COMMANDER W. W. PHELPS, U. S. Navy.—I wish to record my opposition to the proposition of the division officer being authorized to mete out penalties in the case of minor reports among his own division. While both are military services, the navy differs from the army; and on board of a man-of-war the captain only, must be clothed with the power of dealing with offenders, whether the offenses be serious or trivial. Because, on board ship, the men of a division do not work always as a unit; the division must be constantly split up, details working here and there, according to the work in hand, under various officers. I have heard military men say that the army method is not conducive to such uniformity and contentment as follows from our method. In other words, that the variations due to the differing personal equations of company commanders tend to prevent a high degree of contentment. The same would result from the writer's proposal. The writer dwells on punishment. It seems to me that it is not punishment that should so much concern the officer as the methods of prevention of delinquencies. All the trivial delinquencies the writer refers to are the result of absence of tautness in small details and of failure constantly and repeatedly to exercise patient admonition. To handle these trivial delinquencies it is wrong to think of looking for a method of applying a penalty each time. Constant admonition and correction on the spot will get results in the vast majority of men. The small minority are easy to deal with. The spirit of tautness and efficiency ought then eventually to prevail and become the standard of all hands in smaller as well as in greater things. Every condition on board ship reflects on the captain, and it is not difficult for the captain to greatly diminish the delinquencies to which the writer refers by spending some little time in tracing to their sources the reasons for such delinquencies, and applying the remedy there.
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