On the title page of the PROCEEDINGS OF THE U. S. NAVAL INSTITUTE these words are printed: "The writers only are responsible for the contents of their respective articles."
Nevertheless all articles submitted for publication in the PROCEEDINGS are read by the members of the Board of Control of the Institute and must be approved by them before acceptance. That is to say, it is the duty of the Board of Control to refuse to publish anything deemed prejudicial to the best interests of the Navy or the Institute.
The same practice is usually followed in regard to discussions of articles which have appeared in the PROCEEDINGS, but, as the expressions of individual opinion submitted in this form are seldom entitled to the weight attaching to carefully prepared articles— and especially since these discussions were originally open debates in a meeting at which the article discussed had been read—there has been very naturally a tendency to permit greater latitude of statement in discussions than in other contributions to the PROCEEDINGS.
There is a proper limit, however, to freedom of discussion, and when an officer of any one corps, availing himself of the privilege of setting forth his opinions in the pages of the INSTITUTE PROCEEDINGS, brings charges of inefficiency against other officers or other corps that limit has been exceeded. Neither independence of thought nor independence of speech need be fettered by observing due respect for every branch of the naval service.
In the last half page of a discussion of the prize essay for 1904, printed in the September issue of the PROCEEDINGS, there were allowed to appear through inadvertence, severe reflections upon the Ordnance Department, the Corps of Naval Constructors, and the officers in charge of the distribution of the personnel. The author gave no proof other than assertion of the inefficiency which he lightly charged against three of the Bureaus of the Navy Department, but he attributed it to insufficient control of naval affairs by "sea-going officers."
As a matter of fact, however, the Bureau of Ordnance and the Bureau of Navigation are and always have been entirely controlled by sea-going officers, and in no other navy in the world have line officers so completely governed in all matter concerning both materiel and personnel as they have in the United States Navy.
The Board on Construction has always had a majority of line officers; the Secretary of the Navy has, I believe, always supported that majority when it was united; and, what is much more important to the good of the service, the minority of that board has for many years past always stood ready to do its best to carry out the wishes of the majority—to build the ships which the sea-going officers asked for.
I express the opinion of all the members of the Board of Control of the INSTITUTE, and I believe that of the great majority of the sea-going officers of the navy, when I say that such charges should never have been made.