The personnel contained as fine material as there was to be found in the world but the ships and the guns were antiquated, and it would have been a wicked absurdity to have sent them against the ships of any good power.
Roosevelt highlights the contrast between the personnel quality and the outdated ships of the Navy.
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More from Teddy Roosevelt
I care for the great deeds of the past chiefly as spurs to drive us onward in the present.
No man is worth his salt in public life who makes on the stump a pledge which he does not keep after election; and, if he makes such a pledge and does not keep it, hunt him out of public life.
France is one of these nations. For her to sink would be a loss to all the world.
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