New-York tribune. [volume] (New York [N.Y.]) 1866-1924, 1918-04-03


the Navy is at a newspaper confer
oncc He is on his guard then, but
not obtrusively. The chances are that at
newspaper conference the eyes of
the world-hc is more the Secretary Of the
Navy, as Washington has made him over
from the Josephus Daniels who took the
Navy portfolio five years ago, than at any
other time.
War time is good time for forgetting.
SO much comes up for remembering that
the old things fade and are lost quickly in
the dun smoke of battle.
There is the case of the Secretary. 1t is
highly amusing, that backward view. 1t is
socially instructive, too instructive as to
the kind of matters that occupied the Amer
lean people in those lazy, mock serious days
before hell broke loose. There were sew
eral national jests. The Secretary of the
Navy was one of them. He seemed a kind
~, earnest and rather naive person, the
Secretary, and the country watched the
course of his earnestness. his kindness
and his naivete with much easy humor.
The Secretary talked curiously about de-
mocracy in the navy and cveryb body laughed
little tolerantly, it must be admitted. The
Secretary separated the navy from its nee
tar, and every one hugely enjoyed the spec
tacie of navy trying to get along without
nectar There was little peevishness here
and there, little complaining about "po-
lltical obsessions" in the navy.
Had Us Worried in 1916
AS time went on people even found them
selves bored by the Secretary and his theo-
res. They grew mildly excited about him
in the summer of 1916. There were some
who began to forcscc the day when we
might want :
there did not seem to be many indications
that the Secretary of the Navy understood
that 1t was navy he was supposed to be
conducting. The Secretary had once be-
longcd to the North Carolina Peace Society.
and had believed there would come a time
when moral power alone will settle the
disputes among nations" The country
wondered and worried little as to how the
Secretary would square away in fight.
Inc night came, as it bound to come
sooner Or later, and the naive Secretary of
the Navy receded into the background OF
minds, while a new prcoccupation DEVELOPED.
the Secretary of War.
Nevertheless, the Secretary of tba Nov,,
did not go out of sight just because he
went out of mind. lie may have been y
little relieved at the inattention; perhaps it
gave HIM time to do little tnkerng out
beyond the penumbra of the spotlight with
out having to go through the public confess
sion that he hadn't known very much about
1t before, and was just beginning to learn.
lie must have bucklcd down and learned 4
lot, must have thrown overheard good deal
OF the excess baggage he brought with him
up from North Carolina, must have worked
hard to tit the Daniels slant on things to the
navy so that they would both work to-
gether.
ms is only guess, but guess is as
good as anything in Washington Surely
there isn't a newspaper editor from anv.
where on the Almighty's green earth who
could spend five years in Washington with
out hndlng out several things about him
self and several other things about his
country. And the guess is that the dis
coVeries OF the Secretary of the Navy were
IN both of these categorics
At conference he sits at one end Of
long room, the kind of long room which
abounds inside the huge pile of MASONRY