The Birmingham age-herald., 1908-01-24
BROWNSON GIVES
 HIS SIDE OF CASE Correspondence on the Naval Trouble Is Presented OFFICERS VIEWS SHOWN Admiral Converse Nearly Two Years Ago Spoke Against Placing Sur
 geons In Charge of Any
 Naval Vessels.
OFFICERS VIEWS SHOWN

Washington, January 2S.-The speaker
 laid before the House of Representatives
 today the response of Secretary of the Navy Metcalf to the resolution by Repre-
 sentative Gill of Maryland, calling for
 the correspondence relative to the desig-
 nation of staff officers to naval command
 The correspondence is voluminous, dating
 back to 1904, when Acting Secretary Dar-
 ling authorized medical officers to use the
 term of en command of instead of in
 charge of to designate their official po-
 sitons. Much of the matter sent to the House today had already been published.
 An interesting paper among the new
 matter cited from navy records is an in- dorsement by Admiral Converse, then chief of the navigation bureau. dated June
 l. 1906, upon proposition originating with 1 the joint board of medical officers of the army and navy to place hospital ships in command of naval surgeons. In that case Admiral Converse recommended against the placing of hospital ships in eommis- sion in time of peace and also against 1 the placing of medical officers in com mand even with civilian crews.
 Brownson's Memorandum. | The new matter in the correspondence, about which Congress particularly desired information, consists of long memoran- dunn prepared ty Admiral Brownson, then chief of the hIieau. dated November IS ,st, thereby anticipating the adniir ls l resignation by nearly month, and in it the admiral submits the reasons why. in the opinion of the navigation bureau. the department should reverse it's decision to commission the Relief in command of a medical officer. Admiral Brownson holds 1 that whether hospital ships or not, such vessels as the Relief must accompany a l 1 fleet to fulfill their purposes, and to do l so must be navigated and handled in the 1 1 same seamanlike manner which is re- ] quired of all vessels to assure safety on i the high seas. There is nothing in the l training of a medical officer, the admiral l contends, which fits him for such com 1 mand It requires just as sklful a navl- gator to pilot hospital ship as it does to l pilot man-of-war, the difficulties being wholly independent of the internal ar | | engagements of the vessel or the uses to | which it may be put. To call it a hos | pital ship does not fully describe the ship. 1 | It would be more nearly correct to state | that hospital ship is a seagoing yes sel, having a large hospital on board;" l existing reguls tions give medical officers | 1 all necessary authority to control and | care for their development on board such ship' Yet the surgeon general, says | Admiral bIownson, seems to believe that | l the naVisre fa | adminlstration of a sea-gong vessel are | secondary as regards the responsibility of | telegraph operators or cable engin- l l eers are not put in command of cable | 1 ships, nor are postma sters put in com l mand of mail steamers. A battleship | 1 can, With probability, be called a | 1 floating fort. but artillery officers are | not fit for command of them. Long | l experience with merchant crews and | | officers, on board naval colliers, tank l ships, transports, supply ships, etc. show that officers of the merchant ma rine do not perform this duty as ef- 1 hciently as naval officers.
 Experience of Years. Admiral Brownson cites his experi- 1 ence in command of the Asiatic station to support this assertion having there thoroughly tested ships with full mer- chant crews and officers and one line Hu. 1 found that the last system was the least efficient, as notwith standing the best efforts of the navy department to sharply define the functions of the of-
 ficers, complications constantly arose regarding navigation and administra- tion and cases are cited where the Iris was run ashore and the Nanshan was
 the scene of disgraceful disturbance in the harbor of Hongkong as the re- suit of a clash of authority. If hos pital ship were merely a floating hos pital, securely moored and not called upon to move from point to point it would perhaps not be well, In Admiral l Brownsons opinion, to have any sea line officers board. In addition to the navigation of the vessel and ad- ministration thereof the discipline of the crew must be maintained and there can be no complete control over the discipline of the personnel on board hospital ship where part of 1t is amenabe to one set of laws and the other to the navy regulations.
 Analysis of Statutes. ] Admiral Brownson next entered into an analysis of the statutory acts bear ing on this subject, all of which he de- elares are prohibitive of the full ex- ercise of command by medical officers
 Admiral Brownson concluded his memorandum by summarizing his ob- jections to the proposed order in the case of the Relief as follows;
 l. It Is directly contrary to law for the medical officers to exercise mili- tary command in any other than their own corps
 g. Divided responsibility leads to con- fusion and poor administration.
 B. Experience both with the Solace in the Spanish-American war and with aux iliaries on the Asiatic station show con clusively that the only organization for the fleet auxiliary is to have full naval crew and officers.
 f. A seagoing ship to be efficient must
 of necessity be commanded by a seagong
 officer
 Last Chapter.
 The last chapter in the correspondence, new one also, is a reply by Surgeon