LETTER NO. 7-DOES IT PAY TO BE A NAVAL OFFICER?
* Letter No. 6 omitted by direction.
MAY 30, 1913.
Dear Son.—You ask me if I think it. pays to be a naval officer. It depends. It depends on whether or not you are prepared to play the game. " Obedience to the law is liberty." If you keep the law, it pays. If you have the courage of your convictions, it may not pay. If you play the game; if you always keep a month's pay on the books ; if you put nothing else ahead of your profession if you pocket your opinions it pays. Otherwise it may not. Let us see.
The naval profession is much like the ministry. You dedicate your life to a purpose. You wear the garb of an organized profession. Your life is governed by rules laid down by the organization. You renounce the pursuit of wealth. In a large measure you surrender your citizenship; renounce politics; and work for the highest good of the organization. In the final analysis your aims and objects are quite as moral as any minister's, because morality consists in the conservation of the best interests of civilization, and you are not seeking your own good, but the ultimate good of your country. You train the men under you to be good and useful citizens, and, like the minister, what you say must conform to the rules Of the organization.
The exactions of the naval career are endless. On entering the navy, and every year thereafter, as well as every time you are promoted, you have to submit to a physical examination, by a board of three medical officers of the navy, as strict as, and similar to, that given you for life insurance. On each promotion you have to pass a long and tedious written examination, covering a multitude of professional subjects, which is always a searching and trying ordeal, and always looming up as you approach the next higher grade. Every six months your immediate superior reports in writing on you as to your fitness as an officer in every particular—professionally, morally, physically, and temperamentally. On these reports hang somewhat your fate, when you are up for promotion, and, once every year, the board of five rear admirals scans your reports of fitness, and selects the officers who are to be forcibly retired, as least desirable, each July 1st. Once a month you have to walk ten miles in three hours or so to demonstrate that you remain physically fit. On your opinions as a citizen or as a naval officer you must exercise a rigid censorship. You must, like the good little child, be seen and not heard. Chaplains are provided for your spiritual comfort, and your personal habits are subject to official regulation.
In fact, you are the only office-holder under the government that has to pass an examination as to your mental, moral and physical fitness for every grade, and then you may get plucked after you have done so. Except in the classified Civil Service, and in the army, navy, marine corps, and kindred organized branches of the government, no examination other than one at entrance is required. Everything is expected and exacted of you. In command of a ship, in time of political disorders in countries in which the banana grows, if you make no mistakes you hear nothing. If you guess wrong, you hear much. Virtue is its own reward, and you learn to rely on yourself. The system is, however, not calculated to make a John Paul Jones out of you, and it is good policy to do nothing, when in doubt.
I may ask, does it pay to be a lawyer? In the legal profession one lawyer wins a case that the other side must lose, but some lawyers get rich, and become famous as successful losers. They are employed to defend forlorn hopes. Any lawyer, however, who will examine legal procedure in our navy, will be gratified beyond measure at the enlightened, up-to-date spirit of justice and fair play which characterizes it. In penology, in suspended sentences, in reformatory punishments, in confinement in disciplinary barracks, the country at large has much to learn from our navy.
Does it pay to be a doctor? Yes, in the navy, for in modern sanitation, in up-to-date prophylaxis, in surgery, and in the practice of the profession, there is a supervision which does not obtain in civil life. The various states are Supposed to regulate the practice of various branches of medicine, but the general indifference to public welfare is appalling. A doctor's mistakes are discreetly buried, but if in our business you make a mistake of a few feet and collide or ground with a vessel of the navy, it is in every newspaper, the civilized world knows of it, and you get a court of inquiry, and probably a court-martial. You, at least, are permitted no lapses.
Does it pay to be a diplomat? In Great Britain no one can belong to the diplomatic service who has not an outside income of £400. In ours much more than that is needed, although not required. The examinations for entering are severe, and you must give up any idea of rising higher than first secretary. If you accept a promotion as minister, off goes your head in the basket later on. Meanwhile you may spend your own money to keep up appearances, and you may break in new ministers or ambassadors, who from time to time are handed the posts which you have spent years fitting yourself to occupy. You must remain satisfied with your disinterested patriotism, and must ever keep aloof from the secret diplomacy which leads in the end to war.
In the navy, after you have been in it a certain number of years, every one knows you, has you labelled, sized up and catalogued. If you have gotten into trouble, it is lovingly remembered and fixed to your name. The board of five rear admirals each year carefully inventories all your shortcomings, and weighs them in the balance, and, on the first day of each July, four or five captains out of 7o have to walk the plank; out of 112 commanders, three or four find themselves lacking; and out of 200 lieutenant commanders, three or four are relegated to the outer. Also two lieutenants are thus scrapped. There is nothing else like it under the government, except the November elections, when the people reach out and " pluck "their representatives who have been listening with ear to the ground to do their slightest bidding, and yet failed to interpret the signs.
However, line officers of the navy are the only class of people who have to actually and continuously demonstrate their fitness to hold their jobs, and the only ones who have to take a chance on being "smirched," after making good on all the requirements. Meanwhile, from year to year, the great uplift movement goes on, always new schemes to improve the efficiency of line officers, physically, mentally and morally. Examinations become more rigid. New tests are exacted. Inspections are made to test the efficiency of commanding officers, and every year the plucking knife sinks deeper and deeper.
Meanwhile nobody else under the government has necessarily to know much of anything except to be geographically and politically well located. There is no examination for ambassador, collector of internal revenue, postmaster general, marshal, district attorney, interstate commerce commissioner, etc. It is merely a question of getting the appointment, and being confirmed by the Senate.
It is therefore some achievement, after all, to survive the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, and retire for age on attaining the age of 62 as a rear admiral, U. S. Navy. What we all need, however, is a little less regulating. Old Bill Schwenk used to tell of a poor man whose wife was ill in a charity hospital. Every day he called, and was not allowed to see her, but was told she was improving. One morning he was told she was dead. When a friend asked him what she died of he answered, "Improvement."
So cheer up, my son. Play the game. Take your medicine. Don't squeal. Watch your step. After all, it is a splendid profession, and an honorable career. In your 45 years of active service you will see, as I have, the great and near-great fret their brief time upon the stage and pass out. You remain, and some way or another the navy seems to survive the assaults upon it, as it is, after all, bigger than any one man.
Personally, I would rather be a commissioned officer in the navy than hold any other position under the government. It is an honor; it is a career it is one of the most exacting and difficult of all professions. Otherwise I would not have urged you to enter the navy.
Affectionately,
DAD.
LETTER No. 8-TI1E UNITED STATES AS A NATION
JUNE 1, 1913.
Dear Son.—Starting as a fringe of settlements on the Atlantic coast, by communities which were looking for religious liberty and willing to concede none to others, the conviction soon spread that to succeed as a colony required colonists, and to bar people for their religious beliefs was fatal. Progress began when this idea took root, and, when we became a nation, religious liberty became one of the fundamental principles of our government. As the pressure of population, or the desire to better one's lot, became strong enough, the more adventurous spirits struck out into the wilderness. Each settler, with all his belongings, took his gun and his life in his hands, and cleared the forest, and tilled the soil. They bred a race of fearless, hardy, capable, self-reliant people with initiative and adaptability, and of such independent spirit that local self-government, fair play, and the maintenance of order were the principles out of which a crude form of democratic government grew.
True democracy is of necessity based on self-government, but local self-government has its crudities, and states' rights, in a large measure, hinder the free exercise of the powers of the central government in its foreign, or exterior, relations. Outrages on foreign subjects resident in a state have had to be paid for by the national government, and states pass laws in conflict with international treaties. While we "are inclined to boast of our wonderful form of government, we should clearly recognize its shortcomings. As grand as may be the conception of local self government, it makes us always take the local point of view. A distinguished diplomat from a South American republic said recently: "We, in democratic America, have repudiated the Old World theory that above the individual citizen exists an entity called the state, before which private rights disappear, and whose mission is to grow and expand regardless of any respect for justice or law. . . . Nothing is, however, really greater than the freedom and welfare of the community." In these two sentences are represented the philosophy and the weakness of our form of government.
There is no good higher than the good of all. Anything which injures Seattle or New Orleans injures all. We are a nation. The community is nothing. The nation is everything. No one fights now as a member of a religious sect. Religious wars have gone forever. What is a city, or county, or state, compared to what we owe the nation, one and indivisible now and forever? But, after all, any educated and fearless people gets the government it wants and deserves. The people have, in the end, ways of imposing their will on the apparent rulers as effectively as by the ballot box, or the barricade, and that is by the weight of public opinion. That there is necessarily any advantage or anything sacred in the republican form of government is an assumption not borne out by the career of most republics to-day. This very fact should render us more jealous and earnest to make our own government a success. Sir Walter Raleigh said: "There can be no greater liberty than a good government.” That was some years ago.
The governing class in Germany is aristocratic. In England the land owners and professional men are in the saddle. With us the governing class is politicians. The balance of power in public opinion, however, still rests with the old American stock and their descendants, however much local government may, here and there, fall into the hands of foreign-born professional politicians.
The Constitution of the United States, that great and enduring monument to those who framed it, has embodied in it the principles learned in colonization, in revolt against oppression, in compromise with slavery, in civil Ail e, and in dire political necessity. Our government is about to undergo the supreme test as to whether or not it can hold its place as a world power by the sheer force of moral principle, unaided by alliances with other powers, or by any form of general military preparedness.
We have now to learn the great lesson of spending less on ourselves and more for the community. National defense and sound international relations must become cardinal principles of governmental policies, and patriotism must become more than an after-dinner sentiment to be applauded on a full gullet.
Burke says you cannot indict a people, and as the people rule in this country, it would look as if I lost my case by merely stating it.
I find these United States very poorly equipped for its manifest destiny as a world power in the following particulars:
1st: Although our flag is one of the oldest designs of bunting which the nations of to-day display as their national emblems, we are the only one which has no organized diplomatic service. Can we afford not to have a more or less permanent body of trained citizens to steer us clear of international complications? Our life of splendid isolation and self-centered local development has made us a nation.more or less careless of other people's viewpoint and susceptibilities. Nor are we distinguished for a wide understanding in international relations, nor for any too good manners. We are too much given to "Yes" or "No." A wag recently said: "If a diplomat says Yes,' he means ‘Perhaps'; if he says ‘Perhaps' he means ‘No'; but if he says ‘No’ he is no diplomat."
The Hon. James Bryce, not so well known now as Lord Bryce, says that he is glad, the United States is not given to the secret diplomacy which by its intrigues so threatens the peace of Europe. Clearly, under our system; we are at least guiltless of being deep, but, with no limit on the game, our cards should at least be played by an expert, and not by an amiable amateur, selected for other than distinctly diplomatic qualifications.
2d: We have no national air.
The "Star Spangled Banner "has been taken up by the War and Navy Departments as "official," but no one takes it seriously in civil life. The words need editing, the air is unsingable, the sentiment is " high fainting," the third verse contains offensive words, and it does not make for international conciliation. At home and abroad, at gatherings of Americans, on national or festive occasions, nine times out of ten, the presiding officer proposes that: "We will all unite in singing the national anthem, 'My Country, 'tis of Thee," because' every one knows the words, it is modest in sentiment, and it does not require years of musical training to sing it. This air, " America," happens also, incidentally, to be the national air of Great Britain, Germany and Denmark, so that our adoption of it, by Congress, as our national air would be a long step in international conciliation, because each one can sing his own words to the same tune, and all take off their hats and stand when it is played. It would thus make us somewhat more international and truly diplomatic.
3d: We are the only people in all the world who have no distinctive name as a people.
We call ourselves Americans, but all people who live on the continent of the Western Hemisphere are American, either North, South, or Central, but each has a distinctive name besides, such as Chilean, Brazilian, Mexican, Costa Rican, Canadian, etc., but we do not call ourselves United Statesians. The Argentines and Chileans claim that they have as much right to "American" as we have, and they call us "North Americans," or even "Yankees" when not meaning to be flattering. As a matter of fact, the real Americans were Indians, so honors are easy, but the fact remains that we differ from all people in having no specific name. We were apparently not baptized.
"If you mean by South American," said a gentleman from the Argentine Republic the other day, "that I live on the continent of South America, you are correct, but if you mean that I am one of a people called South Americans you are wrong. There are no such people. I am a citizen of the Argentine Republic as you are a citizen of the United States, in exactly the same sense. I am a South American only as you are a North American." This appeared recently in the Review of Reviews. The Argentines always call us North Americans in all their newspapers, so the explanation does not explain, because Canadians and Mexicans are as much North Americans as we are, and have as much right to that title.
We cannot even claim the name of "United States" for our country, as there are the United States of Brazil, of Colombia, of Venezuela, and of Mexico, and our use of the term "American Legation" is also questioned, so we evidently are in need of a real name of our own.
4th: We share with Great Britain the distinction of being the only country which has not adopted the metric system of weights and measures.
Three barleycorns still make an inch, and when we speak of seeking our share of the world's trade we ought to at least use the same units. The Mother Goose melodies and the tables of weights and measures are dear to our childhood, but we ought to set a date when we mean to come of age, and join the family of nations.
5th: We have no Council of National Defense.
Apparently we do not see the need for one. It is because the coordination and cooperation of all the elements that enter into national defense is entirely lost sight of in our scheme of national government. Various committees and sub-committees of Congress are charged with the preparation and presentation of appropriation bills which have to do with keeping the various elements of national defense alive and wiggling, but as to their relation to each other, or their interdependence, that is entirely ignored. For fear of seeming to exaggerate, I will say, if I dared, that no one seems to care. You cannot even scare up an argument.
Meanwhile, we are the only country in the world in which the coast defense is under the army instead of the navy. We are the only country in the world in which the mine fields and mine-laying are under the army instead of the navy. We are the only country which has no military or naval reserve, and no provision for immediately expanding the entirely inadequate naval and military force we now have, except by calling out the militia of the various states. There is no General Staff in the navy, nor can we get one. The General Board of the navy iA without any shadow of authority in its relation to the Naval War College, the Office of Naval Intelligence, and the aides, divisions and bureaus of the Navy
Department.
In the coordination of all government activities and expenditures towards the attainment of military and naval efficiency hi national defense, there is nothing now but the casual friendly cooperation of unrelated and independent departments of the government. The building of an inland waterway, or canal, from Boston to Florida and the Gulf of Mexico is demanded by every consideration of naval, military and commercial policy, but there is nobody short of a council of national defense which could adequately take up, study, and present the question as an issue outside of party politics, local interests, and national misconception. There are many similar questions which would keep a council busy for some years to come, and that is the objection to it. It means money, and that is the rub. Our chief assets, defensively, at present, aside from splendid but undermanned sea coast fortifications and an efficient navy of inadequate size, are our enormous wealth, our large and rapidly increasing population, two large oceans between us and trouble, and faith in prayer. Whether a council of national defense would rate these assets very high is a question.
6th: Now I hesitate. Of very little real importance, perhaps, yet we share with Great Britain an intiquated and unreasonable social protocol, or custom of exchanging social calls.
It is curious how important small matters may, on occasions, become, as for instance, who should leave his visiting card on whom. On the continent of Europe, and in the diplomatic corps the world over, in general terms, the last comer makes the first call. This is also agreed to in all navies, and followed in all armies. While Great Britain and the United States officially subscribe to this, in everyday life and among women folks the opposite custom obtains, and every one is expected to call on the newcomer. In the navy officially among officers a commanding officer of a ship, division or squadron makes the first call on his superior in command of a ship, division, squadron or naval station. Among those not in command and among the wives there is no real rule respected, and it leads to uncertainties, misunderstandings and heart burnings. In all cases the first call should be made and returned in person, and the expectation is that it will be. In the diplomatic corps it is, in fact, often bluffed through, and careless diplomats have been known to rely on the office boy or the stationer from whom visiting cards are ordered, to make the first round of card-leaving visits. In all navies, calls are made in person and returned in person within 24 hours.
Aside from any mere formality or formalism, the exchange of visits and of visiting cards implies a "recognition" which forms the entire basis of social or official relations, and any one who belittles it is a nonentity, except in the narrow local orbit of his greatness.
It is high time we were taking steps towards our place in the world, and passing out many of the local issues in favor of national ones. Too much depends on geographical location in this country, even the presidency. Many people think the tariff, as well as prohibition and woman suffrage, are local issues. Certainly in the past the location of navy yards, naval stations, army posts, and harbor works have been more of a local than a national issue. Try to close a useless navy yard, and the noise is only greater when you try to close two. There is no question involved as to any benefit arising to the navy. The question, like most others, is frankly debated on the benefit to the community.
I once asked a handsomely uniformed colonel in the capital of a Central American republic (who also incidentally happened to be a son of the President) how he liked the United States. He replied, "Well—the first time I landed in the United States, it was at New Orleans, and they made me ride in a 'Jim Crow' car, but the next time I went in by way of New York, and the difference was wonderful." So, you see, many things are local issues. Even our treaties with other nations are sometimes so regarded.
Personally, I believe in the higher patriotism of the great Middle West, and I believe the farmer of to-day is nearer the typical old stock than merchants and professional men, and that is of course why I am farming. I am getting nearer the real people.
As my old friend Bill Schwenk used to say " On national issues, the Middle West is a mean between the Atlantic seaboard and the Pacific slope, but not as mean as either."
Affectionately,
DAD.
LETTER NO. 9-SEA SERVICE AND SERVICE WITH TROOPS
JUNE 8, 1914.
Dear Son.—I see by the papers that, after graduation, you are ordered to the Alaska with my friend Rand as captain. Every one, officers and men alike, try to get the newest and biggest ship there is. It is foolish, but it is one form of ambition, and certainly no one who is not looking for hard work and long hours should try for a fifteen million dollar dreadnought that is just commissioning. It appears that Rand just came ashore a little over a year ago, and one of these new rules for sea service broke him out for another cruise. Rand has had lots of sea service, but not like some officers, only because there has been no active demand for the officer's services on shore. Rand .has always taken what has been handed to him by the Department, and said nothing. Even that is not always the safe thing to do, as every Plucking Board has standards of conduct of its own, and, if you don't judge values for yourself, the Department is not going to be of any help to you.
After all, each officer, except for accidents, has the making or marring of his own career pretty much in his own hands. Our navy is the only one in which the amount of sea service, shore duty, and unemployed is published, and it is a very good thing in its way. In the British Navy, officers have to be borne on the books of a ship in order to get full pay. If the little sloop, moored to the Thames embankment in London, formerly called the Buzzard, and now bearing the proud name plate of the President (to commemorate the capture of a lone American frigate by a British fleet, when a fog lifted)—if this little gunboat had on board of it the admirals, captains, commanders, and other officers whose names are borne on its books, she would go down stern first, as there are over three hundred. "President" also sounds better than "Buzzard."
I have frequently known of foreign naval officers being on shore duty for four or five years at a stretch. No navy gives the importance to sea service record that we do, and we are unquestionably right, but other navies have other ways of regulating it. In our navy, the Department has all the say about orders, and the officer, as a rule, has little to say about it. What he does say never by any chance goes. on his record.
My old friend Bill Schwenk used to say that it took three men to be captain of a battleship: "One to dress well, make calls and after-dinner speeches; to speak foreign languages; dance the lancers: arrange seats at dinner; and be a diplomat. Then the scientific captain: Up on strategy, tactics, and international law, ordnance, hydraulics, ballistics, radio, electricity, and all the various kinds of boilers and engines, so that no junior officer can put anything over on him. Then the war captain. He should live in the fore hold, be fed on raw meat, and only come out when war is declared. That is the kind of captain our school histories tell the children about."
Rand comes very near having all these requirements, and you are in luck to make your first cruise with such a fine captain. Admiral Calaban once remarked that Rand's head was so level that a palm-leaf fan would come well down over his ears. After all is said, the two best assets in life are common sense and scrupulous honesty, and Jim Rand has them. Rand is 56 years old, and, in any other navy, would be a vice admiral, but I am not so sure that our system is as bad as it is painted. You must realize that our navy is the only one that goes against the popular idea of specialization. Our profession is navigating-engineer-artillery officer. In the earliest days of naval sailing ships army officers commanded, and the soldiers fought the ships. The mere navigating and sailing officers and men were a necessary evil, just as in our army transport service to-day. In time the worm turned, and swallowed the soldiers, gunners, and in our navy, at a later date, even the engineers, so that we should live happily ever afterwards. To get the proper view of our system, you must recognize that the end and aim of it is to educate and train officers for high command step by step, and it is not entirely satisfactory only because the officers are not long enough in the higher grades, but that is slowly remedying itself. We specialize our enlisted men, but not our officers. Of course, officers do voluntarily take up special subjects, and, in the post-graduate schools, officers are required to specialize, but they are, nevertheless, required to fill any position on board ship independent of their specialty, such as navigator, gunnery officer, engineer, radio, signal, turret, secondary battery, athletic, and naval brigade on shore (infantry, or field artillery), or executive officer, and, finally, commanding officer. Foreigners try to say that we make our officers jacks of all trades and masters of none, but we have crossed the bridge of abolishing the engineer corps very successfully indeed, and we are where they fain would be.
A commanding officer in our navy is no mere torpedo, or gunnery, or ordnance, or navigating specialist promoted to captain, or commander, over the heads of others, with immature experience in other, or in all-around branches. There is no "Ask the gunnery officer," or "Ask the torpedo officer.” Every officer has to pick up all he can. Our officers climb up the ladder slowly, step by step, and instead of the slicker ones passing others on the ladder, the less agile ones are invited to step down and out. In other words, our system is " selection out "instead of" selection up." This "selection out" obtains also in the German Navy. Promotion is absolutely by seniority, but the selection out is done by a blue colored letter from the Emperor saying that, appreciating all the sacrifices he has made for his country (no idle words either when you consider how little he is paid), his active service can now be spared until such time as required in case of war. Our method is more crude, more brutal, and somewhat like a public execution with all the thrills to suit a sensation-loving press and people. It is on account of the idea that our training is for high command and there is so little time left in the higher grades, that I imagine some plucking boards have tried to emphasize the importance of sea service in the upper grades, and the idea that nothing must permit this great issue to be lost sight of.
The navy owes the army much in the way of a pattern for our officers to get, by law, many of the privileges enjoyed by them, such as allowances for quarters, heat and light; promotion to the next higher grade on failing physically for promotion; longevity pay (" fogies"), etc. Naval officers have, however, no law by which they can be given a "medal of honor." Officers and enlisted men of the army, and enlisted men of the navy, may be given them for heroic action in battle, but evidently we are supposed not to deserve them. As it corresponds to the "Iron Cross" in Germany, or the " Victoria Cross " in Great Britain, there is no higher honor, and it comes very near being a reflection on naval officers, but it is due rather to lack of reflection.
However, we have gone astray in this country on the whole question of medals. In no other country can an officer in uniform wear an insignia which he has inherited, as, for instance, Loyal Legion, Colonial Wars, Aztec Society, Sons of the American Revolution, etc. In every other country an officer may wear only what has been given him officially as an individual. That we should be guilty of the aristocratic and unrepublican system of inheriting valor and greatness strikes at the root of republican institutions. If you appear in Europe without any medals you are considered, according to their standards, as a nonentity, but if you wear these "sons of medals" they regard you as a fraud. It is apparently a small matter, but it belittles us. Lots of people can dispense with the necessaries of life, if they can have the luxuries, and the government should not be penurious in rewarding gallant conduct, but this country is frightened by a modest billion dollars for expenses, and economizes in small things. In most countries there are too many citizens on the government pay roll, and my old friend Bill Schwenk used to say: "The ideal country is where every one draws a salary from the government, and the government raises its revenues by taxing the salaries."
We have no national reserve in case of war, but we have every kind of uniformed societies, veteran organizations, sons of something, and descendants of past greatness. There will never be any medals, however, worth handing down from this generation if we don't look out. The number of Mayflower descendants has reached such proportions that one can only conclude that the immigrant authorities were awfully careless in allowing the ship to be overcrowded. Old Bill Schwenk used to say: "You can't belong to the Society of Colonial Wars just because your father worked on the Old Colony Railroad." However, my son, although you cannot get a medal of honor, I can pass my chest ornaments on to you.
In our army everything is theoretically and actually the reverse of the navy way of doing things. Officers and men are both specialized, often in branches which the navy regards as so simple as to not require the devotion of a lifetime to the mastering and perfecting of it. For instance, an army paymaster's duties were formerly elementary; he had a clerk to do the real work, and he entered the army with the rank of major. There was no fat plum like it under the government, and the longest pole got it. The pay corps was a sort of a son-in-law club. Now all is changed.
A cadet who graduates number one from West Point is sure to be rewarded for being theoretically the best army officer by being consecrated for life to rcanal, harbor, and civil engineering work, with an occasional detail with troops to make him keep himself supplied with uniforms. The others of the class are assigned to the cavalry, field artillery, sea coast artillery, and the infantry. The infantry, being the real backbone of the army, is not so important as the auxiliary branches.
In the staff corps, appointments, until recently, were made by permanent transfer from the line of the army, or by appointment from civil life. The act of August 24, 1912, consolidated the Quartermaster, Subsistence and Pay Departments on the ground that each did not separately offer enough of a career to justify it as a life's profession, and now the work is done by detail. It marks one of the most important steps in the reorganization of the army. However, engineers still lay the gun foundations. Ordnance still designs and builds the sea coast guns. The sea coast artillery still simulates gratitude. Design, manufacture, supply and installations are now the subject of earnest study in the army, and the officers' colleges and schools have produced a revolution in army ideas. The real reason for all the corps and branches, as separate professions, has been to make it easy for civilians to qualify as officers, and it is this which, with civilian control, makes our army a loosely-knit organization, and one until recently lacking in centralized control, with a General Staff. When the country realizes the need for a Council of National Defense, and the navy decides it must have a General Staff, we can hope for better things. Just now the navy is in the unhappy condition of the Irishman who did not know what he wanted, but would never be happy until he got it.
The law, however, still provides that any one may be nominated as a brigadier general to fill a vacancy. Fortunately the aides and staff have to be regular officers, just as in the diplomatic service; no matter who is sent as ambassador or minister, he always has a trained secretary to act as a rubber ring to cut his diplomatic teeth on. Fortunately the navy is sufficiently broad and exacting as to require that candidates be caught young, and that rigid examinations bar the way at each step to any form of political preferment. Even a letter from an erring Congressman or Senator to the Navy Department, in soliciting a favor for an officer, even from his own home town, is placed on the officer's record against him. Thus, my son, you see you belong to a virtuous profession.
The War Department formerly sent, as military attaches abroad, paymasters, subsistence quartermasters, signal officers, and sea coast artillery officers. It was a little puzzling to foreigners at first, as their ideas of an army are based on infantry, cavalry and field artillery, but Europe has learned many important military lessons from us, and has long since ceased to wonder. Service with troops has, however, never borne a very important relation to selection for staff appointments, or for promotion to general officers, except, of course, very recently, and the result has never commended "selection up" as an ideal allurement to the navy. Service with troops is analogous to sea service, and the so-called Manchu laws are gradually vaccinating the army. If the navy could loan the army its " Plucking Board" for a few years the cure might take.
As Kipling says:
Ere they hewed the Sphinx's visage
Favoritism governed kissage
Even as it does in this age.
Or as my old friend 1301 Schwenk used to say: " When the pie is about to be cut, get up well towards the pie counter. If you are off working you are apt to get overlooked."
Affectionately,
DAD