We have seen that from his interest in American naval history,
which began before he left Harvard, he came to take a very deep
interest in the Navy itself, and when he was Assistant Secretary,
he worked night and day to complete its preparation for entering
the Spanish War. From the time he became President, he urged upon
Congress and the country the need of maintaining a fleet adequate
to ward off any dangers to which we might be exposed. In season
and out of season he preached, with the ardor of a propagandist,
his gospel that the Navy is the surest guarantor of peace which
this country possesses. By dint of urging he persuaded Congress
to consent to lay down one battleship of the newest type a year.
Congress was not so much reluctant as indifferent. Even the
lesson of the Spanish War failed to teach the Nation's
law-makers, or the Nation itself, that we must have a Navy to
protect us if we intended to play the role of a World Power. The
American people instinctively dreaded militarism, and so they
resisted consenting to naval or military preparations which might
expand into a great evil such as they saw controlling the nations
of Europe.
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