of a collection of antiquated wooden ships, already almost as out of
place against modern war vessels as the galleys of Alcibiades and
Hamilcar—certainly as the ships of Tromp and Blake. Nor at that time
did we have men fit to handle a modern man-of-war. Under the wise
legislation of the Congress and the successful administration of a
succession of patriotic Secretaries of the Navy, belonging to both
political parties, the work of upbuilding the navy went on, and ships
equal to any in the world of their kind were continually added; and
what was even more important, these ships were exercised at sea singly
and in squadrons until the men aboard them were able to get the
best possible service out of them. The result was seen in the short
war with Spain, which was decided with such rapidity because of the
infinitely greater preparedness of our navy than of the Spanish navy.
While awarding the fullest honor to the men who actually commanded
and manned the ships which destroyed the Spanish sea forces in the
Philippines and in Cuba, we must not forget that an equal meed of
praise belongs to those without whom neither blow could have been
struck. The Congressmen who voted years in advance the money to
lay down the ships, to build the guns, to buy the armor plate; the
Department officials and the business men and wage-workers who
furnished what the Congress had authorized; the Secretaries of the
Navy who asked for and expended the appropriations; and finally
the officers who, in fair weather and foul, on actual sea service,
trained and disciplined the crews of the ships when there was no war
in sight—all are entitled to a full share in the glory of Manila and
Santiago, and the respect accorded by every true American to those who
wrought such signal triumph for our country. It was forethought and
preparation which secured us the overwhelming triumph of 1898. If we
fail to show forethought and preparation now, there may come a time
when disaster will befall us instead of triumph; and should this time
come, the fault will rest primarily, not upon those whom the accident
of events puts in supreme command at the moment, but upon those who
have failed to prepare in advance.
There should be no cessation in the work of completing our navy. So
far ingenuity has been wholly unable to devise a substitute for the
great war craft whose hammering guns beat out the mastery of the high
seas. It is unsafe and unwise not to provide this year for several
additional battleships and heavy armored cruisers, with auxiliary
and lighter craft in proportion; for the exact numbers and character
I refer you to the report of the Secretary of the Navy. But there
is something we need even more than additional ships, and this is
additional officers and men. To provide battleships and cruisers and
then lay them up, with the expectation of leaving them unmanned until
they are needed in actual war, would be worse than folly; it would be
a crime against the nation.
To send any warship against a competent enemy unless those aboard it
have been trained by years of actual sea service, including incessant
gunnery practice, would be to invite not merely disaster, but the
bitterest shame and humiliation. Four thousand additional seamen and
one thousand additional marines should be provided; and an increase
in the officers should be provided by making a large addition to
the classes at Annapolis. There is one small matter which should be
mentioned in connection with Annapolis. The pretentious and unmeaning
title of “naval cadet” should be abolished; the title of “midshipman,”
full of historic association, should be restored.
Even in time of peace a warship should be used until it wears out,
for only so can it be kept fit to respond to any emergency. The
officers and men alike should be kept as much as possible on blue
water, for it is there only they can learn their duties as they
should be learned. The big vessels should be manœuvred in squadrons
containing not merely battleships, but the necessary proportion of
cruisers and scouts. The torpedo boats should be handled by the
younger officers in such manner as will best fit the latter to take
responsibility and meet the emergencies of actual warfare.
Every detail ashore which can be performed by a civilian should
be so performed, the officer being kept for his special duty in
the sea service. Above all, gunnery practice should be unceasing.
It is important to have our navy of adequate size, but it is even
more important that ship for ship it should equal in efficiency any
navy in the world. This is possible only with highly drilled crews
and officers, and this in turn imperatively demands continuous and
progressive instruction in target practice, ship handling, squadron
tactics, and general discipline. Our ships must be assembled in
squadrons actively cruising away from harbors and never long at
anchor. The resulting wear upon engines and hulls must be endured;
a battleship worn out in long training of officers and men is well
paid for by the results, while, on the other hand, no matter in how
excellent condition, it is useless if the crew be not expert.
We now have seventeen battleships appropriated for, of which nine are
completed and have been commissioned for actual service. The remaining
eight will be ready in from two to four years, but it will take at
least that time to recruit and train the men to fight them. It is of
vast concern that we have trained crews ready for the vessels by the
time they are commissioned. Good ships and good guns are simply good
weapons, and the best weapons are useless save in the hands of men who
know how to fight with them. The men must be trained and drilled under
a thorough and well-planned system of progressive instruction, while
the recruiting must be carried on with still greater vigor. Every
effort must be made to exalt the main function of the officer—the
command of men. The leading graduates of the Naval Academy should be
assigned to the combatant branches, the line and marines.
Many of the essentials of success are already recognized by the
General Board, which, as the central office of a growing staff, is
moving steadily toward a proper war efficiency and a proper efficiency
of the whole Navy, under the Secretary. This General Board, by
fostering the creation of a general staff, is providing for the
official and then the general recognition of our altered conditions as
a nation and of the true meaning of a great war fleet, which meaning
is, first, the best men, and, second, the best ships.
The Naval Militia forces are State organizations, and are trained for
coast service, and in event of war they will constitute the inner line
of defence. They should receive hearty encouragement from the General
Government.
But in addition we should at once provide for a National Naval
Reserve, organized and trained under the direction of the Navy
Department, and subject to the call of the Chief Executive whenever
war becomes imminent. It should be a real auxiliary to the naval
seagoing peace establishment, and offer material to be drawn on at
once for manning our ships in time of war. It should be composed
of graduates of the Naval Academy, graduates of the Naval Militia,
officers and crews of coast-line steamers, longshore schooners,
fishing vessels, and steam yachts, together with the coast population
about such centres as life-saving stations and light-houses.
The American people must either build and maintain an adequate navy
or else make up their minds definitely to accept a secondary position
in international affairs, not merely in political, but in commercial,
matters. It has been well said that there is no surer way of courting
national disaster than to be “opulent, aggressive, and unarmed.”
* * * * *
It is not necessary to increase our army beyond its present size at
this time. But it is necessary to keep it at the highest point of
efficiency. The individual units who as officers and enlisted men
compose this army, are, we have good reason to believe, at least as
efficient as those of any other army in the entire world. It is our
duty to see that their training is of a kind to insure the highest
possible expression of power to these units when acting in combination.
The conditions of modern war are such as to make an infinitely heavier
demand than ever before upon the individual character and capacity of
the officer and the enlisted man, and to make it far more difficult
for men to act together with effect. At present the fighting must
be done in extended order, which means that each man must act for
himself and at the same time act in combination with others with whom
he is no longer in the old-fashioned elbow-to-elbow touch. Under such
conditions a few men of the highest excellence are worth more than
many men without the special skill which is only found as the result
of special training applied to men of exceptional physique and morale.
But nowadays the most valuable fighting man and the most difficult to
perfect is the rifleman who is also a skilful and daring rider.
The proportion of our cavalry regiments has wisely been increased.
The American cavalryman, trained to manœuvre and fight with equal
facility on foot and on horseback, is the best type of soldier for
general purposes now to be found in the world. The ideal cavalryman of
the present day is a man who can fight on foot as effectively as the
best infantryman, and who is in addition unsurpassed in the care and
management of his horse and in his ability to fight on horseback.
A general staff should be created. As for the present staff and supply
departments, they should be filled by details from the line, the men
so detailed returning after a while to their line duties. It is very
undesirable to have the senior grades of the army composed of men
who have come to fill the positions by the mere fact of seniority. A
system should be adopted by which there shall be an elimination grade
by grade of those who seem unfit to render the best service in the
next grade. Justice to the veterans of the Civil War who are still in
the army would seem to require that in the matter of retirements they
be given by law the same privileges accorded to their comrades in the
navy.
The process of elimination of the least fit should be conducted in a
manner that would render it practically impossible to apply political
or social pressure on behalf of any candidate, so that each man may
be judged purely on his own merits. Pressure for the promotion of
civil officials for political reasons is bad enough, but it is tenfold
worse where applied on behalf of officers of the army or navy. Every
promotion and every detail under the War Department must be made
solely with regard to the good of the service and to the capacity and
merit of the man himself. No pressure, political, social, or personal,
of any kind, will be permitted to exercise the least effect in any
question of promotion or detail; and if there is reason to believe
that such pressure is exercised at the instigation of the officer
concerned, it will be held to militate against him. In our army we can
not afford to have rewards or duties distributed save on the simple
ground that those who by their own merits are entitled to the rewards
get them, and that those who are peculiarly fit to do the duties are
chosen to perform them.
Every effort should be made to bring the army to a constantly
increasing state of efficiency. When on actual service no work save
that directly in the line of such service should be required. The
paper work in the army, as in the navy, should be greatly reduced.
What is needed is proved power of command and capacity to work well
in the field. Constant care is necessary to prevent dry rot in the
transportation and commissary departments.
Our army is so small and so much scattered that it is very difficult
to give the higher officers (as well as the lower officers and
the enlisted men) a chance to practice manœuvres in mass and on a
comparatively large scale. In time of need no amount of individual
excellence would avail against the paralysis which would follow
inability to work as a coherent whole, under skilful and daring
leadership. The Congress should provide means whereby it will be
possible to have field exercises by at least a division of regulars,
and if possible also a division of national guardsmen, once a year.
These exercises might take the form of field manœuvres; or, if on
the Gulf Coast or the Pacific or Atlantic Seaboard, or in the region
of the Great Lakes, the army corps when assembled could be marched
from some inland point to some point on the water, there embarked,
disembarked after a couple of days’ journey at some other point, and
again marched inland. Only by actual handling and providing for men in
masses while they are marching, camping, embarking, and disembarking,
will it be possible to train the higher officers to perform their
duties well and smoothly.
A great debt is owing from the public to the men of the army and navy.
They should be so treated as to enable them to reach the highest point
of efficiency, so that they may be able to respond instantly to any
demand made upon them to sustain the interests of the nation and the
honor of the flag. The individual American enlisted man is probably
on the whole a more formidable fighting man than the regular of any
other army. Every consideration should be shown him, and in return the
highest standard of usefulness should be exacted from him. It is well
worth while for the Congress to consider whether the pay of enlisted
men upon second and subsequent enlistments should not be increased to
correspond with the increased value of the veteran soldier.
Much good has already come from the act reorganizing the army, passed
early in the present year. The three prime reforms, all of them of
literally inestimable value, are, first, the substitution of four-year
details from the line for permanent appointments in the so-called
staff divisions; second, the establishment of a corps of artillery
with a chief at the head; third, the establishment of a maximum and
minimum limit for the army. It would be difficult to overestimate the
improvement in the efficiency of our army which these three reforms
are making, and have in part already effected.
The reorganization provided for by the act has been substantially
accomplished. The improved conditions in the Philippines have
enabled the War Department materially to reduce the military charge
upon our revenue and to arrange the number of soldiers so as to
bring this number much nearer to the minimum than to the maximum
limit established by law. There is, however, need of supplementary
legislation. Thorough military education must be provided, and in
addition to the regulars the advantages of this education should be
given to the officers of the National Guard and others in civil life
who desire intelligently to fit themselves for possible military duty.
The officers should be given the chance to perfect themselves by study
in the higher branches of this art. At West Point the education should
be of the kind most apt to turn out men who are good in actual field
service; too much stress should not be laid on mathematics, nor should
proficiency therein be held to establish the right of entry to a corps
d’élite. The typical American officer of the best kind need not be a
good mathematician; but he must be able to master himself, to control
others, and to show boldness and fertility of resource in every
emergency.
Action should be taken in reference to the militia and to the raising
of volunteer forces. Our militia law is obsolete and worthless. The
organization and armament of the National Guard of the several
States, which are treated as militia in the appropriations by the
Congress, should be made identical with those provided for the regular
forces. The obligations and duties of the Guard in time of war should
be carefully defined, and a system established by law under which the
method of procedure of raising volunteer forces should be prescribed
in advance. It is utterly impossible in the excitement and haste of
impending war to do this satisfactorily if the arrangements have not
been made long beforehand. Provision should be made for utilizing in
the first volunteer organizations called out the training of those
citizens who have already had experience under arms, and especially
for the selection in advance of the officers of any force which may
be raised; for careful selection of the kind necessary is impossible
after the outbreak of war.
That the army is not at all a mere instrument of destruction has been
shown during the last three years. In the Philippines, Cuba, and Porto
Rico it has proved itself a great constructive force, a most potent
implement for the upbuilding of a peaceful civilization.
* * * * *
No other citizens deserve so well of the Republic as the veterans, the
survivors of those who saved the Union. They did the one deed which
if left undone would have meant that all else in our history went
for nothing. But for their steadfast prowess in the greatest crisis
of our history, all our annals would be meaningless, and our great
experiment in popular freedom and self-government a gloomy failure.
Moreover, they not only left us a united nation, but they left us also
as a heritage the memory of the mighty deeds by which the Nation was
kept united. We are now indeed one nation, one in fact as well as in
name; we are united in our devotion to the flag which is the symbol of
national greatness and unity; and the very completeness of our union
enables us all, in every part of the country, to glory in the valor
shown alike by the sons of the North and the sons of the South in the
times that tried men’s souls.
The men who in the last three years have done so well in the East
and the West Indies and on the mainland of Asia have shown that this
remembrance is not lost. In any serious crisis the United States
must rely for the great mass of its fighting men upon the volunteer
soldiery who do not make a permanent profession of the military
career; and whenever such a crisis arises the deathless memories of
the Civil War will give to Americans the lift of lofty purpose which
comes to those whose fathers have stood valiantly in the forefront of
the battle.
* * * * *
The merit system of making appointments is in its essence as
democratic and American as the common school system itself. It
simply means that in clerical and other positions where the duties
are entirely non-political, all applicants should have a fair field
and no favor, each standing on his merits as he is able to show them
by practical test. Written competitive examinations offer the only
available means in many cases for applying this system. In other
cases, as where laborers are employed, a system of registration
undoubtedly can be widely extended. There are, of course, places
where the written competitive examination can not be applied, and
others where it offers by no means an ideal solution, but where under
existing political conditions it is, though an imperfect means, yet
the best present means of getting satisfactory results.
Wherever the conditions have permitted the application of the merit
system in its fullest and widest sense, the gain to the government has
been immense. The navy yards and postal service illustrate, probably
better than any other branches of the government, the great gain
in economy, efficiency, and honesty due to the enforcement of this
principle.
I recommend the passage of a law which will extend the classified
service to the District of Columbia, or will at least enable the
President thus to extend it. In my judgment all laws providing for the
temporary employment of clerks should hereafter contain a provision
that they be selected under the Civil Service Law.
It is important to have this system obtain at home, but it is even
more important to have it applied rigidly in our insular possessions.
Not an office should be filled in the Philippines or Porto Rico with
any regard to the man’s partisan affiliations or services, with any
regard to the political, social, or personal influence which he may
have at his command; in short, heed should be paid to absolutely
nothing save the man’s own character and capacity and the needs of the
service.
The administration of these islands should be as wholly free from the
suspicion of partisan politics as the administration of the army and
navy. All that we ask from the public servant in the Philippines or
Porto Rico is that he reflect honor on his country by the way in which
he makes that country’s rule a benefit to the peoples who have come
under it. This is all that we should ask, and we can not afford to be
content with less.
The merit system is simply one method of securing honest and efficient
administration of the government; and in the long run the sole
justification of any type of government lies in its proving itself
both honest and efficient.
* * * * *
The consular service is now organized under the provisions of a law
passed in 1856, which is entirely inadequate to existing conditions.
The interest shown by so many commercial bodies throughout the country
in the reorganization of the service is heartily commended to your
attention. Several bills providing for a new consular service have in
recent years been submitted to the Congress. They are based upon the
just principle that appointments to the service should be made only
after a practical test of the applicant’s fitness, that promotions
should be governed by trustworthiness, adaptability, and zeal in
the performance of duty, and that the tenure of office should be
unaffected by partisan considerations.
The guardianship and fostering of our rapidly expanding foreign
commerce, the protection of American citizens resorting to foreign
countries in lawful pursuit of their affairs, and the maintenance of
the dignity of the Nation abroad, combine to make it essential that
our consuls should be men of character, knowledge, and enterprise.
It is true that the service is now, in the main, efficient, but a
standard of excellence can not be permanently maintained until the
principles set forth in the bills heretofore submitted to the Congress
on this subject are enacted into law.
* * * * *
In my judgment the time has arrived when we should definitely make up
our minds to recognize the Indian as an individual and not as a member
of a tribe. The General Allotment Act is a mighty pulverizing engine
to break up the tribal mass. It acts directly upon the family and the
individual. Under its provisions some sixty thousand Indians have
already become citizens of the United States. We should now break up
the tribal funds, doing for them what allotment does for the tribal
lands; that is, they should be divided into individual holdings. There
will be a transition period during which the funds will in many cases
have to be held in trust. This is the case also with the lands. A stop
should be put upon the indiscriminate permission to Indians to lease
their allotments. The effort should be steadily to make the Indian
work like any other man on his own ground. The marriage laws of the
Indians should be made the same as those of the whites.
In the schools the education should be elementary and largely
industrial. The need of higher education among the Indians is very,
very limited. On the reservations care should be taken to try to suit
the teaching to the needs of the particular Indian. There is no use in
attempting to induce agriculture in a country suited only for cattle
raising, where the Indian should be made a stock grower. The ration
system, which is merely the corral and the reservation system, is
highly detrimental to the Indians. It promotes beggary, perpetuates
pauperism, and stifles industry. It is an effectual barrier to
progress. It must continue to a greater or less degree as long as
tribes are herded on reservations and have everything in common. The
Indian should be treated as an individual—like the white man. During
the change of treatment inevitable hardships will occur; every effort
should be made to minimize these hardships; but we should not because
of them hesitate to make the change. There should be a continuous
reduction in the number of agencies.
* * * * *