The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1869-12-10
SPIRIT OF THE PRESS.
editorial Opinions of the Leading Journals
Upon Cdrrcnt Topics-COmDiied Every
DaY for the Evening Telegraph.
LINE AND STAFF IN THE NAVY.

LINE AND STAFF IN THE NAVY.
From the NJ y. Times.
The true solution of the vexed line and
staff question must evidently be sought In
fair compromise between the demands of the
extremists of one school of opinion and the
other. We heard during the late war, or
rather after it. q bureau chief, who never had
seen an action, and never proposed to sac
one. demanding that his staff rank should be
that of 'Rear-Admiral On the other hand
we find some line officers who have seen few
or no battles demanding that even surgeons
and engineers, who have shared the perils of
glorious naval victories, shall have no rank at
all, because they are ''non-combatants
Now, it is perfectly evident that if the mat
ter be referred to Congress, as it will be this
winter, neither of these extreme views can be
maintained. We cannot suppose that either
has found favor with the Naval Board to
which Mr. Robeson has lately referred the
subject, and before which, as 1t Is composed
of the six Chiefs of Bureaus-and therefore
includes those of Medicine and Surgery and
of Chief Engineering case of the Sur
geons and Engineers has received, we may
suppose fair consideration.
= In the first place, is it true that we can
pronounce the staff ''non-combatants" in
any such invidious sense as extremists of the
line adopt? A paymaster is not necessarily
valorous fighter, but he is exposed to the
perils of action when on board the ship in
battle, and may be called on, we believe, to
repel boarders, in which case he becomes
most essentially a combatant. surgeon is
not sailor, but he shares all sailors dan
gers in time of peace, and not few of them
in time of war. An engineer is not mid
shipman, and may not know how to sail a
pleasure boat but in these days of steam
navigation, when the line-of- -battle-ship has
given place to the monitor, when stokers
outnumber sailors, and when it is even more
important to steam ship than to sail it, it
will not do to look down on engineers-inde-
pendent of the fact that, as on the Missis-
sippi during the late war, their situation is
often nearly as exposed, and their dangers
from a shot entering the ship are as great as
that of others.
But, passing this point for moment, sup
pose we admit the accuracy of this distinction
between combatant and non-combatant-ho
does it follow that this distinction should be
used for depriving the staff of any rank due
to it on other grounds? No such discrimina-
tion is made in the army and none such need
be, therefore, it seems to us, in the navy.
For example, it would be an extraordinary
thing if general officers staff in the army
had no rank; or, putting the case more accu-
rately, if officers serving in Bureaus-in the
Pay Department, in the Medical Department,
or in the Engineer Corps-were thereby de-
Nor should we overlook the falacious con-
sideration sometimes presented, that surgeons
and chaplains, in the event of being captured
by an enemy, are not usually considered pris-
oners of war. 1t is only necessary to say that
as this distinction is not of force on the pre-
sent subject, in the army, it need not be in
the navy, especially as paymasters and sur
geons rarely or never have similar exemption,
and are often imprisoned In the army, pay
masters have been brevetted not only for
t'meritorious services" in their own lines of
duty, but for gallantry in special actions, in
which, finding an opportunity for being USE
full under fire, they accepted it.
On the other hand, however, we think the
staff have pushed their demands in a way
puite as extreme and Objectionable as the
line have opposed them. No doubt it was
the ridiculous pretensions, in good part,
already alluded to, on the part of some of the
staff, to rank as high as the line, when their
own consciousness of the nature of their vo-
cations should have suggested different
standard, that reused the line to extreme
hostility.
What we think can be arranged-certainly
ought to be arranged-is fair compromise
between these diverse demands. Lately the
controversy has been embittered in many
ways. The line, on the one hand, having
that possession which is nine points of the
law, sometimes treat the dispute little toe
oavalierly or derisively. The staff, on the
other hand, bent on having rank, do moi
scruple some times to attack the whole ser
vice, in hopes of thereby injuring the conf
dence of the country in the line. If the
Naval Board can handle this question pro
perly, or Congress shall show itself equal t.
the task, we may perhaps soon see the end o.
a controversy already greatly injurious to tn
discipline and efficiency of the service, AM
likely to be more SO in future.