The Washington times., 1902-05-21
SECTION REPEALED BI
THE HOUSE In ERROR
Would Abolish Naval Con-
struction Corps.
Intended to Cover Objectionable Provision
in Personnel Act, Retiring Officers
With Higher Rank.

The House yesterday made an error in
repeating section 10 of the naval person.
mel act. the repeating clause being con-
tanned in the naval appropriation bill.
This section names the number of Of
ficers in the construction corps with their
respective grades. and its repeal is equiva-
lent to abolishing the corps. It was tho
intention Of the House to repeal section
IL of the personnel act which provides
that an officer who served in the civil
war and with a creditable record shall be
sea pay of the next higher grade.
Sections s and Q of the personnel act,
permitting voluntary and compulsory re-
tirement. are also repealed by the naval
appropriation bill, but this was inten-
tional.
Chief Naval Constructor Bowles yester-
day called the attention of Secretary
Moody to the repeal Of section 10. and the
Navy Department will take steps to have
the error remedied before the appropria-
ton bill comes before the Senate for con-
sideration.
The sections of the personnel act per-
hitting the retirement of officers with
advanced rank and the consequent addi-
tional pay have not been popular with
the naval authorities for long time
The personnel act was the outcome Of a
quarrel between the line officers and the
engineer officers. and the contention Of
the latter that they were entitled to actual
and not merely relative rank and COM
mand. AS engineer officers. they had no
right to command the enlisted men sery-
ing under them
A board. of which Theodore Roosevelt,
then Assistant Secretary of the Navy.
was chairman. drafted bill abolishing
the Engineer Corps and transferring en-
gineer officers to the line. and this be-
came law on March 3. 1899.
The then Secretary Of the Navy. John
D. Long. became convinced that the re-
tirement sections were unnecessary and
worked against the interest of the Gov
eminent. One Of them provided that Of
icers of the grades of captains, COM
manders. and lieutenant commanders.
should have the privilege of applying for
retirement without reference to their
physical and other conditions. and that IL
the vacancies created in the line each year
did not number forty. a certain number of
officers In each grade who had voluntarily
applied for retirement should be placed
on the retired list, with advanced rank
and increased pay.
Particularly Objectionable.
Mr.. Long regarded the section as par
ticularly Objectionable. He took tho
ground that an officer educated at the
Government expense should not be re-
warded by advancement for quitting the
service when he was physically and men
tally qualified for performing his duties.
The idea governing the retirement Sec
tlon was to create vacancies each year to
prevent stagnation in promotion, thus en-
abling officers to reach command rank
before they were old men, and to secure
a reasonable long term of service for
them in the higher grades. One great OBJ
lection to the retirement section was that
they created vacancies in the grade of
ensign. through the promotions made
necessary by the retirements, which Con-
gress failed TO fill by increasing the num-
Der of officers.