Evening star., 1922-12-24

| ment, therefore, has not, and does not
propose to put them in a retainer pay
status until the last half of the fiscal
year.
Representative Kelley, speaking for
the House appropriation committee.
/ says that the committee entertain-
considerable doubt as to the wisdom,
| Of this proposed action. II believe.
that the Navy Department should
continue to withhold the restoratio
of these reservists to retainer pay
status until there has been some
legislation. such as is proposed in he
department bill now pending
Proposed Restrictions.
In the flrst place. it is believed rtar
! there should be some limit fixed a. 1"
the number of persons who might lac
enrolled and confirmed. There should
be some proportion established as
between officers and men. There
should be prescribed minimum sized
training unit to be organized within
a reasonable radius of training
rendezvous. and no unit should h.
permitted to organize which. for lack
of navigable streams or bodies Of wa
ter. could not have vessels assigned
them for training, whether vessels he
available or not.
A complete picture showing how
widely these reservists are scattered
and how top-heavy they are with Of
f1cers. and how remote some OF theni
are from any body Of water. was placed
before the appropriations committee by
Admiral Washington. For example. ia
the first district with stations at Boston,
Worcester, New Bedford and Spring
field, Mass, and Portland. Me. it was
shown that there are 536 officers and
SOB men. Springfield, Mass, was shown
to have seven officers and four men.
Usually there were twice as many men
as officers. For example, in Newark.
N. J., there were shown to be only nine
officers to sixty-seven men, while in
Elizabeth City. n. c.. there were thirty
six Officers to ten men: in Detroit.
Mich, there were seventy-eight officers r
to 322 men, and in Chicago. ILL.,. 55S o.
f,cers to S64 men. while in Seattle.
Wash, there were 100 officers to 10.
men. and in Portland. Orc, sixty four
officers to eighty-t three men.
Admiral Washington. totaiing the
number OF naval reservists attached 10
each station, told the committee that the
record shows 4.440 officers and S,15i
men, saying. 'of course. good many
of these men were lost when we trans
ferred them to class s. which was non
paying, from the second. third and fifth
classes which We're paying. Conse-
Quentiy they did not feel the same
spirit as the officers and that would ac-
count for the shortage Of men. At the
time we disenrolled there were some
thing like exceeding 10000 men"
Roosevelt Explains Objects.
Assistant Secretary of the Navy
Roosevelt explained what the Navy De
partment is trying to do:
Our effort has been to separate the
feet reserve. which was not voluntary
reserve and did not really come under
the class of civilian reserve they be
ing nero ex-Navy men. who had fin
ished their training. from the volunteer
reserve. which was composed entirely
Of civilians and which was an active
training organization. The feet reserve
is not.
whatever experience il has had is of
the past; it is not experience that is
acquired day by day. The civilian naval
reserve is the organization composed
Of every day men of the communit,
like myself, who have gone in there.
and who are trained day by day and
year by year. He is a real civilian and
we find that in the largest percentage.
Of the cases that he has not been a
part of the regular establishment in
the past
I'VE have these two very diverse
functions which we heretofore grouped
together. We have in the Navy Depart
ment this year separated what I shall
call the civilian volunteer naval reserve
from the fleet reserve. We have
grouped all appropriations for them to
gether, separating them from the other
appropriations in the department in
order that Congress might have before
1t just exactly what was proposed to be
done with the civilian naval reserve and
could judge it as a unit
Apportionment OF Funds.
The proposed appropriation for the
civilian volunteer reserve, as distinct
from the fleet naval reserve, which
draws its pay from another fund
showed total of $5,ss4,000 OF this
$4.o47.6S7 was for personal service.
divided as follows: Retainer pay rpri
officers. s1.64S,343; retainer pay fof'
men, $1.07s,ss1. a total of s2.7.5,7 7S4:
training pay for officers. $542.621, and
for men $2s6.G52. or a total training
pay (cruise), $s3s,e73: active duty
pay for officers, $17s.s27, and for men
(shipkeepers). $304,653 "eg,a
Until the whole subject can be
studied by the legislative committee
on naval AFFAIRS the appropriations,
committee went on record as feefihs
that it would be better for this secona
civilian volunteer reserve
TO be continued in the volunteer
class without retainer pay. Chairman
Kelley pointed out that the approprf-
alton available this year is not sum-
cient to take care of all who are
eligible. or who, before the end OF
the year. could establish eligibility
FOR retainer pay. The committee felt
the same way about the appropriation
FOR $3.ss4.0o0 proposed in the budget
for 1924, which was estimated to be
sufficient to provide retainer pay for
1000 officers and $500 men. That
Is the number the Navy Department
will keep within In order
to keep expenses down. II more
or desired to qualify. they