Captain T. W. Kinkaid, U. S. Navy.—I am glad to see the "selecting-up" idea put into print. Whether the selection be made by a "committee of the whole" or by the dozen or so officers nearest the top of the grade above, the idea is sound, and if adopted should remove the main objection to promotion by selection.
Promotion up to and including the grade of lieutenant should be by seniority, as suggested by the author. After that, all promotion should be by selecting up.
Age in grade retirement is of course a necessary accompaniment of promotion by selection; and this, in turn, would appear to call for a naval reserve for the utilization of the retired officers. The author's plan to provide a refuge for surplus lieutenants by putting them into the staff corps would work well for the line, but might not be the best possible arrangement for the staff. According to what system would the staff officers be promoted?
I do not believe that a system of transferring age-in-grade retired officers to a "shore list" would be altogether a happy one. Ultimately the officers thus retired would have the mortification of acting under the orders, on shore duty, of officers on the active list much junior to themselves in point of age. Let the retired officers go to the reserve, if we ever get one, where they will be able to do good work. Congress always looks with distrust at a detail of naval officers, active or retired, to a navy yard; whereas retired officers detailed to duty with a reserve would not only do a valuable professional work, but would be in a position to foster a friendly feeling towards the navy among our legislators.
Now, as to the knotty question of amalgamation. In the case of the naval constructors the matter seems easy of solution. If the duties of the naval constructor are not line duties, then how can we consider the duties of an engineer or ordnance officer as belonging to the line? If we take the narrow view that the simon pure line officer is essentially a tactical or strategical officer, then, in battle, only the officers actually on the bridge of a ship are line officers: the others, for the time being at least, are performing technical or staff duties such as managing the motive machinery, directing operations in turrets or magazines, and so forth.
Should the captain be disabled, an officer from turret or engine room or magazine might be called to duty on the bridge—he would blossom into a line officer!
Civil engineers are for shore duty only, and amalgamation does not appear to offer any advantages in their case. To amalgamate the medical officers and chaplains appears also to be out of the question.
As to the officers of the pay corps, I believe that officers of the lower grades of the line should be allowed to transfer voluntarily to the lower grades of the corps to fill vacancies therein; but no officer should be compelled against his will to enter the pay corps permanently. The duties of pay officers when properly performed require tastes and abilities of a special order—and such duties are not congenial to every individual.
Except in the position of fleet surgeon or fleet paymaster, no medical officer or pay officer of the grade of commander should be required to go to sea. This to make the career of a staff officer attractive to the best available talent. Going to sea, except in command, is a young man's job.
The author states: "An officer who has devoted himself primarily to the questions of materiel will find himself largely incompetent upon attaining higher command afloat." But let it be observed that some of the most eager and active participants in war games, search problems and the like, which are presented in the extension courses of the War College, are officers whose regular duties pertain to ordnance, or electricity, or engineering, and so forth. And let us not forget that a noted mathematician wrote the undying classic "Alice in Wonderland." The line officer of to-day devotes much of his time to technical specialties while in the lower grades: with increasing rank comes increased consideration of the duties pertaining to command, and a decreased attention to technical specialties.
The great advantage of amalgamation lies in its harmonizing of warring factions of the personnel. And this advantage is so great and so significant as to offset many a disadvantage that might be mentioned. Only those who belonged to the old engineer corps of the navy can fully appreciate the harmonizing effect of the amalgamation which took place in 1899.