Mean Admirals: On Wednesdays, We Select Naval Bases (January 2025)
A conspiracy planned in an exchange of notes. Clear aggression conveyed in seemingly innocent words. Biting snark in response.
All standard drama played out regularly in countless school or work settings.
The three documents below are taken from a wider web of correspondence documenting just such an intrigue in 1904. It is of interest for two reasons.
First, as opposed to the preening prom queen, tyrannical associate dean, or incompetent office manager, this drama played out among some of the most prominent figures of the day, including President Theodore Roosevelt, Admiral of the Navy George Dewey, and Major General Leonard Wood.
Second, the subject of the dispute was one of national importance: where should the United States place its major naval bases in the Pacific? The decisions resulting from this spat would dictate much of the early campaigns of the Second World War in the Pacific and determine much of the U.S. military’s Pacific posture today. The most consequential outcome was a shift of the navy’s main effort from the Philippines to Pearl Harbor.
This military soap opera had a number of plot twists. The “final” decision reached by the president and cabinet in 1904 as a result of the notes below was only the end of the first act. It was upset by unexpected events (the Russo-Japanese War), past friends were suddenly enemies (Japan), and shocking revelations (the design of all existing coast fortifications had been rendered obsolete by new weapons). These developments produced another “final” decision in 1908, one that completely reversed the course set in 1904. Of course, the plotting continued even after that. The whole affair is thus an example of the intersection of personalities and emotions with objective arguments about serious issues.
But to set the stage for the documents below. We enter near the end of Act I. Roosevelt, off stage at the moment, is a long-time supporter of Dewey, who after the Battle of Manila Bay in 1898 became an enormously popular figure across the country. Yet Roosevelt is even closer with Wood, who he met years earlier. That friendship led to the two commanding the famous “Rough Riders,” with Wood as the colonel and Roosevelt as the lieutenant colonel.
For several years before this correspondence, Dewey had vigorously pushed Roosevelt, several secretaries of the navy, and Congress to establish a major naval base at the village of Olongapo on Subic Bay (spelled at the time “Subig”) in the Philippines. The chief alternatives to this were several sites on Manila Bay, including the existing small station at Cavite. Many in Congress didn’t want to fund a major installation in the Philippines at all, so there had been no progress at any site. Yet in the summer of 1904, Dewey seemed to have at last achieved his aim when money was appropriated for both a naval yard and fortifications.
[Enter General Wood and Rear Admiral William Folger stage west] Yet there was a problem for Dewey brewing in the Philippines. Wood was the commander of army forces in the southern islands, which at the time meant operations against the Muslim Moros in Mindanao and the Sulu Archipelago. These operations required joint operations, and he forged a close working relationship with Folger, commander of the squadron consisting of mainly small vessels, like gunboats, in the Philippines. In the midst of this work, Wood and Folger came to the conclusion that building a large base at Olongapo would be a catastrophic blunder for a variety of reasons, mainly because the out-of-the-way site—although a magnificent anchorage—was both cost inefficient and a diversion from the strategically critical task of defending Manila. Thus, tucked within letters about operations against the Moros, Wood and Folger conspired to scuttle the Olongapo base.
This was bold, as neither was even their service’s senior officer in the area. Folger’s squadron was just one of three within the Asiatic Fleet. Nonetheless, he exercised the prerogative of a commander to convey his concerns to Secretary of the Navy William Moody. Dewey, it should be noted, had no formal role in the chain of command, but his prestige was immense and he was one of the secretary’s chief advisors. Whether from conviction or fear of Dewey, Folger’s immediate superior forwarded the letter to Washington with only the briefest of notes: “The only comment I have to make upon the views stated herein is that I do not agree with them in any particular.”
Wood was even more brazen. His command did not even encompass either Olongapo or Manila, yet he completely bypassed official channels when sending his objections to the navy’s plan directly to the president.
With that background, enjoy the three letters below: Folger informing Dewey that he had sent a letter to the secretary, Dewey’s reply to Folger, and then Folger’s comment on that response to Wood.
(Copy of correspondence between George Dewey and William M. Folger, 22 May and 6 August 1904, Box 3, Entry 299, Record Group 165, National Archives and Records Administration II, College Park, Maryland)
(William M. Folger to Leonard Wood, 20 September 1904, Box 34, Wood Papers, Library of Congress, Manuscript Division, Washington, DC)
