"Then, when in 1915 Wilson and Daniels swung over to their preparedness campaign, and Congress appropriated funds for a three-year naval-expansion program, Roosevelt's problem changed. More than ever he worked long hours to see that preparedness was made a reality. He and the bureau chiefs labored hard to turn the navy yards from lounging places for political idlers into manufacturing plants. The Norfolk yard was soon making paints and mines; the Charleston yard, uniforms; and the Brooklyn yard, radio sets. When Daniels pushed through legislation making the navy so far as possible its own warship builder, Roosevelt helped boss the task of converting the Mare Island yard into a battleship-building center, the Philadelphia and Boston yards into cruiser builders, and other yards into centers for smaller craft. He reformed the makeshift system for provisioning the fleet. He broke up the collusive bidding of coal contractors by obtaining excellent cheap supplies from previously untested fields."
Click here to read Francis Perkins' 1946 article, The Roosevelt I knew".
