Remember that after the war has begun it is too late to improvise a navy. A naval war is two-thirds settled in advance, at least two-thirds, because it is mainly settled by the preparation which has gone on for years preceding its outbreak. We won at Manila because the shipbuilders of the country, including those here at San Francisco, under the wise provisions of Congress, had for fifteen years before been preparing the navy. In 1882 our navy was a shame and a disgrace to the country in point of material. The personnel contained as fine material as there was to be found in the world but the ships and the guns were antiquated, and it would have been a wicked absurdity to have sent them against the ships of any good power. Then we began to build up the navy. Every ship that fought under Dewey had been built between 1883 and 1896.
We come here as patriots remembering that our party lines stop at the water’s edge. That fleet was successful in 1898 because under the previous administrations of both political parties, under the previous Congresses controlled by both political parties, for the previous fifteen years there had been a resolute effort to build adequate ships. The ships that went in under Dewey had been constructed under different successive Secretaries of the Navy and had been provided for by different successive Congresses of the United States. Not one of them had been built less than two years, some of them fourteen years. We could not have begun to fight that battle if we had not been for so many years making ready the navy.
The last Congress has taken greater strides than any previous Congress in making ready the navy, but it will be two or three years before the effects are seen. In no branch of the government are foresight and the carrying out of a steady and continuous policy so necessary as in the navy; and you, citizens of San Francisco, of California, and all our citizens should make it a matter of prime duty to see that there is no halt in that work, that the next Congress, and the Congress after that, and the Congress after that, go right on providing formidable warcraft, providing officers, providing men, and providing the means of training them in peace to be effective in war. The best ships and the best guns do not count unless they are handled aright and aimed aright, and the best men can not thus handle the one nor aim the other if they do not have ample practice. Our people must be trained in handling our ships in squadrons on the high seas. Our people on the ships must be trained by actual practice to do their duty in conning tower, in the engine-rooms, in the gun-turrets. The shots that count in battle are the shots that hit.
We have reason to be satisfied with the rapid increase in accuracy in marksmanship of the navy in recent years, and I congratulate Admiral Glass and those under him and all our naval officers who are taking their part so well in perfecting that work, and I congratulate the enlisted men of the navy upon the extraordinary improvement in marksmanship shown by the gun pointers.
Applaud the navy and what it has done. That is first-class. But make your applause count by seeing that the good work goes on. Besides applauding now see to it that the navy is so built up that the men of the next generation will have something to applaud also.
AT THE UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA, BERKELEY, CAL., MAY 14, 1903
President Wheeler; Fellow-Members of the University:
Last night, in speaking to one of my new friends in California, he told me that he thought enough had been said to me about the fruits and flowers; that enough had been said to me about California being an Eden, and that he wished I would pay some attention to Adam as well. Much though I have been interested in the wonderful physical beauty of this wonderful State, I have been infinitely more interested in its citizenship, and perhaps most in its citizenship in the making.
When I come to the University of California and am greeted by its President I am greeted by an old and valued friend, a friend whom I have not merely known socially but upon whom, while I was Governor of New York, I leaned often for advice and assistance in the problems with which I had to deal. When he accepted your offer I grudged him to you. And it was not until I came here, not until I have seen you, that I have been fully reconciled to the loss. But now I am, for I can conceive of no happier life for any man to lead to whom life means what it should mean, than the life of the President of this great University.
This same friend last night suggested to me a thought that I intend to work out in speaking to you to-day. We were talking over the University of California, and from that we spoke of the general educational system of our country. Facts tend to become commonplace, and we tend to lose sight of their importance when once they are ingrained into the life of the Nation. Although we talk a good deal about what the widespread education of this country means, I question if many of us deeply consider its meaning. From the lowest grade of the public school to the highest form of university training, education in this country is at the disposal of every man, every woman, who chooses to work for and obtain it. The State has done much, very much; witness this university. Private benefaction has done very much; witness also this university. And each one of us who has obtained an education has obtained something for which he or she has not personally paid. No matter what the school, what the university, every American who has a school training, a university training, has obtained something given to him outright by the State, or given to him by those dead or those living who were able to make provision for that training because of the protection of the State, because of existence within its borders. Each one of us then who has an education, school or college, has obtained something from the community at large for which he or she has not paid, and no self-respecting man or woman is content to rest permanently under such an obligation. Where the State has bestowed education the man who accepts it must be content to accept it merely as a charity unless he returns it to the State in full, in the shape of good citizenship. I do not ask of you, men and women here to-day, good citizenship as a favor to the State. I demand it of you as a right, and hold you recreant to your duty if you fail to give it.