'Tis not in mortals
To command success
But we'll do more, "Sempronius"
We'll deserve it.
—Joseph Addison—Cato
My congratulations, young gentlemen, for having completed successfully four years of grinding application in order to fit yourselves for service to your country!
My congratulations, also, to your country for its wisdom in procuring for itself another wave of loyal servants who will tend its interests faithfully in times that are free from war and strife and who will sacrifice life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness in time of peril that she may continue her high course free and undaunted, without end.
Somewhat closer to half a century ago than I like to contemplate, I sat with my classmates in this very hall where you are now sitting and only half listened to a great figure of that day as his spectacular oration swept us out of the Naval Academy and into active service with the status of probationary officers. My excuse for lack of attention was that my claim to a diploma was presumptive only; consequently my faculties were more centered upon sheepskins than upon statesmen who might have decided to honor us on that occasion. You may better understand my state of mind when I tell you that final marks for a subject in which I did not lead my class had not been posted and there were rumors that certain less erudite members of the class might be held over for further effort in that particular field without sheepskin, commission, leave, or orders to sea duty. You may further understand my hypertension when I tell you that I was handed the last—the very last—diploma in that day's distribution, though I stood some tens of numbers higher scholastically than the anchor man in my class. My fault was not a grievous one, as you may come to know—just a downright disposition to consider first things first.
I missed not only the striking import of the speaker's words, but the tumult and thunder of his oratory beat upon me with little effect. It was months before I came to know that his speech had met with favorable comment by the country at large because of the vigor of his ideas and his determined drive for a more efficient Navy that could shoot, steam, and fight successfully. Then, belatedly, I read his speech and was impressed greatly, as I should have been at the time of its original eruption. The speech revealed in unmistakable terms what he wanted our Navy to do; he proclaimed that he wanted a winner despite conditions, difficulties, or might of adversaries. It made a good valedictory to the young gentlemen of that group, however distracted by other and more youthful ideas we may have been at the moment. That it was taken to heart by the majority of those present and those later acquainted with its aims, as I had been, had much to do with the making of our Navy, which has steered our country through two wars victoriously, and with its present potentiality which you are expected to maintain and improve.
He did not specify by what processes we were to accomplish his requirements, leaving us and our seniors of that period to our own devices in which we, I say pridefully, displayed considerable ability, ingenuity, and resource. It is because he failed to give us any part of that which has come to be spoken of in the industrial world as the "know-how" that I have elected to comment upon certain turning points of conduct, procedure, efforts, and ethics by which satisfactory results of a kind may be reached down the years of your active naval life or equally satisfactory achievement if you elect or are elected to pursue civilian life. More than these few turning points could not be presented to you without resort to additional tomes of instruction without which your endurance has already been taxed.
Well knowing that I have no possibility of selection as statesman, politician, orator, or stuffed shirt with which graduations are frequently disturbed, I have chosen this form of discourse so that you may take it with possible benefit at your leisure or ignore it entirely if you prefer to go your own way and carve your career without the doubtful assistance of any of the above categories cited.
Even to go his own way, one must have a plan of some kind lest he drift or cruise aimlessly—there must be a target, a point of aim, just as in sport, gunnery practice, or the strategy of war. Failing to fix upon that which one seeks to accomplish with some degree of definiteness is the same as pumping out ammunition aimlessly with the hope that, by chance entirely, some shots may land upon the undesignated target.
And that brings us to the consideration for a starting place as to what constitutes a successful career as a Naval Officer; not the same in detail for each of you, by any means, but in a general way there seem to be no more than three broad courses from which to choose.
Let us examine these three possibilities.
The first straight shot to a career that comes to mind is direct, obvious, and not without its appeal if you lean that way, namely, to reach the rank of five star Admiral, to be Commander in Chief followed by Chief of Operations, later to become Ambassador or Member of the Cabinet, in order to round out the plan and to demonstrate that one's talents are not limited to a single field. It can be done. Someone will wear the five stars. Someone will be Commander in Chief, will serve in the office of Chief of Operations, so why not you?
Not so fast, my young friend! Let's run down the course we have charted so hastily. There may be reefs and shoals. There is no ' buoyed and lighted channel to this goal, and others who navigate toward the identical position you have plotted for yourself may contest your right of way. It is inspiring to hitch one's wagon to a star, we have often been told, but now you are hitching your craft to five stars, which is a bit more complicated and, as we sailors say of stars, of a higher magnitude.
If you are one favored by the gods with great intelligence, superior talents, and charm of person and if you are a Titan for hard work, you may reach the five star goal by merit, by merit alone, with a little luck, good health, and good timing. It can be done. It has been done.
Lacking these endowments in a superior degree, there is required something additional to reach the constellation you have selected as your goal of a successful career.
Have you the epidermis of the grey tiger shark, the pliancy of a willow in a gale, the ability to reverse your field with the agility of an All-American football back? Can you trim and cut your principles to fit any changing pattern from higher up without letting them appear as ribbons and tatters? Can you bow and scrape and make it seem polish and manners and not unction and servility? You can! Yes? Well, then, perhaps you can make the grade, but don't be surprised when you wake some morning to find a snickersnee so deeply embedded in your dorsal region that you will thereafter be completely dead promotionally. I saw one capable, upright, honest official, but naïve and trusting withal, on the occasion when his throat was cut figuratively by the ruthlessly ambitious boys who play rough if you barge into the course they have chosen to get what they want. It was a tragic scene. He was stricken, and I grieved for him.
It was my duty on another occasion to unravel and record the diabolic scheme of a trio who plotted to remove a fourth competitor for high office, and they succeeded. Apprised of their machination, the victim took to his couch forthwith and died of shock at their betrayal of friendship. These schemers were set down temporarily, but eventually they hacked and hewed their way to the goal they had set.
This first choice is a career not without appeal and adventure if you like that sort of behavior and if you are fitted for it, but rare is the man who can travel that rhumb line and keep in his heart and mind the good of the Service and his country at the same time. Not that we should be unduly critical of those who steer this first course to the goal they have chosen, if their efforts serve our country well and bring no discredit to our nation. For we must remember that the motives and morals of many distinguished and eminently successful naval and military leaders have been something less than admirable!
A second choice toward a goal is to do nothing or at any rate to do as little as possible, to develop a technique of evasion when responsibility or duty appears headed one's way. You know, without my saying so, that this career is in no way meritorious, but you will learn that it occasionally meets with a greater measure of reward than it deserves, and in rare cases when accompanied by personal charm, histrionic ability, and cultivated political backing it can really accomplish some startling results.
This course has its beginning in letting a petty officer do all the chores which interfere with one's pleasure and comfort, in belated relief of watch standing mates, in evasion of tours of duty, in effecting a transfer of duty when one's ship is ordered to hard and uninteresting cruising, in taking an over-full measure of leave and liberty to the detriment of one's fellow officers and their periods of ease and recreation. When fully developed as an art, it is displayed as a going-through all the motions without ever a statement, decision, or action that can be brought home to its author. Then, if successful, it is not infrequently called "showmanship."
To follow this course, I am convinced one must be born to it. It appears to spring from some source congenital. I cannot imagine anyone's deliberate choice of such a career. It is cited here primarily that you may avoid any semblance of its contamination and secondarily that you may more readily recognize one who is sailing his craft on this zig-zag to a naval career.
The third choice of a way to A successful career in the Navy aims to fulfill each office as it is reached. It is open to any officer who has the capacity to earn his commission. It does not shoot at the stars from the beginning but consolidates its gains as it grows. At each step, one says to himself, "This I must do and be to the very best of my ability." It looks back with pride upon the office last occupied; it labors with confidence and zeal in the office currently undertaken, and it contemplates without envy the next one upward for which one is fitting himself. Wherever and whenever one may stop in his upward climb toward the top, it can be said that he was a dependable and conscientious officer, that he faced difficulties and decisions with courage and conviction, that he did more than expected, that the Navy and his country loomed ever bigger and more important in his mind than himself, that he met in full measure his obligations and responsibilities as they came to him. This is a third way to a successful career, and a happy one.
You have now considered the goal on which you have set your sights for your naval life. Let us then be on the way. First, with your diploma, your commission, your orders, your officer's equipment, and I trust not otherwise unduly encumbered, for that is quite enough to make one eventful day, you will be making way for the first time as an officer through these old Academy gates that have furnished an exit for many gallant, valorous, and exemplary predecessors, whom you will match, I am certain. Enjoy the coming leave period to the utmost, for it marks an apex that will never repeat and you will have left behind a four years of glorious and glamorous youth, to which you can never return. One stride outside the Academic limits, this time, and youth will drop like a mantle from your shoulders and you will take up the burden of adulthood and officer responsibility.
Those thirty days, which I trust will be the measure of your leave, having come to a too hasty end, now comes the moment of reporting for your first active duty. I know you will pay strict attention to all those details of dress, deportment, and punctilio about which you have been enlightened, for it is important to make a good first impression. Do not fall into the error of barging into the cabin of the U.S.S. Swatara and reporting to her Captain, when your orders direct you to her sister ship, the U.S.S. Wateree, as did one new graduate. Her Captain assumed, and rightly so, that after four years of learning. at the Navy School, a young man should be able to read a ship's name on her stern in block letters a foot high. It is also embarrassing to report to a dignified and elderly four striper, whom one has slapped on the back the previous night with the not unfavorable comment, "Pop, you may look like an old duffer but in a pinch you are all to the good." The circumstances (a train wreck) were unusual, but that did happen to a young graduate many years ago. So now, you have made your very good first impression.
Upon whom have you made it?
The answer comes readily, "Upon my Captain, upon my seniors." Ah I That is but half the effort, perhaps not even half. There are your messmates, your subordinates, and the enlisted men who make the complement of your new ship.
Make no mistake of overlooking your subordinates, the petty officers and men, for what they may think of you may be even more important than the first estimate of your seniors, though they will never set it down in your written record.
If you are to be a leader, which is the very simple way of saying, if you are to be a good and valuable officer, you must have followers. These fellow citizens of yours who are currently enlisted in the Naval 'Service and assigned to your first authority, a division aboard ship perhaps, will follow you through hurricane and hell if your first impression upon them is good and you maintain a course that they respect and admire. Conversely, if they do not choose to follow, they will give you the brush-off, the runaround, and a complete let down, though going through all motions of obedient compliance. It is well to know them as individuals, not just as the "men in my division" or the "first section of the A division" or the "port watch." Study their records, learn their backgrounds, their home towns, their aims and previous ability. Much of that information is in each service record. It is a great satisfaction to be able to say to Seaman 2nd Class Sam Houston Smith, "So you are from Cuero, Sam Houston Smith. Tell me about it. What sort of town is Cuero? I have never been there." If he is from Texas, you may be confident that he will tell you and like it; so will you like it, and the result will be the same if Seaman 2nd Class Smith comes from Vermont, South Carolina, or Montana. Don't be misled into thinking that because you have had a few more advantages and four years of officer training that you can outthink 200 enlisted men or even half a dozen, for they are, today—and have been for many years—smart, literate, and just as up and coming as you are yourself. I would not want you to be overly conscious that Seaman 2nd Class Smith's father is the senior senator from his state, or that the uncle of BM 2nd Class Jones is the President of General Motors, Inc. and under consideration for the U. S. Cabinet, but it is apt to be a fact. In these last turbulent thirty-five years former corporals, sergeants, and captains of artillery have reached the seats of the mighty, and it is not inconceivable that your present Seaman 2nd Class Smith may not some day be Secretary of the Navy, while you are the same old Gish, for the time being a Commander or Captain. Wouldn't it be a happy and heartwarming situation to have the SecNav remember his first division officer as a fine officer, a shipmate, a respected mentor, and a darned good egg?
Your commission in itself guarantees little, very little, in the way of personal merit, merely a great and continuing obligation. It confers an authority that is limited to the requirements of your current naval responsibility, and it is specific in its purposes. Do not, my friend, let that limited authority ever so slightly turn your head or take on, in your mind, the attribute of a permanent personal possession! You can be an officer, an excellent, strict, and just officer, and also a gentleman; most officers deport themselves in a manner that entitles them to that vague but generally understood designation; but You can also be an ass in uniform and no amount of gold braid, ribbons, and decorations will conceal the fact or mute the braying, probably serving only to invite attention and trumpet the offense.
Now that you are shaken down in your first assignment, this is a good time to give thought—serious thought—to one of your assets that will, I hope, accompany you throughout your career, throughout your entire life. Nothing can be more important, for failing this—your good health—all that you have planned to accomplish and to make of yourself is apt to drag and founder. You are now in excellent physical condition, with certificate from the Board of Medical Examiners to prove it, and you can, within certain limits, preserve your mental and physical soundness. For a time you will be able to continue those athletic sports and recreations of your Academy days, but increasingly you will find it difficult to assemble a football squad, lacrosse team, or eight oared crew. Golf, tennis, and fencing do not involve too many others, but they, too, will fail you as suitable exercise over long periods. Walking is an excellent activity and can be the basis of added benefit, but the one tried and trusty standby—dull and uninteresting as it may be until it is firmly established in your routine of living—is calisthenics, commonly called setting up exercises. As little as ten minutes per morning regularly tuning and toning your body structure with muscular tensions and flexions will pay big returns in health and vitality. And believe it or not, you will soon come to enjoy it.
Give more than a passing thought to liquor of alcoholic content. A high percentage of officer difficulties can be charged directly or indirectly to making a bosom companion of liquor rather than maintaining it as an attractive acquaintance with whom occasional and controlled contact can be relaxing, socially acceptable, and at times even inspirational. Maintain it at all times as a servant, not as an overlord. If you find that you are individually allergic to its control-releasing effect, banish it completely for good and all, and brag of your strength and wisdom in ignoring it at all times. It is moreover a wholesome mental attitude for one not readily susceptible to its effects to be proud of how little he drinks rather than how great an ebb he can personally create in the national gallonage.
In the beginning, keep an index of your men with pertinent information from their records—keep it in your own handwriting, for the mere act of writing it will impress those items on your memory as nothing else can. Put down in each individual's index the meritorious things he has done; yes, and record the time and place when he defaulted and failed to do his part. It will serve as a fair basis for your recommendations in his behalf when opportunity for advancement comes his way, or the reverse if your record of his efforts is unfavorable. It is astounding how such recorded events will come back to mind after long years. During the early part of World War II, a tall dignified Captain of the Merchant Marine stood before my desk. "You don't remember me, Captain," he said. "Yes," I replied, "I do and in a moment I'll tell you your name. You were the seaman-striker for quartermaster on the Dale who let a 1000 foot long linen line become fouled and ruined in the propellers. And your name is Blank." "My Soul, Captain," he exclaimed, "don't tell me you haven't forgotten that in over thirty years." Then we two old sailors just grinned and patted one another's backs because of a trivial happening that linked us and the years between.
In dealing with your subordinates, it is well to commend publicly any individual who has demonstrated merit, but do your fault finding privately. Bawling out a subordinate, who has erred, accomplishes exactly nothing so far as he is concerned, for the bawling out becomes his punishment, and ends the situation except that rancor and ill will attend what he feels to be his humiliation. Calm self-control, however irritating the circumstances, plus a considered comment on his fault in private, is far more effective and less likely to cause resentful after effect.
During placid watches or periods of leisure, ponder and plan the action you will take in emergencies of all kinds that may arise. Many of them are cited in "Rules of the Road" and in your handbooks and manuals. Rehearse in your mind the efforts you will make and the steps in turn to be taken, for they will be stored in the recesses of your subconscious, from which they will flow in a surprisingly calm, correct, and effective manner. Once during a midshipman practice cruise, our ship, an important unit of the then small Navy, was beset with fog that would bend a radar wave had there been such a device in that day. Traffic was heavy, sound signals numerous and varied, the Captain harried and tense. The Officer of the Deck, a tall red bearded Lieutenant of that period, was unperturbed. Out of nowhere a new series of blasts sounded close, awesome and threatening, ----a long tow indicated. The Captain, in a tizzy of worry and ceaseless agitation, shouted repeatedly at the calm Officer of the Deck. "Mr. Blank! What are you going to do? What are you going to do? Do something, Mr. Blank. Do Something! Don't stand there! Do Something!" Eventually and calmly the Officer of the Deck replied, "I've already done everything a good sailor can do. Now I'm waiting to see how it turns out." It turned out all right. When congratulated later by another lieutenant for his fine judgment in the emergency, he grinned "Fine judgment! My eye! I had done that in my mind a hundred times until it was automatic. It did itself." We midshipmen figured that Lieutenant Red Beard was an officer whose pattern we might well try to copy.
As a Junior Officer, you will be serving an apprenticeship. It will fall to your lot to do the multitude of chores that others have planned. There will be little chance to show your own capacity except in the thoroughness and dispatch with which you perform the details. Further on in your career you will take on the big things, things out of the routine, and you will have latitude in which to consider them and to make them function. In each tour of duty afloat or ashore, choose one thing, one important effort, concentrate upon it and accomplish it definitely. Then, with earned satisfaction you can say, "That is my contribution to this particular assignment, and I leave the office better by that much than I found it."
You will make errors. Every one does. If called to account for an error on your part admit it frankly, state that it will be corrected if that be possible, and add that it will not be repeated. Explanations and alibis are of small use except to prolong the situation, and if in written reply to an official citation, they serve only to swell the volume of papers in your official record where their bulk will create an impression often all out of proportion to the fault.
If you serve under a Captain who falls far short of setting for you the fine example required by the Regulations as well as by tradition do not repine or seek immediate transfer to the authority of a more idealistic leader. Here is presented a rare opportunity to learn what-not-to-do—a knowledge that is equal to the best administered procedures and at times of superlative value in avoiding error when the correct action is not readily apparent. What-not-to-do frequently tears down and destroys in an hour's time what it has taken what-to-do days, weeks, and years to build. Later, when your luck shifts and you find yourself serving with a Commanding Officer whose character, ability, and exercise of authority you feel are deserving of your most sincere homage; observe and emulate. From that time on, you will have a base-line of standards—low standards at one end and high standards at the other. You will know thereafter where to interpolate in your established scale, a new command, a new situation, a new superior, and you can judge with a degree of accuracy what must be done on your part to maintain the high level or improve the lower one.
Perhaps you may feel that to disagree with a senior, such as your Commanding Officer, when your opinion or conviction has been sought by him, would be held as brash, impolitic, or tactless. You can be tactful but you must be truthful, you must be resolute. One Junior of my acquaintance had a formula which ran like this, "Yes, sir, Captain, that sounds like a good idea. Just off hand I'd be willing to go along with it. Yes, sir, I know your methods are uniformly of the best and I would hesitate to pass judgment when you have had so much more experience. It could work all right, I believe, possibly, if the right person were to undertake it, but where are you going to find him? I'd like to think it over a bit more, sir. Perhaps by morning, I wouldn't be so sure, in fact right now, I am beginning to have doubts and if you don't mind my being abrupt, Captain, I don't think it could work at all, do you, sir?" It was a good formula for that Junior, and I am sure gave his Senior many a quiet chuckle.
Another Junior did it this way on one occasion. The Captain was angry and it was apparent that he expected only complete endorsement of his temporary attitude toward a staff officer whose correct performance of duty had balked him. The Captain thundered, "What do you think of the way the ! ! ! ! ! doctor is acting?" The Junior replied quietly, "Do you want to know what I think, Captain, or do you want me to say what I know you want to hear?" There was but one answer to that. "What you think, of course." The Junior let him have it. "I think the doctor is exactly right and you are exactly wrong, sir." Ultimately it turned out all right, but there followed a considerable interim when joy and sunshine did not reign supreme.
By the time you have found these suggestions of value to you and have improved upon them or refused them altogether because you know something better, you will be ready to call yourself a Senior Officer, an experienced officer, performing as a head of department aboard ship or in corresponding responsibility of the air branch. You will have too many men under your supervision to know each as well as in your Junior assignments, but you can reach them via your officers and petty officers, as effectively, if you know and study and bind the latter to you. The methods are the same. Make much of your assistants, and they will make much of you. Treat them as you would like to be treated in their places, and they will carry you high upon their shoulders.
Your authority will be increased, your field of action will be expanded, but the principles which you have followed as a Junior will remain the same, for men change not at all in their basic human reactions. Whatever means you employed successfully with men and petty officers will do as well with officers and civilians, though you may develop new applications and refinements of their use. Deal through your immediate assistants always, keep them advised of your plans and policies and look to them for the results you seek. If an assistant does not measure up to the requirements of his position, do not retain him and go behind his back but weed him out and find a satisfactory replacement.
An order is an order, presumably a wise and necessary one. As a good officer and leader you should obey all orders, and most particularly you should be careful to obey your own orders, rules, and procedures, which you have issued for the direction of others. I have on occasion heard officers brag of having their subordinates so disciplined and bluffed that they didn't bother to conform to their own measures; a bad example, a cheap artifice, and something of a low in integrity. Never forget that you are an example to younger officers and to your men; moreover, it is not beyond reason that you may set a fine figure for many a senior to rival if his mental and moral fibre is not commensurate with your own.
Mark down in the recesses of your memory those items about which you have found cause for complaint, that have irked you, or that you considered have been below an acceptable standard, and bring them forth for correction and improvement when you reach a stage in your career that carries with it the authority and discretion not extended to you at the time of their occurrence.
One of your important duties as a Commanding Officer is that of "holding Mast," and you may find yourself very soon in your career required to act in that capacity—much sooner than you expect.
The manner in which "Mast" is conducted can create in your command a high morale and respect for you as an individual, or it can become little more than the outward expression of the Commanding Officer's peptic ulcers. Properly conducted, it is a dignified, calm, impersonal, and unbiased examination of facts followed by dismissal of the report, if reasonable proof is lacking, or by the assignment of suitable and prescribed punishment or reference to a higher tribunal, if the circumstances warrant.
Investigation should be prompt, and the action taken should be speedy. Delay overlong, and the offender who quite naturally does not like to dwell upon his faults and transgressions is apt to have put the episode behind him and to conclude that it must have been some .other fellow whose scourging he now unjustly bears.
If you ever once witness, as was my affliction for the greater part of a year, a Commanding Officer bellowing and storming as if each reported offense were to him a personal affront affording him a sadistic pleasure to resent and punish, I am sure you will prefer the dignified, calm, and judicial procedure.
In connection with judicial procedure, you are certain to encounter court martial duty, as a member, senior member, or president of a higher tribunal. When you take the oath administered to the members, you take upon yourself in a measure the majesty of your country in its distribution of equity and justice. Let nothing erase that fact from your mind, and let nothing swerve you from strict compliance with your oath. If the convening authority, your Commanding Officer, summons you to his cabin for a discourse as to the time, place, and other commonplaces of court procedure, heed what he says and comply with his directions. Should he offer comment or direction as to the finding or sentence at which he expects the court to arrive, let it go in one ear and out of the other, say "Aye, sir!" and go out and do exactly what your oath requires and don't give two hoots whether he likes your action or not. If pressed for explanation, tell him that you mean to adhere to your oath without fear or favor, let or hindrance. If he is a good Captain, he will admire you for your stand and your self-reliance. Of course, if he were a good Captain, he would not attempt to coerce or seduce the court or its members in the first place.
When you have decided to take a certain action, to do something for another, particularly for a subordinate, do not do it grudgingly, reluctantly. Do it cheerfully.
When Ensign McSwat taps timidly at the portal of your cabin and requests, "Sir, may I have permission to leave the ship?" do not require him to remain in an attitude of stiff attention for fifteen minutes while engaging him in the following dialogue,
"Your journal is up to date, I trust?"
"It is, sir."
"All the quarterly marks of men in your division have been entered in their records?"
"Yes, sir."
"You have completed your tour of duty and you have no watches to stand for the next 48 hours, I hope?"
"You are correct, sir."
"The double bottoms in your part of the ship have been given the weekly inspection and all defects corrected, have they?"
"They have, sir."
"Your plan for drills and exercises for the coming week is complete and adequate, I assume?"
"It is, sir."
"Your mess bill has been paid up to date, has it?"
"Quite, sir."
"Well, then . . . Yes, I see no objection. You may leave the ship, but I shall expect you to return in ample time for the morning's work in your part of the ship before quarters for muster!"
Rather, when Mr. McSwat knocks and seeks approval, respond in your cheeriest tones, "Sure! Who seeketh?" Upon learning his identity if he be not visible, then add in a hearty manner, "And I sincerely trust, Mr. McSwat, that you will have a profitable and instructive visit to the beach, remembering to keep a sharp lookout ahead and on both bows for pompous politicians who will seek your vote, for preying profiteers who will seek your hard earned cash, and pandering procurers er-er harrumph! Look it up in the dictionary, Mr. McSwat, or perhaps your messmates can enlighten you."
You can probably devise a better response but something of that light character will give your assent a shipmate-like touch, will send him on his way gaily. Your comment will be repeated in the Junior Officers' Country time without end and will serve to enhance your stature even if you are already as tall as Long John Silver.
In your shore duty, you may, in certain assignments, be subjected to approach by shrewd manipulators, who are adept at guile and pressure, to acquire from you special or slightly irregular consideration which will give them an inside track for their schemes. In minor ways it is called seeking favor; in a studied and systematic way it is called lobbying. In its most malignant form it is bribery and corruption. The methods are never crude, the approach is never direct. No one will ever bring you thousands of dollars in a black handbag; no one will openly suggest that you look the other way—his way—but by degrees if you are not skeptical of flattery, of invitations so presented that refusal on your part will appear churlish, of gifts that you find awkward to reject because they arrive anonymously and it is only later that you learn their origin, if you are not alert to these suave workers and do not confine your affairs to your bona fide friends and acquaintances, you may, too late, find yourself entangled or embarrassed.
When a sweet voice trickles over your phone saying, "This is the Secretary's Office" or a stern and impressive baritone hurls at you over the same system of communication, "I am speaking for the Secretary," listen carefully. If it seeks to convey an alleged directive from the Secretary himself telling you to do something that you well know should not be done or telling you not to do something that you equally well know is necessary or merited, wait till the cadence subsides and then gently query: "Who is talking?" At the slightest hint of bluff, evasion or double talk, say courteously if the voice be feminine in quality; "Miss, your voice is so enchanting that I muffed the import of your song and I am sure it is important. Would you mind dropping in some time to tell me in person—and please bring the Secretary's signature with you."
On the other hand, if the voice registers tenor, baritone or basso profundo (and when he is bluffing it is apt to drop to that level) say, "Excuse, please! But to me, you are just a noise on the other end of a wire, operator!"
Even if you should make a faulty estimate of the situation, nothing will come of it because important matters seldom are and never should be transacted in that casual fashion. Should you be taken to task by offended majesty for the failure to display confidence in an unseen and unknown master, remind him straightforwardly that the Sovereign State of Norway was captured by a "phony" and that you have no intention of ever being subdued by ear. You will not only be protecting yourself, but you will be safeguarding your boss from unscrupulous satellites who not infrequently attach themselves to high office.
I know you are leaving this Navy School with a better practical training than was given to your predecessors. I know that you are more enlightened as to your great mission of service to your country and to all people who love freedom and peace. I know that you are more broadened in perspective than the naive and comparatively provincial graduates of my day. These things I know because the Naval Academy has always been alertly progressive, ready to adapt its courses to new patterns and improved methods, to new threats and forces that you may be better equipped to replace those who have gone before you. The world, too, has become more enlightened, more understanding of man's ideals, aims and hopes and all this has been laid before you en masse, while my contemporaries have had to dredge it piecemeal as it slowly uncovered.
That you have been given more of those things that make for individual and collective character, sense of honor, obligation to duty and responsibility, desire to work together for a common end, truth and the resolution to display courage and fortitude at all times, simply cannot be, for, in our day, maximum stress was laid upon the development of those high qualities, and in our simpler life they were absorbed to the utmost. That these most important features of training and development have not been slighted in the complexity of things presented to you, and in this era of material concern, is my earnest hope, for without them little of your fine preparation can come to any great usefulness.
Let us suppose for the purpose of highlighting a turning point that you have, in your shore duty, been designated as Naval Aide to the President of these United States. I refer to the Naval Aide of some years past and not to the exalted Naval Aide of wartime whose position was that of Confidential Advisor, Naval Mentor, Chief of Staff, and Chairman of the Joint Board. In the days of which I speak, the naval aide was a personal attendant to the President, messenger to the Navy Department, a bearer of advices back and forth, selected for his presentability and savoir faire.
One such was directed by the then President to go to a certain Senator whose vote and powerful support upon a tricky naval question the President required, and to acquaint him with the President's wishes—all orally, of course, for the matter was one that violated basic naval mores and was better, kept under cover until it became an accomplished fact. The mere subject of such mission was an affront to any good naval officer. Even the Senator was indignant that the naval aide had demeaned himself by tacit advocacy of a step that must have been repugnant to him.
Should a similar situation confront you ever, stand your very tallest; and as you value your own conscience and esteem do not duck or sidestep the fraction of an inch. Say respectfully and firmly, "That, Mr. President, I will not do!"
Then as an appropriate and effective gesture, unpin the aiguillettes from your right shoulder and lay them before him. They are your own, you have bought and paid for them, but you will never have need of them again. Salute, about face, and withdraw from the presence. Do not bother to look at your next fitness report. It will be worse than you think. It will be a set-back, of course, but fortunately Presidents come and go, and in time his adverse comment upon your fitness as an officer may come to be the very factor that will cause a Selection Board or later superior to look favorably upon you and to recommend you for higher station.
And, come what may, as long as you live and are reminded of that moment, you will feel a surge of manliness throughout your being and an exaltation of spirit for having braved the fire.
Now, my young friends, I do not promise that if you pursue the dead-reckoning course whereon I have undertaken to check certain fixes and turning points, you will inevitably win promotion, collect medals, and decorations, or that you will gain the acclaim of your fellow countrymen. You may never have a page in Who's Who or be cited as the Man of the Year.
This I do, however, promise and can reasonably assure you: First, that you will be looked upon with considerable favor by your subordinates, that your fellow officers will hail you by the honorable title, "Shipmate", that your seniors will think well of you if they be of reasonably good stuff themselves and vice versa if they fail to measure up to your standard as occasionally they will; second, that your friends and associates will concede that you have the makings of a good citizen; that your wife will be proud of you though she may strive, woman-like, not to let you become too aware of the full measure of her high esteem; and last, that your children will respect you and brag of the qualities with which you have endowed them long after you have gone to the Eternal Naval Home that I am sure has been rigged for good and faithful sailor's.
All of which is no mean achievement for one in the wear and tear of a Navy career that is beset with reefs and shoals, typhoons and doldrums, the high zeal of wartime and the let-down of demobilization, the occasional hobnobbing with the high and mighty contrasted with the ever present struggle to maintain a reasonable living standard on Navy pay.
Not the least, by any means, of your rewards will be the justified opportunity to say daily to the handsome chap reflected in your shaving mirror, "Ah I My Friend! My very good Friend! You are really quite a fellow after all."
I am confident that the great majority of you will pilot the third course outlined to your high point, whatever that may be, in or out of the service. I am equally confident that the bulk of your contemporaries in the other branches of the Armed Forces will parallel your course just as will the vast, majority of our civilian population to the end that our country will thereby remain secure, vigorous, and wholesome and continue to point the way to freedom for all, peace for all, and a better and higher life for all mankind.
To feel at the end of one's active career that he has done his part in so exalted a quest, however modest his share may seem in the aggregate of his country's achievement, cannot but be a soul satisfying reward for his individual usefulness in the service and in life.
Integrity, while often its own reward, is not to be belittled in comparison with those tangible rewards which commonly go with high office, for the results of integrity live on forever in the good it has created while the decorations, stars, ribbons, and trappings, once visible, eventually become the trash of posterity or, at best, the dust gatherers of a seldom visited museum.
There is an old Spanish proverb, Ser Hijo De Sus Obras, commonly understood to mean, "We become what we have done." That it is truthful to a marked degree may be seen almost at a glance in the faces of many men and women who have matured in age and in their ways.
Does it now follow then that we should resolve to be courageous along the way, that we drill ourselves in justice, honor, uprightness, loyalty, firmness, and decision from day to day, so that when the great test comes we may be what we have done; or if we are never subjected to a crucial moment, that those lofty traits may glow in our countenances.
A graduate of the Naval Academy in 1905, Captain Stewart spent his first years of sea duty in the Wisconsin, Cincinnati, and other ships on the Asiatic Station. All told he served in the Navy for almost 45 years, much of his duty being in connection with Personnel.
His constant interest in the Naval Institute, including four years as Secretary-Treasurer, has given him a knowledge of the Institute and the PROCEEDINGS exceeded-by no one. He writes: "I have always welcomed changes in and for our Navy that do not lower the high standards and traditions which the Academy set for me when I was a midshipman."