Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1905-09-10
ENGINEERS IN NAVY
Marine Expert Discusses Ben
nington Disaster.
CONGRESS IS BLAMED
LAWS SAID 10 BE BAR TO EFF
CIENCY.
Records Quoted to Show That Com
handing Officer Should Not
Be Held.

There is no better place to clear an inno-
cent man than before a court, particularly
military court" said one of Washngtons
best-informed authorities on naval affairs
yesterday.
The Secretary of the Navy, in his very
commendable effort to ascertain the cause
| OF the explosion aboard the Bennington,
who is to blame, and the best method of
preventing similar disaster. has ordered
| the commanding officer of the ship and the
officer in charge of the engineer division to
appear before general court-martial. This
| is court where technicalities are not per-
mltted, where the judge and the jury are
one. Something may, however, be said on
the other side-the exigencies of the serv-
| Ice may enter into the prejudices of court
martial. or. possibly. some principles may
be involved.
'"The commanding officer, as such. has
about all that one man can do to attend to
his duties and keep his records up to date.
and like all heads of large concerns, must
depend on the technical heads of the SUBJ
divisions under him.
THE Bennington had her commander. her
executive officer, her paymaster, surgeon.
| marine officer. but no engineers were on
board. There were enlisted machnists. a
boiler maker, a smith. and there were fire.
men and coal passers. No merchant ship
could, under the laws of the land, be per-
| mitted to go to sea engineered In this way.
Die ndu o,JV lOISepoWei III HeE bohclS,
| every cubic foot Of water in those boilers,
when a full head of steam was on, was
equal to pound Of gunpowder. There was
young officer who commanded the engf-
neer division just as he would have COM
manded gun division. All this is the re-
suit of the act of Congress approved March
3, 1899 when the engineers in the navy
were amalgamated with the line officers
of the navy.
Complaints of Long Standing.
From every report of every engineer-in-
chief of the navy from the time of the war
of the rebellion to the present one can
find complaints about the reduction In the
number of engineers, and warning the Navy
Department of the consequences.
SIN 1882 Engineer-in-Chief w. H. Shock
invited attention to an act of Congress re-
ducing his corps. He said:
"'Of the 1853 passed assistant engineers
on the list January l, 1882, 96 are at sea.
This number is not too many to insure the
safety and maintain the efficiency OF the
machinery now afioat. This act allows SIX
ty passed assistants and forty assistants.
with this reduced number and with the
same number of steamers In commission
as at present, there would be an average
of a little less than three watch engineers
to each ship in commission.
"There is not. to my knowledge, single
ocean steamer in the merchant marine TO-
day that is allowed only ONE assistant en-
glneer, ana WNen TeuuCliOn Is
made its result only be a great want
of efficiency, the Impairment of lives ana
public property. and very large increase
in the expenditure for repairs. some pro-
vision must be made for the care and man
agement of the steam machinery of the
navy, as 1t Is physically impossible to keep
the engineer at sea continuously, ana
equally Impossible for one assistant to per-
form all the duties required of an engineer
in the engine department of a war steamer
The only recourse Is the employment Of
mechanics or machinists, so called. Such
system, after a trial of eleven years in the
navy had to be abandoned for the reason
that competent, respected mechanics could
not be found, and with such as were OBJ
tanned the record shows that the repairs
required to the machinery were numerous
and expensive.
Bar to Efficiency.
Whenever Congress shall say to the la
boring and mechanical classes of this coun-
try that, whatever your merits, you cannot
and shall not rise above the social scale in
which you were born, and this declaration
is acquiesced in by the public, then, and
not till then, will the navy be able TO OBJ
tain such a class of skilled mechanics by
enlistment as IS obtained in monarch!cal
countries therefore ask that Con-
gress may be requested to modify the act
approved August 5, 1882, in relation to the
number of assistant engineers on the active
list, as to allow the number provided for
in act approved March B. 1871.
1.-The difficulty of securing engineers for
each ship in service has already made itself
very seriously felt. With the number OF
assistant engineers fixed by the act APP
proved August 3, 1882, it is impossible to
properly officer our ships in the engineer de-
partment To intrust the watches to young
naval cadets, except they may have had
special training, or to the present finishers,
Is but to invite disaster.
l. Il, Np0f In, oh nf
Melville said: L would again call atten-
ton to the rapidly decreasing numbers of
engineers in the naval service. This num-
Der has already become too small to prop
erly attend to the duties pertaining to the
mechanical administration of the vessels
of the old fleet and will be found absurd
ly small when the new vessels now building
are ready to be put in commission
Contrast to English System.
According to the last register We had
725 line officers of commissioned rank and
900 engineers, or 80 per cent as many en-
gineers as line officers. At the same time
in the British navy there were 1,517 line
officers of commissioned rank and sos en-
gineers, or 46 per cent as many engineers
as line officers. Our engineers have been
reduced to 40, while those in the British
navy have been increased to $50.
''In his report for 1880 Commodore Mel
Vile said ne ola not DelleNe Ine course at
the Naval Academy for training naval ca
diets to become assistant engineers would
be sufficient to fit them for their duties.
I'm each report of the engineer-in-chef
from the end of the civil war to the pres
ent time such complaints and such warn
ings have been uttered. In his report for
1904 the present engineer-in-chief said:
"'u) A modern navy without an efficient
engineering personnel is deficient in one of
it's prime requisites.
"'(2) The present condition of the
cheering in the navy is cause of grave
anxiety to all conversant with the subject.
"'(3) No man can become efficient en-
gineer without proper training and expe-
Renee The number of officers
borne ION the register) for engineering
duty is now &c, consisting of captains. II
commanders and A lieutenant commanders.
the A lieutenant commanders alone being
eligible for sea duty.
Repeated Warnings.
$50 here we have, during all these years.
the repeated official advice of the highest
engineering authorities in the navy, to the
effect that the navy has been and is In con-
slant danger for want of engineers. And
the Bennington had no engineer on board.
IL