Captain Nulton and Captain Hough have given me the honor of addressing you. I have to thank them, not only for this, but for the privilege of choosing my own subject. The subject I have chosen—and I could not choose otherwise—is this: What it Means to be an Officer in the United States Navy To-day.
You have come from civil life to enter the navy. This means undergoing a change in point of view. What does it mean simply to be in the navy, as distinguished from civil life?
First of all, to be a naval officer means, I think, that you have left behind you a local point of view, and, have acquired, perhaps unconsciously, a national point of view. You have ceased to think in terms of your city, your county, or your state; you now think in terms of the nation. To express the real significance of this change more effectively, you have risen out of, and above, and beyond, local vision, to the higher plane of national vision. I am not assuming that as citizens you did not have a broad outlook or breadth of mind; nor am I assuming that naval officers are more broad-minded, in the usual sense of the term, than civilians. But I am assuming a most important thing—namely, that certain federal officials, such as the President of the United States, the justices of the Supreme Court, for instance, and the officers of the army and the navy, by virtue of their national position, do habitually think in terms of the nation, and have the privilege of national vision.
1An address delivered to the first Reserve Officers' Class at the Naval Academy, July, 1917, and, with modifications, to the second Reserve Officers' Class, November, 1917.
To have national vision—the first privilege, as I see it, of the naval officer—is to have something like the advantage of the mountaineer over the people who dwell on the plains and in the valleys. The mountaineer sees things in the large and as a whole; he sees things in their due proportion and perspective. Also, as compared with the plainsman, he breathes a higher and a keener air. So it is, as regards national vision, with the naval officer. And again, the mountaineer's point of view is never fully understood by the valley people, because the dwellers in the valley have a restricted, a local horizon; they have probably never risen out of, and beyond, and above, the limitations of their local point of view. Likewise, it has often been difficult for the American people—who have, for the most part, local attitudes of mind—to understand naval officers, and especially to appreciate the absence of militarism and the sincerity of these experts, who, with their broader range of vision—national vision—have seen the clouds of war gathering on the far horizon; and have therefore, urgently appealed for a larger navy.
You have acquired this national vision; you are "on the mountain." Now look back. See how much it would benefit the people if all of them could attain national vision. If they could see with your eyes, from where the naval officer stands, they would soon see clearly the far horizons of national and even international affairs, and the need of what the President has recently called "incomparably the most adequate navy in the world."
More and more American citizens are seeing this now, in the midst of the greatest war in history, but with the national vision of the naval officer, they would have seen it in time of peace, when, as Washington said, a nation can best prepare for war. What can be done to give the people national vision? There is but one answer to that question: Universal training and universal service with the colors, both for the army and the navy—universal service, so that, as among the democratic citizens of France, the army and the people, the navy and the people, shall be one and the same.
National vision, then. . You enter the grounds of the Naval Academy, and you feel at once that this place does not belong to Annapolis, just outside the gates; nor to the state of Maryland; but that it belongs to all the states, 48 of them; one indivisible nation. It is the, United States Naval Academy. And this national feeling grows still stronger when you become a part of the fleet at sea. You know that curious yet most significant principle of international law (which the German Emperor told Ambassador Gerard exists no longer), that principle of "exterritoriality," which maintains that the deck of an American man-of-war is, in law and in fact, part of the territory of the United States. Nothing is less local than a warship; nothing American is more national than a United States ship—one of our splendid super-dreadnoughts breasting the seas, her great guns ready to defend the lives and the fortunes of the nation. At her taffrail, the Stars and Stripes, floating in the breeze, free as the freedom of the seas she is there to defend, seem to say, to friend and foe alike: "Here is the nation's power. Herein, lest the people forget, are to be found the hope and the security, the prestige and the honor, of 100,000,000 of people, a free people who mean to remain free—the hope and the stay of a world struggling to make itself 'safe for democracy'—the American people."
Secondly, to be in the navy means that you have taken your place in the first line of defense. This is not a boast, but simply a fact, of which, as naval officers, you can be proud. Defense, of course, really means "offense." The former is a term used naturally by the people ashore, who see in the navy their defense against invasion; the latter is the naval officer's term, since "the best defense,” as Farragut remarked, "is a well-sustained fire directed at the enemy's guns." In other words, the only sound doctrine of war concerns itself with the offensive. Yet it is literally true, considering the object to be attained by naval offensive operations, that the navy is indeed our first line of defense. You may say that our frontiers have been thrust eastward for more than 3000 miles—that in fact our frontiers coincide with the lines of the American Army, "somewhere in France," under General Pershing. But when you have said this, you have increased by just so much the significance of the words: the navy is our first line of defense. Every transport carrying troops, carrying supplies to those troops, and munitions, must be guarded by the navy—convoyed by the navy. The more powerful our expeditionary force, the more vitally must it depend upon the navy. If I mention such obvious things, it is because we are apt to forget the full significance of the obvious, or take it too much for granted. For it is equally obvious, yet certainly not fully appreciated, that our frontiers also lie over the North Sea and the Channel—at every point, in fact, where our gallant and cruelly over-worked destroyers dash headlong in chase of German submarines. Our frontiers lie also on the decks of armed merchantmen, and our frontiers are pierced and raided in precisely the measure of our merchant shipping losses, when our merchant sailors and naval gun crews are killed or taken prisoner—heroes mostly nameless to reward or fame in the public consciousness. And right here let us recognize and be grateful for the fact that the British Grand Fleet and the fleet of France are also America's first line of defense. Cannot some Americans forget, in the face of this, wars with Great Britain now a century and more buried?
In the third place, but not least, to be in the navy means the opportunity to grasp, to "read, mark, learn, and inwardly digest," the value of sea power—the influence of sea power upon history. Merely to use this phrase, this title of an epoch-making book, is to summon up the name of an American naval officer, Admiral Mahan, a prophet not without honor in his own country, but a genius whose message has been more highly regarded and its profound significance more clearly understood in Europe than in the United States. Mahan saw, as no other man, how the influence of sea power has been exerted upon the history of nations for centuries past, from the days of Salamis on down to our own days of Tsu-Shima. He placed a new interpretation upon history. Much of history is forgotten. Much is seen, even by historians, with eyes that see not. It remained for Alfred Thayer Mahan to become the philosopher of sea power. His first book, published in 1890, acquired sudden and widespread fame—but not popular fame, for its deep meaning existed mainly for a limited number of men, naval officers and a few statesmen. The Emperor of Germany was fascinated by that book of lectures given at Newport, U. S. A. For months he slept with it under his pillow. It was then, inspired by Mahan, that William II dreamed his dream of German naval supremacy in the future. It was not long afterward that he said for the first time: "The future of Germany lies on the sea." The result of that ambition, instilled by von Tirpitz through the German Navy League into the hearts of the German people, was the German high seas fleet of to-day. If that fleet could stay at sea for two weeks, the war would be over. It is not sufficient even to keep it landlocked. It is still a powerful "fleet in being," and it still protects, potentially, the German submarine bases.
The unfortunate difference between Trafalgar and Jutland is twofold. Trafalgar was decisive; Jutland was not. Not ultimately so. Moreover, Napoleon Bonaparte had no submarines. The submarine campaign of Prussia, however barbarous as piracy and murder, is, nevertheless, sea power, and no less powerful because ghastly in its evil. It is still true, therefore, despite Jutland, despite the seven seas of the world which know not German trade, that the ultimate decisive factor in the greatest of all wars is sea power.
You have indeed the opportunity to grasp the importance of sea power, the "power to decide," because you will help to make that vast decision. What shall be the answer to this menace? There are rumors of a great swarm of airplanes. A new power, air power, is taking form and shape. Air power we shall have, and no man can tell its possibilities. It is at this very moment a necessary part of sea power. But sea power is still supreme, whoever wields it. The answer to the submarine must be found, ultimately, in some use of sea power. And by that power we and our allies shall stand or fall.
The German Crown Prince has said that the submarine is "the last argument of kings." Ultima ratio regum—thus runs the old Latin watchword of royalty. You will find it engraved on the beautiful bronze cannon, just outside this hall—seventeenth century cannon which symbolize the splendors of the former empire of Spain, before Spain's Invincible Armada met the Sea power of England, and again, before Spain lost her modern empire, when she met the United States Navy. "The last argument of kings?” What, then, must be the last argument of democracies? What else but the fleets of our allies, and, let us say it with all modesty, that reinforcement of ours without which the true answer to the submarine has not been found—the navy of the United States? If the world is to be made "safe for democracy," there must be a predominance of sea power controlled by great democracies. It is the privilege of the naval officer to see these things, not "as through a glass, darkly," but "face to face." He would gladly bestow such an advantage upon all his countrymen.
All of this it means to be in the navy—to have national vision, to be in the first line of defense, to grasp the importance of sea power. What does it mean more definitely to be in the United States Navy?
To be in the United States Navy means, first, to learn our own type of naval discipline. Discipline in the American Navy is something individual. It is peculiar both to our own navy and to our own people. On the one hand, the navy must be a law unto itself. "I believe in free speech," said Wellington, "but not on board a man-of-war." Russia is learning that lesson. On the other hand, a navy is and should be influenced by the character and the customs of its own people ashore. In one sense, then, the sense of authority, our naval officers must be autocrats. In another sense, the sense of attitude toward their subordinates, they must be democrats. Here is a combination not always understood by people who are not in the navy. The navy regulations would enlighten them; but people do not read the navy regulations. As a matter of plain fact, there is many a business man in civil life who is more of an autocrat than a naval officer would think of being. That is one of the reasons why there are "strikes” in civil life, but no strikes in the naval service of the United States—in other words, no mutinies. You cannot successfully drive an American citizen worth his salt, not the kind wanted in the navy. You can lead him, and you must lead him. The principal basis of American naval discipline is not fear, therefore, but leadership.
This discipline, autocratic as regards obedience, democratic as regards method, is magnificently adapted to American character. It is as firm as steel, but it has the give and take of tempered steel. It has an immense capacity for overcoming certain faults that are peculiarly American faults, such as the failure to understand the necessity of immediate and unquestioning obedience to constituted authority, and the tendency to assume that because "all men are created free and equal" it is a species of slavery to put yourself under the command of duly constituted authority, or to salute your senior in rank. The American is apt to forget that the officer he salutes must himself salute his own seniors in rank, and that the salute itself is the outward and visible sign of an inward and essential organization which must have a bottom as well as .a top.
American naval discipline also has a great capacity for making the fullest use of the finest elements of American character: self-respect, personal pride in work performed, team play, the instinct for competition, and sportsmanship. The American naval officer thus follows, unconsciously, the traits of his "logical ancestor," the British naval officer; yet his discipline differs from British discipline. For instance, the British custom whereby an officer, before addressing his crew, gave the order: "On your knees," was a defensible order, in that it enabled the officer to see the faces of all the men to whom he spoke. But such an order, for reasons clear yet hard to define, would be "unheard of" in our service. The best type of officer in our service, because the best leader of American men, thoroughly understands the relation of discipline to both the faults and the merits of American democracy.
Discipline which has as its basis fear may often seem to go far and to control a splendid machine, but it will crumble in the last crisis. Discipline whose basis is leadership and the intelligent loyalty of the men in ranks will never crumble.
Secondly, to be in the United States Navy means to comprehend the American naval officer's conception of military character. One must be in the navy, I believe, to see precisely what this is. It includes, of course, many traits of character which belong to the successful man in business or the professions, and it should, therefore, include qualities too numerous and too obvious to mention. More especially, however, it must include, according to Admiral Sims, "the two wholly essential twin qualities of loyalty and initiative." Of loyalty nothing need be said here, but what is initiative in a military service of command and obedience? On the answer to that question may depend the issue of battles and campaigns. It is an exceedingly delicate question—this "Initiative of the Subordinate." It is that quality which must be used in the absence of a superior officer or in circumstances where the superior cannot guide. Yet this initiative should be in harmony with general principles approved by the superior and by the higher command—those general principles and directions which are known as the "Doctrine." One great task of superior officers, from the staff and the commander-in-chief down, is properly to "indoctrinate" junior officers. All officers are to be guided by this doctrine; for they are told as a rule what to do, but not, save in general, how to do it. Such was the system established in the British Navy by Nelson, and Lord Nelson is, perhaps, the greatest example of the naval leader who "indoctrinated" his officers. At the battle of the Nile, Nelson gave no orders of detail, but Captain Foley, who led the line of battle, did precisely what Nelson would have done, because he had been given a doctrine covering the situation which then confronted him. Indoctrination, therefore, is no new thing. Fortunately, however, the Initiative of the Subordinate is a system peculiarly adapted to the American temperament, or to what Matthew Arnold would call the American "genius." It is American "team-work" raised to the rank of a military science.
Now this team-work and initiative demands, all along the line, the proper conception of military character—a conception, that is, in harmony with the character and customs of the people whose navy is concerned. In the American application of the system, democracy is far from being a hindrance. On the contrary, it is essential. Disastrous effects would be caused by brutality or tyranny. And not only would tyranny be harmful, but, to quote Admiral Sims once more, "bad manners, lack of sympathy and tact, ignorance of, or disregard of, the elementary principles of governing men, and mistaken ideas of punishment," would have the effect of throwing a monkey-wrench into an intricate and smooth-running machine. Our vice admiral in British waters goes on to illustrate his conception of the initiative of the subordinate and of military character combined, by telling a story of Nelson. It seems that on one occasion Nelson came on deck and found the ship—a flagship, remember—"in irons." She was, in fact, making sternway. Instead of thundering abuse at the officer of the deck, who was profoundly humiliated, Nelson asked him what he thought he had better do. The officer said he did not know what to do, whereupon the admiral said, "Neither do I," and went quietly below.
In the third place, to be in the United States Navy means to absorb that navy's imperishable traditions. Traditions are what Sir Arthur Conan Doyle calls "the memory of a great age." You may remember this passage from Doyle: "Treasure it in your minds, and pass it on to your children, for the memory of a great age is the most precious treasure that a nation can possess. As the tree is nurtured by its own cast leaves, so it is these dead men and vanished days which may bring out another blossoming of heroes, of rulers, and of sages." Lieutenant Frost, of our navy, in applying these eloquent words, comments on them by saying: "We in the service must therefore bring back our great tradition; we must learn the exploits of our dead heroes, the principles upon which they fought, the spirit which actuated them, and the ideals toward which they strove. We must 'here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain.'"
What are the traditions of the United States Navy? You have but to stand, over there in the crypt of the chapel, beside the tomb of John Paul Jones, to feel those traditions, if indeed you do not see them, hovering over his remains like "a blue, lambent flame." Or look upon the great collection of trophy flags of the navy, yonder, in the auditorium. If ever tradition lived "in the flesh," it lives in those captured flags, in that old bunting, faded but still glorious.
These traditions, however, are not all of the dramatic kind. Gold lace there is, and cocked hats; Perry changing his flagship; Farragut lashed to the shrouds; many a thrilling stage-setting on many a deck; swords surrendered, only to be returned with some chivalrous word. But most of it, almost all of it, is a tradition of hard work; hard work that was probably unappreciated, unrewarded, unsung.
One of the navy's traditions is thorough and unremitting preparation for battle. This was the kind of preparation Oliver Hazard Perry made during the long and bitter days before the battle of Lake Erie, when he built ships from trees standing in the forest: the kind that Farragut made before he finally went into action at New Orleans and Mobile Bay; the preparation of Macdonough for the battle of Lake Champlain, when he built his flagship—laid the keel on March 2, and had her launched on April 11; when he made ready to wind his ships end for end during battle, to present by surprise fresh broadsides. This is characteristic of our long line of naval officers, and the tradition holds to-day. Our first flotilla of destroyers arrived in a British port. "When will you be ready for business?" was the query. "We are ready to begin at once; we attended to that on the way over."
Another tradition is adaptability—the readiness to adapt strategy and tactics to new and unexpected conditions. David Porter was confronted with the entirely new problem of conducting the Essex through a cruise thousands of miles from base or shipyard, cut off from supplies and from money to pay his crew. He adapted himself to new conditions, and kept the Essex in the South Pacific for two years, while he destroyed the commerce and the whaling industry of the enemy from Cape Horn to the Galapagos. Foote, salt-water sailor, must needs at short notice design and build gunboats for operations on the Mississippi, and carry out with them, when built, a campaign which proved that new conditions cannot daunt the American naval officer. Worden took command of the Monitor, an unheard-of, crazy vessel, the unseaworthy "cheesebox on a raft," and with this monstrosity arrived from New York at Hampton Roads in time to check the Merrimac, and prevent her from breaking the Union blockade. Cushing was not dismayed by that perilous device, the spar-torpedo, handled by lines from a picket-launch. Nor was he confused when his approach to the ram Albemarle one dark night was discovered, and in the flare of a beacon fire he saw the boom of logs which surrounded the Confederate vessel. At full speed he struck the logs, managed barely, but did manage, to slide over them, and with one shot destroyed the ram; and ended the war in North Carolina.
Similar to this adaptability is a tradition expressed in the old phrase "Yankee ingenuity." When Isaac Hull, in the Constitution, was being chased by a British squadron, he saw a squall coming up ahead. It looked dangerous. Just before the rain enveloped his ship, Hull suddenly took in almost all his canvas. The British, knowing his reputation as a brilliant and daring seaman, followed suit. The instant the Constitution was hidden by a squall; Hull set every thread of canvas that would hold, and escaped from his pursuers. Old Ironsides, herself, and her sister ships were the product of native ingenuity—product of the brain of Joshua Humphreys, Yankee shipbuilder; product of the brains of our naval officers who supervised and modified their construction. These frigates were the finest of their day, outclassing other men-of-war of the same type. To take another example of the tradition, Winslow, in command of the Kearsarge, when he fought and sank the famous commerce destroyer Alabama, protected the engines of his wooden ship by fastening over the side closely adjoining lengths of heavy chain anchor-cable.
Still another tradition, by no means dramatic, is summed up in the • motto of the Naval Academy—Ex Scientia Tridens—Sea Power Is Based on Science: In the very dawn of our naval history John Jaul Jones, the "Father, of the Navy," outlined with scientific precision the ideal of a naval officer's education and training, and fixed the relationship between the naval officer aboard ship and those under his command. In his classic letter to the Marine Committee, dated September 14, 1775, he formulated a doctrine of studies which still constitutes the basis of an officer's schooling. It is well worth while to read that letter to-day; and it is to be hoped that you will take the pains to read it.2 Matthew Fontaine Maury, American naval officer, created the modern science of charting ocean winds and currents, and in his own lifetime thus shortened the average long sailing voyage by 40 days. He predicted the location and directed the discovery of the Atlantic plateau, and in this and other ways scientific—partly through inspiring his assistant, Lieutenant Brook, to invent a deep-sea sounding apparatus—made possible the laying of the first Atlantic cable. He founded the great system of our national weather bureau. He was the pioneer in the development of mines; and foreign naval officers, to learn mine-laying, went to school to him. To take another example, Admiral Dahlgren, inspired by the crisis of the Civil War, invented the gun that was named for him. The "Dahlgren" gun was the most advanced type of smooth-bore ordnance of that time. Scientific in its special feature, the "curve of pressures," heavy at the breech and light at the muzzle, it attained a minimum of weight with a decisive gain in power. Admiral Stephen B. Luce, by a lifetime of effort largely unappreciated, founded the modern school of naval organization and strategy conceived as a science. Known as a master seaman, who raised seamanship to the highest technique, Luce went far beyond that. He established and developed the "war game," for planning and conducting naval battles and campaigns both at a war college, in miniature, and with all the practical results possible in time of peace by maneuvers at sea. He selected Mahan as the first organizer of the Naval War College; and it was he who inspired Mahan to write The Influence of Sea Power upon History. "Our Naval War College is his monument."
2Extracts from a letter from John Paul Jones to the Marine Committee of Congress, September 14, 1775:
“. . . . It is by no means enough that an officer of the navy should be a capable mariner. He must be that, of course, but also a great deal more. He should be as well a gentleman of liberal education, refined manners, punctilious courtesy, and the nicest sense of personal honor.
“He should not only be able to express himself clearly and with force in his own language both with tongue and pen, but he should also be versed in French and Spanish . . . .
"The naval officer should be familiar with the principles of international law, and the general practice of admiralty jurisprudence, because such knowledge may often, when cruising at a distance from home, be necessary to protect his flag from insult or his crew from imposition or injury in foreign ports.
"He should also be conversant with the usages of diplomacy and capable of maintaining, if called upon, a dignified and judicious diplomatic correspondence; because it often happens that sudden emergencies in foreign waters make him the diplomatic as well as military representative of his country, and in such cases he may have to act without opportunity of consulting his civic or ministerial superiors at home, and such action may easily involve the portentous issue of peace or war between great powers. These are general qualifications, and the nearer the officer approaches the full possession of them the more likely he will be to serve his country well and win fame and honors for himself.
"Coming now to view the naval officer aboard ship and in relation to those under his command, he should be the soul of tact, patience, justice, firmness and charity. No meritorious act of a subordinate should escape his attention or be left to pass without its reward, if even the reward be only one word of approval. Conversely, he should not be blind to a single fault in any subordinate though, at the same time, he should be quick and unfailing to distinguish error from malice, thoughtlessness from incompetency, and well-meant shortcoming from heedless or stupid blunder. As he should be universal and impartial in his rewards and approvals of merit, so should he be judicial and unbending in his punishment or reproof of misconduct.
"In his intercourse with subordinates he should ever maintain the attitude of the commander, but that need by no means prevent him from the amenities of cordiality or the cultivation of good cheer within proper limits. Every commanding officer should hold with his subordinates such relations as will make them constantly anxious to receive invitation to sit at his mess-table, and his bearing toward them should be such as to encourage them to express their opinions to him with freedom and to ask his views without reserve . . . .
"I trust that I have now made fairly clear to you the tremendous responsibilities that devolve upon the Honorable Committee of which you are a member. You are called upon to found a new navy; to lay the foundations new power afloat that must some time, in the course of human events, .t formidable enough to dispute even with England the mastery of n. Neither you nor I may live to see such growth. But we are here nting of the tree, and maybe some of us must, in the course of ter its feeble and struggling roots with our blood. If so, let it annot help it. We must do the best we can with what we have
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To-day, if I am not mistaken, you will find that the devices which will meet and conquer the German submarine will be for the most part the devices or the inventions of American naval officers, and their tactics and strategy are looked upon as those of a new school of hopeful augury. To quote the English naval expert, Arthur Pollen, "The hope of the world lies in the untired brains of the American Navy."
But these traditions just mentioned would be "as a sounding brass and a tinkling cymbal," "vanity of vanities," were it not for traditions more heroic—traditions of fighting, and of a fighting school of thought. These matters are, of course, most difficult to define. You can feel them better than you can express them, for they constitute not words, but action.
There are two main traditions of this kind, as I see them. One is the unusual combination in action of two traits—coolness combined with quickness. Need it be said that to be cool in action is one thing, and not a little thing; that to be quick is another thing, and a great thing, but not necessarily associated? Neither, of necessity, implies the other. Coolness is often found with slowness; quickness is not always guided by a "cold-blooded brain." But to have both—like the best type of the American naval officer—this is to maintain a tradition which will count heavily when the first salvos are fired on some stricken field of the sea, where the fate of nations may be decided.
The second of these traditions is the inbred doctrine, now become an instinct, which I shall call the instinct for taking the offensive. Does this seem obvious? If it does, it is only because it is long established as a characteristic fact. Is it commonplace to say that as a principle or policy "the defensive never accomplishes more than to postpone disaster"? Is the instinct for taking the offensive to be taken for granted? If so, then Blake, and Horatio, Lord Nelson, and David Glasgow Farragut were merely men who did the obvious thing, the thing to be taken for granted.
To be in the United States Navy means that you have the privilege and the duty of absorbing these high traditions. No officer, reserve or line, can know them too well. They must be taken to heart by all ranks. One of the greatest factors in the power of the British Navy is tradition. The tradition of the Birkenhead has been repeated in this war. Sir David Beatty, at Jutland, repeated the tradition of Nelson at St. Vincent. Recently, two British destroyers, pounced upon at night by six German destroyers, sank or routed them; one British destroyer ramming her nearest opponent, and a young midshipman, repelling boarders as of old, accounted for six Germans. A boy of 16, Cornwell, mortally wounded, and all others of his gun-crew slain, remained through the battle of Jutland at his post of duty. Such are the "chips of the old block." You cannot become too directly the descendants in spirit of Jones and Truxtun, Hull and Decatur, their names "familiar in our mouths as household words," Bainbridge and Stewart, the Porters and the Perrys, Cushing, Farragut, Sampson and Dewey, "among the few, the immortal names that were not born to die." What a line is that to follow! And where can you become instilled with their spirit better than right here at the Naval Academy, in yonder flag-room, its walls veritably ablaze with the trophies of their prowess?' Would you have a visible link with this long honor roll of the past? It is here; in the jack and pennant of the Guerrière; it is here in 42 naval ensigns captured from the victors of Trafalgar; in tricolors captured from France. And the memory is the more splendid because these foes of an elder day were met in actions of chivalry and honor which left no bitterness. Foe or friend at different times, they are now our brothers in arms. Turn, then, to the most eloquent flag in the collection, the battle flag of Oliver Hazard Perry—that flag on whose blue field, in white letters, are spelled out the dying words of Captain James Lawrence, commander of the ill-fated Chesapeake. Rudely fashioned by the hands of jack-tars, these letters said then, and they say now: "Don't give up the ship!" I think you will agree with me that we wouldn't give up that flag. And I feel safe in saying, also, that we should be glad to give up a number of the flags taken from England and from France if we could replace them by a few naval ensigns captured in battle from the Imperial German Navy.
So much for what it means to be in the United States Navy. What, then, does it mean to be an officer in this navy?
Does it not mean more than a difference from the enlisted man in training and in education? He can see, perhaps, not much more than his own gun, or turret, or his own ship. Whereas the officer must see his particular duty, not only as part of his ship, but as part of the fleet, part of the entire navy, of a campaign, of a war, whose causes and motives, whose international aspects and results, the officer must understand and visualize. It means that whereas the bluejacket may have the proper attitude toward our allies, the officer, through his knowledge of history, must have the proper attitude toward our allies.
To be an officer means constant striving to master the most complex and versatile, at least, of professions. You are beginning to find out, with a vengeance, I take it, something of this complexity and versatility of the naval profession. Frankly, I do not know just how difficult and varied it really is. But I do know that few people outside of the navy have a very clear conception of the problems a naval officer must meet.
Most of all, to be an officer means to know what are the true qualities of the naval hero. What are these qualities? They are seldom appreciated. Courage? To say this is commonplace. The naval officer discounts death in advance. Skill? That is what he is paid for; lacking it in reasonable degree, he had better resign. No. The real quality of the naval hero is the ability to conquer certain weaknesses of human nature. Under the spur of duty, he should rise above many things insidious and demoralizing.
He must have confidence in the patriotism of the American people, despite any evidences to the contrary noticeable from knaves or fools. He must believe in the value of democracy, despite the inherent weaknesses of democracy, which we are now doing so much to overcome, and which at their worst are better than the inherent vices of autocracy. For how else is he to fight that the world may "be made safe for democracy"? He must have confidence in the capacity of the government to conduct a great war, no matter how new or how gigantic the task. Mistakes of the past he must put out of his mind; it is for him to undo them, according to the old motto of the neglected navy: "Do always, without faltering, the best you can do under the circumstances." And the naval hero must have faith in the wisdom of the higher command, whether or not he is, given the opportunity to increase its wisdom. It is not always easy to conquer the doubts and misgivings which naturally arise about these things in an imperfect world. But unless the officer gives them always the benefit of the doubt, unless he accepts the situation as he finds it, and is governed accordingly until such time as he can help to improve it, he will not attain to the reasonable human ideal of morale, and the ideal of loyalty. Let him remember that, like the President, he is a federal official, and that, like the President, he must have almost the patience of Nature itself.
Nor are these the only demoralizations to be conquered. There are more immediate ones for the naval officer. Heroism means rising above the feeling that he lacks the citizen's privilege of free speech and free criticism; that to exercise this privilege, even in a subordinate way, generally means punishment for insubordination; that such a situation is not always for the best interests of the service; that these are severe penalties for disciplinary efficiency. He must conquer also the more insidious feelings: that his duty is unimportant, and merely that of a cog in a machine: that, under a different commander, he could do better; that he is not appreciated by his superiors; that his death would be unnoticed. He must throttle the natural temptation to suppose that the mistakes he makes and the misfortunes he encounters are irrevocable. Above all, he should put out of his heart and mind the suspicion that he deserves a more important post of duty, and that the duty to which he believes he should be assigned is filled by the other man through "pull" or favoritism.
The naval hero must make sound decisions and make them quickly in the heat of battle, amid the roar and crash of weapons and projectiles whose power has never before been imagined. He must keep his head when everything seems to be going wrong—and when everything is going wrong. He must be another Nelson at Copenhagen; another John Paul Jones on another Bonhomme Richard, sinking and on fire. His answer to the imminence of defeat must be Jones's answer to the captain of the Serapis: "I have not yet begun to fight." When defeat seems inevitable; or when, as now, no completely effective means have been found to eliminate the all-decisive menace of the submarine, the naval officer falls back upon tradition. And lest he feel that tradition knew not the submarine, let him think of the retreat from the Marne, when the world awaited, breathless, the end of France, or, hoping against hope, wondered when would come the hour of her desperate stand. Let him think of that man on whose great head, set on whose broad shoulders, rested the fate of civilization for centuries—while for many days the armies of France accepted, under his guidance, the bitterness of retreat—and again, retreat. Think of the mind and the spirit that planned during those terrible days the alignments and the formations, the time-schedules, positions, and reinforcements, the mobilization, indeed, of the hopes of France and of the world—Marshal Joffre.
And now, you who have entered the navy to-day, what does it mean to be a part of it to-day, rather than yesterday and in the past? First, there are the advantages of recent development and achievement. We have the best torpedo in the world. The Bliss-Leavitt is the most accurate, and has, by a good margin, the longest range. We have, now, the best system of fire-control and of director-firing. There are other details. I wish I could mention them. They would warm your hearts. In short, we have a first line of capital ships, and certain other types, which, ship for ship, are unsurpassed. Among the enlisted personnels of the world's navies, our own has the highest average of intelligence. The training of our officers and their education is probably unequalled. The organization is better than ever before, and may soon be better still. Faults there are, but they are not the faults they were in the past, either in kind or in degree.
It has always been a privilege to be an American naval officer, but that privilege is especially high to-day. In this great war lies the greatest opportunity in our history to show the world the stuff of which our navy is made. We are even now approaching the time when the American Navy may be the deciding factor of the war, and hence of the history of democracy on this planet. Our task, as that of the British, has never been so formidable as it is to-day. Farragut, our greatest naval officer, and Nelson, "the embodiment of the sea power of Britain," did not have to face the submarine let loose as the outlaw of the sea, slayer of the helpless, beside which Attila, the "Scourge of God," seems humane.
To be in the navy to-day, fighting in this war against Prussianism, you need not give Decatur's pledge: "My country, may she be right; but, right or wrong, my country." For your duty can be based upon a clear conscience, knowing the justice of our cause. Even if we could forget all else, the Pan-German plot is a proved reality. It is not for nothing that the eagle of the Hohenzollerns is black.
To-day we are fighting in excellent company, as an ally of our chivalrous foe of the past, Great Britain, and of our old benefactor, France, the nation which enabled us to win our independence at Yorktown. We have many other allies, and nations armed with us in the common cause. I cannot serve the purpose I have in mind by considering them here, except to say that some of us, through lack of information, perhaps, are apt to fall short a bit in appreciation of the immense difficulties and superhuman achievements of Italy. The most immediate duty of the American naval officer to-day, in maintaining the proper attitude of mind toward our allies, is to understand our true relations with Great Britain and France. The German propaganda, spreading its mental poison broadcast in the United States, finds itself powerless to stir up prejudice against France, and must therefore content itself with sinister stories that France has been "bled white." But it has had too much success in playing upon the obsolete antagonism toward Great Britain. To certain misguided or traitorous persons, nothing has happened in history since 1776 and 1812. The truth is that both Great Britain and the United States have changed to so large an extent that they are both new nations; both have followed paths which have taken them farther and farther away from old faults, and have brought them closer and closer together. Since the Reform Bill of 1832 England has almost outdone us in developing democracy. During the war with Spain she was our one staunch friend, and her strong arm was stretched out to secure for us fair play. Both nations, since 1848, have drawn farther and farther away from Germany in purpose and ideals. With the present war, the unconscious alliance of the past 15 years has been cemented. Confronted with German intrigue and German atrocities, Americans must be proud in a new sense to speak the English language, to inherit the English common law and jury system, and to enjoy liberty, freedom of speech, and self-government won no less by Englishmen than by our forefathers from a throne on which sat for a time kings of German blood. The wheel of history has now turned so far that even our traditional prejudices against the British, long kept alive by school histories, are going the way of the centuries-old enmity between England and France—buried in a new recognition of common aims and ideals. We are beginning to take some measure of satisfaction in remembering that George Washington was born and bred a British subject, and that one of Washington's contemporaries arose in the House of Commons and said of the American Revolution: "If I were an American, as I am an Englishman, I would never lay down my arms—never—never—never!” Those who cannot forget 1776 and 1812 should seek the spirit of the French officers who honored the British Army with a review on the anniversary of the English victory at Agincourt, a ceremony of welcome on the very field where France met defeat at the hands of the most dreaded enemy in her history, Henry the Fifth. If we cannot forget the past, let us realize that the traitors to the United States and the friends of Germany are those most concerned to have us remember it.
We are now reminded that the American Navy was, in fact, originally modelled upon the British Navy, and that in fighting alongside the older service in the North Sea we are in one sense rendering an account for this inheritance, and thus upholding, as Sir David Beatty says to us, "The chivalry of the seas."
We are fighting in excellent company to-day as an ally of France, the old friend whose language gave us the very word "chivalry." If Americans have a British naval heritage to vindicate, they have a naval debt to pay to France. They can go into battle with the French, remembering not only Lafayette, but those days in 1781 when Admiral de Grasse of the French Navy held the control of the sea off the Virginia Capes, won against Hood and Graves the battle of Cape Henry, and made possible the siege of Cornwallis by an army in which the numbers were equally American and French—7000 under Washington, and 7000 under Rochambeau. Now, when France is stricken, the United States is glad to answer the call of an old memory.
Doubt not that to-day the spirit of yesterday still lives. Sir Francis. Drake and John Paul Jones are sweeping the Channel again. Nelson and Farragut have put to sea once more.
It is not for us to determine, gentlemen, whether the German naval bases are impregnable, or whether the United States Navy will lead the way when the German high seas fleet is hunted out. It is said that Heligoland and the channels that lead to Wilhelmshaven are but "suicide" for an attacking fleet; that these are not the days when a Farragut could say "Damn the torpedoes! Go ahead, Captain Drayton. Four bells!" They told Farragut that Mobile was impregnable, with its forts and mines prepared for three years. Whether Heligoland shall be a second Mobile on a great scale is for admirals to decide. Weapons change; ways and means change. But one thing has long since been decided and has not changed, and that is this: It is in the blood of the United States Navy to take the offensive! It is in the spirit of the United States Navy, if the day comes, to go through and past that place, Heligoland, which is impregnable!
And the reserve officers, on that day, and on other days, will be "chips of the old block." They will fight with the unconquerable tenacity of the race of which they are the descendants—of a mighty line that did not begin with Drake, and did not end with Dewey.
In a newer and larger sense, the spirit of to-day not only equals the spirit of yesterday, but surpasses it. As civilization has progressed, old feuds between certain nations have been forgotten, since the outcome of these wars often determined great questions for the advancement of mankind. The French and the English, who fought at Crécy and Poitiers, who were still hereditary enemies at Waterloo, stood shoulder to shoulder at the Marne, and now constitute one great army. The British and the Americans who fought at Lexington and Bunker Hill have joined hands in France. Americans of the North and the South—Union blue and Confederate gray, now brothers in olive drab—are marching to the fields of Flanders. With these ententes and alliances, this Reconstruction Period and this Union, now international, there is an immense increase in the power of freedom and the efficiency of human rights.
Where once feudal levies raised battle-cries to St. George or St. Denis, where once were fought wars of dynastic ambition on both sides, the armies of self-governed peoples battle to-day for the freedom of Europe and the liberty of the world. On the same fields where men once fought for conquest, the United States now enters the lists for no conquest, but for ideals. We are bringing, with our allies, to all nations, our Declaration of Independence. We are now maintaining that not only our own government, but all governments "of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth." To the battle-song of our race, heard from the time of Magna Charta to the Gettysburg Address, we have added new words greater even than the Battle Hymn of the Republic: "The world must be made safe for democracy."
Dedicated to this proposition, dedicated to fight in the vanguard for the accomplishment of this world task, is the navy of the United States.
All of this, gentlemen, is what it means to be an officer in the United States Navy to-day.