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President Roosevelt thanks Senator Platt for his action regarding the bill providing for a vice admiral of the Navy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-05-22
President Roosevelt returns Acting Secretary of the Navy Newberry’s letter as well as Senator Henry Cabot Lodge’s communication regarding the bids for supplying the Navy with electric lamps. He asks Newberry to forward all papers relating to this matter to Attorney General Charles J. Bonaparte, and wishes Bonaparte to examine the matter and take action against the bidders.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-05-13
President Roosevelt addresses Albert Gleaves’s request to go as a detached scout vessel. Roosevelt makes all of his decisions based on the good of the Navy, rather than on the requests of individual officers.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-05-06
President Roosevelt informs Senator Warren that if the Navy is granted permission to build four new battleships, one will be named after Wyoming. Roosevelt would like Warren to amend the law to remove four monitors from the list of ships that will be named after the states.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-18
President Roosevelt informs Senator Lodge about past appropriations bills relating to construction of battleships for the Navy. Roosevelt argues that the current bill providing for two battleships and ten torpedo destroyers is a “sham and pretends to do what it does not really do,” as it does not appropriate proper funds to expand armaments and armor. If Congress wants to expand the Navy it should provide the funds to do so, and if it does not wish to provide the funds, then there is no point in the pretense of allowing the construction of more battleships.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-22
President Roosevelt tells Representative Hobson that he disagrees with many of Congress’s recent actions, including the decision to favor Subic Bay over Manila as the main point of defense in the event of war. Hobson was mistaken to believe that Roosevelt had not endorsed Admiral George Dewey’s report favoring Manila.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-16
President Roosevelt thanks Albert Gleaves for his recent letters and enclosure, and hopes he will see him before he goes west. He is happy for the information about torpedoes and for the “rather uncomfortable matter” regarding double hoists. He sends his wishes to Gleaves’s wife.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-10
President Roosevelt believes that Albert L. Key’s main objections to his plan for the administration of the Navy stems from the fact that officers eligible for positions are too old. Roosevelt would like to promote younger men to higher grades in the Navy, but his experience attempting this in the Army has made it clear that he cannot successfully do so.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-04-10
President Roosevelt has read Lieutenant Commander Key’s reports with interest and thinks that Key, Cameron McRae Winslow, and William Sowden Sims have served well by calling attention to defects in the naval administration of the United States. In spite of this, however, Roosevelt thinks that some of the criticisms have been exaggerated and that the solutions Key has proposed may not work as well as he thinks. Roosevelt discusses the placement of armor belts on ships as one example of this. He also speaks about a proposed shift within the Navy that will give line officers more authority than they currently have and says that the suggested balance will actually accomplish very little and that what is required is more along the lines of a change in staff.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-26
President Roosevelt tells Secretary of the Navy Metcalf that he thinks the fleet should leave the Pacific Coast as soon as possible, and asks what date Metcalf has set.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-19
William Loeb sends Secretary of the Navy Metcalf a letter that President Roosevelt would like delivered to Governor Tui Manu’a Elisala when the United States naval fleet visits Samoa.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-20
President Roosevelt comments to Whitelaw Reid, the Ambassador to Great Britain, about an incident involving the publication of letters. Roosevelt is sorry about Prime Minister Henry Campbell-Bannerman and the trouble of the Liberal majority. Roosevelt provides a brief update to Reid about the planned journey of the United States Naval Fleet, saying that it has been invited to stop by Japan on its trip. Roosevelt had hoped that this would not be necessary, as he is nervous that “some desperado [will do] something that will have very bad effects.”
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-20
President Roosevelt was pleased with Sydney Brooks’s article on the voyage of the American fleet, and additionally plans to read the article on Irish gentry. He is glad that Brooks liked his message. Roosevelt says that he wrote the message because he was concerned that the voices of people advocating short-term gain at the cost of long-term punishment would be louder than those who can face temporary unpleasantness in the pursuit of long-term goals. In a lengthy postscript, Roosevelt corrects Brooks’s statement regarding pension bills, saying that while there are undoubtedly some abuses, there are not any “padded and fraudulent” bills like Brooks has written about.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-21
President Roosevelt relieves Rear Admiral Evans of command at his own request. He thanks Evans for his long service in the United States Navy and recaps his career, which has seen the country emerge as a first class naval power.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-23
President Roosevelt disagrees with the way several American and Japanese ships are classified in documents sent to him by Secretary of the Navy Metcalf. Roosevelt is of the opinion that the size of the guns matters more than the number of them, and argues that several Japanese armored cruisers should be classified as battleships due to the size of their guns.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-14
President Roosevelt writes to Secretary of the Navy Metcalf regarding the case of Lieutenant-Commander Carl Theodore Vogelgesang. Roosevelt does not support the recommendation that Vogelgesang be court-martialed, nor Metcalf’s recommendation that he should be given a severe reprimand and removed from command of the Presidential Yacht USS Mayflower. After considering the evidence and consulting with various officers, however, Roosevelt believes it would be best if Vogelgesang was removed from command of the Mayflower due to his lack of experience in pilotage, and directs Metcalf to do so.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-16
President Roosevelt sends Lieutenant Commander Vogelgesang a copy of a letter that he has recently sent to Secretary of the Navy Victor Howard Metcalf. President Roosevelt and his wife, Edith Kermit Carow Roosevelt, regret that Vogelgesang will be leaving the Presidential yacht, the USS Mayflower, but Roosevelt felt that the course he outlined in his letter to Metcalf was the correct one to take.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-16
President Roosevelt is concerned to hear that Admiral George Albert Converse was sick, but trusts that he will recover soon. He congratulates Converse for the good work he has done throughout his career with the Navy.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-06
President Roosevelt tells Secretary of the Navy Metcalf that he is currently dissatisfied with the present organization of the Navy Department, as he feels that the people responsible for directing the building of ships are not doing their job. The Japanese navy has more and better battleships and armored cruisers than the United States does.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-03-09
President Roosevelt provides Speaker of the House Cannon with details explaining why it is urgent that Congress act quickly to appropriate funding for coastal defenses of several areas in and around the Pacific. Roosevelt explains both the current situation of defenses in Manila Bay, Pearl Harbor, and the Pacific Coast of the United States, as well as the plans that are currently in place to improve these defenses. He asks Cannon to try to expedite the process of providing funding for these purposes.
Library of Congress Manuscript Division
1908-02-21