Theodore Roosevelt: an Autobiography — Ch 07-The War of America the Unready, pt 1

THE WAR OF AMERICA THE UNREADY

I suppose the United States will always be unready for war, and in consequence will always be exposed to great expense, and to the possibility of the gravest calamity, when the Nation goes to war.

This is no new thing.

Americans learn only from catastrophes and not from experience.

There would have been no war in 1812 if, in the previous decade, America, instead of announcing that "peace was her passion," instead of acting on the theory that unpreparedness averts war, had been willing to go to the expense of providing a fleet of a score of ships of the line.

However, in that case, doubtless the very men who in the actual event deplored the loss of life and waste of capital which their own supineness had brought about would have loudly inveighed against the "excessive and improper cost of armaments"; so it all came to about the same thing in the end.

There is no more thoroughgoing international Mrs. Gummidge, and no more utterly useless and often utterly mischievous citizen, than the peace-at-any-price, universal-arbitration type of being, who is always complaining either about war or else about the cost of the armaments which act as the insurance against war.

There is every reason why we should try to limit the cost of armaments, as these tend to grow excessive, but there is also every reason to remember that in the present stage of civilization a proper armament is the surest guarantee of peace--and is the only guarantee that war, if it does come, will not mean irreparable and overwhelming disaster.

In the spring of 1897 President McKinley appointed me Assistant Secretary of the Navy.

I owed the appointment chiefly to the efforts of Senator H. C.

Lodge of Massachusetts, who doubtless was actuated mainly by his long and close friendship for me, but also--I like to believe--by his keen interest in the navy.

The first book I had ever published, fifteen years previously, was "The History of the Naval War of 1812";

and I have always taken the interest in the navy which every good American ought to take.

At the time I wrote the book, in the early eighties, the navy had reached its nadir, and we were then utterly incompetent to fight Spain or any other power that had a navy at all.

Shortly afterwards we began timidly and hesitatingly to build up a fleet.

It is amusing to recall the roundabout steps we took to accomplish our purpose.

In the reaction after the colossal struggle of the Civil War our strongest and most capable men had thrown their whole energy into business, into money-making, into the development, and above all the exploitation and exhaustion at the most rapid rate possible, of our natural resources--mines, forests, soil, and rivers.

These men were not weak men, but they permitted themselves to grow shortsighted and selfish; and while many of them down at the bottom possessed the fundamental virtues, including the fighting virtues, others were purely of the glorified huckster or glorified pawnbroker type--which when developed to the exclusion of everything else makes about as poor a national type as the world has seen.

This unadulterated huckster or pawnbroker type is rarely keenly sympathetic in matters of social and industrial justice, and is usually physically timid and likes to cover an unworthy fear of the most just war under high-sounding names.

It was reinforced by the large mollycoddle vote--the people who are soft physically and morally, or who have a twist in them which makes them acidly cantankerous and unpleasant as long as they can be so with safety to their bodies.

In addition there are the good people with no imagination and no foresight, who think war will not come, but that if it does come armies and navies can be improvised--a very large element, typified by a Senator I knew personally who, in a public speech, in answer to a question as to what we would do if America were suddenly assailed by a first-class military power, answered that "we would build a battle-ship in every creek."

Then, among the wise and high-minded people who in self-respecting and genuine fashion strive earnestly for peace, there are the foolish fanatics always to be found in such a movement and always discrediting it--the men who form the lunatic fringe in all reform movements.

All these elements taken together made a body of public opinion so important during the decades immediately succeeding the Civil War as to put a stop to any serious effort to keep the Nation in a condition of reasonable military preparedness.

The representatives of this opinion then voted just as they now do when they vote against battle-ships or against fortifying the Panama Canal.

It would have been bad enough if we had been content to be weak, and, in view of our weakness, not to bluster.

But we were not content with such a policy.

We wished to enjoy the incompatible luxuries of an unbridled tongue and an unready hand.

There was a very large element which was ignorant of our military weakness, or, naturally enough, unable to understand it; and another large element which liked to please its own vanity by listening to offensive talk about foreign nations.

Accordingly, too many of our politicians, especially in Congress, found that the cheap and easy thing to do was to please the foolish peace people by keeping us weak, and to please the foolish violent people by passing denunciatory resolutions about international matters--resolutions which would have been improper even if we had been strong.

Their idea was to please both the mollycoddle vote and the vote of the international tail-twisters by upholding, with pretended ardor and mean intelligence, a National policy of peace with insult.

I abhor unjust war.

I abhor injustice and bullying by the strong at the expense of the weak, whether among nations or individuals.

I abhor violence and bloodshed.

I believe that war should never be resorted to when, or so long as, it is honorably possible to avoid it.

I respect all men and women who from high motives and with sanity and self-respect do all they can to avert war.

I advocate preparation for war in order to avert war; and I should never advocate war unless it were the only alternative to dishonor.

I describe the folly of which so many of our people were formerly guilty, in order that we may in our own day be on our guard against similar folly.

We did not at the time of which I write take our foreign duties seriously, and as we combined bluster in speech with refusal to make any preparation whatsoever for action, we were not taken seriously in return.

Gradually a slight change for the better occurred, the writings of Captain Mahan playing no small part therein.

We built some modern cruisers to start with; the people who felt that battle-ships were wicked compromising with their misguided consciences by saying that the cruisers could be used "to protect our commerce"--which they could not be, unless they had battle-ships to back them.

Then we attempted to build more powerful fighting vessels, and as there was a section of the public which regarded battle-ships as possessing a name immorally suggestive of violence, we compromised by calling the new ships armored cruisers, and making them combine with exquisite nicety all the defects and none of the virtues of both types.

Then we got to the point of building battle-ships.

But there still remained a public opinion, as old as the time of Jefferson, which thought that in the event of war all our problem ought to be one of coast defense, that we should do nothing except repel attack; an attitude about as sensible as that of a prize-fighter who expected to win by merely parrying instead of hitting.

To meet the susceptibilities of this large class of well-meaning people, we provided for the battle-ships under the name of "coast defense battle-ships"; meaning thereby that we did not make them quite as seaworthy as they ought to have been, or with quite as much coal capacity as they ought to have had.

Then we decided to build real battle-ships.

But there still remained a lingering remnant of public opinion that clung to the coast defense theory, and we met this in beautiful fashion by providing for "sea-going coast defense battle-ships"--the fact that the name was a contradiction in terms being of very small consequence compared to the fact that we did thereby get real battle-ships.

Our men had to be trained to handle the ships singly and in fleet formation, and they had to be trained to use the new weapons of precision with which the ships were armed.

Not a few of the older officers, kept in the service under our foolish rule of pure seniority promotion, were not competent for the task; but a proportion of the older officers were excellent, and this was true of almost all the younger officers.

They were naturally first-class men, trained in the admirable naval school at Annapolis.

They were overjoyed that at last they were given proper instruments to work with, and they speedily grew to handle these ships individually in the best fashion.

They were fast learning to handle them in squadron and fleet formation; but when the war with Spain broke out, they had as yet hardly grasped the principles of modern scientific naval gunnery.

Soon after I began work as Assistant Secretary of the Navy I became convinced that the war would come.

The revolt in Cuba had dragged its weary length until conditions in the island had become so dreadful as to be a standing disgrace to us for permitting them to exist.

There is much that I sincerely admire about the Spanish character; and there are few men for whom I have felt greater respect than for certain gentlemen of Spain whom I have known.

But Spain attempted to govern her colonies on archaic principles which rendered her control of them incompatible with the advance of humanity and intolerable to the conscience of mankind.

In 1898 the so-called war in Cuba had dragged along for years with unspeakable horror, degradation, and misery.

It was not "war" at all, but murderous oppression.

Cuba was devastated.

During those years, while we continued at "peace," several hundred times as many lives were lost, lives of men, women, and children, as were lost during the three months' "war" which put an end to this slaughter and opened a career of peaceful progress to the Cubans.

Yet there were misguided professional philanthropists who cared so much more for names than for facts that they preferred a "peace" of continuous murder to a "war" which stopped the murder and brought real peace.

Spain's humiliation was certain, anyhow; indeed, it was more certain without war than with it, for she could not permanently keep the island, and she minded yielding to the Cubans more than yielding to us.

Our own direct interests were great, because of the Cuban tobacco and sugar, and especially because of Cuba's relation to the projected Isthmian Canal.

But even greater were our interests from the standpoint of humanity.

Cuba was at our very doors.

It was a dreadful thing for us to sit supinely and watch her death agony.

It was our duty, even more from the standpoint of National honor than from the standpoint of National interest, to stop the devastation and destruction.

Because of these considerations I favored war; and to-day, when in retrospect it is easier to see things clearly, there are few humane and honorable men who do not believe that the war was both just and necessary.

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.

The more fatuous type of philanthropist agreed with them.

The newspapers controlled by, or run in the interests of, these two classes deprecated war, and did everything in their power to prevent any preparation for war.

As a whole the people in Congress were at that time (and are now) a shortsighted set as regards international matters.

There were a few men, Senators Cushman K. Davis,[*] for instance, and John Morgan, who did look ahead; and Senator H. C.

Lodge, who throughout his quarter of a century of service in the Senate and House has ever stood foremost among those who uphold with farsighted fearlessness and strict justice to others our national honor and interest; but 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.

[*] In a letter written me just before I became Assistant Secretary, Senator Davis unburdened his mind about one of the foolish "peace" proposals of that period; his letter running in part: "I left the Senate Chamber about three o'clock this afternoon when there was going on a deal of mowing and chattering over the treaty by which the United States is to be bound to arbitrate its sovereign functions--for policies are matters of sovereignty.

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The aberrations of the social movement are neither progress nor retrogression.

They represent merely a local and temporary sagging of the line of the great orbit.

Tennyson knew this when he wrote that fine and noble 'Maud.'

I often read it, for to do so does me good."

After quoting one of Poe's stories the letter continues: "The world will come out all right.

Let him who believes in the decline of the military spirit observe the boys of a common school during the recess or the noon hour.

Of course when American patriotism speaks out from its rank and file and demands action or expression, and when, thereupon, the 'business man,' so called, places his hand on his stack of reds as if he feared a policeman were about to disturb the game, and protests until American patriotism ceases to continue to speak as it had started to do--why, you and I get mad, and I swear.

I hope you will be with us here after March 4. We can then pass judgment together on the things we don't like, and together indulge in hopes that I believe are prophetic."

However, in the Navy Department we were able to do a good deal, thanks to the energy and ability of some of the bureau chiefs, and to the general good tone of the service.

I soon found my natural friends and allies in such men as Evans, Taylor, Sampson, Wainwright, Brownson, Schroeder, Bradford, Cowles, Cameron, Winslow, O'Neil, and others like them.

I used all the power there was in my office to aid these men in getting the material ready.

I also tried to gather from every source information as to who the best men were to occupy the fighting positions.

Sound naval opinion was overwhelmingly in favor of Dewey to command one squadron.

I was already watching him, for I had been struck by an incident in his past career.

It was at a time when there was threat of trouble with Chile.

Dewey was off the Argentine, and was told to get ready to move to the other coast of South America.

If the move became necessary, he would have to have coal, and yet if he did not make the move, the coal would not be needed.

In such a case a man afraid of responsibility always acts rigidly by the regulations and communicates with the Department at home to get authority for everything he does;

and therefore he usually accomplishes nothing whatever, but is able to satisfy all individuals with red-tape minds by triumphantly pointing out his compliance with the regulations.

In a crisis, the man worth his salt is the man who meets the needs of the situation in whatever way is necessary.

Dewey purchased the coal and was ready to move at once if need arose.

The affair blew over; the need to move did not occur; and for some time there seemed to be a chance that Dewey would get into trouble over having purchased the coal, for our people are like almost all other peoples in requiring responsible officers under such conditions to decide at their own personal peril, no matter which course they follow.

However, the people higher up ultimately stood by Dewey.

The incident made me feel that here was a man who could be relied upon to prepare in advance, and to act promptly, fearlessly, and on his own responsibility when the emergency arose.

Accordingly I did my best to get him put in command of the Asiatic fleet, the fleet where it was most essential to have a man who would act without referring things back to the home authorities.

An officer senior to him, of the respectable commonplace type, was being pushed by certain politicians who I knew had influence with the Navy Department and with the President.

I would have preferred to see Dewey get the appointment without appealing to any politician at all.

But while this was my preference, the essential thing was to get him the appointment.

For a naval officer to bring pressure to get himself a soft and easy place is unpardonable; but a large leniency should be observed toward the man who uses influence only to get himself a place in the picture near the flashing of the guns.

There was a Senator, Proctor of Vermont, who I knew was close to McKinley, and who was very ardent for the war, and desirous to have it fought in the most efficient fashion.

I suggested to Dewey that he should enlist the services of Senator Proctor, which was accordingly done.

In a fortunate hour for the Nation, Dewey was given command of the Asiatic squadron.

When the Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor, war became inevitable.

A number of the peace-at-any-price men of course promptly assumed the position that she had blown herself up; but investigation showed that the explosion was from outside.

And, in any event, it would have been impossible to prevent war.

The enlisted men of the navy, who often grew bored to the point of desertion in peace, became keyed up to a high pitch of efficiency, and crowds of fine young fellows, from the interior as well as from the seacoast, thronged to enlist.

The navy officers showed alert ability and unwearied industry in getting things ready.

There was one deficiency, however, which there was no time to remedy, and of the very existence of which, strange to say, most of our best men were ignorant.

Our navy had no idea how low our standard of marksmanship was.

We had not realized that the modern battle-ship had become such a complicated piece of mechanism that the old methods of training in marksmanship were as obsolete as the old muzzle-loading broadside guns themselves.

Almost the only man in the navy who fully realized this was our naval attache at Paris, Lieutenant Sims.

He wrote letter after letter pointing out how frightfully backward we were in marksmanship.

I was much impressed by his letters; but Wainwright was about the only other man who was.

And as Sims proved to be mistaken in his belief that the French had taught the Spaniards how to shoot, and as the Spaniards proved to be much worse even than we were, in the service generally Sims was treated as an alarmist.

But although I at first partly acquiesced in this view, I grew uneasy when I studied the small proportion of hits to shots made by our vessels in battle.

When I was President I took up the matter, and speedily became convinced that we needed to revolutionize our whole training in marksmanship.

Sims was given the lead in organizing and introducing the new system; and to him more than to any other one man was due the astonishing progress made by our fleet in this respect, a progress which made the fleet, gun for gun, at least three times as effective, in point of fighting efficiency, in 1908, as it was in 1902. The shots that hit are the shots that count!

Like the people, the Government was for a long time unwilling to prepare for war, because so many honest but misguided men believed that the preparation itself tended to bring on the war.

I did not in the least share this feeling, and whenever I was left as Acting Secretary I did everything in my power to put us in readiness.

I knew that in the event of war Dewey could be slipped like a wolf-hound from a leash; I was sure that if he were given half a chance he would strike instantly and with telling effect; and I made up my mind that all I could do to give him that half-chance should be done.

I was in the closest touch with Senator Lodge throughout this period, and either consulted him about or notified him of all the moves I was taking.

By the end of February I felt it was vital to send Dewey (as well as each of our other commanders who were not in home waters) instructions that would enable him to be in readiness for immediate action.

On the afternoon of Saturday, February 25, when I was Acting Secretary, Lodge called on me just as I was preparing the order, which (as it was addressed to a man of the right stamp) was of much importance to the subsequent operations.

Admiral Dewey speaks of the incident as follows, in his autobiography: "The first real step [as regards active naval preparations] was taken on February 25, when telegraphic instructions were sent to the Asiatic, European, and South Atlantic squadrons to rendezvous at certain convenient points where, should war break out, they would be most available.

"The message to the Asiatic squadron bore the signature of that Assistant Secretary who had seized the opportunity while Acting Secretary to hasten preparations for a conflict which was inevitable.

As Mr. Roosevelt reasoned, precautions for readiness would cost little in time of peace, and yet would be invaluable in case of war.

His cablegram was as follows: "'Washington, February 25, '98. "'_Dewey, Hong Kong_: "'Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong.

Keep full of coal.

In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands.

Keep Olympia until further orders.

"'ROOSEVELT.'

"(The reference to keeping the Olympia until further orders was due to the fact that I had been notified that she would soon be recalled to the United States.

)" All that was needed with Dewey was to give him the chance to get ready, and then to strike, without being hampered by orders from those not on the ground.

Success in war depends very largely upon choosing a man fit to exercise such powers, and then giving him the powers.

It would be instructive to remember, if only we were willing to do so, the fairly comic panic which swept in waves over our seacoast, first when it became evident that war was about to be declared, and then when it was declared.

The public waked up to the sufficiently obvious fact that the Government was in its usual state--perennial unreadiness for war.

Thereupon the people of the seaboard district passed at one bound from unreasoning confidence that war never could come to unreasoning fear as to what might happen now that it had come.

That acute philosopher Mr. Dooley proclaimed that in the Spanish War we were in a dream, but that the Spaniards were in a trance.

This just about summed up the facts.

Our people had for decades scoffed at the thought of making ready for possible war.

Now, when it was too late, they not only backed every measure, wise and unwise, that offered a chance of supplying a need that ought to have been met before, but they also fell into a condition of panic apprehension as to what the foe might do.

For years we had been saying, just as any number of our people now say, that no nation would venture to attack us.

Then when we did go to war with an exceedingly feeble nation, we, for the time being, rushed to the other extreme of feeling, and attributed to this feeble nation plans of offensive warfare which it never dreamed of making, and which, if made, it would have been wholly unable to execute.

Some of my readers doubtless remember the sinister intentions and unlimited potentialities for destruction with which the fertile imagination of the yellow press endowed the armored cruiser Viscaya when she appeared in American waters just before war was declared.

The state of nervousness along much of the seacoast was funny in view of the lack of foundation for it; but it offered food for serious thought as to what would happen if we ever became engaged with a serious foe.

The Governor of one State actually announced that he would not permit the National Guard of that State to leave its borders, the idea being to retain it against a possible Spanish invasion.

So many of the business men of the city of Boston took their securities inland to Worcester that the safe deposit companies of Worcester proved unable to take care of them.

In my own neighborhood on Long Island clauses were gravely put into leases to the effect that if the property were destroyed by the Spaniards the lease should lapse.

As Assistant Secretary of the Navy I had every conceivable impossible request made to me.

Members of Congress who had actively opposed building any navy came clamorously around to ask each for a ship for some special purpose of protection connected with his district.

It seems incredible, but it is true, that not only these Congressmen but the Chambers of Commerce and Boards of Trade of different coast cities all lost their heads for the time being, and raised a deafening clamor and brought every species of pressure to bear on the Administration to get it to adopt the one most fatal course--that is, to distribute the navy, ship by ship, at all kinds of points and in all kinds of ports with the idea of protecting everything everywhere, and thereby rendering it absolutely certain that even the Spanish fleet, poor though it was, would be able to pick up our own navy ship by ship in detail.

One Congressman besought me for a ship to protect Jekyll Island, off the coast of Georgia, an island which derived its sole consequence because it contained the winter homes of certain millionaires.

A lady whose husband occupied a very influential position, and who was normally a most admirable and sensible woman, came to insist that a ship should be anchored off a huge seaside hotel because she had a house in the neighborhood.

There were many such instances.

One stood out above the others.

A

certain seaboard State contained in its Congressional delegation one of the most influential men in the Senate, and one of the most influential men in the lower house.

These two men had been worse than lukewarm about building up the navy, and had scoffed at the idea of there ever being any danger from any foreign power.

With the advent of war the feelings of their constituents, and therefore their own feelings, suffered an immediate change, and they demanded that a ship be anchored in the harbor of their city as a protection.

Getting no comfort from me, they went "higher up," and became a kind of permanent committee in attendance upon the President.

They were very influential men in the Houses, with whom it was important for the Administration to keep on good terms; and, moreover, they possessed a pertinacity as great as the widow who won her case from the unjust judge.

Finally the President gave in and notified me to see that a ship was sent to the city in question.

I was bound that, as long as a ship had to be sent, it should not be a ship worth anything.

Accordingly a Civil War Monitor, with one smooth-bore gun, managed by a crew of about twenty-one naval militia, was sent to the city in question, under convoy of a tug.

It was a hazardous trip for the unfortunate naval militiamen, but it was safely accomplished; and joy and peace descended upon the Senator and the Congressman, and upon the President whom they had jointly harassed.

Incidentally, the fact that the protecting war-vessel would not have been a formidable foe to any antagonists of much more modern construction than the galleys of Alcibiades seemed to disturb nobody.

This was one side of the picture.

The other side was that the crisis at once brought to the front any amount of latent fighting strength.

There were plenty of Congressmen who showed cool-headed wisdom and resolution.

The plain people, the men and women back of the persons who lost their heads, set seriously to work to see that we did whatever was necessary, and made the job a thorough one.

The young men swarmed to enlist.

In time of peace it had been difficult to fill the scanty regular army and navy, and there were innumerable desertions; now the ships and regiments were over-enlisted, and so many deserters returned in order to fight that it became difficult to decide what to do with them.

England, and to a less degree Japan, were friendly.

The great powers of Continental Europe were all unfriendly.

They jeered at our ships and men, and with fatuous partisanship insisted that the Spaniards would prove too much for our "mercenaries" because we were a commercial people of low ideals who could not fight, while the men whom we attempted to hire for that purpose were certain to run on the day of battle.