AT THE NAVAL BRANCH, Y. M. C. A.


BROOKLYN, NEW YORK


MAY 30, 1905 




Officers and Enlisted Men of the United States 
Navy; and you, Friends of the Navy, for if you 
are good Americans, you can be nothing else: 



I made up my mind to-day that, although there 
were very many invitations extended to me in 
addition to that because of which I first agreed to come 
here, there was just one which I could not refuse, 
and that was to come to this building and meet you 
here. I do not have to tell you that I believe in the 
navy of the United States with all my heart, and 
that I believe in that which counts most in the navy, 
the officers and enlisted men, the man behind the 
gun ; the man in the conning tower, in the gun 
turret, in the engine room, the man, wherever he is, if 
he is doing his duty. 



We owe a peculiar debt of gratitude to those who 
have taken the lead in securing this building. The 
people of the United States should make it their 
especial duty to see to the welfare, moral even more 
than physical, of the men upon whose exertions, 
upon whose skill, training, and prowess, upon whose 
character in time of crisis the honor of the entire 
Nation will depend. All respect is due to those who, 
led by Miss Gould, have erected this building, who 
have given expression to the spirit which lies behind 
the building up of everything of this nature. It 
shows that we are fortunately past the period when 
we are afraid that if we make a man too decent he 
will not fight well enough. 




I have had a good deal of experience in civil life, 
and I have never yet found any job in civil life to 
which, other things being equal, I did not prefer 
to appoint a man who had seen service in the navy 
or army of the United States; because he has 
learned, if he is worth his salt, certain qualities 
which double and treble his value in whatever 
position he may be put. Therefore, not only for his 
sake do we owe it to him to see that he has every 
chance to lead a wholesome and manly life, but we 
owe it to ourselves, we owe it to the Nation of which 
we are all part, to see that that man s capacities for 
good are given the fullest chance for development. 
And much though I believe in the Y. M. C. A,, and 
in kindred organizations generally, I believe in them 
most when they take such shape as this. 




Now, a special word to you upon whom so heavy 
a responsibility rests; because it depends upon the 
way you do your duty in peace as to whether or 
not, should ever the need for war arise, our flag 
will receive credit or discredit at your hands, or at 
the hands of your successors. I can not too often 
say, in speaking to civilians, what every naval man 
knows, that in battle those win who have prepared 
best for the battle beforehand. I have seen to-day 
men who fought at Manila and men who fought off 
Santiago. In both places we won, and we won 
hands down. We won because the shots that hit 
were those that counted; because the men on our 
ships knew how to handle them alone and in squad 
ron, knew how to get the best speed out of them, and 
how to do decent shooting with them. I want you 
to notice I said decent shooting. I did not say it 
was first-class. I think most of you are doing 
first-class shooting now; and I would be mightily 
ashamed of you if you did not do better than was 
done seven years ago; and I shall be ashamed of 
you if you don t do even better in the future 





Nothing has given Americans a better right to 
satisfaction than the way in which the target practice 
of the average American ship has improved, 
until I think we can fairly say that there are certain 
gun crews and certain individual gun pointers who 
have reached as high a degree of excellence as it is 
possible for any man to reach. The gun crew counts 
for more than its individual pointer. You might have 
all the individual shots you could gather, and they 
would not be worth a rap if they could not act to 
gether, if they did not act so as to subordinate in the 
mind of each man the success of that particular man 
to the success for which they all stood. 



More and more our people are waking up to 
the need of a navy. I think in view of events 
now happening all over the world that we can 
count upon having Congress continue to build 
up our navy. It is all-important that we should 
have ships, the best in hull, the best in armor, the 
best in armament, of any nation in the world. 
But there is something that is more important 
still, and that is the character of you men to 
whom I am speaking here, and of your comrades 
in the navy. You can do nothing without the 
proper training, but the training will not do very 
much if there is not the right stuff in you to train. 
I wish a big navy; but I wish still more a navy first 
class for its size. Every warship which is not first 
class in efficiency becomes in battle not a help to the 
Nation, but a menace to the national honor. If the 
officers and enlisted men are not trained to the high 
est point, then the best ships are useless; and it is 
better to have none than to have useless ships. 




I believe in the navy of the United States, 
primarily because I believe in the intelligence, the 
patriotism, and the fighting edge of the average man 
of the navy. Often it needs a tragedy to bring out 
the qualities that are in a man. You remember the 
dreadful accident aboard the battleship "Missouri" 
a year ago. Lamentable and terrible though it was, 
there were things connected with it that should make 
every American feel a sense of proud confidence in 
the officers and enlisted men in whom Uncle Sam 
confides his honor. When that accident occurred in 
the turret there were some twenty minutes when 
every man of that ship knew that any moment the 
ship might sink. But there was not a touch of 
nervousness among the crew. The men went quietly 
to their quarters and stayed there and waited, cool 
and resolute, to meet whatever was in store for 
them; while those whose duty had put them in the 
turret, or called them thither, showed genuine hero 
ism. Each man showed the quality which makes us 
reasonably confident that in war the men at the quick- 
fire guns can hit a torpedo boat; and which makes 
me reasonably confident that the greater the punish 
ment suffered on the ship, the straighter you would 
shoot back. In other words, I believe you have the 
coolness, the courage, the endurance, the fighting 
edge. When the accident occurred on the 
"Missouri" it was the turn of the "Texas" to go out to 
target practice. The "Texas" sent her boats over 
to find out if the "Missouri" needed help, and found 
that she did not; then she steamed out to target 
practice and made the best record at target practice 
that had been made by any ship in our fleet at that 
time. The men aboard her were not rattled; what 
had happened merely keyed them to a higher pitch 
of effort. 




I feel that too much can not be said to impress 
upon you the all-importance of the work that you 
are doing. Even if you yourselves never go into 
battle, you create the spirit which makes those who 
come after you on the ships able to do their duty 
in battle. The time of peace is the time when we 
must make ready for war, should war come. I do 
not think we will have any war if we have a good 
enough navy; and I could appeal to any peace so 
ciety in the land for support upon the ground that 
every first-class record of target practice in the 
American navy is a positive provocative of peace and 
not of war. I am speaking to the men who, more 
than any others in this country, do most for peace. 
You are doing it and you will continue to do it only 
by fitting yourselves in every way to be ready for 
war, if war should come. 



Source: The Works of Theodore Roosevelt Roosevelt, Memorial Edition