ABSTRACT

The Navy had developed its own traditionbound processes for managing the 65,000 men of its establishment and the $140,000,000 of its annual appropriations. Franklin D. Roosevelt bounced about the country in the spring of 1916, whipping up enthusiasm, but recruits came in slowly, and many were turned down in the rigorous Navy physical examinations. In Daniels's absence he took to the President himself a part of the Navy's elaborate mobilization plan, an order to bring the Atlantic Fleet back from Cuba for cleaning and refitting. Meanwhile, Roosevelt sought, and found, a legal technicality which would allow the Navy to loan six-inch guns to private shipping firms for protection against submarines. Homer's operations, under the friendly guidance of Louis Howe and Roosevelt, were to give Roosevelt's enemies their most convincing evidence that Roosevelt was influenced by his friends in awarding Navy contracts.