V.
NAVAL SHIPS AND CONGRESSIONAL INVESTIGATIONS, 1869-1881.
The duties that fell to the navy during the peaceful administrations of Grant and Hayes were not specially important. Its vessels made the usual cruises in foreign waters for the protection of American property, commerce and citizens. A few of them were engaged now and then in making hydrographic surveys or in performing other scientific tasks. The fleet was regularly divided into the North Atlantic, South Atlantic, European, Pacific and Asiatic squadrons, and "vessels on special service," but at times the North Atlantic and Pacific squadrons were each divided into two divisions.
Twice during Grant's first administration a war with Spain seemed imminent. The war-scare of 1875, which has now been generally forgotten, soon subsided, but not until the department had concentrated a fleet at Port Royal, South Carolina, and had ordered home some of its ships from Europe and South America. The war-scare of 1873-1874, known as the Virginias episode, is probably familiar to most readers. A notion of the extent of the warlike preparations that were then made by the Navy Department may be obtained from a letter of Secretary Robeson to James A. Garfield, chairman of the House Committee on Appropriations. On December 8, 1873, Robeson wrote: "I have taken measures to put every available iron and wooden ship of our Navy in condition for immediate duty. I have ordered all the ships of the various squadrons within reach to rendezvous at Key West. I am enlisting men to supply and fill up the crews of all our vessels. I have accumulated materials, provisions and supplies for their maintenance and support, and ordnance, ammunition and all the weapons of naval warfare for their use."
Early in 1874 the differences between the two governments were settled by peaceful means, and the navy and the department settled down to that state of passivity and stagnation which generally characterized them at this time. The panic caused by the Virginius episode cost the department some $5,000,000, an expenditure for which no adequate return was received. The assemblage of a fleet, however, served to reveal the extreme weakness of the materiel of the navy. Rear Admiral Robley D. Evans says that the force which was collected at Key West in the winter of 1873-1874 "was the best, and indeed about all, we had. We had no stores, or storehouses to speak of at this so-called base of supplies, and if it had not been so serious it would have been laughable to see our condition. We remained several weeks, making faces at the Spaniards ninety miles away at Havana, while two modern vessels of war would have done us up in thirty minutes. As there was to be no war, the authorities in Washington allowed the foreign attaches to come and inspect us, and report our warlike condition to their different governments. We were dreadfully mortified over it all, but we were not to blame; we did the best we could with what Congress gave us." Several weeks were spent by the squadron in fleet maneuvers before its vessels separated.
Owing to the Virginius episode the annual expenditures of the Navy Department during the period 1869-1881 reached their highest mark in the fiscal year 1874, when they amounted to $30,859,000. They were lowest in 188o, when they had fallen to $13,537,000. They were much higher under Grant than under Hayes. The annual average expenditures for the eight years 1870-1877 were $21,709,000; and for the four years 1878-1881, $15,428,000. The total expenditures for the former period were $173,675,000; for the latter, $61,714,000; and for the twelve years, $235,389,000. By counting certain proceeds derived from the sale of vessels and certain payments of money made under Thompson, but really chargeable to Robeson, the minority of a committee of the House of Representatives friendly to Robeson calculated that the expenditures of the Navy Department from July 1, 1869, to June 30, 1877, were $186,311,000. According to these figures, the annual expenditures during these eight years were $23,289,000. The chief items of expenditure were "for pay and support of the navy and marine corps," $73,700,000; "for construction and repair and steam engineering," $53,429,000; and "for yards and docks," $18,714,000.
The navy cost the country considerably more money during the eight years of Grant's administration than during the eight years 1884-1891 when the new navy was under construction. During the seventies Congress was indifferent to naval affairs, rather than parsimonious in its naval expenditures. It gave liberally for the maintenance of the navy, but almost nothing for the construction of new ships. It viewed with unconcern their increasing decay and obsoleteness. Questions of reconstruction, finance, and party success engrossed its attention. The Democratic party was especially committed to the policy of economy in the management of naval affairs. A Democratic House of Representatives, which first came into power in December, 1875, was largely responsible for the reduction in naval expenditures that was made in the immediately succeeding years. The Democrats succeeded in discrediting Robeson's administration, and in creating a sentiment for reform and retrenchment in the management of the department. During 1877-1881 the navy touched its low-water mark. Indeed, probably less was done for the improvement of the fleet under Hayes than during any administration since that of Jefferson.
Many members of Congress believed that, owing to the large national debt, the country was not able to embark upon a program of naval construction. The opinion was common that the United States should not adopt the policy of building seagoing war vessels after the manner of the European nations, but should confine its construction to coastwise vessels of defense, to monitors, torpedoes and marine rams. This view was well expressed by Senator George S. Boutwell, of Massachusetts, the most seafaring state in the union. In February, 1877, he said in the Senate that he believed that the "time passed several years ago when it was for the interest of this country to make the least preparation for an open sea fight. Anybody who looks at the character and extent of this country, the number of its people, and the magnitude of our influence as a nation, must see that an open sea fight would settle nothing in any controversy that we might have with any power upon the face of the globe; and to be expending money year after year, whether one million a year or ten millions a year, or twenty millions a year, with the idea that something is to be gained in a naval contest, has no foundation in any generous conception of public policy." He thought that it was not for the "interest of this country to expend a dollar for naval appropriations directly, except such as are necessary for coast defenses. To such perfection has the construction of torpedoes and steam-rams been carried that there is not a navy on the face of the earth which could enter a harbor that is protected by these modern inventions." If vessels were to be built, he would construct those of about one thousand tons each, capable of carrying from eight to ten guns-and of out-sailing the larger ships of war. However, "such is the pre-eminence of this country to-day, so valuable is it a market for the products of every nation on the globe, that we can command our rights by withdrawing our diplomatic representatives from any country on the face of the earth."
Like Boutwell, many of the naval experts in Congress and some of the secretaries of the navy pinned their faith to torpedoes, marine rams, submarine batteries and smooth-water monitors; the "monitor heresy" was still vigorously thriving. Even these minor craft were not regarded as essential by the more rhetorical and sentimental members of the House, for they were able to discover an adequate naval defense in the great moral force, of the American people, and in the intelligence, industry and ingenuity of the most powerful nation on the face of the globe. Senator John Sherman, of Ohio, once suggested that the Navy Department might well be made a bureau of the War Department. By no means, however, were all the members of Congress opposed to an offensive seagoing fleet, and especially during Hayes's administration did sentiment in behalf of the reconstruction of the navy increase. Indeed, the naval committees of Congress outran the Secretary of the Navy in recommendations for the construction of new vessels. Neither Secretary Thompson nor President Hayes took an aggressive stand on this question. Hayes seemed to have almost forgotten that his country had a navy. Grant, on the other hand, was more interested in naval matters, and was somewhat inclined to improve the fleet.
Robeson was more favorably disposed towards rebuilding and modernizing the navy than Thompson, although his utterances were not wholly consistent. In his first annual report he earnestly urged the building of seagoing ironclads. In the midst of the Virginius episode he said that "recent events have demonstrated to all that the great immediate military necessity of this nation is seaworthy war vessels, adequate to contend with those of other nations, and well-armed and completely equipped for cruising or fighting." On the other hand, in this last report he conceived that we might "well dispense, for the present at least, with the heavy armored and unwieldy ironclads of European nations, and also with the monster cannon necessary to penetrate them." Robeson, however, never balked at large naval expenditures, and he often stretched the law in order to obtain money for the construction of new ships. Thompson, on the other hand, made no clear-cut recommendations in behalf of a new navy. His reports contain long-winded discourses, in which he attempts to show that the navy and the mercantile marine are mutually advantageous to each other. From these, by proper industry, one- may obtain the notion that he wished to have some new ships added to the fleet, sometime, when the public finances would permit it.
Not a few of the older naval officers pointed out to the proper authorities the weakness of our naval defense. They instituted comparisons showing that the American navy was yearly falling farther and farther behind the European navies in type and number of vessels, ordnance, and general condition of the whole naval materiel. They made it clear that the large list of vessels in the Navy Register was in reality a paper fleet, and that it would be of little service in time of war. No one person did so much to call attention to the actual state of the navy as Admiral Porter. Never inclined to mince his words, he expressed his views with great bluntness and vigor. In 1874 he declared in his annual report to Secretary Robeson that "there is not a navy in the world that is not in advance of us as regards ships and guns, and I, in common with older officers of the service, feel an anxiety on the subject which can only be appreciated by those who have to command fleets and take them into battle." Moreover, "if called upon at this time to command the naval forces of the United States, in case of hostilities, a position which it is my ambition and my right to fill, I should be put to my wit's end to succeed with such an incongruous set of vessels as we now possess. Prudence would probably recommend that they be shut up in port and no fleet operations attempted with them—sending the wooden vessels abroad singly to do all the damage possible until captured by the enemy; our 50-gun frigates perhaps succumbing to a 2-gun clipper armed with 10-inch rifles, and our smaller cruisers driven off by merchant vessels carrying rifle guns of lesser caliber." Porter said that "it would be much better to have no navy at all than one like the present, half-armed and with only half-speed, unless we inform the world that our establishment is only intended for times of peace, and to protect the missionaries against the South Sea savages and eastern fanatics." Of all the vessels on the navy list he considers serviceable only 39 wooden ships of war and 6 monitors. "One such ship as the British ironclad Invincible," he declared, "ought to go through a fleet like ours and put the vessels hors de combat in a short time, for she could either run them down or destroy them at long range with her heavy rifled guns. We have no ordnance that would make any impression on such a ship at a distance of over six hundred yards, and no vessel of equal speed in our navy would be placed under her fire by a prudent commander."
The period of 1869-1881 was one of differences of opinion among both naval amateurs and experts. This was in part doubtless inevitable, for a revolution, or several revolutions, were going on in naval science. The contests between wood and iron, and between iron and steel, as materials for the construction of ships; between steam and wind as motive powers; between armored and unarmored ships; between ordnance and armor; and between ships and torpedoes4; were all still undecided. Robeson was much criticized for the kind of vessels that he built. But he doubtless followed the best light that he could obtain. The policy which the government should have pursued under Robeson and Thompson is precisely the one which it later followed under Chandler and Whitney. It should have disposed of its worthless ships and of the huge quantities of old naval materials dating from the Civil War that encumbered the naval yards and stations. The running expenses of the navy under Robeson should have been reduced one-third, and this saving should have been expended for ships and guns of the most approved models. Had the government waited until the art of naval construction reached a static condition it would, even up to the present time, have constructed no new ships.
The total number of vessels in the navy in March, 1869, was 203; and in January, 1881, 139. This reduction, which was made almost entirely during 1869-1877, was caused by the loss of vessels at sea, by the sale of those that were obsolete or worthless for naval purposes, and by the breaking up of old ships for the uses of new. The number of vessels kept in commission was about fifty. Some notion of the character of these vessels may be obtained by considering the qualities of the flagships of the squadrons in 1876. They were all wooden, screw-propelled steamers with auxiliary sail-power. The Franklin, built in 1853, was a first-rate ship, with a tonnage of 3173 tons. The Brooklyn, Hartford, Richmond and Pensacola were second-raters and sister ships, dating from 1857 and having a tonnage of about 2000 tons. The Tennessee, which was of a later date, mounted twenty-three guns and had a tonnage of 2135 tons.
Congress authorized not a single vessel during the administration of Thompson, and only ten small craft during that of Robeson. In March, 1871, six hundred thousand dollars were appropriated towards the construction of two small iron-plated torpedo boats. These craft were completed in 1874, and were the first of their class in the American navy. The two boats, which were named the Intrepid and Alarm, were built experimentally and were only moderately successful. The Alarm was constructed from plans designed by Admiral Porter. Her dimensions were: Length, including a ram thirty feet long, 173 feet; breadth, 28 feet; and depth of hold below the spar deck, 13 feet. After modifications had been made in her machinery, the Alarm was considered well adapted in many respects for the service for which she was designed. In the seventies the science of torpedoes and torpedo-boats was in its infancy. Rear-Admiral Evans is of the opinion that most of the torpedoes manufactured at this time were "good only for newspaper stories, or to scare timid people with."
In 1873, in accordance with an act of Congress, the construction of eight small steam vessels-of-war was commenced. These, together with the two torpedo-boats, were the only vessels authorized by Congress during the years 1864-1881. Their total cost was less than one-half that of a modern battleship. Three of the eight ships ordered in 1873 had a tonnage of 541 tons each; four of 615 tons each; and one, the Trenton, of 2343 tons. The Trenton was a wooden frigate, and when completed was considered the finest ship in the navy. The other seven vessels were either iron or wooden gunboats. Of the eight ships, three were built by the department, and five by private builders. Two or three small vessels were purchased during Robeson's administration.
Most of the vessels added to the navy during the Civil War were built under the stress of a great emergency and were not adapted for permanent acquisitions to the fleet. Unseasoned timbers, imperfect fittings and faulty machinery were often used in their construction. As a consequence they rapidly deteriorated. The keeping up of a navy of this sort inevitably absorbed large sums of money. Old patches were continually repatched. The repairs of the Madawaska (or Tennessee), within fifteen years after she was completed, almost equaled in cost the original value of the ship, $1,856,000. In 1883 the ninety-two best vessels of the navy had cost for repairs more than their original cost of construction. For many years old worthless hulks in ordinary stood rotting at the wharves or remained upon the stocks unfinished, until the expense of their maintenance exceeded several times their actual value. Robeson spent millions of dollars in repairing and rebuilding ships, and at the end of his administration had nothing to show for his work but an obsolete fleet in poor condition. Under him the two principal working bureaus of the Navy Department, Construction and Repair, and Steam Engineering, spent more than $6,000,000 a year. Under Thompson they spent about one-half of that sum. During the administration of the latter the condition of the fleet rapidly deteriorated. Moreover, Robeson could blink long stretches of authority, while Thompson refused to overlook the plain letter of the law. Robeson, therefore, was able to add several new vessels to the fleet under the disguise of repairing old ones. In June, 1882, speaking of the navy under Thompson, Robeson said in a speech in the House of Representatives, of which body he was then a member, that $73,000,000 had been spent for the navy in the last five years and that not one ship had been launched, except the Nipsic, which he had finished, and not one new gun had been put afloat.
Beginning in 1872 Robeson thoroughly overhauled fifteen or sixteen of the single-turreted monitors, dating from the Civil War. Some of their principal wooden parts were taken out and iron was substituted. This work went on in 1873 and 1874 under the added stimulus of the Virginius episode. A part of the $4,000,000 which Congress appropriated to meet the extraordinary expenses incurred at this time was used in the repairing of these ironclads. Robeson was much criticised for this expenditure as being a waste of money, but under the circumstances of the time it was proper and advisable. The repairs of these ironclads seem to have come within the law, notwithstanding that they were quite extensive.
Still more extensive were the "repairs" that Robeson made to certain old wooden ships. In this case his authority to perform the work is, to say the least, questionable. The "repairs" consisted of the construction of new ships under the guise of repairing old ones. Often it would have been more economical to have sold the old vessels, as it cost more to tear them up than their materials were worth. But under the circumstances such a disposition was wholly out of the question, for it involved the erasing of their names from the list of naval vessels, and these must be preserved at all hazards in order to maintain the fiction of making repairs. Robeson said that this method of repairing ships had been long followed by the department. The old historic ship Constitution, for instance, had several times been rebuilt in this way. Moreover, he conceived that it was to the navy's advantage, for in the end it obtained a new vessel, instead of an old one with innumerable patches. Granting this, it did, however, seem to be stretching the law almost to the breaking point, when the "repairing" of an old vessel, perchance at the time many miles away, was commenced by laying down a new ship of a somewhat different model from that of the old. Of course the great advantage of Robeson's system was that the navy acquired new vessels, notwithstanding Congress was unwilling to authorize them. To be repaired in this way Robeson selected a ship for each of the seven principal navy-yards: at Portsmouth, the Marion; Boston, the Vandalia; New York, the Swatara; Philadelphia, the Quinnebaug; Washington, the Nipsic; Norfolk, the Galena; and Mare Island, the Mohican. Several other vessels Robeson so thoroughly repaired that they lacked but little of being made into new ships. Of course this work was expensive. In the end you had a new ship, it is true, but one of an old and possibly obsolete model.
On the recommendation of Robeson, Congress on June 23, 1874, authorized the Secretary of the Navy to use the balance of an appropriation for a floating dry dock, amounting to about $900,000, for the purpose of "completing the repairs" of four double-turreted monitors, Miantonomoh, Monadnock, Terror, and Amphitrite. These vessels, which were built during the Civil War, were considered very formidable ships and valuable for either coast defense or deep-sea navigation. The Miantonomoh had visited Europe, and the Monadnock had made the voyage to San Francisco by way of Cape Horn. Robeson decided to thoroughly "repair" them, putting into the new vessels but few materials of the old. The names of the latter, however, were to be carefully saved for the use of the new ships. Iron hulls were to be substituted for the old wooden ones. The new monitors were to be larger than the old, and were to be more heavily armored and to be fitted with better machinery. Robeson contracted with each of four private shipbuilder's to build one of the new ships. He also concluded to "repair" the single-turreted monitor Puritan, the construction of which had been begun by John Ericsson in 1862, but had not been completed.
The Secretary of the Navy contracted with John Roach, a famous shipbuilder of Chester, Pennsylvania, to construct the new Puritan and Miantonomoh. To cut down the expense of building these two ships, he turned over to Roach the old Puritan and ten old monitors and steamships of little value. For the old iron in these vessels Roach allowed Robeson one and three-fourths cents a pound. In a similar way the new Amphitrite and Terror, after swallowing up the original ships of these names, absorbed several other useless naval hulks. For this bartering of old ships, the Secretary of the Navy was severely criticised, and many members of Congress considered it illegal, since there was a law directing that the proceeds arising from the sale of old ships should be turned into the federal treasury. A legal disposition, however, did not serve the purpose of the Secretary, since thereby the navy would have lost the use of the old ship, the proceeds derived from its sale, and especially its name invaluable for keeping up the fiction of "making repairs." Robeson thought the end justified the means.
After its first appropriation of some $900,000 Congress refused to vote money for the reconstruction of the ironclads. Robeson, however, continued the work, as best he could, with money drawn from the appropriation for the "repair of ships." When Congress greatly decreased this appropriation the work on the five vessels came to a standstill. The Secretary of the Navy now resorted to a questionable expedient. On one of the very last days of his administration he contracted for the completion of four of the vessels on the condition that the government should not be bound to pay any money until Congress should appropriate it. The rescinding of these contracts, which were regarded as illegal, was one of the first acts of Secretary Thompson. Congress now proceeded to investigate Robeson's actions in respect to the five monitors, which for several years remained in an unfinished state in the yards of private builders at a heavy cost to the government for rent, and which were not completed until after Hayes's administration.
Secretary Thompson, when new to his office, manifested a strong disposition to obey the letter of the law. Later, after he had felt the temper of Congress and had become aware of the exigencies of the naval service, he resorted to some of the expedients of his predecessor. In 188o he drew upon the appropriation for the repair of ships in order to complete the construction of some of the "Robeson vessels" and to rebuild the Lancaster. Finally, even Congress sanctioned the expensive policy of rebuilding old ships, although one of its investigating committees had condemned work of this sort for its extravagance. According to Robeson, he either built or effectively repaired forty-two ships. There was indeed real ground for his boast on the floor of the House in 1882 that "every ship that now floats bearing the American flag around the world, every ship that now carries a gun to respond to the demands of your government, was built, rebuilt or substantially repaired by me." For several years these "Robeson vessels" comprised almost the whole of the effective fleet of the United States.
For building new ships under the guise of repairing them, for bartering old vessels on account of new, and for binding the government for the payment of money in excess of appropriations, Robeson was most severely criticised. By no means, however, did his critics stop at these alleged misdemeanors. He was accused of robbing the government in various ways, most especially by levying tolls on the contracts of the department for his personal use. It was said that he gave the navy contracts to favorites, that he maintained sinecures, and that he administered the navy yards corruptly and inefficiently. He was charged with the illegal payment of old claims against the department and with various violations and evasions of the law; with purchasing naval materials in excess of naval needs; with great extravagance in the administration of the navy, and with manifold other frauds, errors, and abuses. For the last five years of his administration rumors of scandals in the Navy Department were current. These were zealously spread and amplified by the Democratic newspapers and the Democratic members of Congress. Whether true or false, they were eagerly pressed into partisan service.
Extensive investigations of Robeson and his administration were made by four committees of the House of Representatives: in 1872, 1876, 1878 and 1878-1879. The evidence taken, information ascertained and reports made by these committees consumed in printing 5675 octavo pages. The investigation of 1872 was made by a select committee, those of 1876 and 1878-1879 by the Naval Committee, and that of 1878 by the Committee on the Expenditures of the Navy Department. A majority of the members of the committees of 1876, 1878 and 1878-1879 were Democrats. By far the most extensive investigation was that of 1876. Its printed records contain 3745 pages. Seven sub-committees were appointed and the field of investigation was divided among them. The various navy-yards were visited and more than five hundred witnesses were examined. The hearings before this committee were for the most part not open to the public nor to the Secretary of the Navy.
The investigation of 1872 was undertaken by reason of a series of charges made against Robeson's conduct in office by the New York Sun. This newspaper accused him of robbery, theft, crookedness in awarding the naval contracts and other violations of law. It asserted that "this man is one of the greatest public robbers of the day," and that a "rough calculation shows that his robberies do not amount to less than $1,400,000." His frauds and robberies, said the Sun, are "almost innumerable." The editor of the accusing newspaper, Mr. Charles A. Dana, was invited by the investigating committee to appear before it and prove his charges. He was permitted to bring his counsel, to summon and examine witnesses, and to call for papers and documents. Dana himself testified before the committee, but he "totally failed to produce a single witness, or any proof whatever, tending in the slightest degree to maintain the charges he had made, or affect in any manner the personal or official character of the Secretary." Both the Democratic and Republican members of the committee exonerated Robeson from all charges of corruption, fraud and dishonesty. Two members of the committee, however, were of the opinion that the Secretary of the Navy had violated the law, and one of the Republican members considered Robeson's administration of the navy discreditable.
The majority report of the investigating committee of 1876, containing 161 printed pages, was signed by seven Democrats and in a very qualified way by one Republican. It is a highly partisan document and was doubtless prepared with a view to its effect on the presidential election of that year. By means of copious extracts from the evidence and the liberal employment of such words as "frauds," "jobs," "fat contracts," "corruption," "abuses," "errors" and "violations of law," the majority of the committee gave in the body of their report the impression that Robeson was undoubtedly guilty of numerous crimes and misdemeanors. Yet, in conclusion, it merely submitted the rather innocuous resolution that the evidence and the whole subject be referred to the Committee on Judiciary "to examine and report whether such violations of the law as are referred to herein constitute and are impeachable offenses under the Constitution, and if so, then they shall report articles of impeachment against George M. Robeson, Secretary of the Navy." The Committee on Judiciary, a majority of whose members belonged to the Democratic party, allowed the matter to drop, and made no report to the House. It is said, however, that this committee found Robeson innocent of any criminal intent or corrupt motive. The minority of the investigating committee, consisting of three Republicans, presented a brief report, in which it replied to the arguments of the majority. It recommended the adoption by the House of the following resolution: "That in this investigation, no fraud, corruption, or wilful violation of the law has been shown or appears to have been committed by Hon. George M. Robeson while in the discharge of the duties of Secretary of the Navy; and we find no reason to censure or find fault with his conduct in the administration of the Navy Department."
The investigation of 1878 was an inquiry into the contracts, accounts and expenditures of the department under Robeson. The investigating committee endeavored to find out the amount and the character of the department's indebtedness. It especially investigated Robeson's dealings in respect to the double-turreted monitors. The majority of its members, being Democrats, pronounced many of the acts of the Secretary of the Navy illegal; and the minority of its members, being Republicans, upheld him. The investigation of 1878-1879 in general covered the same subjects as those of 1876 and 1878. The Democratic majority of the committee severely condemned the Secretary of the Navy and the chiefs of the Bureaus of Steam Engineering, Construction and Repair, and Provisions and Clothing. The Republican minority reported that the "administration of the Navy Department by George M. Robeson and his subordinates, as shown by the testimony taken, is free from fraud, corruption and willful violation of law."
The findings of the committees of 1876; 1878 and 1878-1879, since their members invariably voted in accordance with their party affiliations, cannot be relied upon. The reports of the minority may be said to cancel those of the majority. The arguments of the reports, and no little of the evidence, being often contradictory, biased and extravagant, is inconclusive. It is not easy to determine what these voluminous investigations prove or disprove in respect to George M. Robeson and his administration of the navy. A few facts, however, are well substantiated. The civil service of the navy-yards was badly demoralized by politics. In. making appointments Robeson was exceedingly responsive to the politicians. In many cases where the authority of the Secretary of the Navy was questionable, Robeson resolved the doubt in his own favor. In order to cover the exercise of a doubtful power he greatly stretched the statutes. His administration of the department was weak and extravagant. In the purchase of naval materials there was a considerable leakage of money. Wastes of this sort doubtless often occur. They were certainly greater under Robeson than they would have been under a capable and painstaking executive. That he in any way profited by virtue of his office, the evidence failed to prove. Robeson's relations with a broker, who made a fortune by obtaining naval contracts for himself and his friends, looked very suspicious. A committee of Robeson's political enemies, however, sitting in secret and examining many witnesses, failed.to prove that his relations with this broker were corrupt. Robeson did not succeed in correlating the work of the bureaus, in closely supervising them, or in running the department as an efficient machine.
While many men became doubtful of the integrity and honesty of purpose of the Secretary of the Navy, and others were wholly convinced that he was guilty of theft and corrupt practices, he never lost the confidence of his political friends. Shortly after he left the Navy Department the leading Republican citizens of New Jersey tendered him a public dinner as a mark of their "appreciation of his official career and personal worth, and as congratulatory upon the success he had attained in the eminent public station which he had so worthily filled." Senator James G. Blaine was present on this occasion. General Grant regarded Robeson as an intimate friend, and during his memorable tour of the world wrote many letters to his former cabinet officer. In 1878 and again in 1880 Robeson was elected to Congress from New Jersey. During his second term in the national legislature he was one of the most influential members of the House.
Robeson always regarded the investigations of his administration of the navy made by the Democratic committees of the House as inspired by gross partisanship and even personal malevolence. He was especially bitter towards W. C. Whitthorne, of Tennessee, for a time chairman of the House Naval Committee during the naval administrations of Robeson and Thompson. In 1882, in a fierce outburst of feeling, he attacked, on the floor of the House, the personal character of Whitthorne and defended his own management of the navy. Speaking of the period of his administration, he said: "Congressional investigation, with unlimited powers for personal or for party purposes, were then the regular order of the day. Reckless men, inspired with brutish instincts, were clothed with extraordinary powers to penetrate every man's private life and throw open the penetralia of his family circle to the unholy inspection of the vulgar and the malevolent. The Navy Department, of which I was then the head, sustained the full brunt of the fiercest assault. Passing the sphere of legitimate investigation, its tide was turned against myself individually—my father's grave was dishonored, my mother's dowr) inquired into, my wife's estate investigated, my children's portions examined. The details of my household life and expenses were under this—how shall I characterize it—most brutal proceeding, held up for the examination of the world."
Offices that were wholly or partly sinecures seem to have flourished under Robeson's administration of the Navy Department to a greater extent than was usual. In Florida twelve agents were employed to guard the growing timber of the navy. Their salaries ranged from $40 a month to $1000 a year. They resided from fifty to one hundred miles from the reservations of timber, which none of them had ever seen. Henry Clews, one of the agents, testified before a committee of Congress as follows:
Question. "Are you a timber agent in Florida?"
Answer. "Yes, sir."
Question. "How far do you live from the timber you are expected to guard?"
Answer. "I do not know anything about the public domains, and did not try to find out."
Question. " Did you ever see or visit the timber?"
Answer. "No, sir."
Question. "Did you perform any service under that appointment?"
Answer. "No, sir; nothing but draw my pay."
Question. "What was your salary?"
Answer. "Forty-one dollars a month."
Question. "What is the politics of these agents?"
Answer. "They are Republicans."
VI.
NAVAL STATIONS, OFFICERS AND SEAMEN, 1869-1881.
The investigation of the administration of Secretary Robeson made by the House Naval Committee in 1876 abundantly proved the baneful influence of politics upon the civil service of the navy yards. It showed that immediately preceding important national or state elections hundreds of additional employees were temporarily employed at the yards. Work or so-called work was found for them until they had voted, and soon thereafter they were discharged. By the express command of Robeson, or the Navy Department at Washington, men were often employed against the wishes or recommendations of the commandants of the yards. The secretary of the Navy sometimes abolished sinecures, but restored them in response to political pressure. It was common to assess the employees of the yards for political purposes. By virtue of his influence in the Navy Department at Washington the Congressman in whose district a navy-yard was situated exercised a large control in the appointment and retention of employees. Several yards were familiarly named for their controlling Congressman. For instance, the yard at Norfolk was "Mr. Platt's yard"; and that at Mare Island "Mr. Sargent's yard." Sargent supervised his naval bailiwick so closely that he procured for a friend an appointment to the insignificant office of "bumboatman," thereby compelling the sailors to purchase their luxuries from his appointee.
The decentralization of the administration of the yards in 1868 by the extension to them of the bureau system increased the political and decreased the naval element in their management. It diminished the power of the commandant and correspondingly increased the power of the bureaus. Vice-Admiral Rowan said that the bureau system "pulled out all the teeth of the commandant" and made him a sort of head postmaster, whose duty was to pass orders between the department at Washington and its representatives in the yards. However, a navy board appointed in 1869 reported that the extension of the bureau system to he yards had resulted beneficially.
During the period of 1869-1881 the condition of the houses, shops, sheds, wharves, docks and machinery of the several navy yards generally deteriorated. This was especially true under Thompson when the appropriations were much reduced. The expenditures for yards and docks under Robeson amounted to $18,714,000, most of which sum was used for repairs and maintenance, and very little for permanent improvements. The old yards, with their antiquated buildings and appliances, like the old ships, absorbed large sums of money,, and in the end had little to show for their outlay. In 1872 the construction of a first-class stone dry dock was commenced at the Mare Island yard, but in a year or two the appropriations for this object were so small that the work languished, and in 1881 the dock was still far from completion. A few valuable buildings were erected at this yard. In 1871 a million dollars were appropriated by Congress for a floating iron dry dock, but Robeson considered this sum insufficient to build the structure, and eventually most of the money was used in rebuilding the double-turreted monitors.
Some permanent works were erected at the League Island navy-yard, which for several years after its acquisition by Secretary Welles remained unimproved. A plan for its development was prepared in 1872 by a board of civil engineers, which was appointed for that purpose. The removal of the public property of the old Philadelphia yard to League Island was begun in 1873, and completed in the winter of 1875-1876. During the removal some of the property was lost, destroyed or stolen, and in the sale of some of the old materials frauds were perpetrated upon the government. Several of the officers who had charge of this work were blamed for a lack of dispatch and executive capacity. The old Philadelphia yard was sold at public auction in December, 1875.
For a long time the removal of the New York navy-yard and the sale of its site were agitated in and out of Congress. Its occupation of valuable grounds in Brooklyn was considered adverse to the interests of that city. By its removal a large tract of land advantageously situated within the limits of the city would be opened up for purposes of residence or trade. The yard was said to be a nuisance, and an impediment to the growth of Brooklyn. The metropolitan newspapers zealously advocated the project. In 1871 the Naval Committee of the House reported a bill providing for the sale of the yard. At first, Robeson and several leading naval officers favored the proposal. They argued that the present site was too small, was incapable of adequate defense and was too near the distractions of a large city. When it appeared, however, that some of the men who were foremost in the agitation were quite willing to discontinue the yard before a new site was obtained, or to give, up altogether the notion of having a naval establishment in the vicinity of New York, the Navy Department reconsidered the question and threw its weight against a Change. This final stand of Robeson together with the opposition of the chief of the Bureau of Yards and Docks was largely instrumental in preventing the removal or discontinuance of the New York establishment. The friends of the measure, however, succeeded in 1877 in obtaining from Congress an authorization for the conveyance of a certain part of the yard to the city of Brooklyn for a public market.
New London continued to urge upon the government her claims for a share of the naval appropriations. In 1870 the department established a naval station upon the site near this city which Secretary Welles had acquired two years before. In 1875 a board of civil engineers reported an elaborate plan for a navy-yard at this point. Since the number of yards was already excessive, the plan was not carried out. In 1873 a board of civil engineers prepared a plan for the improvement and development of the Mare Island yard. Both the Navy Department and Congress were now recognizing the increased importance of the navy to the Pacific states and the need of adequate facilities on the west coast for the repair and equipment of vessels. In 1880 the Naval Committee of the House reported favorably a resolution providing for a navy-yard on the coast of Oregon or Washington.
During the period of 1869-1881 considerable differences of opinion were manifested respecting the general policy to be pursued toward the navy-yards. Congress was strongly disposed to take the view that their number was excessive and that some of them ought to be abandoned. Toward the end of Robeson's administration it began to reduce the appropriations for them. On the other hand, the Navy Department again and again advised the expenditure of more money upon the yards, the erection within them of many needed improvements, their extension by the purchase of additional grounds, and the adapting of some of them to the construction of iron ships. In the spring of 1869, when Admiral Porter was the leading spirit in the department, he appointed a board of line officers, with Rear-Admiral C. K. Stribling as president, to consider the needs of the navy-yards. This board made an elaborate report, containing numerous suggestions respecting the improvement and organization of the chief naval establishments. It found most of the yards entirely too small, and recommended the enlargement of several of them. It did not propose the closing of any of them.
During the seventies a sentiment developed in Congress in favor of closing several of the yards. In 1876 Congress authorized the appointment of a board of five naval officers to examine fully the navy-yards and determine whether any of them could be dispensed with and abandoned. The board was composed of Admiral David D. Porter, Vice-Admiral Stephen C. Rowan and Rear-Admiral Charles H. Davis, a naval constructor and a naval engineer. It recommended that the "navy-yard" at New London should be abandoned, and that the remaining navy-yards should be "not abandoned or dispensed with." Since the establishment at New London was merely a poor and indifferent naval station, the retrenchment advised was a very slight one. The board did not recommend a suspension of any of the activities of the Portsmouth or Boston yards. In case, however, such suspension was for any reason made, it suggested that the two yards should be provided with a sufficient number of officers and employees to render them ready for any emergency. In no case should the ropewalk at the Boston yard be shut down. It recommended the improvement of the establishments at New York, League Island, Norfolk, Washington, Pensacola and Mare Island. The board was really opposed to any retrenchment, but it was disposed to yield something to a contrary sentiment in Congress. In view of the naval policy which Congress pursued for the next twenty years, it doubtless would have been wise to have concentrated the work of the navy at some two or three of the yards. Moved by its instincts for economy, a private corporation under similar circumstances would certainly have consolidated its business and reduced its expenditures.
During the seventies not much was done for the improvement of the naval stations. For a time a small sum of money was spent at New Orleans. From 1861 to 1865 Port Royal, S. C., was one of the most important depots of the navy. During the early seventies it was practically abandoned, but in the late seventies it was revived. In 1876 a navy board considered the establishment there of a naval station. The station at Mound City, Illinois, Which had been maintained since the war, was discontinued in 1875. The rivalry between towns for naval favors was not now so great as formerly. Mount Desert, Me., and St. Marys River, Md., however, were thought by interested persons to possess eligible naval sites. In 1880 Secretary Thompson reported that he had taken steps toward the establishment of coaling stations on each side of the Isthmus of Panama, and that he had directed the establishment of a station of this sort on the bay of Pago Pago, Samoa Islands, in accordance with a right granted to the United States under the terms of a recent treaty with those islands. In 1879 the administration of Alaska was assumed by the Navy Department.
In 1869 a torpedo station was established on Goat Island, in Newport Harbor, under the Superintendence of the Bureau of Ordnance. This island, which contains twenty-four acres, was acquired by the Navy. Department by transfer from the War Department in July, 1869. The purpose of the station was to instruct naval officers in the manufacture and use of torpedoes. Its establishment was largely the work of Admiral Porter, and is one of the permanent achievements of his bold and radical administration of the navy. On June 9, 1869, he ordered Commander E. O. Matthews to report for duty under the Bureau of Ordnance as instructor of the torpedo corps of the navy. In the summer of that year Matthews located the site of the school, and in September took possession of Goat Island and commenced the erection of the necessary buildings. An old frame house was converted into a temporary machine shop, and a laboratory and magazine were constructed. A competent chemist was appointed to take charge of the laboratory. In the spring of 1870 the Nina was attached to the new station. The first class reported for instruction on November r of that year, and consisted of nineteen members. For several years the officers of the navy were not disposed to attend the school. They disliked to resume the tasks and requirements of their school-boy days, nor did they take kindly to the manual work of fitting, laying out and firing torpedoes. But in course of time the school became quite popular Under Robeson it gave instruction to 153 officers. The instructors were chiefly officers of the navy.
Before and during the Civil War the experimental batteries of the Bureau of Ordnance, which were used in testing guns, gunpowders and fuses, and in fixing the ranges of guns, were located at the Washington navy-yard. Owing to the increasing commerce upon the eastern branch of the Potomac, Over whose waters the guns were fired, and to the erection of new buildings near the navy-yard, these batteries had to be abandoned. The chief of the Bureau of Ordnance, after trying in vain to interest Congress and to obtain suitable grounds, erected an experimental battery in 1872 at Fort Madison near the Naval Academy at Annapolis. Here the proving-grounds of the navy remained for several years.
Long before the Civil War naval magazines had been erected at Chelsea, Mass.; Fort Mifflin, Pa.; Ellis Island, N. Y.; and Fort Norfolk, Va. In 1873 a new site for the magazine of the Washington yard was purchased for $45,000. It contained ninety acres, and was situated on the Potomac about four miles from the yard. As early as 1846 St. Helena, lying opposite the Norfolk yard on the Elizabeth River, had been purchased for the storage of ordnance.
During the fifteen years succeeding the Civil War the science of naval ordnance was being revolutionized. Rifles were displacing smooth-bores; breech-loaders, muzzle-loaders; and wrought-iron, cast-iron guns. The armament of ships was greatly increasing in power, and was getting the better of the armor. During this period the guns of the American navy fell far behind those of other nations. Some improvement, however, was made in the navy's small arms and light guns. Robeson reported that during his term of office a uniform system of breech-loading small arms had been introduced, and a supply of Gatling guns purchased. He said that he had endeavored to "lay the foundation of a general system of progress in our ordnance." In 1879 Hotchkiss rifles were issued to some of the ships. The department was also making a slight improvement in its heavy guns. It was converting some of the old ante-bellum smooth-bores into rifles, and the old muzzle-loading Parrott's into breech-loaders. How weak the navy was in effective, up-to-date cannon may be seen from a report of a committee of the House made in 1880: "We have less than 250 guns afloat in our entire navy, and of these less than 40 are rifles (a few 8-inch, a few too pounds, and a few 60 pounds), all the rest are antiquated smooth-bores." The chief of the Bureau of Ordnance believed, however, that we had lost little or nothing by the delay in procuring new guns, and that "there would be the same outcry of inefficiency if the navy were armed with the best breech-loader of five years' date"—such were the rapid advances being made in the art and science of naval armament. He also said that such cannon as the navy required could not be built by the steel manufacturers of the United States.
The scientific work of the navy from 1869 to 1881, while not so brilliant as that of the period preceding the Civil War, was quite creditable. During the early seventies the personnel and work of the Hydrographic Office was gradually increased. Important hydrographical surveys were made in the Pacific Ocean and the West Indies and along the coasts and up the rivers of South America. Some deep-sea explorations, in the Pacific were undertaken. During the first years of Robeson's administration the navy made several important surveys of canal routes across the Isthmus of Panama and Central America. Two Arctic expeditions were sent out under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy—the Polaris expedition in 1871, and the Jeannette expedition in 1879. The eighth decade of the nineteenth century was an important period in the history of the Naval Observatory. It was marked by the purchase of the largest telescope in the world, the discovery of the two satellites of Mars, and the observations of some notable solar eclipses and of the transit of Venus. In 1880 Congress decided to erect a new observatory on a new site.
In the early seventies the instruction of the naval engineers was made a permanent part of the work of the Naval Academy. In 1879 the department wisely decided, in view of the great changes taking place in naval architecture, to select each year from the most promising graduates of the academy a few students to pursue post-graduate work in naval construction at the best schools abroad, especially those at Greenwich, Paris and Glasgow. Cadet-Engineers F. T. Bowles and Richard Gatewood were the first graduates to avail themselves of this privilege. Bowles has attained great distinction in his profession, and has served as Chief of the Bureau of Construction and Repair. He resigned from the navy to accept a lucrative and responsible office with one of the great ship-building companies.
Throughout the administrations of Grant and Hayes members of Congress continually asserted that the number of naval officers was excessive, and they made frequent attempts to reduce it. In 1877 the active list and the retired list of the navy contained, respectively, 829 and 135 line officers, 594 and 107 staff officers, and 249 and 27 warrant officers. All told, the active list consisted of 1672 officers; the number of enlisted men at this time was 7012. That is, there was one officer for every 4.2 seamen—a greater ratio than obtained in either the British or French navy. Measured by its needs in time of peace, the navy undoubtedly contained an excess of shoulder straps.
In 1870, in accordance with the recommendations of Robeson, Congress made important reductions in several grades, while at the same time the number of lieutenants was considerably increased. In 1871 Robeson recommended that the grade of commodore be dispensed with, and that the offices of admiral and vice-admiral be permitted to lapse on the death of their present incumbents. Accordingly, Congress, in 1873, passed a law providing that vacancies in these two latter grades should not be filled. The office of vice-admiral lapsed on the death of Vice-Admiral Rowan in 1890, and that of admiral on the death of Admiral Porter in 1891.
The naval appropriation act of 1870 provided a new pay-table, which raised the pay of officers at sea about twenty-five per cent, but in general lowered their shore-pay. The admiral of the navy was now given an annual salary of $13,000. The sea-pay of the vice-admiral was fixed at $9000, a rear-admiral $6000, commodore $5000, captain $4500, commander $3500, and midshipman $1000. The chiefs of bureaus were given the pay of commodores on shore duty. The pay of the officers and seamen of the navy in 1870 was about $2,500,000 more than in 1860. This was one, although by no means the chief, source of the large increase in the naval expenditures during Grant's administration as compared with those under Buchanan.
During the twenty years succeeding the Civil War the naval service did not offer an inviting career to the ambitious and energetic officer. It was never more dull and enervating than at this time. It presented all the dreary monotony and mechanical grind of a socialistic regime without any of the latter's promised equity and elevation of ideals. Promotions from grade to grade were exceedingly slow. The "naval hump," caused by the admission of so many young officers during and immediately after the war, effectively blocked all below it. There were lieutenants in 1869 who were still lieutenants in 1881, and the same condition held in the grade of lieutenant commander. It was charged that examinations for promotions were often a farce, and that incompetent men were passed without question. Politics contributed its share in bringing about this unfortunate condition. By means of acts of Congress officers who had been for years on the retired list suddenly appeared in their old places again, and other officers who had been dismissed from the navy by courts-martial were restored to their former positions.
Early in Grant's administration the smouldering quarrel between the line and the staff over questions of rank flamed out again with increased heat. The principal cause of the renewal of the controversy was the revocation by Porter and Bone of Welles's order of March 13, 1863, fixing the rank of the staff. This revocation followed a decision of Attorney-General E. R. Hoar that Welles's order was in certain respects illegal. The "degradation" in rank caused by the rescinding of the order was considered very humiliating by the staff. It involved no loss of pay, but it entailed the removal of stripes and other insignia of rank from their uniforms, and the substitution of the marks of the inferior grades. For instance, the fifteen surgeons who had ranked as captains were reduced to the grade of commander. Attempting to quiet the commotion Robeson, in November, 1869, appointed a board to consider the subject. It consisted of the eight chiefs of bureaus and of two additional officers, one of the line and the other of the staff, and was presided over by Commodore Melancthon Smith. On January 24, 1870, a majority of the board made a report fixing the "relative rank" of the several grades of staff officers in accordance with a prescribed scale. It should be said that the term "relative rank" had now come to be used in place of the former term "assimilated rank." Robeson took the side of the line and made recommendations to Congress that were less liberal to the staff than those of the board.
The controversy was carried on in Congress as well as in the department and the navy, and its members were copiously supplied with literature on the mooted subject. Even before the rescinding of Welle's order the medical corps had gone to Congress to obtain desired legislation, and a bill had been introduced granting the naval surgeons "positive rank." This was a still higher grade of that impalpable and greatly coveted possession of the line, and the whole naval staff now set their hearts upon obtaining it. The House favored the cause of the staff and the Senate that of the line. The House passed a bill granting the staff "positive rank." The Senate stood out for merely increased "relative rank," which the line agreed to yield. The Senate won, and the staff was greatly grieved at the result. The flame of the unending controversy died down, but continued to smolder.
In Robeson's administration until June 20, 1876, the number of seamen in the navy, as fixed by Congress, was 85oo. In the winter of 1873-1874, owing to the difficulty with Spain over the Virginius affair, this number was temporarily raised to about 10,000. At the beginning of the fiscal year 1877, in accordance with an act of Congress, the number of the enlisted men of the navy was reduced to 7500. In 1878 the seamen in the navy proper did not greatly exceed 6000 men. The rest of the total quota were either boys, or else seamen employed in the Coast Survey, the Naval Academy or Fish Commission. The enlisted force of the navy probably had not been as low since the administration of Andrew Jackson. In May, 1879, Congress authorized the employment of 750 boys, increasing the total quota to 8250, at which figure it remained for several years. In 1874 Congress limited the number of privates in the marine corps to 1500.
Admiral Porter said that, owing to the introduction of steamships, the quality of the sailors of the American navy steadily declined from about the time of the Mexican War, and that "until 1846 we possessed, for the limited number of ships in our navy, the finest body of seamen in the world." He was of the opinion that the employment of sailors in coaling ship and hoisting out ashes caused a decadence in their character. Porter, who was a great lover of sailing vessels, probably exaggerated the influence of steamships upon the American sailor. The decline of the merchant marine, which, as everyone knows, was greatly accelerated by the events of the Civil War, had much to do with the impairment of the quality of the enlisted force of the navy. After the war the department, in order to obtain recruits, was compelled to draw more and more from those seafaring waifs that frequent the various ports of the world. Seamen of American parentage or nationality were not to be had. In 1876 or 1877 the executive officer of an American sloop-of-war on the China station prepared an analytical report of the crew of his vessel. Of the 128 men on board, 47 were Americans, 21 Chinamen, 20 Irishmen, 9 Englishmen, and the rest Swedes, Danes, Germans, Scotchmen, Greeks, Brazilians, French, Indians, Peruvians, Russians, Hawaiians, Welshmen and natives of the West Indies, Azores, Jersey, Liberia, Newfoundland and Nova Scotia. Twenty-two countries were represented. Admiral Porter is responsible for the story that during the seventies or thereabouts an American sloop-of-war with a cosmopolitan crew was anchored in the harbor of Villefranche. The crew represented nineteen nationalities, and so little American was it in appearance that some wag painted on board and hung in the gangway of the sloop the words "ici on pane Anglais," like the signs displayed in the shops of Paris."'
The scarcity of good seamen led the department to undertake again the training of young men for the naval service. The apprentice system had been tried several times, but had failed. Secretary Welles's attempt, which was the last one, was abandoned because the reduction by Congress of the number of the enlisted force to 8500. The need of seamen was so great that it was impossible to include in this number any boys. It is said also that the illusive hope of entering the Naval Academy that Welles presented to the apprentices was injurious to the system. Admiral Porter again and again recommended the establishment of a new apprentice system. Finally, in April, 1875, Secretary Robeson ordered the enlistment of a limited number of apprentices. By October two hundred and sixty boys were under instruction, and training ships had been established at the New York, Portsmouth and Mare Island navy-yards. In accordance with the new system, the boys were first given preliminary instruction on ships in port, and later were sent to sea in training ships and were taught seamanship, gunnery, and the practical arts of the naval craft. In 1880 the training squadron comprised some three or four vessels. In June of that year 1168 boys were in the naval service. In May, 1879, Congress recognized the new system by authorizing the enlistment of 750 boys. It proved quite successful, and is said to have met the most sanguine expectations of its friends. Its development was greatly furthered by Captain Stephen B. Luce, who for some years commanded the training squadron. For a time Admiral Porter exercised a general supervision over the apprentices.
In December, 1880, a board of naval officers, of which Commodore Earl English was president, examined the naval station at New London, and also Coasters Harbor Island at Newport, with a view to locating a naval training station. Much to the regret of New London, the board chose the latter site. Coasters Harbor Island is situated near Newport, not far from the torpedo station on Goat Island, and contains ninety-five acres. On March 2, 1881, it was ceded to the United States by Rhode Island, and on August 26, 1882, Secretary of the Navy Chandler took formal possession of it. Captain Luce was the first commandant of the new station.
By the end of the seventies several states had come to take a considerable interest in the training of seamen. Massachusetts had fitted out two ships for the instruction of boys in the arts of the sailor. New York had passed a law establishing a nautical school for the education and training of youths in the science and practice of navigation. To aid schools of this sort, Congress in June, 1874, passed the marine school bill. This authorized the Secretary of the Navy to furnish, under certain conditions, a vessel for the use of a nautical school at any one of the following ports: Boston, New York, Philadelphia, Baltimore, Norfolk and San Francisco. The vessel was to be equipped with all her apparel, charts, books and instruments of navigation. To be eligible to receive a ship a school must teach navigation, seamanship, marine engineering and all matters pertaining to the proper construction, equipment and sailing of vessels. The President was authorized to detail naval officers as superintendents or instructors.
VII.
THE NAVY DEPARTMENT, 1881-1897.
With the Garfield-Arthur administration the navy and the department entered upon a new era. They now shook off the lethargy that fell over them soon after the Civil War. The public manifested a growing interest in the national marine. The politicians regarded it with increasing favor. Each of the two leading political parties came to advocate the building of new and larger ships, and, when once this work was under way, they vied with each other in carrying it forward. With the rehabilitation of the navy the current of naval affairs, both in the Navy Department and in Congress, deepened and widened. The navy assumed an importance that it had not known since the Civil War, and the naval committees of Congress became strong forces in national legislation and administration.
From 1881 to 1897 "the building of the new navy" was by far the most important work of the department. To this enterprise all other naval activities and interests yielded. It gives color, so to speak, to the naval history of this period. Questions relating to the naval personnel, it is true, were debated and agitated, and some attempts were made to settle them, but they were for the most part postponed. They were not so impersonal as were the questions relating to the material, and were therefore not so easy of solution. Then, too, the most pressing need of the navy was for modern vessels equipped with up-to-date guns and mechanisms. During these years the personnel and administrative machinery of the department were gradually increased, and the problems of naval administration more and more attracted the attention of the Secretaries of the Navy.
The increased work and importance of the Navy Department called for more efficient Secretaries than had been needed, or had been obtained, during the years of naval decadence. The Secretaries from 1881 to 1897 displayed a larger industry, more aptitude for naval affairs, and greater zeal for administrative reform than did their immediate predecessors. Indeed, it would be difficult to find another period of equal length since the founding of the department when the navy was better managed—although perfection in its administration was by no means reached. During peace, with the possible exception of the years since 1898, at no time in our history have the naval executives had as good opportunities to distinguish themselves, whether in the building of new ships, the manufacture of warlike materials, or the improvement of naval administration, as during the period when the foundations of the new navy were being laid. This consideration, together with the fact that the term of office of the five Secretaries -during the years 1881-1897 was longer than the average term, may account for their relatively successful administrations.
Since the founding of the department in 1798 those Secretaries of the Navy who have served for only some twelve or eighteen months have generally had little permanent or positive influence on naval administration. At least a year is necessary for a civilian to familiarize himself thoroughly with his duties and to acquire a working knowledge of the navy. The short-term Secretaries usually do little more than learn the routine of their office, render a few decisions at the bidding of their subordinates, and vex, through lack of knowledge or misplaced zeal, the already troubled waters of the navy. Of all the departments of the government the Navy Department is the most difficult for a lawyer and politician to administer. The navy has its own ways of thinking, standards of value, customs, traditions, prejudices and eccentricities. Of these a new Secretary is often wholly ignorant. Moreover, the Navy Department does a most complicated business relating to manufacturing of various sorts, naval architecture, steam engineering, scientific enterprises, naval education, the science and practice of war, naval and international law, diplomacy, medicine and surgery, finance and accounts, astronomy, and hydrography. In addition to knowing something about these subjects, which by no means exhaust the list, the Secretary of the Navy must have such knowledge of political affairs as will fit him for a seat in the cabinet among the President's political advisers. It is also likely that he will be encumbered with various formal duties of an official or social character. Indeed, his duties, both actual and potential, continually tend to become more numerous, complicated and technical.
Each of the five Presidents of the period 1881-1897 appointed a single Secretary of the Navy. The administrations of the several Naval Secretaries cover about the same period as those of their respective chiefs. Garfield's Secretary, William H. Hunt, of Louisiana, however, held office for several months under Arthur. On April 17, 1882, Hunt was succeeded by William E. Chandler, of New Hampshire. The Naval Secretary during Cleveland's first administration, 1885-1889, was William C. Whitney, of New York; and during his second, 1893-1897, Hilary A. Herbert, of Alabama. Harrison's Secretary of the Navy was Benjamin F. Tracy, of New York. He served for the period 1889-1893. Hunt, Chandler and Tracy were Republicans, and Whitney and Herbert Democrats. Chandler, Whitney and Tracy were Northerners, and Hunt and Herbert, Southerners. Each of the five men had been bred to the law. Only Herbert had served in Congress before entering the Navy Department.
Doubtless it is too soon to render a final judgment upon the services and characters of these men. Each was greatly interested in the reconstruction of the navy, and, no matter what his politics, earnestly carried forward the shipbuilding program of his predecessor. Each made some change or reform in the administrative machinery of the department. Mr. Charles H. Cramp, the shipbuilder, awards the palm of ability and efficiency to Whitney and Tracy. Of the five Secretaries, Chandler and Whitney were the most aggressive and positive, and the most ardent for naval reform; they were men of courage, and were willing, if necessary, to stem the tide of naval or political influence. Both were real heads of the department, and exercised more power than any of their predecessors since Gideon Welles. Chandler had had some acquaintance with naval affairs and with federal administration. For a short time, in 1865, he served as solicitor and judge-advocate of the navy, a position that he resigned to become Assistant Secretary of the Treasury. He was industrious, accurate and selfwilled, and determined to rule in the department. Whitney, on the other hand, was more tactful and adroit, although a most direct and energetic man. He had had some experience in the municipal administration of New York City.
In 1885, when Whitney was entering upon his duties, he was described as a "youthful looking and handsome man. He wears glasses and his clothes fit 'like the paper on the wall. No one has ever yet complained that Mr. Whitney equivocated. In this respect he resembles Ex-Secretary Chandler, who had the tact of making the bluntest, plainest and clearest statements in relation to matters in the Navy Department of any Secretary who has been in office since the war. Mr. Whitney is a good deal like Mr. Chandler in some other respects. He is quick, nervous and alert, and has the gift of instantly seeing the main point at issue, no matter how much it is covered up with a mass of details, and the courage to speak out his mind at once." He was a most efficient Secretary, and was generally popular among the naval officers—a rare distinction. The "Prince of Secretaries," Rear-Admiral Evans has called him. So important was his administration that he has come to be popularly, though erroneously, regarded as the "Father of the New Navy."
Secretary Hunt was inclined to depend more upon his bureau chiefs for direction than were his two immediate successors. He was a native of Charleston, South Carolina, and was of Whig stock. His mother, whose family name was Gaillard, was of French extraction. He is described as being very much unlike an American in appearance, of "swarthy complexion, very marked features, and resembling much the races of Southern Europe. He is courtly—perhaps a little precise—in his manner, and he has always been considered a man of the greatest integrity." He became Attorney-General of Louisiana in 1876, and Judge of the United States Court of Claims at Washington in 1878. Hunt will always be remembered as the Secretary of the Navy who initiated the movement for the construction of the new navy.
Tracy and Herbert were men of solid, rather than brilliant, parts. They performed their duties faithfully and efficiently, and without bluster. They were by profession lawyers. During the Civil War Tracy won the title of brigadier-general. He was severely wounded in the Wilderness campaign of Grant. In 1881-1882 he was Associate Justice of the New York Court of Appeals. Herbert saw service in the Confederate Army, where he rose to the rank of colonel. He also was wounded in the Wilderness campaign. He was a representative in Congress from 1877 to 1892. At the time of his appointment he was one of the best qualified men in his party for the Naval Secretaryship, for he had taken a more prominent part in obtaining the legislation for the rebuilding of the navy than any other Democrat in the House. He was chairman of the House Committee on Naval Affairs in the 49th, 50th and 52d Congress, and was a prominent member of that committee in the 51st Congress when the Republicans were in control.
It is recollected that the office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy was established in 1861 at the outbreak of the Civil War, and that after it had been most acceptably filled by G. V. Fox and William Faxon, it was discontinued in 1869. In 1882 a movement for its re-establishment was started. In March of that year a bill providing for an Assistant Secretary of the Navy was introduced in Congress. At first it received the support of Secretary Hunt, but later he changed his opinion in respect to it. Secretary Chandler throughout his administration recommended the passage of some measure of this sort. He thought that one or more Assistant Secretaries were necessary in order to enforce the civilian control of the navy and to represent adequately popular ideas in the department, and he argued that the civilian element in the department should be strengthened to the extent that it would form a counterpoise to the predominating "naval" element. Senator Hale, of Maine, who for many years was the chief authority in the Senate on naval affairs, had often expressed the same view. For instance, in 1886 he said that the Navy Department needed a "further infusion of civilian or business experience and competency." One discovers in these opinions of Chandler and Hale an outcropping of the rivalry and antagonism that has always existed between the civilian and "naval" elements in respect to .the management .of the navy. The proposal to appoint an Assistant Secretary was not favorably regarded by the "naval" element.
One of the clauses of an act of Congress approved on August 5, 1882, making appropriations for the civil establishments of the government, made provision for an Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was to receive an annual salary of $3500. To obtain first-rate talent for so small a sum was difficult. Before Chandler was able to find such a man as 'he desired Congress, in March, 1883, repealed the provision creating the office. During the eighties various other attempts were made to provide the Secretary with an assistant. Finally, a provision for one was inserted in the bill of July 11, 1890, making appropriations for the civil establishments of the government. According to its terms, the new officer was to be appointed by the President from civil life, and was to receive an annual salary of $4500. This statute did not prescribe his duties. An act of March 3, 1891, assigned to him such duties "as may be prescribed by the Secretary of the Navy or required by law."
On July 16, 1890, President Harrison appointed to the new office James Russell Soley, of Massachusetts. At the beginning of Cleveland's second administration, in 1893, Soley was succeeded by William McAdoo, of New Jersey, who served until his successor was appointed in 1897, early in the first administration of President McKinley. Both Soley and McAdoo possessed some admirable qualifications for the Assistant Secretaryship. Soley had what few civilian administrators ever obtain, an intimate knowledge of the military and administrative history of the navy and a familiarity with the habits of thought and action that exist in the naval service. From 1873 to 1882 he was head of the department of English studies, history and law at the Naval Academy, and from 1882 to 1890 he served as the librarian of the Navy Department in Washing-ton. During the larger part of the latter period he was also superintendent of the Naval War Records Office, which he organized. From 1876 to 1890 he was professor in the navy, rising to the relative rank of commander. Soley had written several books treating of naval history, and he had lectured on international law at the Naval War College. McAdoo had formerly been associated with his chief, Secretary Herbert, as a number of the House Naval Committee, and had acquired some knowledge of naval affairs.
The "office of the Assistant Secretary" is attached to the Secretary's office, of which it constitutes a rather small part. The duties of the Assistant Secretary are not prescribed by law, but are fixed by the orders of the Secretary. They have, therefore, varied from time to time. In general they have consisted of the odds and ends or detached parts of the naval business. They relate to miscellaneous matters, which, while by no means unimportant, are more or less subordinate to the main current of naval affairs. On the absence of his chief the Assistant Secretary acts as the Secretary of the Navy. He and the chief clerk of the department are the principal civilian advisers of the Secretary. Soley assisted Secretary Tracy in improving the methods of naval administration. McAdoo exercised a general supervision over vessels undergoing repairs, vessels under construction in the navy-yards, boards of survey and other naval boards, the departmental printing, the Office of Naval Intelligence, library of the department, Naval War Records Office, Naval War College, marine corps and naval militia.
During 1881-1897 the Navy Department greatly- increased its facilities for collecting and disseminating naval information of all sorts. On March 23, 1882, Secretary Hunt established the "Office of Intelligence" in the Bureau of Navigation for the purpose of "collecting and recording such naval information as may be useful to the department in time of war, as well as in peace." One of the main duties of the new office was to collect information relating to foreign navies. That this was by no means a new idea is shown by the following extract taken from a letter of Secretary of the Navy Samuel L. Southard, dated January 26, 1827, to the American Minister to Great Britain. A similar letter was sent to the Ministers or representatives of the United States at St. Petersburg, Stockholm, Paris, Madrid, Lisbon, Algiers, Mexico, Guatemala, Bogota, Lima, Valparaiso, Buenos Ayres and Rio Janeiro:
It is an object of great interest with this department to have accurate information of everything connected with the naval force of other nations; and important benefits may result from your kindness and attention to my wishes on this subject. May I, therefore, beg the favor of you, from time to time, to communicate to me such information respecting the naval force of Great Britain, or other nations, as you may be able to procure without inconvenience; especially respecting the number, situation, use, and employment of their vessels, the number, character, etc., of their navy and dock yards; the number and mode of furnishing their seamen; the means of educating their officers; the amount and character of the expenditures; and, generally, anything which will enable this department completely to comprehend the extent and character of the naval means of the nation. Copies of the annual detailed estimates for the service would be useful.
The new office was soon called the "Office of Naval Intelligence," a term probably derived from the British "Department of Naval Intelligence." In 1883 its personnel consisted of Lieutenant T. B. M. Mason and nine junior officers. The agents of the office residing abroad are called naval attaches, and are connected with the American embassies or legations. The first American naval attache, and for a time the only one, was Lieutenant-Commander French E. Chadwick, who performed his duties with great satisfaction to the department. In 1889 Secretary Tracy wrote that Chadwick's "extraordinary ability and judgement during six years of difficult service in England and on the Continent had a lasting influence upon the naval development of this country." In 1896 there were three naval attaches, and they were assigned to European countries. Shortly after its organization the office began the publication of two series of valuable reports, one relating to naval operations in recent wars, and the other to general professional information. It soon made itself indispensable to the work of the department, the navy, and even the naval committees of Congress. It prepares reports on the shipbuilding programs' of foreign countries, foreign naval statistics and news, recent developments in naval science and recent operations in naval wars.
A work in some respects similar to that of the Office of Naval Intelligence has for several years been conducted by the Library of the Navy Department and the Naval War Records Office. The chief purpose of each of these organizations is to render naval information accessible to the navy and the department. The library performs this function by collecting books relating to naval and kindred subjects. The bureaus and offices of the department also have libraries, but the main library is larger than all of these local libraries combined; and its contents, as a whole, are of a more general character. Its history begins with the collection of books which was made by the early Secretaries of the Navy. In 1820-1830 the Secretary's office and the Navy Commissioners' office were spending for books about two hundred dollars a year each. In the early eighties the books of the Secretary's office and those of the bureaus that were of a more or less general character were deposited in the library-room of the new Navy Department Building, and they became the nucleus of the present library. The organization of the library may be dated with the appointment of Professor J. R. Soley, in 1882, to be librarian. The number of books increased from about 10,000 volumes in 1883, to about 30,000 volumes in 1896.
Soon after Soley became librarian he began to arrange the official records of the Union and confederate navies preparatory to their publication. This enterprise was heartily encouraged by Secretary Chandler, and elicited much interest on the part of historians and naval officers. Not much was done; however, until the latter part of 1884. On July 7 of that year Congress appropriated a small sum of money for the employment of a few clerks to copy and classify such naval documents as were available from the files of the department or could be obtained from other reliable sources. Professor Soley was made superintendent of the Naval War Records Office, as the new division which took charge of this work was called. He served until 189o, when he became Assistant Secretary of the Navy. He was succeeded by Lieut. Commander F. M. Wise, who, like Soley, also served as librarian of the department. Since the work of the records office and the library is somewhat similar, a single chief has always presided over both organizations. Several years elapsed before the appropriations for the new records office were large enough to insure rapid advancement of its work. In 1894 the first volume of the "Official Records of the Union and Confederate Navies in the War of the Rebellion" was published. This relates to the operations of the cruisers of the two belligerents during 186r and 1862. Additional volumes of a somewhat similar character have appeared from time to time. In recent years the office has been ably conducted by Mr. Charles W. Stewart, a graduate of the Naval Academy of the class of 1882.
On January 6, 1887, Secretary Whitney established the office of naval inspector of electric lighting in the Bureau of Navigation, a name which was later changed to the office of inspector of electrical appliances. In 1889 it was transferred to the Bureau of Equipment. This office is quite small, and is always presided over by an officer of the navy. Its duties are to prepare detailed specifications. for installing ships of war and naval stations with electrical appliances, and to inspect electrical materials and machinery before and after their installation.
The Secretaries of the Navy have at different times tried to obtain legislation directing the transfer to the Navy Department of the several bureaus and offices of the Treasury Department whose duties are similar to those of the navy. They have argued that this work could be performed more economically and appropriately by the navy and its department, and that the inconveniences of detailing naval officers to duty in the Treasury Department should be avoided. Secretary Chandler, who was especially interested in increasing the duties and functions of the Navy Department, recommended that all national work on the ocean should be performed by the officers of the navy. He said that an "extension of the field of naval employment would strengthen and invigorate the service without any detriment to existing interests, while the fusion of all branches of nautical administration would secure concentration of purpose, unity of action, and broader and more substantial results." His plan involved the transfer to the Navy Department of the Light-House Service, Coast and Geodetic Survey, Revenue Marine Service, Life Saving Service, and all bureaus or offices of the Treasury Department whose duties related to the mercantile marine. He proposed to organize in the Navy Department a "bureau of mercantile marine," which should take charge of this branch of the national administration. One of its principal aims was to be the revival of the rapidly decaying American marine. So extensive a plan was doomed to fail. Such is the interest of individuals, classes and parties in the maintenance of the existing illogical distribution of duties among the several executive departments, that it is almost impossible to effect the redistribution of those duties in a logical manner.
During the period 1881-1897, when the first vessels of the new navy were built, the work of the Bureaus of Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering, Ordnance, and Equipment—the four manufacturing bureaus—greatly increased in magnitude and importance, and became more highly specialized, technical, detailed and complicated. These bureaus manage large manufactories, design complicated ships, guns and machinery, and inspect the manufacture of ordnance, steel, gun-forgings, armor-plate, engines and naval supplies. The character of their work is "civil" rather than "naval." They conduct a manufacturing, engineering and mechanical business. It has been remarked that the point of view of line officers who serve in these bureaus for a long time is likely to become assimilated to that of the civilian or the mechanical engineer. Such line officers may even become deficient as naval executives on shipboard, and may in a measure lose their taste for the sea and a purely naval life. Their outlook on their profession, however, is greatly broadened, and they come to realize adequately that the mechanical and engineering sciences more and more condition modern naval warfare. Naval routine and traditions appear to them less significant.
The two naval constructors who had charge of the Bureau of Construction and Repair when the first vessels of the new navy were built were Chief Constructor Theodore D. Wilson, 1882- 1893, and Rear-Admiral Philip Hichborn, 1893-1901. Engineer-in-Chief Charles H. Loring, 1884-1887, and Rear-Admiral George W. Melville, 1887-1903, presided over the Bureau of Steam Engineering during this important period. Several illustrious officers served in the Bureau of Equipment. Its chief from 1884 to 1889 was Commodore Winfield Scott Schley, from 1889 to 1893 Commodore George Dewey, and from 1893 to 1897 Commodore French E. Chadwick. The manufacture of the new ordnance of the navy was conducted by three efficient chiefs of the Bureau of Ordnance—Commodores Montgomery Sicard, 1881-1890; William M. Folger, 1890-1893; and William T. Sampson, 1893-1897. Several of these chiefs served for more than a single term of four years. Wilson held office for eleven, Hichborn for eight, and Melville for sixteen years. These three men played a most prominent part in designing the hulls and engines of the new fleet and in overseeing their construction. Melville, whose heroic achievements in the Arctic seas won for him an especial distinction, also showed capacity for extraordinary effort as Chief of the Bureau of Steam Engineering. In 1887 he personally prepared the general designs of the machinery of five of the new vessels then under construction.
From 1881 to 1897 the two chiefs of the Bureau of Navigation were Commodore James G. Walker, 1881-1889, and Rear-Admiral Francis M. Ramsay, 1889-1897, each of whom held office for two terms. They exercised large powers, not only in superintending the naval personnel and directing the movements of the fleet, but also in the general administration of the navy. Even in building the new ships the energy and judgment of Walker was much relied upon by Secretary Whitney. He has been called the "ablest and most forceful man of his time in the navy." During these years the influence of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation probably reached its culmination. His rooms adjoin those of the head of the department, to whom he therefore has easy access, and whose ear he can gain and keep to the exclusion of his less fortunate colleagues. He is more frequently in conference with the Secretary than the other chiefs. He is in position to give the Secretary his naval point of view, and perhaps his prejudices and biased information. Since at this time he virtually detailed all the inferior officers of the line and had a large and often a determining influence in detailing those of command rank, he could make or break an officer by giving or refusing him an important command. Walker and Ramsay were the most unpopular officers in the naval service. They were charged with being autocratic chiefs, and with belonging to a naval clique.
In order to curb the power of the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation and abolish all grounds for suspicions of favoritism, Secretary Chandler in October, 1884, vested the power of assigning officers to duty in a small board of bureau chiefs. This plan seems not to have worked well. In May, 1885, Secretary Whitney restored to the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, for the most part, the duties which Chandler had taken from him.
Since 1881 the business of the naval committees in Congress has greatly grown in volume and importance, and appointments to them have come to be highly prized. They are among the chief "working committees" of Congress, and are powerful factors in determining the naval policy of the country. Their decision upon the numbers and types of vessels in the shipbuilding program of each year is usually final. Their views upon any measure which the department wishes to have enacted into law must be reckoned with, for their opposition to it will prevent its passage. Their members may acquire a considerable knowledge of naval affairs, especially if they are granted a long period of service. The chairmen of these committees often acquire an extensive knowledge of the navy. During the first years of the new navy the most expert and influential chairmen were Hilary A. Herbert and Charles A Boutwell of the House, and Eugene Hale of the Senate.
Throughout the period 1881-1897 much adverse criticism of the organization of the Navy Department, and especially of the system of naval bureaus, was made by Secretaries of the Navy, naval officers, members of Congress, and the newspapers. A part of this criticism was intelligent and a part was decidedly otherwise. Some of it was temperate and judicious, and some extravagant, partisan and rhetorical. Much of it was of a more or less general character, and was based upon an imperfect knowledge of the facts. As illustrating in considerable degree the rhetorical, partisan and extravagant criticism of the department, the following extract from President Cleveland's first message dated December 8, 1885, may be quoted:
I deem it my duty to especially direct the attention of Congress to the close of the report of the Secretary of the Navy, in which the humiliating weakness of the present organization of his department is exhibited and the startling abuses and waste of its present methods are exposed. The conviction is forced upon us, with the certainty of mathematical demonstration, that before we proceed further in the restoration of a navy we need a thoroughly reorganized Navy Department. The fact that within seventeen years more than $75,000,000 have been spent in the construction, repair, equipment, and armament of vessels, and the further fact that instead of an effective and creditable fleet we have only the discontent and apprehension of a nation undefended by war vessels, added to the disclosures now made, do not permit us to doubt that every attempt to revive our navy has thus far, for the most part, been misdirected, and all our efforts in that direction have been little better than blind gropings and expensive, aimless follies.
Unquestionably, if we are content with the maintenance of a Navy Department simply as a shabby ornament to the government, a constant watchfulness may prevent some of the scandal and abuse which have found their way into our present organization, and its incurable waste may be reduced to the minimum. But if we desire to build ships for present usefulness, instead of naval reminders of the days that are past, we must have a department organized for the work, supplied with all the talent and ingenuity our country affords, prepared to take advantage of the experience of other nations, systematized so that all effort shall unite and lead in one direction, and fully imbued with the conviction that war vessels, though new, are useless unless they combine all that the ingenuity of man has up to this day brought forth relating to their construction.
The most reliable and definite criticism of the bureau system was made by the Secretaries of the Navy and the naval committees. The principal defects in the departmental organization which they discovered may be divided into two classes: (1) those relating to the division of responsibility, and (2) those relating to the division of labor. The former class will be first considered. It was maintained that the division of responsibility or executive power in the Navy Department, and likewise in the navy-yards, was excessive. There were too many bureaus. Each of them was more or less independent of the other. Each magnified its own work, was jealous of its own powers, and was impatient of restraint. The bureaus were like so many little navy departments occupying towards the Secretary of the Navy the same relation that the several departments of the government occupy towards the President. The excessive division of authority at Washington caused a like division of powers in the navy-yards, with results especially direful. Each bureau at Washington had in each yard its own representatives, employees and equipment. It was said that in the pursuit of special ends the general ends were lost sight of. The department lacking proper correlating, coordinating or unifying organs. The only instrumentality of this sort was the Secretary of the Navy. In actual practice, often ignorant of the details and technicalities of the business of the navy, he fell far short of the needs of the department. He did not have the expert knowledge, time or inclination to correlate properly the work of the several bureaus and offices, and direct their activities as a unit.
The evils of the excessive division of responsibility were said to be especially manifest in the building, equipping and arming of ships. This work, the critics pointed out, was shared by four bureaus, Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering, Equipment, and Ordnance. Since a modern ship was a unit and did not fall into four well-defined and mutually exclusive parts, the duties of these bureaus often overlapped; they interfered and conflicted with each other. As a result the Secretary of the Navy was again and again called upon to settle disputes between contending authorities. Each bureau attended carefully to its own work, but no one attended to combining their several, activities into an organized, homogeneous and effective whole. Each bureau might perform its work perfectly from its own standpoint, while in the end the finished product might be a decided failure. The critics gave examples of this. For instance, after the Omaha had been commissioned and was ready for sea, it was discovered that, as a result of the bureaus working independently, her space had been so appropriated that coal-room had been left for no more than four days' steaming.
Several remedies for the excessive division of responsibility and executive power were proposed. The most obvious one, of course was the uniting of two or more bureaus. With the zeal of an official new to his office, Secretary Whitney, in his annual report for 1885, recommended a sweeping reorganization of the Navy Department. The authorship of Whitney's recommendations, as well as of the criticism upon which they were based, has been attributed to Professor J. R. Soley. Whitney believed that the work of the department fell logically into three parts, and he proposed to divide the departmental duties among three bureaus: The bureau of "personnel," of "material and construction," and of "finance and accounts." A chief was to preside over each. The new organization would reduce the number of bureaus from eight to three. The work of each bureau was to be divided according to its subject matter. For instance, under the "bureau of material and construction" there were to be erected the divisions of "construction," "engineering," "equipment," and "ordnance." Whitney's plan consolidated responsibility, but did not greatly change the existing division of labor in the department. It was entirely too revolutionary to have any prospects of being enacted into law.
Whitney was shortly moved to modify his plan by increasing the number of bureaus to five. Early in 1886 a bill embodying his later recommendations was introduced in the House. It provided for five naval bureaus: "Navigation," "ordnance," "medicine and surgery," "material, construction and repair," and "supplies and accounts." It changed the existing organization chiefly by consolidating three of the four shipbuilding bureaus. The bill was favorably reported by the House Committee on Naval Affairs. The House divided on party lines. The Republicans Opposed the measure partly on its demerits, but also doubtless for the reason that its passage would seem to justify Cleveland and Whitney's severe arraignment of the Republican management of the department. Representative Charles A. Boutelle, of Maine, Who led the opposition to the bill, succeeded in making out a rather strong case against it, and in preventing its reaching a vote.
The recommendations of several other Secretaries of the Navy were less thoroughgoing than those of Whitney, and were confined to the shipbuilding bureaus. In his annual report for 1883 Secretary Chandler, in accordance with the views of a naval board that had considered the subject, recommended the uniting of the Bureaus of Construction and Repair and Steam Engineering. In his annual report for 1894 Secretary Herbert favored the consolidation of the several bureaus having to do with the building, arming and equipping of ships. Admiral Porter was of the opinion that a reduction in the number of the shipbuilding bureaus would be advantageous. In 1886 he said that "there should be a single Bureau of Construction, Steam Engineering, and Repair under one head." The opposition to the consolidation of the. bureaus was very strong, and was sufficient to prevent favorable action upon any of the foregoing recommendations. The respective interests of the line and the staff were involved in the proposed changes. The engineers feared that the union of the Bureau of Steam Engineering with one of the other bureaus would deprive them of a representative in the Navy Department. The employees under the existing system viewed with alarm the introduction of a new system that might result in a reduction of the number of offices or in some other change adverse to their interests. The concentration of large powers in the hands of the chief of the proposed "bureau of ships" was considered dangerous. Many held that the existing number of bureaus was not excessive.
Another proposed remedy for the excessive division of responsibility was the establishment within the Navy Department of a special correlating and unifying organ. A naval board, composed largely or entirely of line officers, was to be vested with more or less power to direct the work of the department. For many years the creation of a board of this sort had been the line officers' favorite panacea for the ills of naval administration. Admiral Porter was especially partial to a "board of control," which was to consist of three line officers not below the grade of captain, and of one additional line officer of the grade of captain to act as secretary of the board. "Under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy, the board should have the general management of the naval service." The Secretaries of the Navy have generally been unwilling to give such an organization affirmative duties of administration and control. Secretary Whitney favored the establishment of a "board of control," consisting of five bureau chiefs and three additional naval officers, but he wished to vest in it merely advisory powers. A board of this sort would not have been an effective correlating force. The Secretaries during the period 1881-1897 were jealous of their powers, and naturally opposed any measure calculated to increase greatly the influence and control of naval officers within the department.
Unable to obtain from Congress legislation affecting the consolidation of the bureaus, and unwilling to establish a special board to correlate and unify the work of the department, the Secretaries of the Navy resorted to other means to bring about the same end. In 1889 Secretary Tracy organized the Construction Board, consisting of the chiefs of the five bureaus, Construction and Repair, Steam Engineering, Equipment, Ordnance, and Yards and Docks, and gave it a general supervision over the designing, constructing and equipping of new ships. In this manner the several chiefs of the shipbuilding bureaus were brought together for consultation. The board was to agree upon the general plan of a ship before its construction was commenced. It was held responsible for all delays, and for failures in correlating the work of shipbuilding. Each bureau stood for its respective specialty, but the board stood for the ship as a whole, and was responsible for the success and efficiency of the completed vessel.
After a thorough consideration of the subject Secretary Herbert on October 2, 1894, issued an order designed to still further correlate and unify the work of the shipbuilding bureaus. This he effected in the main by giving to the Bureau of Construction and Repair a certain pre-eminence. He made it responsible for the design, structural strength and stability of new vessels. It was to be responsible also for changes made in the construction of a ship after its design had been approved. Full and accurate knowledge of every change in the plans of the ships was concentrated in this bureau. The effect of Herbert's order was very beneficial.
The second class of criticisms against the bureau system related to the division of labor, which, it was asserted, was both illogical and excessive. While the bureau system had fostered the growth of these evils, it was not wholly responsible for them. The Secretary of the Navy had permitted the bureaus to take on duties in a haphazard manner, until several or all of them were doing the same kinds of work. Often their duties were most heterogeneous, 'and were apparently assigned on no ascertainable principle. For the excessive division of labor at the navy-yards the bureau system was largely responsible. The Secretaries of the Navy proceeded to remedy these defects, as far as they were able, by executive orders.
Early in his administration Secretary Whitney turned his attention to the methods of the department of purchasing stores and supplies and of keeping accounts. He made some interesting discoveries respecting the division of the work of making open purchases. For the fiscal year 1885 $138,000 was "spent by the seven bureaus, each acting independently of the other, for coal bought, not in one lot, but at 166 several open purchases (this does not include coal bought by ships on foreign stations); 299 different open purchases of stationery were made by eight different bureaus; $121,315.66 was spent for lumber and hardware by six bureaus in 499 separate open purchases. Seven bureaus spent $46,000 for oils and paints in 269 separate purchases; 117 different open purchases of iron and steel were made at an expense of $41,524.48; $68,881.59 was spent for hemp and cordage in 45 different open purchases. Eight bureaus supply stationery to ships; three bureaus supply ships with lamps and lanterns. To the same ship one bureau supplies electric lights and the light for general illuminating purposes; another supplies electric search lights; and a third oil and light for the engine and fire rooms.
Whitney also discovered that little responsibility for the care and disposition of the stores and supplies of the navy-yards existed, and that such property had accumulated far beyond the needs of the service. A remarkable hoarding of materials had taken place. Since neither the laws nor the system of naval administration offered any inducement to a bureau to sell its surplus stores or to turn them over to some other bureau that needed them, unnecessary stores of all kinds had accumulated in the navy yards to the value of more than $20,000,000. About one-fifth of these were obsolete and useless, "only entailing expense for keepers and constant care to preserve them in condition." A navy board that investigated the subject brought to light some curious facts. It reported that "at the eight navy-yards there have accumulated altogether of augurs and bits, 46,566, of which 25,274 have been lying for several years at closed yards, where no work has or is likely to be done. Twenty-nine thousand five hundred and forty-two gross of screws are on hand, 10,896 gross lying at closed yards. There are 146,385 files in stock, 42,142 of them lying at closed yards. There are 11,813 paint brushes in stock; 2246 of these in the stores at closed yards. All of these tools are serviceable, mostly new.
To assist him in obtaining information and deciding upon methods of reform, Whitney appointed several navy boards. One of these, which was presided over by Captain R. W. Meade, made an inventory of all the stores and materials at the yards. After thoroughly considering the subject, Whitney concluded to concentrate the work of making purchases and keeping accounts in one bureau, that of Provisions and Clothing. He began this reform in 1886, but it proceeded slowly. The advocates of the old system, under which each bureau at Washington and its representatives in the several navy-yards made their own purchases and kept their own accounts, were emphatic in their opposition to the new plan. Whitney had taken only the initial steps when his administration came to an end.
The perfecting of the new system and the putting of it into practical operation fell to Secretary Tracy. Its main features were the establishment at each yard of a general storekeeper, who was charged with the purchase and custody of all the stores of the yard, and was responsible to the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing; the making of this bureau the purchasing agent for the whole navy; and the opening in this bureau of one set of accounts, both of stock and purchases, designed to show the exact condition of the naval appropriations and expenditures. The business, which formerly had been handled by seven or eight bureaus, was now to be transacted by the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing. This bureau was divided into two divisions: the "division of purchase and supplies," which was charged with the making of all naval purchases; and the "division of audit and accounts," which served as the bookkeeper of the navy. The chief of this bureau was now the Paymaster-General of the navy. The store-keepers in the navy-yards and the paymasters on board the naval ships, who acted as his agents, were members of the naval pay corps. In 1892 the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing was given a name which more accurately described its new duties. It became the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.
The new system was further developed by Secretary Herbert, who, like Whitney and Tracy, pronounced it a decided improvement over the old one. By concentrating the work of making purchases, various economies were effected. The hoarding of supplies was in large part prevented. Responsibility was increased and made more definite. The accounting and bookkeeping of the department were simplified, and became intelligible. The open purchases of the navy were greatly decreased. The new system, however, had its disadvantages. The purchasing agents at times lacked an intimate knowledge of the purchased articles. Long delays in making purchases sometimes occurred. From the point of view of the consumer of materials, the new system was more cumbersome than the old.
The reform begun by Whitney in making the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing the financial bureau of the Navy Department was continued by Tracy, who transformed the Bureau of Navigation into a bureau of personnel and the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting into a bureau of equipment. It is recollected that the Bureau of Navigation had been created as the scientific bureau of the department, and had therefore been given charge of the Naval Observatory, Nautical Almanac Office and Hydrographic Office. In 1865 the Office of Detail had been joined to the Bureau of Navigation, and since that time one officer had presided over both. To this bureau had fallen the duties of supplying ships with compasses, chronometers, navigating instruments and other articles of equipment. Its functions were most diverse and illogical. By an order dated June 25, 1889, Tracy rearranged the duties of the Bureaus of Navigation and Equipment and Recruiting. Under the latter were now placed the Naval Observatory and Nautical Almanac Office. A like disposition would have been made of the Hydrographic Office, but a law prevented, and Tracy had to content himself with asking Congress to repeal the law. The Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting was also given all the duties of the Bureau of Navigation relating to equipment, and the latter received all the duties of the former relating to recruiting. By the same order the Bureau of Navigation absorbed the Office of Detail. This order also specified that the Naval Academy, Naval Intelligence Office, Library of the Navy Department and Naval War Records Office should be attached to the Bureau of Navigation. Its duties were now fairly homogeneous, and it might have been appropriately named the "bureau of personnel and detail." In 1889 Tracy changed the name of the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting to the Bureau of Equipment.
A further simplification of the work of the Navy Department was effected by the concentration of some of its factories. For many years the fabrication of various articles of equipment had been conducted at the several navy-yards, but principally at the Boston and Washington yards. The chief products of the former were ropes and sails, and of the latter anchors, chains and galleys. The factories for these articles were concentrated by Secretary Whitney at the Boston yard. Here were to be made ropes, sails, anchors, chains, galleys, rigging, cordage, hammocks, canvas, awnings, tarpaulins and other articles of equipment. Under Whitney's orders the Washington yard confined its manufacturing to the making of ordnance. It ceased to perform many of the usual duties of a navy-yard, and became, as it was henceforth called, the "Naval Gun Factory."
The redistribution of duties among the bureaus and the addition of new offices relatively increased the work of the Bureaus of Navigation and Supplies and Accounts and the Office of the Secretary of the Navy. The chief increases in the personnel of the department from 1881 to 1897 were made in these three administrative divisions. The number of regular employees of the Navy Department in Washington, exclusive of the caretakers of the Navy Department building, on July I, 1881, was ii; and on July 1, 1897, 293. Rather singularly the number of the employees in the four shipbuilding bureaus was but slightly increased. In 1893 an Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, and in 1894 an Assistant Chief of the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts was authorized. The former, was to be of a rank not below that of commander, and the latter was to be chosen from the pay corps.
In 1883 the passage of the Pendleton civil service act placed the appointments of employees of the Navy Department in Washington receiving an annual salary of $720 or upwards, except twenty-one of them, under civil service rules. All merely clerical offices were put within the "classified service." Positions in this service could be filled only through the Civil Service Commission from a list of eligible applicants, whose merits had been satisfactorily tested by an appropriate examination. Under the rules prescribed in 1883 the Navy Department on the occurrence of a vacancy notified the Commission, which at once certified to the department the four applicants on the eligible list whose grades were highest; and from these the department selected one to fill the vacancy. In course of time the Commission established several lists of eligibles corresponding to the classes of positions in the department. In 1894 President Cleveland placed the watchmen and messengers within the classified service, and in 1896 he classified many of the laborers. By the end of his second administration all the civilian positions of the Navy Department in Washington, with the exception of those of the Secretary of the Navy, the Assistant Secretary of the Navy, the private secretary of the Secretary, and a few laborers, were under the merit system. In 1896 Cleveland extended the civil service rules so as to include many of the employees of the navy-yards.