While in Brest, shortly after the ship was placed in commission, and
before she sailed on her maiden voyage under the Red, White and Blue
ensign, Secretary of the Navy, Josephus Daniels, visited the ship and
made an address to the ship's company. He expressed himself as being
sorry that he could not make the first trip with the new and
all-American crew of one of the world's greatest vessels. "It is up to
us (the Navy) to get the soldier boys home, and then we will go home
ourselves," said the Secretary.
Transcriber's note:
The following corrections have been made:
"runs from Hambrug to New York" -> Hamburg
"Ensign in 1890" -> Ensign, in 1890
"is 1,000 offiicers" -> officers
"Santa Domincan" -> Santa Dominican
"be it reembered" -> remembered
"packet, We'll" -> we'll
"militarism and autrocracy" -> autocracy
"since the the armistice" -> superfluous "the" removed
"import-and departments" -> important
Spacing after punctuation standardized, inconsistent hyphenation and
archaic spelling retained.