Taking the plunge.
It is August 27, 1905.
And the nation’s leading newspapers are aghast.
President Theodore Roosevelt has ridden down to the bottom of the Long Island Sound in a submarine!
The submarine was the USS Plunger, sixty-four feet long, with a captain and crew of six, and one of seven submarines then in the Navy’s fleet.
The Plunger had come to the New York Navy Yard for overhaul in August 1905.
While there, the boat’s captain received orders from the Navy Secretary:
“Proceed as soon as possible to Oyster Bay and report to the President.”
Roosevelt’s interest in submarines stemmed from his one-year tenure as Assistant Secretary of the Navy eight years earlier.
There, he had advocated the purchase of submarines to aid in the development of the nation as an international sea power.
When the Plunger arrived at Oyster Bay, the boat entertained the First Family with maneuvers while they watched from the presidential yacht.
The next day, Roosevelt boarded the Plunger for a three-hour cruise.
He took the controls briefly, taking the vessel down to a depth of forty feet and firing a blank torpedo.
Roosevelt’s submarine adventure was to be kept secret, but someone spilled the beans.
And the press scolded him like an angry mother:
From the New York Times:
“There is an appreciable element of peril in the submarine at the present stage of its evolution.
“Just that element of peril, it is fair to assume, was the element of irresistible attractiveness to the President.
“Doubtless he will be liked all the more for the boyish delight in running risks which belongs to his character.
“He is liked all the more whatever he does.
From another paper:
“[H]e really ought to restrain himself from doing those ‘stunts’ of adventure, which would be all well enough for Theodore Roosevelt, but which are far from being well enough for the President of the United States.”
But, in fairness, there was reason for concern.
The British and French navies had each lost more than a dozen men in submarine disasters earlier in the summer.
Some criticized Roosevelt’s timing.
Envoys from Russia and Japan were then in Maine, at his request, to negotiate a settlement in their war in East Asia.
And, as Roosevelt took his submarine ride, these negotiations were entering their final stage.
But the criticism was just ‘fuss and bother’ to Roosevelt, who had honed a love of adventure in the Dakota Badlands and had led a cavalry charge up San Juan Hill.
Besides, the submarine ride was a part of his presidential duties.
He had gone down in the Plunger, he told a friend, “Chiefly because I did not like to have the officers and enlisted men think I wanted them to try things I was reluctant to try myself.”
But there was joy in it.
Roosevelt told another friend he had never experienced "such a diverting day, nor can I recall having so much enjoyment in so few hours.”
Such a man…
A joyful risk taker.
Beloved.
One of the greats.
An object lesson for earnest presidential candidates.
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I’ll see you tomorrow.
— Brenda
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