FDR - Jean Edward Smith [419]
26. Ernest K. Lindley, Franklin D. Roosevelt: A Career in Progressive Democracy 117 (Indianapolis: Bobbs-Merrill, 1931).
27. Daniels, Wilson Era: Years of Peace 290–292. Also see Brian Johnson, Fly Navy: The History of Maritime Aviation 25 (London: David & Charles, 1981).
28. TR to California governor Hiram Johnson, November 16, 1914. This was TR’s famous “speak softly and carry a big stick” letter in which he said, among other things, that Bryan and Daniels were “the two most wretched creatures we have ever seen at the head of those great departments [State and Navy].” 8 The Letters of Theodore Roosevelt 846, Elting E. Morison, ed. (Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1954).
29. Daniels shared the racism of the Wilson administration; the enlisted men he was concerned about were white. Shortly after assuming office, he wrote that there was no discrimination in the Navy: “All Negroes are messmen.” Later he expressed surprise to Eleanor that the Roosevelts employed white servants and suggested they be replaced by blacks. Daniels’s views changed over the years, and by the time the New Deal came to power he and Eleanor stood shoulder to shoulder in the struggle for black equality. Daniels to J. J. Adkins, May 27, 1913, Daniels Papers, Library of Congress; Jonathan Daniels, The End of Innocence 79–80 (Philadelphia: J. B. Lippincott, 1954). Also see Blanche Wiesen Cook, 1 Eleanor Roosevelt 204 (New York: Viking Penguin, 1992).
30. Stimson’s reference is to Admiral Alfred Thayer Mahan (1840–1914), whose book The Influence of Sea Power upon History, 1660–1783 became the Bible for advocates of naval expansion. Quoted in Beach, United States Navy 421.
31. “I soon observed as I voyaged on the Navy ships,” Daniels wrote, “that sailors and marines had spare time that was not employed. I also learned that many of them were lacking in elementary education. Some did not even have knowledge of the three R’s.… I determined to strengthen the Navy as an educational institution with schools on every ship.… Opposition did not deter me, and I issued instructions that schools should be open to every enlisted man and marine, that attendance should be compulsory, and that young officers should do the teaching (General Order 53, issued October 1, 1913). I followed it up with detailed instructions [General Order 63, December 16, 1913] and a magazine article entitled: ‘The Navy’s Universities Afloat.’ ” Daniels, Wilson Era: Years of Peace 253–254.
32. The rum ration for sailors was abolished under Andrew Jackson, and in 1899 John D. Long, McKinley’s secretary of the Navy, prohibited the sale or issue of all alcoholic beverages to enlisted men. In the first years of the twentieth century, prohibitionist sentiment was such that battleships named for dry states (e.g., Mississippi) were christened with lemonade rather than champagne.
33. Quoted in Ted Morgan, FDR: A Biography 148 (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1985). I was unable to find the text of Daniels’s condom order in the archives of the Navy Department but did locate an October 10, 1917, letter from Raymond A. Fosdick, chairman of the Navy’s civilian advisory panel, to Daniels in which Fosdick referred to the secretary’s order banning the distribution of “Individual Prophylactic Packets.” Fosdick complained that Commander Berryhill, chief medical officer at the Mare Island Naval Station in California, was critical of Daniels’s order. Berryhill, said Fosdick, believed “men were animals and needed sexual activities, and the only sensible way was to have a red light district with the women examined periodically.” Fosdick recommended that Berryhill be transferred, and Daniels complied the following week. Daniels to Fosdick, October 17, 1917. Both letters in the Daniels Papers, Library of Congress.
34. FDR to Louis Howe, April 9, 1914, Howe Personal Papers, quoted in Alfred B. Rollins, Jr., Roosevelt and Howe 118