red tape threw himself back in his chair and exclaimed, "Oh,
dear! I had this office running in such good shape--and then along came
the war and upset everything!"

But there were plenty of good men in the navy; and one of them was
Commodore George Dewey. Roosevelt had kept his eye on him for some time
as an officer who "could be relied upon to prepare in advance, and
to act promptly, fearlessly, and on his own responsibility when the
emergency arose." When he began to foresee the probability of war,
Roosevelt succeeded in having Dewey sent to command the Asiatic
squadron; and just ten days after the Maine was blown up this cablegram
went from Washington to Hong Kong:

"DEWEY, Hong Kong:

"Order the squadron, except the Monocacy, to Hong Kong. Keep full of
coal. In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to
see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then
offensive operations in Philippine Islands. Keep Olympia until further
orders. Roosevelt."

The declaration of war lagged on for nearly two months, but when it
finally came, just one week elapsed between the sending of an order to
Dewey to proceed at once to the Philippines and to "capture vessels or
destroy" and the elimination of the sea power of Spain in the Orient.
The battle of Manila Bay was a practical demonstration of the value of
the "fighting edge," as exemplified in an Assistant Secretary who fought
procrastination, timidity, and political expedience at home and in a
naval officer who fought the enemy's ships on the other side of the
world.

When war actually came, Roosevelt could not stand inactivity in
Washington. He was a fighter and he must go where the real fighting was.
With Leonard Wood, then a surgeon in the army, he organized the First
United States Volunteer Cavalry. He could have been appointed Colonel,
but he knew that Wood knew more about the soldier's job than he, and he
insisted upon taking the second place. The Secretary of War thought him
foolish to step aside thus and suggested that Roosevelt become Colonel
and Wood Lieutenant-Colonel, adding that Wood would do the work anyway.
But that was not the Roosevelt way. He replied that he did not wish to
rise on any man's shoulders, that he hoped to be given every chance that
his deeds and his abilities warranted, that he did not wish what he
did not earn, and that, above all, he did not wish to hold any position
where any one else did the work. Lieut