Work on the chapel began on June 3, 1904, with the ceremonial laying of the cornerstone by Admiral Dewey. A time capsule was embedded containing signed photos of President Roosevelt and other dignitaries of the day, including Flagg and Dewey.5 Work then progressed very slowly. And since Jones’s body wasn’t recovered until April 1905, there were no approved plans for finishing the crypt in the basement. Navy officials had hoped the chapel would be finished and Jones’s body placed in the crypt in October 1905. But even before the body arrived, there was talk of delaying the interment until the following spring in hopes the building would be completed then. By the time Jones’s body arrived in July 1905, the building was only partly built, and a design for the main doors wouldn’t be selected until May 1906. More delays ensued. And more.
Flagg began lobbying for the contract to complete the design of the crypt. He had an ambitious vision of a national shrine for naval heroes, with Jones’s sarcophagus in the middle of the circular room and niches for the remains of other heroes built into the walls, all beneath a crystal dome diffusing electric light into the room. A few days after Porter announced in Paris that he had found the body and before Roosevelt had decided where it would be interred, Flagg lobbied for his plan in a letter to Captain Willard H. Brownson, who was just finishing a stint as the academy’s superintendent:
I know that you agree with me that the crypt of the new Chapel of the Academy should be [Jones’s] final resting place. What more appropriate than that the ashes of the founder of the American Navy should repose in the midst of the institution, which is the cradle, so to speak, of the navy. If the crypt is made a place of sepulture by depositing these remains there, then the Chapel will become what it ought to be, and what I have always hoped it would be, the Pantheon or West Minster of the Navy…. Representing the academy as you do it seems as if you are the proper one to call attention to the fact that the Crypt of the Chapel was arranged with this very contingency in view from the start; that here is already at hand a most suitable burial place for this great hero. I fear that unless some one speaks at once, Arlington may be selected as there has already been talk of that.6
Plans for the crypt had not advanced since then, and the chapel itself would not be completed in time (it would finally open in May 1908). Amid the uncertainty, Porter, navy officials, and Roosevelt began discussing alternatives. On July 20 Roosevelt wrote to Charles J. Bonaparte, his new navy secretary, that he wanted the public celebration to be held on September 23, the anniversary of Jones’s victory over the Serapis—a date for which Porter had been heavily lobbying. Bonaparte asked his subordinates for a report on whether that would be feasible; he was told that the crypt—which had not yet been designed, or even approved by Congress—would not be completed in time. That raised the question of whether they should hold the ceremony in the fall and then schedule another ceremony for when the crypt was done.
Porter, after his luncheon with Roosevelt at Sagamore Hill, had joined up with his friend and fellow Son of the American Revolution, Frederick W. Vanderbilt, for an Eastern Seaboard cruise aboard Vanderbilt’s yacht Warrior, a 239-foot white-and-green-hulled steamship that held Vanderbilt’s luxurious quarters (including a piano), and six other guest suites. Porter wrote Bonaparte from the “floating palace”7 on July 25 that the president had settled on the September ceremony. “The disagreeably hot weather is generally over by that date and the weather favorable for an outdoor large gathering.” Porter also noted that Roosevelt had unspecified plans for October that would preclude him from attending a ceremony then. Porter said Roosevelt wanted him, Bonaparte, and Maryland governor Edwin Warfield to oversee the planning, which would be carried out by Rear Admiral James H. Sands, the new academy superintendent. Excitement was already building. “The patriotic societies, with all of which I happen to be connected, are already beginning to organize delegations to participate in or be present at the ceremony. They will represent more than half the states, I should think.”8
Two weeks later, Porter was staying with his friend Morris K. Jesup at the financier’s Stonecliffe summer house in Bar Harbor, Maine. He wrote Bonaparte again, telling the navy secretary that Roosevelt was insisting “the celebration be held this fall. Would there be any objection to holding it a week after the anniversary of the Naval Battle [September 23] if the midshipmen are off their annual leave? I hate to break up their annual leave, and yet I would like to have them there when we hold the celebration.”
Roosevelt was also writing to Bonaparte, part of a regular correspondence about naval affairs. The president took an unusual interest in the Jones ceremony planning, involving himself in a surprising level of minutiae, including ensuring that the academy’s midshipmen would be on hand for the ceremony. “But do write to General Porter first to find what he thinks,” Roosevelt wrote.9 The president saw the event as a chance to enhance the academy’s image to the nation. “I would like to turn this celebration into something of actual benefit to the navy.” In another letter to Bonaparte, Roosevelt indicated that Sands was somewhat resistant to the idea of calling the midshipmen back early from their leave. “I leave it to your judgment, though I should suggest your consulting Porter, as to whether we can defer the celebration two weeks to have the midshipmen back, or whether we should get them back and then add on just so much to their leave, which can be done perfectly by Admiral Sands if he is ordered to do it,” Roosevelt wrote on August 3. “He will grumble, but he will do it and not the slightest damage will follow.”
Two days later, Roosevelt wrote that September was out and the ceremony would be held in the spring. The determining factor was arranging to have French warships take part in the celebration, a diplomatic project that would take more than six weeks to pull off. Roosevelt asked Bonaparte to tell Porter, but then sent off a letter himself to the former ambassador.
Porter deferred to his president and to Bonaparte. “You have many means of judging of all the circumstances of the government’s participation which I have not, and I acquiesce fully in the views you express for the reasons given.” Porter then offered a suggestion that would prove to be the final date: April 24, 1906. If they could not time the ceremony to mark the anniversary of Jones’s most-famous sea victory, then they could tie it to “the anniversary of Paul Jones’ next greatest victory, the capture of the Drake.”10
Roosevelt’s affinity for the navy extended to the midshipmen of Annapolis. He impressed upon Bonaparte that he wanted as many of the student officers to witness the ceremonies as possible, along with active seamen in port. “I very earnestly hope that you will make some provision by which my speech in the occasion of the Paul Jones ceremonies shall be listened to by some of the enlisted men from the ships. I feel very strongly, as I know you do, that in every ceremony of this kind we should include a good proportion of the enlisted men and make them understand that they are just as much a part of the business as the officers.”11
Bonaparte made the public announcement that the ceremony would be held April 24, at which time Jones’s body would be moved from the temporary vault and installed in one of Flagg’s completed buildings until the crypt below the chapel could be completed. It would be a grand and fitting celebration, including comments by President Roosevelt, Ambassador Porter, and others. It was lightly noted that the placement of the body would once again be temporary. It would allow official Washington to wash its hands of the matter and pretend that justice had been done to the memory of the Revolutionary War hero.
So Annapolis prepared for a party. And once again, Jones’s bones would be set aside and, for a time, forgotten.
As April 24 neared, the yachting class of Baltimore and Washington made their own plans for attending the celebration. Boats began arriving off Annapolis a day or two early, and what had been intended as a quiet and reverent celebration began taking on the trappings of a national holiday. The Daughters of the American Revolution chartered a steamship from Baltimore to ferry its members to Annapolis, where the group had managed to a
rrange a separate reserved section of seating for the ceremony. The Merchants and Manufacturers Association of Baltimore similarly leased the Susquehanna steamship and packed some 250 members aboard for the daylong excursion, though only a few had tickets to the event itself. The ship left at 9 AM, and the passengers enjoyed Smithfield ham steamed in champagne and “other tidbits,” an open bar, and music. The day was raw—chilly and strong winds kept the passengers inside—but good for sailing, and the Baltimore Sun noted that the Susquehanna engaged in an impromptu ten-mile race with a steam-powered yacht owned by R. Brent Keyser, the chairman of the board of Johns Hopkins University. When the Susquehanna reached Annapolis, it did a couple of turns around a flotilla of eight US and three French naval ships that had anchored about five miles into the Chesapeake as part of the celebration. Then the steamship headed for the levy, where it docked temporarily as the passengers swarmed ashore. Smaller yachts anchored offshore and ferried their passengers to the academy in small launches. Still others came by land, and as the morning progressed, the grounds slowly filled. For most, the day was an excursion, with an overlay of patriotism.12
Bonaparte’s office had sent out six thousand official invitations to the ceremony, but most of the on-site decision making was undertaken by academy superintendent Sands. Requests poured in from passenger ship companies and private groups seeking permission to dock at the academy pier to offload passengers.
Given the historic and patriotic underpinnings of the day, newspaper reporters were dispatched as well. The Baltimore Sun requested seats for four reporters, and Collier’s, the Associated Press, and several New York and Washington newspapers staffed the event as well. The American Mutoscope and Biograph Company sought permission to film the event, offering to sell the navy a copy of the film for the standard rate of twelve cents per foot. Extra trains were added to the regular services from Washington, Baltimore, Philadelphia, and New York. A special train dubbed the “Congressional Unlimited” made its way from Washington with 750 passengers, including more than thirty US senators and representatives.
Some had deep personal interest in the celebration. Henry T. Rainey, as a freshman member of Congress, had sponsored a bill three years earlier to pay for the search and repatriation of Jones’s body. (That bill died in committee.) Charles B. Landis was aboard too. His letter to American consul general Gowdy in November 1898 could well have been the catalyst for the extensive search for—and Porter’s obsession with finding—Jones’s body. Yet questions bubbled about whether they were going to spend the day celebrating around the body of John Paul Jones or that of some unknown Frenchman. The discussion prompted a bit of satire from Washington Post reporter Josephine Tighe, who was aboard the train: “It was echoed and re-echoed all day, ‘It is. It isn’t.’ The starboard piston rod plunging in and out of the cylinder said, with the escaping steam, ‘It iss, it iss, it iss hiss body,’ The port piston rod shrieked in angry response on the other side: ‘It issn’t, it issn’t hiss body.’ The smokestack thundered out: ‘Piff, paff, pouff; what’s the odds bodikins?’”13
President Roosevelt, with an entourage of about eighty people—including Porter, who had traveled from New York City, members of the cabinet, and France’s ambassador to the United States—boarded his own special three-car train at the Baltimore and Ohio station around 11 o’clock that morning. The entourage arrived at Annapolis around 12:45 PM and was greeted by superintendent Sands and other Annapolis dignitaries. They boarded motorcars for the short trip to the grounds, cheered by onlookers as they passed in an informal parade. Roosevelt, Porter, the French ambassador, and other high-ranking officials immediately went to a private reception at Sands’s house, hosted by Maryland’s Governor Warfield, while others were entertained at luncheons scattered around the grounds and the village hotels. By then the grounds—in fact, Annapolis itself—were swarmed by visitors. Thousands of people crammed into the village, filling the few small hotels, bars, and restaurants. It’s unclear whether those without tickets realized there would be little for them to see.14
The biggest room on the grounds was within the massive armory, which was some 425 feet long and 100 feet wide, a cavernous structure large enough for indoor parade exercises, a basketball court, and a second-floor running track designed as a four-sided balcony overlooking the floor below. On this day, the armory would serve as a chapel. Sands and his superiors at the Department of the Navy decided that the tone should be more commemoration than funeral, since Jones was long dead and had been eulogized several times before. So, early in the day, midshipmen retrieved the body from the brick vault and moved it with solemnity but no ceremony to a stand near the midpoint of the armory, where they laid it in front of a temporary stage that would hold Roosevelt, Porter, and other speakers. The coffin was draped with an American naval union jack—a large dark blue flag decorated with foot-wide white stars. Other union jacks festooned the front of the balcony and the stage, and chairs were placed on the main floor facing the coffin and the speakers’ stand. A double row of some eight hundred midshipmen stood at attention around the armory walls, and gold strips of cloth accented the deep blue of the union jack bunting.
The program was scheduled to begin at 2 PM, but it wasn’t until just before 2:30 PM that Roosevelt and his entourage entered the armory through the southwest doors, the crowd rising to its feet in a cheering mass. Roosevelt made his way to the middle of the armory then mounted the short flight of stairs to the speakers’ stand, joined by French ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand; Bonaparte, the navy secretary; Maryland governor Warfield; and Porter. Before they could sit down, and as the audience members slowly gained their feet, the Baltimore Oratorio Society launched into the “The Star-Spangled Banner,” their meshed voices resonating through the large open space. When they finished and as the audience settled back into their seats, Bonaparte stepped forward and in a loud, projecting voice introduced Roosevelt.
The president spoke for nearly a half hour, beginning with an endorsement of the longstanding relations between the United States and France and then offering his thanks and congratulations to Ambassador Porter “to whose zealous devotion we particularly owe it that the body of John Paul Jones has been brought to our shores.” Roosevelt explained that he had finally settled on Annapolis as the resting place for Jones after lobbying from an array of cities. “I feel that the place of all others in which the memory of the dead hero will most surely be a living force is here in Annapolis, where year by year we turn out the midshipmen who are to officer in the future Navy, among whose founders the dead man stands first.” For those men, he said, Jones’s life and career are “not merely a subject for admiration and respect, but an object lesson to be taken into their innermost hearts…. Every officer in our Navy should feel in each fiber of his being an eager desire to emulate the energy, the professional capacity, the indomitable determination and dauntless scorn of death which marked John Paul Jones above all his fellows.”
President Theodore Roosevelt speaks at the April 1906 commemoration of John Paul Jones at Annapolis. Seated, from left, navy secretary Charles J. Bonaparte, French ambassador Jean Jules Jusserand, Maryland governor Edwin Warfield, former ambassador Horace Porter, and Admiral James H. Sands, superintendent of the US Naval Academy.
Courtesy of the National Archives, RG 19-NV, records of the Bureau of Ships, box 1
Roosevelt went on to summarize Jones’s greatest moments, and he then urged members of Congress and his own administration to study more history—a favorite topic of the president’s—so as to recognize that national security was defended by a robust military, including a navy. He argued that the United States had suffered during the War of 1812 from a lack of readiness and that the nation would again be at risk if it did not invest in its defense. He concluded with a direct call to the navy for better devotion to preparedness. “You will be worthless in war if you have not prepared yourself for it in peace,” the president said, leaning over the rail while reading from a sheaf of papers in his r
ight hand. “Remember that no courage can ever atone for lack of that preparedness which makes the courage valuable. And yet if the courage is there, if the dauntless heart is there, its presence will sometimes make up for other shortcomings…. If with it are combined the other military qualities, the fortunate owner becomes literally invincible.”
Jusserand, the French ambassador, followed, detailing Jones’s close relationship with France, from his friendship with the Marquis de Lafayette and King Louis XVI to his reliance on French ports to mount his raids on the British coast. “He died in France, who had proved for him another motherland, and who honored him dead as she had alive. But he had done his life’s work, and that work consisted not only in playing splendidly his part in the struggle for freedom, but also in showing the young Republic the importance of having a navy of her own…. His dream, or rather, his prophecy, has been fulfilled.”
As Jusserand moved to his chair, the armory filled with applause. Bonaparte rose and stepped to the front of the stage to introduce Porter, who in turn stepped forward to thunderous applause and cheers.
The Admiral and the Ambassador Page 29
