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CHAPTER VII

Preparing the Navy for War

M
R. ROOSEVELT'S duties as Police Commissioner did not prevent his taking an active part in the Presidential campaign of 1896 between Mr. McKinley and Mr. Bryan. The great issue was that of the monetary standards, and Mr. Roosevelt opposed the Bryan doctrine of the free coinage of silver with an energy that came near leading him -to a misunderstanding of the honest motives of many Western people whose virtues in a general way he understood so well. Though not a technical political economist, or an authority in matters of monetary science and finance, Mr. Roosevelt's clear and well-trained mind led him to the firm grasp of sound principles.
Copyright by Clinedinst, Washingto:
There was still work for him to do in  the   fight   for  municipal   reform   in New York; but the national conditions      mr. ROOSEVELT IN THE NAVY DEPARTMENT

drew him again to Washington. Even before Mr. Cleveland went out of ofHce in March, 1897, there was a high and ever-rising tide of American public opinion that demanded our intervention in Cuba for the sake of ending an intolerable situation. Our commercial relations with Cuba were intimate and important. Spanish administration had been selfish, corrupt, and detrimental to Cuba's welfare.
From the time when most of Spanish America had established its independence early in the Nineteenth Century, Cuban revolutions had occurred one
A  HARD  RACE AGAINST  TIME	after  another, only to  be  suppressed.
From the Herald (New York)	But  in  1895  a  Cuban  revolt  occurred

36

A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career "TEDDY    ROOST£VHT£tJNi>% BV WAR AND PEACE"
ROOSEVELT   AS   ASSISTANT   SECRETARY OF   THE   NAVY From the World  ('New York)
that was managed with skill and was prepared for a long struggle. With 'Cuba lying so near our coasts, and with a good many American adventurers helping the insurgents, while arms and ammunition were constantly smuggled into Cuba from this country as a base of supplies, the situation between our government and that of Spain had grown very critical, when Mr. McKinley was inaugurated in March, 1897.
The Hon. John D. Long, of Massachusetts, was made Secretary of the Navy, and Mr. Roosevelt, who had felt strongly the necessity of Spanish withdrawal from Cuba, and the importance of naval preparation on our part, was willing enough to take the post of assistant secretary. The New York political machine stood in the way at first, but Senator Platt's reluctant consent was given at length, and on April 6 Mr. Roose-. velt was duly appointed Assistant Secretary of the Navy. It
was understood that in that post he was to be the active executive officer of the department. It must not be forgotten that our navy at that time was low in rank and that European naval authorities considered the Spanish navy stronger in ships, equipment and men than ours. There was real fear lest, if trouble came, Spain's European fleet might attack the Atlantic seaboard, while her Asiatic fleet, with headquarters at Manila, might occupy Honolulu as a re-coaling base and attack San Francisco.

Preparing the Navy for War

37

HE WOW.S HUM. HISOWM TORPEDO

Jt£     WOUUQ HITH
MR.   ROOSEVELT  AS  ASSISTANT   SECRETARY   OF   THE   NAVY
From the World  (New York)

Mr. Roosevelt's early studies were of use to him in his new post. His preparation of the volume on our naval war of 1812 had led him into a broad reading of naval history. He had been recognized in Europe as a naval writer, and had been associated with Captain Ma-han in certain contributions to a history of naval warfare. His remarkable energy had found precisely the work that was most congenial at the moment. He cultivated the society
AMERICA AND SPAIN PREPARING FOR A NAVAL  WAR
in Washington, and found	From m Ahuis,ote (Mexico)

38

A Cartoon History of Roosevelt's Career

out what was most necessary to be done. He had to fight against apathy and red-tape everywhere.
It has been characteristic of Mr. Roosevelt at all times that he has known whom to consult, and where and how to find out what things should be done. And, having found out, he has had the force and energy to do those things without hesitation and with surprising promptness.
We have on record a little statement of his own which pictures the things he found to do while Assistant Secretary of the Navy:
" Commodore Dewey, Captain Evans, Captain Brownson, Captain Davis,—with these and the various other naval officers on duty at Washington, I used to hold long consultations, during which we went over and over not only every question of naval administration but specifically everything necessary to do in order to put the navy in trim to strike quick and hard if, as we believed to be the case, we went to war with Spain. Sending an ample quantity of ammunition to the Asiatic squadron and providing it with coal; getting the battleships and the armored cruisers on the Atlantic into one squadron, both to train them in maneuvering together, and to have them ready to sail against either the Cuban or the Spanish coasts; gathering the torpedo boats into a flotilla for practice; securing ample target exercise, so conducted as to raise the standard of our marksmanship; gathering in the small ships from European and South American waters; settling on the number and kind of craft needed as auxiliary cruisers,—every one of these points was threshed over in conversations with officers who were present in Washington, or in correspondence with officers who, like Captain Mahan, were absent."

THE NAVY  IS READY
From the Criterion   (New York),  May, 1898.
If, at the moment, in some of this work Mr. Roosevelt's energy was not appreciated by his superiors in the McKinley administration, or by older naval officers who had fallen into easy-going habits, it was approved by the country as a whole; and its wisdom was destined to be admitted by everybody before the mid-summer of 1898. The late Senator Cushman K. Davis, who was at that time chairman of the Committee on Foreign Relations, declared that " If it had not been for Roosevelt, Dewey would not have been able to strike the blow that he dealt at Manila. Roosevelt's sagacity, energy, and promptness saved us."