The evening telegraph. [volume] (Philadelphia [Pa.]) 1864-1918, 1870-06-21
A QUESTION or PRIZE MONEY!.

THE custom of allowing to the officers and
men of our national vessels one-half of the
value of the captures they may make from
the enemy upon the high seas, is one of the
relics Of an age when naval warfare was es-
teemed to be nothing more than legalized
piracy, that still exist in our naval service.
In the army nothing of the kind is heard Of,
and yet with quite as much justice might the
men who fight our battles on land be per-
mitted to enrich themselves by pocketing
one-haf of the value of property captured
or destroyed. The injustice of such discrimi-
nation was forcibly shown during the late
Rebellion, when the army and navy were fire.
quently in active cooperation; and those who
did the fighting on land could not under
stand why the men of the navy,
who were certainly not subjected to greater
tolls or perils than themselves should be en-
titled to such a manifest pecuniary advantage.
The naval prize money not only created great
dissatisfaction in the army on account of its
unjust and partial discrimination in favor of
one branch of the military service that had
no greater claims than the other, but it was
the occasion of an immense amount of dis
content in the navy itself. Many of the
officers and men who were engaged upon the
most laborious and dangerous duty from the
beginning to the end of the war never had
the slightest chance to win dollar of prize
money, and others who did participate in
the capture of prizes were deprived of what
they considered themselves entitled to by
apparently partial decisions of the Navy De-
partment, or by legal bubbles the force
of which no sailor could ever be made to
understand. Leaving out of the question
the abstract justice or propriety of the prac-
tice of allowing prize-money, it must be
admitted that, as the law does allow it, it
ought to be fairly divided among those who
actually won it, and that in any dispute on
the subject between the Government and the
naval officers, the latter should be permitted
to have fair chance to prove their claims.
An example of the frequent injustice that
was done in this matter is presented in the
case of Admiral Wilkes, who is now asking
Congress to interfere in matter of $12, 900
which he contends was improperly awarded
by the Navy Department to Admiral Lanman.
The facts of the case appear to be
that Wilkes was in command of
the squadron by which the prizes were taken,
but that Lanman had been ordered to relieve
him. Although the latter did not arrive at
his post until sixty days after the capture of
the prizes, the Navy Department, by some
system of logic that perhaps Mr. Gideon
Welles can explain, decided that as Lanman
had been ordered to relieve Wilkes he was
constructively in command, and was, there
fore, entitled to the money. This is case
that apparently does not admit of argument;
for if the money belonged to anybody it GER
tainly belonged to Wilkes. He was in COM
mand, and was responsible for the manage
ment of the squadron until he actually trans
ferred his authority to Lanman, and the Navy
Department and the country would have held
him responsible for all that he might have
done or left undone.
He could not plead in extenuation of any
blunder, mistake, or neglect of duty that