A probable naval order
Subject(s): Armed Forces--Officers--Promotions, Metcalf, Victor Howard, 1853-1936, Navies--Officers, Roosevelt, Theodore, 1858-1919, United States. Navy
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President Roosevelt watches naval officers rush forward, shouting, “Double Quick.” Beside him is a sign that reads, “To Promotion. Wanted–More Naval Officers–Get in Young and Get More Experience–Commander in Chief.” Secretary of the Navy Victor Howard Metcalf stands on a boat labeled “The U.S. Navy” and says, “Them’s My Sentiments.”
Comments and Context
“A Probable Naval Order”? The Washington Herald’s cartoonist Jack H. Smith was prescient, because before President Roosevelt left office, he promulgated the Physical Readiness Training (PRT) program for naval officers. Roosevelt, since his days as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, was appalled at the indolence and general physical decrepitude of naval officers, desk and line both.
He and Rear Admiral Presley Marion Rixey, the official White House Physician, Chief of the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery, promulgated a program that required one of three regimens: a fifty-mile, twenty-hour walk (over three days); a horseback ride totaling ninety miles over three consecutive days; or a hundred-mile bicycle ride over three consecutive days.
Service records and considerations of promotion would record the results of such proposed PRT.
The Navy resisted, and largely avoided implementation of, such tests. Roosevelt was more successful with challenges to Army officers, and answered objections in his famous 100-mile horseback ride comporting to his Order Number Six. The one-day round trip to Warrenton, Virginia, with Rixey and Captain Archibald Butt, the president’s military aide; and Lieutenant Cary Grayson, surgeon assigned to the presidential yacht Mayflower, was challenging in its return ride — a sudden, blinding ice storm arose. The president could scarcely see through his iced-crusted spectacles, and his horse fell into ditches more than once. Mrs. Roosevelt had warm tea waiting at the White House when they returned in the dark.
But the president proved to the army, and the country, that such endurance-runs (more demanding than he ordered for the service) could be endured.
Collection
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
Creation Date
1906-12-20
Creator(s)
Language
English
Period
U.S. President – 2nd Term (March 1905-February 1909)
Page Count
1
Production Method
Record Type
Image
Resource Type
Rights
These images are presented through a cooperative effort between the Library of Congress and Dickinson State University. No known restrictions on publication.
Citation
Cite this Record
Chicago:
A probable naval order. [December 20, 1906]. Library of Congress Manuscript Division.
https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o301384. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Smith, Jack H., -1935. A probable naval order. [20 Dec. 1906]. Image.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. March 5, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o301384.
APA:
Smith, Jack H., -1935., [1906, December 20]. A probable naval order.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/digital-library/o301384.
Cite this Collection
Chicago:
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-manuscript-division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University.
MLA:
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. March 5, 2026. https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-manuscript-division.
APA:
Library of Congress Manuscript Division. Theodore Roosevelt Digital Library. Dickinson State University. Retrieved from https://www.theodorerooseveltcenter.org/collection/library-of-congress-manuscript-division.
