Any really great nation must be peculiarly sensitive to two things: Stain on the national honor at home, and disgrace to the national arms abroad. Our honor at home, our honor in domestic and internal affairs, is at all times in our own keeping, and depends simply upon the possession of an awakened public conscience. But the only way to make safe our honor, as affected not by our own deeds but by the deeds of others, is by readiness in advance. In three great crises in our history during the nineteenth century—in the War of 1812, in the Civil War, and again in the Spanish War—the navy rendered to the nation services of literally incalculable worth. In the Civil War we had to meet antagonists even more unprepared at sea than we were. On both the other occasions we encountered foreign foes, and the fighting was done entirely by ships built long in advance, and by officers and crews who had been trained during years of sea service for the supreme day when their qualities were put to the final test. The ships which won at Manila and Santiago under the Administration of President McKinley had been built years before under Presidents Arthur, Cleveland, and Harrison. The officers in those ships had been trained from their earliest youth to their profession, and the enlisted men, in addition to their natural aptitude, their intelligence, and their courage, had been drilled as marksmen with the great guns and as machinists in the engine rooms, and perfected in all the details of their work during years of cruising on the high seas and of incessant target practice. It was this preparedness which was the true secret of the enormous difference in efficiency between our navy and the Spanish navy. There was no lack of courage and self-devotion among the Spaniards, but on our side, in addition to the courage and devotion, for the lack of which no training could atone, there was also that training—the training which comes only as the result of years of thorough and painstaking practice.
Annapolis is, with the sole exception of its sister academy at West Point, the most typically democratic and American school of learning and preparation that there is in the entire country. Men go there from every State, from every walk of life, professing every creed—the chance of entry being open to all who perfect themselves in the necessary studies and who possess the necessary moral and physical qualities. There each man enters on his merits, stands on his merits, and graduates into a service where only his merit will enable him to be of value.
The enlisted men are of fine type, as they needs must be to do their work well, whether in the gun turret or in the engine room; and out of the fine material thus provided the finished man-of-war’s man is evolved by years of sea service.
It is impossible after the outbreak of war to improvise either the ships or the men of a navy. A war vessel is a bit of mechanism as delicate and complicated as it is formidable. You might just as well expect to turn an unskilled laborer offhand into a skilled machinist or into the engineer of a flyer on one of our big railroad systems as to put men aboard a battleship with the expectation that they will do anything but discredit themselves until they have had months and years in which thoroughly to learn their duties. Our shipbuilders and gunmakers must keep ever on the alert so that no rivals pass them by; and the officers and enlisted men on board the ships must in their turn, by the exercise of unflagging and intelligent zeal, keep themselves fit to get the best use out of the weapons of war intrusted to their care. The instrument is always important, but the man who uses it is more important still. We must constantly endeavor to perfect our navy in all its duties in time of peace, and above all in manœuvring in a seaway and in marksmanship with the great guns. In battle the only shots that count are those that hit, and marksmanship is a matter of long practice and of intelligent reasoning. A navy’s efficiency in a war depends mainly upon its preparedness at the outset of that war. We are not to be excused as a nation if there is not such preparedness of our navy. This is especially so in view of what we have done during the last four years. No nation has a right to undertake a big task unless it is prepared to do it in masterful and effective style. It would be an intolerable humiliation for us to embark on such a course of action as followed from our declaration of war with Spain, and not make good our words by deeds—not be ready to prove our truth by our endeavor whenever the need calls. The good work of building up the navy must go on without ceasing. The modern warship can not with advantage be allowed to rust in disuse. It must be used up in active service even in time of peace. This means that there must be a constant replacement of the ineffective by the effective. The work of building up and keeping up our navy is therefore one which needs our constant and unflagging vigilance. Our navy is now efficient; but we must be content with no ordinary degree of efficiency. Every effort must be made to bring it ever nearer to perfection. In making such effort the prime factor is to have at the head of the navy such an official as your fellow-townsman, Mr. Moody; and the next is to bring home to our people as a whole the need of thorough and ample preparation in advance; this preparation to take the form not only of continually building ships, but of keeping these ships in commission under conditions which will develop the highest degree of efficiency in the officers and enlisted men aboard them.
AT PORTLAND, MAINE, AUGUST 26, 1902
Mr. Mayor, and you, my fellow-citizens, men and women of Maine:
I wish to say a word to you in recognition of great service rendered not only to all our country but to the entire principle of democratic government throughout the world, by one of your citizens. The best institutions are of no good if they won’t work. I do not care how beautiful a theory is, if it won’t fit in with the facts it is of no good. If you built the handsomest engine that ever had been built and it did not go, its usefulness would be limited. Well, that was just about the condition that Congress had reached at the time when Thomas B. Reed was elected Speaker. We had all the machinery, but it didn’t work,—that was the trouble,—and you had to find some one powerful man who would disregard the storm of obloquy sure to be raised by what he did in order to get it to work. Such a man was found when Reed was made Speaker. We may differ among ourselves as to policy. We may differ among ourselves as to what course government should follow; but if we possess any intelligence we must be a unit that it shall be able to follow some course. If government can not go on it is not government. If the legislative body can not enact laws, then there is no use of misnaming it a legislative body; and if the majority is to rule some method by which it can rule must be provided. Government by the majority in Congress had practically come to a stop when Mr. Reed became Speaker. Mr. Reed, at the cost of infinite labor, at the cost of the fiercest attacks, succeeded in restoring that old principle; and now through Congress we can do well or ill, accordingly as the people demand, but at any rate, we can do something—and we owe it more than to any other one man to your fellow-citizen, Mr. Reed. It is a great thing for any man to be able to feel that in some one crisis he left his mark deeply scored for good in the history of his country, and Tom Reed has the right to that feeling.
AT AUGUSTA, MAINE, AUGUST 26, 1902
Governor Burleigh, my fellow-citizens, men and women of Maine:
It would be difficult for any man speaking to this audience and from in front of the house in which Blaine once lived to fail to feel whatever of Americanism there was in him stirred to the depths. For my good fortune I knew Mr. Blaine quite well when he was Secretary of State, and I have thought again and again during the past few years how pleased he would have been to see so many of the principles for which he had stood approach fruition.