frequently has happened that one Bureau has brought its work to a point where, under the regulations, it would be taken over by another Bureau, but the latter was not ready for it. Each Bureau has a separate force of inspectors and corps of officers. As a ship is an integral work, it is evident that efficiency and economy could better be obtained by placing its construction, as far as possible, under one head. The construction and equipment of ships would thus be conducted under the system which is successfully employed in the private ship-yards of the country. Leading up to this step, the Department began in 1897 the substitution of electrical for steam power at navy-yards. Investigation had disclosed the astonishing fact that the power for operating the machinery of the different departments of the yards, instead of being supplied by a single plant, was furnished by boilers and engines scattered about the yard and operated by different Bureaus. Of course separate gangs of men were required for each plant, and the amount of power obtained was relatively small for the coal used and the steam consumed. Rectification of this extravagance was partially effected by concentration under the authority vested in the Secretary of the Navy. Legislation was, however, necessary before consolidation of the Bureaus could be made. The Bureaus of Construction and Repair, of Steam Engineering and of Equipment, both as a matter of economy and efficiency, should be under one head. Congress failed to adopt the recommendation to this end, just as it had neglected to act favorably upon recommendations contemplating somewhat the same result submitted by Secretaries Chandler and Whitney. This change must occur, and with it will come a sound business system which will introduce cohesion and unity in naval administration. The Hydrographic Office and the Naval Observatory should be placed directly under the Secretary of the Navy. The Observatory is decidedly behind institutions of like character in the United States and Europe. It always had as its superintendent a line officer, who sometimes possessed thorough and sometimes merely superficial knowledge of astronomy. The condition of the Observatory for two or three years past has been brought to the attention of Congress, which directed the appointment of a Board of Visitors, whose criticisms have already brought improvement in the work of the institution. It was urgently recommended that legislation be enacted removing all limitations from the field from which the selection of a superintendent may be made. The country is entitled to its best astronomer for this great astronomical plant. This recommendation, however, provoked strong opposition from some officers in the navy and their friends in Congress, which took the opposite direction, and even directed that the superintendent should be, "until further legislation," a line officer not below the rank of captain, thus limiting the place to a favored few and ignoring entirely the question of their capacity to fill it. The phrase," until further legislation," gives some hope that Congress may later take more reasonable action with respect to the Observatory. Good management and results commensurate with the expenditures made demand a competent head, and the agitation which has been begun by the scientific bodies of the country should eventually bring about the organization of a personnel which will make the institution the equal of any in the world; indeed, with its larger expenditures, it should be superior. From the time the construction of the old navy began, every Secretary of the Navy has felt the need of professional assistance. This want produced the Board of Navy Commissioners and then the Bureau System of the Department. But the Bureaus, working independently of one another and not always in harmony, so appropriated the space of a ship as often to leave her defective in some important particular. This unfortunate state of affairs was partially remedied by Secretary Tracy, who in 1889 constituted a Board, called the Board on Construction, consisting of the Chiefs of the five Bureaus of Yards and Docks, Ordnance, Equipment, Construction and Repairs, and Steam Engineering, to which he gave general supervision over the design, construction, and equipment of ships. As the work of the Bureau of Yards and Docks was confined to shore stations, and as a civil engineer had been placed at the head of this Bureau, it was withdrawn from representation on the Board and the Naval Intelligence officer substituted. The Board deserves great credit for the work it has done, especially under the presidency of Rear-Admiral O'Neil, whose tact and judgment, in many controversial questions, have facilitated the submission of the intelligent recommendations of the Board to the Department. To it are referred questions of general construction, differences of opinion between Bureaus, and especially the plans and specifications for new ships. Beyond the Secretary of the Navy and the Chief of the Bureau of Navigation there was, till recently, no well-organized system for the intelligent direction of the fleet after its construction and commission. The experience of the war with Spain showed the need of a General Staff. The office of Naval Intelligence and the Naval War College, both of which owe their creation to Secretary Chandler, were the first stage in the formation of the General Staff; but they were not adapted to comprehensive supervision of the training and the operation of the navy in war. When the Carnegie Steel Company was first established, only a few officers were required for the administration of its affairs; but when its interests became large, a Board of Directors was necessary successfully to conduct its business. The General Staff of the navy approximates the Board of Directors of a manufacturing concern. Its duties include the collection of information respecting foreign navies, their bases in time of war, and the theater of action in which they will move. This information will permit an appreciation of the aims and purposes of those navies, and a comparison of their strength with that which we will be able to muster against each or several of them. Based upon it, comprehensive plans can be prepared for the most effective operations by our navy and the utilization of auxiliary forces such as the naval militia and reserves, and co-operation with the army. The formulation of these plans and their execution in time of peace under the simulated conditions of war will train officers and men and prepare them to grapple with hostile situations when they arise. After the war with Spain, Captain H. C. Taylor, now Chief of the Bureau of Navigation, who had given long and diligent study to the plan, and is to be credited with its adoption, submitted to me a memorandum on a General Staff for the navy. This memorandum pointed out the value and purpose of the General Staff, much as stated above. The navy was not quite ready for such a comprehensive change as would occur in case of the adoption of the full General Staff system, though it had been a subject of discussion for many years. The Department did not see its way clear to go further than to organize what is designated as the General Board, with the Admiral of the Navy as its President. This Board meets once a month, and at stated periods consults with the Commander-in-Chief of the North Atlantic Squadron, which practices the war plans which the Board devises. Its work gives promise of the excellent results anticipated. Germany employed fifty years in developing her General Staff, which gave to the world a marvelous lesson in organization and efficiency during the Franco-Prussian war of 1870. Necessary as such an organization is to the American navy, the steps taken to introduce it will be approved by experi ence. In the navy a system of administration so compact and yet elastic that jealousies and friction will be minimized and the most effective co-operation obtained is always the desideratum. What the navy has accomplished must be attributed in large measure to the strength and character of its administrative and fighting officers. They have done splendid work, and they will do better yet. They are zealous, full of ability, honesty, force, and full, of course, of human nature. With these qualities the naval administrative organization is tending still more, as fast as it can, towards a system which will harmoniously labor for only one aim and purpose-the honor and safety of the country. I F a consensus of literary opinion could be taken to-day, it would probably be found that Tolstoï, Ibsen, and Björnson would be given the foremost places in contemporary literature. The authors of "Anna Karenina," "The Pretenders," and Arne" are not only writers of great force, but they are also striking personalities, from every point of view among the most interesting men of their time. Tolstoï is probably, all things considered, the foremost man in Europe; a writer of genius who has combined original power of a very high and sustained kind with the delicacy, the sensitive imagination, the plastic force of the artist, a passionate lover of his kind, one who looks at life sadly but with individual passion, a great artist turned reformer, without official position, excommunicated from the National Church and yet to-day the most influential person in Russia. Ibsen has been for many years a voluntary exile from his country, a recluse in his habits, detached and solitary, although not without many friends and not lacking many agreeable qualities as a companion. He is a man who has endeavored to look life in the face and has found it, in his judgment, base and unworthy, and who has devoted himself with untiring energy and almost brutal frankness to the exposition of what he regards as the hypocrisy, the pretensions, and the benumbing conventionalities of contemporary life. Björnson is the most wholesome of the three; a man of powerful frame, of overflowing physical life, of intense energy of mind, will, and feeling. He is a dynamic worker in every department of life, a born lover of life, a writer who has studied his kind at close range, who is in revolt against many traditions and conventions, but who believes in life, in his fellows, in the possibilities of human nature; a great, sunny, exuberant, boyish leader. Björnson was born seventy years ago last December in Oesterdalen, in one of the bleakest and barest sections of Norway, surrounded by lofty, snow-covered hills. Although the son of a pastor, the future novelist, who was to picture the rustic life of Norway with such idyllic simplicity and with such sympathetic insight, was a boy of the people, who knew and loved the lonely life of the valley and the beauty of the mountain and fjord from his infancy. At the age of twelve Björnson was sent to a Latin School, where he seems to have spent his energy in instinctive and persistent revolt against rules, regulations, and regular study hours of all kinds, but where he also became a leader, organizing a debating society, founding a newspaper, and showing in the vital life of the school all the energy he failed to display in his studies. In 1852 he was admitted to the Christiania University, where he made the acquaintance of Ibsen, and the two men became fast friends. At the university as in school, Björnson neglected the regular work, but was intensely active in all the fields that interested him. Here the idea of creating a national literature, free from Danish influence, took deep hold upon him; and with a little group of young men of kindred spirit and attitude he became an ardent advocate of Norwegian independence. In 1857 he went to Copenhagen; and in that city his first novel, "Synnove Solbakken," appeared, and at once made Norway aware that a new writer had appeared among them, who had brought a new strain into their literature. Simple in plot, direct and sinewy in style, dealing at first hand with the rustic life of Norway, the new novel came like a breath of fresh air. It was the beginning of a new movement. In the same class belong "Arne" and "A Happy Boy." Björnson's interest in the drama dates from an early period. He has acted as director of Ole Bull's theater in Bergen, where he published his first dramatic works, and of the Christiania theater. He has been the editor of various journals. He has written charming lyric poetry; and in prose, verse, and plays he has always spoken of real things in a real way. He has not only been a leader in the movement for intellectual independence, and for the development of a native literature to which he has also been one of the chief contributors, but he has carried into public life the same energy and freedom, and for many years has been one of the leaders of the progressive movement in Norway. |