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The presidency of Theodore Roosevelt marked a time of considerable tension in civil military affairs. Roosevelt made the modernization of the armed services a top priority, but frequently he complicated civil military relations in the process. Members of Congress worried about the executive treading on legislative prerogatives, and military officers actually found many presidential initiatives disruptive. In addition, Roosevelt:t cultivation of popular supportfor his military programs reshaped civil-military relations. Thepress regularly rewarded the president with favorable coverage, but sometimes Roosevelt endured controversies that were largely his own making. Roosevelt and the other participants in civil military debates lavished so much attention on reporters that the press essentially became a fourth member of the established civil military troika ofpresident, Congress, and military This development, along with Roosevelt's work to modernize the military and the demands of greatpower responsibilities, formed the broad outlines of modern civil military relations in the United States.
"Someone should kick . . . Rosevelt [sic]," complained one naval officer about the assistant secretary of the navy in 1898 (Davis 1898). Hunter Davis disliked Theodore Roosevelt's efforts to end the squabbling over status between the navy's line and engineering officers in the late nineteenth century. Davis's protest foreshadowed the sentiments of many officers toward Theodore Roosevelt, once he became their commander in chief in September 1901. Although Roosevelt was one of the best friends of the military services ever to reside in the White House, civil-military relations were not always harmonious during his presidency. In fact, he presided during a period of notable stress, uncertainty, and adjustment in civil-military affairs, and his actions-and sometimes inactionprompted considerable debate and tension.'
A confluence of factors at the turn of the twentieth century made Roosevelt's presidency, and those of his immediate successors, a time that tested old boundaries and established new ones in civil-military affairs. The period itself, the Progressive Era, brought transition and adjustment in American life. Reformers attacked the myriad problems associated with urbanization and industrialization; a new, post-Civil War generation assumed the mantle of political leadership; and the United States solidified its newly asserted status as a great power and protector of a modest overseas empire. During this period of rapid change, stress was inevitable, and military affairs were not immune.
Tensions...