420 : The Atlantic 



naval appropriations to a minimum. Theodore Roosevelt took what 

 steps he could. He encouraged the navy in the study and develop- 

 ment of a new program; he demanded better training of officers and 

 many active exercises to improve gunnery; he ordered navy ships on 

 a round-the-world cruise. He believed in activity and in publicity. 

 If he could not have new ships he could at least put the ships he had 

 on parade. 



It was not a bad move. It was a way of saying in many ports of 

 many nations that the U.S.A. had become a world power. The fleet 

 was well received and in many quarters the tacit statement was ac- 

 cepted at its face value. It was also a way of waking America up to 

 die fact that it had a navy and needed a navy. While news of the 

 cruise was still ringing in the daily press another alarm also began 

 dinging in American ears. McClure's Magazine opened the year 1908 

 with an article by Henry Reuterdahl exposing the defects of the 

 navy ships of which the nation was beginning to be so proud. Reu- 

 terdahl had much general and also some special or inside informa- 

 tion on naval programs and designs and many of his points were well 

 taken and important: the ships were armored but the low placement 

 of the armor plate rendered the ships vulnerable to enemy fire; the 

 ships had too litde freeboard resulting in the big guns being located 

 at insufficient elevation so that passing waves and rolling of the ship 

 would cut down the time during which they could be fired; turrets 

 and handling equipment were poorly designed and so on through a 

 list of technical errors. He attacked also the seniority system and 

 bureau organization within the Navy Department. This and related 

 articles aroused almost universal interest and gave rise to resounding 

 debates. It provided Roosevelt with a fresh incentive for another at- 

 tempt at Navy Department reorganization. The immediate program 

 failed and Taft became President in 1909, but the nation had become 

 aware that it had a problem of liaval defense and commitments in 

 many parts of the world to be protected. What Reuterdahl had said 

 and Roosevelt had done affected naval policy and naval growth in 

 the critical years leading to World War I. 



There were, of course, a score of general or background reasons 

 why the U.S.A. was almost certain to become involved in this war 

 and why its interests lay with the Allies. Among these were many 

 loosely defined but strong sympathies such as those due to racial de- 

 scent and even family connection in England, Scotland, Ireland, 

 France, Belgium; cultural, linguistic and intellectual ties with Eng- 

 land; political sympathies and a sense of comradeship-in-arms shared 



