This paper will endeavor to investigate whether or not the discipline of the Navy, the true esprit de corps of the Navy, is in quality as high as we in our hearts know it should reach, as high as the country demands, and whether it is kept up to that degree of excellence that may some day be again called on to place us on the credit Side of the treaty when the indemnity is agreed upon. It will attempt to point out that through errors of commission and errors of omission, we are not doing everything that can be done and ought to be done to elevate discipline and nourish naval esprit de corps. There will be found nothing new in this paper. The effort is made to base its conclusions on the elemental truths.
It is trusted that nothing herein will be taken as the expression of pessimism. On the contrary our profession is an optimistic profession. We all have faith in our service, faith in our men, faith in our ships; a pride in the traditions of the service and its past achievements, and we all look confidently ahead to its achievements and victories of the future. Potentially we will ever be the strongest navy, because of the quality of our personnel.
Recent discussions of discipline have mostly limited themselves to a consideration of punishments—correctives—deterrents. It is herein endeavored, in ignoring punishments, to discuss naval discipline from the standpoint of the influences of example, order, system, organization, routine and restraint; all of which come in the category of the preventives. In so doing, it is thought necessary to give illustrations and make criticisms of conditions as they appear.
The underlying principles of the discipline of whatever organization we may, for the time being, be discussing, are the same. We cannot get away from the fundamentals. In every community, no matter what may be the end of its efforts, discipline is organized living. In society it means to live right because civilization could not otherwise exist. In the family it means to live right for the sake of one's children. In the Navy, it means to live right in order that the human weapon may be made perfect. In the Navy, discipline means to render obligations solemnly undertaken for the spirit of the service. From a material standpoint we receive our pay in order that we may live and that those dependent on us may live. We get our living for our services. That is the material reward. But along with the material reward we should feel that we are receiving a spiritual reward, in the consciousness that we are giving our best efforts to the study of naval discipline, that we are contributing to the spirit of the service.
Discipline has been inherited from the remotest antiquity. It came to Adam in the form of conscience (" And they heard the voice of the Lord God"). It was handed down to the children of Abraham in the teachings of Moses (" And God spake . . . ."); and later it was given living, breathing form in the manhood of the Redeemer ("And he saith unto them, Follow me . . . ."). And all discipline to-day, everywhere, is founded on the example He set to mankind.
The idea of naval discipline that one meets out in civil life seems to be, to the civilian mind, synonymous with hardship, punishment, being made to do things against one's will; and occasionally it will be thought to be synonymous with tyranny. These are not manifestations of discipline; they are the manifestations of the absence of discipline.
The most potent influence for naval discipline is example; "Virtue, honor, patriotism and subordination." The chief responsibility of every officer of the Navy lies in his self discipline; and the more he thinks about and studies the men and their needs, the higher ought to become the quality of the example he will set. Nationally, we are peculiarly fortunate that the opportunities for entering the Naval Academy are as equal to those who can reach the standard as it is possible to make them. It is becoming more and more the custom for the Representative to make his appointments on competitive examinations among the boys of his district, and with this representative material to start on, the course of instruction at the Naval Academy ought to be more spiritual and less material. Then and there should the start be made to guide the thoughts of the young officer to a consideration of the humanities; that the first thing he may interest himself in and apply himself to on going into the service, is the study of his men, and the bearing of naval discipline towards men. When he leaves the Naval Academy he should know more about the spirit of the service and less about the industrialism of the service. Throughout his schooling he should be taught that his value to the service is going to be greater, the more he recognizes his responsibility in his own humble position to his men. The more deeply he is interested in studying the human nature he will have to work with, the more useful a naval officer he will become. The study of the human element should begin from the first rather than be left to be taken up after the management of the material elements of the Navy are mastered. A captain in the Navy recently said, in observing the midshipmen in white undress ready to embark in the practice ship for the summer cruise, that he could not see much difference between them, in that rig, and the apprentice seamen at a training station. This at once points to the strength of our navy, that in some instances recruits to the training stations and recruits to the Naval Academy appear to come from the same people—all are the product of the century and a quarter influence of republican institutions on our race. So it becomes necessary at the naval school to breed the young officer to there acquire all the finer habits and nicest discriminations—what we expect to find in a cultured man. Let it be borne in mind that the men are from the "ruling class" as well as are the officers. The influence of the officer will depend on the example he sets, and youthful lieutenants on duty at the Naval Academy should bear this in mind; for the midshipman regards the lieutenant he sees there daily as the type of the service. There is no reason why an occasional midshipman, When just graduated he joins his ship, should appear to think that his importance to the men is indicated by the extent of his profanity.
And at the training stations, and subsequently on ship board, everything in the routine and surroundings should appeal to the best side of the- recruit. Now naval discipline, proper discipline, appeals only to a man's better nature. Punishment appeals to his worst nature. A well disciplined man requires no punishment, because his better nature has been appealed to and his conduct responds to that appeal. Punishment comes to be inflicted because the man's worst nature has for the moment dominated his conduct, and therefore punishment appeals to the worst side of the man. Improve naval discipline, improve all that appeals to a man's better nature, and the causes for which we inflict punishment will diminish. Character is the foundation on which we build a well disciplined man, and every uplift, no matter how small, supports and fertilizes the growth of character, whereby the better nature of the man is strengthened, from which we get fewer outbursts of the worst nature.
In arguing that the undergraduate course at the Naval Academy should more thoroughly expound the naval classics and analyze more thoroughly the dominating qualities of the great seamen, in order that those sympathies and instincts and niceties of discrimination that must mark the officer and gentleman may be best nourished and best bred, one has in mind to inculcate early in the youngster that habit of realizing how important to the men must be his bearing from the first day he reports for duty. And an understanding of the qualities of heart and mind that have exemplified the masters of our profession will make his service afloat happier, by engendering in him a pleasure in getting the best out of his routine work, which must be the compensation to the naval officer at sea for his personal sacrifices. And in looking to see how this study of the naval classics can be included one reflects that four years at the school is a short space considering the forty years of activity. And in that short space of adolescence the foundation for future usefulness to the service is built rather on character than on the management of the material things of the Navy. Not merely a character of the average and usual good qualities, but, more than that and in addition thereto, qualities of character that will be called on immediately on graduation in commanding men. In that short four years there are three very short practice cruises. Each cruise is three months, three short months, in a year. All told the practice cruises consume nine months. Nine months is a short space in which to cultivate the ancient sea habit, something indefinable, yet something that we recognize among ourselves as a peculiar quality of the professional mariner. So the questions arise: Is it the best sort of a practice cruise to continue delving into materialistics, when time might be spent in getting the young man in sympathy with the best products of the mariner's profession? For young men who study hard eight months, should not their summers' be free from note books and sketches and academy brain-work in ill-ventilated ships' compartments? Could not lasting and valuable lessons in naval history and in the spirit of the service better be learned? Mentally and physically would it not be better? Are there not already too many young officers prematurely gray and bald and wearing glasses? Can incessant brain work eleven months a year be the best undergraduate education we can give? Should they be sent for the three months relaxation from brain-work to duties from which those who are regularly performing them require periodical relaxation themselves? Should they not better be held apart so as to be led throughout their undergraduate life to idealize the service, by being spared, as far as may be possible, contact with any of the seamy side until they would be less susceptible? In some respects the old sailing ship was an ideal practice ship, even as lately as the early days of battleships and destroyers. Its simplicity brought about a quicker touch with the sea, owing to the absence of machinery and the saving for other activities time which would otherwise be occupied in that management. With sail shortened for over night the youngsters would get a real night's sleep mostly in the open air. It was the convenient toy in which the young officer could learn how to command. In a consciously conspicuous (commanding) position on the horse block from where his voice would carry throughout the deck, knowing that he was being given critical attention by the men, he had, at every stage of working ship, a visible and direct application of his commands, through the men, resulting in the behavior of the ship. And if the ship worked badly it was directly impressed upon him that it was his fault, his imperfections or his inexperience; whether by poor command the men did not move properly, or whether by poor judgment the ship failed in the evolution. To-day we get a parallel situation; only, interposed between the command and the result, are many men, many decks, many complicated devices. But the quality of the result to-day depends, as before, on the quality of the command. Nobody remembers how many reef points there were in a topsail, or the order of the rigging over the foremast head. A lasting familiarity with the sails, spars and rigging would be inconsequential; but the sailing ship to-day might be made a vehicle for the culture of the naval officer, a classic of his profession from which value is derived, just as the dead languages remain a vehicle through which a shore university imparts culture to a scholar. These reflections are applicable to emphasize that, in the service, we must ever keep mind above matter; and, it is thought, they might also serve to illustrate that the best principles that should underlie the new navy can be derived from those things that were best in the old navy.
In our material achievements, the Navy is making notable progress. But, is the spiritual side of the Navy being at the same time elevated in harmony? We build a battery of 14-inch guns for a ship. When these units are in course of building, every step in the construction follows the physical and scientific laws known to the designers; and when the battery is mounted we have this element of the ship's power, each unit identical with every other unit, a finished, a finite product. The ordnance officer will tell us exactly what are the limitations of its use, what it can do and what it cannot do. So it is with each material element that goes into a ship of the Navy. But when we come to construct the crew of the ship, there are no laws of science that can be applied to make each unit of that crew like every other unit of the crew, to make each unit of that crew go to a definite elastic limit with certainty. We are dealing with the human element, and must build our structure on the fundamental truths of the discipline of life, guided by principles which have come down to us from the seamen who have given us our naval laws and regulations.
In dealing with the material elements of the fleet, tire are definite comparisons that can be made of ship against ship. We can tell with certainty that in gun power, armor protection, endurance, such and such a ship is superior to some other ship. But in considering the human element our standard must be our imagination, our ideal. Any comparison is indefinite. And if we constantly study what it is necessary for us as officers to do to carry us along the straight and narrow road toward that ideal, we can at least feel that as far as human experience goes we have neglected nothing in the effort to perfect the human weapon.
We read much in the papers about the ships, and the editors measure our power on the sea by the number of ships we have. Now it is not the first care of the naval officer to worry about how many ships we should have. That is a question which properly rests with the statesman. But it is the care of the naval officer as to what shall be the qualities of that ship and his first care must be the human element, the most vital quality.
Of all the departments of the country its armed forces, the Army, the Navy, and the Marine Corps stand conspicuously in a class by themselves, distinctly aloof from the civil departments. The failures and inefficiencies that may be discovered in a civil department will not necessarily have a lasting effect on the prestige or the future of the country. But we can only surmise with respect to the armed forces of the country how far failures and inefficiency would affect the future of the whole country, the future of the race. So we are justified, considering the Navy, in inquiring wherein we can raise the spirit of the service. It is nothing less than the spirit of the service that we should constantly seek to drive out any weakness, big or little, that we can satisfy ourselves is standing in the way of the development of the human weapon. It is not sufficient for us to rest on over confidence and let well enough alone in respect to the human element when there is no possible way to definitely compare its degree of excellence. We are proud of our gunnery, but in spite of the flattering mention of it by the newspapers we know it can be improved, and we know it can only be improved by the development of the ordnance going along hand in hand and harmoniously with the development of the human element. We are proud of our engineering, but we know that it can be improved. We know that progress is being made in the development of machinery and no man can say yet where it Will end, but we know also that economy in the use and management of that machinery can be further achieved by the development and -organization and the skillful handling of the human element. So it is not in a spirit of fault-finding that these thoughts arise. Rather it is a tribute to the high quality of the men of the Navy that we should inquire wherein, if such can be admitted, we can lift moral oppressions so that character can develop the better; and by developing a better character, we acquire a more intelligent, more earnest and more self-reliant human unit.
It is not easy to say that we are yet a race of people. Some families in our country have been influenced by the institutions of the country for some generations. There are some young citizens in the country whose families have not been long enough in the country to have become amalgamated. These families are undoubtedly devoted to our institutions, but it is a question whether their devotion can yet be quite the same as that of the citizens of the older families, to whose families the national sufferings and sacrifices of the past are a part of family history. The families who are not yet amalgamated may later trace their devotion to the opportunities they have found under our institutions for their material uplift, and to the greater opportunities in this country for their children. Many of the young men of these not yet amalgamated families present excellent qualities, indicating fine characters, and they are capable, under our institutions, of a greater degree of culture than they or their progeny could ever reach in the old country under the old world system. We probably have many such young men in the Navy, probably a number of such enter the Naval Academy. Now these men to become disciplined must have instilled into them a spirit of the service from their entry. By a spirit of the service is meant some understanding of naval manners and customs; a respect for, and confidence in seniors all the way up the line; and an understanding that every duty on board ship is entitled to its proper respect and attention, and that without that duty being done some cog in the great machine would slip; a reliance that whatever they are called upon to do, it is something that is necessary to be done; a reliance that every condition imposed on them is the best condition that human experience can so far devise. So that, when they pass on to be petty officers, they will then begin to see and to hand down to newer recruits the why and wherefore, and the manners and customs and laws and regulations. We have a navy of voluntary enrollment, and while in civil life we are on an equality and the behavior of one man may not affect the other man in the same community, in the Navy we are in an established relationship where the example of the senior is all-powerful. Every one of us has his responsibility in that respect in due proportion to his rank, and when that example is not the best example we are capable of, then we are not doing all that can be done to influence the juniors. Unlike the old world navies, where aristocracy keeps people in classes forever, our navy has its greatest potential strength in the fact that, to a great extent, it is bound to reflect our democracy, and therefore our men must be led, not driven.
We read much in these times about too much materialism in life; about ordinary aspirations being commercialized; and it is barely possible that the Navy too is suffering from these influences. We read that this results in the material oppression of the masses of the people, and if this be so must it not also mean the spiritual Oppression of the people—depreciation of character? At this writing a political campaign is on. For the first time in many years the necessities and the rights of the people at large appear to have thrust themselves to the front as national issues. The humanities are enlisting the championship of men and women from one end of the country to the other. These champions claim that the people at large have been stunted and dwarfed in moral and material growth by the manner in which civil industrialism and civil commercialism have been applied throughout the country. If we are to believe what we are told by the papers and the literature of the day discipline, esprit de corps, is being displaced in governmental and municipal organizations in civil life by commercialism. Some men whose position and influence and responsibilities, both private and public, should engender the finest sort of self-discipline, are, by their examples corrupting and depreciating the character of the communities or organizations through which their influences permeate. What is the outcome? There are young men in the land coming into manhood bred to regard as the object and end of life in the United States the getting of something for nothing. No matter what the means, the end of getting something for nothing will justify the means. And only to get on a government or municipal pay-roll in civil life seems to be regarded as merely securely intrenching oneself in order to commercialize the laws which were enacted with the belief that they would uphold the discipline of the community. The tendency of these influences is to degrade the character of the race, and to breed in young men a quality of unconscious indiscipline, a spirit of commercialism and selfishness. Some of these young men may enter the Navy. Some of these young man-o'-warsmen at the outset may base their allegiance to their ship too much on her being a "good feeder," or on how much liberty she gives, or how often she has moving picture shows. And is it not possible that there might be in our present system a lack of the spirit that should correct the commercial standpoint? Possibly some of the young men we recruit into the Navy have grown up in communities wherein, more or less, have prevailed the commercialized ideas of government or municipal employment. It is so of the boys who go to the Naval Academy as well as of the youngsters we recruit into the Navy. And in trying to study the problem of naval discipline and the molding of the human element into the perfect human weapon, it might be well to reflect as to the character of our particular brand of human nature; to reflect whether there have been previous environments which will be to us a help or a hindrance; to inquire into our own manner of handling men to find out whether the discipline we are called upon to construct is really discipline or only tyranny, for when we permit officers to do things which, in the men, we would penalize, we allow tyranny to replace naval discipline; to inquire whether in our system we are maintaining that official classification, which though not developed in civil life, must prevail in the Navy in order that there may be esprit de corps; to inquire whether our methods instil into the young man-o'-warsman that profound respect for his duties which we must endeavor to instil into the humblest and least important of a ship-of-war's activities in order that esprit de corps may have a fertile soil in which to flourish; to inquire whether there may be any event in ship-board life that may suffer indignity by being commercialized; and to inquire whether there is anything in our system fundamentally opposed to breeding discipline, whereby being opposed to discipline it must oppress discipline and depreciate character.
How has naval industrialism come to predominate? The expansion of the navy material out of proportion to and out of harmony with the expansion of the navy personnel has caused it to dominate. The gunnery awakening in 1902 was born and bred with a personnel then not sufficiently disciplined to withstand the shock of endeavoring to excel in gunnery at the expense of organization and realism. For it is believed that the same progress in naval gunnery could have been achieved had we held on to organization and routine throughout. It would appear that "scientific management" is organization. Naval gunnery is scientific management—shore experts have so called it. There can be no scientific management without organization, and routine is a part of organization.
It is easier to look back than to look ahead. We admire with gratitude the zeal and genius that awakened our gunnery and fired the whole service; but it would appear that it was a pity that the older heads of those days did not recognize that, some day, we would see the disappearance of those naval standards we then had in sweeping aside organization and routine to bring guns, mounts, sights, and (they thought) men up to the new standards.
We see to-day the crews of our ships of war merely an aggregation of well ordered citizens. When we have "quarters," those who have "no work to do" go to quarters and line up as at a mass meeting on shore. All others who "have work to do" put on dungarees and stay away from "quarters." The industrial chieftains on board ship—the heads of departments—themselves bred up in the midst of modern naval industrialism, will tell us that they can't get so-and-so ready if their men have to come to "quarters." The men readily enter into that spirit, and they are also sure so-and-so can't be ready unless they are excused from "quarters."
Now it may be justly agreed that we have, in our turrets, manifestations of a high degree of discipline. But have we always naval discipline? There are countless exhibitions of discipline in industry on shore. To get our excellence in turret shooting is only team work, a trained-to-the-minute team just as is a foot ball team, a no more highly trained group of men than, for example, is the team that will get out, day after day, year in and year out, a great newspaper by the hundreds of thousands, and have those papers delivered through the mails to arrive out of town the same morning. We must have something more than discipline, we must have naval discipline, and that not only means an excellence in the turret for the time being, but an excellence in every other activity small and great that must be met in the day's work on ship-board by every man of that turret division. And if we are to have a military navy, one of the requirements must be a week-day military assembly of all the men it is possible to muster, with a standard ceremony that has a military influence. "Quarters" from time immemorial has been, we might say, the daily bench-mark of the activities of the ship's near a thousand men. It is the daily tautening up that every fighting organization must have, and it will be found that men, under the military influences, in the long run, become so habituated that all their standards improve, even to the extent of their industrial output. If this is not so, then there is no truth in the belief that ex-man-o'- warsmen readily get good positions when paid off.
Some other manifestations of the dominance of naval industrialism might be said to be: The socializing of ratings by emphasizing the industrial qualifications before the naval qualifications. A lack of excellence in some of our drills and exercises because the ship does not always go through them as a unit; for who has not heard the blacksmith's anvil singing merrily during "general quarters"? The more "general" a concentrated drill is required to be, the better the results, and the shorter will become the time required to gain excellence.
The vagaries and varieties in the wearing of the naval uniform manifest the ascendency of naval industrialism over naval discipline. Look closely and one will here and there see firemen second class and ordinary seamen and coalpassers, masquerading in three cuff stripes instead of two; officers' stewards and officers' cooks in caps with the c. p. o. buttons and chinstraps; mess attendants revelling in three cuff stripes because they are "first class"; officers' stewards and officers' cooks sporting the long overcoat assigned only to the c. p. o. ratings.
In the anxiety to excell in the material things, one can find occasionally an officer who regards the little things as beneath him, and this officer will be apt to view with disdain another who sees in the perfection of the little details concerning the men the foundation of efficiency in the bigger things. There should be a time and place for everything. It should be the duty and care of the juniors to enforce the little details like uniform observances using the organization of rating and command to gain the results; but these results are difficult to gain when many ratings do not mean authority to command, and when our present system does not afford us sufficiently a manual for commanding men on ship board, such as we formerly had in Luce, wherein each activity on ship-board was governed by a tactics as standard and as explicit as the manual of arms.
The officer of more experience regards the little matters as manifesting the general standard of things. We look on the surface of the sea to find out, from the ripple, from where blows the wind. So we can judge, by the little things everywhere in life, what standard would result, whether high or low, in the bigger things of which the little things are small elements. We take pride as to the external appearance of our ship, and are properly concerned that she presents a neat and trim appearance. She may be faultless in other respects, but if her booms are not square the impression is not pleasing.
Now we are all delighted whenever a law is passed prohibiting discrimination against the naval uniform. But what do we do to make the ratings themselves respect their own stripes and badges? We do not appear to seek out and prevent men entitled to only one cuff stripe or two cuff stripes sporting about in three cuff stripes. What respect can the men who are entitled to wear three stripes have for their own rate marks? And what respect can the youngsters have for the rating that wears three cuff stripes? Do we not belittle the chief petty officer's uniform—and thus the chief petty officers—by permitting officers' cooks and stewards to wear a chief petty officer's overcoat, when a pea jacket for officers' cooks and stewards is distinctly prescribed?
Charity begins at home and so does respect for the naval uniform. And the first step in breeding respect for the naval uniform is to prevent men from putting on stripes and other badges that they do not rate. The above irregularities are widespread, and indicate two things; one, the complications we suffer from too often changing an already complex uniform, and the other, an apparent feeling among some of the men that their uniform doesn't mean to them what it should. It's hard to get an industrial organization to wear a uniform. It's easy to uniform a military organization.
Dungarees (a tender subject!) can be kept within the bounds of a normal naval industrialism. Compare the brief and clear limitation to the wearing of dungarees found in the Navy Uniform Regulations of 1905 with the abuse of the uniform today. The dungaree habit expresses overworked naval industrialism. Ask the officer who believes in the unlimited wearing of dungarees what is the reason for them, and he will be apt to say "dirt," or "they don't show the dirt." The result is that on board of our ships one will frequently hear such expressions as "dirty work," "dirty working clothes." The effect of this on many a modern young man-o'-warsman is this: He keeps a fairly clean suit of clothes for "quarters"; before quarters and after quarters he wants to get into a rig, which he rarely scrubs, which is -soiled beyond all conscience with the natural accumulations of constant wear. Now we should not speak of the naval labor our men must accomplish as "dirty" work. It costs nothing to dignify all of it by simply referring to it as "work."
There are things in this world which may be wrongly and thoughtlessly designated until people sooner or later come to believe that they are just what the incorrect designation makes them. There is not to be found to-day, as there has never been heretofore, except possibly that required of the yeomen, any labor on board of a man-of-war that did not require some personal cleaning up after. It is impossible to prove that any other color or fabric would take in more "dirt" than dungarees. Whether a man wore green, red, pink, white or blue colored goods, a job of work would affect each like any other. The tendency is everywhere to run to white as a color in order to discover "dirt." We would rather deal with the butcher or the grocer who is rigged in a white uniform and a white apron. At the end of the day those uniforms might be marked with the evidences of an honest day's labor. But they go to the wash. The next day he is as fresh looking as the- morning before, and we are content. But if he wore the same smeared uniform to nearly the end of time he would have to go out of business. Now it would seem that where upward of a thousand men have to live in a ship; from the standpoint of personal cleanliness, the clothing that that organization of men is to wear should not be such as to cover up the reasons why that clothing should be scrubbed, but rather that the clothing should be such that the necessity for scrubbing it should appeal to the man himself. In one of the European navies their man-o'-warsmen, whatever may be their stations and duties in the ship, all wear an identical unbleached fabric, cheap enough to be frequently replaced, strong enough to be frequently scrubbed, and frequently scrubbed enough to be healthful, both morally and physically.
The trouble seems to be in the Navy that the dungaree habit has lulled us into the incapacity to distinguish between the honest stains of honest naval labor, which nobody can object to, and the natural accumulations due to the constant wearing of an unscrubbed uniform.
One of the results of the dungaree habit is that the crews of most of our navy yard tugs up and down the coast, and some of the tenders of the Atlantic fleet look more like pirates than man-o'-warsmen on auxiliary service.
Another result is the struggle the executive officer must have to keep even officers wearing dungarees out of the mess room and off the mess room furniture.
This much ought to be said, that in our ships of war, the men who have the greatest claim on dungarees, the machinery department men, are in addition to being personally the cleanest body of men in the ship's company, the men who least abuse the dungarees, and who scrub them the oftenest. Outside of the engineer force, at least it would seem, there can be no justifiable reason for dungarees.
Old-fashioned naval standards are disappearing, and can we altogether say that really good standards are taking their place? There is hardly a single activity on board ship but must require patient promulgation of explanatory notes to get it done after a man-o'-war fashion and in accordance with the naval regulations and custom.
Contrast: In a British all-big-gun ship, her executive officer said he did not have much printing done because he had to pay for it himself, so it was understood. He exhibited the ship's daily routine, for which he himself had paid to have printed. It was a large placard of bristol board. The events of the routine, done in quite large, heavy type, were readable a number of feet. They were done in simple man-of-war language, comprehensible to the humblest. Many words were abbreviated to the initial letter. The whole thing gave evidence that in their material expansion, the leading strides they have taken in construction, engineering, and gunnery have not been allowed to diminish the understanding of naval manners and customs as necessary in carrying out the daily routine. This was the impressive thing about a routine placard so abbreviated as to merely convey a hint to all hands, from the watch officer all the way down, yet unintelligible to the English speaking naval officer from the other side, whose own navy is generally thought to have inherited man-of-war manners from the British.
In our navy every one is kept so busy with paper work that it is well nigh a physical impossibility to enforce a standard among the ships as to uniform about decks, external appearances and routine. Contrast with a British squadron which came to anchor in Annapolis roadstead seven years ago, and all five of them laid aloft and laid out together to paint spars. And as to paper Work. The executive of a British five turret ship was once asked where was his office? Who looked out for his paper work? The answer was understood to be that he had no office, no paper work to look out for to that extent, and that the captain's office took care of all paper work anyhow. Contrast with the activity in an office of one of our executives.
It would seem that we have not been able to be so fortunate as to expand harmoniously, and carry along with us at the same time many of the good old standards and the good old simplicities. We look at Navy Regulations of 1909, amended by changes one to nineteen, and sigh as we recollect the simple "Blue Book," edition of 1876.
It cannot be denied, if the salute from the junior to the senior manifests respect for rank, that naval officers are not held in the esteem by their juniors that should be exemplified. Playing officers and men on the same foot ball team has had a very socializing effect. This has commercialized the officers for the sake of the men's athletics. Happily this has been stopped, and we will outgrow the harm, to some extent. A few officers are looked upon by some of the men possibly as foremen; for this those officers are themselves to blame for a lack of the personal qualities that should distinguish them as officers.
One may pass artillerymen or marines on the streets of Fort Monroe and one will receive the salute due one's uniform done in a way that stamps those corps as disciplined corps; full of esprit de corps. One will pass squads of men from one's own or some sister ship and one will be merely gazed at with innocent curiosity or else ignored, or else occasionally saluted. All the while we are being admonished to require our men to render the immemorial salute due from the junior to the senior, and yet our system is such as to break down any such manifestation of esprit de corps, because it is founded on naval industrialism and not on the fundamentals that make naval discipline.
A machinist, under the law, may pass up to an ensign. Yet in the Regulations we find ourselves prohibited from giving a machinist any sort of deck duty. This is a flagrant expression of industrialism.
Strangely enough, while we have progressed in the amalgamation of all combatant officers, which is absolutely and fundamentally correct, we are year after year extending the industrial spirit among the men by specializing ratings more and more. The regulations and customs limit any sort of command authority to the men of the seaman branch. This is an expression of industrialism. Many of the titles might be swept away. All seaman branch men should be designated chief petty officer, petty officer 1st class, petty officer 2d class, petty officer 3d class, and the rating, "master-at-arms," should be abolished—as has lately been done in the British service according to reports abolishing "ship's corporals." Eventually electricians should be merged into machinist's mates. We make trouble for ourselves in organization by adding to the complexity year after year, rather than by trying to simplify the situation. And this increasing complexity is one of the reasons why our ships seem to need more men than the British ships. The British five turret ships are run on something like a hundred men and marines less than our five turret ships require.
One occasional example of somewhat overworked naval industrialism is found in a battleship going through her overhaul and obliged to work the men at unskilled laborers' jobs day in and day out, in obedience to the "work to be done by ship's force" order. There is already sufficient necessary "work," "labor," to require of the men in all conditions of cruising. It is reflected that there are three kinds of work on board ship at a navy yard; that necessary in the ordinary usual running of the ship and upkeep; special work on the fighting elements—the machinery and the battery; and extensive "laborers' jobs" in conjunction with some yard department work. The first is necessary, and it is a part of the life. The second is on the fighting elements that the men love to work with because they are their weapons, and therefore there is a pride in working over them. But the third is without glamor and without compensation. The third tends to reduce the young man-o'-warsman in naval manners, bearing, uniform, and aspirations to the level of the navy yard unskilled laborer. Now it does not appear that we enlist men for "laborers." ,We enlist men for man-o'-warsmen. And when a youngster enlists in the Navy, it is possible that the main vision he has is of becoming a skilled naval artisan or a gunpointer or a seaman petty officer or an engine department petty officer. The morale of these youngsters and consequently their usefulness, it would appear, would be better preserved were they kept in hand, and could certain common laborers' jobs be turned over again to the yard laborers. Formerly this was so. This class of common laborers' jobs would not appear to have any bearing on the proposition that the fleet must be bred to be self-sustaining. (Specific exemption should be made to the cleaning and painting of ships' bottoms when docking, true naval labor as much as is coaling.)
The ships that sustained themselves five years ago in a fourteen months cruise around the world proved that they were self-sustaining. And this was demonstrated before the "work to be done by ship's force" principle came to dominate. There never has been any trouble in making repairs to the limit of the capacity of ship's tools and workshop. The men have had the ability. Officers who know have said that up to the limit of these workshop resources they would rather effect repairs with our own men than with navy yard men.
Therefore it is believed that an organization that seeks to be military, that is training for the grandest game in the world, and which in the nature of things imposes many disagreeable humdrum tasks on its men, should best keep training the lowest ratings along the lines that are peculiar to the man-o'-warsman, and not sacrifice opportunities of value to work at unskilled labor. It can be questioned whether it is altogether wise to attempt to save money at the expense of the young man-o'-warsman's morale. Our commanders-in-chief have recognized this situation, for we have been admonished against this possible depreciation of morale.
We insist that it is necessary that the sea officer should command a navy yard, that it is a sea officer's command. That is true. But—on the door of the commandant's office there did not appear even the title of the rank of the officer. The officer's name was painted just as though he were a real industrial chieftain and not "Rear-Admiral"—. This may be said to be an expression of a dominating naval industrialism. We insist that the naval command of the navy yard is paramount, and yet we drop the naval designation and the naval title which, in another breath, we insist is the only designation which carries naval command.
Inconsistencies are bound to arise in an over-industrialized fighting force.
Out of sight may well become out of mind. Naval industrialism should not be allowed to drive our naval designations and naval titles out of sight. For to each of us, his naval title is his hall-mark in life, and after—will be his epitaph.
In our anxiety to amuse and entertain the youngsters we will run a moving picture show on into the first watch when it should have been shut off in time to turn the men in at routine taps; and this happens time and again. Now this seems a small matter, but what is the real effect of this setting aside of just one event of the routine? It is just as essential a part of our organization that the men should be turned in and silence kept at nine o'clock as that they must turn out at five; imperative if we turn them out at five, Otherwise we are allowing or making them burn the candle at both ends.
And as to the moving picture shows and ship-board entertainments generally, it is to be observed that in the nature of the case officers and men sometimes find themselves unduly crowded together at these shows. Sometimes it is bad, sometimes it is not so bad, but to a more or less extent it is always so. This cannot help but be adverse to naval discipline.
The whole proposition of evening entertainments extending beyond tattoo on board ship is open to question. Those more ambitious shows might better be given in the afternoon. Moving picture shows should invariably end in time to get time-honored quiet and the men turned in at taps. Evening shows do no good. They may serve a bad purpose, on the contrary. They offer opportunities for undue liquor drinking to some of the younger officers, with sometimes the demoralizing spectacle of one or two affected young officers on board ship in sight of the men. And then there might follow something that is tyranny rather than naval discipline (it has occurred), namely; after the show one of the men may be apprehended under the influence of liquor. He is court-martialed.
Such an occurrence as this cannot elevate that confidence in naval discipline with which we must inspire our intelligent new navy man-o'-warsmen.
There is really a difference between our obligations when we are on ship-board, and what we may do when on shore.
Nothing has been instituted in the Navy so well calculated to help the spirit of our men and ameliorate the irksome periods of man-of-war life as amusements and athletics; but in handling the amusements of the men, it is repeating what has appeared in the pages of this publication before, to say that we do not have to "cater" to the men to make them contented. We have many youngsters who have not been long enough in the Navy to know much of the necessities of naval discipline. To cater to them will not bring contentment or naval discipline, it will only arouse in them a socialistic view of a naval system so weak. All the men's amusements should be so ordered as to in no way conflict with routine. How few men obey the call to "hammocks" now-a-days. Are the men to decide for themselves whether they shall or shall not obey a bugle? Yet this is practically what happens during a moving picture show when conflict with the routine allows the call to "hammocks" to sound during the show. Such a small thing as this cannot help but breed a deficient regard for many other bugle calls.
These things illustrate the important interdependence of routine and naval discipline, and how we must guard against commercializing naval discipline in amusing the men.
There are certain sanctums that must be maintained on board a man-of-war. The quarterdeck, the cabin, the ward-room, the junior officers' quarters, the c. p. o. quarters and the crew's deck space and living space. Each is consecrated as the residence of the appropriate authority. Officially they are established reservations. Where official lines ,are drawn and may not be officially broken, they may be broken unofficially only with the utmost discretion lest harm is done hard to repair. The harm to naval discipline by unofficially violating official limits is inversely in proportion to maturity and experience. The "captain and officers" can and must, to at times conform their official obligations to the social amenities, be hosts on board at an evening reception, during which the official barriers suffer no shock in being for the time removed while the quarterdeck is enjoyed indiscriminately. But should the men, with their immaturity of years and immaturity of character; their inexperience and their present-day somewhat uncertain understanding of naval discipline be conceded the privilege of holding a ball on board ship in the expectation of adding to their contentment, the event necessarily, to some extent, unofficially departs from their official limitations, and once their official limitations are thus tacitly admitted to be easily waived, successive occasions are apt to arise where wider latitude is sought. Restraints come to be difficult to exercise. Vexatious situations arise incompatible with a man-of-war, and a socialistic feeling toward necessary restraints and limitations will result, and this will breed discontent. All will be due to the very concession that was thought to make for contentment.
A general tautening up on board the ships would seem to be advisable in order that the men can have instilled into them the understanding that a battleship is first of all a man-of-war; and it would seem best for naval discipline that the men's social affairs should be held on shore. It might be applicable to observe that there can be some things on board ship which, if we "first endure," we finally are forced against our will "to embrace."
The transition from privilege to license may become undefined. What can we say of a battleship wherein the crew, very largely of youths who know nothing of the relation of the present-day navy to the navy of the past or to the navy of the future, are licensed to "take charge" on New Year's eve; a howling, riotous mob, setting off the general alarm, blowing on bugles every call in the category, parading throughout the ship, even to invading the officers' quarters, destroying thus the dignity of what should be a well-ordered, powerful fighting unit? Can it be possible that this adds to "contentment?" Is this an expression of naval discipline?
Or what shall we say of a system wherein the men, under cover of mask and wig in a ship's minstrel show, will ridicule some personal peculiarity of an officer? Is there not something wrong whereby the very suggestion requires us to exercise prevention to the end that it does not occur? Is this an expression of naval discipline?
Patriotism is a religion. A religion is taught by the example of its preachers and professors. The spirit which supports and animates the professors of a religion is given added strength by the vestments and ritual which hand on through generations the glories and beauties of the faith of the past, and which symbolize the virtues and the sacrifices of its saints and heroes.
To the Navy the uniform is its vestment and ceremony its ritual. The life of a fighting organization depends somewhat on its ceremonials. The order, some time ago, which transferred the Sunday dress inspection to Saturday was not enough, explicitly to require that the same uniforms and ceremonies with which we used to inspect the crew and ship on Sunday, should be conformed to on Saturday. Hence there has come to be a general abandonment of uniform on Saturday inspections. The result is that, to the men, a captain's inspection generally means nothing. Instead of that feeling that when the captain inspects "I must put on my best," one can pass the word "uniform blue dress" on a Saturday nowadays, till one is blue in the face, and many of the chief petty officers and men will assemble in second-best. What else can we expect when the captain 'inspects in "service" uniform? The influence of this one thing, in harmony with industrial and commercial expediency, is already manifest. We are occasionally receiving admonitions about quarter-deck ceremonials, and yet we have surrendered to an industrial system belittling the very ceremonials that breed the manners and customs which, in the old navy, held us up to standards that never required admonitions to get us up to and keep us there.
The present deck court law might be said to be an expression of naval commercialism and naval expediency at the sacrifice of good principle, in this way:
It appears that a demand arose for a simplification of the summary court method. On looking around, a parallel was apparently thought to be found in the army summary court, and the deck court was devised in consequence but from an entirely erroneous point of view. For the administration of discipline in the Army differs somewhat from the administration of discipline in the Navy.
It is understood that petty punishments in the Army are inflicted by the company commander. The summary court, it is understood, is constituted in a field officer; so that, in the Army, the passing up of disciplinary action is sound. But in the Navy we have devised a law whereby the captain of the ship is limited to infliction of petty punishments, and disciplinary action in the hands of one officer is passed down. That is to say the law now confides in a junior on board ship, punishment which it refuses to vest in the captain of the ship. The captain ought to be the deck court officer. Any such method as we are now following is apt to have its subtle influence for harm, is inconsistent with the proposition that increasing responsibilities would rest on increased rank, and is bound to be opposed to naval discipline.
An example of naval expediency which disregards naval principles is found in disorganizing a battleship during two or three months of repairs and commissioning temporarily another battleship. As a material achievement it demonstrates that there is ready another ship to take the place of a wounded ship, and the effect would not be bad if the officers and crew were not to return to their first ship. But in the process of transfer from, then to, the personnel gets somewhat shaken up and separated and ordered away, and the organization does not return to the first ship quite the same as it left it. It takes many months, not a few months, but many months to develop the organization of a battleship, to arrive at that point where every officer and man has found his proper niche, every round peg in a round hole, and every square peg in a square hole, and to solve problems of routine necessitated by physical qualities of the ship. One can go farther and say, that it is of some consequence to the temper and spirit of the men that day after day, for example, one man will have tacitly secured a right to a certain spot where he becomes accustomed to sit on his ditty box, or some auxiliary watch keeper will feel a comfortable possessorship in a six by two area where he is wont to spread out his newspaper and "caulk it off." Such is the complexity of the battleship's organization that the personnel becomes a very delicate element. If it occurs, in the fortunes of the sea, that one of the active fleet needs extraordinary repairs, she may possibly be set back a year by a disruption of personnel accomplished with the stroke of a pen. It is a question whether we have made reasonable progress in gunnery, in hitting, in very recent years. If we have not, it is partially accounted for by a constant upheaval of officers and men, possibly unavoidable, but opposed to progress.
The occasional attitude of ships towards ship's commissary departments might be said to be rather commercial. There was prepared several years ago, under the direction of a commandant of one of the training stations, an excellent manual, which, if followed on board ship, offers the best known means of getting the best out of our abundant navy ration. It is possible that some of the commissary officers have never given it much attention. It is possible that some of the commissary stewards have never seen the manual. It is possible that some of the ship's cooks and bakers do not know of its existence. Instead, in the occasional Ships, there seem to be two ideas, one of which usually dominates the commissary department. One is that, when inquiry is made as to how the general mess is getting along, the answer is—"there are no complaints." Now the prevailing type of our mano'- warsman is an uncomplaining man. He will put up with a lot. So in those commissary departments whose standard is never to hear a complaint, it can be surmised that whenever a complaint does come, conditions are poor.
The other objectionable idea is that the commissary steward hopes some day to receive from the crew a diamond-studded watch charm. It is the influence of this latter idea, which is purely a commercialized attitude toward duty, that may help to breed the spirit of graft.
It would not be fair to allow these observations to give the impression that the two ideas mentioned are the prevailing ideas. That is not so. On the contrary the majority of our general messes are examples of the best exhibitions of devotion to duty.
And furthermore, it ought to be said here that the foreigners see in our commissary departments and general messes a development to a point of excellence none of them have yet been able to reach.
But there is no reason why every ship should not have as the only standard in the general mess, that resulting from the standpoint, that it is a matter of plain simple duty to deliver at the men's mess tables the very best output that our galleys, with the abundant navy ration to work on, are capable of.
Whereby we may rely on the obligations due from the commissary department to the crew, not on the obligations the crew come to imagine they are under to the commissary department for running a fine general mess. This will result in the contented feeling on the part of the men that, anyhow, the general mess is doing the best it can in the best spirit.
Another example of naval commercialism may be said to lie in the neglect occasionally observable on the part of the executive officer's office to keep proper account of the expiration of petty officers' acting appointments, and of the end of the periods in other ratings where a decision affecting the present and future of the man ought to be made. Many executives will recall cases where petty officers apply for permanent appointments, when the executive's office should have been "on the job" to the end that the decision would be made without the man being obliged to apply for it. This tends to commercialize promotions in this way: Either a deserving man comes to see that nobody is looking out for him, or else less deserving men get the idea that promotions are to be had for the asking, and this results in some cases where the applicant in the end turns out to have had a persuasive manner and more aptitude for the money than for the duties. This cannot help but breed a low estimation of promotions and the system by which merit is not recognized until the deserving has to ask for it. The result is that chief petty officers must ask for their next promotion, that is, for the examination for permanent c. p. o. appointment. This is not the correct principle. Every acting c. p. o. should have his case taken up and decided on its merits whether the c. p. o. requests it or not. It would be well if the Department would rule that they themselves would refrain from occasionally giving a man a rate because he asks the Department for it. Authority to promote in excess of complement covers all cases pretty well. The men should be bred into a confidence that no rate comes for the asking, but that all rates are practically, as they are thought to be theoretically, the pure results of a standard system of selection on merit.
And in this connection an executive will occasionally have a division officer complaining that petty officer so-and-so is inefficient. And when we come to look into the record of the man we will find that the division officer has been giving the petty officer a 4 in proficiency in rating. Now what does a 4 mean when translated into words? It means "very good." Or, a division officer may recommend some youngster for discharge as undesirable, and the division officer's own proficiency marks will show by average that the man has been rated from "good" to "very good," from 3 to 4. Or, a man goes out with an ordinary discharge with an " obedience " mark averaging from 3 to 4, "good" to "very good," and yet his record is such as to leave no question but that he is not entitled to an honorable discharge. Or, a man goes out for a recommendation for a good conduct medal simply because, in that column, there are more yeses than noes. Now a good conduct medal means more than an honorable discharge; and it should not be understood that simply because the man has a clear record for the quarter he should necessarily have a "yes" as recommendation for a good conduct medal.
It would be better to abolish the quarterly recommendation for good conduct medal and the quarterly recommendation for character of discharge, and require those decisions when the man is paid off, by a careful survey of the entire record, particularly as now-a-days many men are transferred from ships so frequently that they not only have not time to buy new cap ribbons, but they are not long enough aboard the ship to become known. These things are submitted as tending to commercialize the standards that should exist, and they are undoubtedly inconsistencies. Take for example a petty officer recommended to be disrated for inefficiency. An examination of his record shows a long string of 4.0 quarter after quarter. That inconsistency is hard to explain. We ourselves know that a reduction in rating for inefficiency usually occurs after a known accumulation of exhibitions, none of which perhaps were made matters of record in the process of their accumulation; but the man's marks in the meantime should have been consistent with his value. If it can be said that there is so much to enter on the man's record as to result in the physical impossibility of each subject being carefully considered, then it might be better to simplify the record so that the entries which are of great concern to the future of the man shall be consistent, with as much regard for navy requirements as they should have for the man concerned.
One of the subtle influences at work adverse to naval manners and customs is the present day commercial method of addressing and signing correspondence, in which naval titles are suppressed. A mess attendant to-day, in writing, addresses a rear-admiral in the same manner that the rear-admiral would address the mess attendant, if there were cause for such communication. It is inconsistent not to have the formalities of official correspondence in harmony with the formalities of official intercourse. The spirit of a fighting organization cannot flourish amid inconsistencies.
Those whom in official intercourse, we address as "mister," should in written intercourse be addressed as "sir." The senior officer should subscribe himself "respectfully" in a written communication to the junior, and the junior should subscribe himself "very respectfully" in a written communication to the senior, and in a written communication to an enlisted man the superscription, as well as the salutation, "sir," should be omitted. This is old fashioned, but old fashioned things should not be supplanted by things which, though having some form, have not the substance.
And there are some further influences at work tending to socialization. It can be observed now-a-days that there is to some extent, indiscriminate social intercourse on board ship between ward-room officers and junior officers on the one hand, and officers of the warrant officers' mess on the other hand; and that warrant officers who have been commissioned as "chiefs" expect, in some cases, inclusion in events to which "commissioned officers" have been invited in an official capacity. This is a subtle tendency, incompatible with the separation of ranks and grades on ship-board, which, as an established principle, is fundamentally sound and necessary to naval discipline. It seems necessary to say, that we should not hesitate to recognize this tendency; and seeing it, we should firmly break it up. Ward-room and junior officers should be prohibited from visiting the warrant officers' quarters, and the warrant officers should be prohibited from visiting the junior officers' quarters. No junior officers' mess should be permitted to maintain a wine mess. With the historical carelessness of Mr. Midshipman Easy, they are apt to allow empty beer bottles to lie about, which is a spectacle calculated to demoralize those men whose duties take them through the junior officers' quarters.
And further, officers of the warrant officers' mess should be forbidden the privilege of the ward-room wine mess.
The Navy is distinctly not aristocratic. The national institutions and the democratic system of recruitment of both officers and men preclude that. It is a classified service. Theoretically its different classified grades are reached on merit. One of the qualifications for promotion up the grades is the character to meet the increasing responsibilities. One of the increasing responsibilities is the ability to set a good example, in the expectation that naval discipline will be healthier if it depends on following the example of our elders, rather than on being awed by "Such punishment as a court-martial may adjudge." And if example is to be telling, "familiarity breeds contempt." Youngsters and juniors must develop under restraints. Restraints are preventives. Good naval discipline is founded on preventives, not on correctives. (The best naval discipline has for one of its expressions the fewest reports at the mast.) To insist on a dignified unfamiliarity between the officers of different messes is not aristocratic or snobbish, it is nothing more than naval discipline on a sure foundation. There are hearts of gold and nature's noblemen in every walk and class in life, in the Navy as everywhere else, and when we see one of these fight his way up from naval apprentice into the ward-room, while we may have kept him at a dignified distance when he was in the warrant officers' mess, we ought to be proud to welcome him into the ward-room when he earns his ensign's commission. And that our navy can have its self-made man, as well as can civil life, constitutes a potential strength which we may be sure is not over-looked by any of the world's foreign offices.
The Navy of the United States has been an armed industrial organization from its earliest days. There never yet has been much that is military about our navy. From the days of Paul Jones, when the Bon Homme Richard was an Indiaman (built for an industrial career), pierced for a battery, down to the present day the Navy has been a fighting industrial organization. In a restricted use military pertains to soldiery. The only things military about our navy to-day are the Naval Academy, the training stations and the Marine Corps. Our young officers and our young man-o'-warsmen are bred under a military system for the naval service, and much of the military spirit disappears when, they get aboard ship and find that the military end of the profession is occupied by the marines and the masters-at-arms.
Our crews are law-abiding citizens. So would any aggregation of industrial workers be who were domiciled on board a ship of war with an independent and specialized "ship's police." It is convenient, and in harmony with naval industrialism to save the men from the cares and responsibilities of "police duty," by continuing the antiquated marine guard (officially called detachment now-a-days, but still spoken of by the marine officers as "the guard") and the masters-at-arms. (A distinction should be made between the term "police duty," which under the military system is a "detail," and "ships police," which under the naval system is a "specialty.")
It is in harmony with naval industrialism that we have not a workable manual of guard duty for ship board. It is in harmony with naval industrialism that the entering wedge of progress in naval discipline was withdrawn when the man-o'-warsmen were within these last two years prohibited from doing the small amount of guard duty, which, several years ago, was instituted with true instinct as to what constitutes the fundamentals of naval discipline.
Now from the earliest times a military system has evolved itself as the best means known to human experience through which to instil that esprit de corps which is essential to any armed force. And any armed force which is not maintained under a military System is not under the true system through which the highest spirit of the service can be achieved. Moreover one armed force without a military system, having its laws and orders enforced through another armed force with a military system, can never feel the truest esprit de corps. No questions of expediency or military or naval commercialism can satisfactorily account for the continuation of the marines in the complements of our ships. This pressing reform in the Navy might not be quite expedient, but it appeals more strongly to-day than when sixteen years ago it was first proposed by a far-sighted master of naval discipline. And it will continue to press as a reform, until it is admitted and recognized.
And had it been effected then, two years later, in 1898, it is probable that the commander-in-chief, off Santiago, would have had under his command in independent transports, a sufficient force of marines so that early in June a successful assault of the marines, supported by the army advancing westward along the beach, would have carried the Santiago Morro, would have swept the channel of mines, whereby the Spanish would have been taken in the flank supported by the secondary batteries, as the ships would have then been able to enter Santiago harbor, their main batteries taking care of the Spanish ships. And the surrender would have shortly followed; whereby hundreds of American soldiers would have been spared death from disease in the United States trenches. But instead, what? The Marine Corps then, as now, opposed the reform for its own reasons. The marines were scattered about at the ships' secondary batteries, and could not be massed for the shore assault without unmanning the very guns Which were necessary to support that assault.
If the Marine Corps is going to continue to be successful in opposing its concentration for its primary duty, we will surely some day have history repeating itself.
This proposition must only be approached with the broadest view and in the sincerest conviction that marines on board ship not only stand in the way of naval discipline, but also stand in the way of that concentration without which the corps can never be utilized to the extent to which it is capable.
History or practice does not support even the expediency of embarking the marines in our battleships. Every expeditionary force of marines we have moved in recent years has been moved in transports, excepting when the battleships have been diverted from their routine cruises to themselves serve as transports. A battleship can berth only so many men. Every man she can carry must have a battle station. What sort of a condition will we leave our ships in when the marines disembark as an advanced base force, and, possibly in the face of the enemy, thus leave a part of the battery unmanned? This reform was almost unanimously supported four years ago by the Navy, whereby is illustrated that the Navy itself understands the oppression of naval esprit de corps in continuing the marines for guard duty in our battleships.
When the marines are removed from the battleships and embarked as organized battalions in transports outfitted for all demands of advanced base duty and expeditionary duty, then will we have a military navy, and the military system under which our young officers and young man-o'-warsmen are being bred must be extended to embrace the whole navy, and one feature of naval industrialism will disappear forever. The next consistent reform to come will be the abolition of the rating of master-at-arms. No sincere advocate of the debarkation of the marines can insist on retaining the masters-at-arms. These, as such, remain an expression of naval industrialism, and continue as much a specially privileged class as the marines. What is known as the "police duty" of the ship will then be imposed on all the petty officers by roster. What answer would we get to this question put to a colonel of artillery, "Colonel, what would be the effect on the artillerymen here in your command, should we detail a company of marines to do your guard duty?" Suppose we would put this question to a colonel of marines, "Colonel, what would be the effect on the marines here in your barracks should we detail a company of bluejackets to do your guard duty?"
In trying to be persuasive, suppose we should again ask the colonel of marines, "But, colonel, we consider it a part of the necessary training of our man-o'-warsmen that they should have periodical guard duty in the marines' barracks so as to imbibe some of the 'military habit,' just as you think that the marines should have periodical guard duty in the battleships in the expectation that they. will thereby imbibe some of the 'sea habit.' Cannot you consent to that?" Is there any doubt as to what would be the answers? It is probably correct to say that military men regard the manual of guard duty as the holiest and most sacred of all the manuals. It can easily be said that the manual of guard duty is the text book of esprit de corps. Yet such a manual is not known on board the man-of-war. All this is why we are not a military navy. There are navies that are military navies. They do not embark marines and turn the guard duty over to them. They have begun under fundamentally correct military principles, and we know the esprit de corps of those navies is of a high order, and whenever we fall in with the ships of those navies we are impressed with the manifestations of the spirit and discipline of their men.
No proposition can be a reform sixteen years ago or four years ago and not be a reform to-day. Every proposition having to do with the elevation of character can be called a reform when it will stand the analysis of human experience. This is a reform from the standpoint of naval discipline, naval esprit de corps, and it cannot be destroyed, though through expediency it may be delayed in being put into effect. Once a proposition is admitted as being for a positive human uplift it becomes a reform, it always remains a reform, it cannot die and it should be constantly fought for. It is not at all impossible that naval legislation can be just as easily influenced in favor of "special privileges" within the Navy, as tariff legislation can be influenced in favor of special privileges dominating politics; and we would then have an example of legislation partaking of the character of naval commercialism. The man-o'-warsmen were commercialized when the reform to place them under a military system by removing the marines from the ships was temporarily prevented by legislation.
The difficulty will always be in trying to accomplish this reform, that while the Navy's purview would include the sphere of the Marine Corps, the Marine Corps confines its view to the Marine Corps only, not a navy view. The standpoint seems to be the fear that it will mean the loss of their identity. There is undoubtedly no occasion for any such fear. The Marine Corps is too firmly established. It has always had its particular place as an arm of the Navy. The Navy cannot do without it.
It can be confidently asserted that the non-commissioned officers and men of the Marine Corps manifest an esprit de corps more highly developed than is to be found in the rank and file of any of the armed forces of the United States. This splendid spirit is justly admired everywhere, and is a valuable asset to the country. It is but natural that naval officers, with enthusiasm for their own men, recognizing the unreached possibilities in a free development of their own men, should seek to develop the spirit of their men under a system which has brought about such fine expressions in the other arm of the Navy.
As esprit de corps develops, pride in the service develops. Discipline from every standpoint improves, because character improves. Elementary behavior improves when character oppressions are lifted. A more useful attitude toward the service will ensue because necessary restraints will then more .consistently appeal to intelligences with greater reasoning powers to-day than had the intelligences of sixteen years ago. From this standpoint the proposition is, broadly, a moral proposition. And more than this; this proposition not only constitutes a moral reform, but it is a military measure; just as sound as the principles under which an army is composed of the infantry, artillery and cavalry arms, each independent in its own well defined sphere, but co-operating and co-supporting.
It is apparent that the Marine Corps to-day, when thinking from a navy standpoint, realizes that its proper field is in that of the naval advanced base. The following quotations from The Naval Advanced Base, by a marine officer who has given the subject thought and study seem to support this contention. (Writing of the establishment of a temporary base) "Every man aboard the fighting ships would be needed, not one could be spared, and the lot of establishing and defending the advanced base selected would fall to an expeditionary force carried in transports along with the fleet." And again; " . . . . the establishment of the advanced base would have to be carried out with great despatch, and in the face of the enemy, . . . ."
And again; " . . . . that some of the battleships might remain at the selected base for its defense, but this is not the purpose of the battle fleet—its whole object in existence is to capture and destroy the enemy's fleet . . . ." And again; ". . . .fleet . . . .must contain. . . . a thoroughly equipped and trained advanced base force, ready to accompany . . . ." And just here it might be observed that the only way to thoroughly equip and train an advanced base force is to equip and train it. Every period of service in a battleship, while nourishing their esprit de corps, is time lost so far as advanced base training is concerned. For in the battleship the marines get less "sea habit" with man-o'-warsmen to do the seamen's jobs than they would cruising in a transport, put to it to do all their own seamen's jobs; and further the torpedo defense fire control which they learn in the battleship is of an entirely different order from the shore battery fire control they must learn on the advanced base defenses. And why not concentrate them on mastering the shore battery fire control they will have to use. And again; ". . . . no one in the naval service is prepared in all respects to undertake the work required to establish an efficient advanced base;" And, it might be observed here that so long as the marine's tour of duty in the battleship counts him eligible next for barracks duty, then they will never learn the advanced base work so long as they are carried in the complements of our ships, particularly as an increasing amount of expeditionary duty further interferes with advanced base training. But as soon as transport service and advanced base assignment becomes the marine's sea duty, then will the Marine Corps learn, advanced base work.
And again; " . . . . the ships of the fighting line can carry only sufficient men to man the guns and engines in war time, and that no one can be spared to man the defenses of a shore station be it ever so important." Which points out that we are carrying upwards of two thousand marines in our ships' complements which to-day should be putting in their sea service organized into two regiments learning advanced base duty; and these regiments should be relieved by others at periodical intervals, and naturally they would be, all being trained successively in the one modern reason for their existence. Then the writer says that" it had been . . . at once recognized that the officers and men had had no special training fitting them.. . ." and "in 1901 guns were taken from battleships and mounted on shore by marines," and now eleven years after, they are no farther ahead. Does not this show that they will not learn their advanced base duties until removed from the battleships and embarked in advanced base work? That their battleship service interferes with any advanced base practical work? Then the writer says that to promote in the Marine Corps an understanding of advanced base work "requires . . . . a realization that 'the old order passeth,' and that new duties, and responsibilities appear." Undoubtedly. And again; "In the old days the part assigned to the marines wasp to be a sharpshooter in the tops and along the rails, . . . . a role that has disappeared as completely as the swash buckling topsail yardman of the frigate of 1812." Undoubtedly. And finally to paraphrase a quotation we may say: "Hence if the" man-o'-warsman "of the future is to act well his part in the drama of naval warfare" . . . . "he must receive an essential part of his training aboard the ships," (and combining with this another quotation) and "must at all times be under the military command of their own officers, to secure the proper control, discipline, and uniformity of action." This is only applying to the man-o'-warsman what is suggested as necessary to apply to the marine.
As long as we remain an industrialized navy, the complexities of our organization are going to increase. When we begin to have a homogeneous ship's company under a military system, little by little we will learn how to replace complexities by simplifications; and the hundred and ten ratings that now appear on our complement sheet, we will find to slowly amalgamate, and diminish in number, at least to some extent.
The increasing size of our ships and the physical difficulties of exercising that penetrating command of the officer of the deck requisite in a man-of-war, suggest study with a view to organizing a duty detail best exemplified in the seaman guard; whereby, in time, will be included duties now done by masters-at-arms, quartermasters, boatwain's mates of the watch, the anchor watch, the side boys, the messengers, as well as the petty officer of the guard and sentinels, all duty details which experience will demonstrate, both underway and at anchor, can in time amalgamate and get away from specialization. This navy trade unionism, whereby we feel that only special rates can do the name duty, is one cause for our extravagance in personnel—more people than we need to get along with, in peace time. Then we will have an organization equal to peace demands and capable of expanding without upheaval for a war footing. Something like, though not quite yet so simple as the expansion of a peace strength regiment of field artillery to a war footing strength, but on the same principle. This may be a dream but it is not impossible. And anything not impossible can be achieved, provided the organization tends toward that achievement.
It would seem now, on looking back, that when, four years ago, the ships' marines were landed and military duties were confided to the men, the seamen guard organization by which this was instituted was defective in being approached from an incorrect standpoint. The masters-at-arms were increased which was incorrect. An attempt, was made to give a whole ship's division at a time guard duty. This was incorrect and naturally threw ship's work out of balance. No standard manual was devised for guard duty on ship board, whereby the dignity and elevating influences of guard duty would have become standardized and impressive. The result was that the seaman guard was not organized in a direct simple manner, by detail by roster from all divisions, in accordance with the best practice and experience as found in our manual for the landing force. Had it been so approached, the seamen guard would have been no more troublesome than a "working party." In fact it would have been a dignified "working party" for a twenty-four hours tour of duty. Consider, approached from this standpoint, what opportunities for gradually including in the seaman guard all the seaman duties and all the military duties including shore patrol, that readily lend themselves to a perfect combination; which in a homogeneous organization would be accomplished eventually by fewer men than we now require to accomplish them! This appears to be organization. This is nothing but "scientific management" applied to the handling of men.
The tendencies of the present-day navy manifested by the suppression of old navy manners and by a trend toward socialization need not be said to be an unfortunate sign. For the high qualities of character and intelligence in our modern man-o'-warsmen, in simply seeking independence and the freedom to develop, are impelled by a democratic inheritance; and if they are not led, in this instinctive effort of human nature to develop, along lines directed to the strengthening of the spirit of the future navy, their unconscious ambitions will find inconsistent outlets, which to their natures are the easiest. And if our organization does not keep pace with this ever improving quality in the men, then we are not getting out of them and into the Navy the best of which those men are capable of being led to give.
This tendency toward socialization—toward a levelling of ranks and ratings—is partly the inevitable result of a system opposed to breeding that military spirit which we associate with war energy. Where the proper balance is not preserved between things material and things spiritual, and where the pendulum is allowed to swing so far as to place undue emphasis on the things material, it becomes easy and natural to relax the methods whose daily unseen influences habituate men into a condition which is known to a military organization as discipline.
Thus we allow ourselves to drift into a state where we become incapable of demanding high standards of ordinary duty in our men. To illustrate: To a private of marines we will give a general court for going to sleep on watch. To a man-o'-warsman, guilty of the same dereliction, he may be penalized in any degree from extra duty to a summary court. Does this express on our part, on the part of the officers, a recognition of high standards? If we do not demand of the men high standards in matters of common duty in time of peace, have we any right to demand of our torpedo defense watches a bright lookout in the dead of a cold, rainy night in time of war,—on a night after a day's action wherein men's mental, moral and physical powers had already been strained to the utmost? If our methods do not, in time of peace, instil into the men a recognition of the dignity of the Navy—of every duty that must be demanded of them—can we expect them to be trained into that mental and moral attitude upon which the Navy must rely in time of war?
Still there is a comforting and better side to it. This tendency toward navy socialization indicates that the men in respect to intelligence and personal qualities, are overtaking the officers. This is entirely in harmony with democratic development. We can surmise what will be the outcome in some future generation. The Naval Academy, as such, will cease to exist. The training stations will succeed the Naval Academy.- The officers will be recruited from the men, and the institution at Annapolis will then become a vast postgraduate school. Already the signs point that way. Can anyone deny that this is the ideal? Will not the nation then have in its personnel of the Navy the intellectual and mental forces that should make the Navy of the United States the most powerful the world has ever dreamed of? But intellect without the military spirit will not win battles.
It cannot be denied that, while the average officer in professional scope (due to the material expansion of the Navy) is the superior of the same average of sixteen years ago, the average to-day in the personal qualities of the men is vastly superior to that average in the men of sixteen years ago; so that, to-day, there is not that same intellectual gulf between Officer and man as existed formerly: and it is narrowing from year to year. So, from year to year, while these qualities in the average man are slowly elevating themselves toward the level of the same qualities in the average officer, and beginning now, naval discipline will require each officer to earnestly strive to attain those particular qualities of heart and mind and personality that in the last analysis distinguish men who are fit to be officers, fit to command man-o'-warsmen. These in our navy, can be the only qualities that separate the officer from the man. This should be the spirit that should come to consciously prevail among the men—that their officers are their officers by virtue of their personal qualities; and not because chance gave them a Naval Academy education and placed them, perhaps in spite of themselves, in line of promotion.
We must not say that our obligation to the Navy ends with the navy of the present; for if true statesmanship builds to the end that the nation may endure in power and prosperity, then the true esprit de corps of the Navy must maintain that firm, unyielding, consistent, just, impartial, uniform, military system by which, only, the Navy, will grow in moral and spiritual power as time goes. This, only, will distinguish a military establishment from an industrial establishment. This can only be expressed through military organization and naval routine and regulations, naval manners and customs. These also must be the influences in our daily life on shipboard; and these are what come to be comprehended in the term naval discipline.
From time to time, as the man-o'-warsman develops, restraints can gradually be ameliorated. To this end our minds should be constantly on this subject, that we may get the best out of the men by lifting restraints as their characters develop. Ameliorations we have witnessed and are witnessing; but no just and necessary restraint can safely be lifted until we are satisfied that the average man-o'-warsman has been developed to the point where naval discipline will not thereby be shocked.
This points to another manifestation of naval industrialism. What appears to be needed in the service to-day, is not so much a minute standardization of punishments, operative only on a small minority of the men, but a standardization of privileges, restraints and limitations, operative on the entire body of the men; as free, and as generous and ameliorated as is possible—which goes with out saying, consistent with the military ends of the Navy and with the present stage of development of the characters of the men. This competition among the ships to see who can have the most "contented" ship, is the inevitable result of a discipline constantly drifting farther away from that which should inhere in a military organization, toward that which most readily harmonizes with the spirit of an industrial organization—with the material and commercial aspirations common to activities in civil life all over the country to-day. This is perfectly natural, when one reflects that we are still carrying two bodies of men in our ships' complements, differently commanded and differently uniformed; one, the marines, in which is emphasized military standards, military duties and military relationships; and the other, the man-o'-warsmen, in which is emphasized industrial standards, industrial duties and industrial relationships. In military life there comes military contentment because military instincts and relationships suppress social instincts. In industrial life there is no such thing as industrial contentment, due to the injustice of our economic laws; that is only a lesser degree of industrial discontent. Industrial discontent is the outcome of the social instinct. What might be called industrial contentment is an inactive industrial discontent. In civil life it always smoulders. It is breaking out now here, now there, all over the world, but whether active or inactive it is always there. The shipboard social instinct is human. It is that quality in our brand of human nature that must, in the Navy, be subjugated by the military system, and brought into conformity with military relationships. It is inconceivable that we can mold our human nature into a human weapon unless we bring into subjection those human instincts that are opposed to military standards. The social instinct in its full and complete development is socialism. As a political creed, socialism is openly opposed to the military instinct. It is for peace by equalization.
Therefore, it would seem true, that in our anxiety to promote contentment we are, in some cases, unconsciously impelled by industrial motives, and not altogether guided by military instinct. We are constantly interested in what this other or that other ship is doing in the way of extending privileged, in the feeling that we must go her one better. We are frequently having requests, which mean to relax a little here, or to relax a little there, because "they do it in" some other ship; and this breeds in the officers and men the belief that the Regulations can be set aside as the captain deems expedient. There is a lack of uniformity in this respect among the ships, just as there is a lack of that uniformity among industrial organizations ashore.
This is the manner in which naval discipline is giving way to industrial and commercial expediency; and the reason for it lies in the system wherein, in carrying the marines, we come to try to gain military ends without using military methods.
All this does not apply to the excellent institutions under cognizance of the Fleet Regulations; but it applies to the whole range of limitations, restraints and privileges, which, rapidly widening and rapidly easing up from year to year, not standardized, not held in one firm grip, but decided as individual ships deem expedient, seem to be carrying us farther away from the influences of standard routine manners and customs; tending to lower the standard of naval duties that are not strictly industrial duties.
Military contentment is an asset. One illustration of the superior value of military contentment to elementary discipline lies in the fact, that on board of our ships carrying marines (when the marines are ably commanded), among them, petty infractions of rules and regulations are rare; while among the man-o'-warsmen in the same ship delinquencies against order, routine and regulations are relatively frequent, many of which never come to be placed on the report book.
Undoubtedly it is unavoidable, that, in times of peace, our, recruiting posters must make their appeals through offers of industrial opportunities; but we should take care that subsequently, the industrial and material outlook should not only not be magnified, but should rather be gradually subordinated to the true spirit of the service, whose only outlook is that the end of the Navy is to win battles against odds. It is our business to develop a naval discipline that will win our battles with the odds against us, at the same time to keep it in complete accord with democratic standards and democratic aspirations. This we cannot do when our naval discipline remains in accord with monarchic repression.
Good naval discipline is good strategy. To study naval discipline is to study strategy. And so it can be correctly inferred that our imperfect naval discipline is at bottom on a wrong foundation, due to the deep, subtle, unseen influences of the system whereby, in our otherwise advanced and otherwise enlightened navy, we carry marines in our complements. It is bad strategy; but because we have won our battles in the past in spite of bad strategy, there is no justification in continuing bad strategy.
The Marine Corps at present is an unorganized corps, whose units must be hastily built up when emergency demands. It should be organized from top to bottom into regiments, battalions and companies, distinct and constant units, for the sake of greater cohesion from constant association in service. The battleships should stand ready to embark them, if that seems the most expedient, or in the absence of transports, a company to a ship, for expeditionary duty or for advanced base duty. The ships' organizations should stand ready to berth and mess them, and storerooms should be designated which can be quickly vacated for storage of the company's impedimenta.
But this naval discipline demands: When thus embarked for transportation, the marines must not have any duties concerned with the day to day life on shipboard not incident to their embarkation, or any duties concerned in the slightest degree with the handling or discipline of the man-o'-warsmen ; nor must .they have any station in the battery organization, for those are the guns that must support their landing. The primary duty of the Marine Corps is distant shore service. The primary duty of the battery is to meet the enemy's ships. This is all good strategy.
Thus it may be said, that, to prevent the socialization whose influence has always been to weaken the military ardor, and at the same time to utilize fully the intellectual forces which bring about that very socialization, naval discipline demands two things.
First: That the ranks, the officers, must themselves strive to reach a high standard of culture and refinement in order that the gulf between them and the ratings, the men, shall be maintained to the end that commands come naturally to the one, and obedience comes naturally to the other.
Second: That the organization, limitations, restraints, and manners and customs which govern and define all the varying relationships of rank to rank, rank to rating, and rating to rating, must have underlying them thoroughly military principles and military consistencies; for mankind knows of no other system that can so well mold an efficient human nature into an efficient human weapon as the military system.
Ship organization can be said to come under tactics—it must be altered to use new weapons. The weapon controlled by organization is intelligence. A keener intelligence has given us a new weapon. The new intelligence which organization is to manipulate is capable of wider uses, greater results and greater sacrifices when it is required to meet military obligations as well as industrial obligations.
Naval manners and customs can be said to come under strategy—whose underlying principles and influences are unalterable. The influences of naval manners and customs go into the spirit of the service. That has won our battles in the past. It will win our battles in the future.
Thus it seems clear, that marines on board our ships of the line, while they assist in the industrial development of the man-o'-warsman, stand in the way of his military development, and therefore in the way of naval discipline. Military spirit is only half-hearted at best, when there is a military development that, at best, is only half-hearted. Success in battle would not appear to tax the military spirit, but adversity in battle would appear to call upon a naval discipline developed to the highest possible degree, if we would escape demoralization. The highest degree of naval discipline can be bred only strictly in accordance with what we understand to be meant by military principles. But whether it be success or adversity, no call will be made whatever on the industrial spirit; the demand will be made on the military spirit, only; even into the remotest coal bunker and into the remotest handling room. While the strength of the spirit of our service is derived from the victories of the past, we cannot ignore consideration of the future, when our naval discipline may be called upon to lift us over an adversity.
No discoveries are herein made. Rather has it been sought to emphasize the causes which appear to bring about the effects. Our elders recognize the effects. But admonitions are only temporary correctives. The simple truth would seem to be that we have out-grown old navy ship organization and have not found out yet the proper new navy ship organization. It is organization with all its influences that we must study as applied to the new navy man-o'-warsman. Transitory periods are dangerous lest the elders allow to become custom and precedent some things that by common experience are opposed to the spirit of naval discipline. This is what each new generation of naval officers inherits, the spirit of it all; and this is what each elder generation of naval officers, holding firmly to the best out of the past yet with open minds in looking to the best for the future, must hand down, not only unimpaired but finer and stronger.
This is the conclusion. The modern navy should be working under a system that will tend to achieve just the same homogeneity in the crew that we are achieving in ships of the fleet, and in the batteries of the ships. The modern man-o'-warsman should be under a military system to the end that homogeneity can be had only that way. The military spirit—the martial spirit—should be bred hand in hand with the industrial spirit; not to emphasize unduly militarism over industrialism, nor to allow industrialism to tend to displace naval manners and customs. Thus would we eventually have such a MAN-0'-WARSMAN as the world has never before known! Then we will have a MILITARY NAVY!