Roosevelt also was able to help in having appointed to command the Asiatic squadron, a naval officer named Commodore George Dewey.

On February 15, 1898, while affairs were at their worst between America and Spain, our battleship Maine was blown up in Havana Harbor.  She had gone there on a friendly visit, but now was destroyed and sent to the bottom.  Over two hundred and fifty of our men were killed.  Almost every one knew that war was now certain.  For weeks the country debated as to the cause of the explosion which sank the Maine, and the matter was investigated by naval officers assisted by divers.  They found that the explosion had come from the outside.  Somebody had set off a mine or torpedo beneath the ship.  Nobody in America disputed this, except a few of the peace-at-any-price folk, who preferred to think that the carelessness of our own sailors had been the cause.  These gentlemen always think the best of the people of other nations, which is a fine thing; but they are always ready to believe the worst of their own countrymen, which is, on the whole, rather a nasty trait.

Roosevelt worked at top-speed in the Navy Department, and began to lay plans for going to the war himself.  He believed that it was right and necessary to fight Spain, and end the horrible suffering in Cuba.  And he believed that it was the duty first and foremost of men like himself, who advised war, to take part in it.  He was nearly forty years old, and had a family.  Many other men in his place would have discovered that their services were most important in Washington.  They would have stayed in their offices, and let other men (whom they called “jingoes”) do the fighting for them.  It was never Roosevelt’s custom to act that way.

Later in February, while Mr. Long was away, and Roosevelt was Acting-Secretary of the Navy, he sent this cable message to Commodore Dewey: 

Washington, February 25, ’98.

Dewey, Hong Kong

Order the squadron, except the “Monocacy,” to Hong Kong.  Keep full of coal.  In the event of declaration of war Spain, your duty will be to see that the Spanish squadron does not leave the Asiatic coast, and then offensive operations in Philippine Islands.  Keep “Olympia” until further orders.

Roosevelt.

War against Spain was declared in April,—­the month in our history which has also seen the beginning of our Revolution, our Civil War, and our entrance into the Great War against Germany.  Congress arranged for three regiments of volunteer cavalry to be raised among the men in the Rockies and on the Great Plains who knew how to ride and shoot.  Here Roosevelt saw his chance.  He knew these men and longed to go to war in their company.