Navy Department, the head of which was named the Secretary of the Navy and made a Cabinet officer, subordinate to whom were a principal clerk and such other clerks as he required. This organization carried the navy through the war with France, the war with the Barbary States, and the war with Great Britain. Defects, however, developed which demanded correction. A Secretary unprovided with expert professional assistance, and untrained in the technicalities of naval affairs, might have become at critical times a dangerous instead of a helpful factor in the service. "The multifarious concerns of the naval establishment," wrote Secretary Jones in 1814, "the absence of wholesome regulations in its civil administration, and the imperfect

execution of duties due to want of professional experience, lead to confusion and abuses."

This plain statement convinced Congress that no further time was to be lost in reorganizing the Department, and by an act, approved February 7, 1815, six weeks after the signature of the Treaty of Ghent, which closed the war with Great Britain, a Board of Navy Commissioners was added to the Department. This Board consisted of three officers of the navy, of rank not below that of Post Cap tain; and the law required it, under the supervision of the Secretary, to discharge all the ministerial duties of the Depart ment relative to the procurement of naval stores and materials, and the construction armament, equipment, and employment

to recognize and take advantage of im provements in the art of naval warfare. From 1815 to 1842, the lifetime of the Board, the navy increased many-fold, and Cooper thus testified to its efficiency: "As respects the navies of this hemisphere, it was (in 1845) supreme, the united marines of all the rest of the continent being unable to contend against it for an hour." Still, due in part to the fact that the law required the Board to act as a unit, and in part to other defects of the system, the abuses of which Secretary Jones complained continued to some extent either in the same or new forms under the Navy Commissioners, causing the celebrated Matthew Maury, then a young Ensign in the navy, to write this criticism:

"To what page soever I turn, I find my note-book filled with memoranda which exemplify the evils of the present system. However distinctly within the walls of the Navy Department usage may

have drawn the line of demarcation between the duties of Secretary and Navy Board, or however well it may be understood there, you will find but few able to trace it out of that building. Ask officers of the navy where the duties of the Navy Board begin? or where its responsibilities end? or where rests its accountability?and no two will agree in their reply. Ask the best-informed citizens the same questions. Some will tell you that the Navy Board is a power behind the Secretary, greater than the Secretary himself that there is a master spirit in that Board which rules the Navy. Others will tell you that the evil genius of the Navy presides at that Board. Him they unjustly charge with everything that goes amiss, and would hold responsible for the present condition of the navy."

All which even at the present day sounds rather familiar to anybody who is familiar with those criticisms of the Navy Department or any other department which are always in the air. The evils of the present system" are always with us and always will be.

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Congress, cognizant of imperfections in the departmental system, in 1839 called upon the Secretary of the Navy to suggest a plan of reorganization which should make a proper division of the duties performed by the Naval Commissioners. Disheartened by criticism and oppressed by the growing burdens which the increase of the navy and the new problems which developments in the science of naval warfare had laid on them, the Commissioners at last officially admitted that their usefulness had gone, and recommended the introduction of a system of bureaus practically identical with that which exists to-day, with the exception of the Bureau of Steam Engineering. Steam was then in its infancy, and was not considered sufficiently important to warrant supervision as a separate feature of the Naval Establishment. The Senate adopted the recommendation of the Commissioners, which contemplated the organization of seven bureaus, but the House reduced the number to five, and in this reduction the Senate concurred. The Bureaus created by the act of August 31, 1842, were Navy Yards and Docks; Construction, Equip ment, and Repairs; Provisions and Clothing; Ordnance and Hydrography; and

Medicine and Surgery, the titles indicating the duties respectively assigned to each. A line officer of the rank of captain was made chief of each Bureau, with the exception of the two Bureaus of Provisions and Clothing, and Medicine and Surgery. In 1853 John Lenthal, a naval constructor, was appointed Chief of the Bureau of Construction, Equipment, and Repairs.

The bureau system did not escape criticism as sharp as that leveled at preceding organizations. The Civil War demonstrated elements of inadequacy, and Congress in 1862 added the Bureau of Steam Engineering, created the Bureau of Navigation, and took equipment from Equipment, Construction and Repairs, making it, with recruiting, a separate Bureau of Equipment and Recruiting. The Rebellion also brought into existence the office of Assistant Secretary of the Navy, which was authorized in 1861 and abolished in 1869. It was re-established in 1891 in accordance with the recommendations of the Secretaries who had engaged in developing the New Navy. Questions involving interpretation and application of the law constantly arising, and the need of an officer specially charged with the supervision of courts martial and also with the very important and growing matters of contracts of all kinds to which the Navy Department is a party, caused Congress in 1865 to direct the appointment of a "Solicitor and Naval Judge Advocate General." With some difficulty, Congress was induced, just before the construction of the New Navy, not to discontinue the office. It is to-day a very important branch of naval administration, especially in view of the dealings, involving many millions of outlay, of the Navy Department with contractors of all sorts.

Scandals and abuses had flourished as the old navy declined. Regeneration of material was accompanied by reform of administration. Secretary Chandler found serious lack of responsibility and co-ordination of work. To obtain greater efficiency, he recommended the appointment of three superintending naval constructors, who should have direct charge of all work relating to construction, steamengineering, and equipment, under the supervision of a Chief of the "Bureau of Naval Construction." Secretary Whitney reported that large private purchases

Bureau of Provisions and Clothing, and made the Paymaster-General responsible therefor. In order to check unnecessary accumulation of supplies and to reduce the expenditures for purchases made, the general-storekeeper system was created and the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing was charged with the keeping of property accounts. During the administration of Secretary Tracy the name of the Bureau of Provisions and Clothing was changed to Supplies and Accounts as more truthfully defining the duties it performs.

Secretary Tracy carried on the policy of reformation. When he assumed the naval portfolio, he found that "the details of administering the navy, as an existing force, its vessels in commission, its officers and its crews, were scattered, without system or coherence, among a variety of offices, bureaus, and boards." As illustrating the confusion which existed, the Secretary said in his report for 1889:

"The assignment of officers to duty, and, to a limited extent, the movements of ships in commission, were in charge of an office of detail,' at the head of which was the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, which Bureau was, at the same time, supplying compasses, chronometers, and navigating instruments, electric-light plant, ships' libraries, and other miscellaneous articles. The enlistment and assignment of seamen belonged to Equipment, which was also engaged in the supply of another list of miscellaneous articles, and in the manufacture of cordage, galleys, chains, and anchors. The direction of gunnery practice by ships in commission was in charge of Ordnance, whose all-important duties in providing the navy with a modern armament left little opportunity for supervising the occupations of vessels at sea. The examination of those vessels on their return from a cruise was the duty of a Board of Inspection which was not associated with any Bureau. The training of officers and men was in part conducted independently by the Naval Academy, and in other parts assumed by Navigation, Equipment, and Ordnance. To all these fragments of authority there was no central unity of direction, except such as could be given by the personal attention of the Secretary to the exclusion

of that broad and general supervision over all executive business which is required by a Department as comprehensive as the navy, and cases were not infrequent where a ship received simultaneous orders from three separate Bureaus which were so directly contradictory that it was impossible to execute them."

Eradication of the defects which Mr. Tracy discovered was one of the important works to which he devoted his attention. The administration and operation of the fleet, including movements of ships and training, assignment, enlistment, inspection, and practice of the personnel, were assigned to the Bureau of Navigation. The miscellaneous duties of navigation, which properly came within the sphere of equipment of ships, were transferred to Equipment, which lost recruiting. The hydrographic office was by law attached to the Bureau of Navigation. Secretary Tracy recommended that it be placed under the Bureau of Equipment, but it was not until 1898 that legislation directing this was enacted.

Another step in the reformation of naval administration was taken by Secretary Herbert, my predecessor at the head of the Navy Department. Mr. Herbert, in 1894, issued a general order charging the Bureau of Construction and Repair with the responsibility for the design, structural strength, and stability of vessels built for the navy.

This order was important for the reason that it enabled the department to hold a single officer accountable for the success or failure of a ship.

Thus, examination of the history of the Navy Department in 1897 showed persistent effort to place the office upon a sound business footing; but it was also found that much remained to be done before a satisfactory organization would be in operation. Prior to the first inauguration of President McKinley, Congress had not provided for the improvement of the navy-yards with the proportionate liberality which their importance to the steel fleet demanded. The demand for navyyard reorganization at the time of the birth of the new navy was so insistent that Congress, in 1882, directed the appointment of a Commission to make a thorough investigation. This Commission then advised a reorganization and concentration of the mechanical departments