The Burlington weekly hawk-eye. [volume] (Burlington [Iowa]) 1860-1876, 1864-02-13
SprEC8 cp SENATOR GRIMES.
r..s,c.tion of the Navy Depart
VIZ vrMnpNt

IN the lst instant, tue = eSoiueAVu 49,
- to an investigation committee upon
aha condu0nps the Navy Department be-
under consideration, Senator Grimes
smoke as follows:
W GRIMES. Mr.. President, /! think It
.;nently proper that this resolution, or
10 e..shinv iatamOunt To it, should be adop-
w The purpose which the Senate had IN
te w.. when il instituted the inquiry to
v.S;ch the Senator from Wisconsin has al
,"dad was to elicit the truth. We wish to
.st at the facts. We want to discover
Eshether or not there may be some method
devised by wa.ch improvements may De
made in the present method OF securing
Navy contracts. for the Senator from Ne"
hampshire alluded to that subject as tue
nne which he had specially in view wheh
he introduced nj. resolution.
n Is known TO all the members OF TINS
hody who are Al all familiar with the SUP
iect. that the Navy Department is pecui!-
arly constructed. 1t is differently organl-
zed from any other Department OF 'nis
Government. 1t is almost y speciai.y AZ
and of Itself I, takes "A man year AZ ieasi
hafore he can understand its organizalioh
and its details. The members OF this pouy
who are appointe on com.nlttee OF IN
vastigation, and even the committee on
Nagai Affairs. are not thoroughly CONVEX
SAINT with the details OF the Navy depart
ment. ] confess, myself. as one OF them,
that am not. though | nave endeaVoreu
as far as could to inform myself as to
what those details are, and as to its Organi-
ZatiOn.
II II now proposed that when this Com
mittee proceeds TO its investigation in re-
card to the method Of executing contracts
5or that Department, the department itself
shall have authority to detail one of its Of
ticers to meet the COMMITTEES, in order to
direct its attention to particular subjects OF
inquiry that may come before them. 1t
strikes me that Il is highly proper that this
should be done. 1t is not TO be presumed
that the Senators who compose this Com
mittee are rs well acquainted with the par
ticulars to which their attention ought to be
directed rs those men who have been for
wears engaged as officials in the Depart
ment.
have no doubt that great frauds have
been perpetyated. There are Senators
around me who know very well that, three
wears ago, even before the commencement
Of this war, called the attention of the
Senate TO the necessity of some change in
the laws of the United States so far as they
related to contracts for the naval service
There is connected with that naval service
an officer known as Navy Agent. So far
IS am able to learn, there is no law of
Congress that ever authorized the creation
Of that office. He was originally mere
agent of the Department, appointed by the
head Of the Department for temporary
purpose, but we have acts Of Congress that
recognize his existence; and now, at the
commencement Of every Administration,
the President sends down to us nominal
tons for these several Naval agencies
The Department is organized in strict con-
f0rmity to the laws which Congress has
passed, but under that organization there
is great opportunity for frauds to be perpe-
trated against the Government by these
Navy agents. So there is great opportuni-
nifty for frauds to be perpetrated against it
by the contractors under tho Navy agents
aud under the Department proper. The
Department is conscious OF this. They have
had their attention directed to it. They are
just as anxious to ferret out those frauds
as any member Of the Senate or any per-
son in the whole country can be. They are
powerless to remove the evil. Having had
their attention directed to it, they are pre-
pared to inform this Committee that you
have instructed to investigate the subject,
and to direct the attention OF witnesses
when they shall appear before them to par
tcular points OF inquiry and to things
within their knowledge which have not
hitherto been elected in their testimony,
and which may be of vast importance to
the country.
You know, Mr.. President, that witness
can appear on the stand and make state
ment that is abstractly true, and yet, with
out any interrogatories being addressed to
him, that truth may give altogether false
and erroneous impression to the bystand-
er. The facts by which it is surrounded,
the time when it was uttered, the manner
IN which it was spoken, may convey an en-
tirely different impression from the alb
q nAt efsAfxa nt
The chairman Of the Committee on Naval
Affairs the other day, when the resolution
TO which this is a proposed amendment
was introduced, prefaced it with some re-
marks in which he called the attention of
the Senate and of the country to the naval
estimates. He said:
ut will be seen by the estimates of ex-
penses, that We are called upon to appro-
pirate this year $l42, OOO, 900 for naval pur-
poses. This sum is large or small by COM
parison. Ihave been at some pains to look
at the naval expenditures Of the civilized
world, AS they have been furnished me by
one of our assistant Librarians. l find that
the naval expenditures of Great Britain
during the year 1862 were SIS, 4O2, $40; of
France for 1868, as voted by the Cbrps Leg
,stdty. $50, 000, 900; of Spain for 1921 49,,
Austria, per budget of 1858, 5,314, 900; of
the Netherlands for 1860, s., So, 1886; ofSwe
den for 1863, 8. 503, SOC; OF Prussia for 1862
y, ,26C; Of Portugal for 1882 3, 3lll $50.
These sums are given in dollars, and they
comprise the naval expenditures of all the
civilized nations Of the world with the ex-
ception OF Italy and Denmark. Italy and
Denmark publish no naval expenses sepa-
rate FROM the general war expenses; but
the expenses OF the civilized world for a
wear, taking sometimes 1862, and some
Zines lsC2 and 1863, and sometimes 1863, as
they are given, amount in gross to $685.
Si5,oo1; so that we are called upon to spend
this year some four million dollars more
than all the rest Of the world with the ex-
ception OF Italy and Denmark"
Mr.. President, have not had an oppor-
funity to verify the accuracy Of these State
nents, but l have no doubt thew are sub
stantially true. admit that the statement
OF itself is true, and that the Senator from
New Hampshire, the chairman Of the Com
mittee on Naval Affairs, unquestionablv
did not intend to create a wrong imnres.
sion. His love for his country. his reya rd
for the naval service, and doubt NOT his
respect for the gentlemen who have charge
of naval affairs in this country, is such that
he could not have permitted himself to
create such an impression, even if he had
been so inclined. Nevertheless, the facts
as stated do create a very erroneous i'm
PRESTON Had | been on a committees \.