52 NAVAL SECRETARY AND ROUGH RIDER 



What Roosevelt did was to visit the various naval reserves 

 throughout the country, inspecting and inquiring into conditions and 

 actively pushing repairs upon the ships. As for the practice of the 

 men at the guns, there is afloat an anecdote that shows in picturesque 

 outline the w^ork of the Assistant Secretary in this direction. 



Not long after his appointment he asked Congress for an appro- 

 priation of $800,000 for ammunition. The appropriation was made, 

 hut, to the surprise of the lawmakers, before many months had passed 

 he asked for a second appropriation for the same purpose, this time 

 demanding $500,000. 



"What has become of the other appropriation?" he was asked. 



"Every cent of it has been spent for powder and shot, and every 

 ounce of powder and shot has been fired away," he replied. 



"And what do you propose to do with the $500,000 you now want ?" 



"I w ill use every dollar of that, too, within the next thirty days in 

 practice shooting." 



It was costly practice, but it paid, as was soon to be shown by the 

 effectiveness of American gunnery at Manila and Santiago. 



Another thing done by Roosevelt in the same direction was to 

 help in passing the personnel bill, which did away with the standing 

 cause of bitter feeling between the officers of the line and staff. 



"It is useless," he said, "to spend millions of dollars in the build- 

 ing of perfect fighting machines unless we make the personnel which 

 is to handle these machines equally perfect." 



The time was soon to come when his work would tell. In Feb- 

 ruary, 1898, occurred that criminal disaster which blew up the battle- 

 ship "Maine," with all her crew, in Havana harbor. Diplomacy was 

 called in to settle this, if possible, but Roosevelt, like most of his coun- 

 trymen, felt sure that war would follow, and he redoubled his efforts 

 to put the navy into first-rate fighting trim. 



W^e have told how Roosevelt helped Dewey when the war broke 

 out. That was not all. It was due to him that Dewey was on the 

 ground at the time. When a man was wanted to command in the 

 East, Roosevelt selected Dewey, and stuck to his choice in spite of 

 those who said that the Commodore was only a well-dressed dude. 

 "It does not matter what kind of clothes and collars he wears," said 



