fact not made public until many years later). As president, he practiced judo for two 2-month periods in 1902 and 1904, not attaining any rank. Roosevelt began to believe in the utility of jiu-jitsu training after training with Yoshitsugu Yamashita. Concerned that the United States would lose its military supremacy to rising powers like Japan, Roosevelt began to advocate for jiu-jitsu training for American soldiers. Feminists annoyed by the posturing of men like Roosevelt, insisted that women were just as capable of learning jiu-jitsu. To prove their point, Martha Blow Wadsworth and Maria Louise ("Hallie") Davis Elkins hired Fude Yamashita, a highly skilled jiu-jitsu instructor and the wife of Yoshitsugu Yamashita, to teach a jiu-jitsu class for women and girls in Washington, DC in 1904. Women had already begun training in boxing in the United States as a means of personal and political empowerment. Jiu-jitsu training thus soon also became popular with American women, coinciding with the origins of a women's self-defense movement. Roosevelt was an enthusiastic singlestick player and, according to Harper's Weekly, showed up at a White House reception with his arm bandaged after a bout with General Leonard Wood in 1905. Roosevelt was an avid reader, reading tens of thousands of books, at a rate of several per day in multiple languages. Along with Thomas Jefferson, Roosevelt was the most well-read of all American presidents. Warrior Historians have often emphasized Roosevelt's warrior persona. He took aggressive positions regarding war with Spain in 1898, Colombia in 1903, and especially with Germany, from 1915 to 1917. As a demonstration of American naval might, he sent the "Great White Fleet" around the world in 1907–1909. The implicit threat of the "big stick" of military power provided leverage to "speak softly" and quietly resolve conflict in numerous cases. He boasted in his autobiography: Richard D. White Jr states, "Roosevelt's warrior spirit framed his views of national politics, [and] international relations." Historian Howard K. Beale has argued: Religion Roosevelt attended church regularly and was a lifelong adherent of the Reformed Church in America, the American affiliate of the Dutch Reformed Church. He often praised moral behavior but apparently never made a spiritual confession of his own faith. After the 1885 death of his wife, he almost never mentioned Jesus Christ in public or private. Dr. Benjamin J. Wetzel says, "There is little in Roosevelt suggestive of grace, mercy, or redemption." His rejection