The Everything Theodore Roosevelt Book (20 page)

On April 19, 1897, President McKinley named TR to the position. TR may have been an assistant technically, but he turned himself into the de facto commander of the navy and gave Washington, D.C., a taste of what was to come when he became president. That was something no one envisioned at the time.

The title of assistant secretary of the navy was created in 1861, during the Civil War. The incumbent’s job was to oversee the navy’s civilian personnel and administer its shore facilities. The government did away with the position in 1869 after the war ended but reinstated it in 1890. It was discontinued for good in 1954.

TR assumed his navy duties at a time when the organization was in a state of disarray and war with Spain was on the horizon. The navy was woefully unprepared for a war. President McKinley knew that. He did not want the United States to get involved in it unless there was no diplomatic way to avoid it. In that, he and TR disagreed. His new assistant secretary of the navy began at once to prepare the service for the war he was sure could not be averted and which a lot of people did not want.

In his autobiography, TR noted that he was in the minority at the time in preparing for the war. He said that “The big financiers and the men generally who were susceptible to touch on the money nerve, and who cared nothing for National honor if it conflicted even temporarily with business prosperity, were against the war.” So were philanthropists, newspapers, and most of the Congress.

“Most of the Congressmen were content to follow the worst of all possible courses, that is, to pass resolutions which made war more likely, and yet to decline to take measures which would enable us to meet the war if it did come,” TR proclaimed. He planned to proceed with his preparation, despite the opposition he faced. And he did it as if he were running the show.

Running the Navy

Many of the navy’s ships were unseaworthy, and it was lacking in auxiliary vessels to support the large warships. Worse, the public was not in favor of building new ships. The navy resorted to subterfuge to tell citizens what it was building.

The primary issue between the United States and Spain in the 1890s was the overbearing conduct of the Spanish governor in Cuba. The United States was also worried that Spain was exerting too much power in the Caribbean, contrary to the Monroe Doctrine. Cuban revolutionaries’ activities against the Spanish were increasing. The instability and political unrest in the region rattled U.S. authorities.

Traditionally, most Americans, including political leaders, believed their navy should operate solely to protect commerce and the U.S. coast. They did not believe big warships were needed to do that. TR disagreed. He believed that a large navy with powerful warships was essential to fight wars and keep the peace. TR insisted that he abhorred war. But, he said, “I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.” Nevertheless, he did in the case of the Spanish-American war.

A New Name for Warships

TR pushed for large, technologically advanced battleships—even if they had to be called something else. For a while, to get around the label “battleships,” the navy started calling its new warships armored cruisers. Then it switched the terminology to satisfy the people who believed only in the “coast and commerce” role for the navy.

The new ships became “coast defense battleships.” The ships that fell into that category lacked seaworthiness and coal capacity. So the navy started building bigger and better ships labeled “sea-going coast defense battleships.”

At the start of the Spanish-American War, the navy had on its active list six battleships, two armored cruisers, thirteen protected cruisers, six steel monitors, eight old iron monitors, thirty-three unprotected cruisers and gunboats, six torpedo boats, and twelve tugs. There were no auxiliary vessels other than the tugs to support them.

As a result of the name changing and inability to focus on the right ship for the right purpose, the navy entered the Spanish-American War with a motley collection of warships that TR alleged could not win a battle. He vowed to change that.

TR’s First Year in Office

One of the first things TR did in his first year was what he did best: identify the right people with whom to work. He socialized and communicated with naval historian Alfred Thayer Mahan and naval strategists Commodore George Dewey and Captain Robley D. Evans, and developed plans for fighting what he considered an inevitable war with Spain. Then, he appointed Dewey to command the Asiatic Squadron. The latter accomplishment was just the type of move that drove some of TR’s critics—and supporters—to distraction.

Alfred Thayer Mahan began his U.S. Navy career as an officer in the American Civil War. He believed naval power was the key to strong foreign policy, which he stressed in his 1890 book,
The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783
. The book, which TR reviewed for the
Atlantic Monthly
in 1890, influenced the navy as it strengthened its forces and developed new strategies.

Even though he was the “assistant secretary,” TR had a penchant for setting policy on his own initiative, especially when the secretary of the navy, John Davis Long, was out of office, which was often. Long had a penchant for taking extended lunches, breaks, and vacations to his native New England for long periods to escape the hot Washington, D.C., summer weather.

Additionally, Long was not interested in the mundane day-to-day details of navy administration. He left those to TR, which he later regretted. TR did try to keep Long apprised of what he was doing. He wrote detailed letters to the secretary to update him on his activities, but Long mostly ignored them at his own risk.

The Newspapers Keep Tabs

Long may not have known what TR was up to a large part of the time, but the newspapers did. The
New York Sun
said in an article that “the liveliest spot in Washington … is the Navy Department. The decks are cleared for action. Acting Secretary Roosevelt … has the whole Navy bordering on a war footing. It remains only to sand down the decks and pipe to quarters to action.”

John Davis Long was born in Maine in 1838. He served as a congressman from Massachusetts and the state’s governor before becoming Secretary of the Navy in 1897. Long is credited with laying the groundwork for the “new navy” developed under President Theodore Roosevelt—Long’s former assistant, who actually did a lot of the work.

While Long was visiting New England, TR was socializing at the Metropolitan Club in Washington with the president of the Naval Board of Inspection and Survey, the attending surgeon to President McKinley, and assorted navy leaders. That gave him the opportunity to identify people he could trust and who agreed with his views on naval affairs.

He also spent a lot of time sailing aboard the battleship
Iowa
, commanded by Rear Admiral William T. Sampson, who led the navy’s significant victory in the Battle of Santiago de Cuba during the war.

Socializing with the “right” people worked to TR’s advantage, but it diminished Long’s effectiveness as the secretary of the navy. In his absence, his “assistant” was prone to make decisions that rightly were Long’s to make. When TR was not making decisions, he was studying how he could improve the navy.

In a strange twist of events, TR retained Long as secretary of the Navy for the first eight months of his presidency. However, Long was uncomfortable with serving as a subordinate to his former assistant, so he resigned from the position on April 30, 1902, and returned to private life in Massachusetts.

Hitting the Target

One agenda item that TR attacked almost immediately was correcting a glaring deficiency among navy gunners: their marksmanship. It was a problem similar to one he had addressed with the New York City police department, to which he had introduced uniform weapons regulations and firing ranges.

The navy was using bigger guns, but the principle was the same: the purpose in shooting at something was to hit it. He conducted a study to see how big a problem the navy faced.

TR learned that while the navy was building bigger ships with advanced weaponry for its time, it was not conducting marksmanship drills that matched the upgrades. It was applying Civil War tactics to twentieth-century technology, which was a drawback in naval combat.

Sims Sees the Problem

He discovered that the gunners realized a small proportion of hits to shots fired. Worse, he found, even the navy did not realize it had a problem in that respect. Fortunately, at least one navy officer, William S. Sims, understood the problem, but he was not in a position to remedy it since he was posted in Paris up to and during the Spanish-American War.

TR recognized that the war would start before he could resolve the marksmanship situation. But he took notice of Sims and was determined to use his expertise in the future. TR tabled action on the problem until he was in a better position to address it, which he did when he became president. And Sims became his naval aide for two-and-a-half years, from 1907–1909.