John Davis Long

Mary Woodford Glover

John Davis Long was born in Buckfield, Maine on October 27, 1838, to Zadoc Long and Julia Temple (Davis) Long. He was named for Massachusetts Governor John Davis, a cousin of his maternal grandfather. He received his primary education at Hebron Academy until attending Harvard University where he graduated Phi Beta Kappa in 1857.[1][2] At Harvard he was a member of the Delta Kappa Epsilon fraternity's Alpha chapter.[3] Long wrote both prose and verse for a student magazine, and was chosen to write an ode for his class's graduation.[4] He also began a private journal some time before his arrival at Harvard, which he maintained throughout his life.[5]

After two years as headmaster of Westford Academy in Westford, Massachusetts, Long began attending Harvard Law School, becoming a member of the Massachusetts bar in 1861.[1] He practiced law, first without success in Buckfield, and then in Boston, and was active in the state militia during the American Civil War.[6] He moved to Hingham, Massachusetts in 1869, and the following year married Mary Woodford Glover of Hingham.[1] The couple had two daughters (and one stillborn birth) before her death in 1882.[7]

Long began his involvement in politics at the local level in Hingham in 1870.[8] Temperance was a major issue which dominated his political beliefs.[9] His early politics was somewhat independent: he supported the reformist Republican Benjamin Butler for governor in 1871, but received an unsolicited Democratic nomination later that year for a seat in the Massachusetts House of Representatives. He did not campaign, and lost the election.[10] Nominated by both Democrats and reformist Republicans in 1872, he lost again. He thereafter became more of a Republican stalwart, convinced that reform would be best accomplished from within the party organization.[11]

In 1874 Long chaired the state Republican convention, and finally won election to the state legislature. He formed a close relationship with Speaker John E. Sanford, and in what historian James Hess describes as a probable move of political calculation, supported the successful gubernatorial candidate in 1875, Alexander H. Rice, even though Rice supported liberal legislation on alcohol sales that Long opposed. He was able to parlay this support into his own election to the speakership in 1876.[12] He widened his reform views to the national stage by supporting Benjamin Bristow in his unsuccessful bid for the Republican presidential nomination.[13]

As a Congressman, Long had become a close friend of William McKinley, who was elected President in 1896.[2] McKinley offered Long his choice of several cabinet posts;[31] he chose Secretary of the Navy. He was confirmed by the United States Senate on March 2, 1897.[2] The appointment brought on a storm of criticism from Henry Cabot Lodge. Lodge had been elected to the Senate, dominated the Republican Party in Massachusetts, and had expected to have a say in choosing a cabinet nominee in return for his support of McKinley. One of Lodge's supporters complained that Long was in poor health, and that he would not give the administration "back-bone and vigor".[32] (Long had back from his law practice after a nervous breakdown.)[33]

Theodore Roosevelt as Assistant Secretary of the Navy, 1898

Lodge compensated for the setback by helping secure the position of Assistant Secretary for Theodore Roosevelt, a brash and aggressive New Yorker.[34] Long and Roosevelt did not get along: in addition to personality differences, Roosevelt pushed a view to aggressively modernize and expand the Navy against Long's more studied and conservative approach. He preferred to expand the Navy gradually. As the nation's global interests grew, Long committed himself to the nation's peaceful growth in line with McKinley's policies. As a result of his disagreements with Roosevelt, Long took steps to control his subordinate.[2] Roosevelt, on the other hand, sought ways to spur Long into action, writing "I only wish that I could poison his mind so as to make him a shade more truculent in international matters".[35] He also chafed against Long's policy of deferring much of the department's work to its permanent bureau chiefs, which resulted in constraints on the flow of information the administration received.[36] Long was somewhat proud of the fact that he knew little of the detail of naval affairs, commenting that he was "a civilian who does not know the stem from the stern of a ship".[37]

Long believed that ongoing tensions between Spain were unlikely to lead to war, and should it, that the war would be easily won.[38] He consequently did not take significant steps to prepare the Navy for that contingency.[2] In January 1898, he ordered the USS Maine to Havana, Cuba, as a matter of "customary relations". He and McKinley were concerned for the safety of Americans in Cuba due to the ongoing Cuban War of Independence.[39] By early February 1898, tensions had reached crisis proportions, and Long was compelled to begin drawing up plans for war. The explosion and sinking of the Maine at Havana on February 15 was the spark that ignited the Spanish–American War. The administration was opposed to war, but the public outcry over the sinking could not be ignored. Ten days after the sinking, Long took a day off, and Roosevelt used his authority in Long's absence to issue a number of orders designed to increase the Navy's readiness for war, including famously ordering Commodore George Dewey into an aggressive offensive posture in the Spanish Philippines. Long countermanded some of Roosevelt's orders afterward, but began stepping up naval war preparations.[40]

The loss of the Maine highlighted to the administration the nation's shortage of modern warships, setting off a scramble for the acquisition of more ships.[41] One significant order given by Long was to transfer the USS Oregon (one of the Navy's most powerful ships) from the west coast to the Caribbean;[42] the ship made the journey around Cape Horn from San Francisco to Key West, Florida, in 66 days.[43] War was declared in April 1898. Roosevelt resigned his post the next month, a move Long thought foolhardy but later acknowledged was significant in advancing Roosevelt's career.[44]

Long directed the Navy's activities throughout the war, significantly increasing its size in the process.[45] He ordered Dewey to neutralize the Spanish fleet in the Philippines, ordered the seizure of Spanish Guam, and worked to support a blockade and offensive operations against Cuba.[46][47][48] He also directed naval resources into threatening postures against mainland Spain to encourage the Spanish recall of a fleet destined for the Philippines.[49]

In response to increasing pressure from Navy leaders, Long created a permanent advisory staff after the war. The board, created in March 1900, was designed to unify the work of the Office of Naval Intelligence, the Naval War College, and the fleet leadership for the production of war plans and the proper preparation, planning, and deployment of naval resources in pursuit of objectives defined in those plans.[50] After the war, Long pushed forward plans to establish a naval base in the Philippines, however, the funding for plans was held up in Congress, which repeatedly sought review of potential base locations in the islands.[51] The matter was also caught up in branch rivalry with the War Department, which objected to the Navy's establishment of a permanent base there that was not under its authority. Construction of the Subic Bay Naval Base did not begin until after Long left office.[52]

Long was promoted as a potential vice presidential candidate by the Massachusetts delegation to the 1900 Republican National Convention, and was a personal favorite of McKinley's for the position.[53][54] However, party leaders objected to him on geographic grounds,[53] and Lodge (with whom Long continued to feud) disingenuously wore a Long banner, even though he supported Roosevelt, who easily won the nomination. The McKinley–Roosevelt ticket won the election, and Long decided to stay on for McKinley's second term.[54]

After McKinley was assassinated in September 1901, Long had a change of heart, and tendered his resignation to President Roosevelt on May 1, 1902. The exact reasons for this are unclear, but several factors probably contributed. First, Roosevelt had a close relationship with Long's political rival Lodge, was known to disagree with Long on naval matters, and was not welcoming of his presence at the White House. Second, an inquiry into the actions of Admiral Winfield Scott Schley around the July 1898 Battle of Santiago de Cuba had resulted in a significant amount of criticism of Long's role in the war. Third, one of his daughters died in October 1901, less than a month after McKinley's assassination.[55] These matters drove Long into a depression, and the situation was further exacerbated when Roosevelt squabbled with him over the beginning of the war, and then made newsworthy overrides of some of his decisions.[56] Historian Wendell Garrett notes that Roosevelt took a great personal interest in the Navy, and had difficulty working with subsequent secretaries.[57]

Long returned to Massachusetts, where he resumed his law practice and remained interested in party politics. He sat on a few corporate boards and served as president of the Puritan Trust Company.[58] He continued to advocate for women's suffrage, and served on the boards of several private schools, include his alma mater, Hebron Academy. He regularly spent time in Maine (having in 1882 repurchased the family home in Buckfield), and fell ill there in August 1915. He returned home to Hingham, where he died on August 28.[59]

In addition to Long's extensive journal, he wrote on a variety of other subjects. During his unsuccessful attempt to start a law practice in Buckfield he produced a paper on Congressional power and slavery.[7] While in Boston in the early 1860s he had a play produced locally.[60] In 1878 he produced a verse translation of Virgil's Aeneid.[61] In 1903 he published The New American Navy, a history of the Spanish–American War and the development of the Navy during that time.[62]

Among Long's charitable works was funding the establishment of a public library in Buckfield in 1900, which is now known as the Zadoc Long Free Library.[63] USS Long (DD-209) was named in his honor.[64]

As author

• Virgil (1879). The Æneid of Virgil. Translated by Long, John Davis. Boston: Lockwood Brooks. OCLC 503897508.
• Long, John Davis (1903). The New American Navy, Volume 1. New York: The Outlook Company. OCLC 225348.
• Long, John Davis (1903). The New American Navy, Volume 2. New York: The Outlook Company. OCLC 225348.
• Long, John Davis (1939). Papers of John Davis Long, 1897–1904. Boston: Massachusetts Historical Society. OCLC 616782.
• Long, John Davis (1956). Long, Margaret (ed.). The Journal of John D. Long. Rindge, NH: R. Smith. OCLC 614736339.

As editor

• Long, John Davis, ed. (1888). The Republican Party: Its History, Principles, and Policy. New York: M. W. Hazen. p. 3. OCLC 11734261.
• Long, John Davis, ed. (1902). Famous Battles by Land and Sea. Boston: Hall & Locke. OCLC 3827277.

• 97th Massachusetts General Court (1876)
• 98th Massachusetts General Court (1877)
• 99th Massachusetts General Court (1878)

• Beede, Benjamin (1994). The War of 1898, and U.S. Interventions, 1898–1934: An Encyclopedia. Taylor and Francis. ISBN 9780824056247.
• Beers, Henry (Spring 1946). "The Development of the Office of the Chief of Naval Operations". Military Affairs. 10 (1): 40–68. doi:10.2307/1983104. JSTOR 1983104.
• Braisted, William (June 1954). "The Philippine Naval Base Problem, 1898–1909". The Mississippi Valley Historical Review. 41 (1): 21–40. doi:10.2307/1898148. JSTOR 1898148.
• Chase, Philip (October 1950). "A Crucial Juncture in the Political Careers of Lodge and Long". Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 70 (Third Series, Volume 70): 102–127. JSTOR 25080445.
• Cole, Alfred; Whitman, Charles Foster (1915). A History of Buckfield, Oxford County, Maine, from the Earliest Explorations to the Close of the Year 1900. Buckfield, ME: C.F. Whitman. p. 440. OCLC 1320335.
• Eliot, Samuel (1911). Biographical Massachusetts; Biographies and Autobiographies of the Leading Men in the State, Volume 1. Boston: Massachusetts Biographical Society. OCLC 8185704.
• Garrett, Wendell (September 1958). "John Davis Long, Secretary of the Navy, 1897–1902: A Study in Changing Political Alignments". The New England Quarterly. 31 (3): 291–311. doi:10.2307/362603. JSTOR 362603.
• Hess, James (March 1960). "John D. Long and Reform Issues in Massachusetts Politics, 1870–1889". The New England Quarterly. 33 (1): 57–73. doi:10.2307/362964. JSTOR 362964.
• Johnson, Rossiter; Brown, John Howard, eds. (1904). The Twentieth Century Biographical Dictionary of Notable Americans, Volume 7. Boston: Biographical Society. OCLC 6182270. No page numbers.
• Morgan, Henry (2003). William McKinley and his America. Kent, OH: Kent State University Press. ISBN 9780873387651. OCLC 237846277.
• O'Toole, G.J.A (1984). The Spanish War: An American Epic 1898. New York: W. W. Norton. ISBN 0393018393.
• Roe, Albert (1899). The Massachusetts State House; A Sketch of its History and a Guide to its Points of Interest. Worcester, MA: F. S. Blanchard & Co. OCLC 14690415.
• Taylor, P. A. M (1989). "A Politician's Life: The Papers of John Davis Long". Proceedings of the Massachusetts Historical Society. 101 (Third Series, Volume 101): 71–96. JSTOR 25081007.
• Trask, Douglas (1996) [1981]. The War With Spain in 1898. Lincoln, NE: University of Nebraska Press. ISBN 9780803294295. OCLC 34690830.
• Traxel, David (1998). 1898: The Tumultuous Year of Victory, Invention, Internal Strife, and Industrial Expansion that saw The Birth of The American Century. New York: Knopf. ISBN 0679454675.
• West, Richard (1965). Lincoln's Scapegoat General: A Life of Benjamin Franklin Butler. Boston: Houghton Mifflin. OCLC 241783.
• White, G. Edward (1996). Justice Oliver Wendell Holmes: Law and the Inner Self. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780198024330. OCLC 437173164.
• White, G. Edward (2000). Oliver Wendell Holmes: Sage of the Supreme Court. New York: Oxford University Press. ISBN 9780195116670. OCLC 123330227.

Wikimedia Commons has media related to John Davis Long.

Wikisource has the text of the 1911 Encyclopædia Britannica article Long, John Davis.

• United States Congress. "John Davis Long (id: L000423)". Biographical Directory of the United States Congress.