Democratic Northwest. [volume] (Napoleon, Ohio) 1869-1894, 1885-12-24

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The annual report az the Secretary OF
the Navy Is one Of the most interesting
and important of the papers submitted
TO the President. II is a calm and sim
gulariy dispassionate review of the
op-rations Of n mismanaged and partly
corrupt business which has damaged
our reputation at home and rendered
Ms impotent on the ocean, The brief
history of John Rnach's relations with
The department shows shameful dis
regard of the governments interests by
its own officials, who lawlessly made
advances OF money 20 q contractor
whom they knew to be financially en-
harrassed. Tn fact, IL appears that the
very condition of affairs which justi fies
the withholding ofspecified sums from
a contractor, to secure the government
from loss through failure to complete
a contract, was given as the reason for
declining to withhold such sums. The
public will hardly be likely to share
Mr.. Whitney's very lenient view Of the
conduct of those responsible for this
result.
The description of the present organ
ization of the department Is such as to
strike a business man with amazement.
A peanut stand or q molasses candy
shop started with million dollars of
capital, and managed in such fashion,
would come to bankruptcy in few
years. There is in the department. no
rational division of the proper work of
naval officers. the purchase of supplies
and accounting for expenditures, and
the construction of ships. Two or three
different bureaus, guided by no COM
mon head, participate in the construc-
ton of single vessel. These petty
bureaus are so distinct and so Jealous,
one of another, that they maintain
separate shops under distinct foreman
in each navy yard. As result of this,
seven different bureaus, acting indepen-
IDENTIFY of each other, spent $13S, 900 for
coal, not bought in one lot, but in 1865
small lots.
Under such organization and manage
ment it is not to he wondered at that
the Secretary should be compelled to
make this summary of the operations
of the department since the civil war:
At the present moment it must be
conceded that we have nothing which
deserves to be called navy. The
country has expended since July l.,
1S68-more than three years subsequent
to the close of the late war-over
seventy-five millions of money on the
construction, repair, equinment and ord
nance of vessels. which sum, with a
very slight exception, has been substan-
tally thrown away, the exception be-
ing a few ships now in process of con-
Il axyarlnnIy f1,n et0
constructed in 1874, and costing three
or four millions of dollars, and to avoid
discussion they may be excepted also.
The fact still remains that for about
$40, ,00O, 900 of the $75 5.000, ,000which have
been expended by the department for
the creation of a navy we have prac-
tically nothing to show. tits question
able whether we have single naval
vessel finished and afloat at the present
time that could he trusted to encounter
the ships of any important power-a
single vessel that has either the neces-
Sary armor for protection, speed for es-
cape or weapons for defense.
Comment on this is needless, and
could add nothing to the force of the
statement Seventy millions of dollars
wrung from the people, and that, too,
in years of business depression, when
the rich man was struggling for sol
vency and the poor man for bread,
stolen or thrown away! Seventy mil
lions Of dollars worth of human labor
and material wealth wasted, making
the whole world that much poorer!
This single phase of Republican misrule
has cost the American people sum far
greater than the loss by the destruction
of buildings in that most terrible Of
modern conflagrations, the burning OF
Chicago. The Star.