Theodore Roosevelt is one of the nation's most popular presidents for many reasons; among them his vigorous and intelligent personality, his charge up San Juan Hill, his political reforms, the conservation work, and, of course, the Teddy Bear. But as a shirt-tail descendant (my wife, Sarah, is one of TR's great grand-daughters), I agree with those who argue that Roosevelt's greatest accomplishment was making the USA a world power militarily at a time we also were gaining prominence as an economic power. TR, by the way, held the same opinion.

The Navy was Roosevelt's main instrument for affectuating the military transformation. And nothing made it so clear that he had succeeded as his dispatch of "The Great White Fleet" on a cruise around the world from December 1907 to February, 1909. TR sent 22 war ships to show the flag, but he painted them white to show good will.

The effect was positive and striking in port after port. And it also was a hugely successful domestic gesture to the America of 100 years ago, especially in the bumpteous young city of Seattle, flush with people and cash from the Klondike and Alaskan Gold Rushes. The Puget Sound community had risen from 30,000 population to 300,000 in one decade, and toward the end of it--late May, 1908--some 400,000 Seattlites and neighbors from throughout Western Washington turned out to welcome the Great White Fleet as it prepared to go to Asia. http://www.greatwhitefleet.info/Parade-Seattle_jpg_view.htm

This past Tuesday a rather smaller group of about 150--organized by the Navy League and the Seattle chapter of the Theodore Roosevelt Society, and sporting, among others, Mayor Greg Nickels and a TR impersonator from Illinois, Joe Weigand--gathered atop the Pier 66 International Conference Center on Elliott Bay to note the anniversary. Two contemporary Navy ships, the USS Preble and the USS Rushmore, and a very noisy hovercraft, passed in review. Assistant Secretary of the Navy B. J. Penn and Admirals O'Brien and Symon were on hand, along with an impressive array of other brass--and a brass band. Later, my wife and I enjoyed entertaining many of the visitors at our house (itself a relic of the Gold Rush days). Wednesday the Navy welcomed the public on board the Navy ships and tonight there is a lecture at the Museum of History and Industry that is opening an exhibit on the Great White Fleet.

We have a vastly different and bigger, more powerful Navy now. The roles are not that different, however from what TR envsiaged. Just as The Great White Fleet wound up performing disaster relief after an earthquake that occured while the ships were in Italy in 1909, so, too, the US Navy today is one of the most efficient ways available for providing humanitarian relief around the globe. A carrier is, among other things, a floating hospital, an airfield for flying out the wounded, a desalinization plant, several restaurants and a huge team of trained relief specialists.

Of course, it also is a considerable deterrent to would-be warlords and expanionist dictators. TR very much had all of that in mind. http://www.greatwhitefleet.info/index.html