have been an enormous gain to have had the three months’ preliminary preparation which enabled the fleet to start perfectly equipped.  In a personal interview before they left I had explained to the officers in command that I believed the trip would be one of absolute peace, but that they were to take exactly the same precautions against sudden attack of any kind as if we were at war with all the nations of the earth; and that no excuse of any kind would be accepted if there were a sudden attack of any kind and we were taken unawares.

My prime purpose was to impress the American people; and this purpose was fully achieved.  The cruise did make a very deep impression abroad; boasting about what we have done does not impress foreign nations at all, except unfavorably, but positive achievement does; and the two American achievements that really impressed foreign peoples during the first dozen years of this century were the digging of the Panama Canal and the cruise of the battle fleet round the world.  But the impression made on our own people was of far greater consequence.  No single thing in the history of the new United States Navy has done as much to stimulate popular interest and belief in it as the world cruise.  This effect was forecast in a well-informed and friendly English periodical, the London Spectator.  Writing in October, 1907, a month before the fleet sailed from Hampton Roads, the Spectator said: 

“All over America the people will follow the movements of the fleet; they will learn something of the intricate details of the coaling and commissariat work under warlike conditions; and in a word their attention will be aroused.  Next time Mr. Roosevelt or his representatives appeal to the country for new battleships they will do so to people whose minds have been influenced one way or the other.  The naval programme will not have stood still.  We are sure that, apart from increasing the efficiency of the existing fleet, this is the aim which Mr. Roosevelt has in mind.  He has a policy which projects itself far into the future, but it is an entire misreading of it to suppose that it is aimed narrowly and definitely at any single Power.”

I first directed the fleet, of sixteen battleships, to go round through the Straits of Magellan to San Francisco.  From thence I ordered them to New Zealand and Australia, then to the Philippines, China and Japan, and home through Suez—­they stopped in the Mediterranean to help the sufferers from the earthquake at Messina, by the way, and did this work as effectively as they had done all their other work.  Admiral Evans commanded the fleet to San Francisco; there Admiral Sperry took it; Admirals Thomas, Wainwright and Schroeder rendered distinguished service under Evans and Sperry.  The coaling and other preparations were made in such excellent shape by the Department that there was never a hitch, not so much as the delay of an hour, in keeping every appointment made.