INVENTIONS AND WARFARE 171 
or otherwise, arose, I went to look things over, and 
if I had any suggestions to make, I was assigned to 
that job. I spent several weeks at Brunswick, 
Georgia, where concrete ships were under construction 
and where my experiments with the cement gun 
served me in good stead. The fact that the concrete 
ships were not successful was not the fault of the con- 
crete gun. It did its part. 
After devoting a good deal of thought to search- 
lights and searchlight mirrors, I helped in lightening 
the apparatus materially and developed a device for 
searchlight control. This control, which involves 
the same rotary principle as my motion-picture 
camera, enables the operator standing at the end of 
an arm to direct the rays of the light toward any ob- 
ject in the sky and to keep it in view by following 
up its movements with the light. It is one of several 
devices developed at that time which have since 
been patented by the Government in my name. 
Roosevelt once asked me why I declined to wear the 
major’s uniform offered to me. ‘Well, Colonel 
Roosevelt,” I replied unhesitatingly, for I had my 
good reason for so doing, “if I were wearing a uniform, 
I could not go to my colonel and tell him he was a 
damn fool.” 
Roosevelt laughed heartily. 
“You are quite right,” he replied. ‘Stick to it!” 
As a civilian I went about wherever work was going 
on, talked freely with the workmen, heard them dis- 
cuss their mechanical difficulties, and got from them 
their ideas for improvements. As a civilian I was 
