"U. S. C. N."
(SEE PAGE 1699, WHOLE No. 200)
LIEUTENANT J. B. WELLMAN, U. S. N. R. F.—Lieut. Commander McIntosh's article is one of the most enthusiastic and comprehensible arguments favoring the extension of America's commercial "Sea Power" that I have ever read; presenting, as it does, the greatest fundamental truths in an exhaustive, yet apparently elementary, manner; a manner so apparently elementary that even the most ignorant or prejudiced cannot fail to appreciate and thoroughly understand the situation. Not only does he present the situation, but proposes a remedy; his first six articles already predisposing the reader to voice the resolution that—even if the remedy, the commercial navy, were operated at a loss themselves, the pecuniary loss of operating the commercial navy would be more than compensated for by the direct, or indirect, gain to the country at large; gains pecuniary, commercial, and industrial. Article V might have been better terminated had he voiced the plea for free tolls for vessels passing through the Panama Canal on coastwise voyages bound from and to American ports on either coast. Should such a thing be now proposed, I do not think that the private interests, such as formerly controlled American railroads, would be able to construct sufficient opposition, or even have the same reasons for propagating propaganda opposing this constitutional right of American coastwise commerce that they formerly had.
In one thing alone is he singularly unposted. This attitude or impression has been obtained, undoubtedly, through the patriotic unselfishness of marine engineers as a whole. I refer to his "Proposed Complement U. S. C. S. Antigone": in this proposed complement he advocates:
He assumes that the engineer officers will consent to accept a proposition proposing less pay for them than the deck officers. When I make the statement that hundreds of the reserve engineers left the service vowing never to return and that this attitude was provoked by the pecuniary discrimination they suffered, particularly the chief, first and second assistant engineer officers, I am making a statement which can be verified by anyone who chooses to step into any marine engineers’ local headquarters. When the naval reserve was first proposed to the members of the naval auxiliary service, this condition was not extant and equal position prescribed equal pay. Why or how this proposition was later changed, I do not know, but this I do know: the majority of the good assistant engineer officers of the naval auxiliary service have since left it at the first opportunity, the remainder remain hoping that conditions will change, and probably for the same reasons as myself, that they have naval preferences due to previous service or affiliations which incline them to disregard, apparently, this discrimination.
For a first and second assistant engineer officer to receive less pay than the corresponding deck officer is, in the merchant marine, an impossibility. Actually, while second, and later first, assistant engineer, in the employ of a certain eastern steamship company less than three years ago, I received more pay than the corresponding deck officers. This was an exception and unjust, but it is a fact.
A vice-president of a certain west-coast steamship company, mentioned in "U. S. C. N.," once told the master of one of his ships that "there are but four officers absolutely required for the safe navigation of a ship: the master, chief, first and second assistant engineer officers. After getting clear of, and until within easy distance of port, the quartermaster could be trusted with the wheel to hold the course (this was in pre-war days), the master only being required for emergencies and when entering or leaving port. Furthermore, the changing of chief engineers costs us on an average $15,000, while to change masters costs no more than a new set of bedding." This is the limit of presumption, but was prompted by the fact that one of their ships was brought home safely over a distance of over a thousand miles by the chief engineer, not a deck officer being aboard.
With the proposed changes incorporated in this article, I would propose the widest distribution of it. Donate it to the largest newspaper syndicate, and to the most popular weekly journal (say the Saturday Evening Post) and to any others which might be induced or have sufficient interest to publish it. With or without the proposed changes, it cannot help but awaken the liveliest interest and discussion among the people at large, few of whom ever heard of the PROCEEDINGS, or would ever have the pleasure of having the facts laid before them in a more lucid or agreeable manner.