To the student of industrial organization, the practical man, the graduate engineer, and to those interested in the management of our great corporations, the navy of the United States affords an excellent and profitable field of study.
Few, indeed, realize the magnitude and importance of the military-industrial organization that in its constant active operation maintains the efficiency and material readiness of the fighting fleet.
The navy as an organization may, with propriety, be likened to a vast corporation, having an invested capital of several billion dollars; an annual expense account of more than $140,000,000; a sea-keeping personnel of about 60,000 officers and men; and requiring the direct employment of no less than 35,000 laborers and skilled artisans from practically every known trade and calling.
It exists through the will of the people, and like the other branches of the general government, is for the people and by the people, and dependent upon the Congress.
That there may be no confusion of ideas one needs must accept as axiomatic, that the navy as an entity exists primarily, and is at all times a military organization. The authority and responsibility of the leaders; the exacted and implicit subordination of its personnel to those placed in authority over them; its activities; its years of combined and painstaking effort, have but one predominating purpose. So, too, its construction and engineering; its maintenance and procurement of stores and ammunition; the equipment and activities of its navy yards and naval stations—all focus as the radii of a circle to a common center, and that center, in the briefest possible summation, is the military readiness of its personnel and material for war!
That such an idea is repugnant and unacceptable to those who fanatically worship at the shrine of the goddess of peace, or to the more utilitarian few who would clutter the decks of fighting ships with the goods and samples of our manufactured or commercial products, is of itself unfortunate. Crediting them with all sincerity in their "isms," one can but plead in passing that they be enlightened, for they know not what they do.
The military feature of the navy needs no exploitation at this time. Its history and traditions are replete with deeds of daring and valorous accomplishment. The reviews, cruises, and periodic visits of the ships of the fleet to our seaports, together with the occasional furlough trips of officers and men to the interior towns give a certain desired publicity and a degree of familiarity with this most important phase of the subject.
The purposes of the navy as a military part of the federal government are essentially twofold—defensive in time of peace; aggressively offensive in time of war. The potentiality of its strength, and its mobility are, in time of peace, an assurance of continued peace. In time of war it becomes instantly an active outer barrier against invasion and reprisal. It is, in truth, the strong right arm of the national defence and offence.
Inseparably associated with these military features—a tangible, integral and coherent part thereof—is the industrial organization. Like unto the human body, the navy is a living organism, taking in from several sources such material as may be required for its sustenance; deriving its life, its strength and physical activity only through the assimilation of this material, and attaining to its maximum efficiency only when directed by a controlling mind, functioning through certain centers, capable of coordinating the efforts of its entire being.
Admitting the codependence of mind and body, so, too, must we recognize the intimacy of union between the military and the industrial organizations of the navy. Divorcement, or even partial separation of the one from the other is impracticable and must be resisted by those having the best interests, not only of the navy, but of the country as a whole, at heart. There should be no separation of the material navy from its personnel.
Knowing that the value of an analogy is directly dependent upon the similarity of the subjects compared, one cannot help but be impressed with the fact that the human organism, whether it be considered as an organization, a machine, or the coordinated union of many parts, lends itself to multitudinous comparisons:
The peculiar value of analogy is that by it certain cases, in which relations are clear and conspicuous, are used to familiarize the mind with the nature of the relation, so that when similar phenomena, differently grouped are studied, we are able to detect the relationship, even though it be subtle and partly hidden in its new form.—PROFESSOR EDW. D. JONES.
One cannot in the strictness of an analogy "substitute men for cells, and the nation for the human body" for the mere purpose of emphasizing group specialization. The comparison should, in fairness, be carried further and along broader lines. No organ or group of cells in the human body remains animate once the soul has fled. It is equally illogical to speak of the creation of an industrial organization under the control of a semi-military industrial corps. Candidly, I must confess my inability to picture a semi-military corps. By derivation and definition one may readily define and understand both words, but in the hyphenating process one pauses in wonderment, puzzled whether to make the legs military by encasing them in puttees; or the head, by placing thereon a visored cap with a hammer rampant on a metal plate. Military-semi might be applied to a holster without a pistol, or a scabbard with a sword that cannot be drawn.
THE NAVY DEPARTMENT
The Navy Department is a separate and distinctive branch of the federal government.
There shall be at the seat of Government an executive department to be known as the Department of the Navy, and a Secretary of the Navy, who shall be the head thereof (Sec. 415, Revised Statutes).
The definition of its duties have been coincident and commensurate with the growth of the nation. Under the direct control of the Secretary the several activities of the department have been grouped in four coequal divisions known, respectively, as the divisions of: (a) Operations, (b) Personnel, (c) Material, (d) Inspections. These names are fairly indicative of the duties and functions of each division; that is to say, the Division of Operations moves and operates the fleet and its train; Personnel provides officers and men; Material builds the ships, provides the stores and munitions, maintains repair yards, docks and fuel stations; Inspections examines into and reports upon the existing conditions ashore and afloat.
The business of the department has, from time to time, been distributed, in such manner as the various Secretaries have judged to be proper and expedient, among the following bureaus:
(a) Bureau of Yards and Docks.
(b) Bureau of Equipment.
(c) Bureau of Navigation.
(d) Bureau of Ordnance.
(e) Bureau of Construction and Repair.
(f) Bureau of Steam Engineering.
(g) Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.
(h) Bureau of Medicine and Surgery.
This allocation forms the basis of the present administrative plan.
In detail, we find that the Secretary has as a personal advisory council certain aids; that two of the four grand divisions are made up of the bureaus just enumerated; that each bureau is presided over by a chief, selected from the commissioned personnel of the navy, nominated by the President, confirmed by the Senate, and appointed for a period of four years; and, that in addition, the General Board and the Naval War College act as deliberative and advisory bodies in the broad and comprehensive sense of the words.
DIVISION OF MATERIAL
Confining ourselves, for the purposes of this article, to the material military-industrial features of the navy, we find that they readily group themselves in the Division of Material and that its functions are exercised through the coordinated efforts of its component bureaus.
Graphically shown this division is large even beyond our ordinary conception and understanding. Financially, it is the most important of all divisions. It includes:
(a) The Bureau of Yards and Docks.—This bureau is responsible for the design and construction of the public works and public utilities of the navy, and in general, with their repair, upkeep and operation. The term "public works" is construed by regulation to include the following and similar works of whatever character and wherever located subject to certain definite exceptions, and except such as may be located on board ship: aqueducts; breakwaters; bridges; buildings and permanent fixtures; canals; casemates; chimneys; cisterns; coaling plants; conductors for heat, air, light, power, steam, water and communicating systems; conduits for pipes and conductors; dams; dikes; ditching; dredging; docks; drydocks and machinery thereof; earthworks; fences; flagpoles; grading; harbor work; heating and ventilating plants; hospitals; industrial offices; landings; lawns; magazines; paving; piers; pipe lines; pole lines; power plants and the machinery thereof; quay walls; radio stations on shore, including buildings and masts, but not equipment on its installation; railways; marine railways; recreation grounds; refrigeration plants; reservoirs; roads; sewers; shade trees; slips; building slips; smokestacks; storage tanks; target ranges on shore; walks; walls, water works and wharves. The term "public utilities" is construed by regulations to include the following and similar utilities of whatever character and wherever located with certain definite exceptions, and except such as may be located on board ships: Awnings, cranes outside of shops; derricks outside of shops; dredges; fire apparatus; fixed moorings; flags; landing floats; locomotives and rolling stock; mules, horses, and cattle; pile drivers; shears, steam shovels; telephone and telegraph lines; trucks; vehicles; wheels.
(b) The Bureau of Equipment.1—This bureau is responsible for the procurement and delivery of coal and water for all purposes on board naval vessels; for the upkeep and operation of all coaling plants; for the manufacture of anchors, cables, the supplying and fitting of rope, cordage, rigging, sails, awnings and other canvas, flags, bunting, galley fittings and outfits. It has cognizance over the entire system of interior communications; designs supplies, installs, maintains and repairs all means of interior and exterior electrical communications, excepting ordnance transmitters and indicators, and of all electrical appliances of whatsoever nature on board naval vessels, except motors and their controlling apparatus used to operate the machinery belonging to other bureaus. It is charged with the upkeep and operation of the Hydrographic Office, the Naval Observatory, the Compass Office and the Nautical Almanac; the publication and supply of charts, nautical works, and sailing directions; the dissemination of nautical, hydrographic, and meteorological information to the navy and the mercantile marine, the supply of navigational outfits; and the making of ocean and lake surveys.
1The duties originally assigned by law to this bureau have recently been distributed among the other bureaus and offices of the Navy Department; for the purpose of this text they are given as originally assigned although some are of a non-material character.
(c) The Bureau of Ordnance.—The duties of this bureau comprise all that relates to the upkeep, repair, and operation of the Torpedo Station at Newport, R. I.; the Naval Proving Ground at Indian Head, Md.; the Naval Gun Factory at Washington, D. C.; magazines on shore; to the manufacture of offensive and defensive arms and apparatus (including torpedoes and armor), and all ammunition. It determines the interior dimensions of revolving turrets and their requirements as regards rotation; designs and constructs all turret ammunition hoists; determines the requirements of all ammunition hoists and the method of construction of armories and ammunition rooms on board ship; installs all parts of the armament and its accessories not permanently attached to any portion of the structure of the hull of the vessel, excepting turret guns, turret mounts, and ammunition hoists, and such other mounts as require simultaneous structural work in connection with installation or removal.
It has cognizance over all electrically operated ammunition hoists, rammers, and gun elevating gear in turrets of electric training and elevating gear for gun mounts not in turrets; of electrically operated air compressors for charging torpedoes; and of all range finders, and battle order and range transmitters and indicators.
(d) The Bureau of Construction and Repair.—The duties of this bureau comprise the responsibility for the structural strength and stability of all ships built for the navy; all that relates to the design, building, fitting and repairing of the hulls of ships, turrets, spars, capstans, windlasses, steering gear and ventilating apparatus; care and preservation of ships not in commission; docking and undocking of ships, and the operation of drydocks. It designs, constructs and installs, after consultation with and to the satisfaction of the Bureau of Ordnance, independent ammunition hoists, and the permanent fixtures of the armament and its accessories as manufactured and supplied by that bureau. It is responsible for the placing and securing of armor once the material, quality and distribution of thickness have been definitely determined. It has cognizance over all electric turret-turning machinery, the same to conform to the requirements of the Bureau of Ordnance as to power, speed and control. It has cognizance over stationary, electrically-operated fans or blowers for hull ventilation; boat cranes, deck winches, capstans; steering gear and hand pumps not in engine rooms. It maintains the model basin at the navy yard at Washington, D. C.
(e) The Bureau of Steam Engineering.—The duties of this bureau comprise all that relates to designing, building, fitting out, and repairing machinery used for the propulsion of naval ships; the steam pumps; steam heaters, distilling apparatus; refrigerating apparatus; all steam connections of ships, and the steam machinery necessary for actuating the apparatus by which turrets are turned. It has supervision and control of the upkeep and operation of the Engineering Experiment Station at Annapolis, Md.
(f) The Bureau of Supplies and Accounts.—This bureau is subdivided into two sections, namely, the Section of Supplies and the Section of Accounts.
The Section of Supplies comprises all that relates to the purchase, reception, storage, care, custody, transfer, shipment and issue of all supplies for the naval establishment, and the keeping of property accounts for the same, except supplies for the Marine Corps, and except the reception, storage, care, transfer, property accounts, and issue of medical stores. It requires for, prepares, or manufactures provisions, clothing, and small stores.
The Section of Accounts comprises all that relates to the supply of funds for disbursing officers, the payment for articles and services for which contract or agreement has been made by the proper authority, and the keeping of the money accounts in the naval establishment, including accounts of all manufacturing and operating expense at navy yards and naval stations.
(g) The Director of Navy Yards is charged with all matters relating to methods of organization and administration of the industrial plants of naval stations, including all matters affecting the method of doing work.
(h) The Aid for Material advises the Secretary as to the work of the several bureaus and officers herein enumerated and in all matters concerning the industrial administration and equipment of navy yards and naval stations. It is his duty to assist the Secretary in insuring that all work performed in the Material Division is efficiently and economically done; to advise the Secretary with a view to securing coordination, and to prepare for issue by the Secretary the necessary orders relating to this division; to examine into all reports made by authorized boards or individuals relative to the work of the division, and to recommend such action thereon as may be necessary.
Even a cursory examination of the composition and the varied extent of the duties and responsibilities of the bureau and offices comprising the Material Division, as detailed above, reveals the fact that they are at once both military and industrial. Separately, certain of their functions might readily be performed as purely industrial efforts, but, inasmuch as these efforts and their resultant product serve their purpose only when harmoniously combined so as to produce the maximum military efficiency of the navy as a fighting machine, it becomes apparent that the lines of demarcation vanish, and that in lieu of separate entities we have a .military-industrial organization, a coalescent union that defies separation.
LOCATION OF ADMINISTRATIVE OFFICES
The principal administrative offices of the Division of Material are located in the Navy Department, Washington, D. C., and through its various bureau chiefs, the Director of Navy Yards and the Aid for Material, there is maintained a direct and continuous communication with the Secretary.
From these offices emanate all original orders; the approval of plans and specifications; the subdivision and allotment of funds; and instructions as to the general method, precedence and procedure of undertaking and accomplishing authorized work.
The policy to be followed by the department with relation to any specific national subject, or the naval establishment, having been enunciated by the Secretary (acting in the more important instances as the direct mouthpiece of the President), the administrative machinery is readily set in motion.
RESPONSIBILITY AND AUTHORITY OF BUREAU CHIEFS
Each bureau chief is the technical and expert adviser of the Secretary in all matters under the cognizance of his particular bureau, and as such is clearly responsible for the soundness of his advice, the accuracy and completeness of his plans, and the efficiency and thoroughness of his executive details.
BUREAU COGNIZANCE AND COORDINATION
From the very nature of the work performed, the necessity of combined ideas, and the desideratum of a harmoniously functioning product, it is quite apparent that the beginning and ending of bureau cognizance must be determinate and susceptible of ready reference and understanding. Coordination of design, mutual adaptability, and the preeminence of the ultimate idea through the subordination of the parts least essential, together with unquestioning loyalty, are requisites that form the very foundation of the working structure.
If these features be ignored in the inception, the combined and finished product fails in the attainment of its purpose. Bureau authority cannot be independent and absolute—the hull must conform to the machinery, even as the machinery must be adaptable to the hull. The design, construction and operation of a vessel of war is essentially a series of compromises, constantly seeking the ideal; the complications and limitations are such that accomplishment seems well nigh impossible, and in the end we accept that which is next best and nearest to our purpose.
METHODS OF PHYSICAL ACCOMPLISHMENT
When eventually an accepted plan, correlated in its parts, has been adopted and has received departmental approval, its physical accomplishment becomes a function
I. Of a navy yard or naval station.
II. Of a private contractor or builder.
III. Of purchase, after competition, in the market
The military-industrial activities to be found under these three groupings decrease in the order of their naming.
I. Navy yards and naval stations are government institutions under the care and management of naval officers, and as such are subject to military rules and requirements.
II. Contractors and private builders represent a class of civil institutions, independent of an absolute government control, performing in part government work of a military nature and in consequence subject to governmental inspection and supervision through military agents known as superintending or supervising constructors, constructing engineers, inspectors of ordnance and equipment.
III. Purchase in the open markets is the acquisition of standard commercial products, or of articles manufactured in accordance with standard naval specifications.
NAVAL OFFICERS
Inasmuch as the expression "naval officers" has, or will be frequently encountered in this article, it is considered desirable from the standpoint of the lay reader, to inject a few paragraphs descriptive of these officials, and in particular to indicate the fields from which they are drawn, their training and the work that they are professionally called upon to perform. The officer personnel of the navy is subdivided or classified as follows:
I. COMMISSIONED OFFICERS
(1) Officers of the Line: The admiral; rear-admirals; captains; commanders; lieutenant-commanders; lieutenants; lieutenants, junior grade; and ensigns.
(2) Officers of the Staff Corps:
(a) Medical Corps: medical directors, medical inspectors, surgeons; passed assistant surgeons; assistant surgeons; dental surgeons.
(b) Pay Corps: pay directors; pay inspectors; paymasters; passed assistant paymasters; assistant paymasters;
(c) Chaplains.
(d) Professors of Mathematics.
(e) Construction Corps: naval constructors; assistant naval constructors.
(f) Corps of Civil Engineers: civil engineers; assistant civil engineers.
(3) Warrant Officers who have been commissioned through length of continuous and efficient service.
(4) Officers of the Line and Staff on the retired list.
(5) Officers of the Reserve Corps.
(6) Acting Staff Officers on probation.
II. MIDSHIPMEN UNDER INSTRUCTION AT THE NAVAL ACADEMY
III. WARRANT OFFICERS (warranted but not commissioned)
(1) Boatswains.
(2) Gunners.
(3) Machinists.
(4) Carpenters.
(5) Sailmakers.
(6) Pharmacists.
In addition to the above classes of commissioned and warranted officers, there is what is known as the petty officer class, subdivided as follows:
I. CHIEF PETTY OFFICERS
(1) Seaman Branch
(a) Master at Arms.
(b) Boatswains Mates.
(c) Gunners Mates.
(d) Turret Captains.
(e) Quartermasters.
(2) Artificer Branch
(a) Machinist's Mates.
(b) Electricians.
(c) Carpenters Mates.
(d) Water Tenders.
(3) Special Branch
(a) Yeomen.
(b) Hospital Stewards.
(c) Bandmasters.
(d) Commissary Stewards
II. PETTY OFFICERS, 1St CLASS
(1) Seaman Branch
(a) Masters at Arms.
(b) Boatswains Mates.
(c) Gunners Mates.
(d) Turret Captains.
(e) Quartermasters.
(2) Artificer Branch
(a) Boilermakers.
(b) Machinist's Mates.
(c) Coppersmiths.
(d) Shipfitters.
(e) Electricians.
(f) Blacksmiths.
(g) Plumber and Fitters.
(h) Sailmakers.
(i) Carpenter's Mates.
(j) Water Tenders.
(k) Painters.
(3) Special Branch
(a) Yeomen.
(b) 1st Musicians.
(c) Commissary Stewards.
(d) Ship's Cooks.
(e) Bakers.
III. PETTY OFFICERS, 2d CLASS
(1) Seaman Branch
(a) Masters at Arms.
(b) Boatswains Mates.
(c) Gunners Mates.
(d) Quartermasters.
(2) Artificer Branch
(a) Machinist's Mates.
(b) Electricians.
(c) Shipfitters.
(d) Oilers.
(e) Printers.
(f) Painters.
(3) Special Branch
(a) Yeomen.
(b) Ships Cooks.
IV. PETTY OFFICERS, 3d CLASS
(1) Seaman Branch
(a) Masters at Arms.
(b) Coxswains.
(c) Gunners Mates.
(d) Quartermasters.
(2) Artificer Branch.
(a) Electricians.
(b) Carpenters.
(c) Painters'.
(3) Special Branch
(a) Hospital Apprentices.
All commissioned line officers with the exception of those promoted from the warrant officer class, together with all members of the Construction Corps, and certain members of the Marine, Pay, and Civil Engineering Corps, are graduates of the Naval Academy.
Congress has provided that each of its members, including both Senators and Congressmen, together with the President, shall appoint candidates to the Naval Academy at Annapolis, Maryland. These candidates are, by this provision of law, drawn from all classes of the people and from every state in the Union, and, provided they successfully pass a thorough and rigid physical and the prescribed mental examinations, enter into a four years course of study and training as midshipmen. At the end of this academic course they are commissioned either as ensigns in the line of the navy, assistant naval constructors, assistant paymasters, second lieutenants in the Marine Corps, or assistant civil engineers (Act of July 9, 1913).
An Act Providing for an increase in the number of midshipmen at the United States Naval Academy after June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and thirteen.
Be it enacted by the Senate and House of Representatives of the United States of America in Congress assembled, That after June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and thirteen, and until June thirtieth, nineteen hundred and nineteen, there shall be allowed at the Naval Academy two midshipmen for each Senator, Representative, and Delegate in Congress, one for Porto Rico, two for the District of Columbia, and ten appointed each year at large: Provided, That midshipmen on graduation shall be commissioned ensigns in the Navy, or may be assigned by the Secretary of the Navy to fill vacancies in the lowest commissioned grades of the Marine Corps or Staff Corps of the Navy. Approved, July 9, 1913.
The curriculum at the Naval Academy is comprehensive and thorough, both in its theoretical and practical studies, and is far too detailed to be made a part of this article. It is essentially military in all its attributes and includes the all important training in self-confidence and the leadership and handling of men.
The answer lies in an unconscious influence of military education and training, one of the essential elements of which is the development of self-confidence. The man who may be called upon to lead a "forlorn hope" should approach his task with a strong belief in his ability to carry it through successfully. The intangible something very properly ingrained at the Naval Academy which makes a man jump unhesitatingly to attempt the apparently impossible when ordered to do so, is what I refer to.—RADFORD2
Neither the theoretical nor the practical training ends with the completion of the four-year academic course. The navy is awake to the necessity and the strong desirability of postgraduate work for both officers and men, and to this end details special classes in civil, electrical and mechanical engineering, in naval construction, ordnance, chemical and metallurgical work, radio-telegraphy, and the arts of war. Civilians appointed to the Pay and Medical Corps are similarly trained by postgraduate work to fit them for the multitudinous duties of their positions.
ASSIGNMENTS
Line officers are, in accordance with their rank, experience and adaptability, assigned to the command of fleets, divisions, ships, navy yards, and stations, have charge of the machinery division of the manufacturing department in navy yards, perform ordnance, engineering and navigational duty ashore and afloat, serve in administrative capacities in the department and bureaus, act as attaches abroad, as instructors at the Naval Academy, the War College and training stations, and as inspectors and supervisors at private manufacturing plants.
2”Organization," by Naval Constructor G. S. Radford, U. S. N. PROCEEDINGS Whole No. 148, Vol. 39, No. 4, December, 1913; page 1683.
The commissioned officers of the staff corps, with the exception of the naval constructors and the present senior grades in the Marine Corps, have in the past been appointed and commissioned directly from civil life, their academic and collegiate training having been obtained in various private institutions prior to their affiliation with the navy. Their military-naval training has as a rule been acquired through experience and postgraduate work after their entrance into the naval service.
Staff officers, in accordance with their rank, experience and adaptability, are assigned to the various duties specifically allotted their particular corps. It should be noted that military seniority holds in these corps even as in the line, and further that line and staff are interlocked by seniority and precedence, dependent in part upon the date of entry into the service and date of commission in any particular grade or corresponding rank.
Officers belonging to the Construction Corps are, in accordance with their rank, experience and ability, assigned to duty in the Bureau of Construction and Repair in administrative capacities, have charge of the hull division of the manufacturing department in navy yards, may act as aids to commandants, perform construction and repair work ashore and afloat, act as special representatives abroad, and as superintending constructors at private manufacturing plants.
Members of the Pay Corps are similarly assigned to duty in the Bureau of Supplies and Accounts and are in charge of the general storekeeping, pay and accounting departments in navy yards and naval stations, and in similar capacities on board ships.
Members of the Civil Engineering Corps are assigned to duty in the Bureau of Yards and Docks and are in charge of the public works department in navy yards and stations, and act as inspectors and supervisors when public works are accomplished under contract.
The duties performed by members of the Marine, Medical and Chaplains Corps are so distantly related to the industrial part of the navy as to require no detailed mention in this instance. Each corps has its allotted duty to perform, its several units acting in harmony with the requirements of the major military organization, of which they are a part.
SHORE STATIONS
Under the broad title of shore stations are included all land establishments belonging to the Navy Department. This term is comprehensive of naval stations, navy yards, naval reservations, training stations, prison and detention stations, the Naval Proving Ground, Torpedo Station, magazines, Clothing Factory, Medical Laboratory, Naval Observatory, hospitals, Gun Factory and fueling stations.
Of these, the Material Division is primarily concerned, from an industrial standpoint with:
(a) Navy yards and Naval Stations.
(b) The Gun and Torpedo Factory.
(c) The Proving Grounds and magazines.
(d) Fueling stations (coal, oil and water storage).
(e) Clothing factory.
(f) Reservations (coal and oil).
ORGANIZATION AND GENERAL ADMINISTRATION OF SHORE STATIONS
The present system of organization and administration of our naval shore stations has been in part the result of long evolution. Changes have been slow, and rarely of radical growth; much of the good of past years has been retained, the constant effort having been to remove only the dross. Unfortunately, there have been periods when the main idea has been subordinated to political gain and greed; periods of stagnation and of wasted effort through needless duplication and decentralization. Local and sectional clamor have too frequently drowned the voice of national good. Appropriation and provision have too often been dependent upon the reprehensible "quid pro quo." It is perhaps Utopian to expect abnegation in our body politic, but year by year the division of spoils becomes more orderly.
It is not surprising, knowing the American temperament, that there should appear now and then a sporadic outbreak of criticism against the existing order of things. Such a condition is more than American, it is broadly human. The very absence of criticism, the quiescent contentment, are the antithesis of progress and efficiency. In all walks of life, we invaribly encounter some feeling of unrest; a desire for change, a striving for uplift, advancement and improvement. Unfortunately, the reformer is the more frequently inclined to destroy the existing order of things, hoping in a visionary way to build palaces upon the ruins of hovels. Let us not forget that the old order, the existing order, changeth slowly.
The art of administration is as old as the human race. Even the leading wolf of a pack is an administrator. Organization is older than history, for the earliest documents, such as the code of Hammurabi, show the evidences of many generations of systematized social life. The real pioneers are the unknown promoters of the stone age, and the system-makers of the bronze age. Long ago almost every conceivable experiment in organization was first made. The records of history tell us of large units and small ones, of great and slight differentiation of functions, of extreme divisions and extreme concentration of authority, of mild and severe sanctions, of appeal to system and appeal to passion, of trust in numbers and trust in leadership. Of the vast variety of units of organization through which human intelligence has worked, and through which human purposes have beeen achieved, or thwarted, the greater part has passed away; and the names of them, even, have been forgotten.
In politics, the evolution has passed through the horde, the patriarchal family, the clan, and the classical city state. Nations have tried despotisms, oligarchies and theocracies, absolute and constitutional monarchies, and republics. In military matters the phalanx gave way to the legion and cohort, and these in turn to the division, brigade, battalion, regiment and company. Throughout history, the survival of the fittest, as between nations, has been fought out, in part, on the basis of the ability to use organized and cooperative methods of action. What a wealth of experience has been gained—and lost! How many times, in the long journey of history, have underlying administrative principles been, with enthusiasm, discovered, and rediscovered.
In this dilemma we may turn to the history of political and military institutions and find ample materials for the study of administration. The lines of activity have swept together millions of people into single organizations, and have made the leaders the cynosures of innumerable eyes.—PROFESSOR EDW. D. JONES.
One further quotation, even at the risk of redundancy, is considered worthy of our attention, and I quote in this instance from the report of a Congressional Committee that had as its chairman the present Secretary of Labor.
Any radical change in factory management should be gradual evolution out of that which has preceded. The present systems, or lack of systems, with their good and bad points, are themselves the result of long evolution. No drastic or radical change in them should be suddenly or even quickly imposed by fiat from above. Men have become accustomed alike to the good and the bad that are in the systems under which they work. They know and approve the good; they know how to combat the evil. They are naturally and properly suspicious that motives purely selfish may be behind the sudden change. Confidence is a plant of slow growth.
The military man is essentially a leader, exercising his leadership when "responsibilities are terrifying and the greatest resource of soul is required to make decisions." He is a student of men in every sense of their being, a leader stimulated by the highest ideals, attaining to greatness and success through the men he leads, satisfied only when he knows his work has been well done, asking no greater reward than the gratitude of his fellowmen.
It is through this evolution and upon these beliefs that we have builded our present system—they may be accepted as the genesis of its being.
THE COMMANDANT
The supreme authority and command at a navy yard or other shore station is, under the direction of the Secretary of the Navy, vested in a naval officer of the line, known as the commandant, and as such exercising control over every department in the yard, and requiring a faithful and efficient performance of duty from all officers and employees under him.
The duties of the commandant are both military and industrial and in their exercise, from an industrial viewpoint, he is responsible for the preservation of all buildings and the stores contained therein, for all vessels out of commission, for the judicious application of labor, for the proper expenditure of funds and material, for the accomplishment of duly authorized work, and for the successful administration of the details of his office.
The details of general administration and organization of navy yards are in many respects similar to those existing in a number of our most successful private establishments, and it is the avowed intent of the Navy Regulations to create and maintain, in so far as may be practicable, relations between the commandant and the department and bureaus, similar to those existing between the commanding officer of a ship in commission and the department and bureaus.
REASONS FOR THE EXISTENCE OF NAVY YARDS
It is necessary that we once more focus the spotlight upon the fact that navy yards and shore stations exist for the fleet. Too much emphasis cannot be attached to this declaration and we may, with no fear of contradiction, brand as fallacious the specious reasoning that contends for the reversal of this condition.
Rare, indeed, are the conditions that warrant the creation of needless naval work for the mere sake of retaining employees—rarer still the conditions that would warrant the creation of an exclusive and specialized naval industrial corps, be it military, semi-military, or wholly civil, holding life tenure of office, and charged only with the management of industries that may vanish overnight.
Wise, indeed, was the committee that reported to the Congress that no drastic or radical change should be imposed by fiat from above; let us not forget that men are naturally and properly suspicious that motives purely selfish may be behind these demands for change.
Should the day ever come when our navy yards and shore stations are exploited either for labor, or the organized management of labor, we will unwittingly, in response to these shortsighted and selfish demands, have written upon the beacons and buoys marking the channel approach to such yards those fatalistic words seen by Dante over the gates of hell; and the ships that enter therein shall not again come forth with the "fighting edge."
The fact is clearly recognized that a uniform labor roll is concomitant with economy, efficiency and the contentment of the personnel; and to attain this end every legitimate effort is made to avoid extreme fluctuations. The ships of the navy have been assigned to definite home yards; their regular docking and overhaul is accomplished in accordance with a carefully prepared schedule; little indeed has been left to chance or hazard, and yet in spite of our best efforts the very nature of the service performed makes increases and discharges an inevitable attribute that must be expected and accepted. Emergency work is subject to no preconceived schedule.
SUBDIVISION OF GENERAL ORGANIZATION
The activities and functions at a navy yard are grouped in accordance with the general organization, in the following departments:
(a) Manufacturing Department {(1) Machinery Division.
{(2) Hull Division.
(b) Public Work Department.
(c) Inspection Department.
(d) General Storekeeper's Department.
(e) Pay Department.
(f) Accounting Department.
(g) Medical Department.
The manufacturing department, as will be seen from the above, is divided in accordance with the best recognized civil practice into two separate divisions, known, respectively, as the machinery and hull divisions.
The commandant, in his dual capacity of military and industrial senior, is the general manager of the manufacturing department—the department to which are assigned the shops, manufacturing and repair facilities of the yard.
It is this dual capacity, that, perhaps, puzzles the outside observer. It is upon this one point, the salient as it were, that the present opposition to the existing system of management is directing its heaviest gun-fire.
Let us examine frankly into the governing conditions, let us array the pros and cons. Things that are, exist only through some definite reason, and continue only so long as the support of exterior circumstances is accorded them.
There can be no denial of the military purpose of the navy, individually or in the aggregate; its auxiliary vessels, its gunboats, destroyers, submarines, cruisers, and dreadnoughts have but one purpose, and attain to the maximum exercise of that purpose in the act of war!—a purely military function.
The purpose of the commissioned and enlisted personnel borne on the navy roster is to officer and man auxiliaries, gun-boats, destroyers, submarines, cruisers, and dreadnoughts, not for peaceful and prosperous voyages, but for war!—and in the strictest military way to employ every offensive and defensive feature built into these several classes of vessels in the attainment of victory, or, if perchance defeat, then the defeat of destruction.
Drills, exercises, evolutions, target practices, war-games, repairs and overhaul have but one avowed and recognized purpose: the training and preparation for war.
Secretary after Secretary, Congress after Congress, have by declaration, provision, and law indicated that the navy yards exist for the fleet. Does it not follow, then, that if the fleet exists either for the prevention of war, or its successful consummation after national interests have justified its declaration, that the navy yards exist, even as does the fleet, for war?
If the purpose of the one be military, then by parity of reasoning, such must be the purpose of the other.
Navy yards are not eleemosynary institutions wherein men may attain to life-long sinecures. They are the military-industrial stations wherein vessels belonging to the military branch of the government may be constructed, repaired and fitted out for the performance of their military purposes. If this be not so, then what other reasons justify their existence?
Vessels of all classes can be built in private yards cheaper, perhaps, in most instances than the same work could be done at a government plant, but the fact remains that no private plant is prepared to receive, dock and overhaul a division of five dreadnoughts, to the exclusion of its commercial work. No private corporation is capable of carrying, constantly ready for issue, the material, stores, and munitions required by the division, the groups, and the auxiliaries based upon each of our first-class navy yards. No firm is willing to subordinate its daily routine, its schedules, and lay-out of work, upon the receipt of telegraphic orders to rush this or that group of vessels to completion.
Navy yards and all that they contain are but one link in the chain of readiness, or near-readiness, that permeates the entire navy. Truly has it been said that war is an affair of movement, of activity, of decision, based essentially upon preparation and readiness.
Unfortunately, the American people are not a maritime race, else it would be easier to bring home the force of this argument. We may, however, find an illuminating example in the industrial organization of our railroads. Engines, cars and equipment are purchased in the open market, subject to specification and inspection, but what road throughout the length and breadth of the land is dependent upon outside plants for the repair, overhaul and upkeep of its road-bed or equipment? The repair stations, roundhouses and division shops are to our railroads what navy yards are to our ships.
We do not for a second question the propriety of a railroad managing its own shops. Why then should we have the temerity to question naval management of things essentially naval?
By what tokens are the activities of a sea-going officer limited to navigation and gun-fighting? Let us not forget that the modern battleship is practically self-sustaining, and that within her armored walls are contained engines, boilers and auxiliary machinery more powerful and complicated than we can find in any grouping on shore. Let us not overlook the fact that she is the home and the work shop, the school and the playground of perhaps a thousand human beings.
Sea-going means more than mere departure and arrival. Sea-knowledge does not stop with the study of the winds and the clouds. The game board with its little lead ships, presupposes that the man in the conning tower has officers and men under him capable of making the big ships and the the little ships go where he wills to take them.
To paraphrase an old story: "The trail over the hot sands may be long, the path to the mountain top may be rough and hazardous, but these are as nothing to the trackless trails of the sea. On land if anything happens—well, there you are; but at sea, should an accident occur, where are you?"
The uninitiated may ask what constitutes this ability to make the ships go to the place where the admiral would take them. Briefly, we may answer, the knowledge of navigation, tactics, electricity, steam engineering, mechanics, seamanship, and the leadership of men. It is the ability to pick the trail across the many waters, to avoid shoals and hazards, to keep the day's reckoning. It is the ability to hold position in formation night and day. It is the ability to produce and use both electricity and steam in the various mechanical appliances to be found on board a 30,000 ton battleship, or a 1,000 ton high-speed destroyer; to operate, maintain, and repair dynamos and generators; main engines, turbines, auxiliaries and boilers; to handle the ship in fair weather and in storm; to organize a crew, taken from the city and farm, into a happy, industrious, capable unit, to feed them, work them, drill them, educate them, yea, mother them, so that when the day comes you can fight them to the everlasting glory of the United States and of the flag under which they serve.
It is the ability, the genius, the mechanical and industrial skill to overcome great difficulties with the resources at hand. It will not suffice that we bring our fleet on the fighting line if it be in a crippled, exhausted and demoralized condition; better not to have cruised at all if such should be our state upon arrival within range of the enemy's guns.
All this and more is a part of the sea-going officer's knowledge and training.
The story of the battleship cruise around the world is a splendid record of the American naval officer's ability to operate and maintain the ships entrusted to his care. The history of the cruise of the Russian fleet from Libau to Tsushima is well worth reading.
OFFICERS IN CHARGE OF YARD DEPARTMENTS AND DIVISIONS, AND THEIR DUTIES AS SUCH
Agreeable to the idea of responsibility and authority vested in the commandant as the senior military and industrial officer attached to the yard or shore station, the system provides that there shall be an officer in direct charge of each department or division of the yard organization.
These departmental divisional heads are officers of the line or staff corps of the navy; that is to say, the head of the machinery division of the manufacturing department is a line officer; the head of the hull division of the same department is a member of the Construction Corps; the head of the inspection department may be detailed either from the line or staff. At the head of the other departments are officers of the Civil Engineer, Pay and Medical corps.
The officers in charge of the several departments and divisions herein enumerated are the agents of the commandant in carrying out the work of the Navy Department and its bureaus.
Whenever any item of work is authorized to be performed at a navy yard it devolves upon the commandant to direct its performance either by the machinery or hull divisions, or by the public works department, according to the nature of the shops and resources which may be required for its accomplishment; and when so assigned the work is done under the supervision and control of the head of the division or department concerned. Coupled with this supervision and control is responsibility for the manner and cost of performance.
DETAILS OF MANAGEMENT OF THE INDUSTRIAL ORGANIZATION OF NAVY YARDS
The system now in operation in the industrial organization of navy yards is a modification and adaptation of the essential features existing in several prominent shipyards; in part, it is a modification of the so-called Vicker's system with central-office analysis of work so far as the major steps are concerned, and the preparation therein of essential preliminary papers. Its purposes may be briefly stated as follows:
(a) To secure easiest practicable beginning of work.
(b) To prevent an undesirable accumulation of material in shops.
(c) To properly follow up work.
(d) To secure best machine-tool results and fix standards.
The last purpose has through misunderstanding been made the subject of controversy, and in certain instances has been viewed with grave fears and apprehension by the employees. The cultivation of a feeling of mutual trust and dependence, the awakening of a spirit of loyalty, and experiences of actual operation, have to a great degree at last rendered this particular purpose acceptable to those now familiar with its object.
PLANS FOR FUTURE DEVELOPMENT AND EXPANSION
In the administration of naval affairs the past and the present must ever be regarded as preparatory periods for the future; a future that may be filled with the stupendous and exacting requirements of war. That we are not neglectful of these responsibilities is exemplified in part by the following extracts taken from recent reports made by the Board of Inspection for Shore Stations:
It is of paramount military importance to the efficiency of the fleet that, coincident with its extension, there should be a corresponding development of our leading navy yards and stations. Every additional battleship authorized by Congress entails a corresponding military responsibility or obligation to provide means for its efficient upkeep, as well as for its rapid and efficient repair. It is therefore imperative that the navy yards should be developed along every line which would fit them for more readily meeting the demands of the fleet.
Any delay in building up the navy yards or expectation of depending primarily upon private shipbuilding plants for meeting war demands of the fleet impairs naval efficiency and is a menace to our first line of national defence. The danger of such a policy may not be appreciated in time of peace, but there will come peril, if not national humiliation, if navy yard development is unduly restricted.
An extensive array of auxiliary vessels is the concomitant of an efficient fleet. Consistent with our increase in number of battleships and their auxiliaries it is equally essential that there should be a parallel development of navy yard facilities.
The Secretary of the Navy in his annual report for the fiscal year 1912 devotes an equally strong paragraph to this same subject.
Future of Navy Yards.—It is essential to naval progress and efficiency that the development of the several navy yards should be concomitant with necessary augmentation of the fleet, and such efficiency can only be brought about through some central agency, which will carefully investigate the military usefulness of each yard, both in relation to its strategical, commercial, and manufacturing advantages, as well as in regard to its adaptability for contributing to the endurance and efficiency of the fleet.
The responsibilities of to-day are our inheritance from the past; they are our legacy to the future. Mindful of the unknown elements that the future may contain, we can but build in accordance with existing standards; we can but hope and strive to transmit to posterity, unimpaired, means and resources so essential to our national security.
SUMMARY
The experimental stage in the military-material-industrial organization of the navy may be considered as a thing of the past. The system now in active and successful operation is an accomplished and acknowledged fact. Its products are tangible and comparable. Fully able to meet the existing demands of the naval service, its facilities and resources are at the disposition of the other executive departments of the government.
Never, in the entire history of the navy, has its material, both ashore and afloat, been in better condition than it is to-day.
Within the confines of its organization the navy possesses every element essential to success; upon the continued and coordinated work of these elements rests the glory of future accomplishment.
Our naval strength and the measure of our greatness must ever depend in equal parts upon our material readiness and the prowess of our personnel.