5 2 
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 work 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, 
but, 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 will 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. 
We 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 
