USS President

“ I think the Treasury will find room for the gold. Can the navy find room for Colonel Odminton's atonement?"
The eyes of the Secretary of the Navy glistened.
"With that vessel fixed into a torpedo boat, we can whip the world! I shall put the youngster as middy aboard of her; he understands her better than any one else. With your permission, Mr. President, the boy is enrolled, and his commission will be made out at once."
The Secretary bowed deferentially.
"Do you wish to enter the United States navy?" The great head of the nation bent to the lad as he would have to his own son.
"Oh, sir! ”

“ He therefore asks Congress to make a liberal appropriation of money, so that the United States may be properly represented.
In regard to The Navy, the President says:
"The present force of the navy consists of 4 battleships of the first class, 2 of the second, and 48 other vessels, ranging from armored cruisers to torpedo-boats. There are under construction 5 battleships of the first class, 16 torpedo-boats, and 1 submarine boat. No provision has yet been made for the armor for three of the five battleships, as it has been impossible to obtain it at the price fixed by Congress. ”

“ Philip Bilden is the right choice to help us expand and modernize our fleet, including surface ships, submarines and aircraft, and ensure America’s naval supremacy for decades to come. I am proud of the men and women of our armed forces. The people who serve in our military are our American heroes, and we honor their service every day.”
“I am deeply humbled and honored to serve as Secretary of the Navy,” said Philip Bilden. “Maintaining the strength, readiness, and capabilities of our maritime force is critical to our national security. ”

“ The President has always stated that what is important is that the United States military be able to carry out its mission, which is why the President has taken this action through the Department of Navy, with the President's concurrence, through May of 2003. ”

“ We have been blamed for not making greater use of our navy and extending it at once. It was our first duty to provide for the safety of our capital. Besides, a man will generally pay little attention to agencies he does not understand. None of us knew anything about a navy. I doubt if the President ever saw anything more formidable than a river steamboat, and I don’t think Mr. Welles, the Secretary of the Navy, knew the stem from the stern of a ship. Of the whole Cabinet, I am the only member who ever was fairly at sea or crossed the Atlantic. ”

“ The President comes up the side of the Mayflower and, arrived at the head of the gangway, stands rigid as any stanchion to attention while his colors are shot to the truck and the scarlet-coated band plays the national hymn. Then, ascending to the bridge, he takes station by the starboard rail with the Secretary of the Navy at his shoulder. The clouds roll away, the sun comes out, and all is as it should be while he prepares to review the fleet, which thereafter responds aboundingly to every burst of his own inexhaustible enthusiasm. ”

“ Shortly after the enunciation of that famous principle of American foreign policy now known as the "Monroe Doctrine," President Monroe, in a special Message to Congress on January 30, 1824, spoke as follows: "The Navy is the arm from which our Government will always derive most aid in support of our rights. Every power engaged in war will know the strength of our naval power, the number of our ships of each class, their condition, and the promptitude with which we may bring them into service, and will pay due consideration to that argument." ”

“ The United States, they reasoned, was a growing industrial power with increasing overseas interests, and some—among them Mahan disciple and future Assistant Secretary of the Navy and President Theodore Roosevelt—believed the nation should have a navy befitting its role, one able to open markets, protect those economic interests, and project U.S. power. ”

“ In 1903 the matter was taken up with greater vigor, by President Roosevelt. In his annual message to Congress December 7, the President, "deeply concerned at the decline of our ocean fleet and the loss of skilled officers and seamen," recommended the appointment by Congress of a joint commission to investigate and report at the next session, "what legislation is desirable or necessary for the development of the American merchant marine and American commerce, and, incidentally, of a national ocean mail service of adequate auxiliary naval cruisers and naval reserves." ”

“ Meanwhile one saw the President, aided by a score of able and energetic men, constantly at work removing stones in the path, setting up a War Industries Board, reorganising the Shipping Board and the Air Service, and clearing the way for those food supplies from the great American and Canadian wheatfields without which Europe could not endure, and which were constantly endangered by the pressure of the submarine attack. ”

“ The President talked with his Personal Secretary, Rose Mary Woods. 5:01 5:19 P
The President talked with his Counsellor, Bryce N. Harlow. 5:25
The President went to his White House office. 5:46 5:48 P
The President talked long distance with the Apollo 12 astronauts on board the USS Hornet. [1] Captain Charles Conrad, Jr. Captain Richard F. Gordon, Jr. Captain Allan L. Bean Members of the Press were present. ”

“ Our sentence could not be more lenient, under the circumstances: it was that conversation with the gunner at the taffrail which floored you. It must be a warning to you to be more careful in future, how you permit any one to speak of the conduct of your superiors on the quarter-deck. I am desired by the president to let you know, that it is our intention to express ourselves very strongly to the admiral in your behalf; so much so, that if another captain applies for you, you will have no difficulty in being appointed to a ship ”

“ This morning President Pardo boarded the Peruvian cruiser Almirante Grau and the fleet thundered out twenty-one guns on each ship in unison. The Grau passed out to sea and orders were signalled from the flagship to get under way. Then the fleet passed by President Pardo in the best of style, each ship firing a salute as it went by. It made a fine spectacle. The honors were the same as paid to President Roosevelt in Hampton Roads, President Penna at Rio and President Montt at Valparaiso. ”

“ President, when the mariner has been tossed, for many days, in thick weather, and on an unknown sea, he naturally avails himself of the first pause in the storm, the earliest glance of the sun, to take his latitude, and ascertain how far the elements have driven him from his true course. Let us imitate this prudence, and, before we float farther on the waves of this debate, refer to the point from which we departed, that we may at least be able to conjecture where we now are. ”

“ Therefore, unless we are willing to abandon this place, to abandon our insistence upon the Monroe doctrine, to give up the Panama Canal, and to be content to acknowledge ourselves a weak and timid nation, we must steadily build up and maintain a great fighting Navy. [22] Our Navy is already so efficient as to be a matter of just pride to every American. So long as our Navy is no larger than at present, it must be considered as an elementary principle that the bulk of our battle fleet must always be kept together. ”

“ The President, Commander in Chief of the Army and Navy, returns thanks to Brigadier-General Burnside and Flag-Officer Goldsborough, and to Brigadier-General Grant and Flag-Officer Foote, and the land and naval forces under their respective commands, for their gallant achievements in the capture of Fort Henry and at Roanoke Island. While it will be no ordinary pleasure for him to acknowledge and reward in a becoming manner the valor of the living, he also recognizes his duty to pay fitting honor to the memory of the gallant dead. ”

“ The Navy Department was created, and a Secretary of the Navy appointed. Frigates were ordered to be built, money was voted for arms, a provisional army was formed, and Washington was again made commander in chief, with the rank of lieutenant general. The young men associated for defense, the people in the seaports built frigates or sloops of war, and gave their services to erect forts and earthworks. Every French flag was now pulled down from the coffeehouses, and the black cockade of our own Revolutionary days was once more worn as the badge of patriotism. ”

“ The Navy must be built and all its training given in time of peace. When once war has broken out it [25] is too late to do anything. We now have a good Navy, not yet large enough for our needs, but of excellent material. Where a navy is as small as ours, the cardinal rule must be that the battle ships shall not be separated. This year I am happy to say that we shall begin a course which I hope will be steadily followed hereafter, that, namely, of keeping the battle-ship fleet alternately in the Pacific and in the Atlantic. ”

“ The panic at the North which followed the startling news from Hampton Roads was indescribable. Abraham Lincoln hastily called a Cabinet meeting to consider what action it was necessary to take to meet the now appalling situation. Never before had any man in authority at Washington realized how absolute was their dependence on the United States Navy—how impossible it would be to maintain the Government without its power. ”

“ The Navy is not primarily of importance only to the coast regions. It is every bit as much the concern of the farmer who dwells a thousand miles from sea water as of the fisherman who makes his living on the ocean, for it is the concern of every good American who knows what the meaning of the word patriotism is. ”

“ Many of the essentials of success are already recognized by the General Board, which, as the central office of a growing staff, is moving steadily toward a proper war efficiency and a proper efficiency of the whole Navy, under the Secretary. This General Board, by fostering the creation of a general staff, is providing for the official and then the general recognition of our altered conditions as a Nation and of the true meaning of a great war fleet, which meaning is, first, the best men, and, second, the best ships. ”

“ Foreign Policy In treating of our foreign policy and of the attitude that this great Nation should assume in the world at large, it is absolutely necessary to consider the Army and the Navy, and the Congress, through which the thought of the Nation finds its expression, should keep ever vividly in mind the fundamental fact that it is impossible to treat our foreign policy, whether this policy takes shape in the effort to secure justice for others or justice for ourselves, save as conditioned upon the attitude we are willing to take toward our Army, and especially toward our Navy. ”