With this issue of the PROCEEDINGS, the United States Naval Institute celebrates its fiftieth anniversary. It seems, therefore, appropriate at this time briefly to review the history of the Institute.
In the fall of 1873, a number of prominent officers of the Navy met at the Naval Academy to consider the organization of an association for the advancement and dissemination of scientific and professional knowledge throughout the Navy. "That our Navy should have a professional forum, similar to the Journal of the Royal United Service Institution (British) was generally recognized." It seems probable that this idea, from which the Institute has grown, sprang from the brain of Commodore Foxhall A. Parker, and that he must have had the cordial endorsement of the then Superintendent of the Naval Academy, Rear Admiral John L. Worden. He also had the enthusiastic cooperation of such members of the Academic staff as Commander Edward Terry, U.S. N., later Commandant of Midshipmen, Chief Engineer C. H. Baker, U. S. N., Captain McLane Tilton, U. S. M. C., Medical Director Philip Lansdale, Pay Inspector James D. Murray, Lieut. Commanders P. F. Harrington, J. E. Craig, Commander S. Dana Green, Lt. Commanders C. F. Goodrich, P. H. Cooper, and C. J. Train.
The activities of these officers resulted in a meeting on Thursday, October 9, 1873, at which Rear Admiral Worden presided. The objects of the association were stated, the name, United Assistant Secretary of the Navy, and President-Emeritus Charles W. Eliot, of Harvard University. This total membership of 4652 shows the healthy growth of the Institute since its founding with thirty-six members in 1873.
The magazine, the PROCEEDINGS, has been published regularly since 1874, and has always held high rank among the professional magazines of the world. It is sent, either by subscription or exchange, to nearly all countries, and in particular to all boasting of navies. As a side line to the publication of the PROCEEDINGS, and in conformity with the object of the society, the dissemination of scientific and professional knowledge throughout the Navy, the Institute in 1898 took up the publication of books on naval and allied subjects, the first being The Log of the Gloucester and Fullam's Instructions for Infantry and Artillery, published in 1899. These books are largely .those used as text books at the Naval Academy or as reference or drill books in the navy at large. The list is now extensive, and embraces well known works on Navigation, Seamanship, Marine Engineering, Ordnance and Gunnery, Electricity, Radio Engineering, and other professional subjects.
In considering any history of the Institute, one may well be struck by the caliber of the officers who founded and who carried on its work. The founders have been mentioned. Prominent among those who have carried on the work thereafter are Rear Admirals Sampson, Jenkins, John Rodgers, C. R. P. Rodgers, Edward Simpson, H. C. Taylor, Richard Wainwright, Caspar F. Goodrich, and others who served as President. Rear Admiral Goodrich has ever had a great interest in and influence over the affairs of the Institute, as have had Admirals Fiske, Sims, Knight, and others. The Prize Essays, established in 1879, have brought out a wealth of valuable material and useful precept, and their authors, among them most frequent, Luce, Mahan, Goodrich, Schroeder, Richard Wainwright, Fiske, Niblack, W. L. Rodgers, Alger and many others, include a galaxy of leadership, and of authority in their profession, such as few other comparable magazines can boast.
Many able officers have served as secretary. Among these may be noted Professors Hendrickson and Charles E. Munroe, Rear Admirals Sampson, Wainwright, H. S. Knapp, Eberle, and Jackson, Captains Beach and Ralph Earle. Longest in point of service was the late Professor P. · R. Alger, who filled the post from 1903-12. Here, as everywhere else this astonishing man labored, he left behind him a tradition of unsurpassable service. Nor would any hi story be complete without mention of Mr. James W. Conroy, clerk and trustee for the Institute for nearly forty years. A new Secretary, Beach, once spoke of him as "the ever faithful Conroy," and of his value to the incoming Secretary. His death last May has left a deep void which will be a long time filling. In writing such a hi story as this his help would have been invaluable. He alone knew hundreds of interesting details that, without him, alas, will probably never be brought out.
But leaving the men who have made the Institute, let us consider for a moment the work that they have done, and what yet remains for us, their successors, to accomplish.
In these clays, it is the rule always to set a mission when starting out to do anything. It would not appear that any definite mission was, in this case; set as such. It was however, very well understood what the Institute was for, which amounted to the same thing. The lack of a definitely worded mission was probably a good thing as it has permitted the papers published from time to time to treat of the various pressing subjects as they arose. There was always an object, mission, if you will, but always it has been so broad, that papers on almost any subject, scientific, professional, or historical, if well presented, would find room within the pages of the PROCEEDINGS.
It is of the greatest interest to look back on the files of these PROCEEDINGS. From the very beginning we find plainly evident a forward looking view. Always writers are looking ahead, seeking new methods, new ships, new guns, new ideas for the manning, the supply, the development of the Navy. It is scarcely too much to say that every advance made by us in any branch of naval science has first been threshed out in the pages of the PROCEEDINGS. We can follow the development of the battleship from the post civil war type of glorified monitor to the present Colorado. We can follow the arguments for and against the all big gun battleship, and how strangely they fall on our ears now! We can follow the introduction of oil as fuel, the introduction of turbines, and finally of the electric drive. We can follow improvements in fire control, in spotting, in gun laying, from the first stirrings of dissatisfaction with then existing procedure up to the present director methods of gun laying, with aerial observation of fall of shot. It is scarce too much to say that, with the possible exception of the War College at Newport, no other source has so greatly furthered the material development and professional advancement of the Navy as has the Naval Institute. Nor should we entirely lay stress on material advancement. Articles of historical and scientific note are scattered all through the files. The mental and professional needs of the personnel have been served fully as well as has the material development of the Navy. Indeed, to anyone interested in the development of our own Navy, or that of foreign navies a well, the PROCEEDINGS may well be regarded as indispensable. One need hardly go outside them for data on this subject. Surely the founders must hold that the Institute has more than justified itself. Surely we may hold that every officer in the Navy should be a member; that every midshipman should join upon graduation. Professor Alger's advice to graduates was, always to take up a specialty; and he advised them further that in no other way could they keep in touch with their profession save by careful study of the progress marked out in the PROCEEDINGS.
The continued value to the service and to the country of the Institute is largely bound up with the question of censor hip, or departmental muzzling. This is a most delicate subject to tackle, but one that must be faced squarely and honestly. In the words of Flammarion, "Free and loyal discussion is necessary to conquer the Truth," and Voltaire (was it not?) "I wholly disagree with what you say, and shall defend to the death your right to say it." We also must uphold this principle. Fortunately we are removed from the clays when a distinguished officer of the Navy was forbidden to print in the PROCEEDINGS an article, every statement of which was derived from the Secretary's annual reports and other documents already published to the world at large; those same days when another distinguished officer was forbidden "even to say that two and two make four."
Relations today with the Department are most cordial and sympathetic but the future is as a curtain through which we cannot see; and in this connection, part of a letter from Admiral Goodrich may well be quoted and preserved as a guide to our successors.
. . . . we should all clamor for the desirability of an officer's speaking out at will. For myself, both as President of the Institute (and therefore officially) and at other times, I have verbally and in writing urged various Secretaries of the Navy to remove all restriction on the Institute publications, averring that no officer would abuse the privilege by printing anything confidential in nature. "Encourage all, especially the youngsters, to blow off their steam," I would say. "If any individual should be guilty of personal attacks or of improper language and motive, punish him for conduct unbecoming an officer and gentleman, or whatever the offense may be. But eliminate all censorship, and don't shut up the open discussion of service and naval policy topics." And I added, "Doubtless much of this material will be useful only in .letting a chap unburden his mind, but occasionally the Department will get a suggestion of importance which would never reach it through routine channels."
Admiral Goodrich's view is one that we cannot but subscribe to, all of us, and the Institute should ever tactfully and gracefully work to that end. Within recent memory times have arisen, and they may arise again, when we shall have to fight for this principle. Then, like Admiral Sir John Fisher, we can't be silent, and we must not lie.
The Naval Institute of the past has lived up to this principle. It has faced its problems squarely and honestly. That in the future it shall do no less we may confidently assume. And there are problems yet to face. Those confronting the Navy of today are fully as great as, if not greater, than those of the past. Where the past was concerned first with preventing dry rot from attacking the Officer Corps, then with the up-building of the fleet, today we are concerned with the maintenance of the fleet as settled by international agreement, with the utilization and training of this fleet, and with the education and training of its officers and men. These problems are tremendous. In view of the increasing importance of the external relations of the Nation, which the Navy serves, they cannot but be considered fully as vital as were the earlier ones of growth and development. As in the past, so in the future. Toward the solution of these problems the Naval Institute, with all the intelligence it can command, must ever strive.