New Britain herald., 1916-01-06
ALL NAVY CRAFT
 HAVE FULL CREWS
But We Must Look to Future,
 Daniels Declares


 ships of the United States navy out of commission on account of a shortage of men, according to Secre- tary Daniels. There also are more ships in commission than formerly, the secretary says. The question now is one of getting sufficient men to man ships which will be added to the navy within the next year or two, and for this reason Congress has been asked to authorize an increase of 11,5OO men to the navy's person. ne1
 These statements are made by Sec retary Daniels in a letter to Dwight Braman, president of the Law and Order union, who recently wrote the secretary directing attention to an ap- parent inconsistency between his statement that the navy had a large waiting list and press despatches from Washington that several large ships had been unable to leave port on &C., count of a lack of men.
 Only 51.5OO Men.
 "Under the law the secretary says in his letter, "the navy may enlist only 51,5o0 men, plus one man for each sailor serving sentence under general court-martial or assigned to duty with the naval militia. This maximum has been in effect since 1912. When the present administra tion came to Washington there were only 47,347 enlisted, so that the navy was about 5000 men short of the number allowed by law. Since that time we have made up the defi- ciency
 To-day we have 53,O11 men en- rolled. We are as fully enlisted as possible under the law, and we have nearly 5000 more men with. the colors thanform erly
 Secretary Daniels explains that like every other navy, our does not main tain in full commission during peace every warship on the roster or every ship that would be in commission in time of war. Instead of a number of ships being out of commission be- cause of a shortage of men, as has been stated the fact is, he ayers, that there are today no more ships and probably fewer in reserve than two and a half years ago while on the other hand there are a least thirty or forty more ships in full commits sion.
 British Navy.
 "Just prior to the outbreak of the European war;" Secretary Daniels writes, "the organization of the Brit ish navy provided that one-half of it's battleshps should be in full con- mission and the remaining half in re- serve. The organization of the Ger man navy was along the same lines. In our own navy the general board has recommended that all battleships of fifteen years of age be kept in commission. Every one of our battle ships within that classification, ex- cepting the North Dakota, which is laid up because of poor engines, is in commission, and in addition there are number of re-dreadnoughts All the vessels in reserve are maintained in condition for immedi- ate service.
 '"The last congress authorized the organization of a naval reserve, some- thing for which the navy has been striving for years and in time it will provide the necessary crews for man. ming such serviceable ships as are in reserve. This act has already con- tributed largely to the retention of ex- perienced men in the service, so that today We are reenlisting S5.5 per cent of experienced men in place of the 54 per cent. which were reenlisted in 1912"
 Our navy he concludes, today is fully recruited and we have in com mission all ships that are needed in commission. Tn order to man cer- tain new ships which will be com pleted in the next year or two and to provide crews for those which go in to reserve, I am recommending to this congress an increase of 11,500 men".