The daily morning journal and courier., 1903-04-11
E remarks by Admiral Dewey

aging remarks by Admiral Dewey about the German fleet.
 What are the causes of these deser- tions? Put the question to half doz- en naval officers, and you will have as many different answers. The same Is true when the question concerns the available means for reducing the num- Der.
 The old saying that some men would not be satisfied with heaven, if they ever got there, applies with more force to the navy, for even the most ardent enthusiasts do not claim that life on battleship is akin to that in the Ely sian fields. The principal cause of de- sertion, which is responsible for per- haps fifty per cent. of the total number, is a misapprehensiono of the newly en- listed man in regard to the conditions he is to confront. He has read thrill ing stories about life on the ocean wave; the songs of the men as they weigh anchor, bound for foreign climes, are ringing in his ears; the ship "scud- ding over the foarn-capped waves as a bird fleeing before the storm" is the al- turing picture presented in the story books. He has imagined himself stand ing in the birds nest, he, the lookout, solely responsible for the ships safety, and has lived through the exciting scenes of the whale hunt and the chase after the sharks time and again. The recruiting party comes to his home
 town in one of the far off western St vyl1e fe +o him that he may be making a mistake, and he lends willing ear to the glow ing accounts of the joys that await him
 as one of Uncle Sam's bluejackets. A goodly proportion of the recruits obtained for the navy in the last year have been drawn from the interior towns, 1t being impossible to secure enough men along the coast. These men have no idea of the hardships that await them, and the false statements so often made by members of the re- cruiting parties are thes cause of the disappointment that later on induces men to break their oaths. The man ar- rives on shipboard fresh from his west ern home. Perhaps he has never seen l a ship of any size and his total ignor- , ance of every phase of the life about him subjects him to good deal of ban- tering from his comrades, who look with contempt or the "greenies" from the country. Again, it is not a ship that he is on, but floating machine shop, and the tasks, such as heaving the anchor and hoisting sail, that used to give the sailors life charm pecu- liarly it's own, are things of the past. One man pulling a lever does the work Of half hundred, and the best the new man can do for long time is to scrub and polish. Instead of going at once to sea and seeing the world-it is this prospect that has the most attrae- ton for the landsman-he is kept on a receiving ship for months at a time. He feels that this is not what has been promised him; that the men to whom he gave his oath have not kept faith with him, so why should he with them? At the first opportunity he jumps ship and disappears
 But there are many other causes of assertion. Two months ago, when the Albany was in this port, twenty men deserted from the ship, an unusually large number, considering her small crew. It was considered as quite strange that not one returned before