The evening times. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1895-1902, 1898-04-25
NATIONAL NAVAL RESERVE
Rear Admiral Selfridge Has a
Plan to Man ships.
NEED OF EXPERIENCED MEN
Ii Is Proposed That the Reserve
Shall he Made I'D From Regulars
and From the Crews of Merchant-
men-Seven Thousand Men.

One of the greatest embarrassments
| of the Government in the pending crisis
is the difficulty of promptly securing
enough experienced men TO man the
new vessels being pressed into service.
To overcome this state of affairs in the
future Rear Admiral Thomas Selfridge.
I jr. has a plan under which the Navy
will always have naval resrve Of per-
| sonnel as well as material TO draw upon.
THE peace establishments Of seamen
and marines" the rear admiral said yes
| terday, ARE at present ,aIy sufficient to
man the five battleships i'm commission.
with the cruisers. etc, of the active list.
! AS soon as this number of vessels is aug
mented by the purchase of auxiliary
steamers great delay is experienced in
obtaining crews for the extemporiZed
feet. 1t is not deemed necessary that
the present peace establishment should
be increased if there is a reserve to fall
back upon; neither is it desirable to keep
all our battleships in commission.
when war comes the preliminaries
that lead up to its declaration leave no
time to obtain and drill the recruits
necessary to man the offensive force that
l has been constructed during the period
I of peace. The crews for these mobilized
! battleships cannot be drawn from the
present So-called naval reserve, which is
I in reality a naval militia.
This latter body is most valuable
force 10 assist IL the protection of the
harbOrs Of the States OF whose volunteer
force they form part, but their useful
ness is restricted. and. owing TO the ma
ture OF its organization. ii never becomes
a factor in a plan which Coutemplates
the immediate manning of our reserve
battleships.
Crews Of these ships must be made up
principally OF men who have already
! served their time afioat in active ser
vice, or who, through their past ex-
perience, can he at once nodded into
shape. Here must come the ma ational re-
serve of Seamen. without which II will be
useless to go on building warships, trust
ing 10 luck to obtain the crews TO man
them. and inviting insecurity and perhaps
disaster when opposed to the well-drilled
crews of the European powers.
These facts have long been known to
the naval officers, but up to the present
time no practical plan has been proposed
to meet the difficulty.
Il propose that the reserve shall be
drafted partly from the enlisted naval
coastwise trade. yachts and fishermen.
The total strength would be placed at
1909 men, This would be sufficient to man
twelve battleShips and a number of tor
pedo boat destroyers and torpedo boats
OF this number 500 would be composed
of men who had served at least three
years in the Navy and 1000 from the
merchant class constituting a first and
second reserve.
The crews of our ships are now COM
posed of men enlisted for three years and
apprentices bound to serve until twenty
one. 1t is proposed that Congress shall
enact a law that men enlisting in the
naval service shall bind themselves for
three years in active service and five
years in the reserve. A second continu-
Gus enlistment shall be equivalent to the |
five years in the reserve.
That apprentices upon entering shall
bind themselves to five years in the re-
serve after reaching twenty-one but |
second re-enlistment shall be equivalent
to the five years in the reserve.
That the pay of all men in the first |
reserve shall be s. month. That for |
one month in each year they shall be |
called upon for actual service. during !
which they shall receive the pay of their |
rating. as If belonging to the active Navy. |
THAT they shall be provided with |
transportation from and to their homes. |
That the Navy Department shall keep |
the address of every man of the reserve; |
that crews for the battleships shall be |
stationed and kept filed, and each man |
notified of his rating and the ship of |
whose complement he will form a part.
THAT eight battleships shall be kept In /
with small crews most |
ly of the artificer class, by whom all nee
essary repairs will be made. and the |
highest efficiency maintained by frequent |
zone battIeship each would be perma
nently stationed at the ports of Portland,
Boston, Philadelphia and Port Royal, and |
two each at New York and at Hampton
Roads or Norfolk. and one at San Fran
cisco and one in Puget Sound. This
would constitute a force of eight battle
ships on the Atlantic coast and two on
the Pacific coast.
THE method of the proposed plan Is
without which / believe it |
will be impossible to establish any reliable |
reserve. But the plan is rendered at
tractive by the pay and position attached |
to it and the reserve would be called out
only by proclamation of the President |
and il Is not TO be doubted that when
understood IL will be received with favor
by the class from which it will be re-
cruited-
Without such a reserve as sketched IL
will not be possible to assemble fleet of
homogeneous ships for fleet manoeuvres
md exercises.
what a school of practice for our Off
,ers- And with what pride would the ma
ion witness the yearly assembly of eight
magnificent battleships. prepared in
.very respect for instant service, and yet
n themselves requiring but moderate
expenditure to keep them In commits
ion!''