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| Aboard the USS Connecticut, 1909 |
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| Aboard the USS Gerald Ford, 2017 |
I am of course speaking of Theodore Roosevelt--and Donald Trump.
Both of their names have been in the papers recently regarding the same subject: Captain Crozier of the USS Theodore Roosevelt.
The captain's concern for his crew is commendable. His decision to allow shore leave, debatable. His refusal to consult his admiral on board, questionable. As Gen. Keene noted, he could have summoned a video-conference with the Navy Secretary instantly. Baffling. Most troubling of all; we're in a bio-event with China and by going public, he told them the carrier off their coast was disabled. Not good. We even had to display our bombers on Guam recently to discourage any adventurism.
Deep Dive on History: The story of Teddy Roosevelt's divided American family:
"Theodore Sr. had a tremendous on his son. Roosevelt wrote in his 1913 autobiography, titled “Theodore Roosevelt: An Autobiography”: “My father … was the best man I ever knew. He combined strength and courage with gentleness, tenderness, and great unselfishness. He would not tolerate in us children selfishness or cruelty, idleness, cowardice, or untruthfulness.”
Roosevelt’s sister Corinne later wrote, “He told me frequently that he never took any serious step or made any vital decision for his country without thinking first what position his father would have taken.”
Like many prosperous businessmen with commercial ties to the South, Theodore Sr. opposed the drift toward war, but once it came, he and his family became strong Lincoln Republicans. It must have come as a great shock to young Teddy to learn that his father never fought in the Civil War; rather, he hired a $300 substitute to take his place in the Union Army.
To an impressionable child, the embarrassment from the senior Roosevelt’s decision not to serve in the military must have been made worse because the Roosevelts had many prominent friends and neighbors who fought and died in that noble cause. This anomaly between the father’s aristocratic bearing and his failure to make a military mark in the war is complicated by the contrasting picture Teddy saw in the maternal side of the family.
‘Rebel’ mother
Teddy’s mother, Martha “Mittie” Bulloch, was a Southern belle from a slave-owning family in Savannah, Ga. Her father, James, owned a cotton mill and, with his partner, founded a Georgia town called Roswell. There Mittie grew up as the darling of a wealthy planter family.
In 1839, James completed Bulloch Hall, a Greek Revival mansion that survived Union Gen. William T. Sherman’s March to the Sea and is today maintained as a museum. The mansion is said to have been the model for Margaret Mitchell’s Tara Plantation in “Gone With the Wind.” In his autobiography, Roosevelt described his mother as “a sweet, gracious, beautiful Southern woman, a delightful companion and beloved by everybody. She was entirely ‘unreconstructed’” - that is, sympathetic to the Confederate cause - “to the day of her death.”
Mittie’s mother and her sister, Anna, having suffered financial reversals that forced them to give up Bulloch Hall, joined the family in New York and there formed a staunch alliance of Confederate support against the Roosevelts, who, of course, strongly supported the Union.
Bulloch brothers
Mittie’s brothers, James and Irvine, served the Confederacy during the war. Irvine Bulloch was the youngest officer aboard the CSS Alabama when it was sunk off the coast of France. The most famous Confederate steam-and-sail raider, the Alabama roamed the North Atlantic preying upon Union merchant vessels in a futile yet heroic effort to thwart the Union blockade of Southern ports.
At a time of declining fortunes, tales of the Alabama bolstered Southern morale and provided fleeting relief from the blockade. As a member of the crew, Irvine symbolized that gallant effort.
James Bulloch, if less flamboyant than his brother, played a herculean role for the Confederacy. Best described as a “naval agent,” James was sent to England by Confederate Navy Secretary Stephen Mallory during the infancy of the Confederacy with a daunting task: to build a navy from scratch for an upstart country (as the Europeans saw it) with no seafaring tradition.
James was the man behind the British building or refitting of what became the best-known commerce raiders of the war, including the legendary Alabama, Florida and Shenandoah. James also helped prolong the life of the Confederacy by shipping cotton to Liverpool, furnishing cash to buy arms and supplies for the South.
Buying a substitute
Thus, while Mittie’s brothers were heroes of the South, the senior Roosevelt (and his brothers) never even served in the military. Though a not uncommon practice, buying a substitute no doubt opened the Roosevelt family to ridicule and, in fact, was a factor in the New York Draft Riots of 1863.
As one historian put it, those able to pay for a substitute exercised the “right of the rich to hire the poor to do [their] fighting and dying.” Still, in all fairness to the senior Roosevelt, historians agree that he probably acted out of deference to Mittie.
Prone to bouts of hysteria and depression (she locked herself in a bedroom for days after a Union victory) she pleaded with Theodore Sr. that it would kill her if he were to fight against her brothers. Instead, he launched himself into Union relief efforts with a zeal born of guilt.
Theodore Sr. helped found the Union League, an organization to promote the Union cause, and he is known for his work in establishing the allotment system whereby soldiers could set aside some of their pay for their families. Theodore Sr. often traveled to Washington to lobby for legislation to create the system, and through the influence of a friend, Lincoln’s secretary John Hay, won the support of the administration and became friends with the Lincolns.
When the law passed, he was appointed to the allotment commission and spent most of the war away from home going to battlefields to persuade soldiers to join the allotment plan. The elder Roosevelt probably saw as much of Army life as would many men in the military, yet all young Theodore knew was that his father was not a fighting man.
Espionage
In a letter, Mittie accused her husband of “deserting” his family, and there is evidence that she exploited his long absences by filling her children’s time with tales (real or imagined) of her brothers’ exploits. Whether she did so out of pride or in reaction to her husband´s participation in the war effort is beside the point; her stories all served to highlight the difference between her brothers and their cause and the absent patriarch.
Teddy Roosevelt later wrote that his mother used “to talk to me as a little shave about ships, ships, ships and the fighting of ships until they sank into the depths of my soul.” Family and friends knew that Mittie and the senior Roosevelt differed sharply over the war. Others (perhaps even the elder Roosevelt) may have known that Mittie and the children sent contraband packages of medicine, food, clothing and money through the blockade to relatives and friends in Georgia.
Of these days, young Roosevelt’s oldest sister, Bamie, wrote that she and Teddy went on picnics in Central Park, where they handed over the parcels to couriers, who in return brought them letters from James and others serving in the Confederacy.".......
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| Aboard the CSS Alabama |
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| Not onboard with the CSS Alabama |
In 1905, Teddy Roosevelt was the first President to go aboard a submarine, The USS Plunger (heh).
The Courant: "Near the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt was one of very few men whose imagination was stirred by the submarine. In Roosevelt's day, most European navy men appeared to have an aversion to submarines. Some thought them to be a sneaky and ungentlemanly way of waging war. Others feared the submarine would supplant the primacy of surface ships and threaten their careers. Indeed, the famous submarine inventor of the day, John Holland, bitterly said of them. "The navy doesn't like submarines because there's no deck to strut on." But most of all, naval men considered the submarine a death trap. But such tales did not frighten Teddy Roosevelt. When, just prior to the Spanish-American War, Holland offered his submarine to the Navy, Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the Navy urged the department to purchase it. However, the navy turned it down. Nevertheless, some months after his coming into the presidency following the assassination of McKinley in 1901, the navy began to take possession of its first submarines with the enthusiastic approval of the new president. Indeed, in 1903, his cabinet had all they could do dissuading him from going down on one of those early submarines at Annapolis. But he had no such cautious advisors on a memorable day at Oyster Bay in August, 1905. And they were right! The submarine had a long and disconcerting history of disasters.
,,,As the Plunger churned its way through the gale lashed waves, Teddy Roosevelt immersed himself in every detail as he moved about the craft. And it was reported that "He behaved like a delighted school boy over everything he saw." ...
When the Plunger reached its destination in the midst of the Sound, Lt. Nelson gave the order to dive.After the "porpoise" maneuver the Plunger was put into a 45-degree angle dive. Suddenly, at a depth of 20 feet, the electric motor was reversed and the submarine shot backwards to the surface! Following this, the Plunger went down again to make a rapid underwater U-turn. Finally, Nelson ordered the vessel to a depth of 20 feet, extinguished the lights and demonstrated to the President the crew's ability to control the craft in total darkness.
Fortunately, the Plunger did all that was asked of her when she was entrusted with the life of the President of the United Stated on that stormy Long Island day in 1905. And Roosevelt returned safely to the tender, Apache. He later said of the experience - "Never in my life have I had such a diverting day, nor can I recall having so much enjoyment in so few hours as today."
Nevertheless, when the President's advisers heard of the episode on his return to Sagamore Hill, they rushed to take precautions against the public learning of the President's death-defying trip on the Plunger. But unable to cover up the affair, official statements were issued denying that the President of the United States had intended to risk his life in a submarine! ...
The fact of the matter, of course, was that Roosevelt had been aching to go down in a submarine.... Perhaps it was his excitement to tell of his adventure in the Plunger that caused him to blow the cover story in an exasperated reply to someone who said that the chief of the nation had no right to take the risk of going down in a submarine. For he angrily replied, "I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and I have the right to go where I wish to so as to see where I am ordering our men to go!""...….
The Sacramento Chapter Periscope: "Thanks, Teddy! The Origin of Submarine Pay"
"Should Teddy Roosevelt be the patron saint of submariners? Roosevelt was the first American President to go aboard a submarine and to make a dive. Roosevelt ventured beneath the waters of Long Island Sound aboard USS Plunger (SS 2) on March 25, 1905. Plunger was the United States' second submarine, commissioned in September 1903.
Beyond this historical first, however, is the fact that Roosevelt was the man directly responsible for submarine pay. The Naval hierarchy in 1905 considered submarine duty, neither unusual nor dangerous, and classified it as shore duty. Therefore, submariners received twenty-five percent less pay than sailors going to sea in Destroyers, Cruisers and similar surface ships.
Roosevelt's two-hour trip on Plunger convinced him that this discrimination was unfair. He described submarine duty as hazardous and difficult, and he found that submariners "have to be trained to the highest possible point as well as to show iron nerve in order to be of any use in their positions…"
Roosevelt directed that officer service on submarines be equated with duty on surface ships. Enlisted men qualified in submarines were to receive ten dollars per month in addition to the pay of their rating. They were also to be paid a dollar for every day in which they were submerged while underway. Enlisted men assigned to submarines but not yet qualified received an additional five dollars per month.
Roosevelt did not dilly-dally once he made a decision. He issued an Executive Order directing the extra pay for enlisted personnel. This was the beginning of submarine pay!"...….
"...And so many of the blessings and advantages we have, so many of the reasons why our civilization, our culture, has flourished aren't understood; they're not appreciated. And if you don't have any appreciation of what people went through to get, to achieve, to build what you are benefiting from, then these things don't mean very much to you. You just think, well, that's the way it is. That's our birthright. That just happened. [But] it didn't just happen. And at what price? What grief? What disappointment? What suffering went on? I mean this: I think that to be ignorant or indifferent to history isn't just to be uneducated or stupid. It's to be rude, ungrateful. And ingratitude is an ugly failing in human beings."--Historian David McCullough
As a people we are too apt to remember only that some of our ships did well in that war. We had a few ship--a very few ships--and they did so well as to show the utter folly of not having enough of them. Thanks to our folly as a nation, thanks to the folly that found expression in the views of those at the seat of government, not a ship of any importance had been built within a dozen years before the war began, and the Navy was so small that, when once the war was on, our opponents were able to establish a close blockade throughout the length of our coast, so that not a ship could go from one port to another, and all traffic had to go by land. Our parsimony in not preparing an adequate navy (which would have prevented the war) cost in the end literally thousands of dollars for every one dollar we thus foolishly saved. After two years of that war an utterly inconsiderable British force of about four thousand men was landed here in the bay, defeated with ease a larger body of raw troops put against it, and took Washington.
I am sorry to say that those of our countrymen who now speak of the deed usually confine themselves to denouncing the British for having burned certain buildings in Washington. They had better spare their breath. The sin of the invaders in burning the buildings is trivial compared with the sin of our own people in failing to make ready an adequate force to defeat the attempt. This nation was guilty of such shortsightedness, of such folly, of such lack of preparation that it was forced supinely to submit to the insult and was impotent to avenge it; and it was only the good fortune of having in Andrew Jackson a great natural soldier that prevented a repetition of the disaster at New Orleans. Let us remember our own shortcomings, and see to it that the men in public life to-day are not permitted to bring about a state of things by which we should in effect invite a repetition of such a humiliation.
We can afford as a people to differ on the ordinary party questions; but if we are both farsighted and patriotic we can not afford to differ on the all-important question of keeping the national defenses as they should be kept; of not alone keeping up, but of going on with building up of the United States Navy, and of keeping our small Army at least at its present size and making it the most efficient for its size that there is on the globe.
Remember, you here who are listening to me, that to applaud patriotic sentiments and to turn out to do honor to the dead heroes who by land or by sea won honor for our flag is only worth while if we are prepared to show that our energies do not exhaust themselves in words; if we are prepared to show that we intend to take to heart the lessons of the past and make things ready so that if ever, which heaven forbid, the need should arise, our fighting men on sea and ashore shall be able to rise to the standard established by their predecessors in our services of the past.
Those of you who are in public life have a moral right to be here at this celebration today only if you are prepared to do your part in building up the Navy of the present; for otherwise you have no right to claim lot or part in the glory and honor and renown of the Navy's past.
...Remember that no courage can ever atone for lack of that preparedness which makes the courage valuable; and yet if the courage is there, if the dauntless heart is there, its presence will sometimes make up for other shortcomings; while if with it are combined the other military qualities the fortunate owner becomes literally invincible."--President Theodore Roosevelt on the interment of John Paul Jones at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, April 24, 1906.
Teddy Roosevelt is not without his detractors. After writing "Flags of Our Fathers" about Iwo Jima, James Bradley wrote "The Imperial Cruise", blaming Roosevelt for later Japanese aggression and Vietnam, etc.. Telling the story warts and all is good. Telling the story as All Warts, All the Time is unbalanced.
Some conservatives dislike Roosevelt's Progressivism as this painting shows (TR on right):
If they mean Trust-Busting, Roosevelt was right to break up Standard Oil. And Anti-Trust power should be used today against Big Tech monopolies.
Standard Oil was in it for Power and Money.
Big Tech is in it for Power, Money, Controlling the Information Flow, Surveillance and Political Ideology. Much, much worse. Even today, Facebook is censoring protest pages.
A young Theodore Roosevelt wrote his historical masterpiece, "The Naval War of 1812". Even the British trusted him to write honestly:
"The first lieutenant, Yarnall, was three times wounded, but kept to the deck through all; the only other lieutenant on board, Brooks, of the marines, was mortally wounded. Every brace and bowline was shot away, and the brig almost completely dismantled; her hull was shattered to pieces, many shot going completely through it, and the guns on the engaged side were by degrees all dismounted. Perry kept up the fight with splendid courage. As the crew fell one by one, the commodore called down through the skylight for one of the surgeon's assistants; and this call was repeated and obeyed till none were left; then he asked, "Can any of the wounded pull a rope?" and three or four of them crawled up on deck to lend a feeble hand in placing the last guns. Perry himself fired the last effective heavy gun, assisted only by the purser and chaplain. A man who did not possess his indomitable spirit would have then struck. Instead, however, although failing in the attack so far, Perry merely determined to win by new methods, and remodelled the line accordingly."
"Jackson owed much to the nature of the ground on which he fought; but the opportunities it afforded would have been useless in the hands of any general less ready, hardy, and skilful than Old Hickory.
A word as to the troops themselves. The British infantry was at that time the best in Europe, the French coming next. Packenham's soldiers had formed part of Wellington's magnificent peninsular army, and they lost nothing of their honor at New Orleans. Their conduct throughout was admirable. Their steadiness in the night battle, their patience through the various hardships they had to undergo, their stubborn courage in action, and the undaunted front they showed in time of disaster (for at the very end they were to the full as ready and eager to fight as at the beginning), all showed that their soldierly qualities were of the highest order. As much cannot be said of the British artillery, which, though very bravely fought was clearly by no means as skilfully handled as was the case with the American guns. The courage of the British officers of all arms is mournfully attested by the sadly large proportion they bore to the total on the lists of the killed and wounded.
An even greater meed of praise is due to the American soldiers, for it must not be forgotten that they were raw troops opposed to veterans; and indeed, nothing but Jackson's tireless care in drilling them could have brought them into shape at all. The regulars were just as good as the British, and no better. The Kentucky militia, who had only been 48 hours with the army and were badly armed and totally undisciplined, proved as useless as their brethren of New York and Virginia, at Queenstown Heights and Bladensburg, had previously shown themselves to be. They would not stand in the open at all, and even behind a breastwork had to be mixed with better men. The Louisiana militia, fighting in defence of their homes, and well trained, behaved excellently, and behind breastworks were as formidable as the regulars. The Tennesseeans, good men to start with, and already well trained in actual warfare under Jackson, were in their own way unsurpassable as soldiers. In the open field the British regulars, owing to their greater skill in manoeuvring, and to their having bayonets, with which the Tennesseeans were unprovided, could in all likelihood have beaten them; but in rough or broken ground the skill of the Tennesseeans, both as marksmen and woodsmen, would probably have given them the advantage; while the extreme deadliness of their fire made it far more dangerous to attempt to storm a breastwork guarded by these forest riflemen than it would have been to attack the same work guarded by an equal number of the best regular troops of Europe. The American soldiers deserve great credit for doing so well; but greater credit still belongs to Andrew Jackson, who, with his cool head and quick eye, his stout heart and strong hand, stands out in history as the ablest general the United States produced, from the outbreak of the Revolution down to the beginning of the Great Rebellion."...….
"I’m privileged to stand here today with the incredible men and women of the United States Navy. American sailors are the best warfighting sailors anywhere in the world. And it’s not even close. And, Susan, I am so glad you could be with us. I know how hard you work — 17 visits. And she wanted things done right, I will tell you. They told me she wanted this one done right, in honor of both of her parents, who were great, great people. President Ford was a Navy man. By the way, he was also a great athlete, for those of you that didn’t know. He saw action in the South Pacific during World War II. He served this country with honor — in the military, in Congress, and in the White House. The proud dignity of this ship is a fitting tribute to Gerald Ford, the man and the President.
The Courant: "Near the turn of the century, Theodore Roosevelt was one of very few men whose imagination was stirred by the submarine. In Roosevelt's day, most European navy men appeared to have an aversion to submarines. Some thought them to be a sneaky and ungentlemanly way of waging war. Others feared the submarine would supplant the primacy of surface ships and threaten their careers. Indeed, the famous submarine inventor of the day, John Holland, bitterly said of them. "The navy doesn't like submarines because there's no deck to strut on." But most of all, naval men considered the submarine a death trap. But such tales did not frighten Teddy Roosevelt. When, just prior to the Spanish-American War, Holland offered his submarine to the Navy, Roosevelt, then assistant secretary of the Navy urged the department to purchase it. However, the navy turned it down. Nevertheless, some months after his coming into the presidency following the assassination of McKinley in 1901, the navy began to take possession of its first submarines with the enthusiastic approval of the new president. Indeed, in 1903, his cabinet had all they could do dissuading him from going down on one of those early submarines at Annapolis. But he had no such cautious advisors on a memorable day at Oyster Bay in August, 1905. And they were right! The submarine had a long and disconcerting history of disasters.
,,,As the Plunger churned its way through the gale lashed waves, Teddy Roosevelt immersed himself in every detail as he moved about the craft. And it was reported that "He behaved like a delighted school boy over everything he saw." ...
When the Plunger reached its destination in the midst of the Sound, Lt. Nelson gave the order to dive.After the "porpoise" maneuver the Plunger was put into a 45-degree angle dive. Suddenly, at a depth of 20 feet, the electric motor was reversed and the submarine shot backwards to the surface! Following this, the Plunger went down again to make a rapid underwater U-turn. Finally, Nelson ordered the vessel to a depth of 20 feet, extinguished the lights and demonstrated to the President the crew's ability to control the craft in total darkness.
Fortunately, the Plunger did all that was asked of her when she was entrusted with the life of the President of the United Stated on that stormy Long Island day in 1905. And Roosevelt returned safely to the tender, Apache. He later said of the experience - "Never in my life have I had such a diverting day, nor can I recall having so much enjoyment in so few hours as today."
Nevertheless, when the President's advisers heard of the episode on his return to Sagamore Hill, they rushed to take precautions against the public learning of the President's death-defying trip on the Plunger. But unable to cover up the affair, official statements were issued denying that the President of the United States had intended to risk his life in a submarine! ...
The fact of the matter, of course, was that Roosevelt had been aching to go down in a submarine.... Perhaps it was his excitement to tell of his adventure in the Plunger that caused him to blow the cover story in an exasperated reply to someone who said that the chief of the nation had no right to take the risk of going down in a submarine. For he angrily replied, "I am the Commander-in-Chief of the Navy and I have the right to go where I wish to so as to see where I am ordering our men to go!""...….
The Sacramento Chapter Periscope: "Thanks, Teddy! The Origin of Submarine Pay"
"Should Teddy Roosevelt be the patron saint of submariners? Roosevelt was the first American President to go aboard a submarine and to make a dive. Roosevelt ventured beneath the waters of Long Island Sound aboard USS Plunger (SS 2) on March 25, 1905. Plunger was the United States' second submarine, commissioned in September 1903.
Beyond this historical first, however, is the fact that Roosevelt was the man directly responsible for submarine pay. The Naval hierarchy in 1905 considered submarine duty, neither unusual nor dangerous, and classified it as shore duty. Therefore, submariners received twenty-five percent less pay than sailors going to sea in Destroyers, Cruisers and similar surface ships.
Roosevelt's two-hour trip on Plunger convinced him that this discrimination was unfair. He described submarine duty as hazardous and difficult, and he found that submariners "have to be trained to the highest possible point as well as to show iron nerve in order to be of any use in their positions…"
Roosevelt directed that officer service on submarines be equated with duty on surface ships. Enlisted men qualified in submarines were to receive ten dollars per month in addition to the pay of their rating. They were also to be paid a dollar for every day in which they were submerged while underway. Enlisted men assigned to submarines but not yet qualified received an additional five dollars per month.
Roosevelt did not dilly-dally once he made a decision. He issued an Executive Order directing the extra pay for enlisted personnel. This was the beginning of submarine pay!"...….
"...And so many of the blessings and advantages we have, so many of the reasons why our civilization, our culture, has flourished aren't understood; they're not appreciated. And if you don't have any appreciation of what people went through to get, to achieve, to build what you are benefiting from, then these things don't mean very much to you. You just think, well, that's the way it is. That's our birthright. That just happened. [But] it didn't just happen. And at what price? What grief? What disappointment? What suffering went on? I mean this: I think that to be ignorant or indifferent to history isn't just to be uneducated or stupid. It's to be rude, ungrateful. And ingratitude is an ugly failing in human beings."--Historian David McCullough
 |
"The burial place and Jones' body was discovered in April 1905. President Theodore Roosevelt sent four cruisers to bring it back to the U.S., and these ships were escorted up the Chesapeake Bay by seven battleships." The coffin of John Paul Jones is lowered to the deck of the USS Standish off Annapolis Roads, July 23, 1905 |
"Born John Paul near Kirkbean, Scotland, on July 6, 1747, he later added Jones. He went to sea at 13, eventually finding his way to America. During the American Revolution he fought for his adopted country in the Continental Navy. He led daring raids against British warships and forts along the British coast. Once, he sailed to Scotland to abduct the Earl of Selkrk so he could exchange him for patriot prisoners. He didn’t find the earl, but he stole all his silver, including his wife’s teapot with her breakfast tea still in it."
"I wish that our people as a whole, and especially those among us who occupy high legislative or administrative positions, would study the history of our nation, not merely for the purpose of national self gratification, but with the desire to learn the lessons that history teaches. Let the men who talk lightly about its being unnecessary for us now to have an army and navy adequate for the work of this nation in the world remember that such utterances are not merely foolish, for in their effects they may at any time be fraught with disaster and disgrace to the nation's honor as well as disadvantage to its interest. Let them take to heart some of the lessons which should be learned by the study of the War of I8I2.As a people we are too apt to remember only that some of our ships did well in that war. We had a few ship--a very few ships--and they did so well as to show the utter folly of not having enough of them. Thanks to our folly as a nation, thanks to the folly that found expression in the views of those at the seat of government, not a ship of any importance had been built within a dozen years before the war began, and the Navy was so small that, when once the war was on, our opponents were able to establish a close blockade throughout the length of our coast, so that not a ship could go from one port to another, and all traffic had to go by land. Our parsimony in not preparing an adequate navy (which would have prevented the war) cost in the end literally thousands of dollars for every one dollar we thus foolishly saved. After two years of that war an utterly inconsiderable British force of about four thousand men was landed here in the bay, defeated with ease a larger body of raw troops put against it, and took Washington.
I am sorry to say that those of our countrymen who now speak of the deed usually confine themselves to denouncing the British for having burned certain buildings in Washington. They had better spare their breath. The sin of the invaders in burning the buildings is trivial compared with the sin of our own people in failing to make ready an adequate force to defeat the attempt. This nation was guilty of such shortsightedness, of such folly, of such lack of preparation that it was forced supinely to submit to the insult and was impotent to avenge it; and it was only the good fortune of having in Andrew Jackson a great natural soldier that prevented a repetition of the disaster at New Orleans. Let us remember our own shortcomings, and see to it that the men in public life to-day are not permitted to bring about a state of things by which we should in effect invite a repetition of such a humiliation.
We can afford as a people to differ on the ordinary party questions; but if we are both farsighted and patriotic we can not afford to differ on the all-important question of keeping the national defenses as they should be kept; of not alone keeping up, but of going on with building up of the United States Navy, and of keeping our small Army at least at its present size and making it the most efficient for its size that there is on the globe.
Remember, you here who are listening to me, that to applaud patriotic sentiments and to turn out to do honor to the dead heroes who by land or by sea won honor for our flag is only worth while if we are prepared to show that our energies do not exhaust themselves in words; if we are prepared to show that we intend to take to heart the lessons of the past and make things ready so that if ever, which heaven forbid, the need should arise, our fighting men on sea and ashore shall be able to rise to the standard established by their predecessors in our services of the past.
Those of you who are in public life have a moral right to be here at this celebration today only if you are prepared to do your part in building up the Navy of the present; for otherwise you have no right to claim lot or part in the glory and honor and renown of the Navy's past.
...Remember that no courage can ever atone for lack of that preparedness which makes the courage valuable; and yet if the courage is there, if the dauntless heart is there, its presence will sometimes make up for other shortcomings; while if with it are combined the other military qualities the fortunate owner becomes literally invincible."--President Theodore Roosevelt on the interment of John Paul Jones at the United States Naval Academy at Annapolis, April 24, 1906.
Teddy Roosevelt is not without his detractors. After writing "Flags of Our Fathers" about Iwo Jima, James Bradley wrote "The Imperial Cruise", blaming Roosevelt for later Japanese aggression and Vietnam, etc.. Telling the story warts and all is good. Telling the story as All Warts, All the Time is unbalanced.
Some conservatives dislike Roosevelt's Progressivism as this painting shows (TR on right):
 |
| "The Forgotten Man" |
If they mean Trust-Busting, Roosevelt was right to break up Standard Oil. And Anti-Trust power should be used today against Big Tech monopolies.
Standard Oil was in it for Power and Money.
Big Tech is in it for Power, Money, Controlling the Information Flow, Surveillance and Political Ideology. Much, much worse. Even today, Facebook is censoring protest pages.
 |
| "When they call the roll in the Senate, the Senators do not know whether to answer 'present' or 'not guilty." |
A young Theodore Roosevelt wrote his historical masterpiece, "The Naval War of 1812". Even the British trusted him to write honestly:
"The first lieutenant, Yarnall, was three times wounded, but kept to the deck through all; the only other lieutenant on board, Brooks, of the marines, was mortally wounded. Every brace and bowline was shot away, and the brig almost completely dismantled; her hull was shattered to pieces, many shot going completely through it, and the guns on the engaged side were by degrees all dismounted. Perry kept up the fight with splendid courage. As the crew fell one by one, the commodore called down through the skylight for one of the surgeon's assistants; and this call was repeated and obeyed till none were left; then he asked, "Can any of the wounded pull a rope?" and three or four of them crawled up on deck to lend a feeble hand in placing the last guns. Perry himself fired the last effective heavy gun, assisted only by the purser and chaplain. A man who did not possess his indomitable spirit would have then struck. Instead, however, although failing in the attack so far, Perry merely determined to win by new methods, and remodelled the line accordingly."
"Jackson owed much to the nature of the ground on which he fought; but the opportunities it afforded would have been useless in the hands of any general less ready, hardy, and skilful than Old Hickory.
A word as to the troops themselves. The British infantry was at that time the best in Europe, the French coming next. Packenham's soldiers had formed part of Wellington's magnificent peninsular army, and they lost nothing of their honor at New Orleans. Their conduct throughout was admirable. Their steadiness in the night battle, their patience through the various hardships they had to undergo, their stubborn courage in action, and the undaunted front they showed in time of disaster (for at the very end they were to the full as ready and eager to fight as at the beginning), all showed that their soldierly qualities were of the highest order. As much cannot be said of the British artillery, which, though very bravely fought was clearly by no means as skilfully handled as was the case with the American guns. The courage of the British officers of all arms is mournfully attested by the sadly large proportion they bore to the total on the lists of the killed and wounded.
An even greater meed of praise is due to the American soldiers, for it must not be forgotten that they were raw troops opposed to veterans; and indeed, nothing but Jackson's tireless care in drilling them could have brought them into shape at all. The regulars were just as good as the British, and no better. The Kentucky militia, who had only been 48 hours with the army and were badly armed and totally undisciplined, proved as useless as their brethren of New York and Virginia, at Queenstown Heights and Bladensburg, had previously shown themselves to be. They would not stand in the open at all, and even behind a breastwork had to be mixed with better men. The Louisiana militia, fighting in defence of their homes, and well trained, behaved excellently, and behind breastworks were as formidable as the regulars. The Tennesseeans, good men to start with, and already well trained in actual warfare under Jackson, were in their own way unsurpassable as soldiers. In the open field the British regulars, owing to their greater skill in manoeuvring, and to their having bayonets, with which the Tennesseeans were unprovided, could in all likelihood have beaten them; but in rough or broken ground the skill of the Tennesseeans, both as marksmen and woodsmen, would probably have given them the advantage; while the extreme deadliness of their fire made it far more dangerous to attempt to storm a breastwork guarded by these forest riflemen than it would have been to attack the same work guarded by an equal number of the best regular troops of Europe. The American soldiers deserve great credit for doing so well; but greater credit still belongs to Andrew Jackson, who, with his cool head and quick eye, his stout heart and strong hand, stands out in history as the ablest general the United States produced, from the outbreak of the Revolution down to the beginning of the Great Rebellion."...….
"I’m privileged to stand here today with the incredible men and women of the United States Navy. American sailors are the best warfighting sailors anywhere in the world. And it’s not even close. And, Susan, I am so glad you could be with us. I know how hard you work — 17 visits. And she wanted things done right, I will tell you. They told me she wanted this one done right, in honor of both of her parents, who were great, great people. President Ford was a Navy man. By the way, he was also a great athlete, for those of you that didn’t know. He saw action in the South Pacific during World War II. He served this country with honor — in the military, in Congress, and in the White House. The proud dignity of this ship is a fitting tribute to Gerald Ford, the man and the President.
http://In these troubled times, our Navy is the smallest it’s been since World War I. That’s a long time ago. In fact, I just spoke with Navy and industry leaders and have discussed my plans to undertake a major expansion of our entire Navy fleet, including having the 12-carrier Navy we need.
We also need more aircraft, modernized capabilities, and greater force levels. Additionally, we must vastly improve our cyber capabilities. This great rebuilding effort will create many jobs in Virginia, and all across America, and it will also spur new technology and new innovation.
America has always been the country that boldly leads the world into the future, and my budget will ensure we do so and continue to do exactly that. American ships will sail the seas. American planes will soar the skies. American workers will build our fleets. And America’s military will ensure that even though the darkest nights and throughout, a bright and glowing sun will always shine on our nation and on our people. Our Navy is great. Our Navy is great. Our people are great. Our Republic will meet any challenge, defeat any danger, face any threat, and always seek true and lasting peace.
We also need more aircraft, modernized capabilities, and greater force levels. Additionally, we must vastly improve our cyber capabilities. This great rebuilding effort will create many jobs in Virginia, and all across America, and it will also spur new technology and new innovation.
America has always been the country that boldly leads the world into the future, and my budget will ensure we do so and continue to do exactly that. American ships will sail the seas. American planes will soar the skies. American workers will build our fleets. And America’s military will ensure that even though the darkest nights and throughout, a bright and glowing sun will always shine on our nation and on our people. Our Navy is great. Our Navy is great. Our people are great. Our Republic will meet any challenge, defeat any danger, face any threat, and always seek true and lasting peace.
May God bless our military. May God bless our Navy. May God bless the wonderful Gerald Ford family. And may God continue to bless the United States of America."...….
Teddy would approve. Class dismissed.
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