AMERICAN NAVAL POLICY. Prize Essay.
Rear-Admiral C. F. GOODRICH, U. S. Navy.—The Institute is to be congratulated upon bringing out this most admirable essay, in the reading of Which I confess to having enjoyed a rare treat, intellectual and professional. Its writer has adhered strictly to the system of the Novum Organum and has faithfully followed where that system has led. It would be invidious to contrast this product of "pure reason" with the airy fabrics to which we have been so long accustomed—wherein the whole question is begged at the outset and then, upon this basis of assumption, an elaborate structure of the imagination is erected—all pinnacle and no base. Now many, doubtless most, possibly all, of these lucubrations are absolutely correct both in idea and in development, but they are not logical and to the claims which they advance the all-sufficient reply may be made, "non constat." It is positively refreshing to have to do with an essayist who states his premises, invites you to admit or reject them, and then, if you do accept them, begs the favor of your company as he proceeds from step to step, beguiling the way with interesting comment and enlivening anecdote, while progressing steadily towards his conclusion. As an old hand at the game, I have no hesitation in advising the Institute's would-be contributors to emulate Commander Fiske's example and to work out their service problems after the inductive method of "my Lord Verulam."
Notwithstanding this tribute, which I take great pleasure in making as complete as I can, there are certain points in Commander Fiske's brief wherein I am unable to agree with him as fully as I could wish. I hope he will appreciate the reluctance with which I mention them and with which I part company with so entertaining, so delightful, and so philosophic a companion.
As I turn over the pages of my advance copy I find certain marginal pencillings which reflect my mental attitude as I first read the notable Prize Essay for 1903. Thus, for example, on page 3, I have put an interrogation point after the phrase, "national greatness and naval greatness co-exist.” I wonder whether my friend, the essayist, really believes this as a general, all-embracing proposition, or has it in his mind a special and restricted signification which every one must concede? Let us take a few historical instances. Was France's maximum national greatness co-existent with her maximum or even normal naval greatness? Surely he can't mean that. Or in recent days when was our own national greatness most nearly put to the touch? It can hardly be denied that the day of this test was when Mr. Cleveland wrote his Venezuela message regardless of the fact that ours was then an insignificant navy and Great Britain's the most powerful of all the navies in the world. To me there is something splendid and noble in Mr. Cleveland's appeal to the justice of his cause rather than to the strength of his sword. If national greatness is found in our disputant's yielding the point of honor, where need we seek a more instructive occasion? Has Germany gained in real prestige since 1870? When Spain was at the zenith of her power, what did Sir Francis Drake think of her naval greatness? I cannot quote the words correctly, but they ran somewhat after this fashion: "Half a dozen of her Majestie's ships are worth all the galleons of Spain." I am unable to agree to the essayist's first axiom, pleasant as it would be for me, a sailor, to share this opinion with him.—It were, in my judgment, more exact to write the dictum thus: "National greatness and naval greatness may or may not co-exist."
On page 4 the essayist says: "It is a common belief that the purpose of a navy is to protect trade; that the foundations of a nation's greatness are built on trade; that a navy is to guard these foundations." Whether he thinks so or not the context does not clearly show. In this connection it is pertinent to ask what American trade is protected by the American Navy.
He is right, I think, in holding that "our country is so strong in men that no foe successfully could invade it," but he omits one item in the enumeration which is perhaps the most important of all and the principal home reason for our fleet—the necessity of an adequate force to protect our maritime communities from bombardment and our coasting trade from molestation. I use the expression "home reason" advisedly, for it is only too evident that so long as we retain distant colonies, we must maintain a strong navy.
Personally I am somewhat perplexed to understand why the Monroe Doctrine, which was enunciated some eighty years ago, should all of a sudden assume the violently portentous shape the essayist gives it. Surely he cannot imagine that our case runs on all fours with Japan's! The latter country might easily have believed her safety threatened by the proximity of a nation whose history for centuries has been one long encroachment on her neighbors. Were such a nation to obtain a footing in South America and then to absorb one republic after another as she steadily advanced towards the Caribbean, I could perceive the menace to our own liberties, but, as yet, not the very first step in that direction has been taken. It may, of course, be said that our strong navy, by its mere existence, has prevented that step, an assertion which involves that most hopeless of all processes in argument—the proof of the negative—and which is completely met by the counter-assertion that such a statement is wholly erroneous, since no move of the kind was ever so much as thought of prior to recent naval expansion—and there you are—at the wardroom table again. I wish the essayist had adduced some more convincing plea for a great marine than the enforcement of the Monroe Doctrine. It is not inconceivable, indeed, that our advocacy might be more efficacious with even fewer ships—so sensitive are our South American colleagues on this subject. In some cases, they dread our naval growth and their dread is played upon by skillful European competitors for their trade, who ask, "Will you contribute to the power of these insolent Yankees, who despise you and treat you as beneath contempt, by giving them the benefit of your commercial orders? Better by far deal with us who are your loving friends," etc., and so millions of dollars go into the pockets of our rivals who supply inferior goods at higher prices, and stimulate a feeling towards us which does not at all tend to amity.
Again I read: "The greater the trade becomes . . . . the greater the need of a navy," etc. Why? Does Germany hold a position of dignity as one of the world's great carriers because of her fleet? Hardly, for her merchant marine preceded her fleet. If the essayist had cared to test his figures of speech by the figures of statistics he would have found that Norway and Sweden have a total shipping of 2,079,000 tons as against Germany's 2,322.000. What possible relation then can be shown to exist between a nation's navy and that nation's commerce? I am not saying for a moment that the latter does not require the former in theory, but in practice where is the evidence?
That we have a large navy is true. It is also true that we are to have a still larger navy. But the reasons for this state of affairs are not given by the essayist. At this point I find a serious gap in his essay, one which I attempt neither to fill nor to bridge. Rather do I stand helpless on the brink and reproach my able and agreeable guide for having abandoned me in the very hour of my need.
At one of Commander Fiske's phrases I admit to experiencing a certain rise in my American temperature. He says: "Great Britain made her Way to her present high estate through terrific wars on land and sea. Every other great nation in history has done the same. Shall not we?" Did it not occur to him, as he penned those lines, that the United States has arrived? It will not be necessary for us to fight our way to that end, for we are already there. Wars we may have, but they will not be in the least developmental wars; we have passed through the diseases incidental to national childhood and have reached the maturity of young and vigorous manhood.
Has not the essayist slipped a cog in his logic when he asserts that we shall need a bigger navy than Great Britain's—not to protect our insular possessions—not to enforce the Monroe Doctrine—but "on the basis that a navy exists to enforce the policy which is necessary to a country's preservation as a nation"? That expression gave me a frightful shock, for I had supposed our national safety reasonably assured. It is evident, however, that some foe is lurking in the darkness and plotting against our very life. Of course, if that be so, the quicker we acquire the necessary means to salvation the better. If the matter presses, why not buy the ships at once? And, by the way, with how much favor would such a proposition be received by our legislators? The answer to this question will contain the very crux of the whole matter.
As to the qualities of the battleship, I am entirely in accord with him. The desideratum is a fleet of similar units, each possessing higher speed and greater powers of offence and defence than those found in the ships of any other country. This combination is a mere trifle and quite as easy to secure as the roc's egg or the elixir of life. One quality in its maximum you may have but you can not have all. Granted, for the sake of argument that speed is of crowning value and build accordingly. If your assumption is correct, others will also have perceived this truth and they will enter with you upon a race in naval construction, each new type being faster because larger and, presumably, better than its predecessor. As a result you will have a fleet made up of samples the extremes of which will be wholly ill assorted. If Commander Fiske supposes future naval wars are to be waged by single ships, such a policy is sound, but if ships are to act together such a policy is most unwise.
In fact there is absolutely no limit to this increase in the size of ships. Time was when we considered the Great Eastern monstrous, yet to-day there are steamers afloat of twice her displacement. Will the advocate of the bigger battleship stop at 15,000 tons or 20,000 tons or 25,000 tons? If so, why? How is it possible to justify a refusal to go to 30,000? Where, indeed, is the line to be drawn?
If a homogeneous fleet is wanted, it can only be had by adhering to present tonnages. Twenty years hence we may start the building of a new navy composed of vessels of huge displacement, but let the change be per saltum and not gradually, unless we prefer a set of job lot craft, each a monument to some ephemeral or personal fad, but unsuited for maneuvering and fighting in company with each other.
I like his plea for manageability, but how he can square it with his demand for higher and higher and still higher speed I am at a loss to understand. I also like his tables for evaluating an action. As Prof. Alger once said of the tactical game at the War College—they are equations out of which you get results dependent upon what you put in. The human element, the most important of all, defies numerical definition, otherwise these tables would have served to analyze the late battle in the Sea of Japan. I wish the essayist, knowing the outcome, would work back along the lines of his tables and so determine the value in action of this hitherto fugitive factor.
Does he really believe that, in practice, it is possible to aim at "a given part of a target ship until it is broken down and then to shift to another part"? I hope not. That notion is a naval image which was shattered long ago by Professor Alger.
His suggestion of a specially designed flagship is excellent and should be adopted. It is preposterous to put the commander-in-chief in the van to be knocked out at the first round.
His arithmetic when comparing eight twenty-thousand tonners with sixteen ten-thousand tonners seems faulty and inconvincing. That the former would have twice the offensive powers of the latter is not demonstrated. I say this while thinking twelve thousand tons or thereabouts a good size—for the present.
I am glad to perceive that the folly of building armored cruisers is beginning to be more widely recognized. Does he but jest in making his proposition to remove a few six-inch guns from battleships and give them submarines to carry? Of course his idea is only thrown out as a feeler and is not seriously entertained. We once had the same hallucination about torpedo boats.
When the essayist stated that "Military tactics are so much more easily understood by civilians than are naval tactics, that military tactics have been assisted more in their development by men not soldiers than have naval tactics by men not sailors," had he not forgotten Paul Hoste and John Clerk?
In alleging "and our predecessors in office, assisted by Congress, after the Civil War and until 184 let the navy get into such a miserable state, not only in ships and guns, but in professional aims and standards, that we have had a hard time to breathe into its nostrils the breath of life," he is most unfair to Admiral Porter, who played a great part in maintaining those very aims and standards and so fitted us to make good use of the new ships when we finally did get them.
The essayist raises an interesting question when citing the practice of putting the ocean liners into the hands of the repair gang at the end of each trip. Such measures are merely means to an end. The end proposed in the case of the merchant vessel is single—the highest possible speed on the next run. With us in the navy it is, on the other hand, exceedingly complex. There is a host of minor aims, besides two or three principal ones, and, without exception, these aims would be frustrated by too frequent visits to a dock yard. A more cogent reason for keeping clear of the navy yard is to be found in the curious inversion of authority which occurs the moment a ship arrives for repairs. Presto! the captain no longer commands his ship! He can not so much as shift a bolt on the deck without the approval of the constructor; matters which he regards as of moment and as affecting a ship's military worth are decided against his wishes by a young man quite ignorant of sea life and sea wants, while his ship is detained to subserve a purpose entirely apart from that of getting her ready as quickly and economically as possible. Leave the repairs absolutely in the captain's hands, make him responsible for their extent and cost and for the speed with which they are executed, and captains would be less reluctant to go to a navy yard, something which they now regard with dread, and they would stay there only long enough to do the required work and get away again. Of course this is a most radical proposition and I have no hope of its adoption, but if ours is a military service, and if our duty is to keep always prepared for the supreme shock of battle, it must be recognized, in any scheme, that the navy yard is for the benefit of the ship and not that the ship is for the benefit of the navy yard.
It seems remarkable that the necessity of "forming a battle fleet and drilling it on our coast in the way outlined" should require demonstration, or that the attending advantages should require enumeration, or that the desirability of training the commander-in-chief in the handling of his forces demand proof; yet such is true, and Commander Fiske deserves our thanks for putting the case so clearly. Were I not this moment in command of our Pacific Squadron I should urge, what I have always believed to be a wise policy, the withdrawing of our armored vessels from Asiatic waters and the establishing of a battle squadron on our west coast where it could be kept keyed up to the highest pitch ready to cross the Pacific at any moment if needed. That this will come about some day is manifest to those who study the trend of naval affairs.
I have been led by my interest in the writer and his essay to spin out this discursive discussion to an entirely unexpected (I fear unpardonable) length. If only to show that my garrulity is not yet exhausted, I stop these random remarks at this point, leaving his caption, "Administration of the Navy," wholly unnoticed, yet much might be said on this topic in support of his views, while possibly some of them might be opposed more or less effectively. In quitting so agreeable a guide I renew my sincere thanks for his article, both as to matter and manners, and heartily invite his colleagues to follow so illuminating an example.
ADDENDUM TO OPERATIONS OF THE NAVY AND MARINE CORPS IN THE PHILIPPINE ARCHIPELAGO. (See No. 114.)
Captain E. B. BARRY, U. S. Navy.—I regret that I unintentionally did injustice to a gallant officer and to his crew in my notes concerning the Vicksburg's operations in the Philippines. I spoke of the gun-boat Calamianes. It was the Samar, Lieut. G. C. Day, that made the cruise resulting in the capture of Puerta Princessa, and it was the Samar that captured Sandoval's men.
THE TRUTH ABOUT NAVAL ADMINISTRATION. (See No. 114)
Rear Admiral C. F. GOODRICH.—So vigorous, interesting and, in places, amusing an article as Naval Constructor Roberts', "The Truth about Naval Administration," must provoke thought; I fancy it was written for that very purpose.
Without going minutely into the subject, I desire to contribute one reflection to the discussion. The facts he quotes I accept without question. Has he drawn from these facts the inevitably logical deduction? He says, "The main thing is to have an expert head of the single industrial department who will bear the responsibility for the cost of the work." And "The remedy is the simplest business proposition in this country—consolidation." And "the one shipbuilding department should be a unit under the one shipbuilding head, responsible for the economy of the work." And "the present necessity is the unification of navy-yard industry, so that it cannot duplicate itself, and so that naval industrial administration may operate in the full benefit of modern methods as developed with such eminent success in the private industries of this country."
All these things being true, what remedy does he offer? Does he cast about for an expert head of his single industrial department among those whose education and training fit them for the superintendence of a large manufacturing plant? Does he call upon Midvale, Bethlehem, or Bement, Miles and Co., for example? Does he summon distinguished members of the Society of Mechanical Engineers or capable graduates of Troy, Stevens, or Cornell? Not at all. With the rare and costly wisdom required he invests, ex officio, the naval constructor whose ignorance in those matters is only slightly less (if at all) than that of the other officers whom Mr. Roberts would incontinently bar out from practically all dealing with the material of ships. Herein it seems to me that he is highly illogical.
My own views are on record officially.
They run somewhat as follows: The root of the evil is the carrying of the bureau system into the navy-yard. At the department, for which it was designed, this system works admirably, but at the yard, for which a was never contemplated, it causes a needless multiplication of plants, a reaching out by one yard department after work and prerogatives belonging to others, thus creating jealousy and friction and necessitating the employment of from three to five leading men and foremen where one would suffice. If the yards were organized as manufacturing establishments are organized, the immediate saving would be astounding. Would it not be well to adopt some such an organization at each yard; place, in charge of the consolidated shops, a competent and well-paid manager or superintendent, responsible for all processes of manufacture and let each bureau have its representative there with the necessary force of clerks and draughtsmen, but absolutely relieved of the burden of employing and directing labor? Were this done the bureau's representatives would be free to give to their duties that time and thought which these interests imperatively demand. These officers would then encounter no harassing annoyances in connection with taking on and discharging laborers, so that they would have leisure to make plans and specifications for work falling within the scope of their duties and would act as inspectors of the work done by another person. They would naturally make it their aim to see that the work was done promptly, well, and cheaply. As it is now, there is little, if any, outside supervision, so that no one is on hand to detect and bring to notice the mistakes which are occasionally made. Human nature being what it is, an officer is hardly likely to point out his own errors, yet this is the rule at present, the man who does the work inspects it himself and naturally finds it satisfactory. To make my views clearer, I may illustrate them by saying that there should be no such thing as an Equipment Sail Loft, a Steam Engineering Foundry, a Construction Fitter’s Shop, an Ordnance Machine Shop, a Yards and Docks Power Plant; that there should be one shop (possibly under more than one roof be it understood), and only one, of every kind required for yard work and known as the Sail Loft, the Foundry, the Ship Fitter's Shop, the Machine Shop, the Power Plant, etc.
It appears to me, and I speak from some little knowledge, that any consolidation of plants will fail unless accompanied by some such organization as is here suggested and that in this way alone can the jealousies which unfortunately do exist between different bureaus and yard departments be removed. To consolidate plants of any description under one bureau of the department, no matter which, will only exaggerate the jealousies referred to and will be attended, as is the present system, by the serious inconvenience of not providing that daily and exact inspection of various work which experience shows to be the sine qua non of rapid, excellent and economical output.