The rise of Theodore Roosevelt - Edmund Morris [316]
McKinley intended this to be his political masterstroke, silencing warmongers in both Washington and Madrid with a sudden display of Presidential decisiveness. At first the move seemed bound to succeed. Congress reacted with such shocked surprise—probably assuming the President was in possession of secret evidence of Spain’s hostile intentions—that on 8 March the “Fifty Million Bill” became law without a single dissenting vote.58 McKinley was authorized to spend the money as he saw fit. Spaniards and Cubans boggled at the wealth of a treasury which could produce such a huge appropriation in extra defense funds with no effect upon its credit. It was announced that the bulk of the appropriation would be given to the Navy Department for a crash program of naval expansion. Construction of three 12,500-ton battleships was to begin immediately, supplemented by sixteen destroyers, fourteen torpedo-boats, and four monitors. In addition, the department could assemble a large auxiliary fleet of ships purchased abroad.59
Roosevelt was not as overjoyed as he might have been by the President’s apparent conversion to the doctrine of preparedness. Nine months before, at the Naval War College, he had warned against the futility of any such last-minute attempt at naval expansion. The Maine Court of Inquiry was due to publish its formal report any day now; if it corroborated his own suspicion of sabotage, “I believe it will be very hard to hold the country.”60 What use would McKinley’s construction program be then? His only hope of improving the present strength of the Navy lay in the auxiliary-fleet program.
The ink on the Fifty Million Bill was scarcely dry before Roosevelt and Long began to review all available war vessels on the international market. News that Spain was already bargaining for ships inspired even the Secretary to a sense of urgency, although he continued to hope illogically that the buildup would have some deterrent effect.61
Roosevelt was given especial responsibility for purchasing merchant-men suitable for quick conversion into cruisers.62 Among the many dealers who flocked to his office was one Charles R. Flint, who assessed him as “a young man at the very peak of his truly tremendous physical and mental energy.” The Assistant Secretary was obviously in a tearing hurry. Flint started to tell him about the Brazilian ship Nictheroy, but Roosevelt knew all about her:
ROOSEVELT What is the price?
FLINT Half a million dollars.
ROOSEVELT (snapping) I will take her.
FLINT Good. I shall write you a letter—
ROOSEVELT Don’t bother me with a letter. I haven’t time to read it.
“We eventually did have a formal contract,” Flint noted, “… dictated by Mr. Roosevelt. It was one of the most concise and at the same time one of the cleverest contracts I have ever seen. He made it a condition that the vessel should be delivered under her own steam at a specific point and within a specific period. In one sentence he thus covered all that might have been set forth in pages and pages of specifications. For the vessel had to be in first-class condition to make the time scheduled in the contract! Mr. Roosevelt always had that faculty of looking through details to the result to be obtained.”63
EVERY NOW AND AGAIN President McKinley would indulge in a little banter with his Assistant Attending Surgeon, Leonard Wood. “Have you and Theodore declared war yet?”
“No, Mr. President, but we think you should.”64
McKinley always shook his head when the handsome officer asked to be returned to active duty in the Army. Wood worked off his growing restlessness with more and more violent exercise with Roosevelt. The pair were now inseparable, and Roosevelt began to include Wood in his regular appeals to General Tillinghast. “I have a man here who rendered most gallant service with the regular Army against the Apaches,