The Saint Paul globe. (St. Paul, Minn.) 1896-1905, 1898-03-09
PREPARING FOR WAR
NAVY DEPARTMENT BUSY WITH
IT'S GET-READY POLICY
Bit of Carelessness Which Caused a
Good Deal of LauEhter-Slack
Methods of BOOkk kkeeping-Nativ-
ity of Our Acknowledgements
Per Cent of Them American Born.
Washington Bureau st. Paul Globe, I
Corcoran Building.
pecial to The St. Paul Globe.

WASHINGTON, March 8.-The criti-
cisms which have been freely hurled at
the present administration of the navy
department for pretending that there
WAS no reason to expect war, and at
the same time making all possible
preparation to be ready in case war
should come, have, of course, been dls-
missed by most sensible people as mere
fault-flnding.
AS long ago as last June, when no
one-not even the most violent of the
jingoes-conceived of war as imminent,
these preparations were taken in hand.
Their purpose was to reduce to sys-
tematic and readily accessible form all
the Information which might be neces-
sary for prompt action. As an exam
pie of how far from an ideal condition
existed at that time, 1t may be men
toned that the latest revised list pos
sessed by the department, showing the
names, capacity, and size of crews of
the merchant vessels which could be
drafted into the auxiliary navy, con-
tained the names Of three ships which
had been destroyed or lost since the
report was made up; and one of these
was a ship whose loss had arrested
public attention throughout the civiliZ-
ed world and filled whole pages of
newspaper space about the time Of it's
occurrence.
have been allowed to remain among
the live records of the navy depart
ment is difficult to understand; yet the
explanation lies in the simple state
ment that it had been made nobody's
business in particular to keep the list
abreast Of the times. 1t is by such
things as this that the secretary's
and making an inventory of assets is
justified. Had the gathering Of 1nfor-
nation, and other business prepara-
tions, been left until the outbreak of
the recent furry, we should have seen
the navy department in much the same
state of excitement which prevailed
there during the Chilian imbroglio.
The latter will always be remembered
by those who witnessed it as warning
against slack methods of departmental
housekeeping. The present upheaval
found the navy department In a con-
dition conducive of deliberatiOn Of
judgment. 1t required very little ad
ditional effort to put it into possession
of such knowledge of detail as would
enable it to send out orders at an
hours notice concerning every ship,
gun, and man in the service.
In fact, no department Of the gov
ernment has had an air Of greater
serenity surrounding 1t since the Maine
disaster occurred. Even the usually
pugnacious assistant secretary, Mr..
Roosevelt, who was the author Of the
get-ready policy, has bent himself to
the task of allaying, rather than in
creasing, the popular excitement.
Though importuned continually for in
terviews on the situation, he has stu
diously avoided speaking, and the ut
teranceS attributed to him in the yellow
journals have been promptly discredit-
ed by him when brought to his notice.
An "Old Reader writes:
Referring to an article on our naval sail
ors 1t would be very interesting to know
how many of them native born Ameri-
cans and what proportion Of foreign birth.
Many people claim that the larger number
of our sailors are foreign born or natural
lied. Is that correct or not, and are there
any records to show 1t?
There are records. which are very
carefully made up from the returns of
the recruiting officers and kept on file
in the bureau of navigation at the navy
department. These show that at the
close Of the fiscal year 1897, when the
last statistics were summarized, the
number of men In the general service
was 1855, and in special service, includ-
ing fish commission and coast survey
1,01S.- Of the men in the general service
2,S45 are petty officers, SO per cent Of
whom were citizens Of the United
States, and more than 48 per cent ma
ttves. OF the remaining 5,840, about 70
per cent were citizens and 5S per cent
natives In special service there were
S51 petty officers, of whom more than
81 per cent were citizens and more than
SO per cent natives; of the remaining
667 men in special service more than 6S
| per cent were citizens and more than
4S per cent natives. Or, taking the
| service entire, we find "A per cent citi-
zens and more than 81 per cent natives
as against about 72 per cent and SO per
| cent respectively one year before; and
more than IL per cent Of the remainder
| have declared their intention. Of the
1,643 apprentices, more than SO per cent
| were natives. In pursuance Of Secre-
| tary Longs policy Of AmericaniZing the
navy, the latest instructions sent to re-
| cruit1ng officers require them to enlist
| none but citizens
As to Indemnity.
Some little Importance has been given
| to this movement by the raising of the
question, what rights would be recog-
! niZed, in such case as the Maine dis
aster for example, on the part of the
| several governments to which alien en-
listed men owed allegiance, If an in
| demnity were to be paid and divided.
| Under ordinary circumstances, un-
| doubtedly foreign governments would
| generally share the feeling expressed by
| the diplomatic representatives Of Japan,
Of confidence that the government tenn
porarily employing the men would see
| that their dependent families were re-.
membered in the distribution regardless
| of their nationality; but it is possible
| to imagine complications arising In
which the status of these men might
cause embarrassment, and it would be
better on general principles to have one
rule applied throughout the service. Ef-
forts have been made to procure legis
lation in behalf of the naval service
| similar to that which was enacted for
the army in July, 1862, providing that
any adult alien who has enlisted and
been honorably discharged shall be ad-
mitted to citizenship without previous
! declaration of intention or proof of
more than one years residence; but
thus far without avail. There seems to
lurk in the public mind a suspicion that
no material for making seamen is so
good as the American native stock.
This is not borne out by the facts in
the judgment of some of our most ex-
perienced naval officers. These experts
commonly agree that, although it is
highly important that we shoHld have
! citizens of the United States command
our ships-men whose natural sense OF
loyalty to the government would not
be questioned, and whose material in.
terest would point in the same direc-
tion since they would have no other
| government to appeal to in time of
| trouble, yet the adopted citizen makes
quite as good sailor and sometimes a
| little better. This is not so much a
| question of ancestry as of early en-