ABSTRACT
The citizens of San Diego, the highest officials in the Navy Department, top uniformed officers in the service, and the Congress—which controlled the purse strings—developed strong ways and means to accommodate one another. Between that year and the early 1920s, the unique attributes of San Diego's civic culture emerged and solidified in numerous ways. Had San Diegans and Navy men not learned to speak each other's language so well, and not taken such good care of each other when their needs and desires seemed to demand such accommodation, the city might today be an entirely different place. E. W. Scripps himself felt that most San Diegans had been activated by no other motive than pure national patriotism and a desire in some way to impress upon the government and people of the United States that they approved of the policy of a great and powerful national navy.
