American yards could have built the Tillman ships after additional infrastructure investment, but their construction locations mattered politically. In this interpretation, Senator Benjamin Tillman wanted to win the qualitative battleship race so attention and money could shift toward cruisers, which offered Charleston and South Carolina better opportunities. An Omaha-class program that excluded Charleston would struggle to pass while Tillman chaired the Senate Naval Affairs Committee. The proposal joined naval requirements to constituency interests, committee power, and regional industrial policy.
Notable Point · 1:21:47-1:24:10
Tillman's battleships as shipyard politics
The Tillman program is read as a political effort to steer later cruiser work toward Charleston, not simply a fascination with maximum battleship size.