The Maui news. [volume] (Wailuku, Maui, H.I.) 1900-current, 1919-12-12
How Roosevelt Stung
This Nation Into
War With Spain

says Joseph BuCklin Bishop, the
Colonel's biographer, in fresh revela-
tions Of the former Presidents public
service, which will appear in the forth
coming issue of %Scribner's Magazine.
The article, the third of a series,
was complied from public records and
some OF the 10000 letters written by
Colonel Roosevelt during the course
of his active life. It deals entirely
with his part in the Spanish-Ameri-
can war, a period of about one year
but a period rich in material of his
torical value says Mr.. Bishop. In
it the biographer of the former Presi-
dent tells of Roosevelt's work as AS
sistant Secretary of the Navy, declar-
ing that although the war was only
twelve months away when he entered
office, until he began IAN energetic
and systematic agitation for prepare
ton not a step had been taken to get
the army and navy ready for it."
Action taken by Assistant Secretary
Roosevelt, he says, lin the face of the
persistent opposition of Secretary
Long, his superior officer, and over
that oftcers's head while he was
absent from office, made it possible
for Dewey to fight and win the battle
of Manila ROosevelt's gift of fore
sight is again touched upon, the let
ters showing that nearly twenty years
before the revolution in Russia he
predicted that unless her rulers chang
ed their conduct they would some
time experience a red terror that will
make the French Revolution pale" At
the same time, in 1897, he predicted:
Germany is the power with which we
may very possible have ultimately to
come into hostile contact"
Mr.. Bishop also brings to light an
address delivered by Roosevelt before
the Naval War College on June 2,
1897, soon after he became Assistant
Secretary of the Navy, showing that
"he was saying at that stage of his
career precisely the things about ma
tional preparedness that he said with
such courage, p~ertinacity and force
twenty years later when wal with
Germany was upon us"
Senator Lodges long and unbroken
friendship for Roosevelt and the part
he took in establishing him in Wash
ington is Interestingly shown in the lat
tiers which passed between them dur
ing this period. They contain init
mate personal characterizations of the
big men of the time, notably Presi-
dent Mckinley, Secretary Long, John
Hay, Speaker Reed, Senator Hale,
Secretaries Day and Gage, Admirals
Dewey and Crowninshield, Generals
Funston and Shafter, and others.
When the battleship Maine was
blown up on February Is, 1898 in the
harbor of Havana, Roosevelt, who had
previously denounced the Spanish re-
gime in Cuba, emphatically declared
himself in favor of war with Spain.
Writing to Elihu Root on April 5,
1898, he said: you would be amazed
and Mortified at the peace-at-any-price
kilograms Of the most abject descrip-
ton which come in multitudes from
New York, Boston, and elsewhere to
the President and Senator'S" Two
days later, after saying that McKin-
ley had taken "a position from which
he annot back down" Roosevelt
wrote: I'VE have our plans in the
Navy and beyond hat there is abso-
lutely nothing. The President doesn't
know what message he will send in
or what he will do if We have war"
What Mr.. Bishop regards as the
most interesting and Illuminating let
ter in the collection" is one written to
Roosevelt by Senator Lodge on Sep
TENDER 81, 1898, after the peace proto-
col had been signed with Spain. In it
he tells of preparing articles on the
war and of seeking from Secretary
Long the facts regarding Roosevelt's
order to Dewey on the previous Feb
ruary 25 when he cabled the Admiral
at Hong Kong:
Order the squadron except the
Monocacy to Hong Kong, Keep full
Of coal, In the event Of declaration
of van Spain, your duty will be to see
that the Spanish squadron does not
leave the Asiatic coast, and hen Of
fensive operations in Philippines.
Keep Olympia until further orders.
Roosevelt"
Senator Lodge wrote that in seek
ing the text of the cablegram he met
with the opposition Of Rear Admiral
A. S. Crowninshield, chief of the
Bureau of Navigation, who told him
Secretary Long was unwilling to give
him the exact language" because, to