THE SUMNER LINE OF POSITION. Published by the Hydrographic Office, U. S. Navy Department,—Designation H. O. 203. Price $2.25.
A Review by Commander John Downes, U. S. Navy
This publication has been looked forward to ever since word first came out that such a volume was in course of preparation. Many navigators have had in the back of their heads some idea that such a compilation was possible but all probably became overwhelmed at the size of the work involved. Millions of computations or tabular selections had to be made and carefully arranged with minute differences, and it was seen that only some well organized office especially equipped for the purpose could accomplish such a task. This the Hydrographic Office has done and done well.
In this volume, just received, a long felt want has been supplied. Who has not struggled with picking out functions, adding, subtracting, and multiplying, with the ship rolling and pitching and the gale roaring through the rigging, only after all was done to find that everything was all wrong—your finger slipped while picking out a haversine! With this book all one has to do is to compute the Greenwich Apparent Time and for this time the correct declination. Having reduced the observation to one of true altitude, the book does the rest.
The book contains five tables and sufficient explanatory text to make its use clear. Table 1 corresponds to Table 46 in Bowditch 1920, Table 2 to Table 49, Table 3 new, Table 4 to Table 7, and the last table is original and is the main object of the book. From it a line of position is obtained for the nearest subdivision of altitude. This line, called the “preliminary line,” is then moved toward or away from the body observed an amount equal to the difference between the altitude selected and the true altitude observed. We then have the required line. Azimuths are taken from the table. The table can be used for observations either near the meridian, or, near the prime vertical, for declinations between 27 N., and 27 S., and between latitudes 60 N., and 60 S. This table is to be supplemented by proposed publication H. O. 204 which will carry the limits of declination to 60 N., and 60 S., thereby increasing the number of heavenly bodies available for navigational purposes.
The book is very presentable in appearance, is well printed, and is somewhat larger than the 1920 Bowditch. It contains 869 pages, 847 of which are given up to the position line table.
It is believed this book will prove to be very popular though it is doubted if it will cause the old methods to be entirely abandoned.
Great credit is due those responsible for its conception, inception and publication.
AMERICA OF YESTERDAY. As reflected in the journal of John Davis Long, Governor of Massachusetts and Secretary of the Navy. Edited by Lawrence Shaw Mayo. The Atlantic Monthly Press. $3.00.
This book should prove most interesting to the general reading public, but for the naval officer it holds even a greater interest in that Mr. Long was Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley. In its last few chapters are revealed the innermost thoughts of the Secretary of the Navy during the trying ordeal of the Spanish-American War.
In its pages one meets again in vivid freshness, Presidents McKinley, Theodore Roosevelt, Admirals Sampson and Schley, Secretary of War Alger, Admiral Sicard, Captains Mahan, Robley D. Evans, Sigsbee and many politicians whose petty requests cause Mr. Long on several occasions to express his disgust of them in no unmistakable terms.
Theodore Roosevelt is seen first as Assistant Secretary of the Navy to Mr. Long, then impetuously dashing off to join the Rough-Riders in Cuba, and finally as President of the United States after the assassination of President McKinley.
Mr. Roosevelt’s youth and dash as Assistant Secretary caused Mr. Long several uneasy moments. About him Mr. Long writes on one occasion, “He is so enthusiastic and loyal that he is in certain respects invaluable; yet I lack confidence in his good judgment and discretion. He goes off very impulsively . . . .” Again, “. . . . I feel that Roosevelt in his precipitate way, has come very near causing more of an explosion than happened to the Maine .... the very devil seemed to possess him yesterday afternoon. Having the authority for that time of Acting Secretary, he immediately began to launch peremptory orders: distributing ships; ordering ammunition, which there is no means to move, to places where there is no means to store it; sending for Captain Barker to come on about the guns of the Vesuvius, which is a matter that might have been perfectly arranged by correspondence; sending messages to Congress for immediate legislation, authorizing the enlistment of an unlimited number of seamen; and ordering guns from the Navy Yard at Washington to New York, with a view to arming auxiliary cruisers which are now in peaceful commercial pursuits.”
When Mr. Roosevelt decided to resign to take part in the war, Mr. Long makes the following interesting observation, “He has been of great use; a man of unbounded energy and force, and throughly honest—which is the main thing. He has lost his head to this unutterable folly of deserting the post where he is of the most service and running off to ride a horse and, probably, brush mosquitoes from his neck on the Florida sands .... And yet how absurd all this will sound, if by some turn of fortune he should accomplish some great thing and strike a very high mark!”
Captain Mahan, then on the retired list, returned from abroad to serve on the War Board. In spite of Mahan’s reputation as a naval strategist, Secretary Long doubted if he would be “of much value practically.” A little later in connection with Captain Mahan we find the following entry in Mr. Long’s journal, “Captain Mahan is on the rampage again. He is very frank and manly; does not go around Robin Hood’s barn but blurts out his entire dissatisfaction with the entire Naval War Board.” Some time after this we find Secretary Long rubbing his hands in satisfaction over the fact that, “There was a very pretty scrimmage between Captain Mahan and Secretary Alger.” This scrimmage resulted from the fact that Secretary Alger had begun “his usual complaint about the Navy,” in spite of the fact that the Navy had provided him with transports to carry his troops, landed them, and had destroyed the Spanish fleet. Now Mr. Alger was grumbling because the Navy did not risk their ships in forcing the entrance to Santiago and capturing the city. At this point, Mr. Long writes, “But Mahan, at last, lost his patience and sailed into Alger; told him he didn’t know anything about the use or purpose of the Navy and that he didn’t propose to sit by and hear the Navy attacked.”
There are many amusing incidents throughout the latter part of the book which will appeal to the Service reader especially. One such incident is that in which Secretary Long Says, “I could not help laughing Saturday afternoon when he (Secretary Alger) came in and said his troops at Santiago had all landed, thanks to the aid of the Navy, but that the Army had no means of landing its provisions and stores. He said he was' going to send a tug and a lighter for this purpose, and wanted to know if I could furnish convoy for them. That, I soon arranged. Whereupon he said. ‘By the way, can’t you lend me a lighter and a tug?’—evidently forgetting that he had intimated that he had them to be convoyed. So I furnished these also.”
One is deeply impressed with the fact that Mr. Long must have been a most sincere and broadminded man who attended strictly to his duties with a fine sense of fairness to all. As Secretary of Navy, he never seemed to lose sight of the mission of his office and expressed the greatest contempt for job hunters and those who played party politics. It almost might be said that politics were secondary in Mr. Long’s life, for while Governor of Massachusetts, he wrote one day, “I suppose people think I think of politics. Ah, how far away in other dreams I float.”
Secretary Long was harassed by Congressmen from Pennsylvania who wished him to buy Pennsylvania anthracite coal for our ships; by others who wished men-of-war detailed to protect the home towns of their constituents; and by others still, who asked him to place their friends' in all manner of positions in the Navy from acting appointments to laborers at $1.50 or $2.00 a day in Navy yards. A certain Senator, Mr. Long writes, came in, “to tease me about the purchase of a vessel belonging to his brother.’’
The criticism of America of Yesterday So far has dealt with the last few chapters, for they are the ones which will interest the service reader most. The first portion of the book is the diary of Mr. Long, written for the most part, when he was a boy of nine at his father’s farm near Buckfield, Me. This part of the book is most entertaining and one wonders at a boy of nine writing in such a grown-up manner. Extracts from this' diary carry the reader through Mr. Long’s school days, his years at Harvard and his start in law and politics, which finally culminate in his election as Governor of Massachusetts prior to his becoming Secretary of the Navy under President McKinley. It must be admitted that there is' a certain lapse of interest between the amusing incidents of Mr. Long's boyhood and the time of his going to Washington, but the dullness of his school and college years in no way detracts from the interest of the book as a whole.
In short it is the life of the highest type of an upstanding American citizen who served his country faithfully; a scholar, poet, and pleasing public speaker, possessing a generous and sunny disposition that won the respect and admiration of all with whom he came in contact.
America of Yesterday is well worth reading.
A. S. W.
SEABORNE TRADE, (Vol. II). (From the Opening of the Submarine Campaign to the Appointment of the Shipping Controller). By C. Ernest Fayle. Longmans, Green and Company. $7.50.
No student of the history of the World War should fail to read Mr. Fayle’s second volume of Seaborne Trade, for a just appreciation of the true character of the struggle and of its far reaching effects cannot be gained unless the problems of the seaborne trade and its influence upon the naval, military, and political war situations are fully realized. The casual reader, too, will find much of interest in this work, which presents, with a wealth of detail, the nature and the extent of the British seaborne trade, in its relation to the trade of the rest of the world, under the pressure and demands of war.
Beginning with the inauguration by Germany of her submarine campaign against shipping, in February, 1915, the author describes most minutely the varying vicissitudes of the war-effected British trade, under the gradually increasing government supervision and control, until the appointment of a Shipping Controller in December, 1916. One of the most striking impressions gained from this work is the unruffled and conservative attitude of the British Government in giving direction and assistance in the adjustment of the ocean-commerce to meet the unparalleled war demands. Even under trying enemy activities, sight never seemed to be lost of the desirability of maintaining, as far as possible, the old trade relations and customary activities so that, when the war was over, Britain would still retain her trade ascendancy. This vision and foresight, brought out and heightened by Germany’s lack of it, is seen again in the study of war problems before 1914. It was then that the safeguarding of sea- trade and the encouragement of shipping under war conditions had been particularly considered. But, even though, as early as 1909, Sir Frederic Bolton had brought before the Prime Minister the question as to whether the British ports would be able to maintain a steady flow of supplies under war conditions and though the study of the problem had been immediately undertaken, the full effects of such a danger were not appreciated until after the outbreak of the World War. Then it was, that the problem of port congestion, which was one of the most serious and difficult of the war conditions, affecting both seaborne trade and the waging of war itself, drew the early attention of one of the first appointed war committees, the Committee on Diversion of Shipping. The secretary of this committee, which served, in general, as “a link between the Government and the shipowners in all questions affecting British shipping,” made an official tour of inspection of all the ports. Three things he recommended: (1) The more effective organization of dock labor; (2) The pooling of freight cars; (3) The imposition of penalty rents for delay in removing cargoes from the docks and transit sheds. All of these suggestions were finally put into operation through the Port and Transit Executive Committee, which was appointed in November 1915 “to inquire into the difficulties and congestion arising from time to time at harbors, port and docks,” in consequence of the demands of the army, navy, and Transport Department, of the extensive traffic in munitions and war materials, and the ordinary commercial activities—all congesting hopelessly the British ports.
The problem of obtaining sufficient tonnage either by chartering in the open market, by some especial agreement with steamship companies, by the Coal Freights Limitation Scheme, applied to French and Italian trade, by coal and bunker pressure, by Return Cargo Regulations, by the White List privileges, by the requisitioning of tonnage at Blue Book rates, or finally by the restriction of imports, constituted the main difficulty in carrying on the Seaborne trade required by the war needs of both the British and the Allies. During the period treated, of almost two years, it was not the actual losses resulting from the German submarine campaign against merchantmen, but the loss of normal carrying power through forced circuitous routes to avoid submarine infested areas; through port delays, as a result of enormous increase of traffic in consequence of the war conditions; through great rise in freight rates; through imperative demands of the military, the navy, and the munitions and arms industries for more and more tonnage; and through the necessity of furnishing the Allies not only with supplies and munitions and arms for maintaining the war but also with essential supplies for the non-combatant population, that produced such a grave condition of affairs.
The decrease in the export trade, however, even as late as the summer of 1916, was due not to “shortage of tonnage” but to the “diversion of labor, plant, and material to war uses.” The general tonnage situation, however, would have been much more serious in this period had it not been for the State Insurance Scheme, by which both hulls' and cargoes could be insured against war risks. It was this security against financial disaster that maintained the flow of trade in spite of the growing submarine menace. At times the problem was not merely to obtain sufficient tonnage but to direct the available tonnage into certain essential but avoided trades. The two most conspicuous, perhaps, were the carrying of iron-ore from North African and Spanish ports, and of pit-props for the British collieries, from the ports of southern France, Spain, and Portugal. Finally, in March, 1916, with the appointment of an Official Ore- Broker, a regulation was issued “that all neutrals, even those on the White List, loading coal to Couth French or Bay ports, should return with approved cargo—that is to say, ore or pit-props'.” Great care was taken, however, in exerting such pressure upon neutral tonnage, for between one-fourth and one-third of the entire British foreign trade was carried in foreign vessels, most of which were neutrals, and to lose this tonnage would have been disastrous.
British consideration for neutrals' throughout this period was most marked. And it was only as a measure of retaliation for the inauguration of the submarine campaign against merchantmen that the British Government extended the principle of blockade by the Order of Council of March 11, 1915 “to close those indirect channels of German trade which had hitherto escaped their control.” Mr. Fayle, too, brings out most clearly, what some historians overlook, the reason for the British extension of the principle of conditional contraband when Germany appointed a Food Controller. Of all the neutrals, the Dutch and Scandinavians presented the greatest problems, for Great Britain depended upon them not only for some of her supplies but also, as in the case of Sweden, for a means of transit to Russia. Thus it was that these neutrals traded with both groups of belligerents.
By the last quarter of 1916 “all wheat, flour, and sugar imports were on Government account, and the Board of Trade were responsible for the purchase, transport, and distribution of the whole meat supply of Great Britain and the Allies.” But the acute shortage of tonnage and the large proportion of British merchantmen already occupied in carrying essential foodstuffs made it extremely desirable to ascertain whether, by a “judicious system of rationing, the consumption could be decreased to such an extent as would appreciably relieve the strain of shipping, without seriously affecting the national health.” In November the Government, therefore, decided to appoint a Food Controller and to investigate immediately the subject of rationing. The solution of this problem was in certain respects easier in England than in Germany, for the greater portion of the British supplies were imported and thus could be “controlled in bulk from the day of purchase.” By this time, too, the demand had become imperative to co-ordinate and tighten up the work of the various committees and departments by placing them under the “supreme direction of some authority possessing sufficient knowledge of the relative importance of military, naval, Allied, and commercial requirements to enable tonnage to be allocated on a scientific basis.” As a result of this Situation, Mr. Lloyd George, two days after he assumed the premiership, announced the appointment of a Shipping Controller with ministerial rank.
The book furnishes a valuable source of indispensable historical material and a vital view of the effects of war upon ocean-commerce. The general method, however, of treating the period by dividing it into quarterly phases tends to make it rather difficult to obtain, at first reading, the chronological development of the various angles of the subject. This is especially true of the gradual extension of government control over shipping and commerce. The elimination of the methods for combating the submarine menace, which, though interesting, do not*seem essential to the subject, would, perhaps, serve to give the opportunity for a concrete summary of the complex phases of development. The subject, however, has been treated by Mr. Fayle most thoroughly and no student of the World War period can afford to neglect it.
H. F. S.