In 1897 the menace of war hung heavy above America. Spain’s barbarous rule in Cuba had stirred the American conscience. It became plain that it was the duty of America to become the protector of the sunny island that cried out to it for deliverance from the oppression of the Old World power.
Cuba, under Spain’s management, was a pest hole of yellow fever. Her government was vile and corrupt. The Spanish rulers crushed remonstrances with blood and iron.
A new American navy was then being built. Before it began, Roosevelt himself said, America was not in a position to fight Spain or anyone else. Timidly and haltingly, contrasting strongly with America’s present-day naval programme, the work had been begun by the country. The need was felt for a man of energetic character, modern methods and foresight to put the fleet in condition for war. Roosevelt’s work as Police Commissioner had made him famous throughout the country, and the nation met with hearty approval President McKinley’s appointment of him as Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
It was Senator H. C. Lodge, of Massachusetts, a long and close friend of Roosevelt, who worked hardest for his appointment. Fifteen years before, Roosevelt had written “The History of the Naval War of 1812,” and since that time had taken a deep interest in the navy.
He was a strong opponent of that class of impractical men typified by a Senator who, in answer to a question as to what we would do if we were suddenly attacked by a foreign power, replied:
“We would build a battleship in every creek.”
Roosevelt, in his autobiography, thus describes how gingerly the American people went about the work of building the ships that later won the battle of Santiago Bay:
“We built some modern cruisers to start with, the people who felt that battleships 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 battleships to back them.
“Then we attempted to build more powerful fighting vessels, and as there was a section of the public which regarded battleships 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 battleships.
“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 defence; that we should do nothing except repel attack; an attitude about as sensible as that of a prizefighter who expected to win by merely parrying instead of hitting.