The age-herald., 1898-03-01
To Allow the Public Feeling to
 Cool Off. TILT BETWEEN AUTHORITIES BOutelle Causes Bad Feeling Between
 Long and Roosevelt. THE ASSISTANT LIKELY TO RESIGN By Writing One of His Lurid Letters Resolution Introduced in House to Allow Long to Press
 Ships Into Service.
THE ASSISTANT LIKELY TO RESIGN
Special Dispatch to The Age-Heraad.

Special Dispatch to The Age-Heraad.
 Washington, Feb. 2S.-The significanb moves today were the decision to place the ram Katahdin in commission and the order recalling leaves of absence of naval offi- cers. Otherwise impenetrable quietude pre- vailed in the navy department today. The conditions were construed as being the lull before the storm.
 Secretary Long said as the department closed that the administration was still awaiting news from Havana; that there had been nothing to permit an opinion in regard to the disaster; that finally the sit- uatdon was of better aspect. The secretary of the navy says that he does not expect to hear from the court of inquiry for at least a week and possibly two weeks, and there are those in the department who be- Meve the document will not be in the hands of the Washington officials until late in March. The administration seems to be de- laying thds report that public feeling may cooi off.
 The latest advices state that the court will make another visit to Havana on con- pletion of it's Ia,bors at Key West and when the divers have made further progress with their investig gation. The submarine exam- fnation has been impeded with many perlls and by the debris which has required Ilucdl iduOI uO IeuroFe.
 Undecided in the Mud
 The wreck must be more and more im- bedded in the thick, deep mud of Havana harbor, with each days delay in the work of raising the ship The officers say that the Texas was full of mud after only a few hours submergence. With condl- tions so favorable in Havana harbor the wreck of the Maine by this time may be so far sunk in the mud as to baff1e the work of the divers.
 The navy department has .studiously gone ahead with it's work of prepera- tion for war despite the peaceful pro- 1estations of the administration. Arrange ments have been made to place ships in commission and the ram Katahdin is one of them utilizing such men for the pres ent as are at the disposal or the service without awaiting the action Of congress to authorize the increase in the enlisted force. The only movements of ships re- ported today related to the arrival of the Castine at Fort-De-France: the New York at Fort Monroe; the Texas at Dry Tor tugas; the Montgomery and Nashville at Key West, and the Terror at Tompkins- vile.
 The naval officers on leave of absence who have been recalled for duty have most of them been assigned to ships which have lately heen placed in commission, such as the Terror. This is an action nec- essitated by the state of affairs, the de- mands for the services of all officers and the lack of officers for duty on ships a1oat.
 President Mckinley is anxious that an- other Maine shall be built The naval committees will be urged to include the item in their appropriation bill of the serv- ice in addition to the provision for bat tleship recommended by Secretary Long. /. War preparations at the Washington navy yard go steadily on. The gun shop now has on hand one hundred rough gun mount castings for six inch guns These can be finished complete in thirty days. About two hundred gun mounts for rapid fire guns, four to eight-lnch, could pc completed in about fifteen days. suffi- cient number of guns to mount on these carriages could be ready as soon as the mounts were completed.
 At Fort Washington, Md, eleven miles pe- low Washington, 300 laborers and 50 teams are toiling from morning until night, build- ing gun emplacements and hauling war material from the wharf, where It IS drought by steamer from Fort Monroe. Sheridan's Point, opposite Fort washing ton. Is being placed in fighting trim and several hundred men are at work with 6O teams doing all that can be done to hurry completion.
 Talk Between Long and Roosevelt
 The friction existing between Secretary yong and Assistant Secretary Roosevelt as an o,ttrrowth of the submission of the sec ratarv of the navy to the bluster and the bulldozing tactics of Chairman BouteIe Of the house committee on naval anairs' ana Sneaker Reed may, if Roosevelt nurses ms wrath and keeps 1t. warm for the next twenty-four hours, result in his resigning with one of those lurid letters for which J2oosevelt has occasionally been famous.
 Last Friday. when Secretary Long de- c,ded to take a short vacation, Assistant Secretary Roosevelt became acting secre- tarv of the navy. Tn that capacity and with the approval of the secretary he in- dicted letter to Chairman Boutelle. re- ouesting authority for the enlistment of 1.500 men additional for the navy. Assistant Secretary Roosevelt accepts the crawfish- ing policy of his chief as repudiation of his acts and the result Is the entente cor diale between Secretary Long and his fiery and impetuous assistant has been some- what strained. But the people are with Roosevelt rather than with Long, They want preparations for war carried on be- fore hostilities begin, and they want the facts from the court of inquiry without unnecessary delay. In both of these they are bound to win.