Year: 1869

The bill for reOrganlZlng the Navy, which
passed the Senate recently, and is now be-
fore the House, is we'll understood to be only
the latest phase of long fight between the
line officers and the staff. Many of its provis-
ions, so far as reducing the Navy is concerned,
are good. Others are unjust introduced by
Admiral Porter and Mr.. Borie, through the
agency of Senator Grimes, it is an embodi-
ment of the pride, the prejudices, and the
arist0cratic yearnings of those naval officers
who, having been educated at the Govern
ment's expense, in the United States Naval
Academy look upon themselves as the only
genuine original old salts in the service. Be-
side these line officers, however, the Navy
requires the services of large and efficient
staff There must be surgeons, men of scholar
ship and long experience there must be pay
masters who have the responsibility for millions
of the public money there must be engineers
of high scientific accomplishments, upon whom
the efficiency of our fleets in action
always largely depends. Yet because
these gentlemen had not the privi-
lege Of entering the service through
the gates of the Naval Academy (but paid for
their own educaton), and cannot expect to go
out of the service with the rank of Admiral on





them as an inferior race of beings, holding a
nondescript position between able-bodied sea-
men and land-lubbers. When the Navy was
reorganized in 1862 by the creation of several
new grades of the line, no mention was made
of the staff, but Secretary Welles very properly
promoted the officers of the latter branch Of
the service in fair proportion with the promo
tions in the line Traditional jealousies were
thereupon revived. The "old saltsr appealed
to Attorney General Bates, who sustained the
Secretarys course, and so the matter has stood
until now.


The Porter Borie- Grimes bill is designed not
merely to put the staff back into their former
positions, but to degrade them still lower.
Take the medical department., for instance
the lowest grade has been that of assist
ant surgeons, ranking with masters; the
new bill proposes to put them down
nominaly one grade, but really two grades,
assimilating them in rank to the ensgns, with
this important condition, that the senior assist
ant-surgeon shall be rated below the junior
ensign. And so with all the other grades, and
with all the other departments of the staff.
There are assistant-surgeons, assstant-pay-
masters, and second assistant engineers, who
have been in the service five, six, seven, even
eight years, and who are men of superior edu-
cation and capacity by the terms of this bill
they would take rank below the chubby little
ensign who just came out of school yesterday.
Ii rank is to bear any reasonable relation to
the length Of service capacity, experience and
ability of an officer, tho injustice of such a
regulation needs no showing The staff off.
GERS, as a rule, will bear comparison for sclol-
arship and general culture with those of the
line. and We can imagine no good cause
why they should not be treated in
every respect as the equals of the
graduates of the Academy. Admiral Porter
rates them as rather less than gentlemen, and
little better than boatswans. The conse-
quence of this policy will naturally be to drive
out of the service nearly all the members of
the staff who do it the greatest honor For a
good surgeon, good accountant and flnancier,
OF a good engineer, civil life abounds with