Over the years, American schoolchildren have at times been involved in helping preserve some of the U.S. Navy’s most important icons. In the mid-1920s, they raised $154,000 through a “pennies campaign” to provide badly needed funds for the USS Constitution. In the late 1950s and mid-1960s, they were instrumental in providing funds to save the North Carolina (BB-55) and Alabama (BB-60) from the scrapyard. As recently as 1987, the children of one school district raised more than $10,000 for much-needed repairs to the Texas (BB-35). Similarly, some entire American communities have pooled resources to fund subscription warships, especially during the 1798–1800 Quasi-War with France.
One campaign, however, predated all the other children’s efforts and was unique. In early March 1898, a 17-year-old Cincinnati, Ohio, boy began a crusade for schoolchildren to raise funds to replace the battleship Maine, whose sinking had initiated the Spanish-American War. The proposed battleship was to be named The American Boy.
Genesis of the Project
William Rankin Good, in a 1903 interview, characterized his fundraising project as starting “more in jest, than in earnest” during a dinner table conversation with his father. “[He] was mourning the loss of so good a warship as the Maine. . . . In a rather thoughtless way, I remarked, ‘O, you need not feel so badly about that, father; the school children of the country can replace that ship.’” His father told him to suggest that to newspapers, which he did. “The idea took like wildfire for a time and I was deluged with correspondence.”
On 11 March, the teenager addressed the Cincinnati Chamber of Commerce, the news of which was reported the next day in The New York Times. The report noted that a senator, three congressmen, and the governor had endorsed his idea. From that point on, articles about the project appeared in virtually every newspaper across the country.
On the 15th, the Asheville (North Carolina) Citizen touted “A Boy’s Warship—Establish a Subscription Committee in Every School House.” The same day, The Daily News of Lebanon, Pennsylvania, reported that children “attending the schools of the Fairview school building on Chestnut street near Sixth, today started the subscription.” Two days later, the Buffalo (New York) Evening News ran a piece titled “Boy Patriot Begs a Ship.” In a 27 March Chicago Tribune article about the project, Fitzhugh Lee, Consul General at Havana, Cuba, called it “very praiseworthy. It will increase the patriotism of the contributors.” The article also included approval and encouragement from Secretary of War Russell A. Alger.
The idea, however, quickly gained a counterpoint. On the 29th, The Times-Democrat in New Orleans ran a brief note from Baltimore stating, “This movement has stirred up the patriotic schoolgirls of [Baltimore], and they propose to put on foot a scheme to raise enough money to build a companion ship to the Boy, to be known as The Sister.”
Meanwhile in California, schools eagerly supported The American Boy project, raising the most money of any state, but state newspapers reported discontent among schoolgirls as well. The San Bernardino County Sun on 6 May reported girls had “taken exception” to the name, but it was “too late to have any effect.” The article cited a letter from Rankin Good to the Los Angeles school superintendent in which he explained: “The girls are to be represented in the furnishings of our vessel. This was my plan from the beginning.” Under the headline “The Dissatisfied Girls,” the Los Angeles Times on 13 May noted that the school systems were pushing back against The American Boy and thought a more appropriate name would be the Young America.
By June, the same papers were reporting progress with fundraising. On the 12th, the Cincinnati Enquirer listed individual donations in amounts as little as 50 cents (about $18.27 in 2023 dollars). The paper also noted that Cincinnati schools had raised $1,406.48. By October, the Democrat and Chronicle in Rochester, New York, reported that more than $40,000 had been raised.
The fund’s national committee was headquartered at 841 Everett Street in Cincinnati, Good’s home, with youths from the “Queen City” and nearby towns making up its members and Good as president. The committee was the base for The American Boy Association, which had branches in many cities. Its goal was to fully fund the ship at $3 million. The Kearsarge (Battleship No. 5) and Kentucky (Battleship No. 6), which were laid down in 1896, however, each cost more than $5 million.
Although most press reports focused on Good and the young people involved, there must have been some adult supervision. The Rochester paper reported, “Arrangements have been made with dozens of banks to serve as repositories of the fund, and the money collected is to be forwarded in sums of $50,000 to the United States treasury, this detail having been settled with the officials in Washington.”
A Battleship Beyond Belief
Up to the end of the summer of 1898, virtually nothing had been written about the projected ship herself. In mid-November, a drawing of an almost comical child’s idea of a battleship appeared in papers around the country. The sketch shows The American Boy dwarfing by a factor of nearly four the recently launched 375-foot Illinois (Battleship No. 7). The caption under the heading “A $20,000,000 BATTLESHIP 1,000 FEET LONG” states, “It will be the largest vessel afloat with a displacement of 48,410 tons, with 24-inch guns, armor 36 inches thick, length 1,000 feet, speed of 40 knots, together with war balloons, war telescopes, hydraulic dredges, submarine boats, four smokestacks, eight turbine screws and 300 auxiliary engines.” No source is given for the drawing or specifications.
A month later, a nearly identical drawing appeared in newspapers attached to a detailed story elaborating on the eye-popping statistics provided in the earlier caption. The story notes, “The money is not only largely in hand, but the plans have been drawn up, and are now in the hands of the navy department officials for approval.” The 24-inch guns reported in the caption must have been an error. The report states the “first battery will include four monster 15-inch guns, twelve 12-inch and four 10-inch” breech-loading rifles. The secondary battery was to consist of “two 12-inch dynamite guns and twenty 12-inch mortars.” The ship was to have a further implausible “tertiary battery” of 24 8-inch, 8 6-inch, and 4 4-inch rapid-fire guns, 100 6-pounders, 50 4-pounders, 8 aerial torpedo tubes, 8 submarine torpedo tubes, 40 1-pounders, and 16 Gatling guns. It also would sport “the most powerful offens[iv]e weapon . . . ever designed”—a “steel cold chisel” ram.
Backing her 36-inch-thick armor belt would be eight feet of asbestos felt. Turret armor was to be 44 inches thick. Among the supplemental items, hydraulic dredgers mounted at the bow were to clear obstructed channels. The Boy also was to carry two submarine boats “armed with cable shears,” and “oil sufficient to quiet a high sea” for 30 days. She would have a “submerged guard” against mines and torpedoes, carry 25,000 tons of coal, have a gymnasium “as large as a small auditorium,” and carry a crew of 170 officers and 2,500 men. All this was estimated to cost $20 million.
Once again, details were fantastic—as in fantasy—and facts noticeably absent. There was no mention of the designer or to whom or where the plans were delivered. There also was a slight problem with funding the battleship.
Lobbying Congress and the President
On 27 January 1899, the national committee traveled to Washington, D.C., for a hearing before the House Committee on Naval Affairs, where Good reported that $10,000 had been raised in Ohio “and thousands more elsewhere.” The teenager’s committee, he stated, realized that children would not be able to raise all the funds required for the purchase of a battleship and appealed to Congress to make up the balance and build the ship. The House committee chairman, Charles A. Boutelle, noted that, by law, the funds could not be accepted by Congress, and Good was advised to funnel the money through President William McKinley Jr., who could then pass it on to the Treasury Department.
The next day the fundraising committee had a “satisfactory interview” with the President, which was followed by meetings on 30 January with senators, representatives, and others. Representative Jacob H. Bromwell of Cincinnati put forward a House resolution authorizing Secretary of the Navy John D. Long to name the next battleship constructed The American Boy, to receive the funds collected for her construction, and to appropriate any additional needed funds. Secretary Long reminded the House Naval Affairs Committee of the law to name all battleships after states. Despite this, the committee reported favorably on Bromwell’s proposition, but it was killed in the House.
Demise of The American Boy
Despite a statement by Good that The American Boy Committee once again would put forward the proposal to the next Congress, the story seemed to all but disappear from newspapers. Only in May 1901 did the project reappear. The Los Angeles Times published a barbed piece with no little cynicism about its status: “The enthusiasm of the young Americans soon subsided—at least, it did east of the mountains.” The children had raised “only $70,000,” of which the largest proportion, $4,100, had been raised in Los Angeles County. The project was at the “suggestion” of a “good Cincinnati boy—at least his name is Good.”
Other articles soon followed, most with headlines regarding the fate of the funds collected. In June, the Cincinnati Board of Education requested a return of the $1,500 it had collected, but Good refused based on his attorney’s advice. In November, the Los Angeles Board of Education filed for a return of its $2,560.25. Similar requests were made by school boards and boards of education across the country, but no money was immediately forthcoming.
Finally, in early October 1902, funds were released back to their donors, less a 5 percent postage and handling fee. The Los Angeles Times noted, “For two years they [schools] have worked to secure the return of the money, and the delay naturally aroused suspicion of many.”
Good, in a June 1903 interview with the Times said: “I was greatly disappointed that the government could not be induced to pass the necessary legislation to enable the ship to be built. This failure dampened the ardor of donors and eventually the money had to be returned.”