ived the idea that the
country could be served by its sons as well in the naval branch of the
National Defence as in the military. The subject of a naval volunteer
force had been agitated for several years, but it was not until the
latter part of June, 1891, that the first enlistments were made.

Since that time the success of the organization has been continuous and
most gratifying, and it has required only the recent war with Spain to
prove that its value to the country at large cannot be overestimated. At
the outbreak of hostilities, the strength of the Naval Militia
throughout the country was 4,445 officers and enlisted men, but the rush
of recruits incidental to the opening of the war vastly increased that
number.

The scope of the organization is naturally limited to those States
bordering on the seacoast and the Great Lakes, but the interest taken in
it to-day by the people is widespread and emphatic. The existence of
this interest was amply proved by the enthusiastic welcome tendered the
returning crews of the "Badger," "Dixie," "Prairie," "Yosemite," and
"Yankee" by the citizens of the cities more closely concerned, and by
the country at large.

In a report made to Secretary Long in 1897 by Theodore Roosevelt, then
Assistant Secretary of the Navy, these prophetic words were used:

"The rapidity with which modern wars are decided renders it imperative
to have men who can be ready for immediate use, and outside of the
regular navy these men are only to be found in the Naval Militia of the
various States. If a body of naval militia is able to get at its head
some first-class man who is a graduate of Annapolis; if it puts under
him as commissioned officers, warrant officers, and petty officers men
who have worked their way up from grade to grade, year after year, and
who have fitted themselves for the higher positions by the zeal and
painstaking care with which they have performed their duties in the
lower places; and if the landsmen, ordinary seamen, and seamen go in
resolutely to do real work and learn their duties so that they can
perform them as well as the regulars aboard our warships, taking pride
in their performance accordingly as they are really difficult--such an
organization will, in course of time, reach a point where it could be
employed immediately in the event of war.

"Most of the Naval Militia are now in condition to render immediate
service of a very valuable kind in what may be called the se