of a further reduction in this superfluous list beyond that provided for by Congress last summer.

Following these lamentable disclosures the Secretary touches softly upon the system of favoritism that has prevailed regarding assignments of officers, sadly remarking that if allowed to continue the naval service will soon become fatally demoralized.

The Secretary might have gone further and shown that while other nations, on an expenditure proportionately far below that of our country, have kept abreast with all modern improvements in ships and guns, we have steadily deteriorated in both, until practically the zero mark has been reached.

Four of these are the largest, swiftest, and most heavily armored and armed ships ever built, carrying each four 100-ton Armstrong guns.

Of these only 57 are serviceable, including small dispatch vessels, torpedo rams, and the monitors for harbor defense.

8 Monitors for harbor defense. including our new ones begun and three requiring extensive repairs.

Examining this table, we observe that the United States have 25 per cent as many ships (including the unserviceable), but only 173 per cent as many in commission as England. That to man these we have 18 per cent as many men as England, or about the same proportion of men to vessels, if tonnage were equal; but the ratio of our officers to those of England is 41 per cent, or nearly 2 times greater than that of ships or men. While Italy has a powerful navy, with 49 heavily armored modern war cruisers, 4 of which are equal to any naval ships in the world; while she employs nearly 1,000 more men to man them than we muster, she has less than half the number of officers and spends only about one-half as much annually to carry on her efficient and formidable force as we spend upon our insignificant collection of antiquated hulks.

A further glance at the table shows that the United States has more than double the proportion of officers to men of any nation. Could there be a stronger proof that our Navy is top-heavy with officers than is shown in this comparison? Even if the United States Navy should become in years as strong in ships and guns as that of Italy, half its present number of officers would yet suffice. There seems no likelihood that any future exigency will arise which would warrant the retention and support of the great horde of idlers now on the rolls. Even if a remote contingency would warrant it, the demoralizing effect of idleness meanwhile upon even a willing and able body of men would weigh strongly against such retention.

The most shameful misapplication of means to ends in the management of the Navy is, however, shown in the column of annual expenditures when considered in connection with the facts in the rest of the table; for while the United States have a navy not worth mentioning in comparison with that of either of these great powers, the statistics show that it is spending yearly a far greater proportionate sum upon the floating mass of incompetency known as its Navy than any of these nations spends upon its powerfully armed fleet.

Our Navy expends yearly 291 per cent as much as England for construction and repairs and cost of yards and docks; yet while England includes in this the yearly addition to her navy of 10,000 to 15,000 tons in new vessels, we include none.

At our ratio of expenditure we should add 3,000 to 5,000 in new tonnage every year. Although we add nothing, yet this ceaseless grind of $11,319 a day for maintaining the

navy yards (five-eighths of which, according to the Secretary's report, is unnecessary) goes steadily on, and the annual millions for construction and repair continue to be swallowed up and leave no monument.

The figures of the table, although they touch only upon principal points of comparison, are full of instruction and significance. Were the comparison carried further, to embrace the details of management and expenditure, the results would be still more astonishing.

It would be interesting to inquire how the $369,000,000 which Congress has provided for the Navy within the 17 years since the close of the late war has been spent; to learn by what superlative neglect our Navy has dwindled from the 675 vessels which it maintained at the beginning of these 17 years to the 139 of all classes it now carries on the list, yet among which is not a single effective modern cruiser. It would be interesting to ascertain what maelstrom has sucked down this goodly fleet of 536 ships of the Navy, their decks strewn with the Nation's gold to the tune of more than $21,000,000 a year.

It would be a further interesting study, in view of the fact that we have neither vessels nor ordnance in the Navy, to determine what has become of the vast sum of $98,435,875 which has been appropriated within the past 17 years for the construction and repairs alone of naval vessels, and of the $12,832,029.23 which Congress has provided for ordnance during the same period, not to speak of the $32,724,712.48 appropriated for the maintenance of navy yards, making the towering aggregate of $143,992,617 which the Nation has contributed toward the vessels of the Navy and their armanents since the last war. Such enormous expenditures of money in ordinary business are expected to produce some fabric, some edifice or structure; in this instance the result seems nothing.

It is not my purpose to charge intentional extravagance or profligacy upon the Navy, but I do say that the published reports constituting the financial history of that department afford an inviting field of inquiry when the Navy seeks the absorption of the civil departments on the ground of the superiority of the naval methods in management and economy. If the school of economy to which the Revenue Marine is to be turned over is such as that shown in the affairs of the Navy, if such is the management by which the promised improvement is to be gained, if the results indicated are such as flow from the "superior discipline" of the Navy, it is respectfully suggested that Congress pause before trying to improve the civil service by the experiment which is invited.

REASONS ALLEGED FOR TRANSFER NOT VALID.

As an argument for the transfer, considerable stress is laid upon the benefit to be derived by the young naval officers in their service upon the revenue cutters, from the practice it would give them in handling ships in shoal waters and narrow harbors, and the opportunity it would afford them of learning pilotage. No one will dispute that they need this sort of knowledge, but I venture to suggest that they need not be consumed with ungratified ambition in this regard, even under present conditions. Furloughed naval officers might now, without infringing any law, find employment on merchant steamers and ships in the coasting trade, where the facilities for learning pilotage and the handling of vessels would be equal to if not better than those on revenue vessels, and thus be brought into useful association with a class of maritime officers who maintain their character and positions through their business energy and the mastery of their profession rather than through advantages of education or social standing. It would indeed seem creditable were the 236 naval officers now waiting orders (for the payment of whose salaries an aggregate of $376,000 is annually drawn from the Public Treasury) to find some useful employment by which they might improve themselves in their profession, if they are to be retained.

If to the naval officers waiting orders we add those on shore or other duty, we find 880 officers not required to officer the ships, drawing in salaries annually the total of $1,944,500. This calculation does not embrace the officers of the Marine Corps, who receive yearly $174,040. Yet Congress is asked, as a measure of economy, to turn over the Revenue Marine, costing only about $950,000 annually, to a department wasting every year upon its surplus officers at least $1,000,000.

It is understood that the claim is advanced that the Revenue Marine and other kindred branches of the civil administration which do business on the water should be turned over to the Navy, because the latter is also a floating service. As well might the Army, on the score of being a land service, demand that all the work of the Government upon the land be turned over to the War Department. With these theories prevailing we should indeed simplify our form of government, for we should need none but military officers to manage the affairs of the country.

The fact is, the business of the Revenue-Marine officer is as distinct from that of the naval officer as one land service is from another. The military drill and instruction of the Revenue-Marine officer do not necessarily make him a naval officer, any more than the present education of a naval officer fits him to manage vessels in harbors and along the shoal waters of the coast. It is pertinent to mention here that naval officers in command of vessels have been particularly unfortunate when cruising near the coast. A noteworthy evidence of this is seen in the disasters which have befallen their vessels voyaging to Alaska and the northern Pacific waters within the past few years. The steamer Suwanee, 746 tons, struck on a rock and was lost in Shadwell Passage, British Columbia, en route to Sitka, July 9, 1868; the steamer Saginaw, 282 tons, was lost while on a surveying mission October 29, 1870, on a shoal off Midway Island, Pacific Ocean; and the Saranac, a steamer of 1,238 tons, struck on a reef and was lost, June 18, 1875, in Seymour Narrows, British Columbia, en route to Sitka Not a few, comparatively speaking, of the 536 naval vessels which have vanished within the last 17 years may be accounted for in like manner.

These vessels were lost in ordinary cruising. In contrast to these losses may be placed the fact that the vessels of the Revenue Marine have cruised to Alaska every year since the acquisition of that Territory in 1867 without loss or serious damage to any vessel. Singularly enough, one of the few instances of a cutter touching upon the bottom having occurred to the Corwin last summer when transporting to San Francisco the people of the lost naval exploring steamer Rodgers, destroyed by fire the preceding winter in the Arctic Ocean.

The facts presented effectually settle in the negative the question of increased economy of management, which it has been claimed would result from a transfer of the Revenue Marine to the Navy Department.

There is one slender argument yet remaining that of the Revenue-Marine cadet system. Congress provided for the system only in 1876, and in such a modest way that the steps in its conduct so far have been necessarily more experimental than otherwise. The vacancies in the Revenue Marine Corps average from four to five a year. The small number of cadets appointed for these vacancies are educated on a revenue cutter without inconvenience. Congress, in providing for the system (vol. 19, U. S. Stat., p. 107), made no appropriations for its maintenance, and none has ever been asked. The cadets are appointed to places made vacant in the grade of third lieutenant, and the vacancies in the latter grade are held open until the graduation of the cadets. The pay of cadets being but three-fourths that of a third lieutenant, there is a considerable annual saving from the difference of pay for such places as are held in abeyance. Indeed, this saving more than equals all the expenses of the cadet system. The instruction is given on board a vessel fulfilling her regular duties upon one of the stations of the service at a point where a cutter has always had headquarters. The results of the trial already had of the system are favorable, although it has some defects, one of which is that the course is too short. It should be extended to four years. The pay is, on the other hand, too much, and should be reduced to about $500 a year. Under no circumstances can the cadet system of the Revenue Marine ever prove embarrassing or expensive even in a small degree as is that of Annapolis in a large degree. As to the suggestion that these cadets ought to be educated at the Naval Academy, the answer is made that the course of study and the methods of instruction at that institution are not suited to the wants of the Revenue Marine. If the attempt were made to instruct Revenue-Marine cadets at the Naval Academy, it would be found necessary to provide a separate course for them. If the present inexpensive system of instruction for Revenue-Marine cadets were to be discontinued, it would be far preferable to return to the old system of recruiting the corps of officers by means of competitive examinations open to persons who have already had practical sea experience in the merchant service, rather than to draw from graduates of the Annapolis school. The system of admission upon competitive examination would not bar out young men in civil life who had been educated at Annapolis, but they would have to compete for the places like any other applicants. The system referred to, as being in vogue up to 1876, had in it many commendable features; and, while desirous of giving the cadet system further trial under such improved conditions as have been heretofore recommended, there is no disposition to cling to it unless improvements can be added. As before stated, the services differ so widely in their objects and aims as to be practically distinct.

With but four to six vacancies occurring annually in the Revenue Marine, how meager the argument that the absorption of this service as proposed would afford appreciable relief to the naval corps, whose ranks are burdened with nearly nine hundred clamorous idlers.

NAVY METHODS CUMBROUS AND EXPENSIVE.

Were the revenue vessels, now sound, staunch, and seaworthy, turned over to the Navy Department, what reason have we to believe that they would not soon become worthless under such management as has brought the Navy to its present state of degeneracy and ruin. These vessels would be subject to the navy-yard systems. Their repairs must fall under the various heads of bureaus of the Navy Department. The work now done under one direction or management would under naval control be variously parceled out. Each revenue cutter would pass through some such ordeal as this: The Bureau of Navigation would have the assignment to stations of the vessels and officers; the Bureau of Steam Engineering, the boilers and machinery; the Bureau of Construction and Repair would take in hand the hull; the Bureau of Ordnance would see to the cannon and small arms; the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing would provide for the clothing and rations; the Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting look after the vessel's outfits and the enlistments of the sailors; the Bureau of Medicine and Surgery see to the replenishing of the medicine locker and place a surplus medical officer in charge. Should the craft become utterly dismembered in this circuitous voyaging from one bureau to another, she might be turned over to the Bureau of Yards and Docks, under whose supervision she could find a resting place in some snug berth where she might decay and drop to pieces undisturbed. Seriously speaking, this bureau system could not but prove cumbrous and expensive applied to revenue vessels. Its circumlocution would necessarily cause embarrassing delay in effecting the simple repairs that are frequently required upon the cutters to keep them in condition for active work. Such delays in case of vessels whose service is often valuable only as it can be rendered with promptness and celerity would be especially detrimental. These detentions would prevent a ready compliance with the requisitions of the Secretary of the Treasury for vessels for special duty.

Again, the cost of doing work at the navy yards is well known to be much greater than by contract with private parties. The system of labor alone would cause an increase in cost, which would be augmented by other causes adverted to before. It is inevitable that great loss in economy would result from the transfer.

WOULD SMUGGLERS BE GOOD CUSTOMS OFFICERS?

Aside from the question of economy or other administrative reasons before referred to, there is another quite important one for withholding from naval officers the delicate duty of protecting the revenue. Notwithstanding the provision of law (sec. 1624, U. S. Rev. Stats.) that "no person connected with the Navy shall, under any pretense, import in a public vessel any article which is liable to the payment of duty,' from time immemorial one of the most difficult kinds of smuggling against which the vigilance of the customs officers has been directed is the introduction of dutiable goods in the baggage of naval officers returning upon vessels of the Navy from foreign stations. While stringent regulations are maintained and enforced against the smuggling of merchandise by passengers of the general public arriving at our ports from abroad, not only their baggage but even their persons being subject to search by the inspectors, no certain means exist of reaching the personal baggage of the naval officers returning by their own ships. No oath or certificate is required of them that they have not in their effects dutiable goods in fraud of the customs revenue. Enjoying such immunity there is no check or restraint upon them beyond that imposed by a sensitive conscience. Statesmen, judges, tradesmen, and others of the general public are not exempted from the search, but naval officers may escape it. A casual inquiry into the subject covering only the period of five years, beginning with 1878 and ending with December, 1882, shows that five naval vessels returning from foreign stations within that period have been used by naval officers in violation of section 1624 of the statutes, as transports for the importation of merchandise, and that the attempt was made to land such merchandise without the payment of the duties prescribed by law. The value of goods (appraised by the naval officers themselves at a nominal price in many cases) thus unlawfully imported and landed is over $7,000. The number of officers of the Navy directly concerned in this business was over 50. Forty-two packages were seized at the express office where they were being shipped beyond the reach of customs officers. Some of these packages were addressed to naval officers, others to families of naval officers, and others still to private citizens. One package, containing 288 pairs of kid gloves, was addressed to a merchant in New York City. In this connection must be noted the remarkable fact that these scandalous infractions of law and the naval regulations seem not to have been visited with discipline.

If naval officers, sworn to observe the laws of their country, can thus unblushingly violate the law as well as the duty of good citizens; if they are thus recreant to the trusts with which they are charged, can they ask to have other and more delicate duties intrusted to their keeping? Would not naval officers commanding revenue vessels be tempted to shield their brother officers returning with the "spoils" of a foreign cruise, especially since their turn to go abroad might be near at hand? Would the naval officer fresh from abroad, his baggage plethoric with such peculations, be the proper person to guard the coffers of the Treasury? Would the department, which by its failure to punish these violations seems to wink at plundering the revenue, be the proper one to superintend its protection?

FAILURE OF FORMER ATTEMPTS AT TRANSFER.

The movement now being made for the transfer of the Revenue Marine is not the first attempt of the Navy to absorb this service. A similar attempt was made in 1843 and met with deserved failure. The Hon. Walter Forward, then Secretary of the Treasury, having been requested by a committee of the Senate to give his views on the proposition, expressed strong disapproval of the plan. He deemed that there was manifest propriety in a continuance of the existing system; that the change, to use his language, was "calculated to embarrass the operations of this department in carrying into effect with proper energy the legal means placed in its hands for the security and protection of the revenue.' He adds, significantly: "Without intending any disparagement of the officers of the Navy, it is not believed that the habits and discipline of that meritorious class of men are calculated to suit the character of the service to which it is proposed to assign them, especially when they must be subjected to the orders and directions of the collector of the customs, as provided by the ninety-ninth section of the act of 2d of March, 1799, which subjection is deemed highly essential, both for the efficiency of the duties to be discharged and the better security of the interests of the revenue.'

Referring to the trial given the employment of naval officers in the service upon revenue vessels, but discontinued in 1832, he says: "After a short trial it was found necessary to discontinue [it] in consequence of the difficulties and objections which occurred in the practical operation of the measure."

The Committee on Commerce of the Senate presented, through Senator Huntington, of Connecticut, an adverse report upon the proposition of 1843, to hand the business over to the Navy Department. I quote from their report some pertinent passages: "The duties required of those who have the command of these [revenue] vessels are such as belong almost exclusively to the enforcement of the revenue laws. Hence it seems to be peculiarly appropriate that those employed in this service should be under the direction and control of the officer who is charged with the execution of the laws relating to customs. This was the leading feature of the policy which led to the establishment of this branch of the public service. It has stood the test of time and experience and has 'worked well.' To abandon it for the purpose of trying a new experiment would be at least hazardous and is not called for by any exigency known to the committee."

*

and

They add further on: "The committee are satisfied that sound policy requires that the revenue service and the naval service should be kept distinct, [the former] under the direction of the Secretary of the Treasury."

It is needless to add that the action of the Senate was in accord with the report of the Committee on Commerce. It is observed that Congress has always looked coldly, not to say with displeasure, upon every attempt of the Navy to aggrandize its power by absorbing the functions of civil administration.

Looking back, we find arrayed against this measure Alexander Hamilton, the author of our system of finance, and two other eminent Secretaries of the Treasury-Louis McLane, in 1832, and Walter Forward, in 1843. We have also an unbroken line of Secretaries of the Treasury, from Hamilton to the present time, whose approval of the present arrangement as wise and salutary seems attested by their acquiescence. It remained for a master in the Navy-whose report is appended to the annual report of the honorable the Secretary of the Navy, and upon the statements of which the latter appears to have based principally his recommendations for the transfer-to discover the incongruities of the system and point out its hidden defects, to teach statecraft to statesmen, to roll back the curtain of time and reveal the errors of judgment of the founders of the Republic.

THE SCHEME IMPRACTICABLE AND COSTLY.

The Revenue Marine, which has earned a respectable place in the Nation's history, would seem to have rights and be entitled to consideration at the hands of Congress as well as the Navy, yet the proposition is to wipe it out, to sink its history, to place its

37542°-H. Doc. 670, 62-2-22