Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1899-09-09
A BURNING SUBJECT
Trouble About the Matter of Coal in
the Navy.
MEAN WORK PUTTING IT ON BOARD
All But Worries the Life Out of
the Engineers.
CAUSES MANY DESERTIONS

CAUSES MANY DESERTIONS
Written for The Evening Star
When the Oympia-yacht-like spick and
span, beautiful to the eye of naval expert
as well as Underwent into commission at
the Mare Island navy yard in February.
1895. she was manned by an almost wholly
green crew. Seamen were scarce just
then. Moreover, old-time naval bluejack
cts do not like to break in new ships.
They prefer to ship for men-of-war that
have been limbered up. 1t takes two
three years to grease up" new man-of-
war and get her into workable shape
cording to the wise old philosophers of the
forecastle. So that the old-timers who
were due to re-enlist steered clear of the
Olympia. ''She'll be a proper workhouse,"
they said to each other, sagely, and to
avoid being sent to the Olympia, willy nil
ly, upon shipping over. many of them cut
across the continent and re-enlisted on
beard the eastern receiving ships. There
by they missed a nice threc-year cruise In
Asatic waters, and the final glory of par
ticipation in that miraculous battle of Ma
Mia alongside o Dewey" to their I'M
speakable and eternal disgust, the vi
tuperation which they have been intlictng
upon themselves since plainly evidences.
So it came to pass that the Olympia, one
of the stateliest ships of war that ever
bent a new set of colors. had to take to
the water for the first time with pack of
new men to work her. a few old-timers
were collared to kncad the mass of raw
material, but the great ma jorty OF the
material comprising the Olympia's first
crew consisted of ''slopers''-the pat phrase
employed by bluejackets of eastern nativ-
ity 10 describe California lubbers. Four
fifths of the men of the OymDias first
fDOt-ICOSp San Francisco
chaps, who shipped for the Olympia be-
cause the report had been spread around
out on the coast that the beautiful new
cruiser was going to start cruise of
the world after trying out her machinery
bit in California waters. What they
didn't know about man-o'-war existence
would have stuffed an exceedingly cumber-
some volume.
COaIinG the Olympia.
The Olympia slid out Of the Mare Island
dry dock and vas anchored in that swift
rushing strear, that they call Napa creek.
Then the greenhorn crew, with hammocks
and dtty bags, clambered aboard of her.
They We're Just about given time to ascer-
tain their locker numbers and their ham
mock billets. when the old ho'sun's mate
al the gangway worked his pipe shrilly for
a couple Of minutes and then threw this
sensation into them by word of mouth:
''All hands coal Shp,'
That's a ships word that even old-timers
hate. It's effect upon green hands is CORE
spondingly gloomy. When the Olympia $
green crew assembled deck to respond
to the call, they looked over the ships
sides and saw two large. prosaic, inartstic
one-hundred-ton coal barges. both loaded
to the point of sinking, anchored alongside,
starboard and port. Then they had to heave
to, with their nice new working suits on.
and "coal Ship After dark that first
night the yellow, turbid waters of Napa
creek were ploughed by the arms and legs
of quite a percentage of the Olympia s
green hands They swan ashore without
leave. "Coaling ship had got on their
nerves thus early in the game. More went
the next night Their places We're filled
from the "guardo old receiving shin
Independence. But the green men, aweary
of ship coaling, went faster than they could
be recruited so that when the Olympia
started on her first little baby cruise down
the coast to San Diego. where flower
fiesta was in progress, she was right short
handed. There was more coaling ship down
In San Diego, and then the verdant sailors
began to go over the Olympia's side like
rats escaping from a leaky wind-jammer
al dock. The coaling ship proposition was
something they hadn't figured on in their
dreams of circumnaVigating the globe. and
it had broken their tender hearts, the poor
lads
When the Olympia crawled back to the
Mare Island navy yard she only had about
half "a crew left. Ship coaling accounted
for all of the deserters When, by the way,
the OLYMPIA returned to the navy yard
that time she had already achieved the
name of '.hoodoo ship for three men
had been killed on board of her in various
accidents since she had started out. She
was still known as ''hoodoo ship when
she started for China waters But the
things that have happened to her since
have punctured that grisly appellatfon.
Cause of Endless Bother.
This. however, is an aside The point is
that all hands on a man-of-war, fore and
aft, hate coal If ever the time arrives
when coal for ship driving and auxiliary
working purposes shall be abandoned great
happiness will abound in the worlds ma
vies Coal is the cause of ceaseleSs bother
fore and aft Coal gets the nerves of fleet
commanders. ship commanders chief and
assistant engineers on edge for long periods
at a stretch. Coal has served to widen
the oldtime breach between line and staff
the staff, which is practically no more.
Coal-Which is intended to include coaling-
causes more desertionS from the navy than
any other feature of the service. The
growls over coal and coaling aboard men
of-war are never ending. When the pO-
tency of coal for rendering chief engineers
half insane is considered, it is no wonder
that so many of them go to pieces physi-
cally and forced to retire when they
ought to be in their prime of usefulness
The landsman always has difficulty in I'M
Outstanding why this question of coal on
naval vessels should be so hateful subject
to men-o'wars men, commissioned and
listed. whats all this row over coal
about?" the landsman inquiries. "Why
can't they load the boats up. burn the coal
and then load 'em up again? They don't
have any trouble to speak of with coal on
the merchant steamers, do they?"
On Merchant Steamers.
They do not, in fact, have much trouble
with the coal question in the merchant
steamer service. for the simple reason that
steamers in the merchant service follow
a regular trip course and know to a ton
just how much coal they require for their
ever-repeated cruises. Moreover. merchant
steamers are longer on bunker space than
most men-of-war, and most of them are
able to carry about twice much coal in
their bunkerS they need for their voy-
ages. Finally, merchant steamship lines
don't experiment with coal with anything
like the same persistency as navies.
Ever since men-of-War We're first driven
by steam the worlds navies have been eX-
perimenting with coal The results of
their experiments up to the present time
as most of the chief engineers confess,
may be represented by o. The steaming
radius of ton of coal, the weight of a
ton of Goals smoke the proportionate
amount of clinker in each and all the
worlds brands of steaming coal-these and
about forty others of similar character are
the minor problems that come in for solu-
ton after the chief problem of getting