"Dolphin" sailed from Norfolk on 2 December 1902 to carry mail and dispatches to Culebra Island, Puerto Rico, then took the U.S. Minister to Venezuela to La Guaira, arriving on 11 January 1903. She continued to cruise in the West Indies until returning to Washington, DC on 19 April. From 1903 to 1905, she carried such dignitaries as the Naval Committee, Secretary of the Navy, Admiral and Mrs. George Dewey, the Philippine Commissioners, the Attorney General, Prince Louis of Battenberg and his party, and President Theodore Roosevelt on various cruises. One source states that in January 1904, she carried the remains of James Smithson from Genoa, Italy for re-interment in the Smithsonian Institution in Washington, D. C.. Early in August 1905, she carried the Japanese peace plenipotentiaries from Oyster Bay, New York, to Portsmouth, New Hampshire, to negotiate the settlement of the Russo-Japanese War. In 1907, the first live singing performed over radio, by Eugenia Farrar from Lee de Forest's laboratory atop the Parker Building, was received by the "Dolphin"'s wireless operator, Oliver A. Wyckoff, while docked at Brooklyn Navy Yard.