Theodore Roosevelt - Theodore Roosevelt (best story books to read txt) 📗

hearty admiration for, and fellow feeling with, Australia, and I believe that America should be ready to stand back of Australia in any serious emergency. The reception accorded the fleet in Australia was wonderful, and it showed the fundamental community of feeling between ourselves and the great commonwealth of the South Seas. The considerate, generous, and open-handed hospitality with which the entire Australian people treated our officers and men could not have been surpassed had they been our own countrymen. The fleet first visited Sydney, which has a singularly beautiful harbor. The day after the arrival one of our captains noticed a member of his crew trying to go to sleep on a bench in the park. He had fixed above his head a large paper with some lines evidently designed to forestall any questions from friendly would-be hosts: “I am delighted with the Australian people. I think your harbor the finest in the world. I am very tired and would like to go to sleep.”

 

The most noteworthy incident of the cruise was the reception given to our fleet in Japan. In courtesy and good breeding, the Japanese can certainly teach much to the nations of the Western world. I had been very sure that the people of Japan would understand aright what the cruise meant, and would accept the visit of our fleet as the signal honor which it was meant to be, a proof of the high regard and friendship I felt, and which I was certain the American people felt, for the great Island Empire. The event even surpassed my expectations.

I cannot too strongly express my appreciation of the generous courtesy the Japanese showed the officers and crews of our fleet; and I may add that every man of them came back a friend and admirer of the Japanese.

Admiral Sperry wrote me a letter of much interest, dealing not only with the reception in Tokyo but with the work of our men at sea; I herewith give it almost in full:

 

28 October, 1908.

 

Dear Mr. Roosevelt:

 

My official report of the visit to Japan goes forward in this mail, but there are certain aspects of the affair so successfully concluded which cannot well be included in the report.

 

You are perhaps aware that Mr. Denison of the Japanese Foreign Office was one of my colleagues at The Hague, for whom I have a very high regard. Desiring to avoid every possibility of trouble or misunderstanding, I wrote to him last June explaining fully the character of our men, which they have so well lived up to, the desirability of ample landing places, guides, rest houses and places for changing money in order that there might be no delay in getting the men away from the docks on the excursions in which they delight. Very few of them go into a drinking place, except to get a resting place not to be found elsewhere, paying for it by taking a drink.

 

I also explained our system of landing with liberty men an unarmed patrol, properly officered, to quietly take in charge and send off to their ships any men who showed the slightest trace of disorderly conduct. This letter he showed to the Minister of the Navy, who highly approved of all our arrangements, including the patrol, of which I feared they might be jealous. Mr. Denison’s reply reached me in Manila, with a memorandum from the Minister of the Navy which removed all doubts. Three temporary piers were built for our boat landings, each 300 feet long, brilliantly lighted and decorated. The sleeping accommodations did not permit two or three thousand sailors to remain on shore, but the ample landings permitted them to be handled night and day with perfect order and safety.

 

At the landings and railroad station in Yokohama there were rest houses or booths, reputable money changers and as many as a thousand English-speaking Japanese college students acted as volunteer guides, besides Japanese sailors and petty officers detailed for the purpose. In Tokyo there were a great many excellent refreshment places, where the men got excellent meals and could rest, smoke, and write letters, and in none of these places would they allow the men to pay anything, though they were more than ready to do so. The arrangements were marvelously perfect.

 

As soon as your telegram of October 18, giving the address to be made to the Emperor, was received, I gave copies of it to our Ambassador to be sent to the Foreign Office. It seems that the Emperor had already prepared a very cordial address to be forwarded through me to you, after delivery at the audience, but your telegram reversed the situation and his reply was prepared. I am convinced that your kind and courteous initiative on this occasion helped cause the pleasant feeling which was so obvious in the Emperor’s bearing at the luncheon which followed the audience.

X., who is reticent and conservative, told me that not only the Emperor but all the Ministers were profoundly gratified by the course of events. I am confident that not even the most trifling incident has taken place which could in any way mar the general satisfaction, and our Ambassador has expressed to me his great satisfaction with all that has taken place.

 

Owing to heavy weather encountered on the passage up from Manila the fleet was obliged to take about 3500 tons of coal.

 

The Yankton remained behind to keep up communication for a few days, and yesterday she transmitted the Emperor’s telegram to you, which was sent in reply to your message through our Ambassador after the sailing of the fleet. It must be profoundly gratifying to you to have the mission on which you sent the fleet terminate so happily, and I am profoundly thankful that, owing to the confidence which you displayed in giving me this command, my active career draws to a close with such honorable distinction.

 

As for the effect of the cruise upon the training, discipline and effectiveness of the fleet, the good cannot be exaggerated. It is a war game in every detail. The wireless communication has been maintained with an efficiency hitherto unheard of. Between Honolulu and Auckland, 3850 miles, we were out of communication with a cable station for only one night, whereas three [non-American] men-of-war trying recently to maintain a chain of only 1250 miles, between Auckland and Sydney, were only able to do so for a few hours.

 

The officers and men as soon as we put to sea turn to their gunnery and tactical work far more eagerly than they go to functions. Every morning certain ships leave the column and move off seven or eight thousand yards as targets for range measuring fire control and battery practice for the others, and at night certain ships do the same thing for night battery practice. I am sorry to say that this practice is unsatisfactory, and in some points misleading, owing to the fact that the ships are painted white. At Portland, in 1903, I saw Admiral Barker’s white battleships under the searchlights of the army at a distance of 14,000 yards, seven sea miles, without glasses, while the Hartford, a black ship, was never discovered at all, though she passed within a mile and a half. I have for years, while a member of the General Board, advocated painting the ships war color at all times, and by this mail I am asking the Department to make the necessary change in the Regulations and paint the ships properly.

I do not know that any one now dissents from my view. Admiral Wainwright strongly concurs, and the War College Conference recommended it year after year without a dissenting voice.

 

In the afternoons the fleet has two or three hours’ practice at battle maneuvers, which excite as keen interest as gunnery exercises.

 

The competition in coal economy goes on automatically and reacts in a hundred ways. It has reduced the waste in the use of electric light and water, and certain chief engineers are said to keep men ranging over the ships all night turning out every light not in actual and immediate use. Perhaps the most important effect is the keen hunt for defects in the machinery causing waste of power. The Yankton by resetting valves increased her speed from 10 to 11 1/2

knots on the same expenditure.

 

All this has been done, but the field is widening, the work has only begun.

 

*

 

C. S. SPERRY.

 

When I left the Presidency I finished seven and a half years of administration, during which not one shot had been fired against a foreign foe. We were at absolute peace, and there was no nation in the world with whom a war cloud threatened, no nation in the world whom we had wronged, or from whom we had anything to fear. The cruise of the battle fleet was not the least of the causes which ensured so peaceful an outlook.

 

When the fleet returned after its sixteen months’ voyage around the world I went down to Hampton Roads to greet it. The day was Washington’s Birthday, February 22, 1907. Literally on the minute the homing battlecraft came into view. On the flagship of the Admiral I spoke to the officers and enlisted men, as follows: “Admiral Sperry, Officers and Men of the Battle Fleet: “Over a year has passed since you steamed out of this harbor, and over the world’s rim, and this morning the hearts of all who saw you thrilled with pride as the hulls of the mighty warships lifted above the horizon. You have been in the Northern and the Southern Hemispheres; four times you have crossed the line; you have steamed through all the great oceans; you have touched the coast of every continent. Ever your general course has been westward; and now you come back to the port from which you set sail. This is the first battle fleet that has ever circumnavigated the globe.

Those who perform the feat again can but follow in your footsteps.

 

“The little torpedo flotilla went with you around South America, through the Straits of Magellan, to our own Pacific Coast. The armored cruiser squadron met you, and left you again, when you were half way round the world. You have falsified every prediction of the prophets of failure. In all your long cruise not an accident worthy of mention has happened to a single battleship, nor yet to the cruisers or torpedo boats. You left this coast in a high state of battle efficiency, and you return with your efficiency increased; better prepared than when you left, not only in personnel but even in material. During your world cruise you have taken your regular gunnery practice, and skilled though you were before with the guns, you have grown more skilful still; and through practice you have improved in battle tactics, though here there is more room for improvement than in your gunnery.

Incidentally, I suppose I need hardly say that one measure of your fitness must be your clear recognition of the need always steadily to strive to render yourselves more fit; if you ever grow to think that you are fit enough, you can make up your minds that from that moment you will begin to go backward.

 

“As a war-machine, the fleet comes back in better shape than it went out. In addition, you, the officers and men of this formidable fighting force, have shown yourselves the best of all possible ambassadors and heralds of peace. Wherever you have landed you have borne yourselves so as to make us at home proud of being your countrymen. You have shown that the best type of fighting man of the sea knows how to