Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1901-03-02
WARRANT OFFICERS RANK

lar misrepresentation with reference to the
difference between a warrant officer in
the navy and commissioned officer"
said veteran engineer officer in service,
who came through the hawse pipe him
self, rose to his commissioned rank that is
to say, without having undergone prepara-
ton at the Naval Academy, but landing
in the engineer corps Immediately after
the war. when such promotions were pos
sible. ''The difference simply is that the
warrant officer is not in the straight line
of promotion, whereas the commissioned
officer has the chance of becoming admi-
raj. The great body of warrant officers in
our navy, not including the machnists and
others who only recently attained the war
rant rank, are men who served their time
as apprentices in the navy-I refer to the
boatswains, gunners, sailmakers and car
pe Pc Moreover. they are the pick of
all the apprentices. An apprentice, you
understand, enters the service as a lad
being bound by his parents or guardian to
remain in the service until he is twenty
one years of age His first rate is that of
goes to second-class apprentices, and when
he becomes of age he finds himself first
class apprentice. The apprentices who re-
enlist In the service after having thus
served their apprenticeship are always
given the preference in the making of
petty and chief petty officers-bo suns and
SuHneTS ana SdllmdkerS mates, quarter
masters, maSters-at-arms and SO on. 1t
is from the ranks of the eX-apprenticeS
who have achieved the rate Of chief petty
officer-which is, of course, an enlisted
grade-that the warrant officers are chosen.
They are sterling men, studious, accom-
plished in all that appertains to man-o'-
war work and almost invariably dlgnified
fellows of perfectly correct habits. 1t
takes a dignified chap of correct habits to
pass through all of the rates from third
class apprentice to warrant officer. and
you don't want to lose sight of that fact
for single moment. No young fellow who
is looked upon as 'bounder by the officers
under whose eye he falls is ever recon-
mended for appointment as warrant Of
ficer For years before man gets the po-
sition of warrant officer he is closely watch
ed by the commissioned officers, and there
is no chance in life Of his getting into the
warrant officers uniform If he doesn't walk
Spanish His habits must be much more
austere than those of Junior commissioned
his general air and manner that he will
be quiet and tractable proposition when
he gets the gilt on his cap.
And at that the position OF warrant
officer is not, nor has it ever been, either a
happy or a desirable one 1 know many
warrant officers who actually long to get
back to the enlisted grades they held be-
fore obtaining their warrants. For, you see,
a warrant officer is, in our service, neither
fish, flesh, fowl nor good red herring. While
he is treated courteously by the commits
stoned officers, he is distinctly and decidedly
not Of them. and he is necessarily conscious
of that indefnable, but not less actual,
chasm that yawns between his rank and
that of the commissioned officer all the time.
On large ship the warrant officers have
mess of their own, but on the smaller ships,
where there is not a full complement of
warrant officers, they mess i'll what is
known as the 'steerage' with the cadets, the
pay clerk, etc. They never participate In the
social affairs Of the commissioned officers.
how a
saluted and treated as officers by all hands,
fore and aft, and yet they can't help feel
ing that they're only half officers, as 1t
were. Even the young ensigns the ink on
whose commissions is barely dry treat the
warrant officers with just the amount Of
official courtesy that the regulations de-
mand, and are at no pains whatever to
conceal the sense Of superiority they feel
over their passage through the Naval Acad-
envy.
Then, of course, the warrant officer can
not associate with his former comrades up
for ard-the enlisted men with whom he has
before his elevation been ON chummy terms.
His conduct toward men with whom he
may have often exchanged smoking tobac-
co and newspapers, with whom he has
often gone ashore and engaged in joyous
frclics, with whom he may have been on
the most intimate and confidential terms.
must. when he dons the uniform Of the
warrant officer. be precisely that Of the
commissioned officer. Under these circum-
stances the warrant officer for years after
his elevation feels more or less like a fool
in his dealings with his former comrades of
the focsle. They fully understand his sit
uation and make liberal allowances for the
austerity with which he is compelled to
handle them. but he himself finds it hard
to get over the feeling that in accepting
and replying to salutes from his former
cronies. who well know that he Is really
not looked upon as an officer by the COM
mssioned officers, he is simply making a
figure of fun of himself.
Mn
with the commissioned officers and barred
by the regulations from mingling in a So
cial way with the men forward, the war
rant officer in our navy has pretty dreary
much fun in the business for him. He's be-
tween the devil and deep sea, and that's
fact. For myself, 1 should infinitely prefer
to be chief petty officer in the service
officer gets good pay knows that he Is an
enlisted man. is Of course permitted to as
sociate freely with all of the enlisted men
some of whom are mighty interesting and
entertaining characters, l can assure you
and altogether has q vastly better time OF
1t, even if he hasn't quite so much gilt on
his uniform.
LAS to the warrant machinists In our
navy, they were only created after the
Spanish war. Our engineer corps OF COM
missioned officers were sorely overworked.
as there were not enough Of them to go
around, and it was felt to be an injustice to
keep the men who actually stood watch over
the engines in an enlisted grade. They
were simply known before as machinists or
chief machinsts. and they were the men
who actually moved the ships. They stood
at the throttles-where they still Standard
got the vessels through the water. They
were-and are-expert machinists, who had
regularly served their time at that trade,
and many of them had papers as engineers
in the merchant service. The work they
did when they held the enlisted rank of
machnist was exactly the work done by
the engineers under the chief engineer Of
the great merchant steamers. On very few
of our warships do the engineer officers
actually stand watch There are not enough
of them to permit Of this being done. The
machinists are the watch-Standers. and
they are just as good at that work. and
good deal better in many cases, than the
engineer officers themselves. Some Of them
may not have the technical knowledge OF
the engineer officers, but, on the other
hand they have the practical knowledge of
how machinery is going to perform In GER
tain circumstances and emergencies. and,
all in all, they about the most valua-
BILE men in the whole service, fore or aft
and I'm a commissioned officer that says
it. couldn't begin to tell you Of the scores
of cases / know of in which these machin-
lists, by their prompt and wise action. have
saved the lives Of hundreds Of their mates
OVID c,,parorc and actral1v millions n dol