Promotion of Officer Personnel
(See page 183, February, 1925, Proceedings)
Captain R. C. Smith, U. S. Navy, Ret—This paper points out very clearly some of the undesirable features of the present laws governing promotion in the line of the Navy. Naturally, it is realized that not all officers can reach the higher ranks, and that in pursuance of this principle individuals must be sacrificed, but in such sacrifice the main desideratum should be equality of opportunity. This is the great American principle in all walks of life.
Captain Campbell shows that under present laws this equality of opportunity does not exist. It is a fact, however, that is apparent and recognized; the problem is how best to overcome it.
One very helpful measure would be to reduce very materially the limit of age of admission to the Naval Academy. Four years is much too wide a limit, and there is no necessity for it. It seems to have been based originally on the fact that members of Congress had only one appointment to the Naval Academy and that the course was four years. Hence, unless the limit of age was four years, many boys in each district would have been ineligible even for consideration. Now, with apparently a minimum of three appointments for each congressman or senator, there seems no reason why the limit should not be reduced to two years at most.
This brings us to age-in-grade or length of service as a basis for promotion and retirement. If the margin of entry is small there is no practical difference in the two; but an artificial system has been created all through the list by the original assumption that a margin of four years could be allowed for the performance of similar duties up to the rank of lieutenant. (Ensigns must serve three years and lieutenants (j.g.) at least three years before they can be promoted.) The same assumption should, therefore, be carried all the way to rear admiral. Final retirement is fixed by the age limit of sixty-four years, which cannot well be changed for the Navy alone.
With promotion by selection and age-in-grade retirement, the older men in each class are at an unquestioned disadvantage (unequal opportunity, contrary to American principles), and the younger men have a corresponding advantage. But the assumption has been made that a four years’ variation in age can be permitted without interfering with the performance of duty. Hence the young and old men in a class should be given an equal opportunity. This means length of service and not age as the basis, at least until the age limit at the Naval Academy has been suitably reduced.
Next, as to the length of service in the different grades: Captain Campbell shows that a seven-year period lends itself to a greatly increased simplicity in details for duty. The plan might be carried all the way through—seven years to lieutenant (three as ensign, four as lieutenant, j.g.), seven to lieutenant commander, seven to commander, seven to captain, seven to rear admiral, and seven on the average in the grade of rear admiral, or forty-two years in all (twenty-two to sixty-four on the average).
Next as to selection up or selection out. This was quite fully discussed by the present writer in his article in the last August Proceedings, “Some Thoughts on the Line, Personnel Situation,” in which the conclusion was reached that selection out, with possibly a small sprinkling of selection up, was far more practicable, more in keeping with the naval organization, and not at all dissimilar to the practice in civil life. This does not prevent selection for duty; in fact, it helps it; nor does it prevent any amount of selection for high command in time of war, in accordance with existing law.
Captain Campbell adopts selection out, which, if the above conclusion is correct, is not open to criticism. As' a modification in the old Personnel Act of 1899, he proposes the transfer of the officers who are selected out to the Fleet Naval Reserve. This appears to be the real solution of what to do with such officers. They remain available for war service, and keep in touch with actual conditions in the Navy through their annual periods of training.
There is a slight cumulative discrepancy in the required number of eliminations that would result from the wording of the proposed law, but this can easily be corrected. As a matter of fact the simplest solution is probably to promote for length of service, and remove the actual resulting excess each year by eliminations from the whole grade, subject to minor provisos to guard against drastic elimination of “humps,” or other wide variations in the size of classes.
As a whole, the plan appears to have very excellent features which could well be considered in any proposed change in existing law.
Proposed Administrative Changes in Navy Department
(See page 357, March, 1923, Proceedings)
Captain W. G. DuBose, (CC), U. S. Navy—Commander Fisher conveys the impression in his article that his proposed remedy for Navy Department organization is simple and easy of application. “To accomplish these ends it is simply necessary to make a corresponding redistribution of the duties of the Navy Department.” If that were all, perhaps the problem could be easily solved, but is it probable that eight bureau chiefs will ever be brought to an agreement as to a redistribution of the duties of their bureaus? Perhaps, but based on past experiences with boards and informal conferences, it is doubtful of accomplishment and the process, in some cases, will be far from painless. Commander Fisher says, “No disastrous upheaval is required.” That I very much doubt. There must be an upheaval if any real improvements are to be made, and although, if the changes are made wisely, in the end there should be nothing disastrous, they cannot be anything but radical and disastrous to some bureaus or to some of our present ideas. But, be that as it may, I find no difficulty in agreeing with Commander Fisher that present conditions are unsatisfactory and that a remedy should be found.
The symptoms of our present disease have been evidenced for years, principally at navy yards, because it is there that a very large part of our money is expended and because there our errors of organization and administration have been more in evidence, but at the Navy Department itself there has been no lack of symptoms. In the past the actual steps taken to bring about improvements in organization have been made mostly at the navy yards or in connection with the navy yards, although there have been many suggestions as to changes that should be made in the Department itself, and some changes actually have been made. The reason for the activity with respect to navy yards has undoubtedly been the relative ease with which changes could be made in their organization, no legislation being required, while at the Navy Department legislation is required if anything of importance or permanence is to be contemplated.
The radical change in navy yard organizations made in 1909 has been followed by many others of more or less magnitude, the last definitely ordered change of consequence being that covered by General Order No. 53 of June 16, 1921, which established a system of organization and methods of administration to become effective July 1, 1921. In the twelve years from 1909 to 1921 it might be expected that service opinion would have become crystallized and that the order of 1921 would have resulted in a type of navy yard organization the same at all yards as regards major parts, but this is far from being true and the navy yard situation today, while far from being as bad as in 1921, when we had as many different kinds of organization as we had navy yards, still leaves us with several different kinds of organization and the situation is not generally accepted as satisfactory.
Is it too much to believe that if Secretary Long’s proposal, made in 1899, for a consolidation of the Bureaus of Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering and Equipment, had been adopted, or that if following the Newberry Navy Yard consolidation, a happier solution of departmental control of navy yards had been provided, we would still be dissatisfied with our navy yard situation? I think it doubtful, for I believe that with an unbroken “chain of authority, responsibility and control of funds” resulting from a properly organized Navy Department, the navy yard problem would have been solved.
Commander Fisher may consider the navy yard situation generally satisfactory, now that we have a navy yard division established by General Order to handle navy yard matters in Washington. His article does not, however, deal with the navy yard question but he proposes a remedy for only the departmental organization. This question of Navy Department organization, especially as regards matters connected with material, is, to my way of thinking, all important. If we ever get a proper organization in Washington, the navy yard question will give us but little concern.
Commander Fisher enunciates certain principles that should be met and then outlines his proposed organization. It would seem that there will be no difficulty in obtaining a fairly unanimous agreement as to his principles of organization but as to the proposed organization itself, it will be far from easy to secure general acceptance. Perhaps the author considers his principles of more importance than the application he has worked out and has made his article complete more by way of “starting something” from hoped-for discussion, than from the conviction of having arrived at a satisfactory solution.
I have long thought that we should have a single bureau or division in the Navy Department to have charge of the design, construction, equipment and repair of ships—a bureau that should control the working part of a navy yard in just the same way as the Bureau of Ordnance controls its ordnance establishments, the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery its hospitals, or the Bureau of Navigation its training stations. This idea is met in part by Commander Fisher’s Bureau of Maintenance, although he establishes a separate Bureau of Design, a proposal I do not consider practicable, nor do I see how his principle of having one bureau “having complete charge of all navy yard activities” can be reconciled with having the Assistant Secretary of the Navy discharge the duties of “Departmental Administration of Navy Yards” and the Bureau of Maintenance have charge of “Operation of all Navy Yards.”
On the whole, the article is most interesting to any officer who has given thought and study to the question, and it should help in crystallizing service opinions, first, that something should be done and, second, “What?” Until the service demand is sufficiently insistent that changes should be made it would seem from the experience of the past that any radical changes have little chance of early official consideration. But, sooner or later it is believed the demands of limited money for the Navy’s work will force administrative changes in the Department and the navy yards. The solution of the question of what these changes should be is most important, and complete agreement may never be reached, but that difficulty should not prevent our giving most serious thought and study to it so that eventually we may adopt that form of organization which will produce the best results for the Navy from the viewpoints of economy and efficiency.