of making the U.S. Navy able to defend itself against any European power. The bill called for the construction of ten 42,000 ton battleships, six battlecruisers, ten scout cruisers, fifty destroyers, and sixty-seven submarines.^[1] The plan was to start construction in 1919 and have the fleet completed by 1923.^[2]

The bill, signed in the middle of the First World War was not to prepare the United States for entry into that war, but rather to guarantee the security of the United States in what seemed an increasingly dangerous world. It was paralleled by the National Defense Act of 1916 that saw a similar expansion of the Army and National Guard.^[3]

^ Symonds, C.L. (2016). The U.S. Navy: A Concise History. Oxford University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-19-939494-4. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
^ Baer, G.W. (1996). One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy, 1890-1990. ACLS Humanities E-Book. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-2794-5. Retrieved 2021-05-24.
^ Muehlbauer, M.S.; Ulbrich, D.J. (2013). Ways of War: American Military History from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 295. ISBN 978-1-136-75604-7. Retrieved 2021-05-24.

[Symonds_2016_p._70-1] Symonds, C.L. (2016). The U.S. Navy: A Concise History. Oxford University Press. p. 70. ISBN 978-0-19-939494-4. Retrieved 2021-05-24.

[Baer_1996_p.-2] Baer, G.W. (1996). One Hundred Years of Sea Power: The U.S. Navy, 1890-1990. ACLS Humanities E-Book. Stanford University Press. ISBN 978-0-8047-2794-5. Retrieved 2021-05-24.

[Muehlbauer_Ulbrich_2013_p._295-3] Muehlbauer, M.S.; Ulbrich, D.J. (2013). Ways of War: American Military History from the Colonial Era to the Twenty-First Century. Taylor & Francis. p. 295. ISBN 978-1-136-75604-7. Retrieved 2021-05-24.

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Citations

Other short titles	Big Navy Act Naval Construction Act of 1916 Naval Expansion Act of 1916
Long title	An Act making appropriations for the naval service for the fiscal year ending June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and seventeen, and for other purposes.
Nicknames	Naval Service Appropriations Act of 1916
Enacted by	the 64th United States Congress
Effective	August 29, 1916
Public law	64-241
Statutes at Large	39 Stat. 556
Legislative history
Introduced in the House as H.R. 15947 on May 29, 1916 Passed the House on June 2, 1916 (363-4) Passed the Senate on July 21, 1916 (71-8) with amendment House agreed to Senate amendment on August 15, 1916 (282-51) Signed into law by President Woodrow Wilson on August 29, 1916