402 Presidential Addresses 



tory. If we wish our children to have the chance 

 of dedicating monuments of this kind in the event 

 of war we must see that the navy is made ready in 

 advance. To dedicate the monument would be an 

 empty and foolish thing if we accompanied it by 

 an abandonment of our national policy of building 

 up the navy. And good though it is to erect this 

 monument, it is better still to go on with the build- 

 ing up of the navy which gave the monument to 

 us, and which, if we ever give it a fair chance, can 

 be relied upon to rise level to our needs. 



Remember that after the war has begun it is too 

 late to improvise a navy. A naval war is two- 

 thirds settled in advance, at least two-thirds, because 

 it is mainly settled by the preparation which has 

 gone on for years preceding its outbreak. We won 

 at Manila because the shipbuilders of the country, 

 including those here at San Francisco, under the 

 wise provisions of Congress, had for fifteen years 

 before been preparing the navy. In 1882 our navy 

 was a shame and a disgrace to the country in point 

 of material. The personnel contained as fine ma- 

 terial as there was to be found in the world but the 

 ships and the guns were antiquated, and it would 

 have been a wicked absurdity to have sent them 

 against the ships of any good power. Then we be- 

 gan to build up the navy. Every ship that fought 

 under Dewey had been built between 1883 and 1896. 



We come here as patriots remembering that our 

 party lines stop at the water's edge. That fleet 

 was successful in 1898 because under the previous 

 administrations of both political parties, under the 

 previous Congresses controlled by both political par- 



