266 Presidential Addresses 



unable to make such boasting good. There is a 

 homely old adage which runs : "Speak softly and 

 carry a big stick; you will go far." If the Ameri 

 can Nation will speak softly, and yet build, and keep 

 at a pitch of the highest training, a thoroughly effi 

 cient navy, the Monroe Doctrine will go far. I ask 

 you to think over this. If you do, you will come to 

 the conclusion that it is mere plain common-sense, 

 so obviously sound that only the blind can fail to see 

 its truth and only the weakest and most irresolute 

 can fail to desire to put it into force. 



In the last two years I am happy to say we 

 have taken long strides in advance as regards our 

 navy. The last Congress, in addition to smaller 

 vessels, provided nine of those formidable righting 

 ships upon which the real efficiency of any navy in 

 war ultimately depends. It provided, moreover, for 

 the necessary addition of officers and enlisted men to 

 make the ships worth having. Meanwhile the Navy 

 Department has seen to it that our ships have been 

 constantly exercised at sea, with the great guns, and 

 in manoeuvres, so that their efficiency as fighting- 

 units, both individually and when acting together, 

 has been steadily improved. Remember that all 

 of this is necessary. A warship is a huge bit of 

 mechanism, wellnigh as delicate and complicated 

 as it is formidable. It takes years to build it. It 

 takes years to teach the officers and men how to 

 handle it to good advantage. It is an absolute 

 impossibility to, improvise a navy at the outset of 

 war. No recent war between any two nations has 



