Motto: The principal spring from which the actions of men take
their rise, the rule they conduct by, and the end to which they direct them, seems to be credit and reputation, and that which at any rate they avoid, is in the greater part shame and disgrace.—John Locke.
Promotion should be the reward of credit and reputation in the naval service, and as these rewards are distributed, the actions of naval officers are affected. Nothing is more important than a method of promotion which shall reward the deserving, eliminate the unfit and provide leaders of experience for positions of authority and responsibility. All will agree that that, at least, is the desired result. Its attainment is difficult, and its non-attainment will probably be evident first.
Dissatisfaction in the service as evidenced by resignations and other less apparent signs, may be due to many and obscure causes. At the present time there is undoubtedly dissatisfaction and uncertainty as regards the method of promotion. No more evidence is needed that such dissatisfaction, from such a cause, exists in the minds of competent authority than the effort to improve the present method of promotion, i. e., selection, by (G. O. 494) requesting the selection of those best fitted for promotion, by all the senior grades from the candidates for promotion.
This attempt at improvement of the method of selection, called facetiously “ promotion by acquaintance,” has brought home to many officers for the first time the difficulties which are encountered by each member of the selection board, and will make some officers more tolerant, and others more doubtful of promotion by selection and its effect on the naval service.
Believing with John Locke that “ a thinking and considerate man cannot believe anything with a firmer assent than is due to the evidence and validity of those reasons on which it is founded,” I do not conceive a rational method of promotion which shall obtain and deserve the approval of naval officers as an impossibility.
During the last 20 years, various methods of promotion have been tried. All have been changed but the last, and a modification of that is probable. All have operated for appreciable intervals of time; and during that time sufficient influence has arisen to change them. Ask any officer of experience, however, his opinion of them and you will find that all had their good and bad features.
An analysis of the different methods used in the past should expose the evidence and the validity of the reasons on which criticism of them was based, and such an analysis should at least point the way for avoiding a repetition of previous errors. For instance, officers of the same rank and pay are given different duty, in one case duty of the highest responsibility and authority ordinarily performed by officers considerably senior in rank and experience, while another officer of the same rank and pay is continued in a subordinate position. Frequently officers are promoted in rank and pay with no change in duty. Sometimes with the assignment to duty, an increase in rank, pay, authority and responsibility are included, as in the case of bureau chiefs and commanders-in-chief.
Therefore, in beginning our analysis we have rewards to naval officers for effort and experience subdivided into three classes as follows;
1. Rewards in assignment to duty;
2. Promotion in rank, pay and duty assigned;
3. Promotion in rank and pay.
Rewards in Assignment to Duty
This method of rewards has always been and, judging from past experience, always will be practiced. 1 o eliminate it means that those in authority will be deprived of the very essential right of selecting their subordinates. Nothing is more true than that “results are only accomplished by means of men,” not any man, but by men working together for a certain specific purpose. To force the man responsible for the result to use men, who in his opinion, are not qualified, is to delay the result. Sometimes the particular man desired is not available and it becomes necessary to select the most desirable from those available. But that can hardly be accepted as establishing the principle that the man available is the desirable man. To assume that all officers, even of the same rank, are fitted by personality, experience, knowledge and desire, to perform the same duty is as absurd as to assume that all propellers are interchangeable.
The selection for particular duty works hardship on no other officer. The duty itself carries its own reward. To justify another’s faith will call for the greatest effort on the part of the officer selected and his only reward is in the experience gained and in justifying the trust reposed by the selection.
As rewards these intangible evidences of reputation are highly prized by officers in any grade. They fix the service reputation of officers along particular lines. They continue only for a limited time, when the same duty and experience is available for others. They do not necessarily demonstrate an officer’s qualifications for increased rank but only for a particular duty. They furnish recognition for especially meritorious officers and an opportunity for experience to ambitious officers. They are attractive only to the officer whose ambition is based on a desire to excel in, and not to enjoy the results of, accomplishment. They cause no dissatisfaction; they create no discontent, they do no injustice. They do, nevertheless, test the qualifications, provide valuable experience, and establish the reputation of especially meritorious officers.
The advantages to the naval service and individuals of rewards by assignment to duty, are many. The disadvantages are limited to isolated cases of jealousy and personal pique of the individual.
Promotion in Rank, Pay and Duty
This method of rewards is limited in the navy to a particular class of appointments, very few in number, consisting only of the bureau chiefs and the important commands afloat. Under our system of government, the navy is administered by the President as commander-in-chief, represented by the Secretary of the Navy under such laws as are imposed by Congress.
The Secretary of the Navy is the official administrative head, and being responsible, he selects personally the individuals administering the different departments of the navy under his control. This administration involves duties and responsibilities of the first magnitude and officers, selected by the Secretary, nominated by the President and approved by the Senate, should have, during their tour of duty and responsibility, rewards in increased pay and rank.
Bureau chiefs are appointed only for four years and the important commands afloat are assigned only during the pleasure of the President. Therefore, rewards by promotion in rank, pay and duty is limited and of a temporary nature. It gives no officer permanent rank and pay in excess of that enjoyed by officers of similar experience. It works injustice to none and it provides the Secretary with responsible aids in carrying out the administration’s policies during his tour of office.
Promotion in Rank and Pay
This method of reward is one which is permanent as compared with rewards in assignment to duty, and rewards by promotion in rank, pay and duty of a temporary nature. For this reason, more than any other, promotions in rank and pay are considered as vital to the naval service; and, due to this intimate relation between these promotions and the service welfare they are, with few exceptions, made only on the recommendation of naval officers, as opposed to other forms of promotion made as a result of politics or personal considerations.
Among the methods of promotion which have been used since the organization of the Navy Department has been: First, promotion by seniority; second, promotion by forced retirement; and, third, promotion by selection.
Promotion by Seniority
In this method of promotion every officer had a date of precedence fixed on his entry into the service or graduation from the Naval Academy and all officers took rank and promotion in succession.
In fixing the date of precedence for officers graduated from the Naval Academy the class standing at Annapolis was the basis. If there were 60 graduates in one class, that man who stood first in his studies, stood one all the rest of his life in the navy. In large classes, the advantages which accrued to the individual from class standing continued all through life, due solely to the fact that an officer entering the Naval Academy after two or three years in college was quicker in his studies, a large part of the course being review work for him. Nothing that any officer could do under this system of promotion would ever remove the disadvantages of low class standing as regards promotion. Promotion of itself was very slow and after the officers attained the higher grades there were frequently years which intervened between the promotion of the man who stood at the head of his class and the man who stood at the foot. At best, the reward as evidenced by future promotion during the entire service of the officer was based, not on his service reputation, but upon his class standing at Annapolis; upon what he had done at the Naval Academy, and not upon what he did after getting out into the service; upon his acquisition of a naval education, not upon the use he made of it.
As a brief perusal of past naval registers will evidence, when this system of promotion was followed there were alternate periods of rapid and slow promotion for the simple reason that every class, being of approximately the same age, will retire for age at about the same time. While all of a class can be included in one of the lower grades, to include all of one class, among the few admirals allowed, means that in the future the man who stood one in the class can be the senior admiral while the man who stood at the foot of the class can be some distance down on the captains’ list, with the result that with retirement for age all of a class would retire within a period of a few years.
The service in the different grades was not properly proportioned and an officer would spend 25 years in attaining the rank of lieutenant commander, and 12 years from his commission as lieutenant commander until he became commander-in-chief. This resulted in officers of his particular class getting too much experience in the lower grades where attention to detail was of importance, and not enough experience in the higher grades where responsibility and attention to the larger problems was of importance.
There was at least uniformity under this method of promotion and it was seldom that an officer came up for promotion who was not, upon examination, found competent for the next higher grade, unless he had a particularly bad record.
Upon promotion by seniority an officer, when under examination for the next higher grade had to be promoted or dropped from the naval service. Under the law an officer could be held up one year, at the end of which time if he was not promoted he must be dropped, there being no provision in law for continuing him in a grade, at his own request, in which he had been performing his duty satisfactorily. Naturally when an officer came up for promotion after 15 to 30 years’ service, officers in the service were not going to have him dropped except for some good reason. They did not consider, and I doubt if any fair-minded man would consider, that because a man was not qualified to be a captain he should not continue in the grade of commander where he had been doing the duty required. To require that a man be punished, not for failure to do his duty, but for lack of ability, worked hardship and injustice and, needless to say, very few officers were ever dropped for failure to pass examination except in cases where their records demonstrated a neglect of duty and moral disqualification for which they should, with justice, suffer being dropped from the naval service.
Retirements were made only at 62 years of age or after 30 or 40 years’ service, with the result that retired officers as forming a nucleus for expansion in time of war did not exist.
When appearing for examination under this method of promotion an officer’s record was examined, but most officers had good records. A bad record was an exception, and this condition has continued, I believe, to the present time.
This condition is well summed up by the remark by a member of the selection board that “ the records showed one-half the officers to be above the average and the other half to be average officers.”
Promotion by Forced Retirement
In this method, in order to remedy some of the evils of the system of promotion by seniority and particularly to obtain officers in the upper grades of more experience in these grades and to give a regular flow of promotion, a system of forced retirement was adopted, a number of officers being selected by a board each year and retired by the President upon recommendation of the Secretary of the Navy. To compensate for this forced retirement, a provision was included which provided for their promotion to the next higher grade on the retired list but this provision was later revoked and officers were retired in the grade which they held.
At first, this “ plucking board ” operated with what might be called the universal approval of the service, but after a few years those officers whose reputation was such that their forced retirement was universally approved had decreased in numbers to such an extent that these selections became more and more difficult to make and eventually the dissatisfaction with these selections for retirement became so great that this plucking board, or promotion by forced retirement, was abolished.
The plucking board was handicapped by having to use the ' same records that were available under promotion by seniority and the difficulties caused by these reports were one of the primary reasons for dissatisfaction, with the result that officers who had been plucked claimed and demonstrated when requesting legislation to restore them to the naval service, that their records were not only good, but exceptionally good, in that they had letters of commendation and various other evidences of splendid service experience.
This method of promotion also included a provision by which officers who had had 20 years’ service could retire on request and approval by the Secretary of the Navy. This was one of the amendments to the original act and was inaugurated with the same desire to provide younger officers in the higher grades. This was found in operation to have permitted the retirement of a number of comparatively young men and desirable officers on three-quarters of the pay of their grade when the cry was continually for more officers.
Eventually, forced and voluntary retirement were abolished and the selection board came in.
Promotion by Selection
This is the method under which promotions are made at the present time and with which dissatisfaction and criticism is increasing. Its object is to select the most desirable officers for promotion, and strange to say the only provision made for elimination is by court-martial and dismissal, by being dropped as a result of failure to pass examination and retirement for age in grade.
The selections are made by a board of nine rear admirals who go over the records of all officers, and six votes are required for the promotion of any officer.
In promotion by selection, we find many cases where one board of nine rear admirals pass over officers as not being qualified for selection and a succeeding board recommends those officers for promotion. The result is that officers are first seniors and then juniors to their brother officers. This also demonstrates more conclusively than ever that opinion and acquaintanceship are considerable factors in selection and that the records on which the selection is based are not accurate and correct enough for the same decision to be reached by different boards in all cases. To assume that an officer of from 10 to 30 years’ service can, during the interval, i. e., about six months, between meetings of the selection board, remedy his deficiencies is absurd. He can correct his record, not transform himself.
In the same grade, officers do varied duties: some performing important duty of one kind and some important duty of an entirely different kind; some in subordinate positions on large ships and some as commanding officers ; some ashore, some afloat; some having to do with material and some dealing only with personnel; and I doubt very much that any officer in any grade is expert in all these activities, and for that reason not only does the selection board have to pass on the individual records, but they have to pass on the relative value to the naval service of the performance of various duties by the officer.
Officers who have been passed over must remain in that grade. They can resign, it is true, but an officer after having 15 to 25 years’ service in the navy is seldom qualified for a position in civil life. If he stays in the service he receives orders from his previous juniors, and if he gets out of the service he faces a long period of privation before he can establish himself in some new work, and the chances are that the officer has a family upon which this injustice works greater hardship than it should.
In civil life the officer would probably have been drawing equivalent pay, his expenses would have been less, he would probably be permanently located and own his own home so that in case he was treated unjustly by his employer he could leave or resign and go with some other employer in a similar line of work. In other words, the naval officer is denied the right by force of circumstance, rather than by law, of vacating a position where his Juniors are promoted ahead of him and in which he considers he has been treated unjustly. To expect anything but dissatisfaction and discontent under those conditions is to put naval officers in a different class from all other human beings.
It is doubtful if any method of promotion can work to the benefit of the naval service which does not provide for the elimination, voluntary or forced, of discontented individuals who have been refused promotion.
General Discussion
The navy has in the past few years expanded enormously and Where 20 years ago the senior officers in the service knew all the other officers, at the present time it is doubtful if any of the senior officers know more than a very few of the lieutenants and below, and few of the lieutenant commanders. This requires that more and more, the method of promotion, must be based on the written record and not upon the personal knowledge of the board. To expect any officer to add up a column of figures not knowing what the figures are, or to suggest an improvement in a piece of machinery not knowing what the piece of machinery is, or to select officers for promotion having only the opinions of other seniors, unknown to him, is expecting not human but divine qualifications. Unless an officer’s record can be made a record of fact, such that any board of officers, unacquainted with the reporting senior or the officer reported on, will reach the same conclusion as to his abilities, is to blindfold and gag any board under any method of promotion.
One of the great difficulties lies in the method of marking officers’ records, in that there is no standard on which the marks are based. For instance, one rear admiral emphasizes the importance of gunnery and a good gunnery record, or a good mark m gunnery is a criterion of the officer’s value to the service in spite of the fact that this officer may have failed badly as an engineer officer: Another officer performing duties as navigator gets a very high mark as navigator but may have had no duty as gunnery or engineer officer. He still has high marks, however, in his grade. Still another officer may have spent his time and experience, while these officers were serving as engineer and gunnery officers of first-class ships, as commanding officer of a submarine or destroyer. He receives a mark as a naval officer as they all do, but who is to integrate the relative value of a mark as a commanding officer with a mark as navigator, with a mark as engineer officer, with a mark as gunnery officer.
Again, the reporting senior may have just had one of the finest officers in the service who is succeeded by an average officer in some particular position and as a result the average officer is given a low mark; or, vice versa, a senior has had a very poor officer in some position who is relieved by an average officer. Under these circumstances will it not be reasonable for the reporting senior, being only human, to give the average officer succeeding the officer of superior qualifications too low a mark and the average officer succeeding a poor officer too high a mark . That this occurs is only too evident to any officer who will examine his own record. In other words, the conditions under which an officer is performing duty affects the marks which he will receive, and no better advice can be given a young officer at this time than to select those with whom he will work and be compared, or those whom he relieves. This condition is due primarily to the lack of standards.
What officer can write a specification for a standard mark in any duty, which an officer can perform and which being given to several senior officers reporting on their junior, would enable them to give the junior the same mark for the same performance of duty?
In the first place, the officer writing out the specifications for the standard would himself be handicapped due to the fact that his own experience has been limited. He may have had much experience in larger ships and know nothing of the duties in destroyers and submarines. He may have had no duty ashore where this officer is performing duty at the present time, and at the best his standard would only be very general.
The more thought given to the question of standard marks, the more firmly will one become convinced that standard marks are a very difficult and impossible creation. Their substitute and their only substitute is a method of comparison. By this I mean that any reporting senior must compare the accomplishments of the officer reported on with other officers whose performance of duty is familiar to him.
Provided, he is unfamiliar with the performance of other officers in that particular line of duty, it is a self-evident fact that the reporting senior is not competent to give a mark.
Provided he is familiar with the performance of other officers, he is capable of comparing the performance of this particular officer with those other officers, and deciding in his own mind as to which of the officers are best qualified and which are less qualified for this particular duty. Therefore, a method of comparison should be substituted for marks, the comparison to consist| of comparison with other officers performing the same kind of duty, and that these comparisons should list officers in three classes: “above the average,” the “average” and “ below the average.” Each senior reporting on a junior should be required to first, place this officer in one of these three classes and some other officer in each of the other two classes, and having done so to list other officers of the same rank in the same class, or in different classes; for instance, assume officer “A” performing engineering duty is being reported upon by his senior. His senior places officer “A” in the average class. He is acquainted with the performance of engineering duty, however, of officers “ B ” “ C,” “ D,” “ E,” “ F,” “ G ” and “ H ” of the same rank. Pie considers officer “ F ” to be above the average, officer “ E ” to be below the average and officers “ B,” “C,” “ D,” “ G ” and H to be the average officers in performing this same kind of duty.
In this manner the reporting senior not only expresses his opinion of his subordinate’s abilities, but he also gives the information on which this opinion is based by citing the names of officers with whom the officer reported on, has been compared.
In this method of comparison as outlined above, its application is limited to comparing officers in the performance of similar duty. In its use it is not contemplated that an officer performing engineering duty should be compared with an officer performing gunnery duty, or with an officer doing duty as commanding officer, but only with officers of the same rank performing similar duty.
In making out reports of comparison the determining factor is information regarding an officer’s qualifications for a particular duty. In performing that duty, he comes in official contact with many officers, staff and line, all of whom work with and through him in performing their duty. The result of their observations should be of value in all cases. Cooperation is required, and certain phases of an officer’s character and efficiency are equally exposed to all his seniors, some particular phases more readily to the medical and supply officers and to the chaplain than to the ordnance, engineer, or executive officers. Too much information is impossible. All senior officers, of rank not less than lieutenant commander and two grades senior to the officer reported on, should be required to submit reports of comparison.
After a comparison has been made with other officers of the same rank doing similar duty as outlined above, the next step is to compare that officer’s services to the navy with the services of other officers of the same rank of slightly differing experience as deserving promotion. Is it desirable that this officer be promoted in order that he may be retained in the service, or is he poorly qualified for promotion and should he be permitted to leave the service?
It is manifest that under a method of promotion by seniority, as outlined previously, that we have alternate periods of rapid and slow promotion and that a remedy for this condition is to promote only a decreasing number of any class to the higher grades. For instance, by the Act of Congress of August 29, 1916, it is provided that “ the total number of commissioned line officers on the active list .... shall be distributed in the proportion of one of 'the grade of rear admiral to four in the grade of captain, to seven in the grade of commander, to fourteen in the grade of lieutenant commander, to thirty-two and one-half in the grade of lieutenant, to forty-one and one-half in the grades of lieutenant junior grade and ensign, inclusive." These relative proportions are fixed and provided we assume a class of 42 members as ensigns and lieutenants, junior grade, only 32 can be promoted to lieutenant, only 14 to lieutenant commander, seven to commander, four to captain and one to rear admiral, if we expect a uniform rate of promotion to take place. All officers of the same year of commission as ensigns cannot become rear admirals. It becomes mandatory that certain officers be eliminated in each promotion. With a definite ratio between the numbers of officers in any one grade established by law, out of every 42 ensigns and lieutenants, junior grade, only 32 should be promoted to lieutenant, and out of every 32 lieutenants only 14 should become lieutenant commanders, and out of every 14 lieutenant commanders only seven should become commanders, and out of every seven commanders only four should become captains, and out of every four captains only one should become rear admiral. It is therefore desirable, for comparison for promotion, that when a reporting- senior reports on the value to the naval service of a junior, that those recommended for promotion to any grade should be to the total number compared as the total number in the higher grade is to the total number in the present grade. That is, any reporting senior reporting on a junior holding the rank of lieutenant commander (by this Act of August 29, 1916, of every 14 lieutenant commanders, only seven can be promoted to commanders), it is mandatory that the reporting senior shall recommend only half the number of lieutenant commanders whose services have been compared, for promotion, and the other half for elimination as being the least desirable for promotion.
Without elimination the structure becomes unstable. With a class of 500 at Annapolis, provided no elimination was made except by death, resignation or dismissal, the prospect would be that while the senior man in the class was a senior officer in the naval service, the junior man in the class might be a commander.
In making this elimination, it is desirable that the experience and the services of the officer who, although not recommended for promotion to the higher grade, has had valuable experience in his present grade, should be available in time of war.
Elimination being necessary, a survey of the methods that have been used discloses that the present discussion has covered the case of the plucking hoard and that this method eventually received the disapproval of Congress and was eliminated by legislative action. Prior to this time, and some years ago, the process of elimination took place at the completion of two years’ cruise as passed midshipman and prior to commission as an ensign. It was required due to the fact that sufficient vacancies did not exist to commission graduates of Annapolis, and after six years’ striving, those not commissioned were given an honorable discharge and a bounty of $1000. Many of these graduates who were thus eliminated, have become some of the most prominent engineers and industrial leaders in the United States, and in my rather brief experience I have never heard this method of elimination criticized.
Elimination under all methods has been forced, the individual preference of the officers not being considered. The objection to elimination rests on the fact that a certain amount of time is required for training in civilian pursuits after a considerable time has been spent in qualifying for duty as an officer in the navy. It is suggested that if elimination by request was permitted under certain conditions which would enable an officer to get started in civilian pursuits, that the elimination which is mandatory to secure a uniform rate of promotion could be provided without dissatisfaction. It is, therefore, proposed that any officer after completing eight years’ service may apply for transfer to the Naval Reserve Force, upon such transfer to be granted one month’s leave with full pay for each year’s service, provided he agrees to serve in the Fleet Naval Reserve for a period of five years in the grade which he held at the time of such transfer. The leave and pay would enable the officer to take up some civilian pursuit and establish himself therein without unnecessary hardship on himself or his family. It provides a reserve of trained officers in the Fleet Naval Reserve which will be an invaluable asset in war. It permits elimination without the shame and disgrace attached to the summary findings of the plucking board and, if permitted on an officer’s application, it should eliminate one of the causes of discontent which is evident on an officer’s not being promoted, the plea being that he must stay in the service because be is not trained for a civilian pursuit.
This proposal above is not a radical departure from present practice, provided it is admitted that an officer is entitled to the same privileges and bonus which are authorized to the enlisted man. Upon re-enlistment under continuous service conditions all men get a bonus of one month’s pay for each year of enlistment. The pay of a bonus at enlistment does not differ materially from the proposal to pay a similar bonus upon completion of service.
In the case of the enlisted men the bonus is paid to encourage continuous service. In the case of officers the bonus should be paid to encourage service under conditions where only limited promotion to the higher grades is possible under the present law fixing the proportions in the different grades.
Conclusion
From the above analysis, it is considered demonstrated that a primary cause of unsatisfactory results with any method of selection for promotion or elimination rests on methods of giving marks in efficiency, based on a vague and indefinite standard in the present reports of fitness of officers. A secondary cause exists in the fact that an officer when not promoted, as a result °f selections for promotion or elimination, is given no opportunity to change his occupation except under conditions which involve •bore or less hardship on the officer and his family. Frequently, after many years of satisfactory service, he is compelled by force of circumstances to endure the charge of being passed over by other officers, until he reaches an age which provides for age in grade retirement.
To remedy this condition, it is recommended that the officers’ records be revised and a method of comparison be substituted for the method of marks, as a measure of efficiency. The comparisons to be based on:
(a) The performance of the particular duty engaged in.
(b) Recommendations for, or against, promotion.
Reports of fitness shall be made by all officers two grades senior or more to the officer reported on, but only after at least three months’ observation of his manner of performing duty. Each report shall include comparison of methods of performing duty and comparison as regards recommendation for promotion as outlined above. Each report shall contain a specific outline in detail of the particular duties performed, such general titles as “ Executive,” Gunnery,” “ Watch Officer,” etc., being prohibited.
The comparison, under (a) above, shall include comparison with at least five other officers of the same rank who have performed similar duty, and at least one of the officers of those listed for comparison to be above the average, one the average and one below the average.
The comparisons, under (b) above, shall be separated into two classes only, those recommended for promotion and those not recommended for promotion, the total number compared not being less than 10 and those recommended for promotion to be that percentage of the whole number compared, which the authorized strength in the next higher grade in the navy bears to the1 authorized strength in the present grade of the officer reported on.
It will be recognized that the above recommendation can be carried out as a matter of administrative routine only, no Congressional action being necessary.
The following recommendation calls for Congressional action to give officers the same privileges and bonuses provided for enlisted men for the same purpose of encouraging active service and providing an adequate reserve of trained personnel:
That, in addition to the present methods of elimination, any officer in the navy who has completed eight years’ service shall be transferred to the Fleet Naval Reserve at his own request, under the same conditions such transfer is made for enlisted men, with the following additional conditions:
(a) Upon approval of his request for such transfer, the officer shall be granted one month’s leave with full pay for each year of service, at the end of which time he shall be transferred to the Fleet Naval Reserve with his present rank.
(b) Pie agrees to serve in the Fleet Naval Reserve for five years unless sooner discharged.