. He once remarked, "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." To the graduating class at Annapolis, he once said:

"There is not one of you who is not derelict in his duty to the whole
Nation if he fails to prepare himself with all the strength that in him
lies to do his duty should the occasion arise; and one of your great
duties is to see that shots hit. The result is going to depend largely
upon whether you or your adversary hits. I expect you to be brave.
I rather take that for granted.... But, in addition, you have got to
prepare yourselves in advance. Every naval action that has taken place
in the last twenty years ... has shown, as a rule, that the defeated
party has suffered not from lack of courage, but because it could
not make the best use of its weapons, or had not been given the right
weapons... . I want every one here to proceed upon the assumption that
any foe he may meet will have the courage. Of course, you have got
to show the highest degree of courage yourself or you will be beaten
anyhow, and you will deserve to be; but in addition to that you must
prepare yourselves by careful training so that you may make the best
possible use of the delicate and formidable mechanism of a modern
warship."

Theodore Roosevelt was an apostle of preparedness from the hour that he
began to think at all about affairs of public moment--and that hour came
to him earlier in life than it does to most men. In the preface to his
history of the War of 1812, which he wrote at the age of twenty-four,
this sentence appears: "At present people are beginning to realize that
it is folly for the great English-speaking Republic to rely for defense
upon a navy composed partly of antiquated hulks, and partly of new
vessels rather more worthless than the old." His prime interest,
from the point of view of preparedness, lay in the navy. His sense
of proportion told him that the navy was the nation's first line of
defense. He knew that without an efficient navy a nation situated as
the United States was would be helpless before an aggressive enemy,
and that, given a navy of sufficient size and effectiveness, the nation
could dispense with a great army. For the army he demanded not size
but merely efficiency. One of his principal points of attack in his
criticism of the army was the system of promotion for officers. He