It seems appropriate, with the advent of a new class, to direct attention to the exceptional opportunity afforded you for improving your usefulness to the service. Since the Naval Academy was first established, indeed, within the last twenty years, the sum of human knowledge and the need for special courses have grown beyond the possibility of giving to every midshipman an education that can cover more than the bare fundamentals. Nor have we yet been able to bring ourselves to lengthen the course by another year. Meantime, by way of affording to as many as possible an opportunity for further study, and this after a period in the fleet, this Postgraduate School was established. Graduates from here are to a very considerable degree better equipped for service. The Navy would welcome opportunity and facilities for affording to every officer the benefits of the more extended education. Since this is not possible, we are compelled to introduce at the outset a system of selection by means of which we can make the best use of the limited facilities, devoting them and our time to those whose record in the fleet gives promise of the best return to the Navy. In other words, you who enter upon these postgraduate courses have been selected, not only from the whole list of availables, but even more carefully from a shorter list of applicants. You thus become members of a preferred class. Your records to date, and the desire that you have expressed to take the courses, give you that preferred status; in consideration of which the Navy looks to you to apply yourselves to this work with all diligence and sincerity of purpose, to the end that the Navy may realize to the full its investment in your education above your fellows.
What with the many technical courses afforded here, together with the more recently adopted one for the general line, we would seem to have covered a very wide field. Recently, however, I have come to realize that, even so, we have not yet touched upon a matter that is of the highest importance; and that is the mental preparation of an officer for writing reports of fitness upon those who shall be serving under him. Whatever be our place on the Navy list, and in whatever corps or specialty we may be serving, we soon arrive at the time when we must be writing reports on the qualifications of others. With the passage of time, and with increased rank, the more such reports are we called upon to write. I can think of no more important duty, none of greater importance to the upbuilding of the officer personnel of the Navy. It therefore behooves us to give early thought to matters that will enable us the better to arrive at a just evaluation of the merits of others. In preparation for this duty, we owe to the service and to ourselves a considerable amount of study and of reflection upon those characteristics which will aid us in weighing the value of individuals. In these days of promotion by selection this is particularly necessary, since comparative fitness of officers is a guiding principle; and you will feel the obligation to do the best by the service even as the fitness reports that you write should seek to do exact justice by the individuals upon whom you are reporting.
In my mind two main principles stand out for guidance in writing these reports; first, the example set by an officer, and second, his loyalty to the service. Much has been said, much has been written, on the power of example. All agree that the example which an officer sets is the most potent means of lending to the preservation and to the upbuilding of service standards. The first of the articles for the government of the Navy enjoins upon us that we set in ourselves an example of virtue, honor, patriotism, and subordination. This, then, is a standard by which we may evaluate the merits of officers. And while the article expressly enjoins this standard upon the commanders of all fleets, squadrons, naval stations, and vessels acting singly, it applies to officers of all grades. It is worthy of note, too, that this matter of example is covered in Article One, that is, the very first article. It has occupied the place of first importance for generations; and we may trust that it will always remain on the “front page.” I would like the wording of the article better if it stopped right there, with its appeal to a high standard, rather than go on with dire threats for him who may fall short. The impression on the mind would be happier. Now, in all too many cases, there will be tendency to be lenient with those who do not measure up—personal friendship, hardships endured together; many will be the influences to leniency. You will have to make statement in writing as to the personal and military character of subordinates. Your own military character will then be under test, will you have the character, the intestinal fortitude, to record an entry that shall give the whole picture of the officer who in your heart you know not to measure up to the standards? Does that officer set a good example? Is he loyal? I will not go further into the matter of example on this occasion. Little that I could add would lend force to what has already been said or to what is of common knowledge to all.
But the matter of loyalty calls for more detailed examination, and that is the subject I have chosen for this talk—the philosophy of loyalty. We are accustomed to give to loyalty a somewhat restricted meaning, whereas it has a very wide, a very comprehensive application. In these days of mental and moral unrest, when tendencies are toward uprooting old ideals and revising traditions, there results doubt as to just what should be our standards. There has been a tendency to cast out the old gods, the old beliefs; and this without setting up others in their places. There remains a void and a doubt, and until new ideals are formed we are adrift, without compass or rudder. So we are confronted with the necessity of classifying and simplifying our moral attitude in order to give to our lives a guiding purpose, that we may each of us have an ideal of life which is not alone worthy in its own ends, but one which will exercise beneficial influence upon our fellows. Now, the guiding principle for this classification, for this simplification of our moral outlook, is found in loyalty. But still we cannot be content with the narrow definition in the dictionary which limits loyalty to being faithful and true to the lawful government, or allegiance to a cause or a principle; a fuller definition is, rather, “the willing and practical and thoroughgoing devotion of a person to a cause.”*
For a man to be loyal he must first have a cause to which to be loyal. He will willingly devote himself to that cause. He will express this devotion in some sustained and practical way by acting steadily in the service of the cause. It constitutes an ever-present guide, directing him how best to order his life. Fixed upon a cause he has an objective, something to serve; some standard to which to refer his problems. We must each of us have a plan of life. But no man can have a plan of life by merely looking within his own chaotic nature; he must look outside himself to the world of social conventions, deeds, and causes. There will he find a cause or causes that will attract him and claim his service; there will be indicated to him his plan of life. Loyalty to this newly discovered cause will fill this need; it will give stability and fixity of purpose. It will unify his life in the pursuit of this one cause, this cause being thenceforward his life, his will, his opportunity, his fulfillment. Loyalty is social: it concerns and it involves others. In a sense it is impersonal; and in another sense it is personal in that it does involve others. It binds many persons in one service, and in this sense it fills another of man’s needs, that of companionship. Loyalty without self-control is impossible. The loyal man subordinates his own impulses to his chosen cause.
The devotion of a loyal man thus involves a degree of self-restraint, submission of his natural desires to the interest of the cause which he has accepted, which he embraces and which he serves. In all of this he looks to the cause for guidance; and his cause tells him what to do. His devotion is entire; he is ready to live or to die as the cause directs. Indeed, to die for a cause were ofttimes easier than to live for that same cause. Many a man has died nobly for his country; many a captain has gone down with his ship rather than leave others to perish when he himself might have been saved. Various features contribute to such heroic conduct—emotion of the moment, patriotism, tradition, what is expected of one, in some instances even a love for the dramatic and front-page headlines.
LIFE AND DEATH
By Ernest H. Crosby
So he died for his faith. That is fine,
More than most of us do.
But say, can you add to that line
That he lived for it too?
In death he bore witness at last
As a martyr to truth.
Did his life do the same in the past,
From the days of his youth?
It is easy to die. Men have died For a wish or a whim,
From bravado or passion or pride.
Was it harder for him?
But to live: every day to live out
All the truth that he dreamt,
While his friends met his conduct with doubt,
And the world with contempt.
Was it thus that he plodded ahead,
Never turning aside?
Then we’ll talk of the life that he led,
Never mind how he died.
What most concerns us here then is a more complete understanding of the application of loyalty to our daily lives, its many phases, its ramifications. The first essential is a cause. Next is the choice of a cause—a matter of great importance to those who have not already reached a decision. Certain causes may be worthy in the minds of some and not so worthy in the minds of others; but any cause that contributes to the welfare of mankind may be considered to be worthy. Again, a man may have made a choice earlier in his career and later found reason to choose otherwise, perhaps a more worthy cause. Nor can we quarrel with another man’s selection of a cause, provided always that cause contributes to the needs and welfare of mankind. In the more lowly walks of life many a heart glows with a warm light of steady and unfailing loyalty to a cause. The captain of the head has been known to take an interest in his job. Certainly he contributes to man’s welfare; and his is a worthy cause. There is no glamour, no emotional exhaltation, no front page about his job. It is the living for a cause that calls for a daily, an hourly conscious and practical and thoroughgoing devotion to the cause.
Over and beyond the individual good that each of us may derive from the choice of a worthy cause, and loyal devotion thereto, there lies the benefit to our cause —the Navy—in our being able to appreciate this benefit to such extent that we may, by our example, spread the gospel of living loyally. By way of arriving at a standard by which to measure an officer’s living loyally, we find an admirable text quoted from an incident in English history. You will recall that in the days of Charles I of England it not infrequently happened that the career of a British subject was cut short by the loss of his head. The record has it that the King commanded that there be delivered into his custody the persons of certain members of the House of Commons, men opposed to his own measures. The House returned the answer that they respectfully declined to deliver up any of their members to the King’s officers. The following day, in January, 1642, the King went himself to the House, posted guards at the doors, mounted to the speaker’s desk and commanded that official to point out to him the persons wanted, that the guards might arrest them. It was a moment in history. Whether or no the speaker had foreseen this dramatic moment, whether or not he had given thought to what he should do or what he should say, matters little. What does matter to us is what he did and what he said. Falling upon his knee, said that admirable speaker:
Your Majesty, I am the speaker of this House, and being such, I have neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak save as this House shall command, and I humbly beg Your Majesty’s pardon if this is the only answer that I can give Your Majesty.
I cite this instance of loyalty, in this case loyalty to the cause of liberty as opposed to despotism, not only because of the speaker’s example of loyalty, but more particularly that we may learn from his words a text, that we may, in weighing the worth of one and another subordinate, have in mind such a standard as may be used when we answer to ourselves the question: “Has he (the subordinate) eyes to see and tongue to speak” only that which shall best serve the Navy? We may not assume delinquency in subordinates, lest we do them injustice and thereby lose their confidence. Rather should we give to each full credit for the best until he shall prove otherwise. We take for granted his loyalty as a patriot, as a captain going down with his ship, or as speaker of the House of Commons. We assume, too, his whole-hearted devotion to the service— devotion indicated by the daily practice of service before self, with eyes to see and tongue to speak only for that service. We may not indicate doubt of his loyalty. The spirit of the service has long since condemned any such method. Rather is it incumbent upon us, by example and by precept, to cultivate an appreciation of loyalty in its more comprehensive sense. However, there is laid upon us again in the articles for the government of the Navy an obligation to be vigilant in inspecting the conduct of those placed under us in the naval service, to suppress all unworthy practices, etc. The loyal servant subordinates self and selfish interests to the interests of the cause. Loyalty without self-denial, without self-control, is, let me repeat, impossible.
Another phase of loyalty is that which is known as loyalty to the mission. Your subordinate may have from you very explicit written orders as to the accomplishment of a specific task. If your orders to him have been in such detail as to embarrass him in the performance of that task he should have the initiative to transgress the letter, if in so doing he can the more surely accomplish the mission. On the other hand, he may, indeed, fail in accomplishment because of lacking initiative, or of lacking the will to carry out his mission in spite of your embarrassing detailed orders. Lacking the will in such case is indicative of deficiency in loyalty, in loyalty to the mission primarily, and to you incidentally. Yours will have been an error in writing orders or instructions in too much detail. As I have indicated, your subordinate’s loyalty should be primarily to the mission, and to yourself only as his chief in carrying out the mission. Your own loyalty will be primarily to the mission, but it will include a very specific loyalty to your subordinate, expressed by your lending him every available necessary facility and support for executing the mission; and in yourself accepting responsibility for failure that may be properly attributed to you, for example, orders and instructions in such detail as to handicap even the most loyal and zealous subordinate. The feeling that you will support him is of inestimable value to your junior.
There is due here, however, a word of caution to the subordinate, lest he be carried too far with this idea of the initiative being permitted to transgress orders and instructions. Before he takes such action he must realize that in so doing he takes upon himself the burden of proving that such is the right thing to do in loyalty to the mission. And, in any case, he is obliged, again in all loyalty, to take the first possible means of informing you of his departure from the written word. You will need this as information upon which to base decisions as to future action, since it may necessitate modification of your plan, and of your instructions to other subordinates.
Another phase of loyalty is described as loyalty to loyalty; which is to say that we should acclaim loyalty to any cause which contributes to the welfare of mankind. My friend may be of one religious faith and I of quite another. Yet I would not have him unfaithful to his faith. Nor would I decry another man because he happens not to be of my political convictions or even of my country. What I seek in that other man is that he be loyal to his convictions, loyal to his country, that his loyalty take that form and be of that intensity that gives to him eyes to see and tongue to speak only for his cause. In this connection there is a phase of loyalty not always appreciated by us whose cause is that of the national government; and yet it is of very real value and as such should be recognized not only because of our loyalty to loyalty, but also because it is a worthy contribution to the national cause. I speak of local loyalties, as those of municipalities, of colleges, of states. Each of these contributes in greater or less degree to the larger cause of the nation. Without those local loyalties the people who now serve them would find themselves too far removed, in times of peace, from the national cause with which we in the service are identified so much more closely. So it is that they have need of nearer interests, of their local communities and groups, to serve as causes. Their sense of loyalty is under cultivation, so to speak; and ultimately, in time of national emergency, it prompts them to wholehearted service of the national cause.
Finally, bringing our examination of loyalty a little closer to our daily lives, let us consider how we practice loyalty on board ship, for instance. If you be of the engineer force and concerned as to the engineering score of your ship, your appeal to the ship’s company to be reasonably sparing of fresh water is but an appeal to their loyalty to the ship, to their cause. If you be in charge of a gun division or of a turret, or, indeed, of any unit on board, you seek to have your men return on time from liberty, that the unit may carry on at best efficiency. Your appeal is to their loyalty to the unit as a minor cause in the larger cause of the ship. You comport yourself, and you expect your subordinates to comport themselves in all loyalty to the cause of the ship, and through that loyalty to that due the Navy.
Military bearing and proper wearing of correct uniform are very pertinent evidences of living loyally. You measure the loyalty of your subordinates by the degree to which each of them exercises self-control, and exhibits self-denial in the interest of the cause that he professes to serve. That officer or man is loyal who has neither eyes to see nor tongue to speak, save for the Navy.
*The quotation is from the Philosophy of Loyalty by Josiah Royce, Professor of History of Philosophy, Harvard University. The author of this article, Rear Admiral Upham, chief of the Bureau of Navigation, recommends this book, for those who are interested, for careful reading. It is published by the Macmillan Company, at $2.50, or it may be obtained from the Institute’s book department.
Geography has ordained that the United States, with young Canada on her right and younger Australasia on her left, should constitute the front rank of the whole civilization of Europe facing the newer civilization of awakening Asia. Americans should realize not only the prominence, but more particularly the responsibility, of their position. And Europeans, in spite of their present travails, should realize that the future of white civilization as a whole may require that America take not her eyes off the Pacific, however much she may desire to look helpfully across the Atlantic. And furthermore, Americans should realize the many, many times repeated lesson of history to the effect that, when the people of a civilization become so individualistic and so ease-loving that they care not if their remote dependents are subjugated by a more virile race, that selfish shirking of responsibility, and consequent recession of empire, invariably foretell the downfall of the civilization as a whole—unless an Aurelian and a Diocletian save it from disintegration and destruction as they saved Rome.—Gardiner.