Cruisers serve trade, scouting, and steady employment

Did Tillman want cruisers only because Charleston could build them?

No. He also valued trade protection and fleet reconnaissance, although cruisers' sustained employment at Charleston made them especially attractive.

Cruisers protect overseas trade without requiring the United States to assume the full cost of Britain's global policing role. They also scout for the battle fleet, which made them relevant to the same reconnaissance problem that had encouraged Tillman's support for the Lexington class. Politically, a cruiser was among the largest useful warships Charleston could build. Its long construction cycle provided steadier employment than destroyers, whose rapid completion produced sharper peaks and troughs in yard labor.