laststandonzombieisland

Josephus Daniels

Mr. Josephus Daniels was a newspaper editor and publisher from North Carolina who was appointed by Woodrow Wilson to serve as the 41st United States Secretary of the Navy in 1913. As such he was the head of an organisation that he knew next to nothing about. He ended the beer ration, substituting it for coffee (which is where the term ‘cup of joe’ comes from).

Magazine cartoon lampooning Daniel’s efforts for temperance in the Navy in 1914. Click to embiggen

He asked naval commanders to simply their traditions, calling for left and right rather than port and starboard among other things. He was one of the most unpopular SECNAV’s of all time and if not for the fact that a young, knowledgeable, and very energetic Assistant Secretary of the Navy by the name of Franklin D Roosevelt was running around putting out fires, the US Navy in World War One could have been very different from what it was.

Assistant Secretary of the Navy, Franklin D. Roosevelt firing and handling a Springfield M1903 at the Marine Corps’ rifle range at Winthrop, Maryland in 1917.

All of this makes the below picture of Frank Daniels, the young son of the Secretary of the Navy aboard the USS Dolphin all the more special. You see Daniels in 1913 observed the target practice of the US Navy at Hampton Roads from the decks of the gunboat– along with his wife and family. Commanded by Lt (later Fleet Admiral) William Daniel Leahy, the 256-foot long Dolphin was an elderly gunboat used mainly to carry around dispatches and was pressed into service by the Secretary as his flagship that spring day. By the way, Daniels ordered that the term “Target Practice” be hereby abolished and that of “Gunnery Exercises” substituted while he was in office.

You can just see the joy on the old bosun mate’s face in being tasked with making sure young Frank stays healthy. The sixteen years worth of service stripes on his sleeve must have been worth it.

Doesn’t he look happy