The adoption of the present bureau system of administration in the American Navy was the result of half a century of experience with less efficient methods. The first congressional act for the government of the Navy under the Constitution, passed in 1799, placed the entire administration of naval affairs in the hands of the Secretary of the Navy, with one financial assistant, a naval accountant.
With the growth of the Navy during the War of 1812 the duties of the secretary under the original law rapidly outgrew the capacity of any single man, and brought problems with which a civilian was unfit to deal without professional assistance. On one occasion $60,000 was spent in rearranging the interior of a vessel because a civilian head of the department, lacking both advice and knowledge, had approved her original plans. The increase in the business of the department is shown by the fact that during the war expenditures grew from $1,970,000 to $8,660,000. President Madison wished to place a naval officer in charge, but Commodore John Rodgers, to whom he offered the position, preferred to go to sea and the President gave way. Congress took a step forward in 1815, attempting to care for the increased business by the appointment of the board of Navy commissioners to care for the entire question of material. Each of the three members of the board was to be a captain and receive $3,500 a year, the senior member acting as president. A set of duties was enumerated, giving the board charge of such activities as the planning, construction, and equipment of vessels, their armament and classification, the purchase of all stores and material, the preservation of ships in ordinary, the construction and maintenance of all docks, arsenals, timber sheds, etc., and the feeding and clothing of the entire personnel. It was further stated that nothing in the act should be so construed as to remove from the hands of the Secretary of the Navy the entire control of the department.
The first commissioners were Captains Rodgers, Hull, and Bainbridge, with the first named as president. Their first month in office was spent waiting for President Madison to settle a dispute with Secretary Crowninshield over a conflict of authority. This question settled in favor of the cabinet officer, the board assumed its duties and during the first years of its existence seems to have been a great improvement over the old system under which the civilian secretary was expected to be a “Jack-of-all-trades.” Several progressive suggestions were made by the original board, among them the foundation of a naval school, the erection of a gun factory, and the elimination of unfit officers. All were eventually adopted, but not until after the abolition of the body that suggested them.
In 1829 the Secretary of the Navy, John Branch, asked the commissioners for suggestions toward the improvement of the administrative machinery of the Navy. Commodore Rodgers’ reply is an excellent review of the commission system as it was operating at that time.
In regard to the administrative branch of the department under the secretary himself, Rodgers showed a natural reluctance to criticize, but suggested tactfully that the civilian chief might make more use of the professional knowledge of naval officers in technical matters.
The commodore’s suggestions concerning the commissioners were important because they foreshadowed the later bureau system. His chief objection to the procedure in vogue was that the board was always forced to act collectively, though there were many matters that could best be dealt with by individual experts. On questions of policy Rodgers admitted that consultation was wise, but he contended that a man trained in matters of ordnance, for example, could best carry out alone the everyday duties connected with that branch of equipment. He suggested the division of the board’s duties into three groups: first, building, repair, and equipment; second, construction of docks, arsenals, and store houses, and attention to yards; and third, victualing and clothing. One commissioner should be placed at the head of each group, and each would soon become an expert in his own field.
It was not until thirteen years later that Commodore Rodgers’ suggestions were adopted and the bureau system of administration inaugurated by the Navy. Meanwhile the War Department, under the secretaryship of that great South Carolina statesman, John C. Calhoun, in the administration of President Monroe, had been reorganized in this way with great improvement in both economy and efficiency. In 1842 the five original bureaus were created as follows: 1, navy yards and docks; 2, construction, equipment, and repair; 3, provisions and clothing; 4, ordnance and hydrography; 5, medicine and surgery. Thus began the bureau system that, with modifications, continues to this day. There were immediate objections to the system as originally organized, as when Secretary Upshur discovered that it was impossible to find one man fitted to take charge of both equipment and repair. The former required a naval officer, he declared, the latter, a carpenter. He chose the officer and trusted to luck for his carpentry.
Since the adoption of the system there have naturally been both modification and expansion, but it is to Commodore Rodgers that the origin of our present system of naval administration must be credited, for the spirit of the bureau system is present throughout the letter which he wrote to Secretary Branch in 1829.