New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1905-09-10

at sixtv-three. Porter was fifty during
the Mississippi campaign. Dewey was
sixty at Manila, and Sampson and
Schley were both over flfty-eight at
Santiago. -
That the existing condition must be
remedied is plain to the powers at Wash
ington: and something has been done to
relieve it by reducing the length OF the
Naval Academy course for few months
at the end, SO as to get the graduates
more rapidly into active serv1ce-a
doubtful eXpedient which at best merely
substitutes quantity for quality. Hall
a dozen captains, Civil War veterans,
recently have voluntarily retired Ia fact
considered in the foregoing statlstlcs),
some of them attracted by the advanced
grade of rear-admiral thus acquired. But
Civil War veterans are growing few, and
this bait to Withdraw will last only
little while longer.
The Navy Department appears to have
no definite plan, and in fact the most
recent Interpretation of the personnel
law by the Attorney-General has pro-
duced result that is rather astonishing.
Here we are trying to find way to
reiuvenate the grades of officers IN COM
mand which will permit us to remove the
veterans of from tifty-three to slXty-one
wears of age and substitute men IN the
forties in their place. The men in the
fOrties must of course be experienced
naval officers of twenty-five years, and
over, standing, and the only source for
them is the list of ant-cOmmanderS
Vet through the present Interpretation OF
probably the most imperfect statute that
was ever precipitated on the navy, no
less than thirty eight of these COmpar-
atively young and highly educated
officers have been permitted voluntarily
to retire with advanced rank and with
what in their case is a clear pension
averaging some twentv-four hundred dol
lars each a year. We are not removing
the superannuated, be it observed. We
are removing men on whom we rely, and
indeed have educated, to replace them,
and these we are practically paying heav-
lily to go out and engage IN other business.
Some OF these officers thus retired may
perhaps be willing to accept active duty.
But in any event look at the possible cost
of the proceeding: about lightweight
thousand dollars a year expenditure for
which no service necessarily need be
rendered. and this to continue for the
lifetimes of thirtv-eight men, all. with
one exception, under fifty. And this we
are doing at a time when we are cutting
down the Naval Academy course, keep
ing young officers on practically con-
tinuous sea duty for six and seven years
at stretch, sending battle-ships to sea
with quotas of officers numbering not
much more than half those assigned to
like vessels in other navies, imposing
upon midshipmen just out of the Acad-
envy the responsible work of lieutenants,
and incidentally wondering why we
occasionally hear that this or that officer,
heavily overworked, has hopelessly broken
down or taken his own life
Most people governed by ordinary con-
siderations of business efficiency will say
that the only way to end an evident
abuse is to end it, and deny that senti-
ment has any place in the matter. Ger
tainly if war suddenly found us in our
r)reSeut stains MIGHTY short work would